‘It’s an incredible piece,’ said Will. ‘Who could look at it and remain unmoved? Of course, the face itself is sacred. There is beauty and order in both outer and inner views, though it is the outside that is said to be made in God’s image. In this piece one side is whole and perfect, and one side is not. He made the choice concerning which side is which for a reason.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘There is logic to it?’
‘Perhaps not logic,’ said Will. ‘More like superstition. You see the right side represents beauty, order, serenity. It is God and the divine. The left side, as Dr Strangeway shows us in his peeled back layers of skin, muscle and sinew, that side is disorder and chaos. The work of the Devil. But to the anatomist there is a beauty here too, an order and symmetry that only the initiated can appreciate.’ He shrugged. ‘Most of us see only death. And yet we cannot have one without the other.’
‘He said as much when we were in his wax workshop. “Memento Mori and anatomy lesson are one and the same. Body and soul, relic and specimen, is there a need to draw a line between the two?” D’you remember? Perhaps he sees his work is some kind of search for grace.’
‘Forgive us our trespasses?’ said Will. ‘It’s present in almost all religious art. And there is something of the divine about many of Strangeway’s pieces. The “dolls” especially look as though they would be quite at home in a church. These, however,’ he gestured towards the exhibits. ‘The head, and the heart, these are rather different.’
‘I thought you were a draughtsman, not an artist?’
‘Oh, I am. But that doesn’t mean I don’t admire art, or that I know nothing about it. Of course I do!’ He shook his head. ‘You are so uncultured, Jem. Do you know nothing but remedies and body parts? How prosaic your life must be.’
‘I suppose it is,’ I muttered.
‘Come along, let’s go and speak to the man.’
But at that moment Halliday appeared. He too spotted Dr Crowe. ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he cried. Dr Crowe looked up, and it was then that something curious happened, for he gave a start, his face turning white with shock. It was as if he had seen a ghost, though he recovered himself quickly enough, and shook the younger man by the hand. But it was quite clear that he had been momentarily taken aback. I watched as the two of them moved off through the crowds and I wondered who, or what, it was that he had seen.
Brain
What manner of organ is the brain? It has no chambers, no movement, no actions visible to the eye. It is distinctively coloured and textured – grey, pearlescent, softish, opaque. We can hardly comprehend its wonders, for it tells us nothing of the workings of the mind.
Of all the organs in the body the brain is uniquely unknowable. And yet perhaps this is appropriate, for that strange matter is home to the soul and centre of our very being. It contains who we are, directs how we act, harbours our sense of right and wrong. By what means might we point out the brain of a blameless innocent, and say it is qualitatively different to the brain of a murderer? What sets apart the brain of a sane man from the brain of a mad one? And when we run mad, when we do things that defy reason or logic, when we cannot explain who we are or what we have done, what physic might there be to alleviate our suffering? What surgery might we undergo to excise the corrupt part of our mind and soul? I have no answers.
For the phrenologists, the shape of the skull corresponds to the areas of the brain beneath. The brain is divided into myriad different organs – the organ of deceit, the organ of amativeness, the organ of cruelty. A skilled phrenologist can read one’s personality, one’s destiny, from the contours and measurements of the cranium. Discredited as the work of quacks and charlatans, I have nonetheless read Combe, Spurzheim, Gall. And when I run my hands across my own skull I know they are right. I can feel my faculty for killing as a raised area upon my head. Beside it, my organ of compassion is small, diminished. It seems I was always destined for murder.
All at once we had a warm day. The vapours that had beset us vanished and the sky glowed azure. I could not remember that last time the heavens had been so clear, and all around us people turned their faces skyward. The anatomists would be cursing it, for they needed cold days if their corpses were to last. Gabriel, Jenny and I went to the physic garden. I asked Will to come with us, but he would not. He said he had work to do, and he vanished as soon as we had breakfasted.
Jenny glanced at me. ‘Anyone would think he was off to meet his sweetheart,’ she said. ‘He reeked of sandalwood and lemon verbena.’
‘It’s against the stink of the corpses,’ I said. ‘The place where he works is a charnel house.’ I could tell she did not believe me.
At the physic garden we made a rather subdued party. Without Will we seemed incomplete. I plucked weeds from the earth and trimmed back dead heads. I hoed and dug and gathered windfalls. Jenny helped me at the poison beds. She was rather pleased with the effect her “deathly draught” had had on Mrs Roseplucker, though I had had strong words with her about experimenting on unsuspecting customers. She seemed to have no idea that anything amiss had happened. I knew it was I who was to blame. Had I been less absent she would never have dared to do such a thing. Without me there, however, she had done just as she pleased.
Gabriel gathered sticks and twigs and I made him clean out the stove in the hot house. Later, we sat in silence around a brazier, upon which I had set some apples to roast. Their skins split and oozed a sticky juice that bubbled and browned on the hot iron stove top.
‘Mr Will loves your roasted apples,’ said Gabriel. ‘Why isn’t he here?’
I told them where he was, and straight away they jumped up and stood on the old wheelbarrow to look over the wall at Corvus Hall.
‘It looks horrible,’ said Jenny. She sniffed. ‘And it stinks.’
I went to stand beside her. She was right. Usually Corvus Hall was concealed behind a curtain of fog, the lamps burning on either side of the front door mere blobs of gritty light struggling to illuminate the gloom. Today, however, there was no fog, and the Hall could be seen clearly. How ugly it had become! The ivy had been cut back from the walls, leaving a black tracery of grasping roots. The stucco needed to be painted. The filthy London atmosphere, perpetually tainted with coal smoke, had stained it horribly, and it was streaked yellow and brown like a privy floor. In some places damp seemed to have taken hold, and lumps of plaster had fallen away showing the brickwork beneath in ugly sores. For all the bustle and activity inside, from the outside it was the image of decay.
‘How long does he have to stay there?’ she said.
‘I don’t really know,’ I replied. ‘Until he had finished his commission, I presume.’
‘Does he like it in there?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What room is he in?’
I pointed up. Will’s eyrie was north facing, overlooking the garden and the dead house. His window was open wide to the breeze that blew across the city that day.
‘Is that him?’ said Jenny. She rooted in the satchel that she carried everywhere and produced a telescope.
‘Where did you get that?’ said Gabriel, clearly envious.
‘I used to work on the Floating Hospital, remember? There were loads of sailors. One of them gave me this.’ She pulled it its full length and put it to her eye, training it on the window at the very top of the house. ‘It’s him all right,’ she said. ‘Shall we call to him? His window is wide open. Perhaps he can come down—’
‘He’s working.’ I took the telescope from her and peered through its brass eye. There he was, magnified and framed in a dark circle. ‘We should probably leave him alone.’
‘But we are only down here!’ She opened her mouth to call out, but at that moment I saw someone else appear behind him. It was Miss Crowe.
‘Shh, Jenny!’ I said. ‘Don’t you dare!’ Lilith Crowe stood with her back to the window for a moment. I could see the buttons on her dress, the wisps of hair at the nape of her neck. I knew I should look
away, that what I was doing was spying – spying on my greatest friend – and yet I could not stop. But what good do those who listen at doors or spy through keyholes ever learn? For when she turned and put her arms about his neck and kissed him, I felt a sickness to my stomach more bitter and disappointed than anything I could have imagined.
Will had been in the bone room for hours and was looking ill. Before him on the bench was a pair of lungs. They had been neatly sliced and pinned open.
‘Halliday did it,’ he said. ‘He’s a marvel with the knife.’ Will had drawn them as he saw them, neat, clear, almost diagrammatic. His images would make the most striking and illustrative wood engravings. I said as much, and could tell he was pleased. He showed me some of his other drawings. ‘I have never worked so fast, Jem,’ he said. ‘Dr Crowe has set a punishing pace. He says he wants the book done as soon as possible. By Christmas! He says it is his legacy. He seems very confident.’
‘I’m glad it’s going well,’ I said.
‘Mind you, I’ve been in the dissecting room too – I took my drawing board down – he said I could have a desk there if I wished, but—’ he grimaced. ‘I refused. The place is unspeakably vile. Did you see the rats? And all the stuff about the floor? Hell could hardly be worse. He had set out a cadaver for me—’
‘Let me see your drawings,’ I said gently.
‘I tried to give them some dignity.’ He passed me a folder. ‘I didn’t just want a headless torso, as if who they were scarcely mattered. But at the same time I did not want to do a portrait of someone’s dead mother with her cranium sliced open like a grapefruit and her brain exposed.’
‘And is Dr Crowe pleased with your work?’
‘He’s delighted. And even if he’s pushing me to work harder and longer, at least I’ll be finished faster.’ He turned back to his work. ‘And I can get away from this infernal place.’
‘Will you never be happy?’ I said. ‘At least you are warm and dry inside, and not digging up the dead in the freezing rain, the way you were at St Saviour’s.’
‘Will I never be happy,’ he murmured. He glanced over at me, his gaze flickering up over my right shoulder, and he smiled. ‘Maybe I shall, one day.’
I turned to see the object of his pleasure. ‘Miss Crowe,’ I said. ‘Good afternoon.’
‘Gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I’m glad I find both of you here. My father wonders whether you would care to join us for dinner on Sunday evening. A small gathering – Dr Cruikshank, Dr Strangeway, Mr Halliday, Dr Allardyce. A few others who knew Dr Wragg.’ She had not taken her eyes off Will. It was as though I did not even exist. ‘Eight o’clock? Skinner will show you through.’
We sat for a while longer, this time in silence. Was he in love with her? Did he know what she did with Halliday? I could not ask him either question. If the answer to the first was ‘yes’, then how would I bear it? And I could not then ask the second. I had known, always, that one day he would leave me. It is not possible for a man and a woman to remain friends for ever, not as intimately and exclusively as Will and I. Sooner or later one or other of them would be bound to look elsewhere for love. My heart was broken already, and I bore it as best I could – what remained was held together, I knew, by my feelings for Will. Now, it seemed, it was Will’s turn. And yet I knew Lilith Crowe would only bring him pain. Her name alone should have told him that much, for Lilith Crowe was named for a monster of the night. A demon. Adam’s first wife, banished into the wilderness for refusing to submit, her offspring had formed the evil spirits of all the world. Did she not live up to her name? I should have applauded her independence, her power, her intelligence and sensuality. Why might she not lie with any man she chose? Why should she not be as skilled with the scalpel as any of them? And yet I did not. I could not.
‘Would you like an apple?’ I said. But Will did not answer. He did not answer because he had not heard me. And he had not heard me because he was thinking of her.
I sighed. I wondered where Halliday was. His desk was covered in items he had brought up from the anatomy museum – some so ancient I had no idea what they were, their labels yellowed, the inked scrawl that had once identified them faded and brown or obliterated by leaked preserving fluid.
I heard rustling coming from Dr Wragg’s room. Perhaps it was a rat – there were plenty about the place, despite the efforts of Dr Cruikshank and Bullseye. Perhaps it was Dr Allardyce. Skinner had told me that Dr Allardyce was removing Dr Wragg’s belongings – which did not amount to much, when all was said and done – and had decided to move into Dr Wragg’s old quarters beneath the eaves. ‘He’s a part of the anatomy museum himself,’ Skinner had muttered. ‘Just like Dr Wragg. No doubt he’ll end up anatomised and bottled and sitting on the shelves too, and then he can stay here for ever.’
As if he had been conjured from my own imagination, at that very moment Dr Allardyce appeared at the door. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘It seems we are to be neighbours. Where’s Halliday?’
‘I don’t know, sir,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he is in the library.’
Dr Allardyce nodded. His eyes strayed over to look at Halliday’s desk. ‘What’s he working on?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you should ask him.’
Dr Allardyce went over to Halliday’s desk. He looked at the specimens that Halliday had gathered. ‘Well I can’t see much logic in these,’ he said. ‘It’s all old stuff from years ago.’ He laughed unpleasantly. ‘You see? He’s not the golden boy everyone thinks he is. If he’s left to his own devices he hardly knows what to do. No wonder Dr Wragg despaired of him.’
‘I think Dr Wragg respected him,’ I said. ‘But just disagreed with his classification of pathology.’
Dr Allardyce looked irritated. ‘Damn the man,’ he said. ‘I try to like him, but I simply can’t.’
‘When we met you in Sorley’s,’ I said, ‘you said Halliday “deserved what he got”. What did you mean?’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘But Halliday was ill. That was the only thing that he “got”. He could have died. He would have died, had he not had the wit to do what he did, to drink salt and sugar to replace what his body had lost.’ I smiled. I knew Dr Allardyce might be easily provoked. ‘An inspired decision based on observation and experience, don’t you agree? And yet perhaps it was not cholera at all. He said he had been eating oysters. Was it the oysters, sir?’
‘Perhaps.’ Dr Allardyce flicked through the papers on Halliday’s desk.
‘I think you should step away from his desk, sir,’ said Will. ‘Unless someone accuses you of plagiarism.’
‘Me!’ Dr Allardyce turned purple. ‘How dare you! You’ve been listening to Halliday, haven’t you?’
‘No, sir,’ said Will.
I smiled. ‘Do you resent his success, Dr Allardyce? His skill with the knife? His easy manner with the students? You could make a friend of him, you know. It might serve you better.’
‘Don’t you patronise me, apothecary,’ he snapped. ‘I will not “make a friend of him”. I will not watch him succeed. Why, he’s not even a gentleman!’
‘But you’ve seen many young men succeed, surely. You must have helped many of them on their way. You’ve been anatomy demonstrator for twenty years.’
‘Yes. Twenty years and yet never a university post. Always someone better than me.’
‘You could have gone into private practice.’
His face had become sweaty, his tongue darting across pale lips. ‘I can’t—’
‘Why ever not? You can have no particular loyalty to this place after so long. You have practised on more corpses that anyone.’
‘Yes, yes, but still.’
‘It would be most lucrative. Ask Dr Crowe, Dr Cruikshank. I’m sure they would help you.’
‘I cannot,’ his voice was almost a scream. ‘I’ve told you, I cannot cut a living body. I . . . I don’t know why. To feel them warm, breathing; to stand over the quivering flesh, knife in hand—’
He screwed his eyes closed. ‘I cannot be . . . I cannot be trusted not to do harm. And so I must stay away.’ He scowled again, his voice a low mutter of resentment. ‘Not quite the man we are looking for. Not quite good enough. Works hard, but, not really a London man. And then along comes Halliday. How Dr Crowe adores him. The son he never had – both of his are dead, you know. Mere babies they were. You see how the daughters always dress in black? Even now? Halliday – blue eyed, golden haired, charming, and so, so capable. He has become Dr Crowe’s pet, his most beloved pupil, and I? I was never beloved, not like that.’ His shoulders sagged. ‘A dull clod. I should expect no more, I suppose.’
‘And so you took matters in your own hands. It was not cholera, was it—?’
‘Of course it was! You saw him. You saw how he looked, the blue cast to the flesh, the dark circles, the wizened skin about the eyes – of course it was cholera!’
‘Then how—?’
‘Oh, come along, Flockhart. Surely you can see that cholera is not borne upon miasma, nor upon foul vapours and the air we breathe. I cannot be the only man who sees that theory and does not accept it. I admit the cholera is born in filth, but transmitted by the smell of it? What man ever died of a stink? And we all inhale the foul vapours, but we do not all get the cholera. There must be some other means of transmission. Perhaps through the skin, or the soles of the feet? The poor die more readily and they are often seen walking through the mire barefoot. Perhaps it is in the food or the water? I have mulled the matter over, and I decided that water is the most likely vector, filthy water. And so I waited until I heard that the blue death had visited the city – in the east, of course – and I went and I drew water from six different pumps in the infected streets. And then I put that water into John Halliday’s beer as we passed the evening together. It was partly an experiment – but one that I admit I hoped would not end well for him.’ He shrugged. ‘And yet he did have a chance. Everyone does, for there are those who live. And, of course, my theory might have been wrong.’
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