Page 68 of The Heir
His hands clenched empty air again. “Ma—Miss. Was my father going to be dismissed?”
This startled her. “I had not heard that. Why would you think it?”
“My father owed so much money . . . ,” Dr. Gerald whispered. Victoria had to lean forward to hear him. “He could not pay, but he would not stop . . . I was afraid . . .” He swallowed. “I was afraid he’d begun to embezzle from the medical household. To steal from you.”
Chapter 30
“What makes you think he was stealing?” Victoria asked.
The idea left Victoria shocked. But as the possibility settled into her mind, she found also that she was not surprised.
She had been convinced for some time that Sir John was paying Dr. William Maton to be his talebearer and possibly his spy. This talk of a gentleman arriving with an offer of a pension for the family in return for their silence seemed to cement that conclusion.
A man willing to sell lies for money might well turn to outright theft.
“I’d been suspicious for some time,” Dr. Gerald said. “I knew he had mountains of debt. My mother had been very upset about it. So upset that my brothers and I—well, you must believe me when I say nothing less than the possibility of ruin could have united the three of us enough to go speak with our father and find out how he meant to extricate himself, and us, from his troubles.
“However, when we did, he told us not to worry. He said that he knew his affairs had gotten out of control, and promised solemnly that all would shortly be put to rights. And for a time it seemed he was telling the truth. Julius said that he had begun to pay down the bills, and that when tradesmen came to the door, they were no longer being sent away empty-handed. So, I was hopeful. That was, I think, a month before he died.”
Dr. Gerald paused. He was gathering himself, forcing down anger, disappointment, and grief so he could speak plainly. “Then father died so suddenly, and we looked into his account books, or, I should say, Julius looked. But it was Marcus who told me Julius found some strange entries in his ledgers.”Marcus is the middle brother.“There were large amounts of money, one hundred pounds and more, that had no obvious source. None of us could understand it. They weren’t gambling wins. He marked those differently. That was when Marcus raised the possibility our father had been stealing. Then you came here and . . .”
Victoria nodded. He assumed that was what she wished to talk about. Which brought them to what might be the most important question. Unfortunately, there was no easy or diplomatic way to ask it.
“Do you know what caused your father’s death?”
For one moment, Victoria thought the man in front of her was going to cry.
“My brother said his heart must have stopped. I only saw his body briefly.” His words were thick, harsh, and bitter. “If there was a wound or a blow of some sort, I saw no sign. So I suppose in the end, it truly was his heart. But as to what caused it to stop—” He closed his mouth.
Victoria watched him for a moment—watched the way his gaze shifted, the way his whole demeanor hardened.
“You may say anything,” she told him. “I will respect your every confidence, as I am trusting you to respect mine.”
I am not just a young woman you need to protect, and I am not a patient you need to humor, she thought toward him.I am someone quite different, and you know it.
But which way would that difference push him?
“We know so little. Physicians,” he said bitterly. “We spout our Latin and our Greek and talk so gravely about humors and heartbeats, bleeding and cupping and scarring, and we knownothing. Sometimes I swear the oldest country midwife knows more about the secrets of the human body than we do.”
Victoria let Dr. Gerald have this moment with his anger. She understood what it was to have knowledge withheld and to be helpless because of it. Sometimes the only remedy was to shout at whoever was nearest.
“When my father was brought home, when I heard about this mysterious pension that would be distributed in return for silence, the first thing I thought was that he had been murdered.”
Victoria’s mind went utterly blank. Certainly, she had whispered the word to herself as she mulled over what she might find. Now that it was spoken aloud, however, she felt startled and coldly frightened. It was a moment before she herself could speak.
“But if he was killed, if there was no wound or blow, how could it have been done?”
Dr. Gerald deflated, and Victoria regretted her question. It was heartless. She was speaking of his father, after all. She, of all people, should have some understanding of how much that loss could hurt.
But she did not apologize. She needed his answer.
“He cannot have been choked,” said Dr. Gerald slowly. “There would have been a bruise. He might have been smothered.” He stopped. “Or poisoned.”
“Dr. Clarke said he had been suffering from a stomach ailment.”
If Dr. Gerald had looked uncertain a moment before, now he appeared truly shaken.
“My mother mentioned he had not been well, but she did not say—” He stared blankly at his desktop. “My father and I didn’t speak often. I . . . disagreed with how he conducted his affairs, and we quarreled.” He pulled a handkerchief from out of his pocket and wiped at his face. “There was a case once . . . I consulted on it for a friend of mine. A man with a stomach ailment that would not yield to any treatment. He could keep nothing at all down. He began to experience seizures . . . In the end it transpired that his daughter was mixing arsenic with the sugar she put in his coffee, several spoonfuls a day, morning and evening.”
