No Cure for Love (2 page)

The smoke from the lamps was beginning to sting his eyes. After all, he had been in the laboratory these past three hours studying the various specimens from the Black Ditch, the foul trickle of what was once a free-flowing stream that passed through much of East London.

He pinched the inside corners of his eyes with his finger and thumb and resumed peering into his newly acquired brass microscope. A few seconds later his attention was broken again as the door creaked open. He looked up to see William Chafford, his friend and colleague enter the laboratory. William was a would-be surgeon, and the son of Henry Chafford, physician to the rich and indolent in Bath and the surrounding county.

‘There you are, old man. What keeps you so late?’ William asked, closing the door sharply behind him and making the glass rattle. The draft from the door disturbed the various waxed dissection charts that hung around the walls.

‘I’m just finishing recording my day’s findings,’ Robert answered, trying to slide Caroline’s letter into his waistcoat pocket without his friend seeing it. But William was too quick.

‘Findings, be blowed,’ he said with a wink. ‘You’ve been sitting here daydreaming over that love letter from your long-suffering fiancée in Scotland.’

‘Miss Sinclair is not yet my fiancée. Although my mother’s every letter presses me to make her so,’ Robert answered. Then he relaxed his stance and pulled the folded paper out of his pocket. ‘I did happen to glance at her letter, but I certainly would not describe this,’ he held the paper aloft, ‘as a love letter.’

William gave him a sympathetic look. ‘Munroe, you must find yourself some better company than these dull fellows,’ he said, sweeping his hand around to include the petrified specimens stored in the coloured glass bottles.

‘Take a look at these, Chafford,’ Robert said, indicating the microscope.

With one eye closed, William peeked down at the worm-like entities as they squirmed and multiplied in the droplet of water.

‘From the Black Ditch this morning,’ he replied. ‘And if you ingest enough of them they’ll make your bowels turn to water. No wonder sickness is rife amongst the poor souls who live in the dark alleys of Wapping.’

‘Gad, whatever gives you that idea? You can’t even see them without the ’scope.’ William straightened up, pulled down the front of his silk waistcoat and adjusted his cravat. ‘I can’t understand why you are so fascinated with the water worms,’ he continued, as he strolled past the grinning, bleached skeleton that hung patiently awaiting the next day’s lecture.

Robert let out a rumbling laugh. ‘That’s why I’ll be the chief physician in Edinburgh while you’re still learning to amputate a leg without taking your assistant’s finger along with it.’

William shrugged and gave Robert a generous grin. ‘So you will, my dear fellow.’ He hopped onto the bench and sat between the saucer-shaped glass dishes.

‘I have seen twenty patients over the past four days from the streets around Mill Yard, all with the same stomach cramps and vomiting. One old woman has already died and some of the children were just lying around like rag dolls when I visited this morning,’ Robert said, running his hands through his hair, which flopped forward again as soon as it was released.

‘You went there?’ William said, clearly astonished, as if just informed that Robert had voluntarily put both hands in an open fire.

‘Aye. How else can I see my patients? As the sick cannot come to me, I must go to the sick. I am a doctor after all.’ Robert stood up, scraping the stool across the polished floorboards. He towered over his friend, who was himself hardly short by usual standards. It’s by linking the disease to those nasty-looking brutes, as you rightly call them, that I will be able to treat the sick more effectively.’

‘And make your reputation,’ William inter commented.

Robert smacked one fist into the palm of the other hand. ‘We are on the brink of new discoveries, William, and I am determined to be in the vanguard of this new science. But I have to be in London, at the heart of medicine, to accomplish that.’ He waved Caroline’s letter aloft and gave it a sideward glance. ‘I just wish that I could convince Miss Sinclair,’ he exclaimed, as a growl sounded from his middle region. His serious expression changed instantaneously. Lifting out a gold hunter from his breast pocket he glanced at it. ‘Well, this watch and my stomach tell me it’s past supper. Have you eaten, Chafford?’

‘That’s precisely why I’ve come by.’ He put his arm around Robert’s broad shoulders in a comradely gesture. ‘I deem it my Christian duty to save you from your serious nature and insist that you accompany me to the Angel and Crown for supper.’

Turning to the part-glazed door Robert grabbed his dark navy frock coat from where he had thrown it absent-mindedly across the professor’s chair and shrugged it on.

Will I do for the Angel and Crown?’ he asked, setting his top hat at a jaunty angle.

William shook his head dolefully. ‘That you will.’ He handed Robert his cane. ‘You really should think about getting a practice in a fashionable resort like Brighton or Weymouth instead of burying yourself and your talents in East London.’ He nudged Robert in the ribs and his friend bent at the waist and gave an exaggerated bow. ‘The widows and dowagers with the vapours would pay readily to have a tall, well-favoured physician like you to cure their ills, Munroe.’

Robert let out a great rumble of a laugh and slapped William on the back, making the other man stagger.

‘I’ll leave the widows to you, Chafford, if you leave the water worms to me.’

After a brisk walk to the Angel and Crown Robert and William entered at the side of the establishment and gave their hats and coats to a lad before making their way to a table. The alehouse was already packed with men drinking and talking, many with flamboyantly attired women by their side. Small spirals of smoke made their way above the crowd, drifting into the rafters and among the hanging lamps.

Robert had visited the Angel and Crown before but had found it full of rowdy apprentice physicians and so often walked the mile or so to the City for more restrained eating establishments. William, with his more outgoing personality, dined more regularly at the Angel and Crown.

Pushing his way through, William spotted an empty table at the corner of the balustrade that separated the two parts of the supper room. Robert stood back to let a blonde barmaid past.

‘Gawd, you’re a fine young gentleman and no mistake, ’ she said to him with a saucy smile. ‘I’m Lizzy, if you need a bit of company later, if you understand me like.’ She winked at Robert and squeezed past him, pressing her hip firmly into his groin as she went.

‘I see Lizzy has taken a fancy to you,’ William said as they reached the table.

Robert smiled, but said nothing. He had become accustomed to such boldness since arriving in London.

‘Mr Chafford,’ a voice boomed across the room. ‘Won’t you and your friend do me the honour of joining me for a mouthful of supper?’ asked a large man with a broad Irish brogue.

He beamed at William, his round face shining like a polished apple under the soft light of the oil lamps. He waved at them with one of his massive hands. ‘Make way there for Mr Doctor Chafford, the renowned surgeon, and his friend, fine fellows both of them.’

With his black eyebrows and his curly hair hanging in an unruly twirl in the middle of his brow, the Irishman’s face had a boyish look about it that was at odds with his powerful frame. The expensive clothes he wore fitted snugly - a little too snugly. The huge meal on the plate before him showed why that would be.

A path to the Irishman appeared, as if a scythe had cut a path through the press of bodies. William turned to accept the invitation and Robert followed.

The Irishman untucked his large linen napkin from his collar and stood up as Robert and William reached the table. He grabbed William’s hand, pumping it so hard that his whole body shook.

‘Honoured, I am, honoured, to have you join me,’ he said.

William reclaimed his hand. ‘May I introduce Doctor Robert Munroe, a colleague of mine and the author of
Observations on the Diseases Manifest Amongst the Poor,
which
The Times
called “the most comprehensive scientific work published in the past decade”.’ The Irishman raised his eyebrows.

‘Doctor Munroe has recently come from Edinburgh Royal Infirmary,’ William continued, as Robert shot him an embarrassed look. ‘Munroe, this is Mr Danny Donovan, owner of the Angel, and local businessman.’ Robert stepped forward and offered his hand for pummelling. He was not disappointed. His hand was clenched in a painful grip and subjected to the same treatment as William’s had been. The potman pulled back chairs for William and Robert, then stood waiting.

A disarming smile spread across Donovan’s face. ‘Two plates of your mutton stew,’ Danny said to the potman. ‘And make sure there’s some mutton in it or I’ll be wanting to know why.’

The man shot away and Danny fixed Robert with an inscrutable stare.

‘Doctor Munroe. Would that be the same Doctor Munroe who bought the lease on number thirty Chapman Street to open a dispensary?’

‘I am,’ Robert said, registering some surprise. He had only signed the agreement two days before. ‘I must say, Mr Donovan, you are very well informed.’

Danny tapped the right side of his nose twice with a stubby finger. ‘I always make it me business to know who’s doing what around here.’ He pushed the bottle of brandy towards Robert, who poured himself a glass of the amber liquid. He sipped a mouthful.

‘Very good,’ he said, pressing his lips together and passing the bottle to William.

‘They keep it for me, special like,’ Danny said, his gaze still fixed on Robert. ‘You’re a Scot then, Dr Munroe?’ He drained the last of the brandy and raised the bottle for another to be brought.

‘Aye, I am,’ Robert answered, declining the newly opened bottle.

‘And would your father be a doctor too?’ Danny asked, as William poured another brandy.

‘My father’s a minister in the Church of Scotland,’ Robert replied, briefly thinking of the large, cold churches where he seemed to have spent most of his childhood.

‘A
minister!
God love him,’ Danny said, as two bowls of steaming mutton stew arrived.

After a mouthful of the surprisingly good stew, Robert eyed his host. ‘Apart from the Angel, what are your other business interests, Mr Donovan?’ he asked, his eyes resting briefly on the musicians taking their places in the small orchestra.

‘Mr Donovan is the owner of the Angel, the Town of Ramsgate in Wapping and the White Swan in Shadwell,’ William said, before Danny could answer. ‘Plus a barge or two in the docks. Is that not so?’

The large Irishman inclined his head. ‘The Blessed Virgin has rewarded most generously my small efforts to make a crust or two,’ he said, his humble attitude countered by a sudden inflation of his chest.

‘He is too modest to mention it,’ William said, ‘but Mr Donovan is also a benefactor to a number of charities hereabouts and on the governing board of the workhouse.’

‘Very commendable, Mr Donovan,’ Robert said. ‘However, the people here don’t need charity. They need better housing and clean water.’

For a second Danny’s small eyes narrowed and his lips pursed together. Then the genial expression returned. ‘The people here are blessed by the Queen of Heaven herself, so they are, to have fine gentlemen such as yourselves to doctor to them.’

‘Aye, no doubt that helps, but better living conditions would help more,’ Robert replied with a frown, thinking of the poor wretches he had left to God in his mercy that morning in Mill Yard.

Leaving Danny Donovan to talk to William, Robert turned towards the small stage where the worn velvet curtain moved with the activity behind it. The small band of musicians struck a chord, and conversation around the tables ceased as the plush red curtains squeaked back into the wings.

Into the footlights stepped a young woman. In contrast to most of the other women in the Angel and Crown the woman on the stage wore a simple cotton gown. She swayed in time to the music, her head to one side and a wistful expression on her face as she sang about the beauty of the hills of Galway. The song finished and the singer took a small bow and smiled. She signalled for the leader of the musicians to start the next tune, then let her gaze sweep over the audience until her eyes alighted on Robert.

Robert leant forward and studied her.

Caroline had a passable voice for a house party recital, but the woman now entertaining them had a strong, clear voice that was very different. She was completely unsophisticated with her undressed hair and her fresh, unpowdered and flawless complexion, which glowed under the merciless lights. He had thought at first glance that her hair was the same colour as Caroline’s, a dark brown, but as she tilted her head jauntily towards the light he saw its shimmering red tone and her clear eyes.

She had a fuller figure than Caroline’s, too, more rounded. Under the table his foot started to tap soundlessly against the table leg. As the woman on the stage swayed she invited the audience to join her in the chorus of the song with a wide smile and an arc of her arm. It was an abandoned movement, artless but sensual in its graceful execution.

The song ended and Robert applauded as enthusiastically as any in the room. The singer nodded her head to the maestro and the atmosphere changed from jolly to haunting. In two chords, the woman on the stage changed from vibrant to wistful as she started to sing of a home far away across the sea. Robert was mesmerised.

As she swept her gaze back to him she sent him the echo of a shy smile from under her lashes and Robert forgot all about Caroline, Danny Donovan, William and his mutton stew.