by Tessa Harris
“Francis!” he blurted. “You wanted Francis to marry Lydia and inherit all this,” he cried, gesturing to the lush farmland below.
“Francis. Dear Francis,” she repeated. “He taught me so much on our walks.”
Thomas shook his head in disbelief. “You wanted the captain to be found guilty so that Lydia would be free to marry Francis.”
“But what I had not bargained for was James Lavington,” interrupted Lady Crick.
The doctor nodded. “If only Francis’s jealousy had not got the better of him. Lavington would have hanged for Farrell’s murder and he could still have inherited Boughton.” Everything suddenly fitted into its undeniably awful place.
Thomas stood in stunned silence, contemplating what he had just heard. Lady Crick remained looking out at the view. “Of course,” she said after a few moments, “this could all be yours, if you wanted it.”
Thomas looked at her disbelievingly.
“You love Lydia. She loves you. You may be of lowly birth and a colonist, but I believe you are a good man.”
It was as if the scales had suddenly fallen from Thomas’s eyes and he could see, for the first time, the dark inner core of this outwardly harmless old woman. As she stood on the crest of the hill, surveying the countryside for miles around, it was as if she was some grotesque puppeteer, pulling the strings of her helpless puppets below.
“You would hand me a poisoned chalice?” he said incredulously.
Lady Crick smiled. “Poisoned,” she laughed. “How very apt. No, not poisoned. A little tainted perhaps.”
Thomas felt the anger rise up in him, like a great wave that threatened to engulf him if he did not take control. “I want your daughter as my wife, ’tis true,” he began, keeping his rage in check, “and I believe she would consent, but if we do marry, Lady Crick, ’twill be on our terms and not because you wish it so.”
A sneer curled the dowager’s thin lips. “So be it,” she said, her voice tinged with scorn.
Thomas’s heart beat like a drum in his chest but he tried to compose himself. What he had just heard had turned his world upside down, and if Lydia were to discover what he now knew, it would destroy hers. There was no time to lose.
Galloping back to Boughton, Thomas dismounted hurriedly.
“I have changed my plans,” he told the startled Will. “Please say nothing of this to her ladyship.”
So it was that Thomas slipped back into the daily routine of Boughton Hall as if he had never intended to leave that morning, trying to act as if nothing untoward had happened. He ate breakfast with Lydia in the dining room and tried to make pleasantries over plates of bacon and eggs, yet all the time he was waiting, waiting for the first stab of pain, the first spasm to grip, the first sharp intake of breath from Lady Crick.
The old dowager had not joined them for breakfast, but had chosen instead to go for a walk in the woods. Only Thomas guessed her purpose.
“I cannot believe how restored Mama seems,” smiled Lydia as they sat at the table.
Thomas felt a pang of guilt but simply said: “Yes. She seems well enough.”
“And you can rest assured she will never touch those mushrooms again,” laughed Lydia innocently. Thomas merely smiled.
Shortly after luncheon that day Lady Crick took to her bed, complaining of feeling tired. Although Lydia expressed concern, her mother assured her that she should not worry.
“I will see that she is comfortable,” Thomas told Lydia and he followed the dowager a few minutes later.
The bedroom was dark and still. “My time has come,” said the old woman from her bed. Thomas saw that beads of sweat now dotted her brow. “Water. I need water.”
An insatiable thirst was one of the symptoms of the poisoning and Thomas poured her a glass. “Are you in pain?” he asked.
“Does it please you that I am?” she answered.
Thomas felt insulted. “I have pledged to alleviate suffering.”
The old woman let out a contemptuous laugh. “Remember, I heard my son in his death throes. I heard him scream and gurgle enough to chill the blood. Do you think I am prepared to go through that agony?”
Thomas looked at her bewildered before recalling that she had been into the woods for the last time that morning.
“You have eaten more mushrooms?”
“They will soon work their magic,” she smiled, “and I will float blissfully into oblivion.”
It seemed almost too painless a fate for one so evil, thought Thomas, but he held his tongue and began his reluctant vigil. How long it would last, he could not tell, but he hoped it would be swift for everyone’s sake.
As he sat in silence, watching the poison take hold, he imagined the old woman’s liver, crouched like some sleeping cat deep in the abdomen, being assailed by the deadly poison. It would be smothered rather than beaten to death, anesthetized by the toxins in the mushrooms. It may well feel some pain before it failed completely, but just how much and when that would be, Thomas could not say. All he knew was that it was his duty to prepare Lydia for the dowager’s imminent demise. To her it would be wholly unexpected and therefore a terrible blow, but he knew it was a task he had to fulfill.
“I am afraid your mother is slipping into unconsciousness,” he told Lydia gently, taking her by the hand.
She withdrew from his grasp immediately in disbelief. “How so? She was better. What has happened?”
“She suffered a relapse. ’Tis only a matter of time now.” As Thomas watched the grim realization of her mother’s impending death creep across Lydia’s face he felt guilty, for the first time in his life, of a sense of terrible betrayal. Lies and deceit did not sit easily in his soul, but stay there they must to protect Lydia from a truth that would be too awful for her to bear.
The young woman walked to the window and looked out onto the manicured lawns. “Thank you, Thomas,” she sighed. “You have done all you could.”
The pastor was called, but it was too late. There was no deathbed confession, no repentance, no atonement, simply the sound of labored breathing.
It was another forty-eight hours before death descended on Boughton Hall for the fourth time in a year. It had made its presence felt on a few occasions before it finally carried off its prize. Once or twice Lady Crick had let out a muffled cry. Once or twice she had drawn her legs up to her belly and whimpered and once she had even lashed out with her arm, as if fending off the devil himself. Other than those few moments of obvious discomfort, death’s visit was uneventful and relatively silent, just how the dowager had planned it. Not for her the gross agonies and indignities that she had inflicted on her son, thought Thomas. Her body would be allowed to rest in peace and the black soul that surely lurked within it would never be exposed by a surgeon’s knife.
They buried Lady Crick in the crypt next to her husband and son. Thomas remained at Boughton until the interment, hoping that his presence might give some comfort to Lydia, but the time soon came, as he knew it would, for his return to London.
“What shall I do without you, my love?” asked Lydia, looking up at Thomas on the morning of his departure. “You have been my strength through all of this.”
“You know I am always here for you,” he said, taking both her hands in his and kissing them tenderly. Her eyes were full of tears and it was all he could do to stem his own. He could not let the moment pass. “If you would be my wife, then we need not be apart again. Will you marry me, my dearest love?”
Lydia gazed at him and smiled. “Yes. Yes, I will,” she whispered, nestling her head on his shoulder and holding his body tight against hers. It was a moment he knew would warm him through the long winter months of separation that now faced him.
Time, they say, is the great physician. Time would heal the wounds inflicted by so many deaths, so many personal tragedies, Thomas was sure of that. For the moment, however, those wounds must remain bandaged, allowed to heal naturally. Sometimes, he mused, the knife of a surgeon can do harm as well as go
od. Sometimes natural processes must be allowed to do their work away from the intervention of the scalpel and the trocar. Sometimes silent prayer and meditation is what is needed without a show of priestly pomp.
And so it was, in quiet contemplation, that Thomas said his farewells and rode down the drive of Boughton Hall for what he knew would be the last time for many months. It was just as he was passing the churchyard where young Rebecca lay, her grave still decked with fresh flowers, when he heard shouts. He craned his neck to look ’round and saw Will Lovelock, his carrot-colored hair flapping as he ran, calling after him down the drive.
“Dr. Silkstone! Dr. Silkstone,” he cried.
Thomas ordered his horse to halt. “What is it, Will?” he asked as the boy ran alongside him. He was out of breath and gulped down air as fast as he could to relate his message.
“I am to give you this, sir,” he panted, holding out the silver locket that Lydia had once dropped in the stable yard.
Thomas frowned as he took it. “But I told you to return this to her ladyship,” he chided.
“I did, sir,” replied the boy. “Just as you said. But Lady Lydia told me to give it to you, as a keepsake.”
Thomas smiled, thanked the boy, and closed his fingers ’round the pendant before putting it in his breast pocket and riding on. No doctor had ever devised a remedy to ease lovesickness, but during the cold and unforgiving season that lay ahead without his beloved, the token, he told himself, would help warm his aching heart.
Glossary
Chapter 1
rabid dog: Serious outbreaks of rabies in England from 1759 onward meant that rewards were paid for each dog killed. Rabies broke out in Boston and other North American towns in 1768.
sack: a style of sherry.
Chapter 2
lymphatics: Dr. William Hunter and his brother John discovered that the lymphatic flow runs toward the heart. Up until the mid-1700s the opposite was the received wisdom.
decaying flesh: Spring and autumn were considered the most favorable seasons for operations. A medical guide for surgeons (1712) read: “In the Spring, the blood is revived with greater heat whilst in the Autumn blood is calm. In the Winter the cold locks up the paws, hinders transpiration and the blood has not the vivacity required to animate our bodies.”
miasma: It was commonly held that diseases such as cholera or the Black Plague were caused by a miasma, a noxious form of “bad air.”
Corporation of Surgeons: From 1752 the body of any criminal executed in London and Middlesex counties could, if the judge decreed it, be dissected for the purposes of anatomical research at Surgeons’ Hall.
Mr. Garrick: David Garrick was the most famous actor of the age and managed the Theatre Royal in London’s Drury Lane until 1779.
phthisis: By the early eighteenth century tuberculosis was recognized as a contagious condition and hospitals started to exclude infected patients.
albino rat: The first recorded instance of an albino mutant rat being used for laboratory study was in 1828.
black rat: Black rats are notorious for carrying the fleas widely thought to have been responsible for bringing bubonic plague to Britain. However, more recent researches show that a waterborne intestinal disease may have been responsible.
The Daily Advertiser: Launched in 1773 in London, with a dependence on advertisements, this is sometimes regarded at the first modern newspaper.
gout: The eighteenth-century physician George Cheyne singled out the disease for well-fed and hearty types.
goiter: A condition that used to be common in many areas deficient in iodine in the soil.
laudanum: From the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth, laudanum was recommended as the drug for practically every ailment.
The Royal Academy of Arts: This was founded in 1768 through a personal act of King George III, who wished to promote the arts.
Chapter 3
The Pantheon: This once stood in Oxford Street and was a place of public entertainment that opened in 1772.
Pump Room: The social heart of Bath, where spa waters are drunk in a neoclassical salon.
grave wax: Also known as “adipocere,” this is the insoluble fatty acids left as residue from preexisting fats from decomposing material such as a human cadaver when exposed to moisture. Although its discovery is usually attributed to the Frenchman Fourcroy in the eighteenth century, Sir Thomas Browne describes this substance in 1658.
doxy: The modern sense of “a sexually promiscuous woman” dates to at least 1450.
French pox: Venereal disease, the former name of syphilis.
Chapter 4
Their days in India: By 1765, Britain’s influence in India was in the ascendancy and Bengal was ceded to Clive of India.
ivory: Artificial noses were usually carved of ivory or made of plated metal and were made to replace original noses, which may have been congenitally absent or deformed, lost through accident or combat, or through a degenerative disease, such as syphilis.
Chapter 5
St. Bartholomew’s Hospital: Almost always known as Bart’s, this hospital was founded in 1123.
stillborn child: Infant mortality at this time in both the UK and the U.S. was about 500/1,000 compared with under 7/1,000 in 2000–05.
Chapter 6
cutpurse: A violent mugger.
muckworm: One who scrapes together a living by mean labor.
Hanoverians: The line of kings that began in 1714 with George I and ended in 1837 with William IV. The major opposition to the Hanoverians came from the Jacobites, who supported the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne.
The Sheldonian Theatre: Built in 1667, it was the first major commission for an aspiring young architect named Christopher Wren.
inglenook: A medieval-style fireplace, with a large recessed opening.
Christ Church Anatomy School: Erected in the School Quadrangle in 1766–67 by Henry Keene on the site of the organist’s house, it became the Christ Church science laboratory.
Chapter 8
iodine: When dissolved in alcohol it was commonly used as an antiseptic in the past.
caries: The formation of cavities in the teeth by the action of bacteria; tooth decay.
Chapter 10
Great Tom: The name of the bell from Tom Tower, whose hundred and one peals traditionally signal the closing of the college gates.
fag: In English public schools, a fag was a young pupil who was tasked with being an older pupil’s servant.
Chapter 12
potager: A vegetable garden.
jalap: A medicinal herb.
bunter: A destitute prostitute.
Chapter 13
hatchments: A hatchment is a funeral demonstration of honors displayed on a black frame that used to be suspended against the wall of a deceased person’s house. Hatchments have now largely fallen into disuse, but many remain in parish churches throughout England.
chancre: The primary stage of syphilis is usually marked by the appearance of a single sore (called a chancre).
Chapter 14
the dome: This was designed by Sir Christopher Wren.
farthing: A low-value coin.
laurel water: A distillate of cherry laurel leaves containing hydrocyanic acid that smells like bitter almonds.
retort: A vessel in which substances are subjected to distillation or decomposition by heat.
Chapter 15
loofah: Made from a plant called the Luffa cylindrica of the gourd family. The fruit is picked when the skin turns a dark orange color and the seeds are removed to leave a spongelike pod, which, when soaked, is ideal for rubbing the skin when bathing.
salve: A soothing herbal cream.
febrifuge: A medication that reduces fever.
Chapter 16
attar: An alcohol-free perfume.
“the smell of bitter almonds”: Cyanide is found in small amounts in the nuts.
Chapter 17
litmus: Litmus paper was brought into gener
al use first in the 1600s by Robert Boyle (1627–91). Paper chromatography was, in reality, first developed in Russia by Mikhail Semenovich Tswett in 1903.
Chapter 19
palliasse: A straw-filled mattress.
Chapter 20
Vesalius: Andreas Vesalius’s anatomical text Fabrica, published in 1543, was a foundation stone upon which all surgical practice was based.
anosmia: A lack of functioning olfaction, or in other words, an inability to perceive odors. Some people may be anosmic for one particular odor. This is called “specific anosmia” and may be genetically based.
carboys: Large glass jars that were symbols of pharmacy from the 1600s onward.
Chapter 21
Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) was an English author, poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer.
Bedford Coffee House: A haunt of intellectuals in Covent Garden.
Radcliffe Camera: The word “camera” means simply “room” and was built 1737–49 with £40,000 bequeathed by Dr. John Radcliffe, the royal physician.