Resurrectionists (27 page)

“You imagined it, Virgil,” Edward said. “Ghosts do not exist.”

“Perhaps you are unwell,” I said soothingly, brushing his hair off his brow.

“I hate myself for saying it,” Edward began carefully, “but perhaps you have had too much laudanum. It can addle a man’s senses.”

Virgil sank back into the chair. “I pray you are both right, for I would rather be unwell or addled than believe that such a thing as that phantom exists. I have disturbed too many graves to believe myself undeserving of some reprisal.”

“I will come with you to see Flood tomorrow. Explain you were taken ill,” Edward offered. “He will not be angry. He has enough experiments to keep him busy.”

“Thank you, old friend,” Virgil said. “I feel much calmer already. If only you would bring me my laudanum I’m sure that –”

“No. Not tonight.” I know not from whence I found the voice to say this. “Please, Virgil. You may be ill.”

He looked at me with dark, anxious eyes.

Reluctantly he said, “All right, Gette. If you insist.”

“I think it’s for the best,” Edward said. “Here, let us entertain you instead. Perhaps we can take your mind off your shock. I have just this evening written a poem. Would you like to hear it?”

I wanted to cry out, NO! The last thing Virgil needed to hear was the fruit of someone else’s creative labour. But he could not help himself, he had to know if Edward had managed anything worthwhile, so he said, “Yes, of course.”

Edward picked up his paper, sorted the bad lines from the good with a mark of his pen, then began to read a lovely ballad, perhaps fifty or sixty lines long. I leaned close to Virgil the whole time, feeling his body tense tighter and tighter. As I had suspected, it was more than he could bear. After Edward had finished, Virgil rose to his feet wordlessly and headed towards the bedroom.

“What do you think, Virgil?” Edward asked – still, after all, as vulnerable to opinion as Virgil.

“I am unwell. I must to bed,” Virgil muttered. We watched him go, close the door behind him.

“It was very good,” I said softly to Edward. “I think I should go to him.”

“Of course,” Edward replied, shuffling pages with embarrassed hands.

“Really. It was a lovely poem,” I said again.

“Thank you.”

I found Virgil lying, rigid, in bed. I climbed in with him and attempted to embrace him. He did not move.

“Virgil, you aren’t to fret so. You will write again, of course you will.”

He would not answer me. Though he pretended to be asleep, I suspected his eyes were open, staring up at the dark ceiling, poisonous jealousy in his heart. I slept eventually, but for some reason awoke in the early hours of the morning. Perhaps I heard movement in the house, perhaps I simply became aware that I was alone in my bed. I rolled over and saw Virgil was not with me. Under the door I could see the faint glow that signalled somebody burned a candle in the kitchen. I arose, pulled a shawl around me, and tiptoed out into the hallway.

My husband was slumped over the kitchen table, paper, ink, pens strewn all around him. He was not moving, nor did he look like he was indulging in the comfort of sleep. I rushed to him, pulled him upright.

“Virgil, are you all right?”

He lifted his head, focused mad, mad eyes on me.

“I cannot. I cannot.”

“You cannot what?”

“I cannot write another word. I have tried and it has nearly killed me.” He extended a clumsy arm, knocking the pages off the table. “Burn them, Gette, burn them all. Promise me. It is all terrible, the worst lines ever committed to the page. Burn them.”

I helped him to his feet. His body was too hot, his skin clammy. “Virgil, you are ill. Come to bed immediately.”

“Promise me you’ll burn them,” he said, clutching my arm with long, bony fingers.

“Of course. Now, to bed.”

I returned him to his bed, feeling his skin over and over, trying to convince myself it was not so hot and sickly. I tried to sit with him, to soothe him, but he would not relax until I had gone to the other room and cast his papers upon the fire. I went to the kitchen, gathered up the papers and scanned them anxiously. Senseless writing about swamps and crocodiles covered the pages. I took them to feed to the embers. They curled and blackened quickly.

“It is gone,” I said, closing the bedroom door behind me.

“Thank you. Now I can sleep.”

I sat with him as he drifted off, trying not to let my concern for his infirm state transform into panic. He had been ill before, I supposed, and he would be ill again. People grew ill, then recovered.

When he finally slept, I went to the box where I hid my Diary and fetched it out. I came to sit here in the kitchen to write about what has happened, for writing it down often makes it clearer, less frightening. For example, now I am not so worried about what Virgil saw in the graveyard. Of course it was not an evil spirit. Virgil was feverish, delirious, and had imagined it.

No, I need only fear the spectre of illness, not the spirits of the dead.

Wednesday, 26th March 1794

My husband is still ill, and I begin to despair of seeing him well again. Edward has just this morning left, following a terrible argument with Virgil. It breaks my heart because Edward has been so good to me, to us, in this awful past week.

When the sun came up on the morning I last wrote, I was awoken by a strange heat in my bed. It took me but a few moments to realise the heat was coming from Virgil, whose condition had worsened in the few hours he had been sleeping. His skin was now burning to the touch, a sheen of perspiration gleamed on his forehead and cheeks, and he shuddered and shook beneath the covers. I arose and dressed, and immediately went to wake Edward.

Within minutes, Edward was standing solicitously over Virgil, listening to his breathing, feeling his burning skin, asking him if joints ached, if his chest felt tight. Virgil did his best to answer Edward’s questions, but was slipping in and out of delirium as he spoke.

“Edward, beware. Stand not so close,” he said in a raspy voice.

“I’m fine, Virgil. Please, can you tell me if your fingers and knees feel sore?”

“Stand not so close. The crocodile is under the bed.”

“There is no crocodile under the bed,” I said soothingly. “Crocodiles do not live in Solgreve.”

“I ache all over,” Virgil said. “I will probably die from this ague.”

“You won’t die,” Edward said. “You must rest. You must stay warm.”

“My blood boils,” Virgil replied. “I am too warm already. I will die and be buried, then Flood will dig me up and feed me to the crocodiles.”

“Do you have a pain in your side? A sharp pain?”

“No, indeed I do not. Give me quinine, Edward, for I know I have malaria. The swamps, the heat, have brought it on.”

I looked across the bed at Edward, who raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “If you rest, Virgil, you will be well again in a matter of days. Do not worry yourself so. You do not have malaria, there are no swamps or crocodiles nearby. I will bring you a cordial as soon as I can, but until then, try to sleep. We will be at hand if you need us.”

Edward beckoned me from the room and said in a hushed voice, “He is delirious. We will keep close watch on the fever. I do not think it serious, but if he insists upon worrying about these phantom reptiles, he may make himself more ill.”

“I shall sit with him and try to soothe him.”

“And I’ll go to the village for a cordial. If he is no better by tomorrow morning, we will have to call a surgeon.”

I nodded, wondering how on earth we would

afford a surgeon.

But the next day, when Virgil’s illness appeared more acute, it was apparent to me that we had no choice. A physician was well beyond our means, and I doubted if one even resided in Solgreve. But Edward knew a Mr Edghill, a surgeon from the village, who agreed to come that afternoon. Although I was relieved that calling for Flood had not been suggested, I still had to ask Edward why not. After all, he knew Virgil, and may perhaps deduct the fee from his wages.

“Flood does not come above ground, as far as I know,” Edward replied.

“Never?”

“I don’t believe so. Besides, he is a scientist, not a physician.”

And so Mr Edghill arrived at around two. He was a long, thin man with a large moustache and a booming voice. We led him to Virgil’s bedside where he reached for my husband’s wrist and felt for his pulse. Virgil had barely been aware of his surroundings all day, but for some reason the presence of the surgeon unsettled him.

“Who is this shadow?” he said, his voice tight with fear.

“Hush, Virgil, it is merely Mr Edghill, a surgeon come to help you be well again.”

Mr Edghill dropped Virgil’s hand and reached for his case. “His fever is too high. I will have to let some blood, at least twelve ounces.”

Virgil struggled to sit up, but couldn’t manage. I pressed his hand in my own and told him to be calm.

“He shall bleed me to death,” Virgil said, his voice quavering.

“No, no, indeed I shall not,” Mr Edghill boomed.

“I shall not even hurt you. Here, I have brought my little friends to meet you.” He withdrew from his case a small glass jar with four black leeches in it. Virgil gasped and recoiled. “They are taken from the very swamp from whence my illness came. Put them away. Put them away.”

“No, I assure you they are friendly little Yorkshire leeches, from a clear pond near my house. Mrs Marley, could you help me with his clothes.”

I reached over and unbuttoned Virgil’s shirt. It stank with sweat and illness. Edward held one of Virgil’s arms and I held the other as the doctor unscrewed the lid, and turned the jar over on Virgil’s bare chest.

“Once they have tasted my blood, all the other creatures in the mud shall want some,” Virgil cried. He was weakened by illness, and could only struggle feebly.

“Hush, Virgil. You are delirious.” I watched with revulsion as the muscular little creatures moved across his white skin, expanding and contracting as they wriggled, until finally deciding to take purchase with their greedy suckers. Although leeches are supposed to be painless, Virgil howled.

“Stop them, stop them, they shall extract my very soul!”

“Quiet, old friend,” Edward said.

Virgil lay back and took refuge in a brief, welcome moment of unconsciousness.

“His brain is very addled,” Mr Edghill noted.

“Will he be better after this?” I asked.

“Oh yes, much better. Mr Snowe, keep giving him regular doses of cordial. He’ll be well again in only a week or so.”

A week! Already it had been three days, and Virgil had not been to work. I did not know how we would eat if he had to stay away from work for another week. Finally the leeches were finished their work. Mr Edghill picked them from Virgil’s chest with a pair of tweezers and mopped up four tiny trickles of blood. I closed up his shirt and covered him in blankets. It seemed he had fallen asleep. He was paler than ever, but seemed at peace.

“Thank you, Mr Edghill,” Edward was saying. “I shall accompany you to the door.”

“Goodbye, Mrs Marley,” the surgeon said.

I nodded my farewell and turned back to Virgil. Only after a few moments did I realise that I had not paid the surgeon. I dashed from the room to catch him before he left, and was met at the door by Edward.

“Edward, I haven’t paid Mr Edghill!” I exclaimed, moving to push the door open.

Edward stopped my hand. “It is no matter. I have paid him.”

I became aware of two awkward facts. First, that we now owed Edward money. Second, that Edward had not taken his fingers from around my wrist, and now stood uncomfortably close.

“Edward,” I said, deciding that dealing with the first problem was infinitely easier than dealing with the second. “I cannot be in debt to you. I have a little money put aside for –”

“I won’t hear of it. Virgil is my oldest friend. I love him like a brother, and I will not see you starve. I may not earn much from my trade, but I earn enough to be able to help a friend in need.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Please, Gette, let me help.”

I carefully extracted my wrist from his fingers, and would not meet his eyes. “I thank you,” I said. “And hope one day to be able to repay your kindness.”

How am I to admit this? Virgil had been so

detached towards me for such a long time that Edward’s intense interest, inappropriate though it may seem, filled me with guilty delight. And I did not move away from him. It seemed we stood like that for a century, the door on one side, my husband’s sickbed on the other. Finally, I lifted my head and looked into his face. He had been waiting.

“Gette, you deserve a different life from this.”

“I am happy with my life. I love my husband and we are good company for each other.”

“You have a child on the way.”

“And Virgil will be well by then. He looks forward to the birth.”

Edward shook his head, exasperated. “His job is killing him, Gette. Virgil is not like the rest of us, he cannot endure such ghastliness. He will not be able to stay in work much longer. Then what will you do for money?”

“Perhaps Aunt Hattie will help. Perhaps my parents ...”

“You know they will not.”

“I will not allow hope to die within me. My parents love me. They would not see me starve.”

“Nor would I.” He made as though to reach out to touch me, then pulled his hand back. “Already I cannot bear to see your beauty clothed in rags.”

He thought me beautiful! Clad like a pauper, as great as a house with pregnancy, he thought me beautiful. I was flattered, and I ached for more. To feel like a Woman again, and not an easily disregarded piece of furniture.

“I am not so beautiful,” I said. I cringe now for my coquetry!

“Oh, but you are,” Edward replied, this time his touch reached my cheek. His finger lingered a moment there, then dropped to my collarbone. A dark thrill surged through me. “I have always thought you so. More beautiful than Charlotte – compared to you she was a working ox.”

My skin tingled where he touched me, his

fingertip pressing the skin lightly as he trailed it down to the very edge of my bodice, coming to rest on the upside swell of my breast. His head dropped to my shoulder, and I felt his lips pressed urgently against my neck, making my pulse thunder. A light stubble grazed my skin as those lips descended, making to follow his fingers. Though I felt he was attached to me as inexorably as the leech had been to Virgil’s skin, I gathered my wits and lifted his head away from me. My fingers lingered a moment in his hair –