Behind me, I heard a noise. I turned to see a great lumpen shadow looming out of the darkness and a man, tall and ugly, his arms swinging at his sides, stood over us.
‘Well then, sirs,’ said a familiar voice. From behind the man, a small figure stepped out. ‘You goin’ to scream outside our window all night, then?’
The journey home was the longest journey I have ever taken. Mr Jobber and Annie helped us as far as St Saviour’s Street, Mr Jobber carrying Will in his arms all the way. Once there, we were lucky enough to find a hansom. And then the cabman was helping us into the apothecary, and Gabriel and Jenny were there. The lamps were burning fiercely – just when I had begun to feel as though I would never see light again. The room was warm and golden, the herbs hanging drying from the ceiling, the bottles and jars glowing. At least Will would die in comfort, in his home, with his friends at his side. I thought how I had betrayed him by telling Miss Proudlove my secret, how I had asked her about Eliza, and I felt sick inside. I thought of how I had spoken to him too, as we stood by the body of Dr Proudlove, and I felt wretched. Tears streamed down my face as I knelt beside his chair. I might have forced a purgative between his lips, but what was the use? Like Aberlady, the poison was in his blood, and there was nothing that emetics or purgatives might do for him now. I squeezed his hand, but there was no answering response. I put my head on his chest, my arms about him, and I wept.
Gabriel and Jenny stood silently side by side next to me. ‘What is it, Mr Jem?’ whispered Gabriel. ‘What’s happened?’
I could hardly answer. My heart was too full of sorrow, the loneliness I feared more than anything already stealing up on me as I felt my friend grow cold, his breath all but gone as he slipped away. ‘Poisoned,’ I said as the tears ran down my cheeks. ‘Poisoned by the poison dart frog.’
Beside me, Pestle Jenny clicked her tongue. ‘Is that all?’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Jem. The poison ain’t all that strong since them frogs have been living on the Blood. Mr Aberlady said it was probably the ants and earwigs and woodlice I were feeding them. Seems our London creepy crawlies ain’t good enough to make them proper poisonous. Not like the stuff they get at home. Mr Will’ll be right as rain in the morning. You’ll see!’
Chapter Twenty-Three
We had six more baskets of apples that year – I could not remember ever having so many. But the spring had been wet and the summer, when it came, had been long and warm. We sent Gabriel and Jenny up into the trees with sticks and baskets. Later, we weeded, and trimmed back the dead and dying growth that the summer had left behind. Since she started talking, Pestle Jenny had not stopped.
‘Mr Aberlady burst in that night,’ she said. ‘He slammed the door on Dr Sackville, and said he weren’t to be trusted. Said he was as bad as the others. Said I weren’t to trust no one. He was raving! I’d kept his room downstairs warm like he’d said to, so it so can’t have been that what made him so cross. I had to keep it warm for the snakes, and the frogs, though it ain’t right to have animals in cages like that, I told Mr Aberlady. Miss Proudlove told him too. She said Maximus had lived in the wild with the whole desert to himself and now here he was in a tank. Perhaps he wanted to hunt and not just have rats fed to him now and again. There ain’t no fun in that. Can we have him here, Mr Jem? Can we have Maximus at the apothecary? Not Minimus though. Never liked him much.’ She took out her pewter watch and looked at the time. ‘It would be time for his lunch about now.’
‘A snake at the apothecary would frighten away what few customers remain to us,’ I said. ‘Maximus cannot stay here. Besides,’ I added, ‘Miss Proudlove let him out. The last I saw of Maximus he was giving Dr Cole a goodbye hug, shortly before vanishing out of the window altogether.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I have no idea. Presumably taking his chances on the streets of London, like the rest of us.’
Her face had fallen. ‘He’ll die,’ she said.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Will. ‘There are rats aplenty. And lots of warm places to slither into.’
‘Besides,’ I said. ‘The ship moored alongside the Blood left for West Africa this morning. I imagine Maximus is on his way home already.’
‘But you were telling us about Dr Sackville,’ said Will. ‘Mr Aberlady shut him out, you say?’
Jenny’s chin trembled. The tale still troubled her, she would much rather have talked about snakes, though I was sure speaking about what happened would help her. She might be able to forget about it altogether then.
‘Mr Aberlady got worse then,’ she said. ‘He went mad, raging and shouting. He heated the poker and made me take it. He showed me his arm, that’s when I saw that picture on it. He said I had to burn him, to burn the poker against his skin so that the picture was gone. I couldn’t do it though. I couldn’t, but he grabbed me and screamed at me, his face all red and furious—
‘Then Dr Sackville shouted and battered on the door. Mr Aberlady was holding me up against the shelves. What could I do? I thought he was going to strangle me. And then he takes this key from his pocket and he ups and swallows it. “I can’t let him know I’ve found out,” he said. “He’s one of them!” But he wasn’t, was he? Dr Sackville, I mean?’ I shook my head. ‘Anyway, Mr Aberlady drank down some cold tea from the pot and then he grabbed up the poker and dashed it against his own arm. That scream, sir! And the smell!’ Her face had turned white. ‘I’ll never forget it. And the blood, and the sight of the skin all black and bubblin’. I just about fainted. Then he seizes me by the throat – the poker still in his hands all smokin’ and hot next to my face. “It’s too late,” he whispered. I could hardly breathe for he was squeezing so tight. “It’s too late for me now. Fetch Mr Flockhart. Mr Flockhart from St Saviour’s.” Well I knew you weren’t at St Saviour’s sir, as I’d heard you talking to Dr Sackville earlier.’
‘You were in the cupboard, weren’t you?’ I said.
‘I was, sir. I don’t like Dr Sackville one bit. I could see he thought my job wasn’t a job for girls, so I hid whenever he came. I hid so that he wouldn’t be reminded of me and send me away, though I did the prescriptions right, just like Mr Aberlady showed me. Anyway, “Fetch Mr Flockhart,” he says, “he’ll know what to do,” and then he lets me go. And so I came.’
‘What about Miss Proudlove, Jem?’ said Will. He rubbed his bandaged hand. ‘Where is she?’
‘They’ll never find her,’ I said.
‘Can you be sure?’
‘I am quite certain.’
I filled the brazier with the twigs and deadwood we had gathered from around the garden. I had some chestnuts, and we pricked them with my pen knife while we waited for the flames to die and the embers to glow. The air was cold and still, but hazy, the smoke drifting upwards in a lazy curl of grey-blue. It smelled of wood smoke and hot sap, and all the ends of the summer dried out and kindled to light in the autumn. At my feet was a box. I took out the confessions, and fed them one by one into the flames.
Dr G. Proudlove,
Harlem,
New York City,
New York.
Mr J. Flockhart,
Flockhart and Quartermain,
Fishbait Lane,
London.
21st December
Dear Mr Flockhart,
I write to apologise for leaving you alone with Mr Quartermain in what must have seemed the most impossible of circumstances. As you will now know, the poison was not fatal, only temporarily paralysing. I trust Mr Quartermain recovered completely and is now in the best of health.
You once asked me whether I knew a girl called Eliza Magorian. I said I did not. I lied. She was known to me. But it was not for me to betray her confidence. She knows where you are, and one day she will find you – but that time is not now. If you love her, as I think you do, then you must be patient. What other choice do you have?
Sincerely,
Dr G. Proudlove
Acknowledgements
Writing a novel is a lonely bu
siness. I have some good friends who have made the process less arduous than it might have been. John Burnett, always willing to listen to me talk about writing, and always my first reader, has helped, as ever, with his wise comments and thoughtful edits. Likewise, my coven of writing friends, the amazing Olga Wojtas (grammar queen), Michelle Wards (mistress of insightful critique) and Margaret Reis (all-round editing star) have made this a far better book.
As always, my mother, Jean Thomson, and sister, Anne Briffett, have cheered me on from afar. My lovely boys, Guy and Carlo, have, once again, watched me drive away on three writing retreats this year, and have been deflected with the words ‘I can’t come just now, I have to do some work’ more often than I like to admit. Love and thanks to you all.
Adrian Searle, Penny Cunynghame, Barbara Mortimer, Helen Wilson and Paul Lynch – my kindest and most enthusiastic readers – have all given me the encouragement needed to start, and finish, writing this novel.
Once more, my gratitude goes out to the marvellous Jenny Brown, fantastic agent-friend, as well as Krystyna Green, Amanda Keats, Una McGovern, Ellie Russell, Kate Truman, John Fairweather, Amy Donegan, Jess Gulliver and all the kind and lovely people at Constable.
Thanks also to my friend Mary Mercer, for allowing me to use her lovely Victorian-sounding name. Of course, all characters in this novel are entirely fictitious.
Last of all, the deepest of thanks to Trevor Griffiths, a man of infinite patience and good humour, who made a difficult year not so bad after all.
Author’s note/Bibliography
The Blood and Fleas was based on the Dreadnought, a hospital ship moored on the Thames at Greenwich, which went on to become the birthplace of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. On the matter of ‘hospital hulks’, their size, appearance and administration, the best source was G. C. Cook, From the Greenwich Hulks to Old St Pancras: A History of Tropical Diseases in London (Athlone, 1992). I am indebted to Ross MacFarlane of the Wellcome Library for providing me with a bibliography on the subject. Also useful was Richard Barnett and Mike Jay’s box of essays and maps, Medical London: City of Disease/City of Cures (Wellcome, 2008), especially ‘Tall ships and tropical diseases: Medicine and the British Empire in Greenwich’ and its accompanying essay.
For detail about the environment, a vivid contemporary account of the London docks can be found in Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1851), which includes descriptions of the docks, dock workers, prostitutes, and other riverside inhabitants. It was perfect for my purposes. For detail about the decline of religious certainty I consulted A. N. Wilson, God’s Funeral (Abacus, 2000), whilst David Olusoga, Black and British, A Forgotten History (Macmillan, 2016) was a valuable resource for learning about the position of black people in Britain at this time. For insights into the development of tropical medicine, attitudes toward imperialism, and the competitive nature of the medical profession in the mid-nineteenth century, I drew upon Roy Porter’s The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present (HarperCollins, 1997) and M. Worboys, ‘Tropical Diseases’, in W. Bynum and R. Porter (eds) Companion Encyclopaedia of the History of Medicine (Routledge, 1993). Iwan Rhys Morus, Shocking Bodies: Life, Death and Electricity in Victorian England (The History Press, 2011) provided a fascinating account of the use of electricity in medical science during the Victorian period. Finally, Wendy Moore’s The Knife Man (Transworld, 2005) was invaluable when I needed information about William and John Hunter, their achievements and rivalries, as well as detail about the lymphatics, anatomy museums, the preservation of anatomical specimens, and the procedures of the post-mortem and dissecting rooms.
I was fortunate to have such a wealth of excellent histories on which to draw. Any mistakes in the interpretation of that information are mine alone.
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Acknowledgements
Author’s note/Bibliography
The Blood: What secrets lie aboard? (Jem Flockhart Book 3) Page 31
