Bruce Alexander - [Sir John Fielding 01]

by Alexander, Bruce

  But then, with the server departed, the Scotsman returned to his true subject: “As I say, Mr. Donnelly, I am but an amateur author. I am by profession a man of the law, a member of the bar in Edinburgh. That is why I have a keen and healthy interest in this grave matter of the night before. You termed it so yourself.” He glanced searchingly in my direction and, getting no response, focused himself on Mr. Donnelly.

  Perhaps worn down by Boswell’s insistence, or perhaps (it is possible) wishing to claim some importance for himself, Mr. Donnelly gave out a sigh worthy of an actor, leaned across the table (for the room was very noisy), and said in the loudest possible whisper: “You may as well hear it somewhat in advance, sir, for there will be a notice in the Public Advertiser tomorrow.”

  Boswell joined in the mood of secrecy, thrusting his face across his plate so that only a foot of space separated their noses. “Tell me, sir,” said he. “Please do.”

  “Lord Goodhope died last night.”

  “But this is remarkable news. He was a man in his prime, less than ten years older than myself, I should judge. What was the cause?”

  Mr. Donnelly’s eyes, which just then moved in my direction, may have caught the look of alarm on my face. Surely he would not tell this gossip all he knew! But when his answer came, it sorely disappointed Boswell.

  The surgeon leaned still closer and said: “Misadventure.”

  ”Misadventure? But that is not a cause of death, sir. It is a … a euphemism. For what?”

  Mr. Donnelly pulled back then and gave me a look I took to be reassuring. Then to Boswell: “Why, I quote from the notice, merely. More I am not at liberty to say.”

  Attempting to disguise his disappointment at Mr. Donnelly’s show of discretion, Boswell nodded and went back to his dinner just as ours appeared. I dug in manfully and, may I say, hopefully at the considerable slice of beef roast placed before me.

  “I understand, of course,” said Boswell. “Sir John Fielding would not want it otherwise. I assume the matter is indeed grave, as you say, and is presently under inquiry.”

  “You are free to draw that assumption. Many shall do so tomorrow when the notice appears.”

  And then Boswell picked up the bottle before him and splashed wine in the empty glasses around the table. He began a discourse which, had it come from any other source, should have won my respect. He was not, after all, a stupid man: merely one, as I later came to judge, who was vain, sometimes to the point of foolishness.

  “Let us consider this,” said he. “If we take ‘misadventure’ to mean, as it so often does, an accident —that is, an unplanned and disastrous occurrence—then there would be no need to use the word. Unless, of course, the facts of the ‘misadventure’—that is, the accident—were of such an embarrassing nature that they could not be disclosed. There are such occasions. Yet they are not such as to rout the magistrate of the Bow Street Court from an eating place before he has eaten—and before the arrival of Dr. Johnson, the meeting of whom seemed to be the reason for his visit to this establishment. And in such a rush, I might add. It would have been handled in more leisurely fashion. No, I believe we may put aside ‘misadventure’ in its more common meaning, in this case. It was surely not an accident.

  “What other possibilities are there? Suicide? Had Lord Good-hope reason for such an extreme act? He was known at court, was until recently said to be a favorite of the King as a defender of the King’s less defensible policies. A gifted speaker, I’m told: part actor and part controversialist. I myself never heard him and saw him but twice and then only at a distance. But I did say he was until recently a favorite of the King, did I not? Word reached me even in my distant northern eyrie that he had fallen somewhat from grace. My informant pleaded ignorance as to the reason. He knew only with some certainty that the Royal door had been shut to Lord Goodhope. Would that be enough to move a man to take his life? Hardly.

  “Financial problems? More likely. He was a gambler, a reckless frequenter of the Bilbo establishment, as you may or may not know. Yet he drew good rents from his holdings in Lancashire. And if not inexhaustible, his resources would certainly be difficult to exhaust. He was not a poor man, nor would he ever be likely to become one.

  “There is another matter that dissuades us from considering suicide. Perhaps you are aware of it, Mr. Donnelly?”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  I did not like Boswell luring my companion into his conjectures. I did not like it because I was sure Sir John would not.

  “You are Irish, are you not?”

  “I take pride in it, sir.”

  “And Roman Catholic, as well? Donnelly, I’m told, is a Catholic name.”

  “That is my faith, yes.”

  “So, I’ve heard it whispered, was it also Lord Goodhope’s.”

  Whatever effect Boswell hoped to achieve by this, he failed to achieve it, for the surgeon simply sat and looked the other man in the eye for many long seconds, gave an abrupt nod, and returned to his meat. The effect of this was to rattle Boswell somewhat. Whereas up to this point he had spoken in measured fashion, using a somewhat insinuating tone, he now fairly exploded forth.

  “Well … well … you see my implication, of course!” He got no response from Mr. Donnelly, and so he blundered on: “His family is a very old one in Lancashire, which as you must know, is a very hotbed of Papist loyalty. They rose under the Stuarts. They got their title from the second Charles and rose in favor under the former George.”

  “You are very well studied, sir.”

  “Then murder! It must be murder! Suicide is out of the question! In law, misadventure may signal accidental homicide without blame. Why not with blame? Misadventure by murder!”

  Boswell was fairly shouting it out. Talk had stopped at a number of tables around our own. Patrons leaned over on their benches to catch what would be said next.

  Mr. Donnelly kept chewing solemnly, swallowed his bite, and then said: “When I told you in advance the contents of tomorrow’s notice, which I now understand to have been a mistake, I unwittingly left serious matters open for discussion. I did not, however, give you leave to publicize them, sir.”

  Boswell then looked around him and noted the expectant faces. He dropped his voice to a whisper: “Forgive me, do. I became a bit carried away, I fear. But I should think you as a lawyer would understand that I—”

  “I am not a lawyer, Mr. Boswell.”

  “But I assumed you were somehow associated with the Bow Street Court … the boy … Sir John … last night …” He trailed off quite pitifully, seeking words to take him out of his predicament. At last he came to a full stop and forced a smile. “What is your profession, if I may ask?”

  “I am a surgeon, until recently of the King’s Navy.”

  A certain glint came into Boswell’s eye. Without asking leave, he took the bottle before him and emptied it into Mr. Donnelly’s glass. Then he waved the empty bottle at the server, calling for another.

  If Boswell had previously impressed me, in spite of myself, with his lawyer’s logic, he now came forward seemingly as a conspirator, looking this way and that before he spoke. Would that he had been so circumspect when speaking of Lord Goodhope’s “misadventure”!

  “I had not realized, of course, that you were a surgeon,” said he. “Had I but known, I would not, of course, have troubled you with such matters as I did earlier. Please accept my apology.”

  “I accept it,” said Mr. Donnelly, taking a good gulp of Boswell’s wine. He belched manfully and pushed his empty plate away. I was still struggling with mine.

  “I would, however, have taken up another matter with you. It is a medical matter that has troubled me greatly over the past years. I take it that you possess a diploma. You are not… a barber?”

  “My diploma is from the University of Vienna,” said Mr. Donnelly, puffing a bit. He may have seen in Boswell the possibility of a patient. “What is the nature of your difficulty?”

  “Venereal.”

&n
bsp; Mr. Donnelly looked suddenly so uncomfortable that I ransacked my English, Latin, and French vocabularies for some meaning to this new word. I could only suppose, having done so, that it had something to do with the goddess Venus. Was Mr. Boswell then lovesick? He didn’t seem the sort, somehow.

  “Please,” said Boswell, “let me explain. You, as a ship’s surgeon, must have treated complaints such as mine scores, even hundreds, of times.”

  “Well, I … I …” Now Mr. Donnelly seemed at a loss for words.

  “Let me explain. I have had eight attacks since the age of nineteen, or perhaps not quite so many. It’s difficult to say. Oh, trust me, I know a full-fledged case of it: the gleet, the sore on the member, the painful pissing, the nasty discharge. Oh, believe me, I know!”

  “You’re talking … you’re talking …” Mr. Donnelly seemed quite at a loss for words.

  “Of the clap, simply put. Yes, sir, the clap. Now, there are two

  lOO things that trouble me. First of all, there is my difficulty at putting a number to my attacks. For instance, does a clear discharge without the other symptoms constitute a full attack? The doctors in Edinburgh differ on this.”

  “Please, sir, the boy!” He gestured toward me, though I had no idea how I figured in this.

  “Ah, well,” said Boswell with a shrug, dismissing me as a consideration in this matter. “Secondly,” he continued, “and again I address you in particular as a ship’s surgeon, I must ask, how may I prevent this in the future? Fve tried armour, and it may work, but it prevents pleasure. What do you suggest?”

  “Have you considered …” And at this point Mr. Donnelly jumped to his feet. “Have you considered abstinence, sir?”

  “Ah yes,” said Boswell, “abstinence. It never seems to work so well with me.”

  “Jeremy, are you done with dinner?”

  “Oh, quite,” said I, glad at last to be released from my task.

  “Then let’s be off.”

  “Oh, don’t go,” said Boswell. “Dr. Johnson promised to come by. He’s at dinner with that dreary Mrs. Thrale, who didn’t invite me. When he comes, I’ll introduce you.”

  “Tempted as I am by that prospect, I must, with Jeremy, take leave of you. This has been, let me assure you, a most interesting meeting.”

  Boswell stood, and the two men then shook hands. As he did so, Boswell assured him that it had, for him, been a great pleasure. With that, Mr. Donnelly took me by the sleeve and dragged me out of the Cheshire Cheese, pausing only long enough to settle up the bill on his way out.

  Finally, we were out on the street again, and if the air that we then breathed may not have been as pure as what Mr. Donnelly had breathed on occasions in the Austrian Alps, it was at least immeasurably purer than what we had inhaled for the past hour or so inside the Cheshire Cheese.

  My companion drew in great draughts of it. I, too, took it in, feeling the healthier for it.

  Then we set off walking exactly in the direction we had earlier come. For a few minutes we moved along together in silence. Then Mr. Donnelly turned to me and asked: “Jeremy, who was that terrible man?”

  Chapter Six

  In which Mr. Clairmont

  is heard from and a

  discovery made

  The next morning, a very busy one, began with Mr. Donnelly’s promised visit to Lady Fielding. The knock came early. Mrs. Gredge led the surgeon to the kitchen where I sat at breakfast. I jumped from my chair, thinking it the polite thing to do, but he waved me back to my place.

  “Would you like something, sir?” asked Mrs. Gredge. “All I can offer immediate is bread and butter. But if you like, I’ll cut a pair of rashers off the flitch and cook them up.”

  “Nothing, thank you,” said he. “If you will but notify Sir John of my arrival. He’s up, I take it?”

  “Up and about. In truth, I think he barely slept at all last night. She passed a terrible time, she did.”

  “Well, I may be able to help that.”

  “It would be a blessing.”

  That said, she disappeared up the stairs. The surgeon had with him his black bag. He placed it on the table and opened it up. With a nod to me, most professional, he busied himself with its contents, taking from it a mortar and pestle and a large corked bottle.

  “Sir John will see you up here,” called Mrs. Gredge from above.

  Mr. Donnelly started off, then turned to me as with an afterthought. “Jeremy, would you be a good lad and put some water in the pot and put it on the fire?”

  “For tea, sir?”

  “A kind of tea: a potion. You needn’t fill the pot full. A little water will do.”

  And then he, too, marched up the stairs while I busied myself doing his bidding. A few minutes later, I heard the two men talking in hushed voices on the stairs—not so quietly, however, that I could not hear them plainly.

  “What is the nature of the potion?” inquired Sir John most somberly.

  “A tea of opium. I have a considerable supply of seeds from India.”

  “I asked after it to one of the doctors who preceded you. He advised against it: He cautioned there was great potential for an addiction which might be difficult to satisfy.”

  “Addiction? Yes, but it hardly matters now, does it?”

  Sir John took pause at that. “Hardly,” he agreed after a moment. Then of a sudden, he asked, “It will not shorten her life, will it?”

  “Believe me, I could never in conscience—”

  “Forgive me for asking.”

  The pot was boiling when they arrived in the kitchen. Mr. Donnelly took it off the fire, allowing it to cool a bit as he made his preparations. Then he turned to me and asked, “Jeremy, would you go up and fetch the woman? What is her name?”

  Sir John looked up from the place he had taken across from me at the table. “Mrs. Gredge,” said we both together.

  “I want her to know how this is done.”

  Without another word, I raced up the stairs but held myself back from knocking loudly on the door: tapped, rather, and gave a quiet call to Mrs. Gredge inside.

  When she appeared, I instructed her that the surgeon wished her below in the kitchen.

  And then, from inside, a faint voice: “Is that the boy? Is that Jeremy?”

  “Yes, mum, it is,” said Mrs. Gredge.

  “I should like to meet him.”

  As she passed by me, opening wide the door, Mrs. Gredge whispered fiercely in my ear, “Don’t dare upset her, now!”

  I advanced timorously into the room.There in the bed, near hidden by the bedclothes, a tiny figure rested, propped slightly on two pillows. It was as if her head itself, the only part of her visible to me, had shrunk inside her nightcap.

  “Come ahead,” said she in that same faint voice, which was like unto a sick child’s. “I want to see you close.”

  I went to her bedside. Her face, once quite comely, for I have seen an earlier likeness Sir John kept ever after, was then so wizened by her disease that she seemed an old woman. I learned later that she was not yet forty. Her lips were pursed against her suffering.

  I stood there awkwardly for I know not how long and then attempted a bow.

  “Well done,” said she. “Are you a good boy, Jeremy?”

  “I try to be, mum … Lady Fielding.”

  “Jack thinks you are.”

  Who could Jack be? And then, of course, I knew. What was I to reply? Since I had no notion, I did what is best in such a situation and kept my silence.

  “He is usually good in matters of character, and so I shall trust him in this. Jeremy, if he chooses you for a son, I want you to be a good son to him. Help him as much as he will allow.” She stopped of a sudden, her words occluded by a new and fiercer flash of pain. Her lips quite disappeared into her mouth. It frightened me to look upon her.

  Then the spasm passed, and at last, her eyes bright, she resumed: “He needs a son. I was never able to give him one. Be not forward, but help him, and do all he asks of you.”r />
  Together we heard the trio ascending the stairs.

  “I’ll do as you say, Lady Fielding.” I choked it forth somehow.

  “I know you will. I’m glad … for the chance to meet you.”

  They entered. Sir John, Mr. Donnelly, and Mrs. Gredge. I fell back from the bedside, leaving them room to do whatever they had come to do. Mr. Donnelly had in his hand a small, steaming cup which he bore with great care.

  Mrs. Gredge grasped me by the wrist, and in that same sharp whisper I had heard from her last, she said, “You may go now, Jeremy.” Then she released me, sending me on my way.

  Truth to tell, reader, I was glad to be gone from that room. Quite overwhelmed was I by the meeting and by my brief conversation with Lady Fielding. Only to be there beside her brought back to me woeful memories of my mother’s last hours. She had no last words to give me: delirious or unconscious she was through it all, ignorant even of my brother’s death. My father nursed her to the end. Strange to say, neither he nor I were infected by the fever.

  But the import of Lady Fielding’s words filled me with awe, even something akin to terror. In the truest sense, I had not grasped their meaning. The idea that one might trade a dead father for a live one seemed near monstrous to me. Though in spite of her pain, she seemed in full possession of her faculties; still, what she had said seemed perhaps the product of delirium. In short, I was confused and greath burdened.

  This should explain my state when Sir John entered the kitchen. I had been weeping at the table, but upon seeing him I wiped my tears and set about to hide it from him. I might have succeeded, but my nose betrayed me. I sniffed quietly twice.

  He went straight to where I sat, felt for my shoulder, found it, and gave it a squeeze.

  “Aye, Jeremv Proctor, ” said he, “it is a sad thing, is it not? Sad beyond telling.”

  Bv the time we had settled once again in the librarv of the Goodhopes’ residence, carpenters had arrived to repair the broken door. They were a noisy pair, making plain with whistling and joking their indifference to us and our concerns.