The Devil's Breath (2 page)

“Close them, I say!” cried Bullimore and in a trice they pushed the great doors to and let down the bolt with a thud just as the deadly vapors began to lick at the timbers outside.

“May God save us!” cried Mistress Pickwell before clutching her chest. They were the last words she uttered.

On a ridge half a mile or so away, above the hollow, the knife-grinder stopped his mule and watched with a morbid fascination as he saw the valley and the land below the escarpment disappear under the thick blanket of cloud. Licking his finger, he held it aloft to gauge the direction of the wind. A northwesterly. Next, taking his scarf from around his head, he covered his nose and mouth and secured it at the back with a knot. The hollow had slowed down the march of this monster, but he knew it would soon rise up the scarp and continue its relentless progress inland. He kicked his mule hard in the ribs and took one last look back at the scene below. The threshing barn had disappeared completely now, swathed in a mantle of deadly vapor. The dense fog muffled the cries of those trapped inside. He headed south.

E
ven before the first deaths, even before the fog, Dr. Thomas Silkstone detected a certain strangeness in the air. It was a strangeness barely perceptible to most; indeed it was only felt by those who knew the signs, men rooted in the ways of the land or of science. Some might call it a sixth sense or clairvoyance, others perception or intuition. The Delaware Indians of his native Pennsylvania even had a symbol for it—the bat. It helped their shamans see through illusion or ambiguity and go straight to the truth of matters. But, whatever the truth behind the small, and to most, insignificant, happenings that the young anatomist noticed on that bright June morning, he felt an acute disquiet.

The following day he would leave London for Boughton Hall, the Oxfordshire country home of Lady Lydia Farrell, the woman with whom he planned to spend the rest of his life. Theirs was not a straightforward relationship. He would be the first to acknowledge that. Lydia’s husband, Captain Michael Farrell, had been charged with her brother’s murder, but the captain had been found hanged as he awaited trial. A string of deaths followed and conspired to lead Lydia to attempt to take her own life. But it was only recently that she had revealed the real reason for attempting suicide. When she discovered she was pregnant with Michael’s child before their marriage, he had made her submit to John Hunter, an anatomist favored by ladies who found themselves in an undesirable predicament. But the barbarous bid to kill the child in her womb had failed. The son she bore, however, was left with a crippled arm. Then, shortly after the birth, Michael told her that the babe had died in its sleep and no more was said. That was six years ago. In the past few months, however, documents had come to light that gave Lydia hope that her son may still be alive. This was the mission that Thomas had promised to undertake; to track down Lydia’s long-lost child. That was why his excitement at the prospect of seeing his beloved once more was tempered with apprehension.

He had slept fitfully the previous night. The air in his room hung hot and humid. He had pulled down the sash in the vain hope that a cool breeze would waft through the opening, but all that permeated from the street was the stench of rotting rubbish and the cries of restless babes and stray dogs. It was only when he managed to turn his thoughts to Lydia’s loving smile, her gentle voice and her tender touch, that he felt a sense of calm wash over him and he finally drifted off in the early hours.

His sleep was short-lived, however. He rose at dawn to pack. Pulling out a large valise from under his bed, he began to muster a change of clothes and some toiletries. He hoped he would be able to stay at the hall for at least a month, possibly longer. The events of the past few weeks had left him drained, both physically and mentally, and he relished the idea of spending time with his beloved, away from the stinking dissecting rooms of London.

An hour later the sky was lightening over the rooftops to reveal yet another cloudless day. Thomas walked across the courtyard and down the short flight of steps to his laboratory. Inside it was pleasantly cool. The rising morning heat was kept at bay by the absence of large windows. There was only one, high up in the wall, facing the street. Even so, a shaft of strong light was already warming the stone flags. Thomas was grateful there was no cadaver awaiting dissection. For the last three or four days the city heat had been so stifling as to make any teaching, or indeed study, out of the question. Even he, with his cast-iron stomach and trusty clay pipe that was so often called upon to mask unpleasant odors, was inclined to feel nauseous in such circumstances. When the mercury on his wall thermometer rose higher than eighty degrees, even he found the reek of death intolerable.

Yet there were others who suffered a great deal more than he. The Thames, from which so many of the common people drew their water, was turning into an even more deadly stew of detritus and disease. Horse troughs were running dry and remained unreplenished and small beer was becoming scarce. At noon even the costermongers and hawkers around Covent Garden sought the shade of the Piazza’s cloisters and ladies with corsets laced too tight were regularly fainting in the street.

Closer to home, Mistress Finesilver, the housekeeper, complained that her pantry had been invaded by an army of red ants that had taken refuge from the scorching heat outside. Worse still, the milk was lasting no longer than three hours before it soured.

Thomas wondered how Franklin, his white rat, had fared in the stifling night. He walked over to his cage in the corner of the room, unfastened the door, and held out a length of bacon rind he had purloined from his own breakfast plate. Yet instead of the usual greeting from the rat that always jumped into his master’s hand, the creature darted out of his cage like a thing possessed and headed straight toward the closed door.

Strange, thought Thomas to himself, forlornly holding out the bacon as he approached him. But the rat ignored his master and simply scratched at the door, making loud squeaking sounds as he did so.

“What’s wrong?” Thomas asked out loud, frowning. “What ails you?” Bending down he cupped his hands and picked up the rodent by the scruff of its neck, but it squirmed round and promptly bit him, so that Thomas let out a cry and dropped him the short distance onto the flags. The rat scurried back to the door but, undeterred, the young doctor scooped him up once more and quickly placed him back in his cage, securing the door firmly.

“I shall have to tell Mistress Finesilver to keep an extra eye on you while I’m away,” he scolded, pointing accusingly at the rat as it scratched frantically at its cage door. As he did so, Thomas noticed a droplet of blood on his finger. It was the first time Franklin had ever bitten him. Something had, indeed, unsettled the creature. But he could not let the rat’s unpredictable behavior trouble him. His coach left in two hours and he had not begun to pack his medical bag.

He had just put the case on his workbench when, from somewhere in the deep recesses of the laboratory, a solitary bluebottle headed straight for him and began to buzz about his head. He swatted it away and it withdrew, but not upward toward the window as Thomas expected. This was where the flies usually gathered, attracted by the light. No matter how careful he was with his specimens, there would always be flies that laid their eggs in the tiniest of cracks and crevices. And yet . . . It was strange, he mused, that they seemed to be hiding away from the heat, preening themselves in the darkest, coolest corners. There was a constant hum and yet they were not flying. It was as if even they wanted to conserve their energy.

Thomas glanced up at the window once more, his eyes tracing the strong beam of sunlight up to the square of clear blue sky above. The flies were still droning in the background but from somewhere outside he could hear another, much shriller sound that seemed to be growing louder. He stopped what he was doing to listen. Within a few seconds the noise had become a discordance; a squawking, shrieking cacophony that was coming nearer and nearer. Then he saw it; a great, gray wave rolling over the rooftops, completely blocking the light, plunging the room into semidarkness.

Rushing through the door he ran up the steps into the courtyard. Even outside the sky was darkened. The sun, still low over the chimneys and spires, was eclipsed from view by the huge cackling silver cloud that came from the north.

“My God,” mouthed Thomas in awe as he stood transfixed.

Hundreds upon hundreds of geese were flying overhead; wave upon wave of them, relentlessly heading south, their silver wings beating in unison. Thomas had never seen anything like it; not even as a child when, together with his father, he had watched excitedly as the annual bird migrations skirted along the eastern seaboard on the long journey south for winter.

From somewhere in the house he could hear Mistress Finesilver shriek.

“What’s the ballyhoo?” called out Dr. Carruthers. The old anatomist appeared at the back door, his long stick flailing in his hand. “Silkstone? Silkstone? Are you there?”

The last legion of honking geese had just disappeared over the roof of the next-door building and the light had returned. But it made little difference to Dr. Carruthers, who was almost completely blind.

“Yes, sir. I am here,” Thomas reassured him. “Do not trouble yourself. They were geese, sir. As big a flock of Canada geese as I ever laid eyes on.”

“Geese?” repeated the old doctor, tapping his way toward the young doctor across the courtyard. “What the deuce were they playing at?”

Thomas knew exactly what his mentor meant. “Yes, odd that they should be flying south in early June,” he agreed.

“Most peculiar, if you ask me,” replied Carruthers, mopping his brow.

Now that the flock had passed, the sun’s rays became even more unforgiving and Thomas saw that the old doctor was suffering.

“Would you not be more comfortable in the shade, sir?” he suggested.

Together they walked into the cooler laboratory and Dr. Carruthers sat himself down on a chair by the workbench.

“So, I daresay you shall not miss the smells of piss and rotting cabbage and dead cats,” he chortled, tapping his stick on the stone flags.

Thomas smiled as he began to gather basic medicaments, smelling salts and arnica, from the shelves for his medical bag.

“I have to admit that even I find myself retching within half a mile of Smithfield in this heat,” he said, reaching for a bottle of iodine.

The old doctor nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, you deserve a few days in the country, young fellow, especially after all that has passed.”

Thomas did not argue. The ghastly episode that had seen the acclaimed Irish giant, Charles Byrne, so humiliated at the hands of the infamous John Hunter had left him feeling deeply wounded. Thomas regarded the giant not only as his patient but also his friend, and his fate had left lasting scars, yet he could not share his pain with Lydia. It was simply another secret he would have to keep from his beloved for fear of plunging her into yet a further bout of melancholia.

Over the past three years she had endured so much; the deaths of her brother Edward, husband Michael, cousin Francis, and mother—plus a forced marriage, but, most terrible of all, the reawakening of the deep-rooted and painful memories of losing a child. Yet in among this gloom, there was a glimmer of hope. There was just the very slightest chance that Lydia’s lost son was still alive. Thomas had promised that if that were so he would do all in his power to find him and reunite him with his mother. In the coming weeks this would be his quest, although it, too, would have to remain a secret, between only them.

Dr. Carruthers cocked his head to one side, his mouth curling in a smile. “I am sure your heart will be gladdened when you see Lady Lydia.”

Thomas was thankful the old doctor could not see the color rise in his cheeks. Lydia was the first woman in all his twenty-eight years who had ever held his heart so entirely in her hands. “Indeed, it will.”

“Excellent, then I wish you a safe journey and a relaxing sojourn at Boughton Hall, young fellow.” He mopped the sweat from his brow once more. “Let us hope the weather becomes more temperate. I am not sure I can stand this heat much longer.”

Thomas looked up from his bag. His mentor’s words reminded him that he had not checked the barometer that day. He walked over to the long glass case on the wall. As he expected the mercury was high, indicating a period of settled weather, but when he tapped its face, he did not anticipate the result.

“Strange,” he said.

“What does your barometer say?” queried Carruthers.

“The mercury has risen again,” replied Thomas.

“So no end to this insufferable heat?” bemoaned the old doctor.

“It seems not,” replied Thomas. Such unusually high air pressure, coupled with the seemingly minor, yet unnatural happenings he had witnessed that morning, did not signify anything in themselves. And yet he felt a worm of anxiety burrowing into his subconscious. It was as if nature and science were colluding together to try to tell him something urgent and important. He only wished he knew what.

L
ady Lydia Farrell sat at her late husband’s desk in what used to be his study and sighed heavily. For the past two days she had been poring over the home-farm accounts and her head was swimming with columns of numbers relating to the yields and income of the last three years. Her eyes were sore and her back ached. What was more, she felt totally out of place surrounded by notebooks and ledgers and the paraphernalia of estate management. To make matters worse, it was unseasonably hot and even though the study was relatively cool, she was forced, now and again, to reach for her fan and flutter it vigorously in front of her face.

Slowly she rose and turned to look out of the window. The lawns of Boughton Hall, now slightly browned by the sun, stretched out before her, dipping down to the green woodland beyond. June had been her favorite month; the leaves on the trees were fully unfurled, yet still verdant, and the roses were beginning to bloom. There was an exuberance in nature that used to make her happy, but now she simply felt burdened by responsibility.

She recalled her late father, Lord Crick, who had died three years earlier, telling her that he and his heirs were only the stewards of Boughton. God alone could claim it as His. It was the family’s task to tend it as best they could, to keep it prosperous and fertile for future generations. Since her brother’s death and then her husband’s, that task had fallen solely upon her shoulders and she felt overwhelmed by it. That was why, on Thomas’s suggestion, she had engaged a steward to take charge of affairs. Gabriel Lawson had worked for two years at the Crick estate in Ireland, where he had performed his duties competently, but his few months at Boughton had not produced the sought-after improvements that Lydia had planned. Income was down and the estate seemed to be floundering.

A knock at the door made her turn away from the view. “Come in,” she called.

Gabriel Lawson stood on the threshold, straightening his topcoat. It was clear that he had been outside in the fields when he had received Lydia’s summons. His waistcoat buttons were unfastened and there were patches of corn dust on his sleeves. He had the air of a gentleman and yet there was something in his manner that put Lydia on edge.

“Mr. Lawson, please sit down,” she told him, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the desk. She studied him as he approached. He was tall and athletic and the sun had given his skin a healthy glow. She had heard from Eliza, her maid, that all the girls below stairs were in love with him and it was not hard to see why.

“How may I help you, your ladyship?” he asked.

She returned to her seat and looked him in the eye. “I have been going through these accounts that you left me,” she began. She did not mention the uneven rows or the blotches of ink she had encountered during her inspection of the ledgers. “It seems that we are not doing as well as we should be, Mr. Lawson.”

The steward seemed slightly taken aback by Lydia’s tone of authority. He had assumed that when she asked to see the accounts it would be for a perfunctory glance. What did women know of numbers and yields, after all? It was clear he had not anticipated that she would actually try to make sense of the figures before her. The look on his tanned face betrayed his surprise and riled Lydia, even though she had been expecting it.

“The market for both grain and livestock is not good. But if your ladyship has any suggestions . . .” he began, his face set in a beguiling smile.

Lydia broke him off. “Oh, I have plenty, Mr. Lawson,” she snapped. “My first is that we discover why the lambs are fetching such low prices at market.”

He paused for a second, then acknowledged her comment with a nod. “There is the question of breed, your ladyship. There’s not much meat . . .”

“Then change the breed, Mr. Lawson. Or improve it. Our income is falling and something must be done.”

Lawson dithered. He was not used to such castigation and feigned hurt. “I am at a loss, your ladyship,” came the weak reply.

Lydia sat back in her chair, knowing she had the upper hand. “We must find the reason, Mr. Lawson, and then we must find the answer.”

The steward accepted her small victory. “Yes, your ladyship.” He nodded his tousled head sympathetically.

“And I believe the answer could lie in science,” she said.

Lawson’s eyes widened. “Science?” he repeated.

“Yes. Dr. Thomas Silkstone, an eminent man of science, arrives from London later today. I am sure that he will find ways of improving the sheep breed and even our crop yields with his new methods.”

The steward, still unable to hide his surprise, simply nodded. “Then I look forward to meeting this Dr. Silkstone,” he said in a voice tinged with insolence.

Lydia picked up her fan and began to waft it in front of her. “That will be all, Mr. Lawson,” she said. The steward rose and Lydia noted his bow was just a little more exaggerated than good manners required. The estate manager, it seemed to her, needed a little astute management himself.

 

Amos Kidd’s cottage lay not half a mile away from Boughton Hall, on a side track that led from the main drive. It was small and squat and its thatched roof was green with moss, but it had served the head gardener and his wife well these past ten years.

Kidd, a brawny countryman with gray streaks in his hair, had been up at dawn, as usual, tending to the roses. He liked to water them early each morning when they were coming into bloom and was particularly anxious that they should not suffer in the great heat. The rose garden was his pride and joy. Lady Lydia’s father, the late Sir Richard, had designed it, but he had planted it, choosing the varieties with care to produce color, scent, and diversity. There were albas with their milk-white flowers and dusky pink French roses with a mild scent. There were Celsianas in a light pink that faded to blush, and sprays of York and Lancaster, flecked with white and pale cherry.

It was around noon when the gardener arrived home, carrying a fresh-cut bunch of blooms that he hid behind his back. It took a moment or two for his eyes to adjust from the glare of the sun to the cool shade of the cottage. In the half light he could make out his wife sitting in the bentwood chair by the empty hearth embroidering a petticoat. It was a scene that gladdened him. There was a quiet stillness in the room and she was at the heart of it. Her profile was silhouetted against the white wall; her long neck, her pert nose, and her hair swept back from her face, tumbling in curls to the top of her shoulders. She lifted her pretty young face and he approached her eagerly for a kiss. Obligingly she puckered her thick, soft lips and he bent down and felt the fullness of them with his mouth. But she pushed him away playfully, holding her nose.

“You stink, Amos Kidd,” she giggled.

He sniffed an armpit indignantly, then, remembering the roses, produced them from behind his back. “These’ll set things right,” he said, holding them in front of her. She closed her eyes to breathe in the scent.

“They are sweet.”

“Her ladyship said I could have them. I’ll fetch a jug.”

A moment later he returned with the roses in water. He set them in the center of the table and stood back to admire them.

“They don’t like this weather and that’s for sure,” he mused. “ ’Tis hot as hell out there.” He slipped off his leather jerkin, dropping it on a nearby chair.

“Then you’ll be wanting your ale,” she said cheerfully, still not bothering to rise. “There’s some over there.” She gestured to the table, which was laid with a plate, a tankard, and a pitcher. A loaf of bread and a large lump of cheese were on a trencher.

Kidd sat down and poured himself some beer. His throat was dry and he gulped it back so quickly that the liquid spilled down the sides of his mouth. He wiped it away with his sleeve and belched softly. His eyes settled upon his wife once more. She was still sewing and he watched the curve of her breasts, ripe as apricots, as they rose and fell with each pull of the thread. In and out, up and down. A single bead of sweat suddenly appeared like a drop of morning dew on her neck and slipped its way slowly down toward her cleavage.

The gardener turned back to the table and picked up the knife. It sliced through the cheese as if it were new-churned butter. He squinted at the blade curiously, then ran his grimy thumb and forefinger down the shaft.

“You sharpened this today, Susannah?”

His wife suddenly shot him a nervous look and after a moment’s hesitation replied lightly: “Yes. A traveler called ’round. My scissors were blunt and I needs finish this for Lady Thorndike tomorrow, so he sharpened a few things while he were here.”

Kidd was measured. “But you know ’tis not a trouble for me, my love,” he said, thinking of the daily grinding of scythes and shears for the gardens. He tore off a hunk of bread, but before he could put it in his mouth, his elbow caught the handle of the knife, sending it clattering to the floor. The noise shattered the calm and his wife jumped a little in her chair. Kidd bent down to pick up the blade, but as he did so he noticed something strange on the flagstones. A gray powder, like coarsely-milled seeds, dusted the floor in among the rushes. He wiped a little up with his finger, the grains sticking to his sweat, and inspected it. Lifting the grit up to his nose, he sniffed and frowned.

“What you been using saltpeter for?” he asked, then added jokily: “ ’Tis too hot to kill the pig. ’Twill roast itself in this heat.”

“I ain’t used no saltpeter. The knife-grinder must have brought it in on his boots,” she replied, seemingly indifferent to her husband’s query. But Amos Kidd did not like to be treated so and his expression hardened at her words. His mouth set in a grimace and his brows knitted in a frown. She looked up and saw the all-too-familiar signs.

“I want no strange men in my house! You hear?” he thundered. He darted forward and stood over her, glowering, but she held his gaze. Then, putting down her sewing, she rose.

“Now, Amos,” she whispered, cupping his face in her palms. “No need to be so angry with me.”

Her husband cocked his head like a puzzled child. She traced a bead of sweat down his forehead with her finger and said softly, “After all, you always say ’tis only when the petals are fully open that a bee can collect the nectar.”

At this, his welling anger seemed to recede. A smile returned to his lips and he took her outstretched hand and followed her into the bedroom.

“Besides,” she began, as she started to undo the laces on her husband’s shirt, “the grinder had a story to tell.”

Kidd stilled her hand. “What kind of story?”

Her eyes opened wide with excitement. “One that you need to hear, my darling,” she cooed, licking his fingers seductively. “But not until the bee has visited his flower.” And with that she lowered her head and began kissing his naked chest.

 

The town of Hungerford was more than used to its fair share of strangers. Lying on the main road from Bath to London, it played host to peers and paupers alike. Good King William spent the night there in the Black Bear after he landed in Weymouth to take the English Crown in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Cattle drovers would gather regularly on the common and the market attracted traders from miles around. On a clear day the gibbet at Combe could be seen atop the beacon to the south of the town. Crows circling around a swinging cage always served as a reminder to any who abused the town’s hospitality. Even so, the stranger who arrived in Charnham Street on that June afternoon was not the customary drover, trader, or fair pedlar.

Dressed in the dark garb of a cleric or a notary, and walking with the stoop of a man bent over a desk all day, this stranger did not mingle with the crowd of country folk. The cooper spotted him as he alighted from the coach and began to move up Charnham Street, and the milliner remarked on him as he passed by her shop. The baker pointed him out to a customer he was serving as being “not from around these parts,” and the haberdasher followed his progress as he went out of sight.

The man stopped outside a modest cottage that overlooked the river. A full-bosomed woman with porcine features and a baby on her hip answered the stranger’s knock and words were exchanged on the doorstep. To anyone watching the encounter, and there were one or two who did, it would seem that the man’s inquiries were given short shrift. Shaking her head, it was obvious to observers that the woman could not, or would not, help with his inquiry. Yet he, doffing his tricorn, would not be put off and appeared to take out his purse and press her palm with a coin. At this her demeanor was seen to alter and she became more civil. A smile, a nod and a flick of her chubby wrist told the stranger that he would best be taking his inquiry off in the direction of Charnham Street. With a cheery nod she bade her caller “good day” in a courteous manner and he headed off toward where she had pointed.

In less than five minutes he had reached his new destination: a tall, thin house that looked as though it could have been a hostelry. It was, in fact, the Hungerford Workhouse. Lifting the tarnished knocker, he struck three times. After a moment or two, the door creaked open and a nervous-looking woman in a cap and shawl about her slight shoulders stood at the threshold.

“May I help you?” she inquired in a voice so soft yet high in pitch that the stranger had to strain his ear to hear it. He doffed his tricorn once more.

“Good day to you, madam.” His tone was officious, but polite. “This is the workhouse, I believe.”

An anxious look scudded across the woman’s face. “That it is, sir,” she squeaked apologetically, as if feeling guilty for all the shameful inadequacies that occurred therein.

“Good.” The caller nodded. “Then I would speak with the master,” he told her firmly.

“You’d best come in, sir,” she said, opening the door fully, then, to the surprise of the caller, she threw back her head and shouted at the top of her voice: “Master! Master!” as if the most calamitous fate had befallen the house.