by Tessa Harris
Thomas’s silence acknowledged the truth of the principal’s statement. Lydia’s attempt to poison herself during her deep depression the previous year had only compounded her problems and reinforced Sir Montagu’s case against her.
Cameron motioned the warden to seat his patient on a chair next to the anatomist, and she helped Lydia lower herself. Her movements reminded Thomas of an arthritic old woman whose joints pained her. He drew closer, his heart sinking with every beat.
“What have you done to her?” he asked incredulously. He jerked his head ’round, only to see the principal nodding knowl-edgably.
“Acceptance is one of the first stages of recovery, Dr. Silkstone,” he said smugly.
“Acceptance?” replied Thomas. “It is clear to me that you, sir, have tortured her ladyship into submission.”
Cameron feigned hurt. “Torture, sir, is a very strong word.”
Thomas turned to Lydia once more. “You have chained her, bled her, locked her in a cell. If that is not torture, I don’t know what is!”
Cameron shook his head. “On the contrary, sir. Everything we have done here for Lady Lydia has been for her own welfare.”
Lydia, whose eyes had been moving slowly from Cameron to Thomas, cocked her head at an angle. Her reactions seemed slow and fogged, but Cameron’s assertion appeared to jerk her into life. She fixed her gaze on Thomas as if he were a stranger to her; then, with rising alarm, as if her memory was returning in a rush, she reined herself back. Her breathing became labored and she tried to rise. Seeing her sudden apprehension, Thomas moved to calm her, stretching out his hand toward her, but she turned her shoulder toward him and shook her head.
“Lydia, it is I,” he said. At first he did not want to sound too intimate in front of Cameron, but when she shook her head, he abandoned all protocol. “It is Thomas,” he told her softly.
Yet instead of allaying her fears, his presence seemed only to inflame her. She switched ’round, her lips trembling. “Was it Lupton?” she asked, her voice as brittle as glass.
Thomas jerked back, shocked at her manner, but she continued in the same vein. “Were you jealous of him? Did you think he had taken your place in my affections and this is your revenge?” she asked him. Her voice quavered and her eyes were brimming with tears. “Is that why you put me in here?” She turned her head away, as if the very sight of him sickened her.
Unable to endure the onslaught any longer, Thomas rushed over to her, settling his hands on her shoulders. “I had nothing to do with this. It is not true, my lady. Whatever you have been told, it is a lie.”
Lydia raised her reddened eyes to meet his. “Would my own father lie to me?” she asked.
Thomas frowned and lowered his voice, hoping Cameron would not hear. “What did you say?”
Lydia’s shoulders heaved in a great sob. “Sir Montagu is my real father. That is what I wanted to tell you before, but—” She broke off.
Thomas suddenly remembered. It was true. She had been about to impart some news to him at Boughton after the lawyer’s operation. Taking him by the hand, she had led him over to the window seat in the drawing room, but Howard had called him away. He frowned. “He is your father? He told you himself?” Thomas’s words were barely audible, but Lydia kept her gaze on him and nodded. The scenario flashed through the doctor’s mind. Thinking he was about to die, Sir Montagu must have confided the truth to her; then, when the procedure was successful, he had been filled with regret, fearing the implications of his admission. The secret was out, only now Malthus wanted it suppressed.
Thomas pulled back from her and straightened himself. “You have been cruelly treated, but believe me I will do everything in my power to see you are released as soon as possible.” His glare snagged Cameron’s. “Can you not see that her ladyship is a victim in all of this, here at the whim of Sir Montagu Malthus, and that your so-called treatment is a travesty, sir?”
Cameron remained calm. “The ability to manipulate can also be a symptom of madness, Silkstone,” he said dryly. “I know of your feelings toward her ladyship, and she is able to abuse your”—he searched for the right word—“affection toward her.”
Thomas strode toward the Scotsman. “Lady Lydia Farrell is my patient.” He flung a finger behind him in Lydia’s direction. “What you are doing is not only unwarranted, ’tis inhumane, and as her ladyship’s physician, I must ask you to discharge her immediately!”
Still Cameron refused to be moved. Such scenarios were commonplace to him. How many husbands had come to him, asking him to declare wives insane, because they were either errant or barren, or both? Granted, this case had been slightly more complex—there was no cuckolded husband, no jealous lover—nonetheless, Sir Montagu Malthus’s motives for wanting Lady Lydia Farrell put out of harm’s way had been sufficient for him to pay ten guineas a month for her incarceration. The principal returned with a valid riposte.
“And what of her unprovoked attack on Mr. Lupton? I am told she flew into an hysterical rage and brought blows down on him.” Cameron was staring at Lydia as he delivered his question with a chilling assuredness.
Lydia dropped her gaze and her lip trembled. “I must confess to that most shameful outburst,” she said, “but it was not unprovoked. I—”
Cameron’s hand flew up to signify he had heard enough. He turned to Thomas. “So, Dr. Silkstone,” he said smugly, tenting his fingers. “By her own admission it is right that her ladyship is confined here. Can ye see that? Aye?”
Thomas shot Cameron another incredulous look. He felt wounded but not defeated. “This is not a hospital, but a prison, and you have convicted my patient without a trial,” he protested.
The principal sucked in his cheeks and refused to be moved. “As I said, Dr. Silkstone, her ladyship is here for her own protection, as well as that of others, and you sanctioned it. She will remain as long as that is the case.”
Thomas rose, grabbed his case and hat, and paused before the principal. “I shall not rest until her ladyship is free,” he warned. He turned to look at Lydia.
Seeing all hope of her immediate release fade, Lydia wept, the tears cascading down her face. On his way to the door, Thomas bent over her and began to wipe her cheeks with his thumb, but she quivered and withdrew from his touch.
“No!” she snapped. “How can I trust you? You are like all the rest!”
Withdrawing his hand quickly, Thomas looked at her, horrified. Her harsh words sliced through him like a knife. For a moment it felt as if his world had imploded. He took a breath and tried to compose himself.
“I will have you out just as soon as I can,” he told her. But his feigned words of comfort fell on stony ground and were lost amid Lydia’s sobs.
Feeling both angry and humiliated, Thomas was escorted out of the hospital. His own soul was in as much turmoil as any Bethlem inmate’s. As he strode out from the great portico, he reached into his pocket for his kerchief to dab his own eyes, which had, to his embarrassment, suddenly moistened. As he did so, he felt the cold silver of the locket that Lydia had given him as a keepsake after her mother’s death. Retrieving it, he stood still, gazing at it in his palm, in the middle of the busy thoroughfare. People and carts pushed past, but for him, time stood still. Sir Montagu Malthus was Lydia’s father. This was the reason he had seen fit to confine her, his illegitimate daughter, to a madhouse. Her son, Richard, was his rightful heir. Through the young earl, Sir Montagu could control not only his own estate, but Boughton, too. He would make the child his puppet. Suddenly it all fell into place: the dogged determination to keep him and Lydia apart at all costs, the hatred that Malthus had displayed toward him. This was the reason why the lawyer had put every obstacle in the way of their union. Now his darkest secret was exposed, it was clear that the lawyer would go to any lengths to suppress it. That was the reason it suited his purpose to lay the blame for Lydia’s confinement at Thomas’s feet. He sought to drive a wedge between them. If they were divided, Malthus could rule, and alth
ough the doctor was utterly loath to admit it, this despicable strategy, for the moment at least, seemed to have succeeded.
Chapter 13
Thomas knew there was no time to waste. He planned to hire a horse and head for Oxford that very morning. He needed to inform Sir Theodisius of Lydia’s dire condition and of her extraordinary revelation that Sir Montagu Malthus was her real father. To his relief, however, he found there was no need to travel. Returning to his Hollen Street town house, on the outskirts of London, he found he had a visitor. As he entered the hallway he heard a familiar voice in the study and opened the door to find Sir Theodisius Pettigrew in conversation with Dr. Carruthers.
“Ah, Silkstone, dear fellow,” the portly gentleman greeted him. “You have seen Lady Lydia! What news, pray tell!” From the half-filled glass by his side, Thomas could tell he had already been imbibing and that his spirits belied a mixture of anxiety and hope. Thomas knew that what he was about to tell Sir Theodisius would deflate any optimism. He knew, too, that he would be poor company until he could unburden himself. He was also aware that his findings at Bethlem would be better told sooner rather than later.
“I fear it is bad, sirs. There is something I must tell you,” he said suddenly, entering the room. He wondered himself where the words had sprung from.
“Oh?” The coroner’s forehead was already furrowed with a frown.
Thomas, choosing to remain standing, took a deep breath. “Before she was—” He broke off, searching for the right word. He wanted to say “kidnapped,” or “captured,” but in the end he simply said, “. . . taken away, Lady Lydia tried to tell me something that I think you both should know.”
Sir Theodisius arched a wary brow. “Pray tell.”
“What is it, young fellow?” urged Carruthers, leaning forward in his chair.
Thomas eyed both men intently, recalling the moment Lydia must have intended to divulge the shocking news to him in the drawing room at Boughton. “It was when Sir Montagu was so ill, before I operated on him last year.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Carruthers. “The aneurism.”
Thomas continued hesitantly. “Her ladyship told me that he believed he was about to die. It was then that he confided in her.”
“Confided what?” pressed the coroner.
“Sir Montagu told her that he is her real father.” The words gushed from Thomas’s mouth, like blood from a cut vein. “She tried to tell me before, but I had to attend an urgent meeting and remained ignorant until today. Malthus is Lydia’s father.” He repeated the statement again, as if to convince himself, as much as his stunned audience, that what he was saying was real. “Malthus is her ladyship’s father.”
The reaction from both men was slow to come, as if it needed to percolate up through their bodies before their mouths were spurred into action. Nevertheless, when their responses were forthcoming, they were decisive.
“By God’s wounds!” thundered the coroner. He banged his fist on the table, sending his claret spilling.
Dr. Carruthers was more circumspect. “Well, well. I never!”
Thomas could see the news was having a devastating effect on the coroner in particular.
“It cannot be,” said Sir Theodisius.
“I fear it is, sir,” Thomas countered, “because when he recovered his health, he realized he had revealed too much.”
The coroner slowly nodded. “And that is why he wanted Lady Lydia locked away and silenced?” He spoke deliberately, as if he were putting together the pieces of a puzzle.
“Precisely,” replied Thomas. “Sir Montagu and Lady Felicity had been lovers for years before she married Lord Crick, and they saw no reason to stop their liaison even after the nuptials.”
Dr. Carruthers breathed deeply and clicked his tongue. “So that explains why he had always taken such a keen interest in Boughton’s affairs.”
“And why he does not want Lydia and me to marry. He intends to make young Richard his puppet and control the estate through him,” said Thomas gravely. “Ever since Edward Crick’s death, he has been scheming toward this end. This enclosure about which you speak would seem the next stage of his plan.”
Sir Theodisius, his wine-flushed face now drained of its color, nodded. “Enclosure, yes,” he said, as if forcing himself to return to the moment. “It makes more sense now.” Then, shaking his head, he added: “My dear Lydia would be distraught if she knew what is happening.” He fixed Thomas with a look of such great sorrow that the young doctor found himself forced to turn away for fear he might succumb to emotion.
“There is one more thing I must tell you, sir,” said Thomas, steeling himself to deliver another unwelcome blow.
Dr. Carruthers quailed. “Surely not more bad news?”
The doctor felt his stomach churn as he turned once more to face the older men.
“I fear her ladyship has been told I signed her committal papers,” he said. As he spoke, he felt an icy cold spread from the center of his chest.
The coroner’s eyes flew wide open. “What? But that is preposterous!” His gaze latched onto Thomas’s face. “Malthus again?” he asked, not expecting an answer.
“She no longer trusts me.” There was a note of defeat in Thomas’s voice.
Sensing him to be nearby, Carruthers reached out his arthritic old hand and patted his protégé on the arm. He knew that such a revelation would have come to Thomas as the deepest cut of them all. The room fell silent.
Chapter 14
Despite the curfew and the reading of the Riot Act on the common, the men of Brandwick still talked, only now they spoke in whispers. But more than that, some of them plotted. They huddled in doorways or in the porch of St. Swithin’s, but on market days, when the village attracted farmers and traders from miles around, and their gatherings aroused no suspicion, they needed little excuse to congregate in the Three Tuns.
In the snug room, around the fire, before the murder, they had put the world to rights. Cradling pints of cheap gin, they would mull over the price of grain and the recent weather, and they gossiped about King George and about his wayward son and heir apparent. They spoke of horses and of women, usually in that order. But on this occasion, as over the past few days, the talk was of the killing and of enclosure.
Joseph Makepeace, filling his pipe as he spoke, peered up at Adam Diggott from under drooping lids.
“You ’ad a visit from the Boughton men ’bout the mapmaker?” he asked, the leathery skin on his face as slack as an empty sack.
The brawny coppicer sat staring into the hearth, seemingly entranced by the dancing flames. He had taken his boots off to warm his chilled feet. Young Jake, forever fidgeting, sat at his side. Now Adam turned and nodded distrustfully.
“Aye,” he replied.
“And?”
“What d’ya think?” He scowled. “I told ’em ’owt.”
Will Ketch, his dog, Bess, curled up by the hearth, shook his head. “I ’eard that American doctor was up in Raven’s Wood yesterday, sniffing around, ’e was. Zeb Godson took ’im to where it ’appened.”
Diggott whipped ’round. “What?”
Ketch shrugged. “Offered ’im a guinea, ’e did.”
There was a general consensus that any one of them would have done the same for that money, but Adam Diggott remained unsettled.
“That doctor knows what ’e’s about,” he warned. He’d heard reports after the Great Fogg that this American was a pushy one, always sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong. “There could be trouble.”
For a moment it seemed that those present caught their breaths, waiting for Adam Diggott’s unease to explode into a rage, but his obvious anger was left to simmer, and Abel Smith, the bearded fowler, moved the conversation on.
“I see they’ve started felling for the fencing,” he remarked, stroking his spiky stubble.
“ ’Alf the woodland’ll be gone soon,” lamented Josh Thornley. His tawny hair grew in odd tufts, like patches of twitch grass on poor soil,
leaving some of his scalp almost bald. He sat with his son, Hal, who constantly wrung his hands, either because he was nervous or because he was cold. No one bothered to ask which.
“We’ll not be able to gather the wool clumps no more for our bedding, nor find firewood,” growled Ketch. He reached down to stroke his sleeping dog.
“I see’d some posts already stacked up over by Raven’s Wood,” added Smith.
“Putting the cart before the ’orse, isn’t ’e, this new Boughton man?” jibed Makepeace, drawing on his pipe. But his pun did not even raise a smile. This was far too serious a matter.
“ ’E’ll ’ave the commons fenced off before you can say Jack Robinson, and there ain’t nothing we can do about it!” said Smith. He emptied his tankard and plonked it on the table in front of him in an act of resignation.
“There’s the meeting next week,” Thornley said, his tone more positive than the rest.
“You think they’ll listen to us?” sneered Ketch.
Adam Diggott remained fiery. “But what are we going to do about it?”
“Surely they’ll give us something in return, like allotments?” chimed in Thornley. “They did that in Solwell.”
Abel Smith’s ale spurted from his mouth onto his beard as he let out a sudden laugh. “Believe that, you’ll believe anything!” he exclaimed.
“Maybe as ’ow we need to show Boughton we mean business, so that they do right by us common folk,” suggested Ketch.
“How d’ya mean?” asked Thornley, scratching one of his bald patches.
“We could show ’em we’ve got the upper ’and and that they can’t mess with us,” replied Diggott. He shot a glance at his bright-eyed son and nodded to him, as if to solicit his approval.
“Aye, but ’ow?” asked Makepeace, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe.
Diggott leaned forward. “We need a plan,” he said conspiratorially.
The other men drew in, too, all except Abel Smith. He flattened his grimy palm in front of Diggott’s face. “I want no part of it,” he hissed, his words whistling through the gaps between his stained teeth.
