Chapter thirty-two
Iron and Egg White
Violet
The egg whites came in five minutes. Violet lifted Henry’s head and pressed the glass to his lips. Most of it ran down his chin. She tried again, tilting his head further. It was crucial for her to line his stomach with egg white to induce vomiting and to neutralize the poison.
“Drink, Henry. You must drink.”
She did not know if he could hear her but gradually, he seemed to swallow better. After he drank a third, she laid him back on the pillow and grabbed the extra basin. She fed him again. After half, he began to vomit.
“Good, Henry. Good. This is good,” her voice broke. When he was finished emptying his stomach, she held the glass to his lips again. He waved his hand side to side ever so slightly. “No, you must drink it all. There’s more poison that needs to come up.” She lifted his head and fed him the rest. He vomited. She held the basin and told him it was good, it was working, in a voice thatwas half sob and half relief. At last, she settled him with extra pillows.
When warm water arrived, she removed his shirt and placed a clean towel over his chest. She wrung out a cloth and scrubbed his face, his jaw, his neck—every place the razor and lather had touched. She scrubbed hard, rinsing the cloth in clean water and scrubbing again until the skin was raw and clean. She then washed his torso, cleaning vomit off his chest. She refused assistance from Mrs Greer and other maids. He was her husband, and she would take care of him.
Shortly after, Dr Bainbridge arrived with the Duchess of Cranbrook. He was a tall man with a sharp nose and an air of authority that entered the room before he did. He set his bag on the dressing table, took one look at Henry, and pressed two fingers to his wrist.
“Pulse is rapid. Fever is high. The mottling on the arms is consistent with a constitutional poison.” He opened Henry’s eyelids and examined his pupils. “Dilated. How long has he been like this?”
“Since this morning,” Violet said. “His valet found him at eleven. He was well last evening.”
“You are certain it is arsenic?”
“I heated his shaving soap over a flame. It smelled of garlic.”
Dr Bainbridge looked at her for a long moment. “That is not a test I would have expected from a duchess.”
“My mother is a botanist.”
“Ah.” He opened his bag and produced a lancet and a porcelain bleeding bowl. “I shall open a vein in his arm. The blood is contaminated and must be drawn off.”
“No.”
The word came out of her before she decided to say it. Dr Bainbridge paused with the lancet in his hand.
“Your Grace—”
“He is weakened. His pulse is already rapid. If you bleed him, you remove the blood his body needs to carry the poison to his kidneys for expulsion. You will make him weaker, and he will die faster.”
“With respect, Your Grace, the practice of phlebotomy is the standard treatment—”
“For fever, yes. And I disapprove of that too. This is poisoning. The fever is a symptom, not the disease. If you treat the symptom and ignore the cause, you will kill him.”
Dr Bainbridge set the lancet down. His mouth was a thin line. “I have been practising medicine for thirty years.”
“And my mother has been studying poisons for longer. She is on her way. If you would be so kind as to wait.”
The doctor regarded the Duchess of Cranbrook. A crease formed between her brows. “What are you looking at me for, Bainbridge? You heard what the duchess said. Go and wait.”
The silence in the room was brittle. Dr Bainbridge looked at Henry, at Violet, at the glass. He picked it up and examined the slimy liquid on the bottom of the glass. “You gave him albumen.”
“Yes. To bind the arsenic.”
“That,” he said slowly, “is sound.”
“Of course,” Cranbrook said, lifting her chin slightly. “She must be the cleverest duchess currently living. I am including myself in that comparison and that is no small matter.”
The tears came the moment her mother walked through the door. Lady Thornwick set down her bag, gripped Violet’s shoulders once, and said, “There is no time for that now, dear. Tell me. What have you done so far?”
