Thirty-Five
The rain let up as the carriage took them down the Mound and north again into the New Town. Simpson occupied himself with a book, while Raven was left to mull over what the professor had told him. He began asking himself whether he had concocted some greater malfeasance on the part of an imaginary villain as a means of dealing with his own guilt over Evie. In his need to do something for her after her death, he feared he had constructed a fantasy, pulling elements in from around him to support it, tilting at windmills like Don Quixote. Worse still, he had drawn Sarah into it too.
The brougham began to slow after turning a corner into a street that was familiar to Raven in the most uncomfortable way. With a horrible inevitability, the coachman drew his horses to a stop outside a handsome enough building, but one that he could no longer lay eyes upon without a stomach-churning guilt.
The Graseby residence.
Raven endeavoured to keep the alarm from his expression, already worried enough about how transparent Simpson found the inner workings of his mind. The professor looked up from his book as the carriage halted. His expression was briefly curious, as was often the case as he sought the item on his mental list that had brought him here. Then his visage darkened.
‘Here, Mr Raven, I’m afraid I must insist we part ways. I have been called to this address on a very sensitive matter, under condition of such strict confidentiality that I am not permitted to discuss with anyone the reason for my visit.’
Raven experienced a sickening dread. It was as Beattie had feared. Someone had mentioned the lingering smell of ether in the aftermath of Mrs Graseby’s death, and this had led to the summoning of the man regarded as the city’s primary expert on the stuff. If there was one stroke of fortune, it was that this need for confidentiality spared Raven having to walk in there right now, to be recognised.
It would only be a matter of time, however.
‘I should stay here in the meantime?’ he asked.
‘No, I need you to busy yourself with an errand. You recall my encounter with Mr Waldie, who told us of a cordial containing perchloride of formyle and promised to send me some?’
‘I recall you said he was as likely to blow up his own laboratory as to come up with something ingenious.’
‘Proving that many a prescient word is spoken in jest, his sample was never dispatched on account of a fire at the Liverpool Apothecaries Hall. It remains unclear whether Waldie was personally responsible for it, but I was intrigued by his suggestion, and as he is unlikely to make good on his promise any time soon, I asked Duncan and Flockhart to prepare a batch for trial. I need it collected.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Raven hastened from the carriage, keeping his head down though the rain had stopped. He did not want to risk being seen by one of the staff at a time when they were casting their minds back to the night the mistress of their house died.
He was grateful for the walk in the fresh air, the carriage having begun to close in on him like a cell as soon as Simpson announced his reason for being there. His legs felt heavy, though. Simpson’s enquiries would now surely lead to Beattie, and there would be no reason for Beattie to protect him. As he strode east along George Street, he was conscious that at that very moment, the mechanism was being set in motion whereby his medical career might soon be ended.
As he approached the druggist’s, his nose was assailed by a variety of medicinal scents. Through the glass of the door, he could see a young assistant rolling pills on the marble counter and the well-dressed, bespectacled Mr Flockhart pouring a clear liquid into a number of small glass bottles. All his senses seemed enhanced right then, as though drinking in all they could because this might be the last time.
These premises had always held a fascination for him, more so than any baker’s or confectioner’s in his youth. The cabinets accommodated neatly ordered rows of soaps, tooth powders, lotions and liniments, while upon the shelves a hundred bottles and jars glinted in a play of colours. The floor was always swept and polished, a place where neither dirt nor disorder would be tolerated. Its greatest pull upon Raven, though, was the knowledge that within these premises they made medicines. Here they powdered, mixed, brewed and diluted, creating tinctures, pills and potions from roots, herbs, minerals and sundry other substances. Here, they experimented, developing remedies for all manner of ailments. Here, progress was made.
He had always wanted a part of this, and had relished each visit, even upon errands for Dr Duncan. He had begun to believe it a part of his world, a part of his future, but now he feared it was all about to be taken away.
Flockhart looked up from what he was doing.
‘Mr Raven. You’ll be here for this,’ he said with pointed emphasis, and picked up a bottle that was sitting to his left upon the counter. It contained a fluid so viscous you could have stood up a spoon in it.
‘Yes, sir. For Dr Simpson. I believe he asked you to reproduce a formula suggested by a Mr Waldie of Liverpool.’
Flockhart issued a stern sigh. ‘That we did. Resulting in a small explosion which scorched our walls and ceiling and could have resulted in irreparable ocular damage had we not been wearing our spectacles at the time. I trust we can add the repainting cost to Dr Simpson’s account?’
Raven did not reply, unsure whether he had the authority to approve this or even whether Flockhart was joking. He took the bottle and departed.
When he reached Queen Street, he made straight for the dining room, where he intended to leave the bottle, ready for trial after that night’s dinner. He found James Duncan knelt by the open doors of the sideboard, all the previous samples and a dozen other vials laid out on the top.
‘I’m attempting to rationalise this mess and dispose of a few things,’ he said, his tone indicating irritation at Raven’s interruption, or maybe his mere presence. ‘What do you have there?’
‘Something Dr Simpson requested from Duncan and Flockhart. I imagine he wants to test it after dinner.’
‘Let me have a look.’
Duncan took the bottle, tilting it on its side, and frowned in disapproval at the dense liquid. He unstopped it and held the open neck to his nose, which he wrinkled, though not in reflexive response. He sniffed deeper, then shook his head, handing it back.
‘Most unlikely to serve,’ he predicted.
Raven had a sniff too. He thought he felt a hint of light-headedness, but this might have been resultant of having just hurried to get there.
‘Perhaps if it was warmed to make it more volatile,’ Raven suggested, conscious that the bottle was chilled from being outside. ‘The heat of the room will render it so by the time dinner is concluded.’
‘Peut-être,’ Duncan replied, in a tone that did not sound hopeful. He had an irritating habit of slipping into French, an affectation no doubt intended to remind everyone of his having recently arrived here from his prodigious studies in Paris.
Raven felt reluctant to dismiss the bottle so quickly, then remembered Dr Simpson’s entreaty not to make it about oneself when dealing with matters of evidence. He was attributing the stuff significance due to the fire it might have caused in Liverpool and the subsequent explosion in the druggist’s lab, not to mention the distance he had walked in retrieving it.
‘I have higher hopes for this, though,’ Duncan said, holding up another bottle. He took out the stopper and held it beneath Raven’s nose. There was something sharp and acrid about it, causing him to recoil. He felt an immediate sense of dizziness too. Raven could understand Duncan’s optimism, but equally could already anticipate tomorrow’s resultant headache.
Duncan observed him with a wolfish grin.
‘What is this stuff?’
‘I suggested a formula to Professor Gregory.’
‘So this is of your own devising?’ Raven asked. That would certainly account for Duncan’s enthusiasm.
‘Indeed, though this is merely a preliminary distillation. He assured me a refined batch will be ready tonight. Now that
you are here, you can go and retrieve it.’
‘I have to get back to Dr Simpson,’ Raven protested. ‘His visits are not complete.’
‘Don’t you have duties at the Maternity Hospital later?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you can go once those are concluded. Professor Gregory works late at his laboratory. In fact, I suspect he sleeps there.’
It was not strictly true that Raven had to return to Dr Simpson, as the professor had made no direct instruction regarding the matter. It was more the case that Raven felt an urgent compulsion to report back to him, due to a combination of guilt and anxiety and his resultant impatience for this uncertainty to be at an end. If there was a reckoning, he wanted to face it sooner rather than later, though not so much that he was prepared to expedite this himself by coming clean. While there was still hope that his role in Mrs Graseby’s death might never emerge, he would cling on, though it become ever more agonising.
He set off towards Danube Street, striding briskly north along Gloucester Lane. He had no guarantee Simpson would still be at the Graseby house, but little over an hour had passed since they parted. It was as he crossed the junction at Doune Terrace that he spied a brougham and its pair, halted not fifty yards away. He saw Simpson emerge and quickly cross the pavement towards the door of a terraced townhouse.
Raven hastened to catch up with him, but as he did, Angus the coachman stepped into his path to arrest his progress.
‘The professor is not to be disturbed,’ he said.
‘What, here too?’ Raven asked.
‘Here too,’ the coachman confirmed with a solemn nod.
Raven glanced towards the house, where the door was closing behind Simpson. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he detected an anxiety about Angus, a degree of alarm at Raven having come so unexpectedly upon them.
Raven was about to turn towards the carriage when he saw movement through the window of the large front room. He watched an elegantly dressed young woman rise to her feet and greet Simpson as he strode into the room. They embraced warmly, exchanging words Raven could not hear.
The professor bent briefly out of sight, and when he stood up again, he was holding an infant: a baby of perhaps eighteen months, swaddled in a pink dress. Simpson hugged the child to him while the woman looked on, smiling with the most tender affection.
There did not appear to be any medical matters to attend, far less an emergency.
‘What is Dr Simpson’s business here?’ Raven asked. He did not expect a straight answer, but sought to measure subtleties in how Angus evaded it.
‘I know only that it is a private matter, and I know not to ask further detail. You would be wise to follow suit, unless you would rather Dr Simpson was made aware of your curiosity.’
‘May I wait in the carriage?’
Angus gestured him welcome. Raven wondered at his loyalty: what secrets he might know; what further secrets he did not know he knew.
His thoughts were called back to the fraught conversation he had overheard between Mina and Jessie: ‘He is paying out twelve pounds a year to another woman. Isn’t the obvious question: why?’
‘It is an act of charity. Surely no one can cast aspersions over something so noble.’
‘In my experience people are happy to cast aspersions over anything when the morality of an action can be called into question.’
Raven recalled Simpson’s own advice to him this morning regarding sensational hypotheses. Nonetheless, this woman was in no need of charity, and here was Simpson visiting her alone, knowing Raven had been sent elsewhere, his coachman acting to protect his privacy. Had Mina been trying to make Jessie see what should be obvious before her eyes?
Simpson was not there long, perhaps half an hour. He strode back out to his carriage, a look of surprise lighting upon him at the sight of Raven waiting there. If it was accompanied by alarm, he concealed it swiftly. Nonetheless, there ensued a moment of silence once they were both seated, an uncomfortable intermission during which it was evident that Raven’s presence was as unwelcome as it was unexpected.
‘I was making my way back to Danube Street when I saw your carriage,’ Raven ventured by way of explanation. He swallowed, the better to keep his voice steady and bright during his next words. ‘What of your visit there? I appreciate it was confidential, but went everything well?’
Simpson’s countenance became regretful, like clouds gathering. He let out a deep sigh. ‘A bad business,’ he said, gazing through the window. Then he turned to look at Raven. ‘And one not yet concluded to my satisfaction.’
Thirty-Six
Sarah elbowed her way into the room, balancing the tea tray on one arm. She manoeuvred carefully around the mess on the floor, trying not to stand on any remnants of material or any part of the seamstress who was lying prostrate at Mina’s feet, making adjustments to the hem of her new dress. The tray contained but one cup, Miss Tweedie the seamstress considered too lowly a person to merit refreshment.
Sarah placed the tray on a small table in the corner.
‘Shall I pour, ma’am?’
‘In a minute, Sarah. I think we’re almost finished here.’
Mina swung around to face Sarah, ignoring the fact that Miss Tweedie was still in the process of pinning the hem.
‘What do you think?’
Sarah stood with her arms folded, making a convincing pretence of considered study. She knew from experience that it did not do to answer too quickly. The dress was a damson silk satin, wide at the neckline, narrow at the waist, with a full skirt.
‘It’s beautiful, Miss Grindlay.’
As indeed it was, but Mina was looking good in whatever she wore these days simply because of the glow of contentment she was giving off.
‘As you know, Sarah, I was in desperate need of a new evening gown.’
A slight emphasis was added to the penultimate word to remind Sarah, lest she had forgotten, that Mina was now being escorted with some regularity to evening functions.
‘Plain is the fashion now,’ piped up Miss Tweedie, kneeling on the floor and speaking through two pins gripped between her lips. ‘No applied decoration.’ She groaned a little as she stood up. ‘Now, we’ll get that off you and I shall make the adjustments we discussed.’
Sarah helped the seamstress wrestle Mina out of the dress and into her old one.
‘When will it be ready?’ Mina asked. ‘I have a number of important engagements in the near future.’
The word engagement was also given extra stress, Sarah noticed, though not so much that Miss Tweedie would surely infer its significance.
‘End of the week, I should imagine,’ Miss Tweedie said, collecting up her pins.
‘I think Dr Beattie will like it,’ Sarah said, offering Mina the opportunity to talk about him, though she seldom needed prompting.
‘Yes, I do believe that he will.’
‘Is he your intended?’ asked Miss Tweedie, gathering up the garment under discussion.
‘Nothing has been made formal,’ replied Mina, although the implication was that it would be soon.
This gave Sarah pause, prompting an involuntary tightness in her chest. Happy as she was for Mina, Sarah retained an instinctive suspicion about Beattie’s intentions. Perhaps it was a natural caution born of concern that Mina should not get hurt. Mina was a sensible and strong-minded woman, but if there was one area where she might be vulnerable to deception – and most dangerously self-deception – it was in the matter of finding a husband.
When she had first mentioned her reservations to Raven, he had told her how Beattie insisted that he was not interested in trivial flirtations. This sounded well and good, but did not entirely tally with how she often felt Beattie’s eyes lingering upon her as she went about her business. Men deluded themselves that you didn’t know they were staring – or where they were staring.
Looking and desiring were different things, however, and she would admit to being moved when she learned from Raven
how Beattie had lost his bride-to-be on the day before their planned wedding. It was truly tragic, like something from a novel. Nonetheless, she was not convinced that his previous loss meant his feelings for Mina were everything Mina would like to believe. Simply not reminding him of the woman he lost did not strike Sarah as a strong foundation upon which to build true feelings. In fact, it seemed the opposite of true feelings: a bulwark against genuine emotion.
‘Do you believe an announcement is imminent?’ Sarah asked.
She realised her question might be considered impertinent, but she was confident that this would be overlooked in Mina’s desire to share her news.
‘I believe so.’
Mina had a flush of colour rising from her neck to her face.
‘How wonderful,’ said Miss Tweedie, sounding like she meant it.
‘Yes,’ agreed Mina. ‘I was beginning to think that it might never happen.’
Sarah noticed that she spoke this more quietly, as though to herself.
‘Is remaining unmarried such a disaster?’ Sarah asked. She knew that Mina was in love with Beattie; she was less sure that these feelings were being genuinely reciprocated. Sarah thought about Rose Campbell, perhaps similarly afflicted by an all-consuming passion that left no space for doubt. Look where that had led.
Mina looked at her as though she might have lost her mind.
‘To be a spinster aunt reliant on the generosity of family? What kind of life would that be?’
‘Can’t a woman have aspirations for herself beyond marriage?’ Sarah responded.
‘“Aspirations”? What on earth can you mean?’
Sarah thought of Miss Mann and Miss Rigby, and of Mina’s love for the written word. Nobody she had met knew more about novels and poetry. It seemed a shame that there was no means of harnessing this.
‘A profession of some kind. I mean, do you not wish there was a worthwhile way to use your intellect and knowledge?’
The Way of All Flesh Page 23
