Hazel considered her words carefully. “And … you’re certain you’re not…”
“I ain’t pregnant,” Jeanette said. “I swear it. I’ve never even been with a man before. Few tried to come close back when I was living at Fleshmarket, but I knew what to do with them when they came at me. Just ask Jack, he’ll tell ya. So unless they’ve figured out another way for a girl to get a baby that don’t involve no man between her knees, I’m telling you, there’s no baby.”
“May I?” Hazel asked, gesturing toward Jeanette’s belly. Jeanette nodded, and Hazel ran her hand across Jeanette’s stomach. She was a slim girl, and her stomach was firm, but there was no bump, nor was there the drum-taut skin of a pregnancy. Jeanette winced at Hazel’s touch. “Does that hurt?” Hazel asked.
Jeanette nodded. “I ’ad a weird dream,” Jeanette said. “Right when the pain started. I starting ’aving the dreams right then, now I get them almost every night.”
“What sorts of dreams?” Hazel asked.
“I’m lying down, under some sort of veil. Almost like a bride, I suppose, but I couldn’t tell you what that sort of veil is like. Well, I have it over me, and I’m in a big room with strangers all around me, and then a man comes close, and he’s a strange man with a head like a beast. And he holds a knife above me. And he has one eye. Just one big, fat eye in the center of his face. And then as soon as I try to figure out what he’s doing with the big knife, I wakes up on my own cot, in the servants’ quarters.”
One eye. Was it possible that she had interacted with Dr. Straine in some way? That he had hurt her? “Jeanette, when did you go to the poorhouse hospital? What was that for?”
Jeanette wrinkled her brow. “Couldn’t’a been more than seven, I suppose. Got my ’pendix out.”
“And the doctor—the doctor who operated on you when you were a child, at the poorhouse hospital. Was his name Straine, perhaps? Did he have one eye, and a black silk eye patch?”
Jeanette shook her head. “No. It was some awful French doctor. Don’t remember his name, but wasn’t no eye patch.”
“Do you mind if I examine your stomach?” Hazel asked. “With your shirt up? Jack, would you mind stepping outside?”
Jack gave a small salute and left the laboratory. “I’ll be outside if you need me.”
“Ay, we never do, you tosser!” Jeanette said, and then she lifted her chemise to reveal a pair of pale, stalky legs and an even paler belly. Several bruises clustered around Jeanette’s knees, and an angry scar crusting with green pus ran four inches across, below her belly button.
“Jeanette,” Hazel said, “this scar, what’s it from?”
“Told you already. ’Pendix coming out when I was a kid.”
The scar had been sewn with even stitches, but it was angry and red, inflamed and dripping. “This scar isn’t new? You’ve had it?”
“Practically long as I can remember,” Jeanette said.
“Well, new or old, this scar is infected. We’ll need to clean it and dress it properly so it can heal again.”
“That’s the problem, then?” Jeanette said, covering herself. “That’s what the problem’s been this whole time? My scar?”
“I don’t know whether it is the whole problem,” Hazel said. “I would not think an infection would be the cause of you missing your monthly bleedings. But at least we can help to take care of it now.”
Hazel cleaned the wound delicately with water and soap, and dabbed a cotton rag soaked in alcohol along its length. Jeanette clenched her teeth together to keep from shouting. “I’m sorry,” Hazel said. “I know it stings.” When the wound was clean, Hazel made a dressing of honey and turmeric and ground witch hazel flower and bandaged the scar. She gave Jeanette a stack of fresh linen bandages. “Replace the bandage daily,” she said, and Jeanette nodded. “And if it doesn’t improve in a week, tell Jack to bring you back to me.”
Once she was fully clothed again, Jeanette reached into her apron pocket, looking embarrassed. “I don’t have much, but to pay you for what you’ve done—”
Hazel shooed her hand away. “Oh goodness, I wouldn’t dream of it. Please don’t be ridiculous. I’m still a student. I’m grateful for the chance to learn on a living subject, to be frank.”
Jeanette withdrew her hand from her apron gratefully.