Chapter 40
Time was not on Thomas’s side. He was yet to confront Dr. Hunter. Signor Moreno languished in jail; Charles’s injuries, although not life-threatening, could worsen his chronic condition; and Lydia, although conscious, would need many days, if not weeks, to recover from breathing in the toxic cyanide vapors. Sleep was out of the question that night. Instead he went straight from the giant’s bedside to stables in Fleet Street, hired a good mount, and rode out of London as dawn was breaking over the city.
Before ten o’clock he had a fresh horse, and he finally arrived at Boughton shortly after three that afternoon. Sir Theodisius, alerted to his arrival a few moments before, was in the hall to greet him, a relieved look on his round face.
“Oh, Dr. Silkstone, how glad I am to see you,” he cried.
Thomas was equally glad to be at Boughton and to see that the coroner was in an ebullient mood.
“How fares Lady Lydia?” he asked anxiously.
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” said Sir Theodisius, pointing the way up toward the bedchamber.
Thomas nodded and bounded up the stairs. The exhaustion from riding since dawn disappeared as he made his way to the room. To his delight, he found Lydia sitting up in bed, finishing off a bowl of broth held by Nurse Pring. As soon as she saw the young doctor, the nurse rose and curtsied.
“Dr. Silkstone!” Looks of surprise and delight mingled on her face, but on her patient’s there was nothing. Lydia looked at Thomas and registered no emotion, no flicker of recognition.
“Your ladyship, ’tis Dr. Silkstone, come to see how you fare,” the nurse said gently.
The color had returned to normal in Lydia’s cheeks and her eyes were bright, but Thomas could see that her breathing was labored.
“Thank you, Nurse Pring. I shall examine her ladyship now,” he said, and the nurse left the room, leaving Thomas alone with his patient. His instinct was to rush toward her, sweep her up in his arms, and hold her tightly. He had feared that this moment might never come and had rehearsed it in his own mind so many times. But now that it had arrived, that they were together, alone, there seemed to be a strange distance between them. He sat on the bed. He wanted to take her hand in his and kiss it, but he did not. The enigmatic look in her eyes prevented him from doing so.
“Lydia. Your ladyship, ’tis I, Dr. Silkstone. Thomas,” he said softly.
“Thomas,” she echoed, tilting her head slightly as she studied his face. “Thomas,” she repeated, only this time with more conviction in her voice.
“Yes,” he said gently. He laid his hand flat on the bed coverlet, but still did not dare to touch her. He knew that cyanide poisoning could sometimes cause temporary amnesia in its victims. He feared he might find her in a confused state, but this was worse than he had imagined.
“You have been very ill, my lady. You have been asleep for almost two weeks. I am here to take care of you. To see that you recover,” he told her. “May I examine you?”
Again she looked at him strangely, as if her mind was in another place, trying to recall faces, names, places. “Yes,” she replied.
Gently he took her wrist and tried to find her pulse. He saw her take a deep breath and close her eyes for a moment, as if his touch thrilled her, and when she opened them again after two or three seconds, she looked at him again.
“Thomas,” she said, only this time, there was meaning in her voice. “Thomas,” she repeated, smiling. She put her hand on his on the coverlet and he felt a surge of joy.
“Oh, my love,” he said, leaning forward and putting both arms around her. He felt tears welling up in his eyes.
“I remember,” she said. “Yes, yes, I do.”
Wiping away a tear, he studied her face once more. Even though she could remember his features, he suspected the fog of the coma still shrouded many of her memories. There would be questions from her and the answers would be painful, but for the time being he rejoiced in her emergence back into reality.
“I am here to help you get well,” he told her. “Tell me how you feel?”
“I am a little short of breath,” she replied. “And a little giddy.”
“You have been out of bed?”
“Nurse Pring bade me walk to the window to see if I could. I was unsteady on my feet.”
“ ’Tis to be expected,” said Thomas as he resumed feeling for her pulse. When he did feel the beat, it was weak, as he suspected it would be.
“Thomas,” she said. “Tell me what happened? They said it was an accident, that I breathed in poisonous vapors, but I do not understand how.” She paused thoughtfully. “I do not believe they are telling me the whole truth.”
Thomas felt his own heart miss a beat. Her memory was worse affected than he feared, yet her faculties and her perception remained sharp. He took a deep breath and held her hand. “There is so much to tell you, my love, but it should wait until you are stronger.”
She frowned. “But why should you keep anything from me?” she asked. “Is my past so terrible? Have I done something so dreadful that I must be shielded from it?” Her voice was becoming agitated, and with it, her breathing came in shorter, sharper pants.
Thomas knew he needed to calm her. “I will tell you the truth, I promise, just as soon as you are feeling a little better. But now you must rest.”
He made her lay her head back on her pillows and her breathing eased. “You have to trust me, my Lydia,” he said, gently stroking her forehead. Her eyes closed. “I will not let anyone hurt you ever again,” he told her. “You are safe now.”
Back in London, Emily was also doing her best to reassure Charles Byrne that his wounds would soon heal and that all would be well. She had been at his side all night and was with him when he woke around noon. He had cried out in pain when he tried to sit up, and she had given him laudanum from the phial Dr. Silkstone had left. It seemed to ease him and he slept some more until late afternoon.
“I am a dead man,” he groaned as she tried to make him drink a little chicken broth later that evening. “I have lost everything.”
Emily’s eyes played on his head and face. The skin was black and purple, like a pulped plum. “How could they do this to you?” she lamented.
“They took my money. They took it all,” reflected the giant mournfully. “Now I’ll never get back home.”
“Do not give up all hope, Charles,” she soothed, trying to coax another spoonful of broth through his swollen lips. “Do not forget the king can still grant your da a pardon.” She tried to sound cheerful, but in reality, she knew there was little hope left. She had seen from an upper window that not only Howison waited for him outside. Hunter’s surly lackey had been joined by more men now, envoys of other anatomists eager to get their scalpels into such a prize. For all she knew, they could even have beaten up her beloved to hasten his death. They scented blood in their nostrils. Soon they would come in for the kill. She knew that Charles had asked her father and his friends to keep watch over his remains and sink his coffin into the sea once he was gone, safe from the surgeons’ knives, but she feared strong liquor might mean they did not keep to their word.
She put the half-empty bowl of soup down when she saw he would drink no more. “You need to rest now,” she told him.
“Emily,” he said, as he watched her smooth his coverlet.
“Yes, Charles,” she replied, looking at him with a gentle smile.
He held out his huge hand and took hers, enveloping it as petals close around a bud. She gazed down, and the sight of it brought tears to her eyes. “Whatever h-happens to me,” he said, fixed intently on her, “I want you to know that I love you.”
She smiled tenderly. “Here, I have something for you,” she said, delving into her apron pocket and taking out a lock of her own hair, tied with a white ribbon. “I kept some of yours, so ’tis only fair that you should have some of mine.”
The giant’s enormous fingers closed ’round the lock and he held it to his lips to kiss it before holding it to his breast.
At that moment the count burst into the chamber, unaware of the scene of tender intimacy that he had just interrupted.
“I have great news,” he cried excitedly. He climbed up onto a chair by the giant’s bedside, clutching a sheet of parchment. “ ’Tis from His Majesty’s court. They have granted your father a posthumous pardon, Charles!” Forgetting the extent of the giant’s injuries, he leaned over and planted a kiss on his friend’s cheek in the continental manner. Despite his discomfort, Charles managed a smile. Even Emily abandoned all decorum in front of the count.
“I’m so happy for you,” she cried, squeezing Charles’s hand.
The little man was so caught up in the moment that he jumped down from the chair and started dancing a jig, flourishing the parchment in his tiny hand. “A pardon, a pardon, a very royal pardon,” he sang, making Emily laugh. Even Charles began to chuckle, but his exertions caused him to cough, making his bruised ribs doubly painful.
“We must leave you now. You must rest,” said the little man, bringing his moment of madness to a sudden halt. “I am sorry.”
Emily sketched a curtsy and left the room, but the giant beckoned his small friend over to him. Turning his large black head, he whispered into the little man’s ear: “Thank you, Count. At least now I can die a happy man.”