Chorus of the Dead

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Near a whole city full,

Home she had none.

Ainsley stood at Bennett's body, his arms folded over his chest, postponing the inevitable. He would have to cut open his new acquaintance, dare he say friend, and it was a dissection he'd rather have avoided. He had to undress Bennett himself, not willing to subject Mrs. Crane to any further discomfort. She seemed to be taking Bennett's death very badly and since helping Ainsley clean up the original scene, she had refused to cross the room's threshold, or even look at the body.

Not moments before Ainsley had disrobed Bennett, removing his night shift and socks and performed the cumbersome task of washing him. Had Ainsley been in his own morgue he could have performed these tasks with greater ease. Using a pitcher of warm water, a basin and various cloths and sponges Ainsley gingerly bathed Bennett one final time. He took greater care with his colleague's body than he would have were it a perfect stranger. The duties he performed were no longer just the business of medicine, they had become quite personal.

With Bennett covered, Ainsley procrastinated. With his arms crossed and his eyes fixated on the body in front of him, the young doctor hesitated. For a moment he wondered if he could do it, if he could actually cut open a person he knew, a person he was just speaking with the day before.

He needed a drink and tried to ignore the urge to pull his flask out of the pocket of his jacket, which had been laid aside in the other room. Ainsley bit into his thumbnail.

There was a knock on the door and Mrs. Crane appeared in the hall. "There is a young miss--" she stopped short and looked away sharply, her eyes having grazed the image of the newly deceased doctor on Ainsley's makeshift examination table. Though Bennett was covered by a white sheet, the image was obviously too much for her. She turned her body, crossing her arms over her stomach and forcibly looked to the ground. She started again, more determined, "There is a young miss seeking the doctor. I had not the heart to turn her away."

Ainsley met Mrs. Crane in the hall, careful to close the door behind him. "Is she ill?"

"No, she says her brother is in a bad way."

Ainsley nodded and quickly made his way down the stairs. The girl, so skinny and malnourished looked as if she could slip out of her pinafore without the slightest movement, stood at the door to Bennett's house, her face fraught with worry. She twisted her fingers in front of her, bending them back and forth from anxiousness. "Are you the doctor?" she asked at once.

"I am a doctor, yes," Ainsley replied.

"Willy's hot as a fire poker and we've tried everything but he ain't gettin' no better."

Ainsley nodded. "Where do you live child?"

"Tallow Lane."

Armed with Bennett's doctor's bag Ainsley followed the girl, who he learned was named Callie, to Tallow Lane on the opposite side of town. As Ainsley hurried along he noticed the houses became closer and closer together and their state of repair became less and less affluent. Turning from the main road onto Tallow Lane Ainsley found himself staring into the dirty faces of malnourished children playing in the cobblestone streets. They wore no shoes and their clothes were so threadbare he wondered how none of them froze to death in the late season cold. Little girls with tangled hair and mud smeared hands looked up from water pumps, their faces solemn and resigned. Little boys, no more than three years old played with pebbles and sticks but quickly cleared the way as his ominous form approached. All of the small, broken faces looked at him as he passed but avoided his gaze, giving him a wide berth where he walked.