The Amazing Dr. Darwin

by Charles Sheffield

  “Not so. You do not know good Jimmy Watt.” Darwin was scribbling furiously. “Talk to him of engineering, you could be stark naked and painted indigo and he would not notice. He has said to me, many a time, a man is not measured by wealth or stature or family name, but by the ideas that lie inside his head. You and he will get along famously—take my word on it. He will teach you steam.”

  He sanded the ink, blew on it, and stood up.

  “Come to Newlands, early tomorrow morning. You will travel with Colonel Pole. You heard him, no doubt, tonight, but he did not see you and you observed only one aspect of him. You will discover the rest in transit. Let me only say that you may trust him with your life, and you should allow him to handle any emergency. As for me, I must divert to London for three days. When I return to Birmingham I look forward to hearing of your progress there.”

  He took one last look at the calculating engine, then went across to where Elie Marйe was standing staring at the letter of introduction. He leaned down and held out his hand. “I say this, sir, in all sincerity. It has been an honor and a privilege to make your acquaintance.”

  The other man stretched up to his full height as they shook hands. “And to make yours, Dr. Darwin.” Elie Marйe’s eyes were level with Darwin’s ample midriff. He raised them to the other man’s face, and added in a voice of new confidence and optimism, “It is as you say, sir, a man must not be judged by his stature—or his girth.”

  * * *

  A freezing wind blew in Darwin’s face as he walked the edge of the cliff, but he chuckled at Marйe’s remark. A joke was the best barometer of mental weather. Forget Elie Marйe’s size. The man was tough. He would survive, and for him the best years were yet to be. James Watt would welcome him like a brother, and between them they would light a torch to set the world ablaze.

  And when that happened—Darwin’s thoughts grew more somber—Elie Marйe would have his revenge. The force of science was stirring in the world, and the old order of courts and emperors could not stand against it. This cold wind of midnight, blowing south into Europe, was for the old regimes. With America gone, who could say where lightning might strike next? The crowned heads of Europe had reason to rest uneasy on their robed shoulders.

  Darwin opened the front door of Newlands quietly and went light-footed upstairs. He hesitated on the landing. Should he wake Jacob Pole, and tell him what had happened?

  No. He proceeded to his own bedroom. Tonight his thoughts were too dark for any company but his own. Tomorrow would be soon enough for his old friend to make the acquaintance of a great man.

  THE TREASURE OF ODIREX

  “The fever will break at dawn. If she wakes before that, no food. Boiled water only, if she asks for drink. I will infuse a febrifuge now, that you can give in three hours time if she is awake and the fever has not abated.”

  Darwin rose heavily from the bedside and moved to the fireplace, where oil lamps illuminated the medical chest standing on the oak escritoire. It was past midnight, and he moved as though he was weary to the bone.

  Jacob Pole had been standing motionless by the fire, his eyes fixed on the restless form of the young woman lying on the bed. Now he bit his lip and shook his head unhappily.

  “I just wish that you could stay the night, Erasmus. It’s late already. Are you sure that the fever will lessen?”

  “As sure as a man can be, Jacob, when we deal with disease. I wish that I could stay, but there is a bad case of puerperal fever in Rugeley that I must see tonight. Already the ways are becoming foul, but you know as well as I do that sickness will not wait on convenience.”

  He looked ruefully down at his leather leggings, spattered with drying mud from the late November rain. “If anything changes for the worse, send Prindle after me. He knows the route well. And before I go I will leave you materials for tisanes, and instructions to prepare them. Do you have somebody reliable to help you with them?”

  “I do. But these will be done with my own hands. I will trust you with her, but no one else.”

  “Aye, I should have known that. I’m sorry, Jacob. Weariness has a hold on me. I’ll wake when I have a few breaths of the night air.”

  He began to select from the medical chest, while his companion walked to the bedside and gazed unhappily at his wife as she tossed in fevered sleep. His weariness showed only in his reddened eyes, and the more pronounced trembling of his thin hands.

  Erasmus Darwin looked at him sympathetically as he sorted the drugs he needed, then took paper and quill and prepared careful written instructions for their use.

  “Attend now, Jacob,” he said, as he handed him the written sheets. “There is one preparation here that I would normally insist on administering myself. These are dried tubers of aconite, cut fine. You must make an infusion for three hundred pulse beats, then let it cool before you use it. It serves as a febrifuge, to reduce fever, and also as a sudorific, to induce sweating. That is good for these cases. If the fever should continue past dawn, here is dried willow bark, for an infusion to lower body temperature.”

  “After dawn. Yes. And these two?” Jacob Pole held up the other packets.

  “Use them only in emergency. If there should be convulsions, send for me at once, but give this as a tisane until I arrive. It is dried celandine, together with dried flowers of silverweed. And if there is persistent coughing, make a decoction of these, dried flowers of speedwell.”

  He looked closely at the other man and nodded slightly to himself as he saw the faint hand tremor and yellowish eyes. He rummaged again in the medical chest.

  “And here is one for you, Jacob.” He raised his hand, stifling the other’s protest. “Don’t deny it. I saw the signs again when I first walked in here tonight. Malaria and Jacob Pole are old friends, are they not? Here is cinchona, Jesuit-bark, for your use. Be thankful that I have it with me—there’s little enough call for it on my usual rounds. Rheumatism and breech babies, that’s my fate.”

  During his description of the drugs and their use, his voice had been clear and unhesitating. Now, at the hint of humor, his usual stammer was creeping back in.

  Jacob Pole was glad to hear it. It meant that the physician was confident enough to permit his usual optimistic outlook to reemerge.

  “Come on, then, Erasmus,” he said. “Your carriage should still be ready and waiting. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’ve done for us. First Emily, and now Elizabeth. One life can never repay for two, but you know I’m ready should you ever need help yourself.”

  The two men took a last look at the sleeping patient, then Jacob Pole picked up the medical chest and they left the room. As they did so, the housekeeper came in to maintain the vigil on Elizabeth Pole. They walked quietly past her, down the stairs and on to the front of the silent house. Outside, the night sky was clear, with a gibbous moon nearing the full. A hovering ground mist hid the fields, and the distant lights of Lichfield seemed diffuse and deceptively close. The sulky was waiting, the old horse standing patiently between the shafts and munching quietly at her nosebag.

  “That’s strange.” Jacob Pole paused in his work of filling the mare’s nosebag. He looked down the road to the south. “Do you hear it, Erasmus? Unless my ears are going, there’s a horseman coming this way, along the low road.”

  “Coming here?”

  “Must be. There’s no other house between here and Kings Bromley. But I don’t expect visitors at this hour. Did you promise to make any calls out that way?”

  “Not tonight.”

  They stood in silence as the faint jingling of harness grew steadily louder. The rider who at last came into view seemed to be mounted on a legless horse, smoothly breasting the swirling ground mist. The Derbyshire clay, still slick and moist from the afternoon rain, muffled the sound of the hooves. The rider approached like a phantom. As he grew closer they could see him swaying a little in the saddle, as though half asleep. He cantered up to them and pulled aside the black face-cloth that covered his nose a
nd mouth.

  “I’m seeking Dr. Darwin. Dr. Erasmus Darwin.” The voice was soft and weary, with the flat vowels of a northcountryman.

  “Then you need seek no further.” Jacob Pole stepped forward. “This is Dr. Darwin, and I am Colonel Pole. What brings you here so late?”

  The other man stiffly dismounted, stretching his shoulders and bowing at the waist to relieve the cramped muscles of a long ride. He grunted in relief, then turned to Darwin.

  “Your housekeeper finally agreed to tell me where you were, Doctor. My name is Thaxton, Richard Thaxton. I must talk to you.”

  “An urgent medical problem?”

  Thaxton hesitated, looking warily at Jacob Pole. “Perhaps. Or worse.” He rubbed at the black stubble on his long chin. “ ‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?’ ”

  “Better perhaps than Macbeth could.” Erasmus Darwin stood for a moment, head hunched forward on his heavy shoulders. “Who suggested that you come to me?”

  “Dr. Warren.”

  “Warren of London?” Darwin’s voice quickened with interest. “I doubt that I can do anything for you that he cannot. Why did he not treat your problem himself?”

  Again the other man hesitated. “If Dr. Warren is an old friend, I fear that I bring you bad news. He can no longer sustain his practice. His health is failing, and he confided in me his belief that he is consumptive.”

  “Then that is bad news indeed.” Darwin shook his head sadly. “To my mind, Warren is the finest diagnostician in Europe. If he has diagnosed consumption in himself, the prospect is bleak indeed.”

  “He holds you to be his master, especially in diseases of the mind. Dr. Darwin, I have ridden nonstop from London, and I must get back to Durham as soon as possible. But I must talk with you. Dr. Warren offers you as my only hope.”

  Thaxton’s hands were trembling with weariness as they held the bridle. Darwin scrutinized him closely, measuring the fatigue and the despair.

  “We will talk, Mr. Thaxton, never fear. But I cannot stay to do it. There is an urgent case of childbed fever six miles west of here. It cannot wait.” He gestured at the carriage. “However, if you would be willing to squeeze into the sulky with me, we could talk as we travel. And there is a hamper of food, that you look to be sorely in need of.”

  “What about my horse?”

  “Leave that to me.” Jacob Pole stepped forward. “I’ll see he gets a rubdown and feed. Erasmus, I suggest that you come back here when you are done, and take some rest yourself. I can send one of the servants over to Lichfield, to tell your household that they can reach you here.”

  “Aye. It bids fair to be a long night. Say that I will be home before sunset tomorrow. This is a bad time of year for fevers and agues.”

  “No need to tell me that, Erasmus.” Jacob Pole smiled ruefully and looked at his own shaking hand, as the other two men climbed into the carriage. As they moved off into the mist, he stirred himself with an effort and led the horse slowly to the stables at the rear of the house.

  * * *

  “It is a long and confusing story, Dr. Darwin. Bear with me if it seems at first as though I am meandering.”

  Food and brandy had restored Thaxton considerably. Both men had made good use of the hamper of food and drink balanced between them on their knees. Darwin wiped his greasy hands absentmindedly on his woollen shawl, and turned his head to face Richard Thaxton.

  “Take your time. Detail is at the heart of diagnosis, and in the absence of the patient—since it is clear that you are not he—the more that you can tell me, the better.”

  “Not ‘he,’ Doctor. She. Three years ago my wife, Anna, went to see Dr. Warren. At that time we were living in the heart of London, hard by Saint Mary-le-Bow. She had been feeling lacking in strength, and was troubled by a racking cough.”

  “With bleeding?”

  “Thank God, no. But Dr. Warren was worried that she might become phthisic. He recommended that we move away from the London style of life, to one with more of country ways and fresh air.”

  Darwin nodded approvingly. “Warren and I have seldom disagreed on diagnosis, and less still on treatment. You took his advice?”

  “Of course. We moved back to my family home, Heartsease, near Milburn in Cumbria.”

  “I know the area. Up in the high fell country. Clean air, and clear sun. A good choice. But did it fail?”

  “Not for my wife’s general health, no. She became stronger and more robust. I could see the improvement, month by month. Then—about one year ago—there came another problem. She began to see visions.”

  Erasmus Darwin was silent for a long moment, while the carriage rolled steadily along the graveled roads. “I see,” he said at last. “Invisible to others, I take it?”

  “Invisible to all, save Anna. Our house stands north of Milburn, facing out across Cross Fell. Late at night, in our bedroom, when the Helm stands on the fell and the wind is strong from the north, she sees phantom lights moving on the fell slopes, and hears crying in the wind.”

  “You have looked for them yourself?”

  “I, and others. I have brought our servants upstairs to look also. We see nothing, but Anna is persistent.”

  “I see.” Darwin paused again, reflective, then shrugged. “Even so, it does not sound like a matter for serious concern. She believes that she can see what you cannot. What harm is there in a will-o’-the-wisp? It does not interfere with your life.”

  “It did not.” Thaxton turned directly to Darwin, intense and troubled. “Until three months ago. Then Anna found a book in Durham telling of the early history of our part of the country. Cross Fell had another name, long ago. It was known as Fiends’ Fell. According to legend, it was renamed Cross Fell when St. Augustine came with a cross to the fell and drove out the fiends. But Anna says that she has seen the fiends herself, on two occasions. By full moonlight, and only when the Helm is on the fell.”

  “Twice now you have mentioned the Helm. What is it?”

  “Dense cloud, like a thunderhead. It sits as a bank, crouching over the top of Cross Fell. It does not move away, even when the wind sweeping from the top of the fell is strong enough in Milburn to overturn carts and uproot trees. Anna says that it is the source of the fiends.”

  Darwin nodded slowly. The two men rode on in silence for a while, both deep in thought.

  “Nothing you have said so far suggests the usual mental diseases,” Darwin said at last. “But the human mind is more complicated than we can guess. Tell me, has your wife any other fears or fancies? Any other fuel for her beliefs?”

  “Only more legends.” Thaxton shrugged apologetically. “There are other legends of the fell. According to the writings of Thomas of Appleby, in Roman times a great king, Odirex, or Odiris, lived in the high country of the fells. He acquired a great treasure. Somehow, he used it to banish the Romans from that part of the country, completely, so that they never returned.”

  “What was his treasure?”

  “The legend does not tell. But according to Thomas of Appleby, Odirex hid his treasure on Cross Fell. Local folk say that it is there to this day, guarded by the fiends of the fell. Anna says that she has seen the guardians; that they are not of human form; and that they live on Cross Fell yet, and will sometime come down again.”

  Darwin had listened to this very closely, and was now sitting upright on the hard seat of the carriage. “A strange tale, indeed, and one that I have not heard before in all my reading of English myth and legend. Odirex, eh? A name to start trains of thought, if we will but remember our Latin. Odii Rex—the King of Hate. What else does Thomas of Appleby have to say about the King of Hate’s Treasure?”

  “Only that it was irresistible. But surely, Dr. Darwin, you are not taking these tales seriously? They are but the instruments that are turning my wife’s mind away from sanity.”

  “Perhaps.” Darwin relaxed and hunched low in his seat. “Perhaps. In any case, I would have to see your wife to make any real decision as to h
er condition.”

  “I can bring her here to see you, if you wish. But I must do it under some subterfuge, since she does not know that I am seeking assistance for her condition. As for money, I will pay any fee that you ask.”

  “No. Money is not an issue. Also, I want to see her at your home in Milburn.” Darwin appeared to have made up his mind about something. “Look, I now have the responsibilities of my practice here, and as you can see they are considerable. However, I have reason to make a visit to York in a little more than two weeks’ time. I will have another doctor, my locum tenens, working here in my absence. If you will meet me in York, at a time and place that we must arrange, we can go on together to Milburn. Then perhaps I can take a look at your Anna, and give you my best opinion on her—and on other matters, too.”

  Darwin held up his hand, to stem Thaxton’s words. “Now, no thanks. We are almost arrived. You can show your appreciation in a more practical way. Have you ever assisted in country medicine, two hours after midnight? Here is your chance to try it.”

  * * *

  “The roof of England, Jacob. Look there, to the east. We can see all the way to the sea.”

  Darwin was leaning out of the coach window, holding his wig on with one hand and drinking in the scenery, as they climbed slowly up the valley of the Tees, up from the eastern plain that they had followed north from the Vale of York. Jacob Pole shivered in the brisk east wind that blew through the inside of the coach, and huddled deeper into the leather greatcoat that hid everything up to his eyes.

  “It’s the roof, all right, blast it. Close that damn window. No man in his right mind wants to be out on the roof in the middle of December. I don’t know what the devil I’m doing up here, when I could be home and warm in bed.”

  “Jacob, you insisted on coming, as you well know.”

  “Maybe. You can be the best doctor in Europe, Erasmus, and the leading inventor in the Lunar Society, but you still need a practical man to keep your feet on the ground.”