The invincible miss cust, p.12
The Invincible Miss Cust, page 12
“I hope you do not think me rude, Mr. Taylor, but please do not offer to help me. If you do so, it confirms what the others think: that I am not strong enough for this job.”
“Of course,” he replied. “I should have realized that. My apologies. I will not do it again.”
“Thank you.”
“But if you do need help, I hope you will ask me for it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Taylor. I will.”
“Will you call me Fred?”
“And I am Aleen. Without an i.”
He did not miss a beat. “Without an eye? But it seemed you had an extra one in class the other day.”
It was good to have a friend at college. It helped that Fred was an excellent cricketer—sporting prowess counted for a great deal among veterinary surgeon trainees—and my classmates held him in high esteem. His presence at my side deterred the sneering. That is not to say, however, that my mettle was not still occasionally put to the test.
One day, once the teacher had gone and as I gathered my things to leave the dissecting room, I saw Toby close the door and lock it. It was the end of the final class of the day, and I was eager to leave for the library and to go through the notes I had made during the typically messy session. There was a strange hush in the room.
Fred, catching my eye from a few yards away, jerked his head toward a corner. I pointed toward the door. He shook his head and again gestured to the corner. What was going on? Was I being set up? Why lock the door? I looked around for clues. That’s when I realized why Fred insisted I move; I was plum in the middle of the pitch. I hurried to the corner.
Across the way, Piggers posed like a batsman in front of a chair, holding an ox forelimb and scapula we had dissected and examined earlier. On the opposite side of the room—behind the very spot I had just abandoned—Toby gathered a pile of fascia; that is, the membranous coverings of the muscles we had torn away to reveal the structure beneath it. He was the bowler, and pieces of fascia, the balls. The other students—the fieldsmen—moved into position around the room.
“Psst, psst!”
I looked at Fred. He gestured that I should put my books on the floor. I grimaced but obeyed.
Toby walked backward until he reached the wall. He glanced at the blob of fascia in his hand and performed a slow, theatrical bowling motion, which culminated in his arm windmilling above his head and dispatching the tissue across the room.
Piggers stepped forward and swung the bone, which connected with the fascia with a solid splat. An arm shot out over a desk and caught it, but not before a spray of watery blood spewed across its path. There was a cheer.
“Good shot, Piggers!”
“Come on, Spreull! Look lively!”
“Well caught, Dobson!”
Toby ambled back to the pile of fascia, selected a piece, lined up, and bowled again. Piggers walloped it across the room. This time, nobody caught the blob of membrane. It slapped into the wall, where it was momentarily suspended before sliding down, leaving a bloody trail in its wake.
The game continued, faster and noisier with every delivery. The men applauded and laughed. The room was a mess. I looked around, pitying the janitor who would have to clean up. I noticed Fred staring intently at me once more. He gave his head a small nod toward the batsman. I needed to pay attention apparently.
I looked at Piggers as he swung the bone again, calling as he did, “For you in the midfield, Miss Custance!”
What I had not noticed was that sinewy fascia had, in this instance, been replaced with a particularly bloody piece of liver. It hurtled toward me in a soggy mass, spurting gore as it flew. The ball games I had played with my brothers prepared me well, and as I lifted my arm, opened my hand, and caught the meat, the men roared their approval. I suppressed a scowl as I looked at the smashed organ dripping in my hand and the mess it had made of my skirt.
Fred beamed.
Referred to as “muscle fights,” the pitching and hitting of the remains of dissected animals was officially prohibited at the college. However, the boisterous, blood-spattered event was something of a rite of passage for first-year students. Thankfully, once a class had engaged in the game a couple of times, muscle fights lost their appeal, and dissecting classes took place without any post-lesson sport. I was pleased. However, just because I had proven myself able in the midfield did not exempt me from demonstrating my abilities in other disciplines.
One morning, while investigating hoof rot in a pony with my class in attendance, Professor Williams called for a volunteer to lift the animal’s infected front leg. I stepped forward, ran my hand down the limb, gently lifted the mare’s hoof, and bent her leg to reveal the underside. Professor Williams pointed to the infected area around the underside of the hoof, called the frog, and described how it should be cleaned and treated.
As the teacher crouched down and ran his finger around the toe area, I felt the pony shift and lean against me. Thinking she might have lost her balance, I pushed back, hoping to right her. She did not move away. In fact, it felt that she was leaning further into me. I pushed back but still, the pony did not straighten herself. She was not a large horse but heavy nonetheless. I felt my face grow warm with exertion and moved my feet apart to bolster my position. It made no sense that she should lean against me, but I did not want to interrupt Professor Williams or appear weak. Then, I heard the quiet shuffling of shoes. I looked under the horse and saw that four of my fellow students were standing on the other side of her, pushing her onto me.
I emitted an unladylike snort of laughter. Professor Williams looked at me in surprise. He raised his head slightly and saw the men on the other side of the pony. They moved away, the horse stood straight, and I took a deep breath of relief. The principal shook his head and spent a few moments explaining preventive measures for hoof rot before stepping back.
“That will do, Miss Custance,” he said, deftly using my assumed name for the sake of the other students.
As I placed the pony’s hoof down, I felt the sweat trickle between my shoulders, and as I straightened my back, my muscles burned.
“I wanted to warn you, but I could not catch your eye,” said Fred later. “I thought you were going to buckle.”
“So did I. Thank goodness the pony was no heavier.”
“Thank goodness you have a sense of humor.”
After that, bar an incident involving a seething mass of tapeworms, which I almost scooped onto my fork as I tucked into what I believed to be an innocuous plate of bangers and mash at lunch one day, the tomfoolery stopped. Perhaps it was my stoicism or good humor. It might also have been because I achieved the highest marks in most subjects and was well on my way to winning the best first-year student award. Exactly what put a stop to the pranking, I was not sure. What I was sure of was that each week, my classmates increasingly ignored my gender. They addressed and treated me as they did one another. For the first time, others were beginning to realize, as I had long since known: I was where I belonged.
Unfortunately, as I discovered when Professor Williams sent for me one morning, my optimism was premature.
The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons had a committee dedicated to ratifying students’ certificates of education and organizing professional examinations in London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. It had come to the attention of this committee that a New Veterinary College student, that is, A. I. Custance, was a woman. The revelation, explained the principal, had sparked a debate about whether I was eligible to write the twice-annual professional Royal College examinations. Without writing and passing these examinations, it would not matter if I graduated from the New Veterinary College; I would be prohibited from officially practicing as a veterinary surgeon.
It was worse than any taunting I had been subjected to.
“Of course, while we have not advertised it, neither have we had to defend your gender until now,” said Professor Williams. “I have no idea how it came to be known and put up for discussion at this time, but it has.”
I felt light-headed and leaned against his desk. During my first weeks at college, I had feared the RCVS might dispute my enrollment and that I would have to fight to stay. However, as the months had passed and I settled in, I stopped worrying. Despite the initial resistance from my classmates, there had been no formal objections, and I’d begun feeling secure. It had not occurred to me the Royal College would turn a blind eye to my attendance but block me from writing their crucial examinations. Was the organization saying I could train but never practice? Did the committee believe I would give up and go away without creating a fuss? How cruel it seemed.
I wondered why it had happened now. My name had been on the list since I registered at the college at the beginning of the academic year. Why had my gender only been discovered now? There was little over a month to go before I was due to sit my first RCVS examination. Why wait so long to challenge my rights to the profession? Did the fact that the head office of the Royal College was in London have anything to do with it? Could my mother or Charles have taken the matter up with someone there to thwart my plans? These, however, were not questions Professor Williams could answer.
“What does it mean? What will the committee do?” I asked instead.
“No one is certain at present. I explained to them that you’ve proven yourself competent enough to attend the college, and there is no doubt that you qualify to sit the examinations. I reiterated that like all students here, you provided the stipulated requirements for admission that affirm you are eligible to study and, therefore, to sit the exams. They insisted on seeing your certificate again. I presented it.”
“Clearly, they were not satisfied.”
Professor Williams removed his spectacles and cleaned them with his handkerchief. “The committee has referred the matter to a solicitor.”
“A solicitor?”
“I am afraid so. They will send me a copy of his report when it is done.”
“So?”
“Until then, we…you shall continue as usual.”
“I should prepare for the examination?”
He nodded. “Indeed. Who knows how long the solicitor will take with his report, particularly with Christmas upon us? Besides, this does not affect your college studies and examinations. As such, you should continue as before.”
Christmas. I had looked forward to spending it at Newton Hall with the Widdringtons. To seeing Dorothy, Nugget, and Honey. To riding, even if it snowed. Would I still enjoy it with this news hanging over me?
The principal rubbed his glasses vigorously. “I argued, and I will put it in writing for Mr. Thatcher—he is the RCVS’s solicitor—that since women are now admitted to medical schools, veterinary colleges should make a quick and independent judgment in your favor. That, I know, will rustle a few feathers. The Royal College hates the idea of the medical field showing them up.”
Professor Williams’s wily approach pleased me. It was widely alleged that the medical profession enjoyed a more esteemed reputation with the public than the veterinary profession. Even matters concerning animal diseases, where veterinary surgeons’ wisdom of comparative pathology was without doubt superior, failed to impress those outside of the profession. Despite the comparable complexity of the subject matter, physicians were infinitely more revered than veterinary surgeons. We joked about it, but it stung. This time, however, where it might provoke the Royal College to be more progressive, it could work in my favor.
“What if the solicitor finds against me?”
He replaced his spectacles and peered out of the window into the courtyard. “We will fight it. I did not encourage you to begin your training with the idea of allowing it to be brought to a halt by outdated thinking, Miss Cust. Neither am I going to keep the administrative challenges from you. I believe it is important that you know what is going on in all instances. This is your life after all. But I do not want you to worry unnecessarily about it. You have the makings of an excellent veterinary surgeon. That should be your focus. Let me deal with the committees, councils, and solicitors.”
As comforting as it was to once again hear that the principal was on my side, as he had been from the moment Major Fitz first spoke to him about my ambitions, I did not feel entirely at ease when I left his office. What if Professor Williams was unable to convince the committee? Would he risk his college’s association with the RCVS to flout their ruling? For one student? It seemed unlikely.
“Something amiss, Aleen? You are looking peaky,” said Fred as we walked into the tearoom later. “Did you miss breakfast again?”
I shook my head, ordered a pot of tea, and sat at a table by the window. The sky was low and threatening. I hoped it would not rain and make it impossible to go for my run to warm up before bed later.
“But that is ridiculous,” said Fred, after I’d told him what I had learned that morning. “Surely, they were aware that you were a woman when you enrolled months ago. I mean, aside from using a different name, you have not done anything to hide it. Why was the objection raised so late? And so soon before the examination?”
“The chairman of the examination committee said he was not aware until recently that A. I. Custance was a woman. Given that there were no questions on the registration forms that required me to specify my gender, it was, they might argue, not obvious.”
Fred chewed quietly, his eyes on mine. He swallowed and dabbed his mouth with a serviette. “You are saying that they did not know then because they did not ask,” he said. “How did they come to know now though? Did an inspector visit Edinburgh?”
“No. It is unclear how and when they came to know and why they have chosen to respond now. It does not really matter, does it?”
“Do you think that they might have known earlier in the year?”
“I do not know,” I replied, suddenly weary.
“Is it possible that one of Professor Williams’s rivals objected? Someone from Dick’s?”
That was not something that had occurred to me. The professor had been principal of Dick’s Veterinary College for several years before he left to establish his own school. Competition for the best teachers and the most students was fierce in the early years, but now, from all accounts, the rivalry had eased.
“I doubt it. I think Professor Williams would be canny enough to know that.”
“You are probably right,” said Fred. “However, were—”
“It does not really matter how they found out. What difference does it make? In fact, there is no point discussing it any further.”
I did not want to think more about who might be behind the development and was certainly not going to mention my suspicions.
“But if—”
“Let us talk about something else,” I said. “Did you see the boar with the abscess behind his ear brought in today? I do hope we will be able to see it being lanced at some stage.”
Chapter 13
1897
Northumberland, England
There was no word from the solicitor before the college closed for Christmas and Hogmanay. As I packed my trunk for Newton Hall, I told myself it was good news and that with a typically slow start to the new year, both the college and RCVS examinations would come and go before Professor Williams heard any more on the subject. Even so, I spent the time on the train from Edinburgh to Northumberland refining and adding to my list of points to argue should the solicitor find against me.
“It is ludicrous,” said Lady Widdrington after I had described my uncertain future as we sat in front of the fire in the drawing room later. “Regressive and unjust. And why now? After you received a certificate of education from the university, have been at the college for several months, and are preparing for the examinations? It is not only preposterous but also reeks of incompetence. Is there anything you can do, Fitz?”
The major rubbed his beard. “Would it help to hire a solicitor for you, Aleen?”
“Professor Williams says not. Certainly not at present,” I said, regretting I had raised the subject so early in my visit. It was good to be with my friends, not to mention good to feel warm for a change. The air was thick with the resinous scent of the fir tree, which, resplendent with Christmas baubles and ribbons, took up an entire corner of the room. We should have been clinking glasses, laughing, and embracing a festive spirit, not trying to analyze the obscure motivations of the Royal College.
Dorothy and Edward had arrived from Fallodon Hall with Nugget and Honey shortly before me. While both dogs greeted me with excited skips and yelps, only Nugget was moved enough by my presence to sit at my feet. I tried not to feel hurt by Honey’s indifference.
“The dogs look exceedingly well, Dorothy,” I said, rubbing Nugget’s ears. “Honey looks ready for her first litter. She will be three soon. I think we should let nature take its course at her next estrus. Do you agree?”
Dorothy glanced at the floor to where Honey lay, her head raised as she surveyed the room. She was elegant and alert and, at that moment, looked like a fluffy miniature version of the Lion of Knidos.
“You are going to trust me with her breeding?” said my friend.
“Of course. What choice do I have? That is what we agreed, is it not?”
“I was teasing. It will be my pleasure, but you are going to have to get back here for the kennel show in the spring. I could probably manage Honey—she’s a natural show-off—but I have no confidence with Nugget in the ring.”
“I have already mailed the entry,” I said, hoping that I would be able to make it—but not because I had been barred from college by then.
Edward turned his back to the fire to look at me. “Will Her Majesty show her dogs? I ask only to establish what you will be up against.”
