Title: Ladies in Distress, Part 3/4
Author: Sherry Thornburg
Author's Email: Thornburgs77 a gmail
Feedback: Yes, please
Permission to Archive: Privately only, with notice to me and where it is.
Category: Suspense
Rating/Warning: T
Main Characters: Sir Jonathan Chatsworth and Phileas and Rebecca Fogg
Disclaimer: SAJV and original characters copywrite Tailsman/Promark/etc., no infringement is intended.
Summary: Sir Jonathan Chatsworth discovers an old friend's wife taken advantage of by a con man. When he discovers the man's repeated villainy against women includes domestic and international espionage, he takes up the cause, enlisting Phileas and Rebecca. Their cat-and-mouse chase delves into the plight of women in Victorian society and explores Rebecca's relationships with Phileas and Chatsworth.
Chapter 21
In a much more pleasant frame of mind, Chatsworth went to have tea the next day with Katrina. He was visiting her more often now. Their friend Daniel had been very pleased at the idea of their courtship and had been obliging about leaving them alone on his visits. The parlor door was closed, giving them more privacy. Sir Jonathan did not take advantage of this freedom as much as he could. Katrina was, after all, a respectable widow; but they were adults in love and did not pretend otherwise.
Katrina was much stronger of mind. She had been told some of what was happening in his campaign against Jordan. She marveled at the idea of a female field agent with envy in her eyes.
"Your lady agent, this Miss Fogg," Katrina said; "she has the respect of her peers? Is she treated equally to the others, or is she sponsored into acceptance as I was while Robert was alive?"
Sir Jonathan looked back a bit before answering. He had always been aware of Rebecca Fogg, even though he had never worked with her until he became head of the service. At that point he had not been overly enthusiastic but had been required to bow to higher authorities who did not want her retired. Little by little, his attitude changed as he saw her successes and the way other agents accorded her respect. He did not like thinking of his earlier attitudes.
Patronizing at the best, but I can acknowledge the change and be happy for the improvement.
"She is more than equal," Sir Jonathan said. "Rebecca is highly respected. In the beginning, sponsorship by her guardian, who was the director, may have been involved, but she has proved her worth to the point I could not imagine the service without her."
"You mean that," Katrina said. It was a statement acknowledging his praise.
"I mean that exactly," Chatsworth said.
Katrina pulled a picture frame from beside the sofa where she had hidden it until his arrival. She showed it to him, causing a slight grimace to come to his face before a smile. The frame held a certificate she had treasured for years. He looked at this piece of paper again for the second time in his life and wondered at the foolhardiness, ignorance, and arrogance of his youth.
"You made me the happiest woman in the world the day this came," Katrina said.
He acknowledged her deserved pride in it and let the years roll back to the party he and his friends had thrown to celebrate.
They had all graduated that year and Katrina had been helping drill the medical students for their examinations. Robert, more than the others, knew how much she had thrown herself into learning from them and had done all he could to help her. His wife had a keen mind and a passion for medicine that had matched his own. Having her work with him as his nurse, and as a fully trained partner in his future practice, had appealed to him.
He and a few others had even proudly said that she could have passed the exams herself. A few others insisted it was impossible and vehemently denied it. The arguments continued for weeks, coming up again and again until they had come up with a way to settle.
Chatsworth's maternal uncle, Vincent Butterfield, had worked in the university offices. Jonathan had done some work there himself to assist the old man in return for tutoring. Robert knew this and had asked Chatsworth to set up an off-campus graduation test for a relative of his who had been injured and in need of special accommodation. Robert provided him with the young man's academic record and a letter of need. He even offered to provide his home as the test site and himself as an extra monitor.
That sort of thing was rare, but not unheard of. Jonathan went to his uncle about it. It was approved. Jonathan and Robert could act as witnesses, and Mr. Butterfield would administer it.
On the day of the tests, Robert met Jonathan and his uncle at the campus office to escort them to his house. As they were going around a corner to a long hall, a student carrying a large heavy tray came around the corner hurriedly and ran straight into Mr. Butterfield. Robert pulled Jonathan out of the way just in time, but his uncle collided with the student head on. In the collision, the tray spilled out its contents, drenching the older man with formaldehyde from chest to toes.
Angry yelling followed. Mr. Butterfield was helped back to his office with the smelly stuff all over him and the culprit in tow. "There is no way I can administer the test in such a condition." He fumed. "I can't even go home and change. I will not walk back home smelling like a pickled cadaver."
"Do you have to be there, sir?" Robert said. "Could not Jonathan officiate?"
Mr. Butterfield stopped his tirade for a moment. "Most unusual, but yes, that would be permissible. You've seen me administer tests before, Jonathan. Go on. I will see you later this afternoon.
"As for you," he growled at the student who had ruined his suit. "You will go to my house and ask my wife for a new set of clothes. And you will be quick about it."
Jonathan's uncle took the test envelope from his smelly valise, put it in a leather portfolio and turned it over to him. They were instructed of the proper procedures and told to bring it back to him directly for grading.
Jonathan and Robert hurried to his house. In the parlor, Jonathan was introduced to the relative to be examined.
Kay M. McTavish was Robert's own Katrina Marie.
Chatsworth went through shock, anger, and terror all at the same time. It was outrageous. If my uncle ever found out that the test was for a woman… This university doesn't take women for any field of study; My friends and I could be expelled, and maybe even lose all our years of study. Jonathan had already taken his exams. He had watched his uncle proudly pen his diploma, and knew with no doubts, he would tear it in two over such a fraud.
"How could you possibly do this to me?" he cried.
His friends did their best to calm him. The nay saying party assured him a woman could not pass the tests and the matter would end. The others said he could remove the evidence once the test was graded, and no one would ever remember it.
In the end, he had no choice; Jonathan could not go back to his uncle without a completed test.
With great trepidation, he administered the test with eight witnesses. Katrina was held to the requirements and time limits rigidly. When done, the test was sealed and taken back to his uncle's office with Robert in tow. Jonathan's uncle, now smelling only slightly of his past accident, took it, promising to have it graded by the next day.
The next morning, Jonathan went to the offices early. He intended to find the test results and put their folly to an end. But the file on Kay M. McTavish was nowhere to be found.
His uncle walked in, finding him scurrying about. He thanked his nephew for his supposed dutifulness but told him the results had been filed. "Mr. McTavish's results were added in time for his diploma to be presented in the usual way."
"Sh–He passed the exam?" Jonathan stammered. "I, I was just, just looking for the results to tell Robert."
"You can tell Robert that Kay's name will be in on rolls of graduates beside his own name."
Jonathan nearly died. He was pleased for Katrina, proud even; but he was deadly afraid of what would happen if anyone found out what he had done.
Kay M. McTavish was announced as a graduate in the ceremonies as an absentee. The diploma was given to Robert, along with his own. That night at the McTavish home, the celebration dinner for all turned into a victory party for Katrina. Despite his admonishment that she allowed no one to see the thing, and a sternly warned his friends to never speak of it, Jonathan had celebrated with them with as much pride in Katrina's accomplishment as her husband.
"Kay M. McTavish," he read from the diploma with a smile. "You know, our alma mater is taking lady students now. Not in medical studies, but in selected fields."
"Truly," Katrina said with a devilish smile. "They will never take away my honor of being the first female graduate, even if they don't know it. I am so proud of this, Jon, and very grateful to you for letting me prove myself. You can't possibly know how much it has meant to me over the years to look at this and know what it means. Unfortunately, I have also learned it means nothing outside my parlor."
She sighed. A note of regret and bitterness marred her face.
Robert had given her the freedom as the wife of a doctor to use her knowledge working with him. Katrina had been his equal in his clinic, and later, as his research assistant. Yet, that freedom had been stripped from her at his death. In the outer world, she found doctors and hospitals that used nurses did not respect them as professionals, nor did society. Private nursing, which she turned to in widowhood, was a low servant's position. In taking on such work, Katrina lost not only her companion in life but her respectability in society. It was not fair, but it was the way it was. The worst part had been knowing she could have been a doctor in her own right if the times had allowed it.
"Robert honored me for this," she said, brushing her fingers over the glass. "Daniel gives me more freedom with his patients because of it. But out in the world…"
She did not finish.
"Maybe one day other women will do as Rebecca has done and make paths into professions, even medicine," He allowed. "Do not let yourself be upset if your time is not right for the change. Changes come gradually. Nursing is getting a little respect now that Miss Barton is making improvements in training. It is just a matter of time."
Chatsworth took her teacup from her small hands and set it beside his own. He then pulled her to him and kissed his fellow alumni for the rest of the visit.
As he was leaving, Katrina touched his sleeve at the door. She had a troubled look in her eyes. "Jon, do not let your Miss Fogg suffer in this as I have. I know it is just an act; she has lost nothing, but there was more than just the money to consider. I lost a great deal of self-respect, and I hated Robert for what I thought he had done to me. You cannot know how I have suffered for that. Robert was never anything but good to me. I blamed him for being stripped of my self-worth and security for years. It was hell on earth."
She lowered her face, not wanting to let him see the pain she was reliving.
"Jordan's games turned me against the people I needed most. Miss Fogg should not be made to feel those things for her cousin. Promise me you will get to her quickly and see that Jordan's poison does not hurt her."
She said it with such passion he saw tears glittering in her eyes.
Chatsworth took her hand from his sleeve and kissed it. "I promise. We will watch her closely. The moment Jordan leaves after telling his lies, I will be there to tell her the truth."