I had the urge to write a Trace story in good old epistolary form, á là Dracula, but it would've been out of voice with the rest of the book. I also wanted and needed to explore Sabine's backstory before I went any further in the series, but how to tell her story without, again, breaking into a difference point of view? A happy confluence of needs and desires.
It was a little scary how easily I slid into her voice and her personality....
March 17, 1871
Edmond is dead. I can scarcely feel shock at having to write these words, when taking into account my brother's insistence on administering to the poorest and lowest segments of society, and exposing himself to the most malignant of contagious diseases. Certainly when I saw him at the hospital, for the fund-raising last month, he looked thin and overworked, but such appearance seems to be the Fairweathers' defining characteristic: it is the badge of their philanthropy. I advised rest, but of course I am merely his sister, hardly a worthy medical peer, never mind we learned from the same books and sprang from the same esteemed loins. Edmond was ever skilled at showing himself to others as he wished to be seen; it seems no one guessed he was ill. Annabelle insists he was laid low by "brain exhaustion," which has been her diagnosis for everything since she first learned the phrase from his lips, and in the case of my sister-in-law, I do not doubt it is an appropriate description of her many ailments. Edmond certainly succeeded in honoring our mother's memory in his choice of a wife. But now she is ill as well; she summoned me to her bedside to confirm the sad news, and even I was alarmed to see her pallor and fever. Dr. Marcus, who is less inclined to be condescending than Edmond and their colleagues, told me privately he suspects tuberculosis, but the suddenness and virulence of onset lead me to blame influenza. At any rate we are doing what we can for Annabelle. Already she has been bled to an alarming degree, but that fat old fool, Dr. Whitby, sought to take more, and ignored my argument against it, until Dr. Marcus added the weight of his opinion to mine. I am monitoring her temperature and breathing, bathing her skin in ice water and alcohol to bring the fever down.
Edmond's visitation will take place tomorrow. I tried to send Althea to my home to avoid contagion, but she refused, insisting she will perform as hostess, and run the house in her mother's stead. The girl is nothing like Annabelle. She is a Fairweather through and through-bearing up under grief, putting the comforts of others before her own, and risking her own health to do it. I cannot help thinking Edmond has finally met the measure of our father's legacy: dead a year younger than he, another martyr of the famous Fairweather altruism.
March 28, 1871
The reading of the will was this morning; Carvil was on hand to affix his seal and make it official. And so at the old-maidenish age of 27 I find myself the mistress of the family fortune, and the guardian of a nearly-grown ward. All my life I thought my youth and gender-at least in relation to Edmond-a handicap, but now suddenly I am that most enviable and disconcerting figure of society: an Independent Woman, the sole benefactress and keeper of the Fairweather legacy, indecently wealthy and ever-so-generous to open my home to my orphaned niece. I have heard myself compared to both Queen Victoria and the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth, by sycophants who lose no time in cultivating familiarity: friends and colleagues of Edmond's, most of them recipients of his charity, some of whom actually have the audacity to inquire, all obliquely of course, whether the largess to which they are accustomed will continue to flow unabated.
I can scarce believe it. I feel trapped and liberated all at the same time. Of course I have been accustomed all my life to charity work and seeing to the family duties, but as long as Edmond was alive I was merely his sister, less than a wife and certainly less than a colleague. He was the one to hear appeals and decree favors; I was only a courier to carry them out, and thus I never realized the scope of his contributions. How on earth has he not bankrupted us all? In the next few weeks it will be quite an undertaking to study the accounts and pare away the deadwood, and to do so in such a way that I do not appear stinting and niggardly. There are, after all, appearances to uphold.
At least I do not have a wilting flower of a niece to shore up. If Althea were like her mother I think I would have to ship her off to Bath or Sicily with a nurse and a paid companion. But Althea seems made of sterner stuff. Aside from a few dabs with a handkerchief she has shown little excess of emotion. She is looking pale, and bruised under the eyes, which is to be expected, as we both have had little rest this week, but with her mother's classical features and fine, translucent skin, she resembles a Raphael Madonna, quietly suffering.
I suggested we might stay in her father's home-the Fairweather house-for another week or so, to soften the loss of so much familiar all at once, but she declared she would rather relocate at once to my house, away from the scene of so much death. I am more grateful than ever that Edmond consented to set me up in my own household when I reached my majority, however much I resented him for being the son and the elder and for treating me like another charity case. I suppose I cannot resent him any longer, can I? Rather I suppose I must feel grateful to him for dying young and for having at least enough respect for my capacities to appoint me the guardian of his daughter, rather than entrusting that duty to his solicitor or some other worthy male. But I cannot feel grateful toward him. I confess, I feel rather smug for having conserved my health and thereby outlived him. I suspect such a sentiment is callous, even for being one of mine, but it cannot be helped.
April 23, 1871
Althea has been such an unexpected pleasure. I had always had the impression of her as a bright child, but of course Annabelle was too self-absorbed to bring a child into adult company and risk sharing the center of attention, and Edmond had no use for a daughter, so I pitied her from afar and had little opportunity to know her.
Imagine my surprise to find she is intelligent, curious, well-read and passionately interested in medicine-the blood runs truer than even I suspected. She was shy, initially, of revealing her reading habits to me, for which I cannot blame her, considering how Edmond must have frowned on a seventeen-year-old-girl's interest in anatomy texts, but I knew she was making free with the library, and as I paid closer attention I noticed my medical journals and periodicals were being disturbed. Her mistake, ironically, was replacing things in a more tidy manner than I had left them. She is deplorably well-organized, but how can I discourage this young woman after my own heart?
She confessed to perusing my reading materials, and dared to admit she had always admired me for my education and pursuit of scientific study-another irony, since I have always felt so limited in what I could pursue, and frustrated by the avenues available to me. Money will curry many favors but it was always Edmond's money, Edmond's reputation, which no one wanted to offend by collaborating on his bluestocking sister's meagre experiments. I have spent my adult years working in dark corners, making tiny gains only to find someone else, some male with a university and a staff and a respectable name, has already arrived at the same conclusions and published in the journals. Time! Time! Always the sacrifice of my research time in the name of Charity and Reputation.
Well, there will be no more of that. I have set up a trust, and instructed Carvil to select trustees for me to approve, to see to the management of the various funds and their distribution. The hospital of course still has the largest share, together with some of the better Aid Societies which I believe to be worthy and honest. But I see no reason why the Animal Rescue Society should be bleeding us dry to feed and shelter horses which should be put out of their misery, nor a half-dozen Evangelical organisations should be encouraged to travel to the Orient and torment Chinese peasants with threats of hellfire. The Methodist Temperance Movement has likewise been cut off—I have seen with my own eyes the futility of attempting to educate the poorer classes on the evils of drink; indeed, they are already well-acquainted with those evils, and no-one enjoys having his vices thrust in his face.
I have put off determining the fate of the various grants and scholarships currently in place. One thing Edmond and I always agreed upon was the necessity of education for doctors and the importance of funding their research. I think now, however, I will find a way to redistribute those funds to create opportunities for female students—nurses if not doctors. The Misses Nightingale did women an inadvertent disservice by consigning the role of nurses to the subservient and inferior—certainly I have known many ward nurses of greater sense and nerve than the callow young "doctors" to whom they must kowtow-but the inclusion of women in ANY aspect of medicine is a goal I must further as well as I can. And I am resolved, now, that Althea will be a doctor. She confessed to me that it was her most secret wish, but immediately acknowledged the impossibility of it coming true; she is a practical girl and assumes her dream of attending medical college is as childish as a daydream of kissing a frog and finding true love—but how that assumption infuriates me! She is young and bright and well-educated and passionate—why should such potential be wasted merely because of her gender? Words cannot describe the combination of fierceness and pride and protectiveness I feel—can it be I have some maternal instinct after all?
May 9, 1871
I am ever astonished to observe how the recipients of charity will attempt to dictate the terms and means of the donation.
The new foundation I have set up nearly doubles the contributions to the hospital, and the sole stipulation was that the administration must admit one female student per term. They have thrown up every conceivable argument—with patronizing smiles and barely-sheathed resentment—as to why it cannot be done. The classrooms are too full. There are no separate dormitories or washrooms. The tables in the dissecting room are too high for a lady to reach. The instruments are too heavy and cumbersome for a lady's hands. The subject matter is too indelicate for a lady's sensibilities.
No one went so far as to imply that a lady who wishes to study medicine is little better than an actress, because they are all well aware of my own interest in the area and heaven forbid they should offend their patroness, but they all have a pinched look while speaking to me, as if they smell something unpleasant. Dr. Whitby actually turned and left the laboratory when I entered; he believes himself secure enough and respected enough that he can snub his patrons, but he will learn otherwise if I have anything to say about it. He is an old butcher who refuses to practice even rudimentary cleanliness in surgery—he says Lister's theory of microorganisms causing sepsis is a "fairy story,"—and denies chloroform to mothers in labor because of God's decree that children must be brought forth in sorrow.
The single bright spot in the day was a certain Dr. Yoseph Mereck, a visiting physician from St. Petersburg, who researches the workings of the mind and nerves. He is traveling Europe to review the latest procedures for treating mental patients and shows particular interest in Dr. Marcus's trepanning method. When Dr. Marcus introduced us, for possibly the first time in my life, Dr. Mereck did not lift his eyebrows and say, "Ah, you are the daughter (or sister) of Dr. Alistair (or Edmond) Fairweather." Instead he stared at me quite intently and said, "You are the S. Fairweather who published a study on the inability of nerves to heal, in the London Physicians' Monthly two years ago?"
I was struck speechless, and several people can attest to that unusual occurrence. Dr. Marcus laughed and assured our visitor that I was indeed the author of that piece. Once I recovered my voice I spent several minutes talking at top speed with Dr. Mereck, detailing my ongoing work, while he added observations of his own and suggested studies I might find insightful (and I confess I wrote letters to request copies of the recommended publications even before I left the hospital this afternoon). Dr. Marcus was vastly amused and teased me about having a new admirer, claiming jealousy, but I cannot be insulted. Even this tiny amount of recognition is intoxicating, and spurs me to greater determination to convince the administrators they MUST admit female students.
May 26, 1871
Two things of interest happened this week. The first was that Dr. Marcus came to call, bringing Dr. Mereck with him—it seems the visit was the latter's idea. At their combined insistence, I ushered them into my laboratory, painfully aware of how rudimentary and small it is, but Dr. Mereck professed admiration for the modern equipment, especially the new binocular microscope and the reflective gas-lighting system. Dr. Marcus seemed quite proud to show off my work-dear man! I have been too broad in painting all the males around me as patronizing brutes. Dr. Mereck, in fact, seems not to have noticed my gender at all. He asked questions about my current dissections-I was forced to admit that all my work is done on pigs and cats, since I do not have access to human cadavers, and he gave me a strange look and demanded to know why not. I was quite blunt in explaining to him that I was not welcome in the hospital's laboratories. He seemed not to understand this, even when Dr. Marcus corroborated. Are women afforded more equal treatment in Russia? I do not know. At any rate Dr. Mereck asked if I had read the articles he recommended, about the stimulation of muscle and nerve tissue with electricity. I said I had-as had Dr. Marcus-and we three spent the better part of an afternoon discussing the implications and possible applications. Both gentlemen feel the application of electrical current to the brain may prove beneficial to mental patients; I am more interested in the regeneration of damaged tissues.
It was certainly a pleasant and stimulating visit, and I implored both men to return at their leisure and convenience—indeed, I felt a curious mingling of satiety and disappointment after they had left, as I did not expect such patronage to occur again, but how wrong I was!
This afternoon Althea and I were in the lab as has become our habit—I dissect and test while she makes drawings and notes—when four visitors arrived from the hospital: Drs. Marcus and Mereck, together with Dr. Harthorne, the head of research, and Dr. Gilham, the chief of staff. They had come to extend a pair of formal invitations: one to me, as a co-researcher on Dr. Mereck's pet project, with full laboratory privileges, and another to Althea, as the school's first female student! I confess all my grace left me; I thought there must be some mistake, but Dr. Marcus was smiling and Dr. Mereck looked stern, as if this were a solemn moment, and dear Althea was all courtesy and gratitude. She thanked the gentlemen for the honor and said all that was appropriate, while I bit my tongue on an acid comment about timeliness and condescension-I could almost hear Father admonishing me for being ever unsatisfied. I added my thanks and extended an invitation to dinner. The administrators declined graciously, but our two champions, as Althea called them, stayed.
They were most pleased with themselves. Dr. Marcus was smiling and cheerful as ever; Dr. Mereck was more solemn but had a satisfied air, as if he had won a wager. Over lamb I asked them how this miraculous event had come to pass, and Dr. Marcus claimed it was mostly Mereck's doing. "It is all in the manner of persuasion," Dr. Mereck demurred, his gaze resting me, with what I honor myself to think was admiration. "I merely convinced them of the great asset they were overlooking."
I do not believe I have ever had a finer compliment in my life.
July 3, 1871
Good gracious, is it July already? I have been so absorbed in work I scarce had time to notice, except to roll up my sleeves and change to a cooler dress-the laboratory is stifling during the day; we do much of our work at night, aided by the new light-reflecting apparatus I have had installed.
Yosef Mereck is a brilliant man, that is all I have to say on the matter. He can converse on any topic, art or religion or philosophy, and his knowledge of science is unrivaled. He is well-versed in anatomy and biology and botany and even the emerging field of paleontology, although he thinks it frivolous. His true passion, however, is the brain and all its mysteries. He is fascinated with mental illness, and the hidden capacities of the mind. Although he does not go so far as to embrace the spiritualists and the "psychics," who claim to work minor miracles with their thoughts, he has introduced me to the Eastern belief that the mind and body are one, and may influence the health of one another. He firmly believes that there must be medicines to treat the mind, we have only to discover them. He talks of performing surgery on the brain, and is continually frustrated by the limitations of instruments offered by modern science. He suggests impossible things, exhilarating and frightening at the same time—he talks of opening a patient's skull and cutting or freezing areas of the brain while the patient is still awake and cognizant, or "mapping" out parts of the brain to determine which areas control speech, movement, thought, etc.—this, when an anatomist can only shake his head in bafflement when confronted with the mass of indeterminate grey matter inside a brainbox.
But surely such surgery is impossible, I tell him. The bleeding would be uncontrollable. The patient would go mad from pain long before the skull could be opened, or else perish from shock or chloroform asphyxiation. And sepsis would surely follow.
Only because you have not the right drugs, the right machines, he says. The day will come.
And I cannot doubt him.
I have learnt why he is so driven. I made so bold as to ask whether he had family in St. Petersburg, and he confided that he is a married man. His wife suffers from a delusional madness—she is cared for by relatives while he travels and studies, searching for a way to help her. I understand now why he looks so solemn, much of the time, and the intensity of purpose that keeps us working late into the night. His passion is no stronger than my own, however; for the first time in my life I have unlimited time, unlimited resources, and a colleague as fixated as I am. Sometimes Dr. Marcus consults on our project, but he has his own studies to pursue, and recently was promoted to the head of surgery.
I forgot to mention, Dr. Whitby suffered a stroke during the first heat of June and is now paralyzed on his right side. He was retired with a full pension-funded from the trust I set up, which is the only reason I know of his infirmity; the administration wants to preserve his reputation. I say good riddance to a frivolous relic. Perhaps in a few eons someone will find his bones and consider them of interest, but he had long since exceeded his relevance here.
Althea also assists when she can, but she is absorbed in her studies. Because she was educated at home, by tutors, she had to pass a series of proficiency examinations before she could be officially enrolled-Dr. Gilham would have waived this formality but I insisted upon it. I will not have it said that she was granted favors because of her aunt's patronage, nor that she was unprepared for the curricula because she had had no formal education. I felt no doubt that she would pass with flying colors and so she did; now she is deeply engrossed in anatomy texts in a way that is painfully endearing to me.
Yosef—he asked me to call him Yosef, as laboratory work is too grueling and time-sensitive to waste energy on formalities—is also quite taken with her. He calls her a clever pet and is endlessly paternal, patient and encouraging. I cannot help but think how she might have blossomed under the attention of a more appreciative father-figure. But it is not too late for either of us, I think.
July 18, 1871
Something extraordinary happened in the laboratory this evening.
Indeed it was so strange and incredible that I hardly dare write about it now, in the early hours of morning, lest fatigue and suggestibility color my clear recollection. But I cannot, even were I inclined to try, shade the incident in dream-like hues or pass it off as a collective fantasy, not with the evidence hanging over the back of the chair, and clutching this pen.
We have been working with bits and pieces of cobbled-together electrical equipment—as no one seems to manufacture machines to the specifications Yosef demands, he builds his own. I confess I am not knowledgeable enough about electrical principles or construction to explain the finer details of what he builds, but I do not doubt his knowledge, and the results have been quite functional for our purposes. I mention this only because he blames himself for the accident. He says one of the wires of the test leads was not "grounded" properly, and when I touched it, the electricity "shorted" through me—passing through my hand and arm, down the right side of my body to the floor.
Oh, how to describe the terror and pain of it? —the very memory makes me weak and queasy. Menstrual cramps are nothing compared to shock; indeed the sensation is like a massive, enduring cramp, as if someone were squeezing my limbs and lungs tighter and tighter in a medieval torture device, and the worst of it was I could not let go! How often I have witnessed and recorded the effects of high voltage on muscle tissue, and now to experience it firsthand, and live to tell the tale!
Indeed, I might not be writing this now if Yosef and Althea had not been quick to act. Yosef switched off the power and I fell to the floor, horribly aware, at once, of the quivering of my limbs and the smell of burned flesh. Yes, burned! I saw with my own eyes how my hand was crisped and leatherlike, the skin split to reveal cooked inner tissue, looking for all the world like the seared flesh of a suckling pig. My right foot was likewise smoking, and I later found two rows of small round brand-marks on my ankle, where the metal eyelets of my boot had heated and singed through my stocking. But the horror at the moment was my hand, a grotesque ruin of flesh that I knew, immediately, was beyond repair; despite the obvious damage I could feel nothing, and who would know better than I, when nerve damage is beyond the help of medicine!
But Althea did not even recoil. Indeed, she seemed to move by instinct, as if she were not quite in control of her actions (how strange the mind remembers some things clearly, and other things not at all, in moments of crisis). She grasped my burned hand in one of hers, and clasped with the other my arm above the elbow, and I felt a warmth of pressure, like a more mild tingle of electricity, a liveliness of excitement. All the same it was not entirely pleasant-all the burned nerves in my hand seemed to leap back to life in a flare of torment. I cried out, as I had not been able to when the current first struck me, and I felt a tremendous draining, as if all my blood and strength were being drawn to my hand. Through a nightmare-like fugue I saw the flesh seem to swell, blood and serum oozing out of the cracks in the skin. More cracks appeared in the charred matter, and the sensation of tingling increased, and I could not say whether I or Althea moaned the louder with the effort. Yosef—I remember this clearly, as well—put his hands over Althea's and whispered to her, and she closed her eyes and seemed to strain, and suddenly I felt all the tissues in my hand spasm and flex, and I gave a little cry of surprise, because the feeling was back in my fingers, and there was no more pain, only a stiffness and drawing from the crust of old, dead, burned matter still clinging to my skin.
No sooner did I perceive this than Althea fainted dead away. Yosef cradled her in his arms, smoothing the fine gold curls back from her damp forehead, and looked at me with the same astonishment that was no doubt writ on my own features.
She is sleeping, now, after having consumed a meal of beef and oysters hearty enough for a man twice her size, and I am satisfied that she is quite well, but how restless and worried my mind is over her strange unknown ability. Yes, I must call it an ability, although Yosef claims it was likely only a fluke, an accident of mental manifestation in a moment of crisis. He says the body and mind are capable of summoning up primal reserves of strength when the need is dire, and cites examples of elderly invalids rising from their beds, to rescue heirloom china sideboards from a burning house.
But Althea told me privately, after much coaxing, that she has always had this ability to heal—although she claims she cannot control whom she will heal or when. Obviously I found this quite difficult to accept, and asked, with my typical callousness, why she had not been able to save her parents. The question seemed to wound her, and with downcast eyes she confessed to having no influence with fevers and chronic illnesses, only wounds and the occasional infection. She admitted, almost in a whisper, that her fascination with medicine stemmed from a desire to understand her strange power, and perhaps to gain more control over it. Strange as all this was, I was unsurprised to hear that Edmond knew all about his daughter's ability and forbade her to use it. If I accept her story as truth, it may explain why he never allowed her to visit the hospital, even when the daughters of his colleagues were encouraged to help with the charities.
Yet, even as my rational mind struggles to refute the evidence of memory, I am compelled to repeatedly examine and feel of the tender, pink, hairless new skin on my right hand. It is rather sore, as if I had splashed it with hot water or a mild acid solution, but it is whole. I am in no small way dazed to think how close I came to losing that hand-I do not delude myself to suppose it could have been saved. Yosef agrees with me on that point.
He insisted on staying the night, as he is not convinced either of us is quite well. From any other man I would think he was being condescending, but his concern is well-placed: I will admit I have a mild headache and possibly a fever, but I feel no compulsion to rest. Either the electrical charge or the strange charge of Althea's healing has rendered me hopelessly alert and clear-minded. I believe Yosef was more overset and exhausted by the events of the evening than he cared to admit; I left him asleep before the library fire when I came up to check on Althea.
She is still sleeping peacefully and I alone remain awake to ponder the impossibility of it all-Extraordinary, is all I can say. Extraordinary, and worthy of investigation.
August 2, 1871
Yosef has cautioned me to be discreet about the new direction of our experiments.
He is only being sensible, of course. Psychic manifestations, if there are such things, are notoriously difficult to prove, much less to measure. It is like trying to measure the worth of artistic output—is this piano concerto better than that one, that painting more skillful than this, and so on. I know we are not the only scientists attempting to measure and describe psychic phenomena—only last January a physicist by name of William Crooke published a paper detailing his work with the celebrated D.D. Home—but the field is regarded by many as frivolous, wasteful, fraudulent, and ridiculous. There are days when I myself question its value, at least in comparison to our earlier work with the physical aspects of the nervous system. But Yosef reminded me of my frustration with continually following a half-pace behind other researchers in the same fields of study—this, he says, has just as much potential for benefitting humanity, and consider how sparse the competition!
He admitted, during a rather heated exchange two nights ago, that his fervor to identify and understand this power stems from his old vow to heal his wife—a vow he now regrets having made. His family begged him to annul the marriage when it became clear she would never recover, but Yosef blames himself for having too much pride, too much arrogance in his status as a physician. It is humbling, he says, to realize that there are powers in the mind of which he scarcely dreamed, but for the sake of humanity, if not his wife, he must explore these powers to the limits of his sanity and strength.
Of course then he apologized for his passion, in his courtly way—he is Russian and always half-mocking of my English reticence—but voiced a sincere concern for my niece, who is, after all, the sole source of this power we have been attempting to isolate. He says I must exercise my authority as her relative and guardian, and not allow him to exhaust her or keep her from her studies.
A fine sentiment, but one I suspect is doomed to failure, because Althea is as headstrong as either of us, and just as set as we are upon the course of charting her abilities. She wants so badly to please him, and me, that it is heartbreaking to watch, and if that were her only reason for co-operating I would probably have to put a stop to it. But I cannot doubt that these experiments have been a source of help and hope to her. She has said repeatedly that she wants only to understand this power, to bend it to her will instead of allowing it to drive her. And I can see how she has improved, in both understanding and in control, but Yosef and I are both afraid she will push herself too far.
August 20, 1871
Yosef turns up the most extraordinary sources—have I not remarked, repeatedly, upon his breadth and depth of knowledge? He has procured for me a number of obscure works, purportedly by famous historical scientists and philosophers—Aristotle, Newton, Magnus—men whose names are synonymous with learning and reason, who nevertheless seem to have dabbled in superstition and mysticism when no one was looking. (One wonders what Dr. Whitby was dabbling in, that the administration is so eager to remember him in a flattering light!) But the real treasures are the truly ancient and exotic texts, the translation of which is straining even my knowledge of languages: Hindustani, Mandarin, Hebrew. Yosef has managed to procure for us a Chinese native to act as translator for some of the Oriental languages—how he was able to find the man is beyond my powers of divination. How can he have traveled so much, seen so much, when he is only ten years older than I?—strange to think of that, when I have been looking upon him as a mentor. Perhaps it is because he is so serious, so purposeful, unlike the few young men I was forced to meet, when Father still thought I might marry. When he becomes engrossed in his work he grows more intense and somber than ever; he speaks in low murmurs and communicates with gestures and touches, rather than words. Indeed we have become so attuned to each other’s thoughts and intents, there is little need for speech in the lab. Whole evenings pass late into the night, with only the sounds of our breathing and the hum or crackle of instruments.
But I was speaking of the texts. The ancient Aramaic and Greek scrolls are illuminating, to say the least. What would our pious friends think if they knew of the earthy and sacrilegious rituals the early Christians saw fit to record? Raising the dead, calling spirits and binding demons, engaging in orgies? Even I find some of the accounts shocking, and although I would not shield my niece from the realities of the world, I am grateful Althea cannot read Aramaic. Certain perversions are not nurturing to an innocent girl’s mind.
The Kabbalists are less earthy, but their writings are even more strongly devoted to the occult. This is, of course, the source material from which the early Christians derived their rituals, though the latter are badly corrupted because the entire purpose of the Kabbal was to keep such knowledge hidden. The Hebrew writings are more authoritative, less vague and, to my mind, less hypocritical. The ancient Jewish mystics understood that God, if He exists, made not only the good and loving and benevolent things, but also the dark and the morbid and the corrupting. Those old philosophers understood the desires and envies in the souls of man and woman; every second statement is a warning against using the knowledge in those scrolls—it is preserved "only for study." Only a priest, "whose intent is pure," may make use of these methods.
Study I will, but I confess to a desire to test some of these forbidden experiments. I cannot speak to the purity of my soul, but my curiosity and devotion to knowledge is more steadfast than the so-called faith of any parishioner I have known.
Of course there is also a great skepticism in me. Can these procedures—I am loathe to call them "spells," although that is what they are—possibly be made to work? I have seen some remarkable things in the last month, but I am not willing to embrace all elements of the supernatural at face value. Still, when I ponder the nature of religion I begin to wonder whether this knowledge is genuine, and therefore deliberately concealed by these old secret societies, who feared its misuse by the ignorant, the greedy, the vengeful? What is religion, after all, but a design to control society? Perhaps a plan within a plan—to manipulate the masses by promising the secret to paradise, a carrot dangled always out of reach, a bright bauble to distract the gullible from the real prize—knowledge, and the power that comes with it.
August 28, 1871
I suppose this was inevitable. Dr. Marcus has learned of our research into psychic healing, and he is not amused.
He did not interrupt our work in the lab, he came to call at my home on Sunday. I was delighted to see him, initially. We have seen little of him this summer and I found I had missed his good cheer and fraternal teasing. He quickly spoiled the pleasure of his visit, however, by inquiring in grave tones whether Dr. Mereck was present, and after ascertaining that he was not, proceeded to demand an explanation for why we were smuggling mental patients in and out of the wards.
We had thought we were safe enough, using mental patients for Althea to practice her skills upon. We were careful to use only those patients who were safely lobotomized and tractable. Yosef pointed out that even if they were able to tell anyone what had happened in our laboratory, no one would believe the ravings of lunatics. But I neglected to account for Dr. Marcus’s scrupulous and competent staff, who noticed that the bedsores, lesions and rashes of their patients were healing at an unprecedented rate. When questioned, it seems enough of those lunatics were cognizant and consistent enough in their stories to raise Dr. Marcus’s suspicions. Further, he told me, there has been a steady increase in violent activity among the inmates—self-abusive behavior, hostility toward the caretakers, even suicides—and these among the supposedly subdued subjects we had thought were safe.
My first thought was that Althea’s power somehow borrows the brain’s energy to heal the body, thereby exhausting cerebral resources, but then I remembered that I, myself, have experienced the phenomenon, and I have not suffered any apparent ill effects. Then I wondered if her power was in fact overstimulating the brain, as it accelerates healing within tissues. I nearly jumped up to seek out Yosef, to discuss the matter with him, but of course Dr. Marcus was waiting for an explanation.
So I told him what we had been doing. Without a thought to the consequences, I must admit, because my heart was suddenly pounding with excitement—this was evidence! Inexplicable, yes, but measurable and presumably with the potential to be repeated. I was not concerned with explaining it, yet; after all no one has yet been able to explain what electricity is, for all we have been making it and using it for nearly a century.
But he thought it was all in jest. Oh, he believed that we were conducting some sort of experiments on their brains, he knew well enough of my and Yosef’s interest in the matter, but when I told him what Althea could do, he laughed—a bit impatiently, and demanded a truthful explanation. As I continued to insist, he became more serious, and began refuting it with the same arguments Yosef and I had already been over—a fluke in times of stress, collective delusions, etc.—so I fetched my lab journals. He turned the pages over, growing more and more grim and scowling, and then looked at me as if I were one of his mental patients. "Is this really what you’ve been wasting your time on for the last three months?" he said.
Oh, how sick I feel to remember those words, that expression on his face. I hotly protested the legitimacy of our research, and he read me a lecture on Credibility, and Precedence, and the Risks he had taken with his own Reputation for recommending me to the administration. He sounded so like Edmond that I wanted to fly at him with my fists, just was when I was a child and Edmond would tease me. I was rude and imprudent; I was also indiscreet, because I was far too vehement in declaring my support for Yosef’s research, Yosef’s genius, and after four or five mentions of his name, Dr. Marcus said, "So it’s Yosef, is it?"
I demanded to know what he meant by that. He bluffed and blustered, and said I was acting unlike myself, riding on someone else’s coattails. That, of course, infuriated me so I could hardly see, and I invited him to take his leave. By this time, Althea had been drawn to the parlor by the sound of our raised voices, and stood shocked in the doorway. Dr. Marcus inquired whether I was prepared to sacrifice her reputation and future, for the brief gratification of my desires, at which point I accused him of being a vulgar, base, spiteful hypocrite—a man, in other words!—the moment a woman threatens to slip the leash they resort to calling her a whore.
At that undignified moment, Yosef arrived in the foyer—I had expected him somewhat later, but for once I was grateful to be rescued. Yosef inquired, with polite incredulity, what the disturbance was about, and Dr. Marcus rather stiffly voiced a demand that no further patients be removed from the mental ward without his prior written approval. Yosef readily agreed, as if it were scarcely worth a thought, and Dr. Marcus left.
I am still shaking from it. I feel betrayed; I’ve always been fond of Dr. Marcus and I felt confident of his respect and positive regard—indeed if there had been any man I would have considered marrying it would have been he, but I know his proposals were never more than fraternal teasing. Althea tried to persuade me that I misread his intent, that he was only expressing concern for me, but she is young and sheltered, she does not know how I have had to fight, all my life, for shreds of respect, and now that I have found a colleague and a purpose to pursue, the men are once again closing ranks against me. I suppose I was only meant to be a gesture, that my acceptance to the research staff was a placating manoeuver to ensure future donations.
Yosef, bless him, is more concerned over my distress than over the loss of our source of tests subjects. He says he does not want to risk harm to my career or reputation, and admits we should have been more wary of the unconventionality of our partnership. "You English are so quick to suspect impropriety," he says.
I am grateful for his concern, but after having my perceptions sullied by Marcus’ obscene allegations, I am slightly repulsed by him. Yosef Mereck is my respected colleague, my peer—I am appalled to think that anyone would guess we were lovers. I feel our friendship has been tainted by the wicked thoughts of others.
September 9, 1871
What a horrid week. First there was the unpleasant confrontation with Dr. Marcus, and the abrupt loss of our supply of test subjects. Though that turned out to be a moot point, because Althea fell ill on Tuesday and has been weak and feverish ever since. She insists it is just a summer cold, but I fear she may have contracted something from the hospital. Meanwhile, Yosef is out of town for a fortnight; he went to Cornwall to meet a contact whom, he says, is delivering some rare and very expensive books he does not want to risk the loss of. I thought I would not mind his absence, as I found myself increasingly uncomfortable in his company, but Dr. Marcus took the opportunity of my being at home all week to further intrude on my peace of mind.
This is so ridiculous and petty, I cannot believe I am even giving it credence—but how shocked I am, that a long acquaintance, a family friend, could be so hurtful. I cannot even fathom why he is doing it, save out of jealousy—and which of us is more threatening to him, myself or Yosef Mereck?
Dr. Marcus is trying to persuade me that Yosef is a fraud. Somehow he had managed to obtain records from the hospital, correspondence to and from Yosef when he first requested a position here. In his letters were references to his publications, his studies, his posts with other establishments.Dr. Marcus claims that none of them are verifiable. He says the hospital in St. Petersburg never heard of a Yosef Mereck; nor has the Vienna school, nor the sanitorium in Florence. I was incredulous, of course, and I demanded to know how he could have discerned this in such a short time. He admitted he had been investigating Yosef’s credentials for some weeks. He said the nerve research Yosef claims to have done was actually conducted by two other men, and he showed me the article in a rather obscure German publication. He had several such examples, actually, but I only looked at one or two, enough to discern it was mere circumstantial evidence. I know well enough how one’s research can be trumped by others working with more time or better reputations, and I said as much. I told Dr. Marcus he was behaving like a young boy who coveted his neighbor’s pony.
He asked whether I had ever seen any of the articles Yosef claimed to have published. I said I had no need to see them, Yosef’s obvious knowledge of science was credible enough for me. Marcus became exasperated and said I was being naïve, could I not see I was being duped? Which was a supremely idiotic thing to say, even if it were true—such denigration of my intelligence and judgment was poorly calculated if he hoped to persuade me to accept his logic.
Yet my discomfort and outrage had not yet reached their zenith, for in the midst of his tirade he suddenly dropped to bended knee alongside my chair. “Do you not see,” he said fervently, “my concern is only for you? I have not wanted to press you in your time of grief, but now I fear your affections are being stolen by this imposter—please do, Sabine, consent to be my wife—we need not announce our engagement until an appropriate time has passed, but only give me permission to send this charlatan away.”
I believe I laughed—I honestly do not remember. I was shocked. All the times he has laughingly proposed to me, I never supposed he was serious. I was horrified. Even now I cannot say why. Elton Marcus is certainly not a repulsive man, nor poor nor uncouth nor intemperate. He is of good family and good character and possesses a fine mind—indeed I know of a half-dozen debutantes who would fall down on their knees and swear eternal servitude for such an honor—why on earth should he offer it to me?
I feel ill to remember it. Althea had no appetite for supper, and I had only a little soup and wine. When I begged him to desist his foolish behavior and leave in peace, he looked so wounded I felt my heart ache for him—poor man, I have always been fond of him, but how then could he betray me like this?
September 15, 1871
Yosef returned last night, bringing with him a new stack of books and a trunkful of strange implements: crystals and powders, mummified relics and bits of parchment. I was relieved to see him, his sensible solemn self, with his black piercing gaze and utter intensity of attention, as if everything one says is of the utmost import and interest. For the most part though, I am merely glad to have something new to focus my attention upon. I want to return to some semblance of routine, although it seems our new experiments will be less concerned with Althea’s healing abilities and more focused upon the esoterica of the so-called “Dark Arts.”
Althea is feeling a bit better; in fact she cheered considerably the day of his arrival, as if strengthened at the foreknowledge of his return. I expect she was feeling mischievous, eager to tell him how very diligent—she said “naughty”—we had been in his absence.
The séance was her idea. I have always been dubious of the so-called spiritualists or even the existence of the soul or spirit as an entity separate from the flesh; I certainly would not have considered it a valid subject for laboratory experimentation. But as Althea was still weak and inclined to confine herself to her bed or chambers, I thought it would be harmless and amusing for her.
The procedure is simple enough, derived I suspect from the techniques of Mesmer. The medium—Althea volunteered for this office—sits quietly in a darkened room, with a single light source to focus upon. It is basic self-hypnosis, but I did not make a point of this to spoil the fun. As her audience, I had only to sit and observe, although as a precautionary measure I wrote on the table, in chalk, a word of “protection” from one of the Kabbalist texts. (It is quite fascinating, the layers of meaning built into ancient Hebrew—each letter has a mathematical equivalent, thus words can construct virtual equations.) Although I did it half to heighten the mood, Yosef said later it was as well I had.
I did not expect to find any spirits loitering about my house, and Althea had not chosen an individual to seek out or an object on which to fixate, she only spoke an invitation to any entity near that wanted to communicate. Upon reflection this was perhaps not a wise approach to take.
My cheerfully suspended skepticism began to waver as my niece’s eyes rolled back in her head, and her entire body jerked as if she had received a sharp blow between the shoulders. Our hands were clasped together, and I felt hers crush about mine with unearthly strength—in fact today I have the clear purple imprints of her fingers on the backs of my hands.
I spoke her name, sharply, but she only sat there, head bowed and hair hanging before her face. Her breathing was very rough—alarmingly so, in fact, she sounded just as her mother had before the breath left Annabel’s body entirely.
“Master!” she screamed suddenly, with such horror and hurt in the sound that I nearly came to my feet in shock. But the most alarming part of it was the voice was not Althea’s—it was much lower and older, that of a man. Furthermore, it was speaking German. And Althea does not know German.
“Master!” the voice cried. “Let me go! I am nothing to you, I am spent, please release me, I suffer!”
It was horrid. The pleas and exhortations made little sense, but before I could even think of a question to ask, some means to engage the entity as Althea had instructed me to do, the voice changed—indeed, Althea’s entire posture and demeanor changed, as if she took on the role of someone else, but Mrs. Siddons never gave such a convincing performance. My niece drew herself upright, lifted her chin, in a proud but wheedling manner, and when she spoke, the voice was that of another man, but younger, and English. “I never betrayed you,” it said. “I am loyal to the death. Only let me go and I will bring you others.”
Then a third voice, this one a woman: “My love, my love, why do you torment me so? I have given you everything and still you spurn me.”
Then another man, jabbering in a language I did not understand, but with the same pleading, placating intonation. Then a child, speaking Russian, of which I understood little other than the word, “Master,” and “Please no.”
Then suddenly Althea fixed me with such a look that all the hair stood straight up on my neck—I do not believe I am exaggerating. Whatever looked out through my niece’s eyes was not Althea. In that moment I discovered the limits of my skepticism—I found myself wishing for a crucifix or Holy Relic to place between myself and that Thing, whatever it was.
Its cold eyes regarded me with familiarity, and what I can only describe as carnality, as if it wished to devour me. Its eyes travelled from my hairline down to my shoulders and arms and hands, at which point we both realized we had hold of each other.
We pulled at the same time. It was strong, but I was faster, and made purposeful by panic. I dragged poor Althea’s hand over the candle flame in the center of the table. In doing so I also pulled her across the word of protection I had written between us. One or the other had the desired effect—Althea startled and gave a little cry of pain. A second later she was cradling her hand and asking me indignantly why I had interrupted her trance. She had no memory of speaking at all!
When Yosef heard our account of the events he showed not the slightest flicker of disbelief. Indeed, he gave us both a mild scold for attempting such a venture without him. He said, particularly to me, that I must not assume the Dark Arts are as predictable and constant as the physical sciences to which I am accustomed. Supernatural forces, he said, are even more mysterious than electricity. They may be harnessed, but not reliably, and must always be handled with as much care as a venomous serpent. Given my recent experience with the unruliness of electricity, not to mention the memory of Althea speaking in that gutteral and malevolent voice, I was quite receptive to this warning.
After Althea went to bed—she was eager to stay and visit longer, but I could see the tell-tale signs of exhaustion in her face, poor dear—I bade Yosef show me the new things he had brought with him. We knelt over his trunk together, while he put book after book into my hands, and unwrapped many crumbling, maloderous artifacts—mummified bits, some of them human; nitre and bitumen, precious resins and spices from the Holy Land, granules of salt and sand, shards of pottery and wood, badly-tanned hides with writing on them. Some of the items I recognized as ingredients in the ancient texts we had been reading, the kinds of things that are not readily available in London. I was quite delighted, as there were spells I wanted to try, particularly after our success with the séance.
Then Yosef removed another package from the back of the trunk, something soft, wrapped in paper, and put it into my hands. I was quite surprised to find it contained an exquisite silk shawl, nearly twice as long as I am tall: the color of cream, embroidered all over with birds and mystical creatures in gold and pale blue.
“It is for you,” he said, his black eyes boring into mine quite intently. “It was among the goods coming in from India, and it reminded me of your coloring.” I was taken aback, and could hardly find the words to thank him. He put a finger to my stammering lips, and I felt a tremor of emotion I can hardly name—as if the bottom had fallen out of my stomach. He said he had missed me, and I could not reply, although I had, and I was disturbed to realize the intensity of my feelings at seeing him again.
I quickly reverted to the discussion of our new experiments, and all was as before. But the gift of the shawl—indeed the entire incident—makes me uneasy. It seems to me a loverlike gift, not the kind of thing one colleague gives to another, and in the light of Dr. Marcus’s accusations I cannot help but wonder at Yosef’s intent. He has always been correct in manner toward me, even in private, but I am woefully aware of my own inexperience in matters between men and women. Have there been signs, visible to others but not to me, which suggest he has a deeper feeling for me? In all these years I failed to notice Dr. Marcus’s regard, which has apparently been more than fraternal.
I cannot even dissect my own feelings. I have never felt more than a fleeting interest in any man—usually those who were intelligent enough to engage my mind for a time. I never fluttered or swooned over this playwright or that composer—Romantic music sounds like so much syrup to me. As a girl I had a lingering infatuation with the character Hamlet, the melancholy Dane, because he was so tragic and seemed so trapped, as I was. But since I am attempting to be honest with myself I must acknowledge that Yosef is never far from my thoughts, and during his absence I was always thinking ahead to his return and how I might please him with the diligence of my studies. But are these the motives of a woman trying to please a lover, or a mentor? Or a father-figure? Or, God forbid, all three?
He has a wife. Surely he would not be so dishonorable as to act on any tender feelings toward me—assuming that was his intent. Perhaps it was merely after all a gift to a colleague. If I were a man he might give me cigars, or a bottle of brandy. Perhaps the difference in our genders is bound to cause awkwardness, however unintentional.
But I am being ridiculous, dawdling over petty matters of decorum when I have mummy and nitre to experiment with.
October 12, 1871
I believe I know, now, why the Church condemns witchcraft, and the occult practices. The pursuit of power is only half of it. Or rather, the gaining of power is only part of it. The pursuit of power is quite seductive in itself.
I have never been one to drink to excess. I have never enjoyed the sensation of being intoxicated, whether by alcohol or ether or opiates, although as an Englishwoman and a scientist I have certainly had cause to experience all three. I have never craved that which I was missing as a spinster, the pleasures of the flesh—indeed I did my best to learn all I could about human sexuality, to dissect and extinguish those feelings in myself, knowing they could only distract me from my work.
But sorcery conveys a different variety of ecstacy altogether. At first I thought it was only the pleasure of learning, the triumph of a successful experiment. But Yosef says it is inherent in the craft—how can one manipulate the powers of the universe without taking in their majesty? How can one experience such greatness and not be stricken with awe?
Yosef, of course, is far more knowledgeable than I, as he is in everything. I would envy him if he were not so generous and eager to share, to instruct. He confesses that his interest in the occult has been a long-time hobby but no more than that; the few experiments he performed on his own were satisfactory but not inspiring. He says I have a keen talent for manipulating the elements, and he suggests that it may be in the Fairweather blood, given that Althea and I are similarly gifted.
I must demure at that, because my abilities are as a scientist—I observe, I intuit, I test. Generally my hypotheses are accurate, but that is merely intelligence and careful study, not to be compared with Althea’s abilities.
She has become such a strong medium, so quickly it is frightening. It has been a month, a scant month, since our first frightening attempt to contact the spirit world. Yosef has been guiding her, of course, working from an old Arabic text, with occasional references to the writings of D.D. Home and Dr. Crooke, although we are not wasting time with playing instruments and moving silly blocks of wood.
It is extraordinary how my skills and Althea’s abilities complement each other. Many times Althea has been possessed by a spirit and simply talks, for hours on end, while and Min Chan or I attempt to transcribe as much as possible, provided it is in a language we can understand. I thrill to the thought of what lost or esoteric knowledge we may be acquiring in this manner—already one of Althea’s spirit guides relayed to us a wonderful spell for binding spirits to common objects—a mirror or a bottle works well—after which I can impel them to perform simple tasks, such as bringing a ball of light to my direction (we are trying to determine the source and nature of the light, but that is still a matter of conjecture), or even fetching small objects out of thin air—which the spiritualists call “apporting” objects.
The only downside to all this progress is that it seems to be taking its toll on Althea. That summer cold never did really pass away. She does not cough or suffer weakness of the lungs, but she appears aenemic and tires easily. She has lost weight, despite a healthy appetite. She brushes my concerns aside, insists she is fine and wishes to procede with our experiments, but occasionally I have to insist that she retire to bed while Yosef and I proceed alone.
And of course there are other reasons for sending Althea away during certain procedures. Although I hope my niece will not constrain herself to spinsterhood and may in time know the full bloom of her womanliness, it is not appropriate for her to learn of carnality from her aunt or her mentor. Some of these older, darker magics require bodily fluids, “essences of man and woman,” and where else are we to obtain them but from ourselves?
I was surprised at how little hesitation I felt at the idea, even initially. I long ago steeled myself against flinching from the so-called “immodesties” of the human body and its processes. I did feel some apprehension at the thought of such intimacy with a man—mortifying, at my age, to be suffering from virginal tremours—but Yosef assured me that coitus was unnessary, and proceeded to show me other means of accomplishing our goals. And so I am learning not only the secrets of the occult, but the secrets of the concubines and the harems—I will not delude myself that these are the secrets of the marriage bed, because no proper society wife of my acquaintance would dream of manipulating her husband’s glans by hand, much less orally, even if it were a medical necessity.
My greatest reservation actually came from the intense degree of enjoyment I derive from these procedures—it was not shame I felt, but worry that the sensual pleasure would distract me from the tasks at hand. Yosef assured me, however, that the pleasure was appropriate and desireable—it heightens the emotions, which attracts the spirits and excites their interest.
I no longer worry about Yosef’s interest or intentions toward me. He said quite frankly that he has never known a colleague, male or female, better suited to his moods and interests than I. He knows I am not interested in marriage, and I know he cannot marry, and neither of us sees any reason why we should speculate on the nature of our future association when we have so much to accomplish and no impediments to achieving it. I suppose by some measures I have been indiscreet, by allowing him to reside in my home, but I have never cared tuppence for what society thought of me. If I did I would never have pursued my studies as a scientist. This is no different, and no one’s business but ours.