Death at St. James's Palace (4 page)

Several layers of stout canvas had been stiffened with paste and stitched together, these supported by lengths of whalebone inserted into hollow casings set at regular inter- vals round the stays. To add to the support, a wooden busk had been placed in a centre front pocket. Normally stays were laced at the back and front, but in the case of the very stout or the pregnant, side lacing was used. Ruthlessly, Miss Chudleigh produced a pair of scissors and cut through the strings on either side. Lady Mary’s figure bloomed outwards and she heaved a deep, deep sigh. John once more applied his smelling salts and at long last his patient’s eyes opened. She stared about her.

“Where am I? What has happened? Oh, Miss Chudleigh, my undergarments are in disarray.”

“And so were you, Madam,” her hostess stated firmly. “You’d laced too tightly and had swooned.”

Mary’s eyes fixed on John. “What is this young man doing in the room?”

“There’s no need to be affronted, my Lady. I am an apothecary and was attending you in my professional capacity. Now, may I suggest that you rest for a half hour before returning home. And I would also recommend that, in future, you loosen your stays permanently.”

The silly face clouded with annoyance. “I don’t care for your effrontery, young man.”

“Whether you do or whether you don’t, he’s right. Lady Mary,” put in Miss Chudleigh. She rose from the bed. “Now, Mr. Rawlings, do come downstairs and meet some more of my visitors.”

John bowed. “I’m afraid that I must take my leave. My wife sustained rather a bad fall. I would like a physician to take a look at her.”

The wide-open eyes stared into his and once again the Apothecary saw that wicked little flicker in their depths. “Then I insist that you come to dine the next time you visit your father. To be honest I have taken a liking to both you and him...” John noticed that she did not mention Emilia. “... and would very much like to pursue our acquaintance. I will not take no for an answer.” And she linked her arm through his in the most familiar manner as they walked down the stairs. Horribly aware that Emilia was watching from her vantage point below, John tried to look nonchalant.

“How kind of you, Madam. I will consult with Sir Gabriel.”

“Yes, do so. I am interested in people and am always looking to widen the circle of my acquaintance.”

“Thank you again. Now I really must seek out Mr. Goward and report on Lady Mary’s progress. But first I shall fetch my wife.”

Emilia’s eyes were very slightly narrowed. “I see that you and Miss Chudleigh have become well acquainted.”

“She assisted me in bringing Lady Mary round, that is all.”

“How nice of her.”

“Sarcasm does not become you. Sweetheart, I am not interested in Miss Chudleigh. She is a shade too mature for my taste.”

“I believe she has scarce turned forty, not a great age by anyone’s reckoning.”

“Enough,” said John firmly. “Let me just find Mr. Goward

//

“His name is George, so he told me.”

“Well then, let me find George and after that we can go. I’m taking you straight to a physician and I shall tell him that my wife is most likely with child and must be cherished as no mother has ever been before.”

Emilia laughed. “A little excessive surely.” Her face changed. “But why do you say that? You don’t think I’m going to have a difficult time, do you?”

“Certainly not. You are the sort who will blossom like a rose. Now, why did Miss Chudleigh put you out of counte- nace?”

“She has such a fierce reputation with men. They say she was the old King’s mistress and that he gave her a watch worth thirty-five guineas which he paid for himself, not from the privy purse.”

“Quite true that,” said a voice at their elbow, and they looked up from their conversation to see that George Goward had joined them.

He really was a strange looking individual, very ginger beneath his flowing white wig. Indeed, his skin was so freckled that he appeared almost to be mottled orange, John thought, and what facial hair there was, where the razor had presented a blunted edge, was sandy. Further he had a tfery odd profile, there being scant division between his nose and brow, which except for a bump over the eyebrows continued in one long line. However the chin receded beneath his full, loose lips so that the entire countenance seemed to consist of one enormous beak. In fact, with the front of his wig slightly curled outwards in fashionable style, George Goward looked incredibly like a vulture.

“How’s the lady wife?” he asked now.

“Resting, Sir. She has regained consciousness.”

“What caused her to faint like that?”

John hesitated, then said, “I believe she was too tightly laced.”

George looked knowing. “She does that to hide her corpulence, you know.”

Not succesfully, John thought, but did not say so.

“She was the Countess of Lomond, when I first met her,” Goward continued, taking champagne from a passing footman and digging in for a story. “However, she had a far older title than that in her own right. She was born Lady Mary Milland, daughter of the Earl of Grimsby. She married Lomond when she was quite young, you know, and gave birth to a son a year later. Her husband was a drunken wastrel...” George drained his glass and took another, and fell off his horse while hunting. Broke his neck, of course. They tried to pretend it was an accident but the man was a piss-maker, nothing more nor less. Now, how could one regard a woman left alone like that and not feel pity? I met her at a ridotto and married her in a three month.”

John’s earlier uncharitable thoughts about a fortune returned.

Emilia asked the unaskable. “Was Lady Mary fat then?” Then realised what she had done and went very pink indeed.

“Huge,” said George comfortably. “But she slimmed down under my tutelage quite considerably. I think fat runs in the family, though. Old Grimsby was vast and riddled with gout. While the boy, little Frederick, grew more and more obese, like a barrel of lard. Well, there you have it, these hereditary tendencies cannot be denied. So, Rawlings ...” He patted his pocket. “... how much do I owe you for your services.”

“Nothing, Sir. I acted as a guest of Miss Chudleigh’s.” John looked round. “Now, if you will forgive me...”

But he was interrupted. A familiar voice said, “I believe I hear Mr. Goward in conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings,” and there stood the Blind Beak, his arm linked through his wife Elizabeth’s.

“You do indeed, Sir,” answered George, bowing as did John, while Emilia curtseyed and smiled, clearly glad to be rescued by another female.

From his considerable height, John Fielding held out his hand. “Then let me congratulate you, Sir.”

George took it and pumped warmly. “As I you, Sir.”

The Apothecary’s mobile eyebrows rose and Mrs. Fielding said by way of explanation, “Mr. Goward is to receive a knighthood on the same day as John.”

George’s slack lips parted in a smile. “Charitable work, you know. I have done much to support the Foundling Hospital.”

Emilia said, with a secret smile at John, “I don’t know how women can abandon their babies so. Were I to have a child I would love and cherish it.”

At that moment Miss Chudleigh floated past with Joe Jago in attendance, again to John’s intense amazement.

“Not all women are of like mind with you,” said George, waving his fingers at his hostess. “Why, there’s many who put newborn infants out to cruel guardians and there let them die.”

“I know of it,” Emilia answered, “and it sickens me.”

There was a sudden burst of laugh ter and Mary Ann, complete with four men including Samuel, erupted into the group. She turned to John, glancing a smile at Emilia, but no more.

“Is it not wonderful news about my uncle, Mr. Rawlings? But not before time I am sure you will agree.”

“I certainly do. It is an honour he should have received years ago,” John answered, giving her a small bow, knowing that anything more might be misconstrued by the minx.

The vulture George spread his wings. “Will you not introduce me,” he said in a glutinous voice.

The Blind Beak, whose hearing had sharpened to a fine degree, said, “My niece, Mary Ann, now my adopted daughter. She has been in my care since she was six and is growing more of a handful with each passing year. Mary Ann, this is Mr. George Goward, soon to be Sir George.”

She dropped a flirtatious curtsey and John realised to his horror that the little beast would trifle with any male, however old and unattractive. She was, in short, a born coquette and simply couldn’t help herself. A surreptitious glance at Emilia told him that she had realised it too and was now quite definitely growing tired of the whole gathering.

“Of course, I am young to receive such an honour,” George continued, lying through his teeth, “being but eight and thirty.”

“John,” said Elizabeth Fielding, rather pointedly, “has just celebrated his fortieth birthday, this very month in fact.”

As always, the Apothecary was slightly shocked, even though he knew that the Magistrate was much younger than he looked. Probably because of his height and powerful build, to say nothing of the strong features of his face, he thought of the Blind Beak as being permanently fifty years old, or thereabouts.

“And you have already achieved, Sir, more than most do in a lifetime,” John said, then bowed. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will forgive me, my wife and I will bid you farewell. We have another appointment.”

Emilia gave him a rather dark look, “Yes, we do,” she said, but as they left the group, muttered, “Really, John, I am quite capable of speaking for myself. I may be with child but I have not lost my tongue.”

The Apothecary rolled his eyes and sighed silently. He had the most uncomfortable feeling that this was going to turn into one of those days when he could do little right.

Despite his fears, the evening brought a wonderful calm. Emilia, contented with the fact that Dr. Grant of Kensington also believed her to be pregnant and had confirmed that her fall had brought about no damage, had retired early to bed. So, as they had done so often in the past, the Apothecary and his father sat on either side of the fire, listening to the melodious chimes of Sir Gabriel’s longcase clock, which had been brought by cart from Nassau Street, along with his most precious possessions, the best beloved of which was a portrait of Phyllida Kent, John’s mother, who had once begged on the streets of London with her bastard child before Sir Gabriel had taken her into his home and married her. It hung over the fireplace of the room in which they sat and John looked at it now.

“I wonder if the baby will take after her.”

“It would be a gift from God if it did. She was, after all, one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.”

“Throw Emilia’s good looks in, to say nothing of your distinguished features, and the child should be the handsomest creature on earth,” John added without thinking.

Sir Gabriel laughed softly. “My appearance will have nothing to do with it, my dear. You forget that I am not really your father.”

The Apothecary’s smile vanished and a look of great sincerity came in its place. “Yes, I forget because you mean far more to me than he, whoever he was, could ever have done.

But because the baby will be Phyllida’s grandchild it will be part of you, please remember that.”

“I already consider it my flesh and blood. Yet how strange
_m
it is to think that a little person is growing, quite unknown to any of us, who is destined to play a major role in all our lives. Will it be a boy or girl, I wonder?”

John shook his head. “A matter for delightful conjecture until the moment comes.”

The clock, which played a rousing military tune on the hours and quarters, struck eight and harmoniously burst forth. The Apothecary, listening to it with the pleasure it always gave him, became vaguely aware of another sound beneath its charming chimes. Somewhere, out in the quiet street, somebody was shouting.

“What the devil’s that commotion?” said Sir Gabriel, cupping his ear.

“A fight? A theft? I’ve no idea. I’d best go and look.” John reluctantly heaved himself from his chair.

“Be careful.”

“I’ll take a cudgel,” and picking up a stout stick from a niche near the front door, the Apothecary stepped outside.

At first he could see nothing, then he became aware of a figure struggling to its feet, waving an umbrella aloft to aid its ascent and closely resembling a beetle in distress.

John hurried forward, slipping an arm beneath the struggling form. “My dear Sir, what happened? Did you slip?”

“Slip?” gasped the other. “Slip be damned. I was pushed over.”

“Have you been robbed?”

“No, I don’t think they would go that far, the little beasts.”

“Who? What little beasts?”

“The stinking young fellows who attend the Brompton Park Boarding School. It was three of them. Knocking older citizens down for sport, that’s their idea of amusement.”

“But surely they should be shut up in school by this hour.”

“They should but they’re not. They creep out through windows, then over the garden wall in a trice.”