“That’s barbaric.”
“Yes, I suppose it is. But do not feel sorry for her. Princess Henriette-Anne, who was soon to be wed to the Duc d’Orleans, took pity on her and asked her to be one of her ladies. It didn’t take long for Madame Severin to rise to mistress of the bedchamber. Some years later, she arranged to have the duelist killed; he was set upon by some supposed highwaymen. Some people even believe she killed him herself. It will never be proved, but I think it behooves her to remain in England. And here she thrives. Madame Severin is ideally suited to being a courtier. Her ability to charm and deceive was well honed during her marriage.”
“You pass a harsh judgment upon her.”
“No harsher than what is warranted.”
They approach the main gate. “You seem to know much about many people, Mr. Montagu.”
Montagu gives her a sidelong glance. “You have no idea.”
The courtyard swarms with crowds as people of all types, from the highest noble to the most humble apprentice, pass in and out of the gate at Whitehall Street, the main thoroughfare leading into the palace. The only requirement for entry to Whitehall is a decent suit of clothes, and even that minimal condition is waived in some cases. A few of the king’s guards and the red-coated horse guards, whose barracks and stables lie just across the road, stand duty, but they seldom harass anyone. Carriages, sedan chairs, and hackney coaches for hire line up in front of the Banqueting House.
“Again, may I escort you home?” Montagu asks.
“No, really—”
“But I insist.” His light, mocking tone is gone. He directs Hannah’s attention to one of the hackney coaches on the street. Maitland stands by the door, waiting for them.
Hannah realizes at once that Lord Arlington has arranged this—not just the coach but also Montagu’s presence at Mademoiselle de Keroualle’s and even, perhaps, the former ambassador’s solicitousness. She tries to hide her disappointment, though she fears she is unable to completely do so. “I see.”
“Do not be alarmed, Mrs. Devlin.” Montagu takes her arm and escorts her through the milling crowds. “Your secrets are safe with me.”
Chapter Fifteen
Observations of my second visit to Mademoiselle de Keroualle, at Whitehall:
She continues quite ill with unremitting fever, pain in her loins, heat in her urine, and extreme lethargy. I am more firmly of the opinion that she has the running of the reins. There is only one possible source of this sickness. Lord Arlington has not said so directly, but as he delicately put it: “The mademoiselle’s affections have been engaged by no one but His Majesty.” Last night I asked him and Madame Severin if she had felt poorly before the pain and fever commenced. The Mistress of the Bedchamber replied that as long as a fortnight ago Mlle. de Keroualle had complained of discomfort, but did not imagine that she could be vexed with a disease of Venus by way of the King. I said that it has been my experience and the experience of my parents before me that sickness does not make distinctions of class, wealth, or goodness of character, to which Mme. Severin took some offense, thinking that by this statement I considered Mlle. de Keroualle no better than a lady of the town. Lord Arlington had to assure her that I did not mean such a thing. It seems we are always to be at cross-purposes to one another. Mme. Severin is clearly anxious to establish her mistress’s loyalty to the King; and at the same time she does not want to anger the King by making known the result of his profligate behavior. I can understand her reluctance but I cannot agree with it, for it has allowed Mlle. de Keroualle’s illness to continue and take hold with great force. I did not ask how the King himself fares; it is understood that he must suffer from the same complaint, although in a lesser degree; and from Arlington’s expressions I gathered that this is not the first occasion.
At Mlle. de Keroualle’s I met Ralph Montagu, who has been lately recalled from France, where he served as ambassador. He is charming, which is cause for circumspection; but is that not a trait which all diplomatists must nurture? He, like Lord Arlington, is employed in keeping my enterprise at Whitehall clandestine; I appreciate this necessity, though it gives me reason for worry, and from Lord Arlington I fear no good will come to me, as no good came to my father. Mr. Montagu is possessed of an excellent understanding and very well favored, and has a wit which I fear with less restraint would be wicked indeed. He put down in a most satisfactory manner the presumptions of one of the King’s doctors. I suppose his treatment of Sir Granville could be considered cruel by some, but I believe this man to be the worst sort of physician, whose small amount of book learning only serves to inflict a great amount of suffering upon anyone unfortunate enough to be his patient. If my father were still alive, I’m sure he would have felt as I did.
Her father. Hannah puts down her quill and presses her temples between her thumb and fingers. It’s been more than a year since her father died, a year ago September. Not died, precisely, but was killed, the victim of his own charity: Dr. Briscoe was visiting a patient in one of the poorer parishes when he was robbed and left for dead. One by one, the people she most loved passed away: her husband, Nathaniel, her daughter, Sarah, her father. Hannah’s mother left in spirit long ago, though she remains in body, and Hannah has nothing on which to place the blame: a sickness of the mind, or of the soul?
If only there were someone whose mind and counsel she could consult, could rely upon. Mrs. Wills is too busy with the work of the household to be a confidante, and she has never shown great interest in medical matters. The girls are too young; they look to Hannah as a mother of sorts. Since her father died, she’s had no one to talk to. No wonder she scribbles in this diary every night: to create a listener, a sounding board, a place where all her thoughts can be expressed without encountering judgment or censure.
Hannah yawns and stretches. The events of the day have been wearying. To find syrup of poppies, she had to go to two more apothecary shops, and even so she was able to purchase only a small amount, a few days’ worth at most. To make up for the possible shortfall, she’d also bought some laudanum, Dr. Sydenham’s creation of opium and wine. Generally laudanum is stronger than poppy syrup, and must be used more judiciously, but she feels better knowing it is close at hand. She has taken only a few drops of syrup today, just enough to reduce her pain while keeping her mind clear. She wouldn’t have gotten through the trip to Whitehall without it. But now it is night, and, keeping to its usual pattern, the headache has grown worse. She looks across the room to her workbench, a plank table as big as a door placed under the eaves. The brown bottle that contains the poppy syrup is just one of the many bottles and jars and dishes set amongst the jumble of her medicine-making apparatus, the mortars and pestles, the pill-making board, the alembics.
In the beginning, the poppy syrup helped her sleep, but its soporific effect has ebbed away over time. More often now she feels restless and unsettled after taking it; the pain is lulled and quieted, but she is not. The only answer, she knows from observing patients, is to administer a larger dose. Perhaps switching to the laudanum would help. There are dosing instructions for tincture of opium in the notes her father kept while working with Dr. Sydenham, she recalls. She is about to get up and look for his bound journal when she hears a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Hannah calls.
The door opens slowly. Hester reluctantly takes a few steps inside. Her freckled face has a pleasant, coppery glow in the candlelight. Hannah notices the creases ringing the bottom of her flannel overskirt; Mrs. Wills has let out the hem twice, and it’s already too short again. Hester is growing so fast that she’s all arms and legs, like a newborn foal. She holds a blue ceramic cup of something steaming that smells of nutmeg. “Mrs. Wills made you a posset,” she says, offering the cup awkwardly. “To help you sleep.”
Hannah has tried to keep her late nights and nocturnal perambulations a secret from the rest of the household. Obviously she hasn’t been entirely successful.
“Thank you, Hester.” Hannah takes t
he cup from her. The posset is made of hot milk, honey, red wine, and spices. It would no doubt be good for her, but she does not, at this moment, feel like drinking it. She puts it on the writing table next to her diary. “You may sit with me for a few minutes, if you like,” she says, knowing that her offer will almost certainly be turned down. Hannah hasn’t given up hope, however, that one day Hester will be less apprehensive.
Hester can barely conceal her panic. She has never enjoyed being in Hannah’s room; in fact, she is afraid of it: the bundles of herbs drying in the rafters; the jars of mysterious liquids and powders; the ceramic canisters of dead, dried insects and animal parts; the bubbling alembics; the strange aromas; the stacks of aging, leather-bound books. Hannah tries to see it through Hester’s eyes: less of a bedchamber than a combination of apothecary’s shop, alchemist’s warren, and a place with, perhaps, a darker purpose. Hester’s family moved to London from the countryside, and Hester has retained many of the small-town prejudices that she was born with, even though Hannah has insisted on educating both of the girls. Hester believes in bizarre and morbid occurrences, such as bewitched girls who vomit pins and hanks of horsehair, or men who fall under an evil spell and are compelled to dance a jig until they die. Even though Hannah has tried to point out the improbability of such events, Hester’s belief in the occult is hard to dislodge.
“Please excuse me, ma’am. Lucy and I are busy with our Latin grammar.” She has given the one excuse that always works with Hannah: she is studying. Mrs. Wills doesn’t think much of Hannah’s educational curriculum for the girls. Especially the Latin, she says, is a waste of time and tutors’ fees, but Latin is still the language of scholars and Hannah wants Lucy and Hester to have the ability to read widely, regardless of their path in life. Although admittedly neither of them have taken to it with the enthusiasm that she did.
“And how are your studies progressing?”
“Very well, ma’am.” It is a dutiful answer and a predictable one. It’s also a lie: the last time Hannah quizzed the girls they were woefully inept. But that isn’t what bothers her most. No matter how she tries, she can’t get past Hester’s reserve. It’s as if all the girl’s darker emotions, her resentment and anger and fear, have turned inward to fester and grow. She worries that someday Hester will do something terrible, something worse than lying or shirking her duties or tormenting Lucy, something so bad it will be irreversible. But her head throbs and she can do nothing about it now.
“All right, you may go.” Hester is out of the room as soon as the words are out of Hannah’s mouth.
She looks at the posset, still steaming in the cup. No, it won’t do. It won’t do at all. She crosses the room to her workbench and picks up the bottle of poppy syrup. Eight drops this time. Maybe ten. Maybe more.
Chapter Sixteen
Fourth week of Michaelmas term
STEERING CLEAR OF Derek Goodman was more easily said than done, Claire soon discovered. They lived and worked in the same small universe: New Court, hall, the history faculty building. Only a week after her maddening conversation with Andrew Kent, Claire was standing in the dinner buffet line trying to choose between the meat and the vegetarian entrées (roast pork loin or cannelloni Provencal?), when Derek Goodman entered the hall and took a place right behind her.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he said.
“Are you speaking to me?” Claire asked, incredulous.
“Of course I’m speaking to you. Do you see anyone else around here who’s gorgeous? Except me, of course,” he added with a wink. He glanced over at the elderly waiter who stood near the buffet table, presumably to help the fellows spoon food upon their plates. “Not that you aren’t a fine-looking man, Mr. Digby.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Derek turned back to Claire. “What do you say to dinner tomorrow night? And none of this Dutch treat business you Americans go for, it’s all on me.”
“I hardly think—”
“But why wait until tomorrow to do what we can do today? Why don’t we pile up a couple of plates with enough sustenance to keep us alive ’til tomorrow morning, and go back to my set?”
“Are you insane, or do you just have a very bad memory?”
“Now why would you want to hurt me by saying something like that? I thought we were getting on so well.”
Claire put her plate down on the buffet table. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. How dare he act like nothing had happened? Derek Goodman was a piece of work, all right—an egomaniac and a complete narcissist. “Have you forgotten that you stole my idea for a paper and then lied about it to Dr. Kent?”
“I lied?” Derek’s voice shot up a few decibels; every head nearby swiveled to stare at them. “I’m not the one who’s the liar here. Just because you found me attractive and wanted to shag”—at this, more heads turned—“and I said no, you’re going to tell lies about me to the other fellows?”
“What?” Claire gasped. “You are insane. Or completely unconscionable.”
“Did you really think you could get away with it?”
“Get away with what?” Not only the fellows at High Table but also the students were listening with rapt interest.
“Slandering me. Just because you’re American and you’re young and pretty you think you can say whatever you want and get away with it. Well, you’re not going to get away with stealing my paper—”
Claire could recall being this angry only once before: when her (now ex) husband Michael had announced that he was in love with another woman on the day of Claire’s mother’s funeral. She’d had the same response then as she did now. Before she was completely aware of what she was doing, she clenched her right fist and aimed. She knew it connected when she heard Derek Goodman’s yelp of pain.
“Bloody hell!” Derek’s hands flew to his face, where a bright red mark spread across his cheek. “She hit me! Did you see that, Mr. Digby?” The waiter looked too shocked to form words. Derek pointed an accusing finger at Claire. “She bloody hit me!”
Stunned by what she had done, Claire stood frozen in place. A few seconds passed before she realized how quiet the hall had become, and that everyone in it was staring at her. She felt a hand on her shoulder and glanced up to find Hoddy at her side. “You best get out of here,” he said, steering her toward the door.
Once they were outside, Hoddy looked at her with dismay and concern. “Now why did you go and do that?” he said. “Derek was just egging you on.”
“I know, but what he said—”
“I heard what he said. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. What’s been going on with you two, anyway?”
The following morning broke foggy and gray, with a somberness that suited her mood. Claire looked out her window onto New Court, empty except for a few sparrows that flitted from the tree in the center to the lawn and back again. Much like her thoughts, which kept returning again and again to the events of last night.
After leaving hall, Hoddy had spirited her away to his favorite café in town for dinner. Claire had sworn to him she’d never lost her temper like that before—well, only once, anyway. She should have known better than to allow Derek Goodman to goad her like that. Twice now she’d fallen for his manipulative behavior, but this time had been worse than the first: there’d been lots of witnesses, most of whom were probably convinced that she was unstable, angry, and violent.
But she couldn’t deny that she had acted in a highly unprofessional manner. She supposed there were worse things than having a public argument and punching a man in the face, but at present she couldn’t think of any. It didn’t really matter that Derek Goodman had sorely deserved being punched. Claire asked Hoddy if it might be possible, in stereotypical English fashion, for everyone to simply pretend that it never happened?
Unhappily, Hoddy’s response was a firm no. She’d have to make a formal apology to the master and the vice-master if she wanted to be back in everyone’s good graces. She drew the line at apologizing to Derek Goodman. But sh
e would have to let the others know she’d made a mistake, that she regretted letting her anger get the better of her, and that it would never happen again. She wanted to ask Hoddy exactly how she should word it, but it was much too early in the day to ring him and ask.
Indeed, some mind-clearing exercise was in order. She donned her warmest workout clothes, tied on her Nikes, and headed for the Backs. The gravel and dirt paths along the river were perfect for jogging and cycling. The hours before breakfast tended to be the quietest, and she was already becoming acquainted with a number of other early-morning enthusiasts like herself. From her stay in Venice, she knew that Andrew liked to run in the morning, and she harbored a faint hope that she might see him. Certainly meeting him casually would be easier than going to his office again.
She cut across the lawn behind New Court and took Trinity Bridge over the river. She planned to run to St. John’s, then turn south to go all the way down to Queens’ College and make the loop back to Trinity. But on the path ahead, at the intersection of the Cam and a tiny stream that fed into the river, a small crowd had gathered. A few uniformed constables kept the joggers and cyclists away from a police car and a black van that had driven off Queen’s Road and onto the grass. The back doors of the van were thrown open. On the ground, medical personnel were busy strapping a man onto a gurney. Claire peered past the heads of the others watching but managed to get only a partial view. Someone must have suffered a heart attack, or perhaps a jogger had been hit by a bike. Whatever had happened, it must have been serious; she could tell just from the hushed silence of the onlookers and the solemnity of the scene. She craned her head and saw, as the paramedics lifted the gurney and walked it to the van, that the body was encased in a blue nylon body bag. Serious, indeed. A sort of sigh went through the crowd as the paramedics pushed the gurney inside and closed the doors.
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