by Tessa Harris
Hunter smiled graciously. “You are most kind.”
The woman shook her head. “You are a master of your profession, Dr. Hunter. No other physician would have handled matters more discreetly. ’Twas a real blessing you were with him when he was taken from us.”
John Hunter merely nodded sympathetically. “As I said, dear lady, the Lord works in mysterious ways.” He wondered if she would be so generous if she knew that he had so much more than a mere lock of her late husband’s hair in his possession.
The widow rose slowly. “Yes, my husband will be sorely missed,” she reflected. “But I am sure Sir Oliver will do an excellent job.”
“Sir Oliver?” repeated Hunter.
Lady Charlesworth looked at him quizzically. “Oh, I have spoken out of turn,” she upbraided herself. “There is to be a formal announcement tomorrow. Forgive me.”
The anatomist forced a smile. “Sir Oliver De Vere will make an excellent head of the surgical staff, your ladyship,” he said. “But in the meantime, I’ll not say a word,” he assured her.
He waited until Mrs. Adam had closed the front door behind Lady Charlesworth to venture out of his study. In the hallway he could hear music, pleasing fortepiano music accompanied by a sweet soprano tone. He did not recognize it as his wife’s. While her voice was perfectly agreeable, this one had a cadence and a quality he had not heard before. He moved nearer to the salon door as if drawn by some strange melodic power. Outside the room he listened for a moment until the last note sounded, and he was just about to open the door when he heard men’s voices join with his wife’s tinkling laughter.
Anne was so very different from him, he thought; sociable, witty, and accomplished in the arts. She would often hold gatherings, but she had not mentioned any visitors on that particular afternoon. Feeling indisposed to wait any longer, he put his head around the door. He saw his wife standing by the fortepiano while a gentleman was at the keys. Anne was pointing to something on the score, leaning over his shoulder with a familiar ease that did not please him. Franz Joseph Haydn had been a regular visitor for the last few days, working with Anne on some librettos. Women, he had heard, found this Austrian charming and warm and he attracted them like bees to a honeypot, despite his pockmarked face and enormous eagle’s nose. Hunter, on the other hand, did not care for him.
There were two other men in the room; from the color of their skin he guessed them to be southern Europeans. One was about his own age and the other much younger, barely a man.
“Ah, John dear,” greeted his wife warmly, holding out her arms. “We were just putting the finishing touches to the can-zonettas for the concert.”
Hunter did not return his wife’s conviviality. He looked beyond her to Haydn, who now rose from the keyboard and bowed stiffly.
“Sir,” he greeted him, a smile on his face. “Your wife’s poetry is an inspiration to us all.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Hunter replied grudgingly.
Ignoring her husband’s curmudgeonly manner, Anne took him by the arm and drew him into the room. “Let me introduce Signor Leonardo Moreno and his protégé Signor Carlo Cappelli from Tuscany. Did you hear him sing? Does he not have the voice of an angel?” There was a girlish enthusiasm in her tone as she tugged at her husband’s arm as if trying to cajole him into some sort of positive response.
Hunter eyed the two Tuscans carefully. They were both taller than average, and rather rotund, with their chests broad out of proportion to the rest of their bodies. Their fingers, too, he noted, were extraordinarily long. And that soprano voice he had just heard and could not quite fathom at first; now he could make sense of it, but to them he said nothing. Instead he simply turned to his wife.
“I look forward to hearing your libretto, my dear,” he said sullenly, darting a parting glance at Haydn. And he left the four of them to return to his work in the laboratory.
Chapter 7
Thomas found the giant in his room after breakfast as arranged. Charles Byrne sat on a chair looking blankly out of the window. His shoulders were rounded and his head was slightly sunken into his neck. Last night the young doctor had regarded him as an acquaintance at a social gathering. A curious one, granted, but no more than that. Now, in the cold light of day, that relationship was very different. The distance between them seemed to have shifted.
The giant turned his head slowly to acknowledge Thomas. His eyes were dull and listless. Had last night’s wine left him with a throbbing head, wondered the young anatomist, or was it that he was permanently in a state of melancholy brought about by some underlying condition or disorder? He noted, too, his patient’s skin: “The canvas upon which the state of the other organs is painted,” as Dr. Carruthers put it. If the liver is at fault, then the skin will turn yellow as bile seeps across it. If the heart labors hard to pump the blood around the body, then the skin becomes gray and mottled with purple. If the blood lacks nutrients, then the skin will be as white as paper. But there were other reasons to fear a pallid complexion, too.
This man’s skin is as pale as a full moon, thought Thomas. The white death sprang to mind. He smiled warmly at his patient, but received no response. He then set down his bag and carried a chair from beside the bed, positioning it opposite. Still no flicker of civility, but was that suspicion he detected in the giant’s look as he took out a notepad and pencil?
“I am here to help you, Mr. Byrne,” he began. The man’s large, square jaw remained set. “Do you feel generally well?”
The giant, who had remained staring ahead with glassy eyes, turned his head, his arms crossed defensively. “You are a s-surgeon?” he said slowly, a thread of saliva appearing on his chin.
Thomas nodded. “Yes. I am.”
A look of dawning disgust spread across the giant’s face. His brows knitted in a frown and his lips set in a scowl. “I do not speak to surgeons,” he hissed.
Thomas remained calm. He was not altogether shocked. He had encountered enmity toward his profession many times before.
“May I ask why?” he ventured.
The giant was looking beyond him and out of the window again. “I do not l-like your sort,” he replied.
The young doctor wanted to agree. He had not been at all impressed with his fellow surgeons in England, particularly after that shameful episode when two of them refused to conduct a postmortem on Lydia’s dead brother. Nor had they covered themselves in glory at the subsequent murder trial. No, he did not like many of the anatomists he had encountered, either, but he would not allow himself to be defeated.
“I am not only an anatomist, but a physician, too. I heal the sick.”
“You think I am s-sick?” asked Byrne.
“I do not know. I need to examine you first,” replied Thomas.
There was a silence. The young doctor would change tack. A patient would always open up to him if he spoke to them about what mattered most in their lives.
“Tell me about your home in Ireland,” he said, momentarily allowing his own thoughts to cross the thousands of miles of ocean that lay between him and his beloved Philadelphia.
The giant turned to face him. At last, a breakthrough, thought Thomas.
“I l-live on a lough,” he said slowly. “ ’Tis in the north of Ireland, and when the sun rises on the purple heather there’s no place on earth more fair.”
Thomas knew just how his patient was feeling. “You must miss it very much.” He nodded, a pang of homesickness stabbing his own guts.
“That I do,” replied Byrne, nodding slowly.
“I miss my home, too,” sighed Thomas.
His patient turned to him, suddenly showing interest. “And where might that be, sir?” he asked.
Thomas smiled. Had he made a breakthrough? “In America . . . what the English call the Colonies.”
Charles Byrne looked at him. Suddenly he seemed interested. Thomas persevered. “It seems as though we might have won our war.” He had recently read that the British Parliament had called for the
end of hostilities and the recognition of the Colonies’ independence. He also knew that the Irish had good enough reason to hate their English masters, too.
“Aha, you showed ’em,” cried the giant. His pallid face broke into a grin and he clapped his large hands together in delight. It was the first time that Thomas had seen him smile, but his physical exertion carried a penalty and he began to cough once more, this time bringing up sputum. He pulled out a brown-stained handkerchief from his breeches and held it to his mouth.
“There is b-blood,” he told the doctor. His voice was resigned.
Thomas nodded, as if there was no need to tell him. “How long have you had this cough?”
The giant paused for a moment. “Since last Candlemas,” he said.
Thomas stood up and held the heel of his hand to his patient’s forehead. “You feel unwell, feverish?”
“I am well enough to go to London, sir,” he replied.
The young doctor looked at him. His dull eyes seemed to twinkle at the prospect. “Then you shall go.”
Emily left the rookeries just as dawn broke, stopping only briefly on her way back to scrape the cow shit from her boots. She made it to Cockspur Street just as the bell of St. Martin’s struck six o’clock. The handsome house, flanked by trees, had been leased by the count a few months before. It was less than two miles away from where her family lived in St. Giles, but it may as well have been a different world.
“ ’Tis a good job you’re here, girl. We have work to do,” Mistress Goodbody, the housekeeper, scolded. “The count and his guests will be here by nightfall.”
Emily curtsied and went to fetch her apron. She had been tasked to make up the bed in the green bedroom on the first floor, but when she arrived she saw that two bed frames had been laid together side by side.
“I don’t understand,” she told Mistress Goodbody, who had come upstairs to check on her progress.
“You’re to put the sheets and coverlets on loose,” instructed the housekeeper.
“But please, I still don’t . . . ,” protested Emily, a pitcher and ewer in her hand.
Mistress Goodbody looked heavenward, as if asking for divine strength. “I suppose I may as well tell you now,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Save you making a fool of yourself, gawping. The count is bringing back a special guest to stay: The gentleman is from Ireland and he’s a—well, he’s a giant.”
Instead of preparing Emily for a shock, however, the housekeeper’s words had the opposite effect on her.
“A tall man from across the water,” the girl whispered breathlessly, her eyes wide with disbelief, and she dropped the pitcher of water on the floor, smashing it to pieces.
Chapter 8
They arrived at Cockspur Street in the early evening. Thomas was grateful that the surrounding streets were not busier. He did not wish the giant’s arrival to cause a sensation. He could imagine him triggering panic, or even a crowd gathering outside the house hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Hence they waited until Lovelock signaled the all clear and Charles Byrne was quickly dispatched, without incident, into the safety of the count’s lodgings.
At dinner the difficult journey did not seem to have dulled the little man’s wits and he regaled his guests with more tales of his antics in the courts of Europe. Once again Charles Byrne remained taciturn, coughing into his balled kerchief now and again. It was not until it was time to leave for his own lodgings that Thomas managed to steal a few moments with Lydia alone.
“My love, I need to tell you something,” he said, clasping her hands in the drawing room as he waited for the butler to bring his coat. “Mr. Byrne is ill.”
She sighed deeply. “I feared as much. That is why I asked you to examine him, so that you can treat him. You will be able to cure him of any ailment.”
Thomas shook his head and wondered at her blind faith in him. “I suspect he is very ill.”
Lydia frowned.
“I need to examine him properly in my laboratory,” he told her. “But I am not hopeful of the prognosis.”
She shook her head. “What are you saying, Thomas?”
The young doctor took a deep breath. “I am saying our giant may not be long for this world.”
A look of disbelief flitted across Lydia’s face, but she composed herself. There it was again, he thought, that look of a supplicant at an altar, convinced her prayers would be answered. She told him softly, “I know you will do all you can.”
Sleep had not come easily to Emily that night. When she closed her eyes all she could see was her aged grandmother calling out, and her ears were full of her ranting. And now she knew them to be more than mere blatherings, the insane ramblings of an old crone. They were prophecies. In the olden days they would have called her a witch and ducked her in the Thames to see if she floated. Nowadays, Emily told herself, people had more sense and took her soothsaying for what it was—true, for the most part. Had she not told her to look out for a “tall man from across the water”? What more proof did anyone need that her grandmother was a prophetess? But now that the giant from Ireland had come into her life, what next? Her grandmother had not told her if he was an ill omen or if he brought with him good fortune. She had heard tell it was bad luck for a woman with child to look at a dwarf for fear she might miscarry, but she knew nothing of giants.
She rose from her bed as dawn broke and dressed hurriedly, shivering with both cold and fear. She fetched the bucket of kindling, the tinderbox, and the tapers from the kitchen and climbed the stairs to the giant’s room.
Putting her ear to the door, she listened. There was no sound, so she gently turned the handle and entered. The room was still dim, although she could make out a pair of enormous feet sticking out of the side of one of the mattresses that had been laid together.
She walked over to the fireplace, trying not to make a noise, and knelt down by the grate. Just as she had begun laying the kindle, the giant coughed. She looked over to the bed. He was still asleep. She carried on laying the fire. He coughed again, only this time it was louder.
In his bed the giant stirred. “Ma,” he called out. “Ma, is that you?”
Emily stood up. “No, sir. ’Tis Emily, the maid, come to light the fire, sir,” she told him awkwardly.
Shocked, Charles Byrne sat bolt upright in bed, the covers falling away. His torso was naked and Emily looked away modestly, feeling her face flush.
“Begging pardon, sir,” she said.
Realizing his own nakedness, the giant, too, became embarrassed and drew the bedclothes up under his chin. He could show his bare torso to crowds of spectators, but it was not seemly to be seen by a lone young woman, and a fair one at that, he told himself.
“Would you like me to carry on with the fire, sir?” Her gaze settled on the floor.
“No. No, th-thank you,” he replied.
Emily retrieved her bucket from the hearth and gave a small curtsy.
“If there’s anything you need, sir, just ring,” she said, looking at the pull cord by the bed.
“Thank you.” Charles nodded. “I will.”
Only the destitute or the devilish ventured out onto the streets of St. Giles late at night. Not even the linkmen with their lamps would guide the unfortunate stranger around the potholes and steaming dunghills of the district. God-fearing residents would fasten their shutters and bolt their doors against the cattle drovers, cutpurses, and footpads who became masters of this domain at dark.
Ben Crouch did not appear destitute. Dressed in a fine velvet topcoat and a beaver felt hat and carrying a silver-topped cane, he seemed every inch the English gentleman. Until, that is, one beheld his face. His large nose had been broken in several places and now veered sharply toward his right cheek, while above his left eye was a five-inch-long scar—a memento from a knife attack. For Crouch had once been a prizefighter, and this was his territory. As he roamed the streets that evening, his companion Jack Hartnett at his side to hold the lantern, he knew exactly who, or what, he w
as looking for.
The bell of St. Martin-in-the-Fields struck one as the pair rounded into Coal Alley and passed the Queen’s Head tavern. From inside came the sound of fiddle music, mingled with bawdy laughter. A large, round figure leaned against the wall by the entrance. As Crouch drew nearer, he could see it was a woman. Spying the two men, she pulled out one of her pendulous breasts from her bodice.
“Fancy a feel of me bubbies?” she called. Crouch simply ignored her, but Hartnett, a sickly youth of no more than eighteen, put his hand out to touch before his master smacked him soundly about the head.
“We’ve work to do, remember?” he barked.
Hearing the voices, a blind beggar who had been sleeping in the lee of a wall nearby awoke. “Spare a penny, kind sirs. A penny for the blind man,” he called, waving his cup. Hartnett spat on him.
On the other side of the lane, in a doorway of a hovel, Grandmother Tooley sat watching, a thick shawl wrapped around her hunched shoulders.
“Beware those that walk in the shadows,” she called out loudly.
“Shut your mouth, you old witch,” came a man’s voice from a window above.
A moment later her daughter appeared at the doorway. “Come now, Mother. Back to bed with you,” she urged, gently leading the old woman inside and closing the door on the night.
Undeterred, the pair carried on till the lane narrowed.
“So, ’e was somewhere here, you say?” Crouch muttered to himself as much as to Hartnett, and he began tapping the ground and the walls with his cane, edging his way through the shadows.
“Yes. A bit farther yonder,” said the boy nervously.
“More light here,” Crouch instructed.
The glow from the lantern fell on what seemed to be a large bundle of rags propped up in a corner. Hartnett let out a triumphant whoop. “Yes,” he shouted as he kicked the pile with his boot. The bundle fell sideways and a man’s emaciated hand flopped out of the dirty folds.