by Risu-chan
I am certain that if I had in fact become a doctor, I would have learned far sooner how to deal with both women and youthful curiosity without such misery -- either that, or I would have quit my post and gone off to a monastery to recuperate from causing the humiliations a doctor must consciously inflict upon those he serves.
I had sworn to myself that I would do everything in my power to encourage Master Cain's newfound interest in the moments beginning lives rather than ending them. But still, it was agonizingly embarrassing to walk up to the counter at the medical library of my former college, with my arms full of texts on pregnancy and related women's disorders.
Yet I had suffered worse, and gladly, for Master Cain's sake; and this time, barring the chance of an injudicious paper cut, neither of us would need so much as a single bandage. I kept telling myself that, firmly, as the prim and bespectacled girl behind the counter gave me a long cynical look amidst her book-shuffling.
When he saw some of the titles of the books I held, the flare of eager, delighted fascination in Master Cain's eyes made all the embarrassment worthwhile. However, it was very nearly as embarrassing to try to answer his more indelicate questions, and to sit with him searching together for the answers -- and there was a far more professional embarrassment that no amount of medical schooling could have braced me for.
"These people are idiots," Master Cain said, scrubbing a hand through his hair in frustration. "Petty squabbling self-righteous idiots. They spend more time assaulting each other's pet theories and reputations and egos than in scientifically testing their hypotheses. And I dare swear half of them are lying about their results, because they cannot all have 'proven' theories at diametric opposites to each other!"
"They are human, sir," I said, very carefully. "Humans make mistakes, and are easily hurt."
"A man's ego has nothing to do with the objective outcome of an experiment."
I sighed despite myself. "Master Cain... they are not all independently wealthy. Most of them are not. A researcher must have funds and supplies in order to perform his research... and unsuccessful research is often terminated."
"In other words -- the independently wealthy ones feel free to continue their testing until they have amassed enough data to be able to discard the results at odds with their favorite notion, and the dependent ones feel obliged to falsify their results in order to continue to receive funding?"
I felt obliged to defend my former profession through an obscure and uncomfortable guilt. "Not in all cases, sir. I'm certain that many of them are sincere, and that perhaps some of their differing results were based on different methodology..."
"The fact that such fraud happens at all is an insult to the concept of scientific inquiry!"
"Likewise, murder is an insult to the concept of civilization, Master Cain; and yet it happens as well. We are not truly as civilized as we like to think, even in this age of rationalism."
Master Cain swept his arm across the desk to clear a space, pulled three books out of the pile, and thumped them down in front of me with an air of utter exasperation. "This one swears that a woman must be bled before the labor and have her abdomen strictly corseted to prevent excessive accumulation of fluids during the pregnancy and hemorrhaging at birth. This one maintains that bleeding a woman leads to an increased mortality rate among both mothers and children, and that corseting leads to birth defects, but there is some nonsense about grinding up pig's bones in some unholy witch's brew the mother is to consume in the third trimester. And this one has conceived some wild-eyed theory about sub-racial incompatibilities -- that a light-haired, blue-eyed mother should never be permitted to wed a dark-haired, dark-eyed father because his blood would be stronger than hers somehow, making the pregnancy more difficult to carry to term, and he claims that the rarity of blue-eyed children born to such a family is his proof -- how on earth are the two thoughts even connected?"
"I'm certain I don't know, sir."
He shoved his chair back, digging both hands through his hair and staring up at the ceiling. "At least two of them must be lying about their results, if not all three. What am I to believe?"
"If nothing else, sir, it does seem to indicate that women and children are much hardier than one would expect, given that any of them were able to successfully bear healthy children through such eccentric experimentation. Perhaps they are not lying; perhaps they were simply testing something which was irrelevant. I notice that none of them mentions whether they also studied a group of women upon whom no experiments had been performed."
"And the only one who recorded information such as the women's height and weight was the lunatic with the fancy for corseting and bleeding, which would in itself skew the results obtained..." He ran a palm down his face. "I am not about to try to tie that woman into a corset and slit her wrists in order to 'improve' her pregnancy's development."
"Commendable, sir," I said. "I'm sure she will thank you as well."
"But there has to be something I can do..." He stood, and began to pace irritably about the room. "It seems self-evident to me how many of these things must be terrible ideas, given that the human race survived without corseting, bleeding, and pig's-bone brews long enough to bear the fools writing those books. But for the life of me, I cannot distinguish which among these self-aggrandizing ill-conceived contrivances would be a good thing to do for her."
I was comforted to realize that for all his unsettling words about establishing human stables for study, what still lay at the innermost core of his impatient inquisitive drive was the desire to help the individual whose cause he had championed. Even though no one had been murdered, Althea had certainly been wronged by the man who had used her and left her. Something in Master Cain's soul responded to that as deeply as he had to the victims of his previous crusades, even if he told himself he cared only for the child.
"If I might offer a bit of guidance, sir..."
He gestured vaguely, still too restless to settle again, and started pacing another futile circuit of the study.
"I think perhaps we should read with a more selective eye. It is not scientific, I admit, but one can hardly test each of these theories on Miss Althea in order to prove or disprove their merit in the most empirical sense. Since no one can accept all of the things written here, it seems most prudent to guide ourselves by the principle of -- for lack of a better word -- gentleness."
He made a rueful, amused sound. "Do you always judge a remedy's efficacy by its gentleness?"
"No, of course not, sir; it would rule out the use of surgery. But in this case it seems advisable." I closed a couple of books which were the most egregious offenders, and pulled another one closer to myself. "If we approach this search looking for those remedies which seem least likely to cause harm, then we may also find some which do good in the process... and at least we will not have made things worse."
Master Cain pulled the chair back over to the desk and sat down beside me again, and leaned an elbow on the desktop with a small sigh. "Lead on, then," he said, wry. "You are far more skilled than I in gentleness."
You are not as unkind a person as you think yourself to be, Master Cain. "As you wish, sir."
Over the next several hours, we crafted a list together of remedies we considered unlikely to be harmful, and then re-sorted them based on the secondary criterion of "would Miss Althea permit this to be done to her."
"I do think providing her with milk is a good idea," I said. "After all, milk is meant for the very young, so surely the mother's consumption of it would do no particular harm to the unborn either."
"Providing, yes, of course," Master Cain said with a sigh. "But there is the proverb about leading the horse to water; I suspect that if left to her own devices the woman would rather bathe in it as a beauty-treatment than drink it. Still, there are certainly farms enough in the area. ...And I'm certain we can rule out hot springs; the nearest one I know of is in Bath, and she might have given birth by the time we took her that far."
"She is not quite so far along as you think," I said. "I would estimate that she has another month to six weeks left."
His brows arched skyward in mute but eloquent disbelief. "And you insist she won't burst?"
"I promise, sir," I said, hoping that I would not find myself feeling extremely silly at the first instance of a woman's bursting in the entire history of human pregnancy. But on that one point, I felt the chances were so unlikely that I could safely give him my word on it. "And even if Bath is too far, there is nothing to say that we could not contrive a way to heat water at the cottage for her. I'm sure the therapeutic effects for childing women have less to do with the minerals in the water and more to do with warmth and support applied to aching muscles unaccustomed to carrying such weight."
He chuckled. "I can hardly spend the next six weeks walking with her, with my arms about her waist to help carry her weight for her, at that. But I'd imagine she'd be scaldingly indignant if I were even to suggest such a thing. --Therefore, I shall have to suggest it at the next opportunity, of course."
I made a silent note to myself that perhaps I should very slightly revise my opinion of Master Cain's inherent kindness. Ever so slightly, of course, but the point was there to be observed. While it was a truly kind thought to offer to help her carry the burden she had thus far carried alone, suggesting it simply to watch her shout the ceiling down was not much akin to kindness...
"As you wish, sir," I said, very carefully, and began to place bookmarks in the open books and stack them more neatly on the desk. "As it's almost time for dinner...?"
Master Cain made a small disappointed sound. "But there's so much left to learn!"
"Do you learn everything there is to know about a poison in one afternoon's study, sir?"
The corner of his mouth quirked. "Well. An afternoon and a small animal or two would be enough to tell whether or not it is actually toxic; what remains beyond that point is the question of dosage and dilution... but I take your point. How long can you keep these books?"
"I can renew them if need be," I said. "But these books are not our only source of information, sir. Considering that half the world's population is of the correct gender, and likely more than half of those are old enough to give birth..."
His eyes lit from within. "Riff, how many of the staff have children?"
With some trepidation, I said, "Quite a few, sir."
Suddenly, he was more than happy to leave the books and the study behind and hurry downstairs to the dining room.
I followed with somewhat unseemly haste, already dreading what my injudicious comment might have set loose upon the unsuspecting women of the household.
* * *
Although I kept a sharp eye on Master Cain throughout dinner, he behaved himself with extraordinary decorum, considering his usual behavior while in the grip of some sleuthing pursuit. He engaged the housekeeper in a far too innocently inquisitive-sounding discussion of her family life, and he asked about several maids and some other staff members' families; but since he never mentioned the word "stable," I thought it safe to let myself relax a bit.
After all these years, I should have known better.
My mistake was in letting him out of my sight after dinner. While I was going about my usual business of seeing the house quieted and closed up for the night, Master Cain was busying himself with cutting an astounding swathe of mortification and terror through the ranks of the female staff.
Much to my chagrin, I only realized what had been happening the next morning -- when the red-faced housekeeper brandished a fistful of resignation papers under my nose and started in on a nearly incoherent tirade about civility and the lack thereof and proper treatment of one's social inferiors and how the whole staff had heard the rumors about Master Cain's abnormal tastes and peculiar behaviors but they'd previously thought the poor abused boy a less despicable sort than his philandering father and since he'd never abused the staff they hadn't given the rumors credence until now and it was all just terribly appalling and I reached out and clamped a hand over her mouth to get a word in edgewise.
"Have any of them left yet?" I asked, more sharply than I ought to have.
The housekeeper shook her head a little, pointing toward the stairs to the servants' quarters.
"You're not to let them out of the building," I said. "I'll take them to the parlor and try to talk them out of it. If anyone tries to make it past you, send them to me first..." I plucked the brandished papers out of her hands and skimmed through them as I took the stairs two at a time.
And so I spent the next four hours amid a cluster of sobbing, shouting, outraged, terrorized, and humiliated women -- all mothers or rumored mothers-to-be -- and I struggled desperately to bring some sort of order to the chaos.
"And he said something about a camera! Appalling-- I have no words--"
"I understand why you're upset--"
"--I know there are... rumors... but I'm not! I'd never dare scandalize the house-- I've just... gained a bit..."
"I understand that, but--"
"--It's just that sometimes mornings disagree with me, that's all -- but I'd never--"
"Maggie, give it up already; half the country knows about you and the baker's son!"
"How dare you say such a thing? Is that where the master got such a dreadful idea about me? Of all the nerve -- unfounded allegations -- sheer slander--"
"But the question at hand--"
"Never mind Maggie and her loose skirts, what I can't believe is that he wanted to take away my corset! As if a lord and a gentleman would have any business--"
"It's not really--"
"All right! All right, damn your prying eyes, yes, I-- I'm--"
"That's hardly news; anyone with eyes knows about her. But I'm a married woman, I don't deserve to be threatened like this -- to have my very livelihood threatened if I don't comply with his perverse--"
"I'll be fired anyway, Mr. Raffit, I know I will -- at least this way I can leave on my own terms, rather than being thrown out for a tramp--"
"But he doesn't intend--"
"You are a tramp, girl, but as for the rest of us-- a camera! How dare he--"
"Will you all please just SHUT UP?" I shouted at the top of my lungs.
Every head in the room swiveled to stare at me.
I cleared my throat awkwardly, and took a deep breath to try to get it all said at once, lest their momentary shock revert back to chattering indignation before I had a chance to intervene.
"Master Cain has no intention of firing anyone. Neither for a bit of indiscretion nor for anything else. If you're uncomfortable with his requests, tell him so. You may need to be rather firm. He's quite stubborn when he has an idea in his head. But you won't be fired for telling him you won't let him take pictures or steal your corsets or whatever else it is he's asked of you. He's simply trying to learn about... well... families, and how they begin. Please. I promise you, no one will be fired for any of this, and I'd be truly, deeply grateful if you would choose not to resign. Please, stay here, and help me teach him how it is that normal families live... because it's something he's never known."
The women looked at me with expressions ranging from desperate hope to complete skepticism, and then they looked at each other, and the chattering started again.
"Nobody could call this family normal, could they. The poor thing..."
"You have to admit, at least he's not like his father..."
"At least you knew where you stood with his father! Of all the impertinent--"
I sighed, and folded myself carefully into a chair, and sat to wait for some of the carnage
to die down again.
After several hours' desperate negotiation, and my sworn word to write up a list of the women's complaints and take it to Master Cain personally, I convinced all but one of them to stay. Unfortunately, while I'd been taken by the diplomatic crisis, the housekeeper had been taken by lunch, and two more maids simply left without even turning in their resignation papers.
On the bright side, at least we hadn't lost the lot of them, I thought, stalking back up the main staircase with a carefully detailed list of the women's requests clutched in a hand shaking with tension. I knocked on the door of the study hard enough to rattle it in its frame.
Master Cain swung the door open and greeted me with a dazzling sunny smile, and caught at my arm to drag me over to his pile of books. "Riff, look here, I think I've found something useful--"
I tried very hard to keep my voice even. "Master Cain, there's something we need to discuss."
He shoved his bangs back from his face and blinked up at me. "What is it?"
I didn't even know where to begin. Stop terrorizing your staff, Master Cain, or At least try to behave like a civilized being, Master Cain, or Do you know how mortifying it is to be locked up in a room with that many cackling hens for four hours while trying to talk them out of making a scandal across half the countryside, Master Cain? all seemed so... inadequate.
I set the paper down in front of him firmly. "The women of the staff have some concerns about your recent... inquisition."
Master Cain laughed. "Yes, I didn't imagine I'd have any ready volunteers, but it seemed ridiculous to overlook such a resource without even asking."
He had no idea. None whatsoever. I took another deep breath, and said, "Nearly a dozen of them tried to quit this morning. Three of them did leave. I managed to persuade the rest to stay. I went to some lengths to assure them that none of them would be fired either for saying no to you or for a child's illegitimacy."
"Of course I didn't," Master Cain said. "What on earth would have put that into their heads? Thank you for taking care of that for me."
"Master Cain..."
"What?"
He still had no idea. But, try as I might, I couldn't think of a way to explain it to him. I sighed, and said, "Please, Master Cain, if you would at least read their requests..."
He glanced down at the piece of paper, skimmed the text briefly, and laughed aloud. "If I didn't know better I'd say they'd presented you with a declaration of war. Are they that irrationally attached to their corsets?"
There was only one thing I could say. "Yes, sir, they are."
"Fine, fine."
"Master Cain--"
"Hmm?"
You'd be taking this much more seriously if you were the one who'd been henpecked for four hours this morning, sir. "Please try to be a bit more selective in what you ask of the staff, sir."
He grinned at me. "Meaning 'stop terrorizing the maids'?"
I took another deep breath, and braced myself to keep my voice as calm as humanly possible. "Yes, sir. I would be most grateful."
"Fine. So that's settled." Master Cain pointed imperiously at a seat beside him, and said, "You've got to read this!"
Feeling rather as though someone had painted a target between my shoulderblades, I sat beside him, shoulders hunched against the next onslaught from the housekeeper or the staff or the universe in general.
(part 4 coming sometime...)