by Tessa Harris
Howard and Mistress Firebrace watched anxiously from the doorway. When the housekeeper saw what Thomas was doing, she stifled a cry and looked away. The doctor took another gulp of air and once again blew into Lydia’s mouth. This time her body shuddered. Thomas repeated the procedure and Lydia stirred again. Now her breaths came in short, sharp pants. Her back arched and finally her eyes opened wide with terror. She turned her head toward Thomas, still struggling for air.
“Lydia, Lydia. You’re safe,” he told her, trying to steady her shuddering body, clasping her face in his hands. But she could not answer. Her cold hands reached for her throat. Her tongue protruded and a strangled cry came forth, but still she could not breathe. Her body lurched upward in one last gasp of desperation before she fell back down again, her eyes closed.
The doctor felt for her pulse. It was barely discernible. Holding her face in his hands, he slapped her cheek lightly, looking for a response; there was none. She was now unconscious again, or worse still, thought Thomas, she might even have fallen into a coma.
Chapter 32
With the count’s encouragement, Charles returned to the cane shop as before. He smiled as instructed and was courteous enough if anyone spoke to him. His companion remained at his side throughout the day, exchanging pleasantries and generally charming the spectators, helping them feel that their half crown was well spent.
It was toward two o’clock, when Charles was feeling at a low ebb, that he spotted an unwelcome face in the queue. Bending almost double, he whispered in the count’s ear: “That man.” The dwarf followed Charles’s gaze. He knew instantly who he meant. “He is Hunter’s man.”
The count recognized the swarthy features and rough gait of the servant as he drew closer. “What can he want again?” he asked, puzzled.
Howison merely stared at the giant. Neither a word nor a gesture was forthcoming. He paused for three or four seconds, letting his gaze begin at Charles’s feet and travel upward to his head. He then moved on.
“How strange,” commented the little man.
“I like him not.” Charles scowled.
“Smile, dear friend, smile,” urged the count when he saw the giant’s brows knit in a frown. “These good people would much rather see a happy giant than a sad one!”
Charles tried to oblige his ally, but found it increasingly difficult and was glad when the last spectator of the day left. He walked toward the door with the count, but when he looked out of the window, much to his consternation, he saw Howison standing watching him, propped up against a tree on the opposite side of the street.
The giant cursed and shot back from the window.
“What is it, my friend?” asked the count.
“Hunter’s servant. He be here again.”
The count peered through the window. “I cannot see him.”
The giant peered cautiously, too. This time there was no one by the tree. “I swear he was there not a second ago,” he said, shaking his head.
The little man smiled. “You are tired, my friend. Let us go home.” He reached up and patted the giant on his thigh. It had been a long day for them both.
Thomas was sitting by Lydia’s bedside, watching her for any signs of consciousness. There were none. They had moved her into another bedchamber and opened the windows so that she breathed nothing but the purest air. They had covered her in the lightest sheets so that even the effort of inhaling and exhaling should have been made easier, but still there was no response.
Coma. It was a word that Thomas feared, but he believed Lydia had now fallen into one. The great Hippocrates had first coined the phrase. It meant “state of sleep.” It sounded so benign, but Thomas knew it was anything but. It was the condition of the body just before death. The cold, harsh truth was that Lydia was in a deep, deep sleep from which she might never awake. He had seen patients in such a situation as this before. Through his studies with Dr. Carruthers he had learned that there are different levels of consciousness. Normally the mind was alert, sharp, and quick to respond to various external stimuli, but when the brain became progressively less responsive it reached, at the lowest level of function, the state of coma. Like a watch that was wound up and working normally, the brain ticked along until some terrible trauma occurred and then the watch slowed down and almost stopped.
As he sat, keeping vigil over Lydia, Howard entered the room.
“How fares her ladyship, Dr. Silkstone?” he asked anxiously. He knew he spoke out of turn, but he felt he could talk to Thomas.
“She is stable now,” he replied.
“And she will live, sir?” He sought a reassurance that could not be given.
“We can but pray, Howard.”
The butler then took out of his pocket the letter that Lydia had written the previous day.
“Sir, you must see this,” he said, handing it to Thomas.
The doctor looked at him, puzzled.
“Her ladyship gave it to me yesterday to give to you, sir.”
“Thank you, Howard,” he said, opening the seal with a scalpel from his bag. “You may go.”
Perhaps here lay the answer to the nagging questions that were now plaguing him. His first and only thoughts had been for Lydia’s health. He had needed to stabilize her condition. He knew how she had arrived in this comatose state, but not why. The harsh reality of the situation appeared that she had tried to take her own life. He remembered the overturned stone jar full of laurel water and the glass next to it. It was the same laurel water containing cyanide that needed to be drunk in large quantities to kill a human. He had already proved that in Farrell’s court case. To him it seemed that she had been about to pour the poisonous liquid from the jar into the glass, but before she could drink it, the noxious vapors had overcome her. They were much more deadly than the poison itself. Did Lydia mean to take her own life, and if so, why? The young anatomist began to read the letter, and as he did so, a terrible feeling of bewildered despair began to engulf him. He had guessed that Sir Montagu was pressuring her to find a suitable match, but with whom was this “chance encounter” and “the instrument of my (her) torture for many years”? Thomas’s stomach lurched as he read the words “and I still bear the scars, both mental and physical, he inflicted.” Who on earth was this beast? Why had she not spoken of him before? They were to be married, yet she purposely withheld this terrible secret from him. He gazed at her as she lay there, deep in her own consciousness. Even in this comatose state, she was still so very beautiful. “Why, Lydia? Why did you not tell me?” he whispered.
He read the letter a second time. Whoever this monster was, she had seen him in London. This “chance encounter,” as she called it, had triggered her violent response, thought Thomas. He cast his mind back to the night of the concert. It was there that she must have seen this man. He remembered Lady Marchant and Giles Carrington. The only other person he could recall seeing was Dr. Hunter. He had no liking for the man. He was rough and rude, no matter how skilled he was in his art. Yet despite his ill-educated manner, the Scot struck him, in relation to the fairer sex at least, to be a man who would never dishonor a lady of rank. No, whoever this evil fiend was, his actions had driven his beloved Lydia to attempt suicide. That she had failed was by sheer luck, not judgment. And even now it was by no means certain that she would not succeed in her ultimate purpose. He had to discover the truth, no matter how awful, and he prayed to God that he would be able to hear it from Lydia’s own lips.
He looked toward the open windows and shivered. The drapes rustled in the cooling chill as night began to fall. Since his arrival at Boughton Hall, all his injuries, his bruised and battered ribs and his cut face, had been dissipated by his anxiety for Lydia. Now that he knew there was no more he could do to ease her suffering, his own pain seemed to return. He felt it gnawing into his abdomen like a dull ache, punctuated by stabs of pain every time he moved. It was growing dark and he craved sleep. It was approaching nine o’clock when downstairs Thomas heard voices. A few seconds
later Sir Theodisius Pettigrew blustered in, his face red and agitated.
“Oh my Lord, Silkstone, what has befallen her?” he wailed, looking at the changed young woman who lay before him.
Thomas did not know how to frame his reply. He could not bring himself to tell the coroner about the letter; that Lydia had wanted to kill herself. He could not say that. He would not say that. “There was a terrible accident. Her ladyship was trying to dispose of some laurel water she found and mistakenly inhaled a large quantity of it,” he told him.
“Laurel water?” The coroner looked askance. The very mention of the poison triggered memories of the inquest and trial of Captain Farrell.
“The very same.” Thomas nodded, reading Sir Theodisius’s thoughts. “But she did not drink it. The vapors have done this. They can be more harmful than the poison itself,” he explained.
The corpulent coroner eased himself onto the edge of the bed. “How long will it be until she is restored?”
Thomas wished he knew. “I cannot say, sir. A day, a week, a month, a year . . .” His wan voice trailed off before he could bring himself to say “never.”
The color in Sir Theodisius’s face now drained away. “So what can we do, Dr. Silkstone?” he asked, his expression pleading with the young anatomist for some shred of hope.
Thomas could give none. “All we can do is wait,” he replied.
Chapter 33
“He is there again,” said Charles Byrne, peering through the drawn curtains of the upper reception room back in Cockspur Street.
The count, reading a book by candlelight, raised his tiny head. “Who, dear friend?” he enquired nonchalantly.
“Hunter’s man. He is standing under the street lamp.” He coughed.
The count tut-tutted. “Surely not again?” He climbed down from his chair and waddled over to the window, tiptoeing over to the sill to look out at the darkened street beyond. “I see him,” he said.
“He has been following me these past three days,” said Charles. “He’s out to get me like Corny Magrath.”
“What happened to him, pray tell?”
A shiver ran down Charles’s long spine. “He was a giant afore me. At his wake they put sleeping medicine in the d-drink, then dragged him out over all the mourners and c-cut him up. Then they hung him up in one of their fancy colleges in Dublin for all to see.”
The count paused, looking thoughtful. “Dr. Hunter is playing a game with you.” The little man winked. “But we know you will never give in.”
“Never.” The giant nodded. “I may as well sell my soul to the devil as give my dead body to that m-monster.”
“Because of what happened to your father?”
“Aye. I’ll not be butchered like a piece of meat,” replied the giant, lugging his frame across the room to his chair.
The count poured him a gin. “Tell me about him, Charles,” he said, helping himself to a brandy and climbing back into his own chair.
“He was a good man. He never h-hurt no one. ’Twas Con Donovan that did it,” he began, staring into the fire as it crackled in the grate.
“How do you know?”
After a reflective pause Charles turned to the count, wearing a glazed expression, as if he had just relived an unforgettable moment. “Because I was there.”
“You saw the murder?”
He nodded. “Con was foolin’ with Mary O’Malley in the b-barn. I came to see what was happening when I heard them laughing. They was rollin’ in the hay. I saw them kissing, but then Con, he . . . well, he wanted m-more.”
Boruwlaski drew closer, intrigued. “Did they know you were watching?”
“Only when Mary started calling for him to stop and he wouldn’t. He put his h-hand over her mouth and I told him to let her go.”
“And did he?”
“He started shouting at m-me, calling me names. Called me dirty. Said I only wanted to w-watch.” The giant’s eyes were now filling with tears. “He picked up a shovel and told me to get lost or he’d bash me. He said he wasn’t afraid of m-me.”
“And then?” urged the count.
“And then my da came to see what all the noise was about. And he saw Con and he saw Mary crying and he saw him turn and h-hit her with the shovel. ‘Hush ya mouth, will ya?’ he said, and he hit her and she fell back. B-blood everywhere.”
“So you and your father saw all this?”
“Yes, but they believed Con over me and my da. They said I was s-simple. Couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth. Said my da was foolin’ with Mary and that he did it. They believed Con because his uncle was the p-parish constable.” Tears now flowed down the giant’s cheeks. “So they strung my da up by the neck, then took him to the local slaughterhouse to c-cut him, those butchers.” Anger flashed across his face. “What right had they to do that? ’Twas the Lord’s body, not theirs. It did not belong to them, and now the fires of purgatory will be licking at his heels. How can he rise on Judgment Day?”
The count shook his head. “God knows that he was a just man. He will be in heaven,” he consoled.
“You think?” asked Charles innocently. He tried to stifle a cough.
“I am sure of it,” comforted the little man, reaching over to touch Charles’s hand. “And now this Con has confessed?”
The giant gulped down more gin. “He did when another girl came before the court and said she’d seen the whole thing. I saw her, too, but I thought she’d left the barn before the kissing. But she stayed to look out for her friend. She saw him strike Mary but was afeared to say so before because he told her he would kill her, too.”
“So now he will hang, too?”
“He ought to, but my ma has pleaded that he be sent far away. Says she doesn’t want no more killing.”
“Your mother is a generous woman.”
Charles turned to the little man, wiping away his tears with his shirt sleeve. “Will I see her again, Count? Will I ever get home?”
“How goes it with the giant?” asked Dr. Hunter when Howison returned later that evening. In his servant’s absence he had begun feeding some of the living specimens.
Howison took off his hat and scratched his matted hair. “I do as you bid, sir,” he replied.
“So you went to the cane shop and he saw you there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you followed him home and waited outside and he saw you there?”
“Yes sir. Just like I did yesterday and the day before.” There was a certain insolence in Howison’s voice.
“Och, I don’t know what is wrong with the wretched creature. I only told him he’d not long to live and offered him twenty guineas to dissect his corpse. It was only his cadaver I was asking him to sell, not his soul,” said Hunter, clearly annoyed. He was standing beside a large glass tank that contained a bright red frog. “I think we will have to make contingency plans, Howison,” he reflected as he took a live mouse and held it squealing above the tank.
“Yes, sir,” replied Howison, grinning broadly.
“Have you seen any deterioration in the giant’s health?”
“Sir?” Howison did not understand his master’s question.
“Does the giant seem worse?”
The servant rubbed his nut brown forehead. “I cannot rightly say so, sir,” he replied. To him the giant seemed no better or no worse. He coughed now and again and looked weary at the end of the day, but no more than most men who have plied their trade for eight hours straight. He added: “ ’Tis early days yet.”
The mouse let out a shrill squeak and squirmed wildly the moment the frog’s poison dart pierced its fur. Both men looked at each other and smiled as within a second or two, the struggling stopped.
“There is only one problem with that,” said Hunter finally, dropping the mouse in front of its waiting predator. “I am not a patient man.”
Count Josef Boruwlaski felt a tiny pang of guilt as he entered the cell of his old friend Leonardo Moreno the next morning. It had been well ove
r a week since his last visit. He had seen the castrato shortly after Dr. Silkstone’s call, and his physical state had been most distressing to him, so he did what any right-minded man in his position would do—he stayed away. He was therefore exceedingly glad to see the castrato had enough strength to pace up and down in his cell, even though his face was thin and waxen.
“How fare you, Leonardo?” he greeted him in Latin, a language they both spoke fluently.
Moreno managed to bend down to embrace him. “All the better for seeing you, dear Josef,” he said.
“I am glad my visit brings you some cheer,” said the little man as the jailer locked the door behind him.
The Tuscan looked grave and spoke in hushed tones. “I am told that my trial will be within the week, but I have not yet seen a lawyer to prepare my case.”
The count shook his head. “In England they say you do not need a lawyer to defend you. All you need to do is speak the truth plainly if you are innocent. You have seen a lawyer for the prosecution?”
“Yes, a man by the name of Rupert Marchant, I think his name was.”
The count’s eyes opened wide. “But I know him!”
“You do?”
“He is acting on Mr. Byrne’s behalf to obtain a pardon for his father,” said the little man excitedly.
Moreno’s frown turned to a smile. “Then perhaps you can vouch for my character, Josef. Perhaps he will be kinder to me in court.”
“I shall indeed be happy to be a witness as to your good character, Leonardo,” said the little man. “And, of course Dr. Silkstone’s report points the finger of blame away from you. All will be well,” he assured his friend. “All will be well.”
