Beloved Poison (2 page)

‘Yes, you can. Besides, no one else will look after the man. As Mr Quartermain says, he has few friends at St Saviour’s.’ He eyed the architect critically. ‘Few friends in London, too, I should think – eh, Mr Quartermain? And none at all at the Company, or at your firm of architects, for why else would they give you such a job as this?’

‘But where will he stay?’ I asked. ‘We don’t have room for him here.’ I glared at William Quartermain. No one ever saw beyond my birthmark. A port-wine stain that covered my eyes and nose like a highwayman’s mask, it was as though I was born for disguise. I felt safe – watchful, protected, anonymous – behind it. Mr Quartermain stared back at me. His eyes were blue and clear, his expression sharp, and curious.

‘He’ll stay in your room, Jem,’ said my father. ‘You’re usually so observant. Hadn’t you noticed?’

‘But Father!’ I heard my voice rising in shrill alarm. ‘Where am
I
to go? And where am I to . . . to put all my books?’

‘The room is easily big enough for both of you.’ My father closed his eyes and sank back into his chair. ‘As well as your books, and anything else you care to mention. Stop making a fuss. What’s the worst that may come of it?’

I stood with Will Quartermain in the courtyard. I had left my exhausted father and his apprentice alone in the apothecary. The statue of Edward VI that stood in the centre of the courtyard looked down at me accusingly.

‘I have work to do,’ I muttered. I glanced over my shoulder at the open door. Gabriel was changing the water in one of the leech jars. He would never manage it on his own. I turned away, expecting to hear the sound of breaking glass and the shouted curses of my father as Gabriel bungled the job, but there was nothing. ‘You can hardly be looking forward to your task, Mr Quartermain?’ I said.

‘I’m not looking forward to it at all, truth be told,’ he said. ‘But it has to be done. As I’m only recently qualified my sensibilities are considered by my employer to be less important than anyone else’s. And so the job fell to me.’

I nodded. I knew what awaited him. How did I know? Because I had seen it. One midsummer, shortly after my tenth birthday, the rain had poured down for two weeks without stopping. Beyond the west wall of the infirmary, where the gardens of St Saviour’s priory had once been cultivated, long-buried watercourses materialised once again. In the graveyard of St Saviour’s parish church, which lay adjacent to the infirmary, the waters boiling up from the earth met those pouring down from the heavens. The floodwaters passed through the western fringe of the burial ground, scouring away the thin layer of soil that covered the most recent incumbents, packed beneath, one on top of the other, like kippers in a smokehouse. Bodies were churned into view: skulls, limbs, ribs and vertebrae sieved against the gates of the graveyard as the waters rose . . . and receded.

Of course, it was impossible to get them all back into the space they had vacated. The sight, and the smell made it a matter of public health. That and the fact that a gang of ragged boys from the rookeries of Prior’s Rents was seen using a human skull as a football in one of the filthy courts that lay not far from the infirmary. Dr Magorian, our most distinguished surgeon, had been quite insistent: as soon as possible the skeletons were to be taken away and buried somewhere else.

I had gone to have a look. Was one of them my mother? She was buried against the wall of the church in a patch of ground warmed by the morning sun. Perhaps I might look upon her face at last . . . How foolish I had been to expect anything but the most appalling sight – yawning skulls, gaping, muddy eye sockets, bony hands reaching out at me through the gates. I ran back to the apothecary. Alone in my room I wept, wept for the mother I had never known, for my father grown so cold and sad, and for myself, alone and without comfort in the world.

A few months later, when the ground had been cleared, I visited the graveyard again. Apart from a muddy scar across the centre of the greensward, the place looked no different to usual. I found my mother’s headstone untouched by the waters. I had never forgotten the sight of that filthy mass of bones and rags being carted away. And now the same job on a far greater scale had landed in the lap of this raw, rosy-cheeked country boy. ‘Perhaps you should take a look around the infirmary first, Mr Quartermain,’ I said, taking pity on him. ‘The graveyard can wait. It’s not as if the residents are going anywhere, is it?’

William Quartermain peeped at me from beneath the brim of his ridiculous hat. ‘I’d be honoured to have your company. If you could show me St Saviour’s – your knowledge would be invaluable. But could you call me Will instead of Mr Quartermain – so much easier. We’re similar in age and rank. And height.’ He grinned. ‘Like brothers, almost. What d’you say?’

I hesitated, disarmed a little by his familiarity. St Saviour’s was a deeply formal place; respect for tradition and the veneration of reputation were everything. Even my good friend Dr Bain did not allow me to call him anything but ‘Dr Bain’. But it was not just convention that made me pause. I had lived in this place all my life. Did I really wish to share its secrets with a stranger? And yet, the destruction of the hospital was inevitable; it would be taken down, brick by brick, whether I wanted it to happen or not. And I was flattered too, by his gratitude and enthusiasm. All at once I was glad that Will Quartermain had come. Perhaps my final weeks at the hospital would not be as lonely as the great many that had preceded them.

‘Tell me all you can,’ he said, as we walked across the infirmary’s principal courtyard.

‘What do you wish to know?’

‘Everything.’

Where might I begin? St Saviour’s was one of the city’s smaller hospitals, crammed into an acre and a half of land to the north of the river. The southern edge of the place, which looked out onto St Saviour’s Street, was lined with tall flat-fronted town houses, built in King George’s reign. These houses contained the lodgings of the wealthier medical students and of the less vainglorious medical men: Dr Bain and Dr Hawkins, men without the pretention to live in great mansions further to the west, among them. Dr Magorian kept a house here, too, though he lived at the farthest end of the street, so that the stink of the infirmary did not blow in at his windows. On the other three sides, we were surrounded by the buildings of the Empire – the railway station and its accompanying hotel, a tea warehouse, the offices of a shipping clerk – and the houses of the poor. They crowded close to our eastern wall like mushrooms beside a decaying tree, the smells of industry – from the tanning yards and the leather market – mingling with the reek of putrescence and privies breathed from the open windows of our wards.

Was that what Will Quartermain wanted to know?

‘Of course, it’s people who interest me most,’ he said, as if reading my mind. ‘The men who work here, for instance. What are they like?’

I shrugged. ‘Dedicated.’ It was bland, I knew. And predictable. Should I tell him what I really thought? I had been schooled to revere them all, but I had formed my own opinions. I prided myself on never joining in the gossip, but I heard everything. Mrs Speedicut was the worst.
That Dr Graves . . . The way he boils up the bodies of the dead . . . Human broth, that’s what’s in that great copper cauldron of his, human broth. And don’t he just stink of it? As for anatomy, I’ve seen them at Smithfield making a cleaner job of it . . .
I had heard it so many times, though I could not disagree.
And that old stick Dr Catchpole. Married to that young slip of a girl? There’s trouble! I knew it soon as look at her. She was after Dr Bain quicker than a toddy-cat once he’d thrown her a smile
. . . On and on she went, sitting before the stove in the apothecary, her pipe clenched between her blackened teeth, her mug of gin and coffee in her hand.
That Dr Magorian, thinks he’s God, so he does . . . That Dr Bain, you’ll never imagine what he’s come up with now
. . . Although I did not join in, I did not stop her either. Mrs Speedicut’s observations were always perspicacious. Certainly there was little that happened at St Saviour’s that she didn’t know about. I could see her now on the far side of the courtyard, her great thick arms folded across her huge bosom, her matron’s cap sitting drunkenly awry on her greasy hair as she whispered and cackled into the ear of one of the laundrywomen.

Will was talking again. ‘And why is there a statue of Edward VI out here?’

‘He reopened the place after his father, Henry VIII, closed it down.’

‘Is that all? How dull.’

‘Indeed he was.’

‘Unable to live up to expectations.’ Will slid me a glance. ‘Like so many men. And yet his sisters were quite the opposite – always their own masters. Don’t you agree?’

‘I’m sure there’s more to many women than meets the eye, Mr Quartermain.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’ He grinned. ‘And what of the other women here, at St Saviour’s?’

‘Other women?’ I said. ‘Other than whom?’

‘I mean the women who work here. Other than you. That is to say,
in addition
to you.’

I stared at him through my devilish mask, unsmiling.

‘Not that you’re a woman, of course. I can see that
quite
clearly. What I meant to say was
other
than you, and the doctors, there must be women at St Saviour’s—’

‘Nurses,’ I replied. ‘Naturally. And the usual complement of domestics, cooks, cleaners, washerwomen. Women’s work is done by women, Mr Quartermain, here as elsewhere.’

‘Of course,’ he said, his eyes now fixed meekly upon the ground. ‘It is the natural way of things.’

‘You think they’re not capable of more?’ I said. ‘But of course they are! Give them an education so that they might think, listen to their opinions so that they might gain confidence, treat them as you treat a man and they’ll succeed at anything. I have no doubt about it.’

At that moment we heard women’s voices echoing from the passageway that led to the governors’ building. ‘“If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and
you
are that temple!” Ladies, where in the scriptures might we find those words?’

‘Oh! Corinthians!’ came the answer.

‘Quite so,’ said the first.

I groaned. ‘Not them. Not now.’

Will grinned. ‘Give them an education so that they might think?’

I laughed. ‘Exactly my thoughts.’

‘“A joyful heart is good medicine,”’ cried the voice, ‘“but a crushed spirit dries up the bones”. Yes, ladies, yes?’

There was a rustling of skirts, the sound of soft shoes in the passageway, and a trio of lady almoners swept into the yard – Mrs Magorian, her daughter Eliza, and Mrs Catchpole. The lady almoners were unstoppable. Their activities were endorsed by the hospital governors, who had quickly come to appreciate the healing qualities of the Scriptures. The evidence was clear: malingering had come to an end since the almoners had begun their Bible readings about the wards. Mrs Magorian thanked the Lord. I thanked the lady almoners, and their unbearable piercing voices.

‘Oh! Proverbs!’ cried Mrs Catchpole, clapping her gloved hands together. That morning she was wearing a long black coat, open at the front to reveal a gown of emerald silk – far too fine for skirting spittoons and chamber pots on a ward visit. She was hoping to impress someone, that much was certain. Her husband? It seemed unlikely. Her gaze swept the yard. ‘Dear Dr Bain said he would be on the wards this afternoon. Monday afternoon, he said.’

‘I do not see him.’ Mrs Magorian, the tiny bird-like wife of the great surgeon, was their ringleader. She licked a forefinger and leafed through the large, dark-skinned Bible she always carried when she was about the wards. ‘Perhaps he is inside.’

‘But he said he would come. I expected to see him today.’ Mrs Catchpole looked about as she spoke, as though at any moment Dr Bain might burst out from behind a door, like a partridge flushed from a thicket.

‘Eliza!’ cried Mrs Magorian. ‘Carry those flowers with their heads up, my dear. Up and proud. That’s it!’

Eliza glided toward Will and me, a tattered bunch of pus-coloured chrysanthemums carried stiffly in her arms. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Jem,’ she murmured.

‘Miss Magorian, what a pleasure to see you.’ I meant it too, despite my more general view of the lady almoners. ‘This is Mr Will Quartermain,’ I said. ‘The surveyor. Mr Quartermain, this is Miss Magorian, Dr Magorian’s daughter.’

Will gave a bow, and swept off his tall hat. ‘Will Quartermain, junior architect for Shaw and Prentice.’ I could see that he was unable to take his eyes off her. And no wonder! She was so beautiful today. Her mouth as red as berries, her hair curled into shining ringlets. Her skin was white, almost translucent, her eyes dark and huge. I had known her all my life and I knew she was as spirited as a boy and tough, tougher than any of them.

‘I see you have become a lady almoner, Miss Magorian,’ I said.

‘Yes.’ She sighed. ‘It was my mother’s idea. Mrs Catchpole and I are her new recruits. We are to start off with the less gruesome wards.’

‘The Magdalenes?’ The Magdalene ward was Mrs Magorian’s favourite.