Chapter 32
H
annah Lovelock was preparing herbs in her kitchen. She had been out and about earlier on that evening with her whisket, looking for plants to dry and preserve. She had almost reached the bridge when she decided to turn back as the light was growing dim. Now the fruits of her evening forage lay before her on the wooden table: bunches of feverfew, whose white flowers soothed the most violent of headaches, and of meadowsweet that she had found growing in the damp meadows by the lake. The latter was good for the digestion and Jacob took it when he had an attack of bile.
There was henbane, too. Her late mother had sworn by it. It was, she had told her daughter, a good eryngo, promoting ardor in a man. The Egyptians smoked it to relieve toothache, while the ancient Greeks believed that people under the influence of the herb became prophetic.
These powers were, however, as nothing compared with those of this common plant that stored its magic in its purple bell flowers and its tall, thin stems. It hid itself away in wooded areas in the shade and only a fortunate few knew of its incredible properties.
Taking a handful of spiky leaves, she chopped them till they bled green, then packed them into a crock before pouring over enough oil to steep them. She returned to the table and was just about to start on a batch of wild garlic when she heard a noise in the front room.
“Is that you, Will?” she called. “Where’ve you been all day, young man?” She was clearly annoyed with her son, but there was no reply. “Jacob?” Perhaps it was her husband, come from checking the stables. There was still no reply and yet she heard more footsteps, or rather the sound of footsteps and of wood on the flagstone floor. She wiped her green-stained hands on her apron and went to see.
“Good evening, Mistress Lovelock,” came a voice. Hannah did not reply. James Lavington stood, propped on his walking stick, as relaxed in her front room as if he had been invited.
“I hope I did not alarm you,” he remarked calmly.
Hannah felt her heart begin to race and her palms grow clammy with sweat. She opened her mouth, but no words would come. Lavington shuffled forward toward her and she backed away. In the fading light, she found his scarred face was even more disquieting.
“Nervous, aren’t we?” he taunted her. Still no sound came from her mouth, so to spare her more agony, he told her: “If there is anything you want to tell me, Hannah, anything at all, I will always listen.” He waited a few seconds for an answer, but when none was forthcoming, as he had anticipated, he turned and headed for the door.
Thomas could not sleep. He lay awake listening to the unfamiliar sounds of a strange house. He was used to the din of London, even at night, when the blackness was always alive to the sound of horses’ hooves and dogs barking and loud voices. But now, at Boughton Hall, above the creak of the woodwork and the mewing of a cat he heard muffled sobs.
He leapt up and put his ear to the door. There it was again, a mournful yet rhythmic sob that rose and fell and rose again. It was a woman’s cry. It was Lydia’s. Slipping on his breeches and waistcoat, he lit a candle and ventured out into the hallway.
It was dark, save for a shaft of moonlight that pierced a gap in the drapes on the landing, and now he could be certain the sound was coming from Lydia’s room, a few paces away. Looking around warily, he walked over to her door, took a deep breath, and tapped lightly. The sobs stopped instantly.
“Who is it?”
“Dr. Silkstone,” he whispered formally.
More sounds. This time he could hear the bed creaking and rustling silk before Lydia cautiously opened the door slightly. Her dark lashes were wet and her hair was tumbling down over her shoulders. She looked at Thomas for a moment. He felt his heart beating fast inside his chest as his pulse raced.
Now she opened the door wide to allow him in, glancing down the corridor to make sure no one saw him enter. They stood in the darkness, a few inches apart.
“I thought you were ... unwell.”
“You should not be here,” she said softly.
“I am come to see if I can offer any help,” countered Thomas.
“So, you are come as a physician?”
“If that is your wish, then I can offer you a draught to make you sleep, my lady.” His words were measured, uncertain. To act out his feelings now would be a violation of the Hippocratic oath. She looked so vulnerable, so helpless, yet she suddenly stepped closer to him and, taking his hand, knitted her fingers through his.
“I do not think I shall ever sleep again, Thomas,” she whispered as she leaned forward in search of his lips.
In the darkness they found each other. Their kisses were slow at the beginning, like the first few drops of summer rain, then they came quicker and more urgent as the passion took hold of them both. Thomas breathed in her perfume and ran his hands up and down the arch of her back. Her skin was silky smooth underneath her nightgown and he felt his hands traveling around her body to the cups of her pert breasts. She was so beautiful, more beautiful than any other woman he had ever seen, and he wanted her so badly, but as she closed her eyes, abandoning herself to his touch, she turned and he saw, hanging on the wall, a large portrait of the captain. Seeing his arrogant face jolted him back to reality and he suddenly broke away from her.
“Lydia, Lydia, this is wrong,” he said, holding her at arm’s length. “I am a doctor. You are a married woman. This is madness.”
There was a silence. All Thomas could hear was the blood pounding in his own ears. She lifted her face toward his and nodded in agreement.
“Just hold me,” she whispered.
She laid her head on his chest and he enfolded her in his arm and gently kissed the top of her head. After a few moments he led her silently to the bed and settled her, resting her on his chest. Tenderly he stroked her hair, listening to the music of her breathing as it rose and fell.
“Stay with me, Thomas,” she said softly.
“I am here and I shall always be, if you wish it,” he replied. She nestled her head deeper into his chest and he kissed her forehead once more.
“You are so different from Michael,” she said finally, as if she had read his thoughts. “He is a liar and a cheat and a womanizer.”
She grew agitated and he stroked her cheek, trying to calm her.
“But is he a murderer?” said Thomas, thinking out loud.
“I wish I knew.”
“I think not,” he mused, but said nothing more.
There, lying in the silence of Lydia’s room, Thomas lost all track of time, but after what seemed an age, he heard the rhythm of her breathing change and he knew that sleep had finally found her. Gently lifting her head off his chest, he laid her down on plump pillows and pulled the coverlet over her.
“Sleep well, my love,” he whispered tenderly and he quietly made his way over to the door. Nervously he turned the handle and looked outside into the dark and silent corridor. Quietly he walked the few paces toward his room when suddenly he became aware of something or someone in the shadows.
From out of the darkness stepped a figure. Thomas turned and held his breath.
“Crick,” he exclaimed, shock darting through his body like a bolt of lightning. “What ... what ... ?”
“I caught the morning coach from London, Dr. Silkstone, but it was delayed.” His voice was steady and self-assured. Had he seen him leave Lydia’s chamber? The young doctor could not be sure.
“I shall go to my room now, sir,” he said, excusing himself. Perhaps he had not seen anything suspicious after all, Thomas thought to himself. But just as the young student took hold of the handle of his bedroom door at the end of the landing, he turned once more. “I trust you know where your room is, Dr. Silkstone,” he said.
Chapter 33
F
ear is easily diagnosed in a man. The physical symptoms are clear. They are writ, thought Thomas, as he looked at Captain Farrell, plain as if they had been in ink on the parchment of his pallid skin. But just as there are many types of cancer, or many forms of rash to the skin, so, too, were there different strains of fear. The fear from which this accused man suffered did not dilate his pupils nor make him tremble involuntarily. It was more a gnawing fear, noted Thomas; one that had grown slowly like a tumor, but that was now beginning to surface.
The captain had been damned by the words of his servants at the inquest and with the verdict of unlawful killing had come a warrant for his arrest. And now that he was confined within the dripping walls of a putrid cell, that tumorous growth could manifest itself. No longer concealed under the captain’s brocade waistcoats and arrogant manner, it revealed itself in his graying flesh, pulled taut over cheekbones, and his dull, listless eyes.
“Do you have the remedy, Doctor?” asked the Irishman, seeing that Thomas was scrutinizing him.
Thomas looked at him straight. “Aye, sir, the truth.”
The captain nodded. “That is what we want, too,” he said, drawing Lydia toward him. Thomas noted she winced at his touch, but did not resist and allowed herself to be pulled gently to his side. In her hand she held a nosegay, which she put up to her nostrils and inhaled deeply.
Thomas also noted the captain’s dirt-encrusted fingers as he ran them through his hair, which was normally so neatly coiffured. Stripped of his finery and his normal comforts, he seemed to have acquired a humility that had been noticeably absent before and he felt oddly compassionate toward him.
“I am innocent,” declared the Irishman. His composure fleetingly cracked, but he regained it in an instant and Lydia put a comforting hand on his arm. He looked at her. “If you lost faith in me, my love, I would not want to go on living,” he told her, tears welling up in his green eyes.
Thomas saw there were tears, too, in Lydia’s, but she did not answer. A pang of guilt stabbed him as he wondered if she still loved her husband.
After an awkward moment Thomas decided it was time to break the fragile mood. “You have a lawyer?” he asked.
Farrell nodded. “A family friend.”
“Someone we trust,” added Lydia.
“Good, then I must speak with him,” said Thomas, addressing the captain. “We need all the help we can muster if we are to prove you innocent of this crime.”
James Lavington found Lady Crick seated on a swing in the informal garden. There had been a hard frost and the lawn was laced in white. Blue ribbons were threaded through her grisly long hair, which hung in two braids like coarse rope on either shoulder. Her cheeks were heavily rouged and she cut a tragic figure as she quietly hummed to herself as she swung backward and forward.
When she saw him approach, she smiled but kept on swinging. It was bitterly cold and Lavington wondered that she did not seem to feel the chill. “Everything looks so magical dressed in white, does it not, Mr. Lavington?” she asked. But as she spoke, he could see sadness in her tired, watery eyes. “I know Edward is dead, you know,” she said. This was the first time he had heard her acknowledge her son’s death. The dowager saw his face register the shock. “Please, Mr. Lavington, do not tell Lydia I know. ’Tis less painful for her this way.”
“Indeed, my lady,” he replied, standing by her, looking out onto the white spiky carpet before them. He could not have asked for a better entree into the thorny territory he was about to negotiate. No one had dared broach the subject of Farrell’s arrest with the old woman. It was feared that the news would distress her even more, so she had lived in blissful ignorance for the past week while her son-in-law languished behind bars.
“You love Lady Lydia very much,” ventured Lavington.
Her cracked, painted lips broke into a smile. “Yes,” she said, still swinging gently, as if cradled in a far-off memory and, without lifting her gaze from a distant horizon she repeated softly, “Dear Lydia.”
“You have done so much for her, have you not?”
“She is my only daughter. Her happiness is my happiness,” she replied wistfully.
Now was his chance, he thought, and he seized it. “And that is why you let her return here with Captain Farrell after they strayed.”
These last words served to recall Lady Crick from her reverie. Lavington was afraid that he had overstepped the mark. Turning her head quickly, so that her gray braids flicked ’round, she looked at her inquisitor warily. “I did not want to lose my daughter, sir. Had I not allowed her to return to Boughton Hall I would have no one now.”
Lavington was aware he would have to tread carefully from now on. He had reopened an old wound and he knew the old dowager would find it painful. When she first encountered dashing Captain Farrell three years ago in Bath, he had not only swept Lydia off her feet. He had stolen her heart and with it any vestige of respect she may have held for her elderly mother’s opinion. Hence when, after a two-month courtship, the couple asked for permission to marry, Lady Crick, who had been at that time in possession of most of her faculties, declined. Her better judgment told her that this young Irishman was a wastrel and a scoundrel and only after her daughter’s wealth.
The dowager had set her sights on another young man whom she considered much more suitable. Before her encounter with the dashing captain, Lydia had also seemed amenable to the match, but all that changed in Bath. Small wonder that Lady Crick was disinclined to give her consent and was first outraged, then heartbroken, when Lydia did the unthinkable. She and Captain Farrell eloped.
It was the talk of all Oxfordshire. Fans were raised and spiteful words spoken every time the dowager entered a room. Naturally she closed her doors to the newlyweds and for almost a year the couple lived in Cheltenham, surviving on Lydia’s income. Far from shunning the old woman, however, and seeking to turn his bride away from her mother’s affections, Michael Farrell strove to placate his estranged mother-in-law with his Gallic charm. Forswearing his godless ways, he pledged to be an exemplary husband, devoting himself to his wife’s every whim. Not only that, but word reached Boughton Hall that he publicly renounced any claim he might have to his wife’s fortune and, crucially, to any property she might inherit on the death of her brother. A weary and troubled Lady Crick relented—even though no document of renunciation was ever signed—and welcomed her wayward daughter and her erstwhile libertine husband back to the bosom of the family and all settled down to live in peace and harmony at their ancestral home. Or so it seemed.
Lavington watched the old woman. Her swinging had slowed down. It had become less rhythmical, as if she had lost all sense of timing and tempo, like a dancer in full flow whose music stops without warning.
“Nobody knows what pain you endured, Lady Crick,” said Lavington slowly.
“Nobody knows,” she echoed, coming to a halt on the swing.
“Perhaps it is time you told them.”
“Told them?” she echoed once more.
“Yes,” urged Lavington. “The coroner who presided over Lord Crick’s inquest never heard from you. You, the most important person in his lordship’s life.”
“Inquest?” she repeated. “No, no, you are right.”
Lavington bent down low and whispered in the old woman’s ear.
“Is it not time they heard your story, your ladyship? How you were slighted and ignored.”
He could see her expression change from one of compliance to anger. “Yes, they made me look a fool,” she said through clenched teeth, suddenly starting to swing again, only this time more aggressively. “It was Farrell. It was all his fault. If it hadn’t been for him... .” She broke off suddenly, as if she had just realized some consequence or some course of action that might have changed the outcome of certain events.
“Yes, my lady?” probed Lavington.
“He led my Lydia astray,” she continued, suddenly returning from the far-off place she had been in her imagination.
“Indeed so,” nodded Lavington. In his hand he carried a large leather satchel, which he now opened to reveal a document. He brought this out, together with a quill and a bottle of ink. “That is why I took the liberty of drafting this affidavit for you, your ladyship,” he said, handing her the large piece of parchment.
Lady Crick looked at Lavington curiously. “What’s this?” she asked.
“ ’Tis the sorry story of your love for your daughter and how she repaid you,” replied Lavington. He placed the bottle of ink on a nearby ornamental wall and dipped the nib of his quill into it. “All that remains to be done is for you to sign it. I shall then see that it is delivered to the coroner and that he is made aware of the whole truth.”
The old lady nodded her gray head and took the quill in her gnarled, liver-spotted hand. “The truth must be told,” she intoned as she scrawled illegibly across the parchment.
Lavington looked at the old woman intently. “I can assure you, your ladyship, I will see to it that it is.”