“Apparently, she never recalled feeling them!” Horace fumbled the pipe he’d been filling, and the tobacco tumbled across his lap and hideous chair. “She dismissed them as stomach complaints.”
“Maria auitami,” Mrs. Phipps groaned under her breath. Nora wasn’t the only one who’d learned Italian in the two years on the Continent.
Nora stood and rolled her stiff shoulders as she tried to gather her thoughts. The walls shivered with the wind, and the light from the lamps shook the shadows in a strange dance. “We need nurses. We need money. And the money we need is at Marylebone.” Nora pressed her unsteady palms together to hide her doubts. “I have to give the lecture and win them over.”
Daniel’s eyebrows flexed. “You understand the strings attached?”
Nora straightened her shoulders. “We have no choice. TellAunt I won’t embarrass her.”
She quietly prayed it was the truth.
Chapter 31
Nora’s gaze crept up the ornate columns flanking the foyer of the lecture hall. She flinched. The size of this place… “Might as well be Parliament,” she muttered.
“Not so very large,” Horace grumbled. “But I didn’t know we were coming to an aviary. Look at the plumage.”
Nora laughed, then ducked her head to stifle the sound. No color in the palette had been neglected—dresses, hats, feathers, jewels, clashing in a garish riot of fashion. But what else did she expect from the wealthy attendees of Marylebone Literary and Scientific Institute lectures, who flocked to Grotrian Hall as much to be apprised of the newest styles as the latest news in art and science.
Unfortunately, her midwives, after careful, persistent coaxing to attend, now appeared poised to bolt.
Every attendee had been forced to consult a corpulent physician as they arrived, who checked each wrist for rapid pulse or clammy skin, vigilant in keeping the cholera far from their respected circle. He’d taken one look at Nora’s modestly dressed guests and insisted on feeling for fevers, and humiliated the women by looking at their tongues before reluctantly letting them through.
“Good heavens,” Ruth whispered over her shoulder. Mrs.Howell and Mrs. Bailey looked too pale and intimidated to say a thing. “What have you gotten us into?”
Squelching her own misgivings, Nora touched Ruth’s arm—less a kind gesture, perhaps, than her attempt to keep the others from fleeing the room. “Don’t let that man intimidate you.”
“I’ll show these ladies to their seats,” Mrs. Phipps offered, nodding at the reserved chairs in the front row. Nora glanced to her other side, but Horace had disappeared, wandering off to talk to someone. Unlike her, he relished large crowds. More ears to hear his tales.
Nora scanned the assemblage for Daniel, who was escorting his aunt tonight as a conciliatory offering. She located Aunt Wilcox in the fourth row, appraising the spectacle she’d created. No sign of Daniel, though. Worried, Nora cast her eyes again over the crowd and found him, weaving his way toward her.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, darting a look at Aunt Wilcox.
“She’s in a pet,” Daniel said. “I think she expected a smaller crowd.”
She thinks I’ll humiliate her.Nora blew out air slowly. She’d followed Aunt’s rules of dressing to the letter—with Julia’s help. She’d borrowed a burgundy silk gown and an ornament she could not bring herself to call a hat. It was a scrap of netting, a velvet ribbon, and a flower. She’d thought it too fine for the evening until now, looking over the crowd.
“I wish I’d worn nicer jewelry,” she whispered.
“That’s not going to help.” He stepped close and tapped her temple. “This will.”
Heat stung her eyes. Daniel’s intellect garnered respect, but Nora had never received the same, not from all her study, practice, and skill. “I wish Horace hadn’t abandoned me to discuss his newest fossil or whatever he’s on about.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows. “You’re fine on your own. Didn’t need him in Italy, did you?”
No, but now she wished she could look out and spot Magdalena.She turned her glance to Mrs. Phipps and the midwives. Women on my side.
Her lips quirked. It wasn’t at all the same. None of them had Magdalena’s audacity or confidence. Therefore, the confidence—and maybe the audacity, too—must come from her.
“I’ll see you afterward,” Daniel said, and left after squeezing her hand.
Her stiff, trailing skirts whispered against the floorboards as she half stumbled to the table in the middle of the room, feeling like a girl playing dress-up. But this wasn’t a game of pretend. Three quiet midwives, waiting with impassive faces in the first row, and hundreds more across England depended on her to plead their case.
Row upon row of crowded seats surrounded her. It would have felt even more claustrophobic if not for the dark skylights overhead.
The president of the Marylebone society stood and called the meeting to order, giving a complimentary, but anemic, introduction. He hesitated over his notes, especially at the part describing where and in what Nora had earned her university degree. She walked to the lectern like she was making her way across a tightrope.
“Thank you for having me.” The words came out weak and scratchy.
