Monstrous Design

by Kat Dunn

  Pulled up short by the accident, the door of the carriage two behind was flung open and Hennie’s head poked out.

  ‘What happened? Oh, goodness—’ She saw Edward and let out a shriek. Camille appeared, an arm looped around her waist to pull her back.

  Wickham was crouching by Edward, barking orders. James knew he should go over; he was a medic, he should be helping. But he was frozen, every thought in his mind, every breath in his body dissolved.

  His best friend was dead.

  And it was his fault.

  5

  Lord Harford’s Study

  Shaken and soaked through by the rain, Camille and the other women arrived back in Bedford Square on foot.

  Edward had been carried off by Wickham and James to the hospital, and the footmen were clearing the broken debris from the crash. That sound wouldn’t leave Camille’s head – the crunch and the sudden silence after. It almost surprised her that she could still be shocked by violence after everything she had seen in the Terror; for some reason this had shaken her all the more for its mundanity. To die at the guillotine was to be part of history – to die in a carriage crash was a forgettable accident.

  Camille was on her way to change out of her blood-and rain-spattered dress when Lord Harford’s study door opened and he appeared, blocking her path.

  ‘Camille. A word.’

  She followed him into his office. She’d expected this meeting.

  ‘I will speak frankly with you,’ he said, hands clasped behind his back, ‘because our long connection bids me not to prevaricate or play games. By coming here, am I to believe you renounce your loyalties to France and the Revolution?’

  Camille swallowed. It wasn’t hard to let tears prick her eyes. ‘The Revolution,’ she spat, ‘murdered both my parents. I owe it nothing.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Lord Harford. ‘However, you will forgive me if I am not quite so readily trusting as the rest of my family. A foreigner in the home of the war minister could be seen as quite the security risk.’

  She’d spent long stretches of the journey from Paris to Henley House trying to reframe her understanding of the people she’d called family. Her father wasn’t a faultless, stoic man – he was petty, violent and possessive. Her mother wasn’t a pure, revolutionary flame – she was a human being who wanted love badly enough to make the mistake of an affair with Lord Harford.

  And Lord Harford. Her ‘Uncle’ Will. What should she think of him now? She was filled with an anger she hadn’t expected; anger that her mother had died, and he had lived. A quirk of chance had meant her mother was in the firing line and Lord Harford had escaped. He sat behind his desk, master of house and family. He had torn her family apart, and now had the gall to demand she justify her presence in his.

  Camille cast her eyes down, let the grief and confusion she had buried come to the surface. He might wield the power here, but she could still act. ‘I confess I had not thought of how this must seem to you.’

  His expression did not soften. ‘I have not made it as far as I have without a modicum of caution. The picture you present is indeed a pitiful one, but I also know where you come from, Camille du Bugue. You might mistake me as a friend to your parents’ erstwhile cause, given our past, but know that I stand with England now. Whatever sympathies I had before have been destroyed by the wanton bloodshed across the channel; violence will never be the right way to bring about change. No, my naivety was exposed, and I have learned to adopt a more measured stance. I can only hope that what you have seen has stripped the wool from your eyes too.’

  ‘Indeed it has.’

  ‘Very well. I will take you at your word, I will allow you and your friend in my house and your engagement to my son to continue.’

  ‘Thank you—’

  ‘But I will be watching you,’ he said. ‘I hope you can see the generosity given to you here. Do not repay us with betrayal.’

  ‘Never,’ she replied, letting a little fire into her voice.

  He dismissed her.

  She paused artfully, hand on the doorknob, biting her bottom lip. ‘There is something you should know. Georges Molyneux is dead.’

  They had been close friends once, her parents, Lord Harford and Molyneux. Now only Lord Harford was left alive. Camille thought of her battalion; perhaps that would be them someday, dead one by one until someone was left to mourn alone.

  Lord Harford blanched imperceptibly. ‘The guillotine?’

  ‘No. Murdered far more conventionally.’ She smoothed her skirts. ‘I thought you would want to know – though I suppose you must be better informed on these matters than I. As you say, you are the war minister.’

  His hand moved unthinkingly to the briefcase on his desk, and the papers stacked neatly next to it. They were covered in dense writing, several wax seals split apart; she thought she saw something written in French.

  ‘Thank you for informing me. I shan’t keep you longer.’

  With a perfunctory curtsey, she left.

  In her room, she changed clothes, pausing only when a coughing fit struck, folding her double and forcing her down onto the edge of her bed. She felt too hot and too cold, dizziness made her head spin. When she took her handkerchief from her mouth, it was spotted with blood. She threw it onto the fire then loosened her stays before going back downstairs.

  Lord Harford didn’t trust her. So be it. At least she knew where she stood. And he wasn’t wrong; someone with differing loyalties, in the home of the war minister, could come across very useful information indeed.

  In the hallway, the front door was open and a footman was carrying in a red case on a silver platter. The rest of the Harfords and Phil sat in the morning room in varying states of shock from Edward’s accident, waiting for news. Lady Harford looked too small in her Bath chair, the blow of death so close too much for her to bear. Phil was doing her best to stay cheerful, making conversation, while Hennie clutched a bottle of smelling salts and wept into a handkerchief.

  Camille stopped in the hall, out of their line of sight. She didn’t have time to get drawn into their grief.

  She caught the attention of a passing maid. ‘Those briefcases that get delivered to the house…’

  ‘Lord Harford’s dispatch boxes?’

  ‘Is that what they are?’

  The footman came back down carrying a different case on his tray – the one Camille recognised had been in Lord Harford’s study a minute ago.

  ‘Yes, miss, his papers from the government travel very securely. No one is allowed to touch them, not even the family.’

  Camille watched the exchange between the footman and the man attending the carriage outside.

  As War Minister, Lord Harford would have access to the latest, most sensitive intelligence. Her mission might be to rescue Olympe – but Ada’s was with the duc. They knew so little about his allies, his plans. Who better to have this information than the politician dedicated to understanding everything happening in France right now? Lord Harford had information and the battalion needed it.

  Perhaps Lord Harford was both a problem, and an opportunity.

  6

  St Bart’s Hospital

  The storm lashed the courtyard as James and Wickham arrived at St Bart’s. People scattered in a bristle of umbrellas opening and coats being thrown overhead. The driver had raced down Holborn, past Smithfield Market and on to St Bart’s Hospital with all the speed Wickham could urge him to.

  Together, they carried Edward’s limp body to Wickham’s operating theatre. The gash on his head had bled profusely, sticky blood covering James’s hands and running inside his cuffs. His mind jolted along like the staccato rhythm of the horses’ hooves: it was going to be fine – they had made it in time – they were both surgeons – of anyone in the city suffering such an accident, Edward had the best chance of survival.

  A memory had played in a loop: they had met when James had slipped on a patch of vomit in the operating theatre and Edward had caught him, a f
irm hand under his elbow, arm clamping around his waist. The exchange of words, Edward’s hesitant smile, his black hair falling into his eyes.

  Inside the hospital, younger students followed doctors and surgeons on their rounds, and visitors threaded the hallways, clutching parcels of food, newspapers and gifts. The operating theatre was like a real theatre, a horseshoe of wood, at the base an oval of space strewn with sawdust to soak up the blood, where the surgeon would undertake dissections or surgical procedures. Ringed around like tiers on a cake were balconies placed so that students could stand with their notebooks and watch their teachers below. Old blood spattered the boards up to the second level – James recognised a stain from a particularly memorable amputation that had hit a huge artery in the poor dockworker’s leg, sending jets of hot, salty blood over the first few rows.

  As newer students, James and Edward had been confined to the top tier, their necks aching, straining to see through rows of wigs and hair. Hour after hour spent watching Wickham finely slicing through layers of tissue to expose the glossy kidneys, the spongy lungs, the filigree of blood vessels charting the human body like a map.

  Now it was Edward splayed out on the dissection table, a tray of bloodied instruments ready by his side. Wickham, like many surgeons, took pride in leaving them dirty, the layers of dried blood demonstrating his years of experience wielding saw and scalpel. He had taken a needle and thread and was sewing up the cut on Edward’s forehead. It looked bad, shining white bone flashing between flaps of skin and red gristle. Edward lay like a doll dropped on the nursery floor.

  James thought he might be sick.

  Finally the cut was stitched closed, an ugly tear in Edward’s beautiful, ashen face. His chest didn’t move.

  ‘What do we do now?’ James faltered. ‘Tell me what to do.’

  Wickham stepped away, blood smeared up to his elbows. ‘James…’ His voice was soft. ‘We’re too late.’

  ‘No. We brought him here in time, you said it was going to be okay.’ His voice was rising, slipping out of control.

  James grasped Edward’s limp hand, heavy with fading warmth. His features had gone slack, eyes half-open and glassy. One pupil was blown wide, as big as a farthing, the other a dark speck.

  It was too big a thought to swallow: Edward was dead.

  James had lied to him, made their friendship collateral damage. He had discarded the only person who really saw him. And for what?

  ‘He only has us, he said that to me.’ James stroked the line of Edward’s thumb, his wrist. ‘We’re his family.’

  Wickham rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘We did everything we could. It was an accident.’

  It happened all the time in London. James had seen enough victims of the crowded streets on Wickham’s operating table. If only he hadn’t run, Edward wouldn’t have followed him. He had done this.

  ‘Come on.’ Wickham pulled James into his private rooms.

  The door was open, and from where he was deposited in an over-stuffed armchair James could see Edward, dark hair matted with blood, his arm hanging over the side of the table. A flash of lightning lit the room at the same time as thunder boomed, shaking the windowpanes.

  ‘Here.’ Wickham pushed a tumbler of something amber into his hands. It burned his throat, but James knocked it back greedily.

  Wickham’s private quarters were as chaotic as always – a whirlwind of shelves of medical specimens, stuffed creatures from all corners of Britain’s growing empire, skeletal animals, fossils, lumps of quartz, a baize board peppered with butterflies and moths, stacks of books and papers, jars of preserved tumours, resined kidneys, varnished bones, all crammed into a room little bigger than the one James had rented in the Rookery. The boards here were dark with bloodstains, and at the back was a person-sized vat for boiling bodies down to extract their bones. Around all of it hung a smell: the mix of flesh and rot, acid and preserving alcohol.

  They sat in silence, letting the storm swallow them.

  Edward’s blood was on his hands now, flaking around the nail beds and darkening the lines on his palms.

  ‘Useless,’ said James. Wickham moved to pour James another measure but he covered the glass. ‘I’m useless. What’s the point of studying medicine if I can’t help people when I need to?’

  ‘We can’t help everyone. It’s a hard lesson all surgeons must learn. I’m sorry you’re learning it like this.’

  James laughed. ‘I knew there was nothing to be done for an illness like my mother’s – but this. My god. Edward was alive a minute ago and now he’s dead, because this’ – he gestured to the contents of Wickham’s room, to the both of them – ‘is useless. No better than some medieval quack and his bag of leeches. We study and we learn and come up with new techniques and people still die in accidents.’

  The alcohol had gone to his head fast, or maybe the shock had.

  Wickham was quiet, looking into the distance. No – at the cloth covering the glass cylinder they used to generate electricity in their experiments. It felt like a long time since James had last been here. But he’d already chosen to throw away his place before Edward died; now there was no getting it back, whatever he did.

  ‘Did you read the research notes you sent me?’ asked Wickham, frowning.

  ‘Why does it matter?’

  Wickham rose and pulled the dustsheet back to touch a hand to the cylinder, the collection of wires hooked up to it. ‘They were most useful. I think I have fixed the issue with insulating the generator. I just need to test the new set-up…’

  ‘Is now really the time to—’

  James broke off. Wickham was looking at him expectantly.

  Everything came together suddenly, like a bucket of water being dumped over his head. A test – Wickham had mentioned it before, at Henley House. A test needed a body.

  ‘No,’ James said.

  ‘Why not?’

  James shook his head. ‘Because – it’s Edward.’

  ‘Don’t be sentimental,’ scoffed Wickham, as he began to gather the equipment. ‘It’s what he would have wanted.’

  ‘To be an experiment?’

  ‘To change the world. You claimed our work was useless if we couldn’t save people – don’t you want to help find something that might? Think, James. When have we had a better opportunity? If things were the other way around, I know Edward would be out there himself setting up.’

  James went cold. He could see it now – his own corpse on display, wires snaking to a great glass tube, Edward’s fingers working the handle.

  James looked again at Edward’s corpse, blood-drained and cooling quickly.

  The accident had been his fault. If Wickham’s ideas had any chance of working, didn’t James owe Edward that?

  With trembling hands, James took a rubber apron and tied it on.

  ‘Tell me what to do.’

  7

  6 Bedford Square

  Tucked into a chair by the tall sash windows, Camille yawned and turned the page in her book. She didn’t know how Ada read for such long stretches of time. She’d been trying off and on for the past hour, but her attention kept wandering. She wanted to get up, move around, do something, but by the end of her shopping trip with Lady Harford and Hennie and Phil, she’d felt as flat as a pressed flower and as fragile. Each breath was shallow, as if she’d laced her stays too tight. It frightened her.

  Everyone was still shaken by the accident, so it had been easy enough to retire to the library. At random, Camille had plucked a few books she thought Ada would want to read off the shelves. It was a comfort, if nothing else, to feel the ghost of Ada here with her, turning the page and remarking on a particular word or line. She skimmed through a slim volume; it was in French, translated from Chinese. She wasn’t sure she understood it, but something caught her eye:

  Pretend to be weak, that your enemy may grow arrogant.

  She ran her finger underneath the line, turning the words over in her head. There was something there.

&
nbsp; The door swung open and Al came in. His hair was damp with rain, his white stockings splashed with mud. He’d adopted a more sombre dress in London, favouring the tan buckskin breeches that buttoned below the knee and a sharply tailored black tailcoat Camille had seen on half the fashionable young gentlemen in town. Though the clothes were borrowed from James, Al somehow made them look like they’d always been his.

  She shut her book and waited expectantly.

  ‘There you are.’ Al flopped down in a chair facing her, throwing his legs over the arm and pulling out a squashed packet of cherries. ‘I didn’t know you could read,’ he said, nodding at her book stack.

  ‘Al, don’t test me.’

  ‘I assure you that is one thing I would never do. Can’t abide a test. Why make life any more challenging than it already is?’ He popped a cherry into his mouth, chewed, then took the stone out and threw it into the fireplace.

  ‘I am stricken with mirth at your wit,’ said Camille.

  He beamed. ‘Finally, you’re warming to me.’

  ‘Get to the point. Were you able to follow James?’

  ‘Oh, that. Yes. Nearly lost him when he left the cab, but he’s not exactly hard to spot. Thinks he’s being clandestine when really he’s so suspicious he might as well have “up to no good” tattooed on his forehead. Didn’t even notice me following.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. He doubled back on himself and ended up in a slum not far from here. I poked around his rooms and found your pistol he stole back in Paris and his research – not to mention food, water and even a few silks. He keeps her there all right.’

  ‘So we know his hiding place.’

  ‘Give me five minutes and a cup of proper coffee and I could feel up to a little light heroism. What do you think, stake the place out?’