Presently, the man opened the door of Matthew’s and called for the proprietor.
“You are responsible for the fountain, I believe.”
“No, sir. The fountain is administered by the city,” he was told. “Pray raise your complaints with the mayor instead.”
Edward’s laughter provoked a glare in their direction. They nodded back politely, watching him make an indignant departure and collide with another patron just entering, who doffed his cap and bowed to him, saying a word or two before being shown to a table.
On noticing Edward, the newcomer rose to his feet again and came over, extending his hand.
“Is your little Danny well?” asked Edward.
“The picture of health,” he was told. “As chubby as can be. My wife is also well. Do call on us again—Danny dotes on you… . Ah, here is my appointment. Give my regards to Professor Barton.”
So saying, he returned to his own table, where he began discussing something with his guest.
“Someone you know?” asked Nathan.
“The head of the Temple Bank. Mr. Hume.”
“So you are on good terms with the banking fraternity,” marvelled Nathan.
Soon, Nathan noticed letters being distributed to the handful of regulars who took their mail at the coffee-house. Mr. ______, care of Matthew’s Coffee-House, Covent Garden, London. How cosmopolitan, to use a regularly patronized establishment as a base for correspondence!
“I, for one, intend to come here as often as possible. Not only can one write in peace, they have newspapers to read as well.”
Compared to his dim attic room with the Barretts, this was bliss. Newspapers cost threepence each, but here one could read as many as one wished for nothing. Ink, pen, and paper, however, he would bring with him. He could save additional money by eating at a stall outside instead.
“If I can regularly enjoy your company here, too, that would be even better,” Nathan told them.
He decided to overlook the condescending treatment he had received from the staff: they would change their tune once he was a regular. (It did not occur to him that a customer who offered no tips would be unwelcome.)
His romance with the beautiful Elaine he resolved to keep to himself. Nigel would surely be pleased on his behalf in his innocent way, but Edward had a sarcastic streak that gave him pause. Even Elaine calling him her knight might invite teasing or mockery.
His time with her had become a precious memory, and he wished to keep it unsullied.
Leaving the others behind, Nathan bought some black bread from a baker in the same street and then reluctantly made his way back to his dismal lodgings. Remembering Elaine dispelled his dejection, but, to his consternation, its place was taken by a yearning so strong he could hardly breathe.
“We really cannot have you coming here every day,” said Farrow through the crack in the door, which he then closed.
Nathan had returned to Tyndale’s bookshop daily since leaving his poetry there. Have you read them yet? Are they publishable? Farrow had shooed him away each time. He had not seen Tyndale himself since their first meeting.
Nathan forced the door open again and pushed his way into the shop.
“Let me see Mr. Tyndale, please,” he said.
“He is extremely busy, and has instructed me to tell you so if you came. He has not yet had time to read your manuscripts. When he does, he will send for you. Until then, please wait.”
“I can be reached at Matthew’s coffee-house,” said Nathan.
“Yes, very good.”
“How much longer will it be?”
“I am sure I don’t know.”
“Then ask Mr. Tyndale.”
“Mr. Tyndale does not know either. He will read your poetry when he has time to do so, and not before. Good day.”
“Remember—Matthew’s!” said Nathan.
Part of the reason he kept returning was the slender hope of encountering Elaine again. She still had to pick up her elegantly bound copy of Manon Lescaut, and then…
Would she bother calling at the shop? He doubted it. Once the work had been completed, Farrow or Tyndale himself would simply deliver it to the Roughhead mansion.
Nathan thrust aside his tender hopes and thought the matter over again. Manon Lescaut was no less “fickle and wicked” a person than Moll Flanders. Despite her youth and sweet appearance, she drew men to her and destroyed them. The book was certainly racy enough to justify Tyndale’s concern about what her parents would think of her reading it. So perhaps, not wanting her family to see her purchase, she would make another appearance at the shop.
After breakfasting on frumenty from a stall in the square, he made his way to Matthew’s. This had become a daily routine.
The staff at the coffee-house, of course, had little affection for the thoughtless youth who paid sixpence for a single cup of coffee and then nursed it for hours, reading all the newspapers, spreading out his writing implements as if at home in his study, and even glaring at the other patrons if their conversation grew too animated—all without tipping—but Nathan did not sense their displeasure. Despite being keenly attuned to human emotion, he had a distinctly insensitive side as well. His nature blended confidence with insecurity, and he was of that unfortunate variety of person who tends to view others as greater fools than himself. He found it difficult to get on with people, and had strong opinions on many things.
He took a seat and laid out his work on the table.
“O whyfore, if the byrds alle slepe,
Must I flye on, by longing sent?”
His pen wandered, toying with something “vast & dep.”
“Excuse me.”
He looked up to see the man who had once bought him a cup of coffee: Harrington, publisher of the Public Journal.
“Do you remember me?” the latter asked.
“Of course. You accused me of misspelling, but in fact—”
“Yes, quite,” said Harrington. “I consulted a dictionary of archaic usage afterwards. You were right. I apologize unreservedly for my error.”
Nathan smiled with a certain satisfaction. Of social graces like deference or modesty he knew very little.
Harrington glanced at the lines he was working on.
“It is still only a first draft,” Nathan said, snatching the paper away.
“Most impressive,” said Harrington, letting the boy’s behaviour pass without comment. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“You are small for your age. I should have guessed fourteen or fifteen at most. Are you a student on holiday?”
“I am an autodidact.”
“Even men from Oxford and Cambridge cannot write like that.” Here, at last, was the recognition Nathan had long desired. “The more I read of yours, the more surprised I am. Can you write in a less elevated register as well?”
“Of course.”
“Would you be interested, I wonder, in writing something for my newspaper?”
Nathan’s breath seemed to catch in his throat. If he had given vent to his true feelings, he would have leapt up to embrace the man and kiss him on the cheek. But he was vain enough, too, to want to maintain his composure rather than lower his image in that way.
“Thank you,” he said. “I should be delighted to see my poetry published there.”
“There is no literary column in my paper,” Harrington told him. “What I want you to write is satire. I shall provide the themes. Tell me, what is your opinion of the state of politics today?”
“Politics has never appealed to me.”
“More’s the pity. A young man should keep his eye on the nation’s bearing.”
Despite Nathan’s lack of interest in the topic, the offer was too tempting to refuse.
His name in a newspaper! The prospect of earning some money was a
welcome one too. The small sum he had brought with him was rapidly dwindling as he paid for food and board. It was anyone’s guess when his poetry would become a source of income.
Would Tyndale buy the rights to the parchment poem too?
He had to establish himself comfortably before his money ran out.
“I accept your offer,” he said.
Harrington held out his hand. “Come to our offices on the morrow. Here is the address.” He took Nathan’s pen and wrote it down on the edge of his poetry.
A man of no sensitivity, thought Nathan with irritation.
After Harrington had left the coffee-house, he continued working on his poem.
Then neath a starling’s wenge of sterres,
Toward that page of pale face,
A very shadowe, perill grave,
In derknesse forth did race… .
When the words ceased to come, he laid down his pen.
“Bring me the Public Journal,” he told a passing waiter.
The waiter shrugged. “We don’t take that one,” he replied coldly.
Nathan paid his bill and went outside to buy a copy from a newspaper boy. His name and writing would be published in this journal.
It was a simple affair—just one large sheet folded in half. The first of the four pages attacked the government in exaggerated terms, and the other three were filled with what was essentially gossip.
This was not what he wanted to write. His elation quickly disappeared. He crumpled the newspaper into a ball and threw it away.
He knew that once he submitted to self-pity, it was difficult to escape its clutches. But wasn’t he in fact a failure, on the whole? Were the sheets of paper with his scribblings on them any better than this rubbish? The other pedestrians suddenly seemed to be sneering at him. He felt engulfed in hostility.
In Sherbourne, whenever he sank into gloom in this way, he had visited his church. Fr. Pelham had always offered encouragement.
Here, the churches were brothels.
He bought some more black bread and followed his feet to the graveyard again.
Sitting down beneath a cypress tree made him feel slightly easier at heart.
The flowers that had been on that grave were gone now.
Another grave had new flowers.
Nathan buried his face in his hands.
Chapter 3
“Let us recommence our dissection of the young woman before we are interrupted again,” said Barton briskly. “Nigel, you draw. We shall omit the venous wax injections. Capturing the condition of the foetus on paper is more important.”
Nigel and Edward had already washed their hands and changed out of their sooty clothes.
“The constables are bound to return,” said Clarence. “What if they see the girl?”
“Once the sketches are complete, if they insist on taking her I would have no objection,” the Professor replied.
“They might arrest you.”
“No, I think not. An unmarried daughter’s pregnancy is a scandal. I doubt the Roughheads would be inclined to make a fuss. If we return the girl at their request, that will be the end of it.”
“Perhaps they will pay us to keep quiet.”
Clarence bowed. “At your cervix, Lady Roughhead,” he said.
“Everyone except Nigel, take the boy and the new corpse—not fresh, I suppose, but new—to your own dissection room, then pair off and begin your examinations. We need to start before putrefaction makes it impossible. Remember, these are autopsies. Pay close attention, determine the cause of death, and record everything.”
“Should we forgo the preservatives this time?”
“Yes. It is summer; no other students are about, and these remains do not need to be shared. No preservatives. Work quickly.”
Cadavers being highly valuable, they were often stitched back together after each dissection for the next student to use. As a result, preparing them against decay was usually the first order of business.
“Carry them in,” said Clarence, assuming an administrative role in Barton’s stead.
Edward and Ben picked up the boy, and Al and Clarence took the faceless man. Together, they carried the bodies through the specimen room into their dissection area and laid them on tables.
The room had six tables in all—two rows of three. One wall was taken up by a sink, and the opposite wall by shelves full of equipment. The windows had been smeared with soap to prevent anyone seeing in.
“This blue stuff on his chest is ink, I suppose,” said Ben. He licked the tip of his finger, dipped it in the spreading stain, then tasted it.
“Be careful,” said Al. “What if it is poison?”
Ben snorted at the suggestion, but hurried over to the sink to rinse out his mouth anyway.
The importance of observing with all five senses was something Professor Barton was forever impressing on his pupils. They had been made to taste everything from stomach acid to semen. A physician who was familiar with these substances under normal conditions could sometimes detect illness through the sense of taste alone.
“So, Edward, who is this?” asked Clarence, pointing at the boy.
Edward didn’t answer.
“I had decided that it was you and Nigel who switched the bodies, so for your sake I made up that nonsense for the magistrate’s she-assistant about buying from some grave-robbers. You owe me thanks.”
“I know it.”
“I think you also know who this boy is.”
“I mean to tell Professor Barton later. Wait until then.”
“Oh well, all right,” sighed Clarence. “Covered in wounds, this one. I wonder if he was tortured. Quite skinny, as well. O short, unfortunate life!” He looked over at his own dissecting table. “And that one has been utterly defaced, you might say.” No one laughed.
“He has bruises on his neck, too,” said Al. “He might have been strangled.”
“Possible cause of death, strangulation… . Any sign of poisoning?”
“Not on the epidermis.”
“If we are not to use preservatives, we had better start from the belly.”
The intestines were first to rot.
“I do not like opening someone younger than myself, I must confess,” Ben said about his own task.
“Find what killed him,” Clarence said sharply. “That may lead to finding the monster who did it.”
Ben sighed again.
“‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,’” recited Clarence. Macbeth. He bowed to the boy’s corpse. “Dilated to meet you,” he said solemnly, then turned to Al. “If we are to determine the cause of death, I think we can forgo the removal of subcutaneous fat and proceed straight to the organs.”
“I agree,” Al replied.
To help make a start, Clarence pushed the tip of the scalpel into the torso and cut a shallow sideways H. He then went over the lines again, deepening the incisions. Finally, he peeled back the flaps of skin. The boy’s nipples hung on either side of his body.
Ben then took over, scalpel working until he reached the pericardium.
“Quite hot in here,” he said, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.
“Let me have a go,” said Edward said, leaning over the opening.
“Stop it!” snapped Ben. He was speaking to the dog entwining itself about their legs below.
This time the dog was not Charlie but Bess, a pedigree cocker spaniel belonging to the Professor’s elder brother. Despite the fare she received at home, since tasting the content of Charlie’s bucket she made a habit of visiting whenever she could.
“I thought Bess had left home. It’s been a while since she last came. She must have returned.”
“Bess, keep out of the way. We have nothing for you today.”
“
Go home! If your mistress learnt you were here, it is us she would blame.”
Robert Barton’s wife loathed the practice of dissection, and seldom visited the school. One day some months earlier she had come in search of Bess and found her with her nose in Charlie’s bucket. When she realized what it contained, she screamed and fainted dead away.
“Five or six days ago,” Ben said, “after Bess went missing, I remember Mrs. Barton standing at the door rather than come in, and calling for her from there.”
They chased the dog away and got back to work, but less than an hour later they had to put their scalpels down again when Bent-nose Toby announced that the magistrate and his entourage had arrived. The Professor called the four of them back into his own dissection room, where Nigel was busy drawing the opened womb. The foetus was curled up inside, head disproportionately large, with thread-like fingers in its mouth.
Anne Moore and Dennis Abbott walked in, guiding a fleshy man between them. His cheeks and chin were the picture of ruddy good health, and his pouting lips were curved like a girl’s. He looked about fifty years of age, and immediately commanded a certain authority.
A thin strip of black cloth covering his eyes was tied at the nape of his neck.
“Sir John has decided to investigate the matter himself,” announced Anne Moore.
Abbott moved a chair to the magistrate’s side and helped him sit down.
Justice John Fielding doffed his cocked hat and fanned his nose with it. “Quite a powerful smell here,” he said. “Now. Amputation of all four limbs is a disturbing and unusual occurrence. As one responsible for keeping the peace, I feel we must get to the bottom of it.”
“And hence we have the honour…?” said Barton.
Miss Moore had turned towards the dissecting table. “I knew it!” she announced. “Sir John, the cadaver on the table is not the amputated boy. It appears be Miss Roughhead.”
“Where are you, Mr. Barton?” asked the magistrate, extending his right hand.
“Here,” the Professor said. “But before I shake your hand, I must wash my own.”
“That will not be necessary.”
The Resurrection Fireplace Page 7
