by Tessa Harris
“Would you like a tray, m’lady?” asked Eliza.
“No,” she replied abruptly, then softening her tone, she added: “Thank you, Eliza. But I would ask that the dogcart be made ready.”
Eliza smiled. “Yes, m’lady. ’Tis a lovely morning.”
Lydia did not return her servant’s smile and was not the slightest bit interested in the weather. Her silence dampened Eliza’s enthusiasm.
“Have it ready by eleven,” she instructed.
“Yes, m’lady.” Eliza curtsied and left to inform the rest of the concerned household of their mistress’s plans for the day. No doubt everyone would be delighted that her ladyship was in better spirits.
“That is good news,” said Mistress Claddingbowl, rolling out a batch of pastry. “Perhaps I could even tempt her with one of my pies.”
“All in good time,” replied Howard, taking the letter from Eliza’s hands. “Whatever is in this letter, Lady Lydia will be able to tell the doctor in person, tomorrow,” he said, waving it around before putting it his pocket for safekeeping. “I am sure he will come straight away.”
Mistress Finesilver’s knocks at his door woke Thomas from what had been a deeply disturbed night’s sleep. Every turn, every movement he made, no matter how slight, had been accompanied by a stab of pain. The housekeeper entered at Thomas’s bidding to find her master lying bloodied and bruised on the bed, still fully dressed. At the sight of him, her hands flew up to her face.
“What has become of you, Dr. Silkstone?” she cried.
Thomas tried to raise his head, but the exertion was too much for him. “I was set upon last night,” he replied, sounding as if his mouth were full of pebbles. “I am hurt, but I will live.”
Mistress Finesilver’s maternal instincts, which usually lay well-hidden, now came into play and she sprang into action, pouring water and bathing Thomas’s battered face. “But we must get you out of these clothes, sir,” she exclaimed, looking at his blood-caked waistcoat with horror. “Ruth, Ruth,” she called for the maid.
The notion of being undressed by two fussing women did not appeal to Thomas in the slightest, but he had not the energy to argue. Together they eased him into an upright position on the bed, slipped off his topcoat with great difficulty, and then tackled his waistcoat and shirt.
“Bring me a looking glass,” he instructed so that he could inspect his own injuries. There was severe discoloration to his torso, especially below his rib cage, but the blood had flowed from only minor lacerations. Running his fingers along each shaft of rib, the ones he feared might have been cracked seemed to be smooth to the touch. He was heartily thankful that although his discomfort was great, a good application of arnica to bring out the bruising was probably all the treatment that was required. That, together with two or three days’ rest.
Within the half hour Dr. Carruthers was at his protégé’s side, displaying great concern for his welfare.
“But, young fellow, do you have any broken bones? A fever, what about a fever? A headache?” The blind anatomist seemed to have abandoned all professional decorum in his anxiety for the doctor.
If he had been able to, Thomas would have smiled. As it was, he was prevented from doing so by the stiffness of his mandible and its associated muscles. He said simply: “ ’Tis merely bruising, sir.”
Dr. Carruthers felt for the edge of the bed before seating himself upon it. “I’d like to get my hands on the blaggard that did this to you, young fellow.”
“There were two of them,” retorted Thomas.
“Did you see their faces?”
The doctor recalled the incident in his mind’s eye; how he was walking along the ill-lit street when he saw the men approach.
“Their faces were hidden,” he said, but then he remembered that he had seen a scarf slip slightly. Although it was pulled up again swiftly, he distinctly recalled the face now: the scar and the broken nose.
“The prizefighter,” he muttered to himself as much as to Dr. Carruthers.
“Prizefighter,” repeated the blind anatomist. “Prizefighter, you say.” He stroked his chin in contemplation. “The only man I know of who answers to that description is no prizefighter at all, but a common criminal; a sack ’em up man.”
Thomas managed to heave himself up on his elbows, his eyes opened as wide as his bruises permitted. “Go on, Doctor,” he urged.
“Name’s Ben Crouch. He has a sidekick called Jack Hartnett. No corpse in London is safe from those two. There’s many a dissecting table that would remain empty without their evil trade.”
Despite his discomfort, Thomas was now fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. His mind flashed back to the squalor of the jail. “They were the men in Newgate with Signor Moreno, too. They have something to do with the murder of the castrato. I just know it.”
Carruthers nodded. “Maybe, but someone will have put them up to it. Those sort of scoundrels only do their despicable deeds to order.”
Thomas looked at his blind mentor, whose unseeing eyes were as always closed, but in the ensuing silence their thoughts seemed to make themselves known to each other without words. At the exact same moment they both spoke the exact same name: “John Hunter.”
Charles Byrne awoke with a start, cold and stiff on the slab of a mortsafe in the graveyard of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. He had just suffered a nightmare. In his dream he was on Dr. Hunter’s dissecting table, tied down and unable to move. The doctor approached him, a glinting scalpel held aloft in his hand, like some pagan priest about to make a sacrifice. As he brought down the knife, Charles sat up, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest and the noise of it filling his ears. He looked around, shaking the fog of sleep from his large head. He was surrounded by gravestones, some worn, some new, some grand, some simple, some moss-covered as if growing out of the very ground itself. All were in higgledy-piggedly rows, layer upon layer of corpses consigned by plague and disease and time to their earthy resting place. What had brought him to this unsettling site he now tried to recall. He shivered as he cast his mind back to Dr. Hunter’s underground cave where he had seen strange things, evil things; men’s body parts preserved in jars and phials, instead of being where they should be, wrapped in shrouds and given decent burials in consecrated ground. What monster would deny a man a burial, he asked himself.
The last thing he remembered was wandering through the streets at a late hour. He had asked Howison to drop him off in St. Giles, where Emily’s family lived. Emily. Now he recalled. He was looking for Emily, but it was dark and only the devil and his sort were out at that time of night, so he had lain on a tombstone and rested.
Now, in the cold light of day, surrounded by the memorials and trappings of death, fear began to take hold. He sensed he was being watched. He turned to see that he was, indeed, being gazed upon in awe by a curious urchin. As soon as he saw Charles’s face, the child let out a loud scream. “A giant! A giant!” he cried and leapt up from the long grass where he had been crouching and ran off through the graveyard toward the gates.
Charles rose, aware that the boy’s cries would alert the whole neighborhood. He followed quickly, past the charnel house, toward the gates. He knew his very presence in the streets would cause mayhem. He knew, too, that word would spread quickly and that, hopefully, wherever Emily was, she would hear of his arrival and come to greet him. She would look after him; she would keep him safe from Dr. Hunter and his evil plan. She would see to it that he did not end up like his father, as a piece of meat to be cut and sliced on a dissecting table, then dragged to the slaughterhouse.
He lumbered over the green tussocks of the graveyard to the gates and turned down an alley. At the end of it he could see people and carts plying along what seemed like a busy thoroughfare, so he turned off down another deserted side street. Sheltering in a doorway at the end of the lane, he spied a square where a crowd of twenty, maybe thirty people was gathered. They were listening to a man who was standing on some steps in front of a building, shouti
ng, not in an angry way, but so that he might be heard by all. A crying baby held by a woman next to him also vied for the crowd’s attention and next to her, seated on the steps, was an old crone. The man held something dark in his hand. Charles could not make out what it was. It appeared as though he was selling his wares.
A large cart was parked nearby, so, getting down on all fours, he crawled over to it. Then he crouched between it and the wall to gain a better view and to put himself within earshot of the hawker.
“Come on now. Don’t be shy of Mad Sam,” he called. “Work your own miracles with this hair from the amazing Irish Giant. Guaranteed to cure all your ills, as foretold by Grandmother Tooley. Only tuppence a lock.”
Wives, young girls, and men on crutches came forward, some with limps, others with sores; some with coughs, others with toothache; all clamoring for a lock. The woman with the baby took their pennies, while the man put the strands of hair, held together by small lengths of ribbon, into their eager hands.
“Hold the hair where it ails and you’ll be rid of your troubles,” he shouted above the general fracas.
From behind the cart Charles looked on in shock. Who was this man? Where did he get his hair, if indeed it was his hair? Why would he say that it could work miracles? There were so many questions he wanted to ask and so much indignation that he felt, that he decided to abandon the cover of the cart and confront the hawker. Straightening himself to his full height, he strode toward him.
The first woman to notice him let out a scream.
“The giant!” she cried.
“The giant!” many echoed.
The crowd around Mad Sam parted. Some fled; others remained transfixed, compelled to watch the giant’s reaction to the hawker.
Grandmother Tooley could not contain her wonderment and seemed to enter into some sort of trance. “The tall man,” she screeched, pointing her gnarled finger at the giant. “The tall man from across the water, as I foretold.”
Seeing Charles approach, instead of fleeing like many of his customers, Mad Sam stood his ground and smiled. “Well, well, ladies and gents, if it isn’t the miracle worker himself,” he cried, gesturing to Charles. “What an honor it is to meet you, sir, and a fellow Irishman, too.” He beamed.
Those who had scurried off and hidden behind barrels and carts and crates now peered from behind them, anxious to see the next act of the drama play out in front of them.
Charles scowled at the hawker, who seemed totally unfazed. “Why look so sad, Giant? Your powers are helping all these good people.”
There was a tense silence as Charles surveyed the faces that now cowered below him. Silence. The woman with the screaming baby looked at Mad Sam. The child had managed to get hold of a lock of the giant’s hair and was now sucking it, peacefully and without a noise.
“The babe. He’s stopped crying,” she said to her husband. “He’s stopped crying!”
Mad Sam’s eyes opened wide with delight as he looked at the peaceful child. “ ’Tis a miracle. The giant has wrought another miracle!” he exclaimed.
A collective cheer went up from the crowd, and now more people than ever rushed forward toward Charles, wanting to touch him. He soon became surrounded by hordes of citizens, tugging at his breeches and prodding at his legs.
Mad Sam climbed up to the top of the steps and held out his hand to Charles. “Here,” he called and the giant strode up to join him, but the crowd followed him, pushing and shoving, so that some of the children and the cripples fell or were crushed in the melee. Word spread quickly in the back streets and alleyways of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, like a contagion. The cry went up: “The Irish Giant. The giant is here!” It soon reached Emily, who had been tasked with sweeping the floor at home. She ran to the window and looked down below to see a stream of people flowing toward the market square.
Hurrying downstairs, she joined the feverish throng and was carried along on their tide. Soon she saw Charles, standing at the top of the steps, his large head and broad shoulders towering above the baying crowds; bodies pressed against each other, trying to surge forward, as they so often did for a hanging. Their cries and shouts were deafening, but these were no jeers for injustices done. They called for Charles to look upon them as Christ would himself have laid his hands upon the poor and the sick, or simply to touch them.
Emily called his name, but her voice was lost in the cacophony of pleas and beseechings that came from all those milling around her. “Charles,” she cried again, but to no avail.
Another ten minutes of mayhem passed before the constables finally came to break up the crowd with sticks. The unfortunates scattered down side streets, disappearing back into their hovels just as soon as they had come, like an army of ants. Only Charles, Mad Sam, his wife and babe and Grandmother Tooley were left on the market steps.
“We should charge you with breach of the peace,” said one of the constables, adding to Charles: “But we will not, just as long as you, sir, leave the neighborhood straight away, before you cause any more trouble.”
The giant nodded. “I will go, sir,” he replied with all the artless guile of a child. He had not wanted to cause such chaos. He had only wanted to find Emily, but there was one other thing he had to know before he returned to Cockspur Street.
“Is that really my hair?” he asked Mad Sam.
The hawker grinned. “Why, you wouldn’t be doubting me now?”
“Then how did you come by it?”
“Yes, how did you come by it?” came a voice from below. Both men looked down to see Emily standing indignantly at the foot of the steps. Charles’s face broke into a broad smile and he strode down to greet her. Enfolding her in his arms, he held her tightly.
“Oh, dear Emily,” he whispered. “I came to find you,” he told her, grasping both her arms. He looked at her intently, his eyes moist with tears. “You are to return to Cockspur Street, on the count’s orders,” he said.
She smiled and held his hand close to her cheek. “Then I shall go back with you.” She nodded. “But first, I need the answer to your question. How did he come to possess locks of your hair?” she cried, pointing a finger at her wayward father.
Mad Sam’s face broke into another broad grin. “Why, my dear daughter, I borrowed them from that tin of yours, of course,” he told her unashamedly, adding: “A man’s got to earn a living any ways he can.”
Charles shook his head sadly. “So this man is your father?”
Emily nodded. “It pains me to say so.”
The giant’s look was pitiful. “It seems that everyone wants to profit from my misfortune,” he told her.
“Not everyone,” she replied, kissing his hand sweetly. “Come, let’s return.”
Instead of allowing himself to be guided by her hand, however, Charles remained on the spot. “What is it?” asked Emily, puzzled.
A troubled look settled on his face. “ ’Tis that doctor.”
“The one you saw before at Earls Court?”
“Yes. He wants to cut me up when I die.” His voice cracked as he spoke.
Emily looked at her father, then at Charles. “Do not fear,” she soothed. “I will not let him do that. You will be safe back with the count.” And patting the giant tenderly on the arm, she led him away by the hand.
By first light Jacob Lovelock had saddled the stable’s fittest mount and headed off on the long journey to London. The sun had not yet risen over the Chiltern Hills, and the dawn was gray and chill. It had not rained for a few days now and the ground was dry, making the journey less treacherous underfoot. His progress toward the capital had been good. Stopping at Beaconsfield he had changed his horse, downed a pint of small beer, and bought a pie, which he ate in the saddle. By one o’clock he had entered the city by Newgate and was in Piccadilly less than a half hour later.
Mistress Finesilver answered the door to him with a look of surprise. “I am come with a message for Dr. Silkstone, ma’am,” he said, black smuts marking his pitted face. “I have ri
dden hard from Boughton Hall.”
The housekeeper arched an eyebrow. “I can see you have come from far,” she said, staring at Lovelock’s dust-covered jacket, “but Dr. Silkstone is indisposed.” Her master was asleep, and she knew he needed all the rest he could muster. She told the messenger to come back on the morrow and was just about to close the door on her visitor when Dr. Carruthers happened to be walking by.
“Who goes there?” he asked.
Mistress Finesilver raised her eyes heavenward in annoyance. “ ’Tis a messenger from Boughton Hall for Dr. Silkstone, sir, but I have told him he is not available,” she replied curtly.
The old anatomist stopped by the open door, sniffing the stale air of the street. “I am sure that Dr. Silkstone is always disposed to receive a message from Lady Lydia, if that is the case,” he said playfully.
“Not exactly, sir,” replied Lovelock awkwardly. “ ’Tis a message that concerns her ladyship, though, sir.”
Dr. Carruthers tilted his head and puckered his mouth. “In that case, please come in. Dr. Silkstone met with an accident last night, but I am sure he is keen to hear any news about her ladyship,” he told him, adding: “I only hope it is not bad.”
Mistress Finesilver grudgingly led Lovelock up the stairs to Thomas’s room and knocked on the door. Thomas bade her enter and assured her that he was well enough to receive a visitor, although he was shocked to see the head groom.
“Bring this man some food and ale, and water to wash,” he told a surly Mistress Finesilver. “What is it, Jacob?” he asked anxiously as soon as they were alone.
“I am come with the knowledge of Mr. Howard, sir, but without the permission of her ladyship,” he said, nervously fingering his dusty hat.
Thomas, who was now sitting up in bed with a cold compress at his cheek to relieve the swelling, frowned and bade Lovelock sit on a chair.
“Is Lady Lydia unwell, or in danger?” he asked, looking intently at the groom.
