Chapter 38
Charles Byrne sat forlornly in a chair by the window, looking out onto the square and, more precisely, onto Dr. Hunter’s man below, still propped up against a tree as he had been for so many days now. At the giant’s side was a bottle of gin and on his lap was a small sketchbook. In his large hand he wielded a pencil with great difficulty, his thumb and forefinger struggling to grip the delicate drawing instrument.
He looked up when Emily entered the room. On the count’s instructions, Mistress Goodbody had been much more lenient toward the girl. If the giant wished her company, then that was perfectly acceptable, her master had said. Charles’s health was fast fading and his melancholy mood needed to be lifted if possible. The arrival of the new giant meant that his own audience had dwindled, and he had even been forced to move premises and reduce his admission fee.
“You are drawing, Charles,” said Emily, delight and surprise mingling in her voice. She peered ’round his shoulder. “What is it?” But she frowned as soon as she could make out the image.
“ ’Tis my coffin,” he replied taciturnly.
“But, Charles,” she chided him, “you must not think of death.”
He shook his large, sleek head and sighed. “ ’Twill be knocking at my door soon,” he said. “And when it does, I don’t want that devil, Hunter, to have my body.”
Emily’s expression was tinged with sadness. She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “You know we will not let that happen.”
He nodded. “That is why I am making plans.” His voice was suddenly more purposeful as he looked at his sketch pad. “I am to be buried at sea,” he told her. “My coffin is to be of lead. It must be taken to the mouth of the Thames and sunk so that no one, not Hunter nor any of those baying dogs that call themselves surgeons, can get their filthy hands on my corpse.”
Emily regarded Charles, teary-eyed. “ ’Tis a good plan. Have you told Dr. Silkstone and the count?”
“They will know soon enough,” he said softly, reaching for her hand. “My time is near, Emily.”
Somewhere from within the deep labyrinth of Lydia’s mind, light began to filter. It was almost imperceptible at first; the blackness changed to dark blue. Still there was nothing. No sight, no sound, but an altered state, then slowly, very slowly, the brightness began to creep, its probing fingers searching for any rocky ledges, any fragments of being it could find to cling on to.
The colors gradually changed from blue to green to yellow, until finally she could see shapes. They were blurred at first, their outlines melding into the background, but soon they became confident in their own forms, defined and sharp and real.
Now she entered her own personal reality. She could see herself in a small, unfamiliar room. Her husband was with her. She was anxious, crying, but she did not know why. He gave her a gill of brandy. She sipped it and her throat burned, but he urged her to drink more, tilting her head back with his hands. She drank, and as she did so, she became less aware of her body, her legs seeming almost weightless. She felt him unfastening her clothes, loosening her stays, but she let him, because she was becoming powerless, senseless.
He carried her into another room. She felt the cold on her bare arms and smelled a harsh, metallic smell in her nostrils. There was an old man and, behind him, a fat woman. The old man, his hair tawny and flecked with gray, said something in a strange accent before Michael laid her on the table. The woman placed a black veil over her face so that the colors left her, obscured by the dark mesh. Now she saw only shapes. She was frightened and she called out for her husband, but he had gone.
The fat woman forced some black, foul-tasting liquid down her throat that made her head spin. She heard her own cries grow feebler as rough hands pulled up her petticoat, exposing her lower abdomen. She wanted to lash out and to sit up, but they had strapped her down, fastening leather thongs with metal buckles that cut into her skin around her wrists and ankles if she tried to move.
She saw the man come to her with cupped hands. He put them over her lower belly as if searching for something; a sound, a movement, then after a few moments he made a mark with ink. She let out a faint cry, but try as she might, she could not move.
“ ’Twill all be over soon,” said a voice. “Just a wee prick.”
And still he came toward her with a long, hollow needle clasped in his hands. She saw it hover over her and she saw him plunge it down, piercing the mound of her rounding belly.
“Lydia! Oh, my dearest Lydia!” Sir Theodisius detected movement. He saw her eyelids flicker and her lips part and the look of horror on her face. He grasped her hand in his. “Lydia. Lydia. ’Tis your Uncle Theo,” he soothed.
Heaving himself up from his chair as fast as his corpulent frame would allow, he shambled over to the door and called down the hallway to anyone who would listen. “She wakes. Her ladyship wakes!”
Nurse Pring was in the next room, taking a well-earned nap, but on hearing the cries she rushed to Lydia’s side. She found her patient in an agitated state, her head rolling from side to side on her pillow, her face set in a frown, and her thin voice calling out through parched lips.
Dipping a sponge in water, the nurse let droplets fall onto her mouth. Lydia licked her lips. “More,” she croaked.
“We need to call for Dr. Fairweather, sir,” Nurse Pring told Sir Theodisius, who duly obeyed the implicit order.
In the meantime, Lydia had opened her eyes fully. Her expression was less pained, but she still looked apprehensive.
“Who are you?” she enquired of Nurse Pring.
“I am your nurse, your ladyship. You have been very unwell, but please God, you will soon be restored,” she said, smiling.
Lydia’s eyes darted ’round the room. “Where is this place?”
“Why, ’tis your home. Boughton Hall, my lady.”
“Boughton Hall,” she repeated, as if the name were unfamiliar to her.
“And what day is it?”
“Why, it is a Tuesday and you have been in a deep sleep for these past ten days,” replied the nurse.
At that moment Sir Theodisius returned to the room, a wide grin stretching his fat cheeks. “I have summoned Dr. Fairweather,” he said, walking toward the bed once more.
“Thank you, sir,” said Nurse Pring, measuring out a draft that Thomas had left for Lydia when, or if, she awoke.
“And I have sent word to Dr. Silkstone. I am sure he will be here just as soon as he can, my dear,” he said to Lydia, easing himself once more into his bedside chair. But Lydia did not return his smile. She simply looked blankly at him.
“Dr. Silkstone? Who is Dr. Silkstone?” she said.