Laura’s heart leaped. Her Quinta wed in a lace-trimmed veil! And with lace adorning her gown and posy! ‘Oh, could I, George? Will you come with me?’
He shook his head. ‘I have a letter to write to Patrick. I wish to leave it with you to give it to him should - should the worst happen to me.’
‘I am sure you will be able to hand it to him for yourself,’ Laura replied briskly. She was unable to consider any other possibility.
The surgeon’s residence was on the Mansfield road where all the new houses were built for the town’s prospering manufacturers and merchants. They set off after breakfast the next day. It was a short distance from the Crown, but uphill all the way. They were let in by a housekeeper and led into a small sitting room.After what seemed to Laura to be a long wait, a gentleman entered who introduced himself to her as the surgeon and then took George out with him. He came back a few moments later for her and said, ‘Sergeant Ross is asking for you. It gives great comfort for a loved one to be present. However, it will be . . . distressing for you.’
Laura stared at him in silence. George wanted her beside him. During the procedure.
‘Perhaps you would hold his hand, ma’am? My housekeeper is present, too.’
‘Very well, sir.’
‘Follow me.’
The surgery was plain and sparsely furnished with a heavily stained wooden bench near the window. The oblong surface had a groove around the edge to catch the blood and three hefty leather straps with brass buckles to hold the patient steady. A table was laid out in an orderly fashion with the surgeon’s instruments, bowls, bottles of spirits and strips of cotton. There were enough candles to light a ballroom.
The housekeeper stood by a fierce fire burning in a large grate. She was a capable, large-boned woman who had given Laura a large brown apron to cover her gown. She was heating water in a copper urn with a long brass spout and small tap. And tending to a copper saucepan with a long handle. Laura could smell the hot tar that the surgeon would use to stem the flow of blood and seal his stump. George would have fallen into a faint long before the time came for that.
He was such a brave man, she thought as he climbed awkwardly on to the bench. He wore only his shirt and was already drowsy from the laudanum, but he managed a smile for her and raised his hand. When she took hold of it, he grasped hers firmly and his grip did not slacken as the attendant fastened the buckles tightly around his body and good leg.
The surgeon had removed his jacket and covered himself with large, stained apron. He inspected his saws and knives on the table and selected his tools. ‘Ready?’ he said.
‘Ready,’ George replied.
The attendant offered a broad leather strap for George to bite on and he did. Laura wondered how much pain he would suffer before he gave in to the faint. It was said that if you did not fight the pain you fainted more quickly. But George had battled with his pain for years and was used to it.
He looked at her. His eyes were frightened and she gripped his hand more tightly and kept her gaze firmly locked with his. The attendant placed a hand on each shoulder and the surgeon took up his knife. George’s body arched and he screamed as the knife cut his flesh. The straps strained and his good foot banged against the table top. Laura smelled the blood but continued to hold his eyes with hers.
‘Hold him steady, man!’ the surgeon snapped without looking up from his task. Moments later he demanded his saw and Laura heard the rasping of its sharpened teeth on bone.
George’s eyes were rolling. Thankfully, he was going into the faint. She bit her tongue and urged him silently to let himself go. His mouth slackened on the leather and his grasp of her hand eased. The colour drained from his face and his breathing slowed. There was an exchange of words between the surgeon and his attendant, the end of which made sense to her. ‘His heart still beats.’ She turned her head and saw the blood.
The most blood that Laura had seen before was when, as a little girl, she had watched her father stick a pig. Mother helped him tie its hind feet together and hoist it, wriggling and squealing, to hang upside down from the strongest branch of a tree. Then he took their longest, sharpest knife and slit its throat while Mother held her milking pail underneath to catch the blood as it drained. It sprayed and splashed everywhere as the beast twisted and flopped in its death throes and finally hung twitching and then flaccid for her father to finish his job.
The blood had stuck to her face and hair, covered her fingers and filled the crevices around her nails. The sickly salty smell and stickiness of the darkening, congealing, precious liquid stayed with her for days. She helped her mother carry the pail indoors to thicken by the fire. Later, they mixed in oatmeal, herbs and spice and then chopped-up belly fat and rolled it in greased muslin to make sausage puddings that they boiled for hours before hanging to dry from hooks in the kitchen ceiling. By the time Laura came to eat them in the winter, she had forgotten her nausea.
But now she recalled that scene she realised that a man’s blood was worse. It poured from his split flesh, spreading and soaking into linen towels, staining them bright red. She felt ill but knew she must not collapse. Not here, not now, where she might be needed to fetch and carry. She watched the surgeon and his attendant work in their dingy, blood-spattered aprons until increasing nausea threatened. George’s scream echoed in her head, but now his face was pallid and still and she wondered how long he would stay in the deep faint. She held on to his hand, staring at him, almost in a swoon herself, until the housekeeper urged her to move, and she realised it was over. His stump was tarred and wrapped. A lifeless limb languished in a bucket of blood on the floor. And then, mercifully, the housekeeper led her away and gave her brandy.
The night after Quinta shot the deer, while Patrick languished in a dark damp rat-infested cellar, Quinta lay awake fretting. She could not stay at home and do nothing, whatever he might wish. How would he get a message to his father? He needed someone with him whom he could trust. He needed her. She rose and dressed as soon as she saw the first streaks of light in the sky, packed her father’s old hunting bag with a few belongings and locked up the cottage.
She ran down the hill as fast as she could until she was well clear of Farmer Bilton’s land. Only Seth would be up at this hour with the cows. But if he saw her and told his employer, Farmer Bilton might come after her. She hurried through the village and did not stop for rest until she had reached the top of Swinborough Hill. The town sprawled in front of her and she heard the distant clang of a rising bell. At the bottom of her descent, fresh water at the spring beckoned her and she stopped to eat a piece of pie and drink copiously. She yawned. It was not far now.
Sergeant Ross would know what to do for his son. Patrick had told the truth and he was innocent. She had shot the deer on her own land, because it was eating her crops. Mother would speak up for her and, tonight, Patrick would be free and they would return home to plan their marriage and their future. All would be well.
The town was busy with folk, from those tramping to labour in the forges and furnaces to farmers arriving with beasts for the market. Appetising smells of pig’s fry drifted in the air. The sergeant and her mother were staying at an inn and she located them at the second one she tried but they were not in their rooms. Quinta left a message and said she would come back later. She had passed the courthouse on her way and she went in search of Patrick.
It was a new building, strongly built of stone with half a dozen cells for prisoners at the back. She went in through the front door and found a clerk behind a high desk.
‘Looking for a prisoner, did you say, miss? Our gaol is full to bursting and the court is sitting again today to clear them out. What was that name again?’
‘Patrick Ross.’
He adjusted the spectacles on his nose, turned a page in a large ledger and scanned his list. ‘Aye. He’s here. Vagrant, he is.’
‘He’s not! He lives at Top Field.’
He looked again at the entry and sucked his teeth. ‘He’s charged with poaching, miss. That’s a very serious offence.’
‘It’s a lie! He’s innocent!’
‘The magistrate will decide that, miss.’
‘When?’ she urged.
‘Today. Tomorrow. He doesn’t like to waste time, this one.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘You? See the magistrate?’
‘No, I want to see the - the prisoner.’
‘Well, he’s not actually here because all our cells were full when—’
‘Where is he, then?’ she demanded anxiously.
‘I shouldn’t go down there if I were you,’ the clerk replied.
‘Why? Where is he?’
‘He’s under the Chantry Chapel. We’ve got that many prisoners these days, we’ve had to start using it as a gaol again. This courthouse has only been up a few years and already it’s too small. I don’t know what this town is coming to—’
‘Please,’ Quinta interrupted, ‘can I talk to him?’
‘Not advisable, miss. We’ve got other prisoners down there.’
‘I’m not afraid.’
‘Suit yourself, then.’ He lifted an arm. ‘You go out of here and turn to your—’
‘I know where Chantry Bridge is.’ She hurried away.
The River Don was wide and deep at this stretch through town and there was much barge traffic toing and froing with the coal and iron that was responsible for the town’s growing wealth. The stone-arched bridge was just downstream of Forge Island where the canal had been cut as part of the navigation. She climbed the stone steps to the small chapel in the middle of the bridge and banged on the door. It was opened by a bull of a man who smelled of drink.The stained glass in the far wall was the only sign the building had once been used for worship. Now it was dank and dingy and the crypt used as a gaol.
‘I want to see one of your prisoners,’ she demanded loudly.
The gaoler barred her way. ‘Well, you can’t. I’m not undoing that trapdoor until the constable and his men get here to take ’em away.’
‘But I must speak with him! I am - I am his wife.’ She pushed past him into the gloomy interior. The stone-flagged floor was damp and greasy. A table stood in the middle with a ewer and tankard. To the left she saw the trapdoor in the floor, securely bolted down. The gaoler placed his large heavy feet on top of it.
Quinta walked over to the table, filled the tankard with ale from the ewer and offered it to him. He lumbered towards it and she set it down before moving quickly to the trapdoor. ‘Patrick! Are you down there? Can you hear me?’
After a few seconds, his voice came through the floor.‘Quinta? Quinta! Is that you?’
‘Yes. How are you?’
‘Well enough. Is someone with you?’
‘Only the gaoler.’
The other prisoners began to jeer and call out lewdly. The gaoler leered at her and she wished she hadn’t poured the ale. He swallowed the drink and she wondered if he might expect another reward from her.
‘Can you fetch my father?’ Patrick called. ‘He’ll know what to do.’
‘I’ve been to the Crown. He’s not there.’
‘Try the surgeon’s house. It’s on the Mansfield road, after the Dispensary. Hurry.’
‘I’ll find him. Don’t worry. He’ll get you out.’ She turned to leave.
The gaoler caught her arm as she left and growled, ‘Not so fast, lady. I needs paying for this. Get over here.’ But his words were slurred. She picked up the ewer of ale and threw it in his face, shaking off his hand and darting out through the door before he knew she was gone. She heard him call after her, ‘Witch! Don’t come back then.’
Thank the Lord Patrick would be out of there soon.
She climbed the High Street and skirted the beast market until she found the surgeon’s house. It was a very grand residence, built of stone with an engraved brass plaque fixed to the wall by the wide front door. She was quite breathless when the housekeeper answered the door.
‘I’m looking for Sergeant Ross. Is he here? His son wants to see him.’
‘And your name is?’
‘Miss Haig.’
‘Haig?’ The housekeeper scrutinised her features. ‘Come inside, miss, and follow me.’ She led her down a passage to a small room near the kitchen. It had a fireplace and was furnished very plainly as a sitting room.
‘Sergeant Ross came to - to see the surgeon a few days ago accompanied by a - a Mrs Haig.’
‘My mother.’
‘She is with him now.’
‘Please tell her I am here.’
‘Sit down, Miss Haig. I’ll fetch her.’
But Quinta could not rest. She was too anxious about Patrick. She hoped the sergeant was well. She must speak with him. He would tell her what to do.
‘Won’t you sit, miss? Please,’ the housekeeper repeated.‘Would you care for some refreshment?’
She was gone a long time. A young girl brought her some elderflower cordial which she poured into glass. It was cool and reviving. Quinta sipped it gratefully and asked, ‘Why is it taking so long to find my mother?’ The girl stared at her seriously, made no reply, bobbed a curtsey and left the room. Eventually the door opened and the housekeeper came in with her mother, who looked quite exhausted and red-eyed.
‘Quinta!’
‘Mother!’
They fell into each other’s arms and hugged each other tightly.
‘You don’t look well, Mother.’
Laura coughed and sat down. ‘I - I have been awake for several nights with Sergeant Ross.’
‘You have been here during the night? How is the sergeant? Oh, I do hope he is not very ill! He must come to see Patrick and tell us what we must do. Oh Mother, something truly dreadful has happened.’
Laura stood back from her daughter. Her face was full of pain and she choked a little on the words. ‘My dearest love, I do not know how to say this without causing you so much hurt.’ She inhaled with a shudder and went on: ‘Sergeant Ross is dead. He passed away an hour ago.’