“Is no one home?” Hannah asks. To her surprise, her voice sounds perfectly modulated and calm.
“Apparently not.”
“That’s odd,” Hannah says, reaching into her purse for her house key. This is an even greater mystery than the purpose of Strathern’s visit. “My mother is never left alone.”
She unlocks the front door and lets them inside. In two quick movements she removes the patents from her shoes, then calls out to Mrs. Wills. Receiving no answer, she walks to the door leading down to the kitchen and calls again. The house is silent.
“We take turns going to church,” Hannah says as she returns to where Strathern waits in the parlor. “I left a note—they knew I would be back soon.”
“Lucy?” a thin, querulous voice calls from above. “Lucy, is that you?”
“My mother,” Hannah explains, crossing to the stairs.
“She’s ill?”
Hannah hesitates, then decides to tell him the truth. “She is ill in her mind.” She starts up the stairs, then stops and looks back at him. “Why don’t you come with me? I may need your help.”
They find Charlotte still in her nightdress, sitting on the edge of her bed, attempting to pull a comb through her long gray hair. Hannah kneels in front of her to gently untangle it. Though Charlotte is only a few years older than Mrs. Wills, she aged rapidly after becoming ill six years ago. She’s an old woman, with liver-spotted hands, knobby knees, delicate bones. Only in her bright blue eyes can one get a glimpse of the girl she once was. “Mother, where have the others gone?”
“Lucy’s supposed to dress my hair.” She looks at Hannah, confused. “Who are you?”
“I’m your daughter, Hannah.”
“I don’t remember a daughter. I have a son.” She turns to Strathern, smiling as if she knows him. “Two sons.” She beams with pride.
Hannah glances at Strathern: Now you see. He nods sympathetically. She looks around the room, but there’s no sign of dishes or a tray. “Have you had your breakfast?”
“Butterflies and flowers,” Charlotte replies, waving her hand as if shooing something away. “Butterflies and flowers.”
“It looks like they’ve gone out without even bringing up her breakfast,” Hannah says to Strathern. “This isn’t like Mrs. Wills at all.” She presses her mother’s hands between her own, then bends down to check her bare feet. “You’re freezing. Mother, please, get under the blankets.” She looks at Strathern and points to a metal box next to the hearth. “Do you mind?”
He stacks more coal in the smoldering grate while she coaxes her mother back into bed. “Stay here. I’m going to make up your morning medicine.” She motions for Strathern to follow her and leads him upstairs.
She’s relieved that he doesn’t recoil at her attic bedroom, hardly that of a proper young woman, but instead calmly takes it all in—the bundles of drying herbs, tables and shelves crowded with bottles and jars, the alembics, the stacks of books. She’s relieved that his eyes pass over the unmade bed as if it weren’t there. Hannah goes straight to her workbench, picking up a small marble mortar and pinching off bits of various herbs, which she crumbles between her fingers before dropping them in. “How did you discover where I live?”
“I asked an apothecary. The lady doctor of Portsmouth Street is quite well known, it seems. I’m beginning to see why. Do you make all your own medicines?”
“Some, not all.”
He stands near the shelves, looking over the books: The English Physitian by Nicholas Culpepper; Theatrum botanicum by John Parkinson; Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy; Rare Secrets in Physick and Chirurgery by Elizabeth, Countess of Kent; A Proved Practice for Young Chirurgians by William Clowes; Peter Lowe’s Discourse on the Art of Chirurgery; Harvey’s Du Motu Cordis. “I see you’re not entirely opposed to book learning.”
“Not at all. I find it very helpful, in fact, especially if the authors emphasize observation over theory. The books on surgery are quite good.” As soon as she says this she regrets it; it reminds her of how they met. Reminds him too, she notices as their eyes meet. But that’s a dangerous thing to do. She quickly looks away.
“Do you know how to use this?” she asks, handing him a mortar and pestle.
“I think I can manage.” He sets it on the table and grinds the herbs into powder. “What are you making?”
“An electuary. I’ll put the ground herbs into honey—she won’t take it any other way. Dandelion to strengthen her bones, rosemary flowers and juniper for mental clarity, fennel to stimulate her appetite.” She brushes her hair away from her face with a gesture both impatient and fatigued. “Sometimes she simply refuses to eat.”
“Does this help her condition?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I think it’s better than no medicine at all. At least I hope it is. I keep trying new combinations, but none so far has made a huge difference in her state of mind. Somehow it seems better than doing nothing.”
He gives the mortar and pestle back to her, his job completed. “I’ve been thinking about that story you told me.”
“Oh.” She turns away, self-conscious. “I’d rather hoped you’d forget.”
“I cannot.” His voice is serious enough to make her look back at him. “You said you were told to ease suffering.”
“Yes.”
His gray eyes are gentle, worried. “What about your own suffering?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Are you ill?”
It’s bad enough that he’s seen her as she was at the dance, seen her mother’s invalid state. “No.”
“Then why do you carry this?” From his pocket he takes the vial she had on the night of the dance. He holds it in his open palm. “It’s laudanum, if I am not mistaken.”
She has no choice but to explain. “I suffer from headaches. Megrims, they’re sometimes called.”
He puts the vial on the table in front of her. “Does it help?”
“Yes. Like nothing else.”
“When I was in Paris, I knew a few students who used opium to medicate themselves. One was consumptive, the others had various complaints. Some used laudanum, some took opium in the Oriental manner, by smoking it, something that is becoming more the fashion there. I think they believed it was harmless enough at first, but after a while, these men—men of good understanding and good character, mind you—cared for little else other than the drug. Little by little, every other pleasure was stripped away and replaced by opium. They became sad wrecks indeed, with no future, no hope. I could not bear to see this happen to you.”
“Do you truly believe that is a great danger?”
“I suspect it can happen to anyone, no matter how careful one is. Exactly what happened the night of the dance?”
“The laudanum was more potent than usual. Usually such a small amount does not affect me so powerfully.”
“Perhaps you took more than you realized.”
She thinks back; she is fairly certain she put the dropper in her mouth only once. Then Madame Severin interrupted her. This recollection prompts another thought. “There’s something I need to tell you,” Hannah says.
“What?”
“I can’t remember. Don’t look at me that way, I’m not being devious. It’s on the tip of my tongue—”
Downstairs, the front door opens and shuts, then a single pair of pattens clatters on the entry hall floor. Mrs. Wills has arrived. Hannah steps past Strathern and hurries down the stairs. Why did the goodwife leave her mother all alone?
“She’s gone,” Mrs. Wills says even before Hannah reaches her. “She’s left and taken all her things. I suppose we’ll have to check on the silver, too.” Mrs. Wills gives way with a short, choking sob, covering her mouth in a futile attempt to contain it. “She’s run off and we have no idea where to find her.”
Hannah doesn’t need any more explanation to understand that Hester’s run away. She has always worried that the girl would succumb to some passing evil. The ru
naway maid is an all-too-common story in London: everyone has heard tell of a girl who steals away in the middle of the night wearing two of her mistress’s best dresses underneath her own, a few spoons clanking in her pockets. Off to a life that may hold some excitement for a while but will never offer anything more than what she’s left behind, and usually a good deal less. She’s never heard from again, unless brought up before the courts…or the gallows.
“Hester’s gone?”
“Not Hester,” Mrs. Wills replies. “Lucy!”
Chapter Thirty-five
HESTER ARRIVES ONLY moments later, distracted and disheveled. “I’ve asked everywhere—no one’s seen her since yesterday.” She turns her red-rimmed eyes to Hannah. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“It’s not your fault, Hester. You’ll not be held accountable for what she’s done. Did neither of you hear anything last night?”
Hester shakes her head.
“I heard some noise, but I thought it was the storm,” Mrs. Wills replies, wiping her eyes. “Why would she leave us in such a way?”
“For the usual reason, I suspect,” Hannah says. “She’s fifteen and in love, or believes she is. Hester, you must tell me honestly—did anything happen between Lucy and Mr. Maitland on the night of the dance?” She should have kept a closer eye on them; she knew only too well that Mr. Maitland was more forward than he should be.
“What do you mean, ma’am?”
“I think you know very well what I mean. Was there any flirtation or intimacy between them?”
“No, ma’am. I don’t think they took at all well to each other. They hardly spoke. She was nicer to Mr. Clarke.”
“Was there any intimacy between Lucy and Mr. Clarke?”
“No.”
“Were you together all night?”
“Yes.”
Hannah sighs, stymied. So much for her suspicions.
Dr. Strathern descends the last flight of stairs and looks on, concerned. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I’m afraid not. It appears our maid Lucy has run off.” Another red-letter day for her little household. What must he think of me now? she wonders, then brushes it aside; his approbation—or lack of it—is the least of her worries. She places a consoling hand on Hester’s shoulder. “You might as well hang up your coat. There’s no point in looking for her now. I suspect we won’t see her again until she wants us to.”
Hester takes a paper-wrapped package from her pocket. “The apothecary bid me bring this to you. He said you asked for it a few days ago.”
The Blackhorse Alley apothecary’s mark is stamped upon the paper. “Wait,” Hannah says. “I saw you and Lucy with a young man in Blackhorse Alley some weeks ago. Near Carter’s Lane.”
“A young man?” Hester’s eyes cloud over, a sure sign that she’s hiding something.
“Yes, a young man. Tall, fair. Could be an apprentice of some sort. It seemed as if you both knew him rather well.”
Hester’s lower lip swells and her chin begins to quiver. “You mean Thomas?”
“Is that his name?” Hannah senses that she’s getting closer to the truth.
Hester nods and bursts into tears. “Do you think she ran off with Thomas?”
“You tell me. Did she fancy him?”
Hester nods again, still sobbing. She manages to squeak out a “Yes,” and then adds, “we both did.”
“I see.” Now everything was beginning to make more sense. They’d both been in love with the same boy, no doubt the source of Hester and Lucy’s recent friction. Hester is crying about something more than Lucy’s disappearance; her heart’s just been broken. “Hester,” Hannah says gently, “what is Thomas’s full name? Where does he live?”
“Thomas Spratt,” Hester manages to say between sobs. “He works for some funny old man who lives over on Bishopsgate.”
“What is his name?”
“I don’t remember—it’s odd, like a bird or a crow or something.”
“Theophilus Ravenscroft?” Edward asks.
Hester nods.
“Do you know him?” Hannah asks Edward.
“Mr. Ravenscroft is an acquaintance of many years,” he replies. “I’ve met the young man. Thomas Spratt is his assistant.”
Hannah immediately makes up her mind. “Mrs. Wills, Hester, please stay here in case Lucy should return. I’ll pay a visit to this Mr. Ravenscroft right away.”
“I’ll take you in my coach,” Edward offers.
“I haven’t seen the boy in two days,” Mr. Ravenscroft says. “No, make that three. If you should find him, please ask him what has become of my best microscope.”
“The microscope is missing?” Edward asks.
“Indeed it is.”
The same thought occurs to Hannah and Edward simultaneously: Thomas might have sold the instrument to pay for his and Lucy’s elopement.
The philosopher and his two visitors stand in the shadowy clutter of his laboratory. There are no chairs, just two long tables upon which the accoutrements of the philosopher’s art vie for space—three microscopes of various sizes, an alembic, boxes of glass slides, an air pump, blocks of wood and carving tools, along with their offspring of small whittled parts. At first, she felt some surprise upon entering a house and finding a laboratory instead, but as someone who has two alembics in her bedroom, she of all people should be the last to take issue: in fact, she feels quite at home. As for the man himself, Hannah guesses that Mr. Ravenscroft is nearing sixty. He is not much taller than herself, partly on account of what appears to be a crook in his spine, and he has the beaked nose and hard, glittering eyes of the bird from which his name is derived. He affects an impatient, preoccupied air, as if they have interrupted him in the midst of some very important task. The only reason they found him at home and not at the Fleet Ditch, he informed them, was that it was the Lord’s Day, and the crews cannot be induced to work.
On the drive over, Edward told her something of his friend’s unusual character. Less to acquaint her with him, she gathered, than to distract her from worrying about Lucy, but she welcomed the diversion. “His manner is sometimes abrupt and lacking in…grace, if you will,” he said. “But I have met few people more devoted to natural philosophy. He is very clever, with a fertile mind, and he is actually quite pleasant once you get past the initial impression of…well, you’ll see for yourself, I’m sure.”
Indeed, when Mr. Ravenscroft opened the door he impressed her as pugnacious in manner; his hands were balled tight, as if ready to engage in fisticuffs, rather comical in a person so obviously unsuited to physical confrontation. But the instant he saw Edward his expression changed, and he greeted them warmly and welcomed them inside. She was quite relieved that he didn’t ask any awkward questions, such as who she was or what her relation was to Dr. Strathern. These inquiries didn’t seem to cross his mind.
“Do you know where we might find him?” Edward asks, looking closely at the empty place where Ravenscroft’s missing microscope once stood. He brushes a finger over the tabletop, then studies it curiously, turning his hand under the candlelight.
“Thomas? No, but his father can often be found at Garraway’s near the Old ’Change.”
“Have you not inquired after the boy yourself?”
“I’ve been much too busy—at the king’s behest, no less. Though I am quite cross that Thomas has not been here to help with the improvements to my design. He is much better at carving these small bits of wood. My eyes are not what they once were.” He picks up a silver candlestick and leads them into the adjoining room, which houses an unusual collection of natural phenomena. Hannah studies the shelves filled with the skeletons of small mammals, snake skins, a sheep’s head with only one eye. But these are not the focus of Mr. Ravenscroft’s attention. On a table in the center of the room is a wood miniature of a complicated contraption. Actually three contraptions, a series of what appear to be latticed gates operated by wheels and cogs. “I have made a model of my invention for the Fleet
Ditch. My system,” he turns to Hannah, for Dr. Strathern seems to be familiar with this device, “removes waste as it courses downstream, so that only clean water shall flow from Ludgate to Blackfriars.”
Hannah takes a closer look. The workmanship is remarkable, the invention quite ingenious. She turns one of the tiny wheels and the lattice gate rises up, then down again. “How is the refuse disposed of?”
“See here,” Mr. Ravenscroft says excitedly, “the filters trap the refuse while allowing the water to flow through. Then the refuse is loaded onto barges”—he points to the little wood platforms adjacent to the gates—“and taken downstream to the Thames and then to the open ocean. I believe that in this manner the Fleet may be cleansed of all its pollution—that’s if the laws barring the dumping of waste into the river are enforced.”
“What a noble scheme,” Hannah says. “What a difference you will make in the lives of people who live near this foul place. The number of children who die from pestilential miasmas each year alone is reason enough for your invention, Mr. Ravenscroft.”
“You understand,” he says with some surprise.
“Very much so.”
“Mrs. Devlin is not only educated, she is a physician and a believer in modern philosophy,” Edward tells him. Is that pride she hears in his voice, or simply the pleasure of introducing two friends to each other?
“I am always glad to have people of science in my house,” Mr. Ravenscroft replies. “If you should ever have need of a laboratory for any trials or experiments you wish to make, Mrs. Devlin, I hope you will call upon me. I have many fine instruments and should be happy to put myself at your disposal.”
“That is a most generous offer, Mr. Ravenscroft.” Indeed, she is deeply grateful. He speaks to her as an equal, without patronizing; without, it seems, any belief in the supposed limitations of her sex. It’s as if he doesn’t even notice, or much care, that she is a woman. Her thoughts and ideas are all that matter to him. If only every man would treat her so. She begins to see the appeal of this odd little man. In Mr. Ravenscroft she senses a kindred spirit of sorts, in that they both revere knowledge more than respectability.
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