Chapter 32
With the count’s encouragement, Charles returned to the cane shop as before. He smiled as instructed and was courteous enough if anyone spoke to him. His companion remained at his side throughout the day, exchanging pleasantries and generally charming the spectators, helping them feel that their half crown was well spent.
It was toward two o’clock, when Charles was feeling at a low ebb, that he spotted an unwelcome face in the queue. Bending almost double, he whispered in the count’s ear: “That man.” The dwarf followed Charles’s gaze. He knew instantly who he meant. “He is Hunter’s man.”
The count recognized the swarthy features and rough gait of the servant as he drew closer. “What can he want again?” he asked, puzzled.
Howison merely stared at the giant. Neither a word nor a gesture was forthcoming. He paused for three or four seconds, letting his gaze begin at Charles’s feet and travel upward to his head. He then moved on.
“How strange,” commented the little man.
“I like him not.” Charles scowled.
“Smile, dear friend, smile,” urged the count when he saw the giant’s brows knit in a frown. “These good people would much rather see a happy giant than a sad one!”
Charles tried to oblige his ally, but found it increasingly difficult and was glad when the last spectator of the day left. He walked toward the door with the count, but when he looked out of the window, much to his consternation, he saw Howison standing watching him, propped up against a tree on the opposite side of the street.
The giant cursed and shot back from the window.
“What is it, my friend?” asked the count.
“Hunter’s servant. He be here again.”
The count peered through the window. “I cannot see him.”
The giant peered cautiously, too. This time there was no one by the tree. “I swear he was there not a second ago,” he said, shaking his head.
The little man smiled. “You are tired, my friend. Let us go home.” He reached up and patted the giant on his thigh. It had been a long day for them both.
Thomas was sitting by Lydia’s bedside, watching her for any signs of consciousness. There were none. They had moved her into another bedchamber and opened the windows so that she breathed nothing but the purest air. They had covered her in the lightest sheets so that even the effort of inhaling and exhaling should have been made easier, but still there was no response.
Coma. It was a word that Thomas feared, but he believed Lydia had now fallen into one. The great Hippocrates had first coined the phrase. It meant “state of sleep.” It sounded so benign, but Thomas knew it was anything but. It was the condition of the body just before death. The cold, harsh truth was that Lydia was in a deep, deep sleep from which she might never awake. He had seen patients in such a situation as this before. Through his studies with Dr. Carruthers he had learned that there are different levels of consciousness. Normally the mind was alert, sharp, and quick to respond to various external stimuli, but when the brain became progressively less responsive it reached, at the lowest level of function, the state of coma. Like a watch that was wound up and working normally, the brain ticked along until some terrible trauma occurred and then the watch slowed down and almost stopped.
As he sat, keeping vigil over Lydia, Howard entered the room.
“How fares her ladyship, Dr. Silkstone?” he asked anxiously. He knew he spoke out of turn, but he felt he could talk to Thomas.
“She is stable now,” he replied.
“And she will live, sir?” He sought a reassurance that could not be given.
“We can but pray, Howard.”
The butler then took out of his pocket the letter that Lydia had written the previous day.
“Sir, you must see this,” he said, handing it to Thomas.
The doctor looked at him, puzzled.
“Her ladyship gave it to me yesterday to give to you, sir.”
“Thank you, Howard,” he said, opening the seal with a scalpel from his bag. “You may go.”
Perhaps here lay the answer to the nagging questions that were now plaguing him. His first and only thoughts had been for Lydia’s health. He had needed to stabilize her condition. He knew how she had arrived in this comatose state, but not why. The harsh reality of the situation appeared that she had tried to take her own life. He remembered the overturned stone jar full of laurel water and the glass next to it. It was the same laurel water containing cyanide that needed to be drunk in large quantities to kill a human. He had already proved that in Farrell’s court case. To him it seemed that she had been about to pour the poisonous liquid from the jar into the glass, but before she could drink it, the noxious vapors had overcome her. They were much more deadly than the poison itself. Did Lydia mean to take her own life, and if so, why? The young anatomist began to read the letter, and as he did so, a terrible feeling of bewildered despair began to engulf him. He had guessed that Sir Montagu was pressuring her to find a suitable match, but with whom was this “chance encounter” and “the instrument of my (her) torture for many years”? Thomas’s stomach lurched as he read the words “and I still bear the scars, both mental and physical, he inflicted.” Who on earth was this beast? Why had she not spoken of him before? They were to be married, yet she purposely withheld this terrible secret from him. He gazed at her as she lay there, deep in her own consciousness. Even in this comatose state, she was still so very beautiful. “Why, Lydia? Why did you not tell me?” he whispered.
He read the letter a second time. Whoever this monster was, she had seen him in London. This “chance encounter,” as she called it, had triggered her violent response, thought Thomas. He cast his mind back to the night of the concert. It was there that she must have seen this man. He remembered Lady Marchant and Giles Carrington. The only other person he could recall seeing was Dr. Hunter. He had no liking for the man. He was rough and rude, no matter how skilled he was in his art. Yet despite his ill-educated manner, the Scot struck him, in relation to the fairer sex at least, to be a man who would never dishonor a lady of rank. No, whoever this evil fiend was, his actions had driven his beloved Lydia to attempt suicide. That she had failed was by sheer luck, not judgment. And even now it was by no means certain that she would not succeed in her ultimate purpose. He had to discover the truth, no matter how awful, and he prayed to God that he would be able to hear it from Lydia’s own lips.
He looked toward the open windows and shivered. The drapes rustled in the cooling chill as night began to fall. Since his arrival at Boughton Hall, all his injuries, his bruised and battered ribs and his cut face, had been dissipated by his anxiety for Lydia. Now that he knew there was no more he could do to ease her suffering, his own pain seemed to return. He felt it gnawing into his abdomen like a dull ache, punctuated by stabs of pain every time he moved. It was growing dark and he craved sleep. It was approaching nine o’clock when downstairs Thomas heard voices. A few seconds later Sir Theodisius Pettigrew blustered in, his face red and agitated.
“Oh my Lord, Silkstone, what has befallen her?” he wailed, looking at the changed young woman who lay before him.
Thomas did not know how to frame his reply. He could not bring himself to tell the coroner about the letter; that Lydia had wanted to kill herself. He could not say that. He would not say that. “There was a terrible accident. Her ladyship was trying to dispose of some laurel water she found and mistakenly inhaled a large quantity of it,” he told him.
“Laurel water?” The coroner looked askance. The very mention of the poison triggered memories of the inquest and trial of Captain Farrell.
“The very same.” Thomas nodded, reading Sir Theodisius’s thoughts. “But she did not drink it. The vapors have done this. They can be more harmful than the poison itself,” he explained.
The corpulent coroner eased himself onto the edge of the bed. “How long will it be until she is restored?”
Thomas wished he knew. “I cannot say, sir. A day, a week, a month, a year . . .” His wan voice trailed off before he could bring himself to say “never.”
The color in Sir Theodisius’s face now drained away. “So what can we do, Dr. Silkstone?” he asked, his expression pleading with the young anatomist for some shred of hope.
Thomas could give none. “All we can do is wait,” he replied.