Too Hot to Handel

by Sheri Cobb South

  Having cleaned the dried blood and soot from his face, she set about the awkward task of removing his dirty, blood-soaked clothing. By rolling him carefully onto first one shoulder and then the other, she was able to divest him of his coat and waistcoat, but the shirt presented a problem, as she dared not attempt to pull it over his head.

  “Mrs. Catchpole,” she addressed the woman still kneeling before the fire, “have you any idea where I might find a scissors, or perhaps a knife?”

  The landlady turned and beheld her tenant being undressed with surprisingly gentle efficiency. “Here, ma’am, there’s no task for a lady! You’d best let me do that.”

  “Nonsense! I was married for six years. I’ve seen a naked man before,” Julia insisted, blushing nevertheless as she spoke the words.

  “Oh!” Mrs. Catchpole’s eyes widened in sudden recognition. “You must be Johnny’s widow!”

  “He’s not dead!” Lady Fieldhurst cried hotly. “You are not to speak of him in that manner!”

  “No, of course not,” the older woman hastened to reassure her, even as she recognized that her own hopes of a match between her niece and her handsome young boarder were doomed, whether he recovered his health or not. “I only meant that—that is, Johnny told me once that he’d met—”

  Lady Fieldhurst dashed a hand over her eyes. “I beg your pardon. Of course you did not mean anything of the kind! It has been a most trying evening, and I fear my nerves are on edge.”

  “Well, and how could they not be?” Mrs. Catchpole asked soothingly. “Perhaps you’d care for a nice cup of tea? If you’re sure you don’t need my help, that is.”

  In fact, Lady Fieldhurst was more than a bit daunted by the prospect of undressing Mr. Pickett’s lower half, but she would allow no one else to touch him, and did not particularly desire an audience while she did so herself. “Tea would be lovely, Mrs. Catchpole.”

  After the landlady had gone, Lady Fieldhurst turned back to the still figure on the bed. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pickett. I know you would not like it, but your clothes are shockingly wet from the fire hoses, and you will feel much more the thing once you are warm and dry,” she said, then set to work unbuttoning the fall of his breeches.

  Soon, having stripped Mr. Pickett to his smallclothes (further than that she refused to go, no matter how damp his drawers), she covered him with a blanket. She glanced over her shoulder at the fire, burning brightly now although it had yet to dispel the chill in the room. She shuddered at the sight, and wondered if she would ever be able to look at even the most innocuous candle flame in quite the same way.

  “Here we are,” announced Mrs. Catchpole, entering the room bearing a steaming cup and a knife with a short blade. She set both on the bedside table, then stood regarding Lady Fieldhurst expectantly.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Catchpole,” said Julia, nodding a dismissal.

  Alas, the landlady was not to be so easily dismissed. “I don’t know what the world’s coming to, ma’am, honest I don’t! The theatre at Covent Garden last September, and now the one at Drury Lane! It’s a good thing I don’t hold no truck with make-believe acting on stage, for it’s plain as a pikestaff those places aren’t safe. And to think that only a week ago I was telling my niece—”

  “You’ve been most helpful, Mrs. Catchpole,” said Julia, interrupting what promised to be quite a lengthy reminiscence, “but I’m sure you will want to go back downstairs and keep an eye on your shop. I feel certain I can manage quite well on my own from here. Pray do not let me keep you from your own concerns.”

  Mrs. Catchpole wavered between resentment at being so summarily dismissed, and knowledge that her boarder’s aristocratic companion was quite right: In addition to the possibility that the fire might spread, there was the ever-present threat of thieves, who were quick to take advantage of chaos and confusion in order to enrich themselves.

  “Very well, ma’am,” she said with obvious reluctance. “If you’re sure you don’t need me no more, I’ll leave you. I’ll be up in the morning with fresh water and more coal for the fire, shall I?”

  “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Catchpole,” said Julia with real gratitude. “I would be most appreciative.”

  Alone with the man who was and yet was not her husband, Julia fortified herself with a sip of tea, grimacing at the taste; Mrs. Catchpole’s tea leaves were clearly inferior to the blend found in her own kitchen in Curzon Street. Setting aside the cup, she unbuttoned the neck of Pickett’s shirt, then took up the knife. She slit the garment open from placket to hem, then eased it off with the same side-to-side motion she’d used in removing his coat and waistcoat.

  The light in the room was somewhat brighter now, thanks to the fire, and when she slipped his arm through the sleeve, she could see clearly what she not noticed before. The palms of his hands were red and raw, with blood blisters forming on the tender flesh. She recalled their swift descent down the makeshift rope, and cradled his hand against her cheek.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me, Mr. Pickett,” she whispered against his abused palm, “but I wish I could tell you how wonderful—how brave—”

  Her throat closed, and she could say no more. As her eyes blurred with tears, she knew with blinding certainty that if he were to die, everything good and beautiful in her life would go with him. She should have realized the truth weeks ago. After all the loneliness and misery of the last three months, it seemed the cruelest of ironies that she should not know her own heart until now, when he lay as still and quiet as if under some malicious spell.

  “Please wake up,” she begged. “Please come back to me. I couldn’t bear it if you should—I—I—”

  She might never have another opportunity to say what was in her heart, what she should have said long before now. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she leaned over his motionless form.

  “I love you, John Pickett,” she whispered, and pressed her lips to his unresponsive mouth.

  To Pickett, dimly aware of the pain in his head, it seemed as if he were floating weightlessly in some viscous liquid he could not identify. Not the waters of the Thames, surely; he’d done his share of mudlarking along its banks in his formative years, and its waters had never been so clear. He supposed he could swim for the surface and look about to ascertain his location, but he found himself extremely reluctant to do so. Above was fire and pain and something else, something important that he had to tell someone. Below, on the other hand . . . Below, all was velvety darkness and gentle caresses and a familiar, beloved voice saying things he knew he would never hear it speak Above.

  It was the easiest decision he’d ever made. He relaxed and gave himself up to the darkness.

  CHAPTER 6

  IN WHICH LADY FIELDHURST ROUTS A CHARLATAN AND MAKES A DISTURBING DISCOVERY

  Lady Fieldhurst had no idea how much time had passed before the surgeon finally arrived. Certainly it seemed like hours, but then again, time had ceased to exist on this, the longest night of her life. At last there was a knock on the door, and she opened it to admit a grizzled man wearing spectacles and carrying a worn black leather bag.

  “Oh, thank God!” she exclaimed.

  “Willard Portman, surgeon,” he said by way of introduction. “I believe you have a patient for me?”

  “Yes, Mr. Portman. Right this way, if you please.”

  She led him through the outer room, which served as both sitting and dining room, into the small bedroom, where Pickett lay exactly as she had left him.

  “Mm-hmm.” The surgeon studied him for a long moment, then began carefully unwrapping the makeshift bandage she had fashioned from his cravat. “Mm-hmm,” he said again when the blood-encrusted wound was revealed.

  He turned to the bedside table, opened his bag, and began laying out a number of ominous-looking instruments.

  “What—what are you going to do?” Lady Fieldhurst asked, eyeing this collection with growing unease.

  “In cases where the head has suffered an injury, ma’am
, the greatest danger is the possibility of brain fever. In my opinion, the best way to prevent this is to alleviate any swelling of the brain. I myself have developed a procedure that I believe will accomplish this.” He glanced down at the instruments lined up on the bedside table and picked up a straight razor. “I will begin by shaving the patient’s head. This will allow me to drill a hole in the skull, which will reduce pressure on the brain, thus allowing for—”

  “And you’ve done this before?” asked Lady Fieldhurst, aghast.

  He nodded. “On two occasions, yes.”

  “And—and your other patients? They eventually recovered?”

  “Alas, they both died. But,” he added quickly, “they undoubtedly would have done so much sooner had not a cure been attempted.”

  “Get out,” breathed Lady Fieldhurst, moving to position herself between surgeon and patient.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me,” she said, more strongly this time. “Get out.”

  “May I remind you, ma’am, that it was you who sent for me? If you do not allow me to treat him—”

  She snatched up the knife she’d used to cut open Pickett’s shirt, and pointed it at the surgeon’s throat. “I said, get out.”

  He gave a nervous little laugh. “There, there, ma’am, I’m sure there’s no need for—”

  “If you touch him,” she said with great deliberation, “I will kill you.”

  Eyes wide behind his spectacles, the surgeon stuffed his instruments back into his leather bag and began to back away slowly. “Very well, ma’am, but if he dies, then on your own head be it!”

  Having delivered himself of this Parthian shot, he turned and took to his heels. Lady Fieldhurst slammed the door and locked it behind him, as if fearful he might return and attempt to perform his hideous operation without her permission. Then she buried her face in her trembling hands and surrendered to the tears she could no longer hold back.

  As dawn broke over the City, Mr. Colquhoun left the Bow Street office and walked to the intersection of Russell and Brydges streets, where the Theatre Royal had once dominated the landscape. The air was still thick with smoke, but through the haze he could see one broken and blackened wall rising above the ruins, the two large holes that had once housed its windows gaping over the wreckage like sightless eyes. The deep crater beyond, he supposed, had been the orchestra pit, which meant the piles of smoldering beams on either side must be all that was left of the boxes that had once risen on each side, flanking the pit. The royal box would have been to the right of the stage, so directly opposite, on the left . . .

  A curl of smoke rose from the ashes as from a funeral pyre. God only knew what the boy must have suffered, thought the magistrate. He found himself hoping the lad had succumbed to the smoke long before the flames reached the box. Asphyxiation was a nasty enough way to die, but surely less horrific than the alternative. He supposed Lady Fieldhurst must have been among the fallen as well, and hoped Pickett had derived some comfort from the fact that she was with him at the end.

  It occurred to him that he had made many friends in high places over the course of his magisterial career; perhaps he could pull a few strings and obtain permission to claim the—the remains—once the wreckage was cleared away. God knew John Pickett had no one else, aside from a ne’er-do-well father in Botany Bay. He refused to allow the boy to be buried namelessly in a pauper’s grave.

  “Damned smoke,” he muttered, dragging a handkerchief from his pocket and mopping his stinging eyes.

  Then, turning away from the ruined site that was John Pickett’s grave, he made his way slowly back toward Bow Street. Here life went on, for in addition to the usual petty crimes, there were now a host of other issues related to the fire. A man described a horse that had been either lost or stolen in all the confusion; an elderly woman complained loudly that she was not allowed to search the wreckage for the walking stick she was quite certain she had left behind when the blaze broke out. Nearer the magistrate’s bench, a grizzled man wearing spectacles waved his arms in agitation.

  “A madwoman, I tell you!” he insisted, to Mr. Foote’s skeptical amusement. “She threatened me with a knife!”

  Mr. Colquhoun heaved a sigh and stepped nearer. “What’s all this?”

  Having received little encouragement from his previous audience, the man turned eagerly to the magistrate. “I’m trying to tell this fellow there’s a madwoman on the loose with a knife! She threatened to kill me if I didn’t leave the premises!”

  “I see.” Mr. Colquhoun scowled. “Where was this?”

  “Shabby little flat in Drury Lane. Number eighty-four, I believe, although I don’t mind admitting I didn’t stick around to make sure.”

  Mr. Colquhoun recognized the number, and scowled all the more fiercely. “Over a chandler’s shop, was it?”

  “Aye, I believe it was, at that.”

  Mr. Colquhoun addressed himself to the Runner. “I’ll look into it, Mr. Foote, you need not trouble yourself.”

  Suiting the word to the deed, he left the Bow Street office without a backward glance. He knew there were unscrupulous persons amongst the criminal classes who stole the possessions of the dead in order to sell them, but he would be damned if he would let someone else profit from everything John Pickett had worked for over the course of his short life. The magistrate sighed. He did not look forward to the grim task of shipping the boy’s meager belongings halfway around the world to the scoundrel who had sired him, but he supposed he owed the man that much; after all, he’d killed his son.

  Drying her tears, Lady Fieldhurst returned to the bedroom, where she found Mr. Pickett lying exactly as she had left him. Surely it was not natural for him to be so still and, yes, so lifeless. Surely he had not . . .

  Fearing the worst, she moved quickly to his bedside. She folded down the blanket enough to expose his smooth, bare chest, and laid her hand over his heart. She felt it then, the faintest flutter of his heartbeat, the slightest rise and fall of his breathing. Letting out a long sigh of relief, she pulled the blanket back up to his chin, replaced the bandages that the surgeon had removed, then straightened up—and got a good look at herself in the spotted mirror above the washstand.

  It was perhaps a good thing he could not see her, for the hideous sight she presented would have surely been enough to frighten him to death. Her face, at least that part of it that had not been covered with his handkerchief, was grimy with soot, and her hair was coming down from its few remaining pins. Her dress—her beautiful blue dress, for which she’d had such high hopes—was nothing more than a rag, its hem scorched, its skirts sodden and bloodstained, and most of its net overdress ripped away. And yet in her imagination it would always remain just as it had appeared at that moment when she had emerged from the cloakroom, and Mr. Pickett had seen her in it . . .

  She smiled a little at the memory, then began to strip off what was left of the gown. She glanced uncertainly at the still figure on the bed before allowing the dress to fall from her shoulders, but she need not have worried; he was utterly oblivious to her presence. Or perhaps, if she were to be honest with herself, she was not worrying at all, but rather indulging the wild hope that the prospect of seeing her en déshabillé might rouse him when nothing else would. If so, it was a wasted effort, for he did not stir.

  Although the fire was beginning to heat the room quite nicely, it was still rather chilly to be wearing nothing but one’s chemise, stays, and petticoats. Unfortunately, she had no other dress to put on. She rubbed her arms for warmth, wondering whether to ask Mrs. Catchpole for the loan of a shawl when she caught sight of Pickett’s two coats, one black and one brown, hanging on a peg beside the door. She recalled that the black one was his best, so she chose the brown (her favorite of the two in any case, since she had seen him wearing it much more frequently than the other) and shrugged it on over her undergarments. The sleeves were much too long—in fact, they covered her hands—but this problem was easily resolved
by rolling them up. Having completed this simple alteration, she turned up one lapel and buried her nose in it, inhaling deeply of the scent that was uniquely John Pickett.

  She washed her face with cold water from the basin, then took down what was left of her coiffure and twisted her hair into a simple knot at the nape of her neck. She had just finished securing it with her few remaining hairpins when a knock sounded on the door. Mrs. Catchpole, she thought, come to deliver the promised coal and water and to inquire, no doubt, after her boarder’s health. Julia regretted that she had nothing more encouraging to report. She crossed the drawing room and opened the door—and found herself face to face with Mr. Pickett’s magistrate, Mr. Colquhoun. For a long moment they stared at one another with identical expressions of incredulity, until Julia recalled that she was wearing nothing but her undergarments and Mr. Pickett’s coat.

  She clutched it tightly closed at her throat. “This—this is not what it looks like—”

  So overwhelming was the magistrate’s grief over the loss of his young protégé, he might have discovered the pair of them in flagrante delicto and felt nothing but the most profound relief. “He—he’s alive?” he managed, almost afraid to hope.