Dr. Winslow made notes in his leather book, nodding at her answers. When he had finished, he closed the book and met her gaze. He was a youngish man, perhaps in his middle thirties, with waving brown hair that had been brushed back scrupulously from his face, and large brown eyes that reminded Violet of her aunt Martha’s loyal Great Dane. “Now, then, Miss Schuyler, I suspect from what you tell me that you are, indeed, with child. Do you have any objection to a physical examination to confirm the pregnancy? We can also draw blood to be absolutely sure, though the results may take a few days.”
“A physical examination will be sufficient, I’m sure,” she said, and he had shown her into a small room to the side and left her to take off her skirt and drawers but not her stockings and girdle, to lie on the hard bed and stare at the white ceiling and wait for his return.
Dr. Winslow’s fingers were warm and brief and professional. She felt them with detachment. “Well, Miss Schuyler,” he said, drawing back, “it seems you are expectant. The cervix is fully thickened, which indicates a length of gestation of at least seven weeks. I am given to understand that the pregnancy is not, however, entirely welcome?”
“No,” she whispered, still staring at the ceiling.
She heard the scrape of his chair, the rush of water at the tap as he washed his hands. “You are free to dress yourself, Miss Schuyler. I shall wait on you in the other room to discuss the case.”
When she returned to the chair before Dr. Winslow’s desk, a steaming cup of tea was waiting for her. “I took the liberty of adding cream and sugar,” he said, with another of his easy smiles.
“Thank you.” She sipped.
“Now, Miss Schuyler. If you wish to terminate this pregnancy, I will undertake the procedure. But allow me to observe that you present a unique exception to the usual sort of patient who enters my surgery with such an objective in mind.”
“Do I? In what way?”
The doctor leaned back in his chair and bent his fingers together. “She is often young and unwed, as you are, but her circumstances are entirely different. She may belong to a lower class of society, without much prospect for advancement. She may have parents to whom she cannot confess her condition, she may be a prostitute, she may be a married woman with several children already. She may have been seduced and abandoned, or in poor health, or for any number of reasons unable to bear and care for a child. I am always reluctant to perform a termination, which, apart from the considerable physical risks, is both illegal and a moral dilemma of the heaviest sort, and which would cause the end of my career if it were formally known to the various authorities.”
“Then why?” Violet whispered.
“Because I fear the consequences for the patient if I do not, and have come to the conclusion that, in these wretched cases, the procedure is the lesser of many unspeakable evils, despite the risk to the patient. Some may not agree with me, and I quite understand. The burden is a heavy one, and I bear it in full knowledge of what I do—that is, the cutting short of a nascent, if unrealized, human life, for which I shall answer one day to God.”
He paused in this speech, staring for a moment at the brown leather notebook before him. The sun was shifting, just beginning to illuminate the window glass behind him, and it cast an odd and unearthly glow about the fringes of his brown hair.
Violet, whose breath had lodged deep in her chest as he began to speak, felt her ribs sink downward as the air left her lungs.
“I cannot look into your heart, Miss Schuyler, but I urge you to think through the matter fully before you make the decision. You cannot conceive the desperation in the faces of my patients who do undertake this procedure. If you’re not desperate, if you’re not certain this is the only course, you have every right to consider this matter very carefully indeed before going forward. Consider the alternatives before you. Consider the risk of infection, of hemorrhage, of future difficulty in conceiving and carrying to term.”
He paused again. Violet watched the tiny motes of dust circle around his illuminated head.
“On the other hand,” he went on, “if you’re quite certain you cannot continue this pregnancy, I can perform the procedure right now. As Dr. Grant ordered me, over the telephone.” A slight ironic weight pressed down on the word ordered.
“He will be very angry if I don’t.”
“I fail to see how Dr. Grant’s anger should affect your decision, one way or another, Miss Schuyler. You strike me as a woman of considerable strength and intellect.”
Considerable strength and intellect. The words revolved in her head. The room was very quiet, situated at the rear of the building, and Violet could hear her own heartbeat in her ear, measured and certain and fearless, quite capable of feeding the other heartbeat that fluttered unheard somewhere inside her, the result of her heedless union with Walter, her thoughtless faith in him.