Authors: Tessa Harris

The Dead Shall Not Rest (9 page)

BOOK: The Dead Shall Not Rest

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Chapter 13

L
ydia’s carriage swept through Lincoln’s Inn Archway and deposited her in New Square. The sky was heavy with gray clouds. She felt apprehensive, a feeling that was compounded by the fact that she appeared to be the only woman within the huge courtyard.

As she alighted the first rain began to fall, sending the lawyers in their black gowns scudding hither and thither like crows after a pistol shot. She wished now that she had accepted Thomas’s offer to accompany her.

Standing at the bottom of a small flight of steps, she read the gold lettering on a wooden tablet: T
HE
R
T
. H
ON
. R
UPERT
M
ARCHANT
. A somber-looking clerk answered the door and asked if she was expected. She was then led through to a room lined from floor to ceiling with hefty tomes. Not only that, but the floor, too, was covered with leather-bound volumes of all shapes and sizes, and seated at a desk in amongst them sat the elegantly dressed figure of Rupert Marchant. His wig was perfectly coiffed and the scent of sandalwood enveloped him. He rose as soon as he saw Lydia and walked over to greet her, bowing low and kissing her gloved hand.

“My dear Lady Lydia, it is so kind of you to grace me with your presence.” He gestured to a seat.

She did not like his pretentious manner, but smiled and sat down. “It is good of you to see me, Mr. Marchant.”

“I always have time for a charming lady,” he replied, catching her eye. She felt the color rise in her cheeks and wished that Thomas was sitting beside her. But she would not allow herself to be distracted from her mission.

“As you know, I am here on behalf of Mr. Byrne,” she began.

“Ah, yes, the famous Irish Giant,” he said almost mockingly, sitting back in his chair and clasping his manicured hands on his lap. “I hear there is even talk of a pantomime in his honor at the Haymarket.”

Lydia had heard the rumor, too, but continued undeterred. “His father, sir, was executed last year for the murder of a young woman in a village near Derry. He died protesting his innocence.”

Marchant let out a dismissive laugh and threw his hands in the air. “Don’t they all? I wish I had a guinea for every felon who told me he was not guilty.”

Lydia felt indignant at his insult but, ignoring the slight, she placed a small leather satchel on the desk. “The real perpetrator of the crime has been arrested and convicted. You will find all the documentation here, sir,” she told him in a very businesslike fashion that wiped the smirk from his face.

He leaned forward and opened the satchel, taking the documents out and scanning them briefly. His face hardened.

“And you wish a posthumous royal pardon for this”—he looked at one of the documents—“Patrick Byrne.” His voice dripped with contempt.

Lydia nodded. “I do, indeed, sir.”

He paused and looked at her. His gaze was intense, and if his aim was to make Lydia feel uncomfortable, he certainly succeeded.

“My services do not come cheap,” he snapped eventually.

“Mr. Byrne will be able to pay you, sir.”

“There will be a petition at the King’s Bench. It will need to be brought by the
right
people, of course. There is the paperwork, the court fees . . .”

He was now gazing down at his desk, mentally calculating the monetary gain that he could make on the pages of some imaginary ledger, thought Lydia.

“I am sure, sir, that I can attract much support for the cause,” she told him, her back stiffening in anger.

He looked at her with an unsettling glint in his eye. “Your giant is an Irish peasant, your ladyship.”

Lydia bristled at his harsh words. “If that is how you see him, then I shall need to find another lawyer who is more sympathetic,” she retorted, rising to leave.

“Please, please, my lady.” Marchant rose, too. “Do not be so hasty, I pray you. Please.” He motioned to her to sit down. “I may be a lawyer, but on this occasion I speak plain. You will not find many who want to take up this man’s case.”

Lydia frowned. “Why would that be?”

“Your giant is Irish and the king, as you well know, has no love of his sort. God knows they have caused us enough troubles over the years.”

Lydia paused for a moment. “But is not justice a right to be enjoyed equally by all of His Majesty’s subjects?”

Marchant snorted. “Now you are sounding like a colonist!” he mocked.

Lydia rose. “I see I had better take my business elsewhere.”

Again Marchant relented. This time the sneer on his lips was nowhere to be seen. “I deal with realities, your ladyship.” His tone seemed to soften. “If you are to succeed in your task, you must know the obstacles you have to overcome. Please,” he said, motioning to the chair once more. She looked at him warily, but did as he bade.

“Mr. Byrne will need to enlist the support of as many of high rank as he is able,” he told her earnestly.

Lydia nodded. “Indeed,” she said, feeling that perhaps she was beginning to make some progress.

“But such support can cost.”

Lydia was unsure as to his meaning. “Are you saying, sir, that we will need to
bribe
officials?”

He fell back in his chair, snorting once more. “Oh, oh, we do not use that word within these hallowed precincts,” he chided her. “All I am saying is that certain hospitality may need to be offered in return for the signatures of eminent supporters.”

“Hospitality?” Lydia felt the color in her cheeks rise again.

“Tokens of appreciation, favors . . .” His voice trailed off, but he held her gaze.

“As I said, Mr. Byrne will pay you, and pay you and any,” she searched for an appropriate word, “associates handsomely. He is attracting many paying spectators.”

“Indeed, and that is all to the good.” A smile flickered on his lips. “If these documents stand up to scrutiny,” he said, pointing to the satchel, “and there is enough support from those of high rank, then there is every possibility of success.”

Lydia suddenly felt reassured. “So, you will act on behalf of Mr. Byrne?”

“I shall draw up a contract, if it is your wish, my lady,” he said, leaning forward in an intimate manner.

“Yes, yes, it is.” Lydia nodded, allowing herself to smile.

“Then I shall make ready the necessary paperwork and we shall arrange to meet again next week so that Mr. Byrne can sign the relevant documents of engagement.”

“Thank you, Mr. Marchant,” she said, and she rose to leave the office. She only hoped she had just taken a decision that she would not come to regret.

Chapter14

C
harles Byrne lay on his bed, thinking of home. Closing his eyes, he could see the sun shimmering on the glassy lough and the green-clad hills beyond. He could hear the gulls as they swooped and called over the water and he could smell the heather on the breeze and he wondered if he would ever return.

A timid knock broke his rest. Emily put her head around the door.

“Mistress Goodbody said I was to check on you, sir.” She walked toward the bed. “Can I fetch you some water, or food, perhaps? Cook has made some broth.”

Charles opened his eyes to see her face, fresh and youthful, looking down on him. He saw tendrils of pale blond hair peeking out from underneath her cap and the cherry red of her full lips.

“Will you sit with m-me?” he asked slowly.

Emily was straightening the bedcovers and stopped still at his words. She dared not look at him.

“Mistress Goodbody would scold me for that, sir. She would tell me I ought to be scrubbing or cleaning the brasses.”

Charles Byrne’s gaze remained fixed on her face. “And what would you say, Emily?” He said her name slowly and deliberately.

She allowed herself to look at him, his black hair spread out, his eyes tired and sad, and his skin so white that it was almost the same color as his pillow.

“I would say I would, sir.”

His face broke into a grin. “Then I would say I was a lucky man.”

They smiled at each other, and their smiles dissolved any barrier there had been between them before. Charles raised himself on his elbows and Emily plumped up his pillows. “In that case,” he said, “I shall ask you to bring me a bowl of broth.”

“Very good, sir,” she said, curtsying.

He shook his head. “I am Charles.”

“Very good, Charles.”

She turned to go, but just before she went out of the door, he called her back.

“Tell Mistress Goodbody that my h-hands are very shaky,” he said, holding up his right hand and waving it loosely in jest. “I shall need you to feed me.”

Thomas had spent much of the afternoon lecturing on the physiology of the liver and was collecting up his papers as two or three dozen students were filing out of the theater when he spied a familiar face approaching.

“Ah, Carrington,” he said. The student smiled briefly, but seemed unusually earnest. Gone was the affable ease that had so impressed Thomas before. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“May we talk in private?”

The doctor ushered him into an adjoining consulting room and bade him sit. “What is it?”

The young man looked apprehensive and wrung his hands nervously in front of him on his lap. “It concerns Dr. Hunter, sir,” he began. “I felt you were the only person I could turn to.”

“Go on,” urged Thomas.

“Last week I went to his laboratory late to continue some work for him, but I was overcome with sleep. I went into the small room that lies just off the laboratory for a quick nap. I must have been asleep for about half an hour when I heard Dr. Hunter return. I did not want to be chastised, not again. I knew it could mean an end to my career with him, so I hid in the room. There was a knothole near the bottom of the door, so I crouched down to see what he was doing.” The young man reddened.

“And?” pressed Thomas.

“I wish in God’s name, sir, that I had not seen what I did.”

Thomas frowned. “What did you see, Carrington?”

The student swallowed hard. His mouth was dry, as if the words he needed to say were withering on his parched tongue. Staring ahead of him he said: “He infected his own genitals with pus from a venereal chancre.”

For a second or two Thomas remained silent, computing what he had just heard. “By God!” he exclaimed a moment later. “Who in their right mind would do such a thing?” But he could tell from the student’s face there was more.

“It was a great sacrifice in the name of medical research, sir,” he said solemnly.

Thomas nodded, but the shock was still shackling his tongue.

Carrington continued, twisting his hands as he spoke. “I am afraid one of the prices Dr. Hunter might be paying is his sanity.”

“What do you mean?”

“I fear he is becoming irrational,” said Carrington. His voice was more measured.

“In what way?”

“The other night he was with Mr. Haydn in his study.”

“Haydn, the composer?” Thomas recalled his encounter with the Austrian in the barber’s shop.

“Yes, sir. I was in the room next door and could hear them talking when suddenly their discussion became very heated.”

“Yes, and then?”

“Mr. Haydn suffers from nasal polyps.”

“I am aware.” Thomas nodded.

“I’d heard Dr. Hunter say that they should be removed before, and I assumed this is what they were discussing, but soon there was a commotion. It sounded like a chair was being knocked over and then the door burst open. I looked to see Mr. Haydn being chased by Dr. Hunter. He shouted for Howison and together they grabbed the poor gentleman and dragged him back into his chair. I rushed in to see a pair of forceps poised over him, but he kicked out and managed to free himself.”

“Then what happened?” urged Thomas, picturing the episode in his mind’s eye.

“Mr. Haydn persuaded him to put away his instruments and he left.”

“How extraordinary!”

“Yes, sir, and the strange thing was it seemed that Dr. Hunter pitied Mr. Haydn for not wanting to undergo the happy experience of enjoying his skill.”

“Strange indeed,” agreed Thomas.

Carrington nodded. “And I fear there will be more like that to follow, Dr. Silkstone,” he said.

“More?”

The student turned his head, making sure that no one was eavesdropping on their conversation. “I fear that the infection is turning Dr. Hunter mad, and there will be no end to what he will do.”

That evening Thomas called at Cockspur Street to check on his patient before accompanying Lydia and Count Boruwlaski to the Hanover Square Rooms.

“Mr. Byrne seems in remarkably good spirits,” he said, settling himself next to Lydia in the carriage after examining the giant.

“Yes, he is much restored,” she said, adding: “He says he will be strong enough to return to the cane shop tomorrow.”

“Whatever you gave him, it seems to have fortified him,” chimed in the count.

Having seen the way that his patient looked at Emily, who had been in attendance in the room at the time, Thomas was not sure that his sudden improvement could be attributed to any medicine he had administered, but he said nothing. Nor did he broach the subject of Lydia’s appointment at Lincoln’s Inn that morning. He did not want to stir up trouble. It was the count who raised the matter.

“Her ladyship’s meeting with Mr. Marchant earlier today was most fruitful,” said the little man.

“I am glad to hear it,” said Thomas coolly, looking at Lydia.

Dressed in all her finery for the concert, she appeared even more beautiful to him. He knew she could sense his desire and tauntingly she held his gaze.

“We are to engage his services officially next week,” she told him. He nodded but did not respond further, knowing that his own feelings of jealousy might surface once more.

For the rest of the journey, the count regaled them of tales of his friendship with Moreno and of how they used to entertain the crowned heads of Europe.

“But my dear angel no longer sings,” he bemoaned. “We are to see his protégé tonight.” Thomas had already read of this young singer in the newssheets. From all the talk of his “angelic” voice, he surmised he was a castrato. He knew from his research that in certain Italian states parents sometimes offered up their sons for castration to enhance their singing voices. The castrato’s voice was prized for its combination of pitch and power. The operation, usually performed when the boy was around eight years of age, meant that his voice would never break, enabling him to reach the highest notes, delivered by the powerful lungs of a fully grown man.

When he had first read of the custom, Thomas was shocked, but while the Roman Church also officially frowned on such practices, it was one way a poor household could make money, as such boys were much in demand in church choirs. He wondered at the irony of it; how ugly it was to pervert the power of surgery in order to replicate the beauty of angels’ voices. As a physician he could in no way condone such operations, yet he remained curious about the physical effect on the male body. Would its physiology be different? Would the chest be larger, the throat wider, he mused.

“I have heard this Cappelli can sing two hundred notes in one breath,” said the count excitedly.

Thomas had heard, too, that he could sustain a note for a whole minute, but he remained silent.

Lydia smiled and looked directly at the doctor. “I am sure it will be an evening to remember,” she said.

BOOK: The Dead Shall Not Rest

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