by Tessa Harris
The professor fixed Lydia with an earnest regard. “It was a figment of your husband’s imagination, I fear, my lady.” Suddenly ashamed, he switched his gaze and bit his lip. “Captain Farrell knew I was good with a pen and brush. He commissioned me to create a map to fool the merchant.” A sudden cough ruptured his speech before he concluded. “I forged it myself.”
Thomas remained quiet throughout this exchange. He had heard of the map’s existence from Thomas Motte himself, even though the latter counted it unintelligible and therefore worthless. He was certain of its existence, but it was best left forgotten, he told himself. It had caused enough blood to be spilled already.
Chapter 59
It was the night before the wedding. Guests had been arriving from all over the country for the past few days. Lydia’s closest surviving relatives, a maiden aunt and three cousins twice removed, had decamped in Boughton Hall itself. Others stayed with friends or, in the last resort, at the Three Tuns in the village. Thomas’s relatives, however, were even fewer in number. His dear father had written to inform him that he was too frail to make the voyage. That left only two distant cousins from Yorkshire, whom the doctor had never met but whom his father insisted should be invited.
Thomas was thankful that he had escaped most of the planning and the inevitable altercations. Aside from being present for the reading of the banns, he had remained in London. Lecturing to eager anatomy students made a welcome change from dissecting the victims of murder and hunting down their killers.
At Boughton, it seemed that Lady Pettigrew had assumed charge of the proceedings, but she and Lydia had not seen eye to eye over a number of details, not least over the color of the bridal gown. When the mantua maker had called and shown the ladies samples of silk, Lady Pettigrew had much preferred the primrose yellow over Lydia’s palest cream. Happily Lydia had won the day, but there were other tussles over seating plans and the choice of entrees that led to icy silences and the drumming of agitated fingers. Even Thomas’s arrival caused ructions. Lady Pettigrew thought it only proper that the groom lodge at the Pettigrew residence before the ceremony. Thomas had, however, argued his case for staying at Boughton and had, with a little pressure from Sir Theodisius, finally prevailed.
While Lydia and the other ladies remained in her boudoir, Thomas dined with a few of his gentlemen friends: Sir Theodisius, Dr. Carruthers, Professor Carruthers, Professor Hascher, who was to be groomsman, and Sir Arthur Warbeck. The latter had been invited on the insistence of Sir Theodisius, who said it was politic to do so. The claret and port flowed freely, but Thomas, knowing that such occasions could, if allowed, get very out of hand, guarded himself against temptation by colluding with Howard. A glass jug was filled not with claret but black currant cordial and set at his side for his exclusive consumption. He drank copiously throughout the evening so that his guests believed him to be imbibing liberally, as expected of a groom on the eve of his wedding. The result was that by nine o’clock all the others were in their cups. Thomas pretended that he, too, had drunk far too much and needed to sleep it off before the morrow. He was therefore easily excused, and while the other men continued their merry talk of women and horses over a farcical game of piquet, Thomas was able to retire.
Acknowledging that sleep was unlikely to call on him that night, Thomas made his way, candle in hand, to the silent cocoon of the library. Surrounded by hundreds of volumes, he felt most at ease here. Away from the challenges of the laboratory, the stench of the dissecting room, or the battles of the courtroom, this was where he truly belonged. And yet, even now, on the eve of what should be the happiest day of his life, there was still a many-headed worm of discomfort that was wheedling its way into his psyche.
Despite Professor Carruthers’s insistence to the contrary, the possibility, however remote, that a map of the diamond fields existed still gnawed away at him. His business was unfinished. That was why he found himself in the library on the night before his wedding. That was why he was determined to analyze once more, in even more depth, the copy of Thomas Motte’s account of his journey to the diamond mines of Orissa.
Glancing around the room that smelled of dust and old leather, Thomas’s eyes settled on the portrait of the fifth Earl Crick that hung over the mantelshelf. He had been a man of some erudition and stocked his library well. Next to him hung a portrait of Lydia’s late brother, the dissipated sixth earl, Edward, and beside him, another smaller portrait of a young man. Thomas drew nearer to inspect it. The large brown eyes, the small mole by the mouth, and the lustrous curls were so familiar to him. The resemblance to Lydia was overwhelming. So overwhelming in fact that he found it hard to believe that Cousin Francis, whose portrait this was, was not, in reality, related to Lydia at all. If, as Sir Montagu claimed, he was Lydia’s real father, then Lydia and Francis shared no blood. The similarity, Thomas concluded, must be purely coincidental. Yet it still troubled him.
Seeing Francis Crick’s portrait reminded him of the first time he had set foot in the library. His purpose had been to research the many varieties of poisonous fungi that grew on the estate. He had been convinced that Lydia’s brother had died after ingesting a deadly mushroom and he had been proved right.
In the candle’s glow, he saw Lydia’s tearstained face in the drawing room at Hollen Street when she told him of her pain at discovering she was not of the Crick line, that Crick blood did not run in her veins. It did not matter that no one else knew, and that Sir Montagu had gone to his grave taking his secret with him. “I am a fraud, Thomas,” she had cried. “I am living a lie and so is Richard. Boughton should not be ours.” Her illegitimacy was a stain that, it seemed, could not be expunged. It was her guilty secret that would, no doubt, weigh heavily on her for the rest of her life.
Thomas lit a lamp from his candle flame and retrieved his case, which he had deposited under the desk on his arrival. Opening it, he took out his notebook and sat himself down to thumb through it. Soon he came to the relevant pages: the postmortem notes on Sir Montagu. Seeing his jottings made at the time, when his nemesis lay cold and bloodied on the table, made him shudder. In his mind’s eye he was back in the game larder, replaying the whole procedure. He had first examined the neck wound, taken the relevant measurements; then he had moved on to the hands and wrists, lacerated by the coir rope. At the time he had not deemed it necessary to inspect the heart and lungs. Although he had made a cursory inspection of the entire corpse, he had left it to Professor Hascher to examine the rest of the lower torso.
He turned another page, and as he did so, a loose folio slipped out from between the sheets. He recognized the writing immediately. It was Professor Hascher’s intriguing Gothic script. Narrowing his eyes to decipher the oddly formed letters, Thomas saw that the professor had made an especial note of the lawyer’s genitals. It read: A large and ancient scar in the groin indicates severe injury. With bated breath, Thomas read on, then jabbed the relevant passage with his forefinger: Could feel no testes.
“Could feel no testes,” he mumbled, this time out loud. It was then that he had a sudden recollection. Just prior to performing surgery on Sir Montagu for his aneurysm last year, Thomas had asked his patient whether he had ever suffered any serious illness or injury. The lawyer had been circumspect, but had told him that he had suffered a serious riding accident shortly after his marriage almost thirty years ago. Could it be that his testes had to be subsequently removed? If he did not have any, surely that could be the only explanation?
“Thomas!” a soft whisper came from behind him.
He jumped in his seat. He had been so lost in his thoughts, he had not heard the creak of the door, nor the footfall of slippers.
“Lydia!” He leapt up.
She moved toward him, her arms outstretched.
“But the other ladies. . . .”
She smiled excitedly. “They sent me to look for a volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets. We are in a very romantic mood.” Scanning the desk and noting Thomas’s wary look, she frow
ned. “But what are you doing?” she asked.
Thomas lifted his forefinger to his lips. “No one must know I am here,” he told her, putting his arms around her and holding her to him.
She looked up into his eyes. “Is something wrong?”
He swallowed hard, then smiled at her, his eyes wildly excited. “I cannot say.”
She searched his face for some sort of clue. “Do not talk in riddles,” she chided him. “We are to be married in the morning. We must be honest with each other. There must be no secrets.”
“No secrets,” he repeated. He took a steadying breath. “No secrets.”
“What is it, my love? Tell me, please.” Lydia grew anxious.
Thomas glanced at the French doors that led out into the garden. “Let us take a walk,” he said.
She threw a look back at the door. “But . . .”
“They can wait five minutes. I have waited almost five years.”
The evening was cool and Lydia shivered slightly. They stood on the terrace looking out across the parterre as they had done on so many other occasions. The stars blinked in the black sky. The scents of the late roses wafted across the lawns. Up in the nearby woods an owl hooted. Another replied. But Lydia was suddenly in no mood for romance.
“What is it, my love? Do not keep me in suspense any longer,” she told him anxiously.
The doctor put his arm around her, but continued looking out across the garden. He had been given little time to frame his words. His theory had only been confirmed a few moments ago, but he knew it had to be right. There could be no sidestepping, no prevarication. He must tell her straight.
“I do not believe that Sir Montagu was your father.”
Lydia pulled away from him. “What?” Her eyes suddenly blazed.
“I had my suspicions before, but now I am almost certain he could not father children. It was physiologically impossible.”
Lydia had turned to look out onto the lawns. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
Thomas could not fathom her mood. He had gambled that she would be relieved.
She switched back. “You are almost certain?”
“Sir Montagu had an accident shortly after his marriage. Professor Hascher spotted an anomaly during the postmortem, and I now believe that surgery after the accident robbed him of his fertility.”
The color drained from her cheeks and, again, she looked away in thought, stepping back and placing her arms around her own body, as if to hug herself.
“I know it must be hard for you to hear,” he told her. He did not try to follow her, allowing her a moment of solitude to formulate her response.
After a second or two she turned back to face him, and he saw her shoulders heave in a sigh. “I cannot tell you how happy that makes me,” she blurted. Her words tumbled from her mouth in a cascade, and she reached out and hugged Thomas to her. He kissed the top of her head, then pushed her back gently to look into her eyes.
“I loved the fifth earl very much,” she told him softly. “It pained me to think he was not my real father, but now, knowing that he was, well . . .” The tears brimmed over and trickled down her cheeks.
“Sir Montagu wanted to control you. He wanted you to feel beholden to him.”
“So I owed him nothing, except, perhaps, contempt.” She shivered at the thought. “Yes.”
Thomas pulled her back into the moment. “You are a Crick, my love,” he told her.
“And so is Richard,” she added. The thought reminded her that her son had no legal entitlement to Sir Montagu’s estate. “Draycott was not his to inherit anyway,” she said, thinking out loud.
Thomas knew the truth changed everything. Order could return. Integrity could be restored.
“I cannot wait till we are wed,” Thomas told her, taking her in her arms.
“Nor I,” she said.
Chapter 60
The bells of Boughton Chapel rang out in celebration for the first time in several years. Recently they had tolled the passing of many a Crick family member, but now they pealed joyously. The whole of the estate and the village of Brandwick and even beyond had turned out to witness the wedding of Lady Lydia Farrell to Dr. Thomas Silkstone.
Lydia walked up the aisle on the arm of a very proud Sir Theodisius. She wore a dress of oyster silk, and her flowing veil gave her an ethereal look. She carried a bouquet of Amos Kidd’s roses. As page boy, Richard walked behind his mamma, holding up her long train.
Thomas, nervous as a schoolboy, awaited his bride in front of the altar. He wore a fine blue velvet frock coat made especially for the occasion, an embroidered waistcoat, and cream silk breeches. As groomsman, Professor Hascher stood at Thomas’s right hand, while Dr. Carruthers had been given a front-row seat next to an unusually cheerful Mistress Finesilver.
The ceremony, conducted by the Reverend Unsworth, was a fittingly solemn yet joyous affair, and Lydia’s choice of hymns meant that spirits were roused even higher. An hour later, the couple walked out into the early autumn sunshine as man and wife to a shower of rose petals from excited well-wishers.
Sir Theodisius, now relieved of his duty to the bride, stood back to watch Thomas and Lydia process toward the lych-gate to the waiting chaise. Freed from Sir Montagu’s hold over him, Dr. Fairweather had indeed confirmed that the lawyer had been rendered infertile by a riding accident three years before Lydia’s birth. He could not possibly have been her father.
Will Lovelock, the stable lad, had decked out the chaise with flowers and ribbons, and Jacob had made sure that the bay that drew it looked its best.
“Such a fine young couple,” muttered Sir Theodisius, suddenly finding himself a little overcome.
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Professor Carruthers, who stood supporting his elder brother by the church path.
Together the three men closed in through the gate to join those who surrounded the chaise. Thomas climbed aboard first, then helped Lydia mount the steps to join him. He was to drive them back to the hall, where Mistress Claddingbowl had prepared the wedding breakfast. Despite the sunshine, there was an autumnal nip in the air, and Eliza, ever mindful of her mistress’s comfort, offered Lydia her embroidered wrap.
“Good God!” cried Professor Carruthers from below, his eyes bulging at the sockets.
Sir Theodisius switched ’round. “Damn you, Carruthers. You near made my heart burst!” he scolded. The coroner followed the professor’s gaze. He could see his eyes were clamped onto Lydia’s shawl.
“What is it, pray?” Dr. Carruthers tugged at his brother’s coat sleeve.
“The shawl,” replied the professor, pointing at Lydia. Thomas was helping her to drape it ’round her shoulders.
“What of it, man?” barked Sir Theodisius.
The professor was flapping his hands wildly. “’Tis Sanskrit!”
“Sanskrit?” repeated Dr. Carruthers. It was only then that he realized why his brother was so agitated. “You mean ’tis the map?” he blurted. “The ancient map?”
“Yes. Yes!” said the professor, beginning to elbow his way to the front of the crowd that surrounded the chaise. “We must tell them. Here . . .” He lunged forward, trying to catch Lydia’s eye, but Sir Theodisius clamped his arm in his grasp and held him fast. In among all the cheering and waving of the villagers, neither Lydia nor Thomas saw him.
“Do you not see? We must have it!” protested the professor, flailing his free arm.
“I do see, brother,” piped up the old anatomist, an ironic smile on his face. “But I choose not to. Not now.”
Sir Theodisius looked at his friend and nodded. “Nor I. Not when the two young people I hold dearest to me are about to embark on a great adventure together. The Western world has waited several centuries for that map. I think it can wait a little longer, don’t you, Professor?” he said.
Suddenly, amid the glee and the commotion, Thomas stood up from the seat of the open carriage.
“Good fortune to one and all,” he cried at the top of h
is voice and, true to an old custom, he threw a large handful of sixpences into the air.
As he did so, a great cheer went up. The waiting children surged forward, their hands outstretched to catch the silver coins that, for a split second, spun and bounced and glinted in the sunshine. For a moment they sparkled like diamonds.
“Good fortune to us all,” echoed Dr. Carruthers. He patted his brother’s arm, and lifting his face to the bright light, he smiled. “Good fortune to us all.”
Postscript
Warren Hastings resigned as governor-general of India in December 1784 and returned to England, where he was later impeached for misconduct in a public office. His trial lasted seven years and proved financially ruinous to him. He was, however, cleared of all charges against him. He died in 1818.
Up until the discovery of diamonds in Brazil in 1725, India and Borneo were the only sources of diamonds in the world. Today, the exact location of the so-called “lost mines of Golconda” remains unknown, and only one diamond mine is still open in India.
An estimated five to six hundred women each year died in the practice of suttee, or sati, in British-controlled India. The act was finally outlawed by the British Raj in 1829, although it was not until 1861 that Queen Victoria issued a general ban.
Glossary
Chapter 1
Hyderabad: The capital of India from 1724 to 1948, which is at present the state capital of Andhra Pradesh in southern India. The nearby Golconda Fort, now in ruins, remains a huge tourist attraction.
bania: A merchant from the commercial Indian caste, which also included lawyers and bankers.
nizam: The name given to rulers of the Deccan area in this period.
jagirdar: The feudal owner/lord of a jagir, or area of land, given as a gift by a superior was called a jagirdar, or jageerdar.