‘Fetch me that table,’ Pynsent ordered the girls. He placed his hat at the foot of the bed, took off his coat and started rolling up his sleeves.
As Sissy and Anne pulled the table across from the far side of the room, Lucy asked softly, ‘Will she live, doctor? What about the baby?’
The doctor ignored her and started unpacking his bag. ‘I need some water,’ he said. ‘Plenty of it.’ Madam’s words resonated in his ears. Fix her! Do what has to be done! He had his orders, but looking at the frail body that wheezed with every laboured breath, he dearly wished for different circumstances. ‘Good to see you again, Miss Conway. I’m so sorry, but this is going to hurt a lot.’ He did not get an answer, but then neither was he expecting one. In fact, it made him feel more comfortable with what he was about to do, so he started.
‘She’s not going to see through the night,’ said Anne, sounding sure of herself.
‘You’ll say no such thing, you hear?’ Sissy reprimanded her. ‘She’s fought this far, and if not for herself, then she’ll do it for the baby.’ She said it to calm herself as well for her insides had churned almost without end since the onset of this dreadful illness. Perhaps it was the promise she had made to Sara, to look after her baby, no matter what. She clearly remembered uttering those words, ‘I promise.’
They watched Pynsent work until it got too much for Anne who could no longer stand to watch her friend groan and writhe with pain as he made yet another cut into Sara’s lily-white skin and shoved another instrument down her throat. With tears streaming down her face, Anne ran out of the room. Lucy remained and tried to keep her eyes away from the bloodbath, continuously wiping the persistent sweat from Sara’s burning forehead. ‘Hold on, Sara,’ said Lucy softly. ‘Cling onto anything you can find in that dark and lonely place. The good doctor will fix you.’
Pynsent tried his best. The poor pregnant woman struggled for every breath, her lungs clogged with thick yellow phlegm, and only God knows what else. The energy to cough had long since left her tired body, and short, shallow breaths were all she could manage. For nearly two hours he had gone to work on Sara, trying all the tricks in his arsenal of potions and medical instruments but early on the Friday morning, she passed away under his hands. When Pynsent finally realised that she was no longer breathing, he cleaned his bloodied hands with a wet cloth and began to roll down his sleeves. He took a step back, looked at the lifeless body and wiped the sweat from his brow, using the same blood-soaked cloth he had used for his hands, utterly exhausted. Well, I tried. ‘She’s gone,’ he told the two ladies, who both accepted the news with quiet reflection.
Then from out of nowhere, Lucy asked tiredly, ‘What about the baby?’
‘There’s very little chance the infant is still alive in there,’ said an equally tired Pynsent, tapping the tautly stretched belly.
‘But you are not saying there is no chance, doctor. Please!?’ Anne’s voice from the doorway startled them all. ‘We owe it to Sara, sir, and right now, that’s the very least we can do for her.’
Damnit. Why can I never say no to these godly creatures? thought Pynsent and looked at Sissy for some common sense, but all he got in return was an empathic nod of the head. ‘Very well. It’s agreed then,’ he said reluctantly.
Knowing full well that nothing further could be done for the woman, the doctor pulled out a lancet from his bag. He bent over Sara and made a long incision right across her swollen belly just underneath the navel, cutting through skin, fat and muscle. Not bothering with normal procedure, he stuck both hands through the cut and yanked open the wound to find the uterus.
‘Pull that side,’ he told Lucy, who reluctantly stuck her hands out to grab hold of the cut flesh.
He pushed all organs aside until he found the uterus and then proceeded to make a careful incision through its wall. Once inside the uterus, he grabbed what felt like a leg and arm, and slowly started pulling the baby through the opening.
‘Is it ali—‘ Anne was the first to speak, but she was interrupted by a faintest of coughs. Then, a loud cry that fittingly told the story of an almost harrowing ordeal burst forth from the newborn child’s lips. ‘A boy,’ she gasped.
The three ladies were stupefied with shock and wonderment. They had said goodbye to a dear friend and now welcomed that same dear friend’s baby boy into the world. Realising they had just witnessed nothing short of a small miracle, they started smiling with each other as the doctor clamped the umbilical cord and proceeded to cut off the now useless line that once had carried life from mother to child.
Pynsent handed the baby to Sissy, who seemed the most motherly among the lot, and she immediately wrapped the boy in a clean cotton cloth and hugged him to her huge bosom while the other two crooned to the boy, trying to make him forget the anguish he had just been through. Their tiredness made way for silent awe as they struggled to comprehend what had just transpired. Here they were with one of them holding a helpless but living little bundle.
‘Well, I shall be on my way then,’ said the doctor after he had finished cleaning and putting away his instruments. His handiwork on the bed made for a grisly scene, one which he would soon try to dismiss from his mind with a strong but deserving drink. ‘May I suggest that you clean up the mess in this room before Madam sets foot in it?’
‘Of course, and thank you, sir,’ said Lucy. Her sincere thankfulness was also evident on her friends’ faces.
Pynsent could not help but to smile back at her. ‘Now, don’t let that little fella turn into a complete rascal.’ As the doctor walked out of the room, he felt somewhat elated for even though one was dead, another would live, and how. Smilingly, Pynsent allowed himself a well-deserved sense of pride for not many doctors in London could have done what he had just achieved. Most of them are proper quacks anyway, he snorted, remembering Madam’s insult. However, little did he know the impact of his actions and where that would lead to one day.
For Madam Larousse, the night ended with a bloodstained room, a dead prostitute and a newborn baby – all three of them things she could have done without. However, a bloody room could be cleaned, and a dead whore could be buried, but a screaming baby was the last thing her customers wanted to hear. She was contemplating all of this while Pynsent explained to her what had happened, pleading his case a second time.
‘I’ve done everything I could, Madam, if only you’d sent for me earl—‘
‘That’s enough, docteur. We have no further need of your services tonight. My girl, whom you almost scared to death, has recovered. She will see you out.’ Madam’s thoughts were already somewhere else.
Pynsent did not dare ask for payment, but he knew that he would be welcomed back, and that was good enough for him. With a fake smile, one he had perfected over time, and a polite touch of the hat, Pynsent was on his way but not before noticing a fairly large and buxom redhead who he had never seen before. Considering himself somewhat of a lady connoisseur, he had developed a particular taste for pleasantly plump women and this new face would suit him just fine. The doctor smiled at her, and to his delight, she returned his courtesy with a simper. No doubt the story of the little miracle had already travelled through the house.
As the coach pulled away, the doctor was quickly lost in his thoughts. I should come here tomorrow night after my rounds, perhaps spend some time with the lovely lady. Knowing that it was a long road ahead, he sat back in the seat and made himself comfortable, allowing his imagination to take him on a whirlwind trip straight into the loving arms of the auburn-haired courtesan.
The coachman took the same route back to London Bridge, slowly making his way through several small streets and alleyways. Most of them were shrouded in darkness, so he slowed down from time to time, making sure that he did not ram the sidewalls or any corners with his coach. To put his mind at ease, he felt underneath the seat for the blunderbuss he had stored in a leather sheath and made sure that he could get to it in quick time.
As they turned into Harrow Corner
, he sighed with relief, knowing that they were not far away from the well-lit main road that would take them straight to the bridge. He thought his eyes had deceived him, but after a proper squint, he saw the line of large rocks lying on the road, directly in front of them. Immediately sensing something was wrong, the coachman brought the horses to a halt. As he reached underneath the seat for the gun, he heard the rustle of a jacket and a well-aimed brick struck him against the side of the head, sending him cartwheeling off the coach and onto the hard pavement. The poor man suffered a fractured skull and laid writhing on the ground as his traumatised brain started shutting down his bodily functions. Death followed soon thereafter.
Pynsent, still stuck in his daydream, took no notice of the events unfolding outside. He did not see the arm that reached through the blinds, in the hand a knife, its blade sharp and polished to a shine. The blade was quickly pulled across the doctor’s throat, and as he started coming to his senses, he was dragged from the coach and dumped on the road. He tried talking but could only mutter incomprehensible gurgling sounds and as Edward Pynsent exhaled his last breath, his blood staining the cobblestones, one last thought crossed his mind. This is not the way it’s supposed to end.
A tall man with a black coat, a black wide-brimmed hat and a scar under his right eye wiped his blade clean on the dying doctor’s coat. He sheathed the knife and started to unbutton the doctor’s coat. Inside one of the pockets, he found a golden pocket watch which he flicked open. It shone brightly in the flickering light of the lantern above and seemed a marvellous piece. The man held it against his ear and grinned when he heard the ticking sound, almost like a beating heart snatched from a lifeless body. After he had stripped the doctor of everything valuable, he still had not found what he was looking for. The man then stepped into the coach and after a frantic search in the dark found what he had come for in the doctor’s bag – the little black book, famous among the few who knew about its existence.
With the doctor's bag clutched under his arm, the man disappeared back into the darkness as quickly as he had come, knowing that by morning, nothing of the crime scene would be left. Only a few bloodstains, those that the dogs could not lap up from between the cracks and crevices, would be reminiscent of the events that had unfolded here tonight. The two horses would be sold somewhere outside the city, or they would end up feeding several starving families. The coach would be broken up into firewood while all iron, including the wheels, would be melted down and reused, or be sold on to a blacksmith. The bodies of both men would be rid of their valuable clothes and dumped into the river somewhere, hopefully sending them downstream with a receding tide. No one wanted the constables nosing around in this part of town, and he would not have it any other way.
Chapter 2
The funeral for Sara Conway was held the next day on yet another brumal afternoon. In and around the Cross Bones burying ground, just off Red Cross Street, overnight rain had turned the soil into slush. By early afternoon, when the mourners started to gather, the sun desperately tried to break through, but it was not to be as more grey clouds and drizzle continued to drift in on a stiff easterly.
For Sara, there was no elaborate send-off. The burial was just the usual sombre affair, attended only by her closest friends, including Anne and Lucy, while those who remained at La Boutique, keeping it open for business, exchanged stories about how they wished they had known her better.
Madam was nowhere to be seen, and while she had organised the funeral, she had left the brothel early in the morning to attend to what she had called “important business”, though everyone at La Boutique rightfully suspected that she merely had no interest or desire to be there. They knew Madam deemed herself too classy for attending a peasant girl’s funeral, albeit one of her own, and she was certainly not going to get her fancy dress and expensive French shoes dirty.
For the few friends that did gather at the graveyard, the priest from the local parish said a quick prayer, desperate to get out of the dreadful weather himself, and upon his instructions, the gravediggers closed the hole. A flat stone engraved with the name “Sara Conway” and the date “18th January 1684” was placed on top to mark the burial site and not long after, the few mourners made their way back to La Boutique, sad for committing their friend to the earth, glad to escape the miserable weather and looking forward to spending some time with the new addition to the house.
Like his first night, the newborn spent most of the morning moving between Sissy and one of the prostitutes who had lost her own child to illness several months ago. The well-endowed lady, who fulfilled the role of wet nurse, had discovered by chance that some men like to suckle at the breast of a woman and would pay good money to do so. Of course, when Madam became aware of this, word of the extraordinary new service had quickly spread around town and yet again, La Boutique increased its reputation as the place that catered for one and all. As for the wet nurse, milk was aplenty, and it was just a matter of switching from a big baby to a small one.
While they were busy laying his mother to rest, it was Sissy who looked after him, and after she had taken him upstairs for his next feed, she took the opportunity to rearrange her room and to make way for the new arrival. One of the carpenters who had worked on La Boutique’s renovation lived nearby, and she asked the man to urgently build a crib, paying a handsome sum from her pocket as wood had become an expensive commodity since winter’s onset. When she returned to La Boutique, she, the other maids and a few of the ladies foraged around the brothel for bedding and other useful items. Their search was not in vain for they turned up plenty of old linen, an unsteady old dresser that Miles levelled with a wooden wedge and even a small tub they could use as a bath for everyone knew a newborn should bathe at least three times a day. Some of the old bed linen was sent to the tailor down the road to be turned into baby clothes, and by the time the ladies returned from the funeral, everything had already started falling into place for the new arrival. The newborn already had a much better, albeit rudimentary start to life than many of those living outside the gates.
The rest of La Boutique’s sisterhood quickly adopted the baby, but it was Sissy who took him in as her own. She had lost her husband and two daughters to the plague several years ago and nothing had ever filled that void. But this child gave new meaning to her life for there were so many things to organise and care for, and she was quickly swept up in the thrill of becoming a new mother. Day after day, she dutifully cared for him, quietly suppressing any feelings of envy as he suckled at the breast of another for she knew the baby, her boy, desperately needed the elixir of life, and as she watched him grow bigger, the bond between them grew stronger.
Almost too soon for Sissy’s liking, the baby turned into a little blond-haired boy, and the pitter-patter of tiny feet echoed through La Boutique’s large hallways. They had given him his mother’s Welsh surname and after much deliberation, had settled on the name Tristan for no particular reason other than it being the one that most of them could agree on, and it was Welsh of sorts. While Sissy raised him for the better part, it was between all of the ladies that they managed to feed him, bathe him, clothe him and play with him. As he grew older and became more mobile, they started moving him around the brothel to different rooms as not to interfere with the comings and goings of the customers.
And while every single one of the ladies somehow contributed to his upbringing, Madam saw Tristan as a plain nuisance, but above all, blamed him for his mother’s demise and her loss of income. It was only Sissy’s revived happiness of having someone to love and care for once more and her unwavering duty to Madam ever since La Boutique had first opened its doors that made the brothel owner tolerate him.
Nevertheless, Madam could not stand the little boy, and from early on, Tristan learned to avoid her like the plague. Right from the beginning, she had christened him petit bâtard and whenever their paths crossed, she would snarl at him, mutter some French obscenities and, much to her delight, would watch him run off to
the nearest, safest pair of arms as fast as his little legs could carry him.
Many times, Madam threatened to sell him off, like when he escaped from his temporary confinement to interrupt a frolicking session in one of the occupied rooms or when he wandered into Madam’s room with its shiny things, which never failed to lure him. Sissy usually pleaded his case, and hers, and he was always quickly reprimanded with a willow birch to the buttocks under Madam’s watchful eyes. Sissy sat him down afterwards and tried to explain the situation, but he was too young to comprehend Madam’s meanness towards him. The little boy could only remember the French lady’s scornful gaze, her eyes burning into his tearful ones as the birch set fire to his backside and his wails echoed through the corridors.
Sissy knew that he was on borrowed time, and his inquisitiveness started to get the better of her. Then there were the constant questions about indecent acts witnessed by innocent eyes, and so she decided early on to let him venture outside and reduce the number of encounters with Madam.
Outside, a whole new world opened up to him. He got to play all sorts of games in the garden, his imagination the only limitation, and the shed behind the brothel next to the ice house was a treasure trove filled with all sorts of stuff perfectly suited to a budding explorer.
Giles and Miles were the two most exciting people Tristan got to know, and he could sit for hours listening to their conversations about days long gone. A few times he spied on them as they beat up unwelcome patrons behind the shed. Their language and idiosyncrasies were intoxicating, and Sissy smacked his little buttocks on several occasions when she caught him mimicking their punches and kicks while uttering some very colourful words. He kept on spending time with them, and Sissy allowed him, considering they were the only other menfolk around and a boy needed that influence. Brutish as they were, the twins did not hold back as they peppered the wide-eyed boy with fact and fiction about their ruthless travels, leaving little to the imagination. Once Giles even let him touch his dagger, the one which he kept hidden inside his jacket.
The Fire Within Page 2