The Genius Doctor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 40

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 40
William tensed abruptly, slipping his free hand—the one not holding the lantern—into his coat pocket.
“Step back, sir.”
He kept a dissection knife inside his coat at all times.
It served well enough as a weapon for self-defense.
But Allen reached out and stayed his hand.
“Women.”
Four women blocked their path.
At their head stood a small, skeletal old woman with a withered face.
“You’re from the Edward Clinic, aren’t you?”
The old woman asked sharply.
William remained on guard, but Allen recognized her at once.
There were few people in this small town who matched the description: a shriveled, diminutive crone.
“We are. I take it you’re Helen?”
Helen flinched at being recognized, but quickly composed herself and crossed her arms.
“Good. Then let’s get straight to it—you’ll stop interfering with childbirth work.”
William’s face hardened.
He answered at once.
“I will not. On what authority?”
Helen did not yield.
“Women have their work, and men have theirs. Don’t violate the laws of nature.”
“There are no borders in medicine, and no gender either.”
“In the old days, men who spied on childbirth were burned at the stake.”
“In the old days, unmarried women living alone were burned at the stake as well.”
At William’s sharp retort, a murmur ran through the women.
Helen raised a hand to quiet them.
Her gaze turned not toward William, but toward Allen.
Toward the apprentice she’d heard rumors about.
“This conversation may take a while. Shall we discuss it somewhere else?”
William frowned.
“I won’t—”
“Yes, let’s.”
Allen stepped in to mediate.
William looked at Allen for a moment, then exhaled and murmured.
“It’s jealousy. Plain jealousy.”
“There’s no need to be confrontational about it. We might as well hear what they have to say.”
William reluctantly nodded in acceptance.
* * *
The Rusty Anchor.
Bruno, the tavern keeper wiping glasses at the counter, was taken aback by the flood of women entering his establishment.
“Bruno, it’s been a while.”
Helen greeted him.
Bruno tilted his head in confusion.
“Helen? What brings you here?”
“Give us a room. We need to talk.”
Helen spoke without preamble.
Bruno shrugged and pointed to an empty room in the corner.
“That one’s free.”
Helen headed for the room.
She turned back to address the midwives who had followed.
“Wait here.”
“But Mother Helen! We should come with you!”
“Have some drinks while you wait.”
At Helen’s words, the midwives’ faces split into grins from ear to ear.
They rushed straight to Bruno.
“Gin! Get us the strong gin, right now!”
Bruno looked toward Helen with a questioning glance.
Helen nodded.
“Give them whatever they want today.”
Helen, William, and Allen entered the room.
They closed the door behind them and sat facing each other at the table.
Helen glanced back and forth between William’s scowling face and Allen’s composed one, then exhaled heavily.
“I’m sorry for coming on strong. I have to maintain face in front of them too.”
Allen nodded at Helen’s apology.
“I understand perfectly.”
“Even if I tell you to stay out of childbirth, you’ll just say it’s the mother’s choice no matter who delivers. That’s the thing.”
William nodded vigorously.
His posture was utterly clear and unyielding.
“So I’m asking—you’re surgeons. You’ve got more than enough to eat. The Edward Clinic, no less—you’ve got the best reputation in the city. So why do you have to stick your hands into childbirth?”
At Helen’s plea, Allen fell silent for a moment before speaking slowly.
“We’ve handled less than ten deliveries combined, ma’am. Hundreds are born in Dunford every year. We were never chasing that market.”
“Then all the more reason to pull back.”
“The problem is the Forceps. It’s already out in the world. Even if we step away, once mothers hear the rumors and start asking for it, someone will provide it.”
Helen sharpened her tone as she countered.
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. Once you set the first button, other surgeons will come rushing in. Whether they know how to use it or not, they’ll start shoving metal into mothers’ bodies. Dunford’s childbirth has run well up till now. We have our own system. Once it crumbles, it can’t be put back together.”
She continued, working her jaw.
“And those Forceps to begin with—you’re overusing them. Grasping an infant’s head with that metal when the mother could deliver perfectly well on her own? Do you have any idea how soft a newborn’s skull is?”
William was about to flare up and speak when Allen stopped him with a gesture.
“I know. That’s why we use it very carefully.”
“You might, but what about the others? Taking money to rush what nature would handle on its own with metal—that’s wrong from the start. It’s preying on the mother’s desperation.”
Finally unable to hold back, William burst forth.
“The Forceps prevents maternal exhaustion and brings out infants who otherwise couldn’t come. How is that overuse? Clinging to the old ways—”
“That’s enough, William.”
Allen pressed him down.
It had to stop before things escalated further.
Dunford’s midwives were not quacks or charlatans.
Making an enemy of them would bring no good.
Even Allen had heard Helen’s name spoken often enough that this wrinkled-faced old woman’s influence over the poorest women in the slums was far from negligible.
Turning her into an adversary meant open war.
He did not want meaningless attrition.
Allen slowly poured his glass and took a sip, then set it down and spoke in a much softer tone.
“Ma’am, I have no interest in who controls childbirth.”
Helen’s eyebrow twitched.
“I care about one thing only: how to reduce mothers and infants who die. That’s all.”
“…Your words are remarkably mature.”
“I can prove it with numbers. Of every delivery we’ve attended, not a single mother has died of Puerperal Fever.”
At that, Helen’s eyes narrowed sharply.
“Boasting of good luck?”
“Principle, ma’am. Do you wash your hands before childbirth?”
Helen nodded confidently.
“Of course. Childbirth is sacred work. Keeping yourself clean is the bare minimum.”
“Then do all the other midwives do the same, every time? In stables? On roadsides?”
“…There are no rules the world can keep everywhere.”
“There should be.”
Helen’s brow furrowed.
“The birth space must be absolutely clean. There’s no compromising on it. Wash your hands, move the mother to clean surroundings, and if even that’s difficult, bring at least one clean sheet of Linen. That’s how you reduce Puerperal Fever.”
Helen fell silent.
It wasn’t something she didn’t know, and that grated all the more.
She’d learned well enough through forty years of hands that cleanliness meant less fever.
It just rankled that these young things who’d only ever delivered babies in well-appointed houses, who’d never cut a cord atop a pile of straw, were now acting so presumptuous.
“…You’re trying to teach me?”
“Not teach—if you know, the child and mother live. I’m simply sharing what I know. Whether you accept it is your choice, ma’am.”
His tone was plain and honest.
Yet Helen caught the subtle certainty beneath those words.
The attitude that you were free to choose, but right and wrong were already settled.
To a midwife of forty years’ standing, that rigidity felt like arrogance, and her insides twisted.
Allen continued.
“And perhaps you’d consider learning to use the Forceps from us yourself.”
William’s eyes widened.
“Sir!”
Allen glanced at him sidelong.
“Your hands are bound for the monastery anyway. What does a rival in Dunford matter to you?”
It wasn’t an unreasonable point.
For William, Dunford was merely a waypoint—what he needed now was one more surgical case with the Forceps, and then another.
There was nothing to lose.
Yet the very idea of yielding his technique so readily to a rival sat poorly with him.
Helen had gone rigid.
It took her a long moment before she could pry her jaw open.
“… Are you mad?”
“I’m perfectly sane.”
“Learn the Forceps? From you?”
“Yes.”
Helen fixed Allen with a burning stare.
He wasn’t spouting nonsense—his face was steady, composed—which made it all the worse.
‘There’s poison in this proposition.’
The world’s order was simple: the teacher stood above, the student below.
The moment word got out that midwives were taking instruction in the Forceps from a surgeon, the hierarchy would brand itself into the neighborhood’s memory like a scar—’Midwives are beneath surgeons.’
Helen’s face twisted with contempt, and seeing Allen’s confusion, he stepped back and offered an alternative.
“If learning the Forceps sits so poorly with you… what if you simply refer your Difficult Birth cases to us? Only—don’t labor through hours before passing them along. Call us the moment you see signs of trouble. That way, we save the children we can save.”
Helen’s fists trembled.
There it was.
Calling a surgeon for a difficult birth meant admitting aloud that her experience fell short.
No matter how prettily they wrapped it in talk of cleanliness and Forceps technique, to an old midwife’s ear it came through as only one thing.
‘Bow before the surgeon.’
“… A glib tongue, truly cunning.”
Allen blinked, caught off guard.
Helen struck back at once.
“You mean to make us bow our heads, is that it? Not a chance! We’ve built centuries of experience you couldn’t begin to mimic. One iron tool doesn’t make you our equal!”
Bang!
She drove her fist down hard against the table.
William wore a cold smile; Allen scratched his head, plainly uncomfortable.
“… There’s no sense in letting tempers flare. Have a drink, won’t you?”
He poured Scarlet Wine into a glass from the bottle on the table and offered it to her.
But Helen didn’t so much as touch it, only fixed Allen with a sharp, measuring stare.
Her pride was wounded.
Worse than anything, she’d shown her hand to this raw upstart.
‘He’s playing at calm, trying to see what’s beneath. I can’t give ground.’
She steadied her breathing and collected herself.
If she turned away now, it would be open war.
A fight with some surgeon didn’t frighten her.
But the name behind him did—the Edward Clinic.
Its reputation rivaled her own.
“Perhaps I was a touch hot-headed.”
In the end, Helen exhaled slowly and took the glass.
The conversation resumed.
* * *
The Rusty Anchor hall.
The midwives who’d come with Helen were perched at the counter, knocking back cheap gin in steady rounds.
Their faces were already flushed with drink.
“Our matron will flatten their noses for them, she will.”
“Course she will. You know the reputation she’s built.”
“Shameless lot! Men walking into a lying-in chamber—where’d they get such brass?”
The drunken midwives chattered on.
Bruno watched them and felt his discomfort grow.
‘Should I be stopping this?’
Then the door swung open with a bang.
Helen emerged first, followed by William and Allen.
“Matron!”
The flushed-faced midwives rushed toward her at once.
But seeing Helen’s troubled expression, they hesitated.
“Grandmother?”
“What is it?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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