Beloved Poison (26 page)

‘You are lucky, Magorian,’ said Dr Catchpole. ‘Your wife is an angel.’

Dr Magorian smiled and nodded. He slipped a hand into his pocket and drew out his silver sugar case. ‘Mr Flockhart,’ he said. ‘Do you have a moment to prepare a draught for Dr Catchpole?’

‘If you’re not too busy running about doing
other
things.’ Dr Graves grinned. He watched me reach up for a jar of powdered valerian. I winced, as my shoulder burned from my escapade at the canal side. ‘Something troubling you, Mr Flockhart?’ he said.

‘What
have
you been doing, man?’ murmured Dr Magorian. He peered at the grazes on my cheek, before offering his sugar case to Dr Graves.

I looked from one to the other. Both were tall, both were wrapped in cloaks. I looked at their boots, searching for the distinctive filth of Prior’s Rents, but both men’s boots had recently been cleaned.

‘I have the same draught I make up for your wife, Dr Catchpole,’ I said.

Dr Catchpole closed his eyes, pressing his folded handkerchief to his lips. ‘Have you nothing stronger?’ he whispered.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If you wish it.’ I reached for a bottle of tincture of
Cannabis sativa
. ‘I’m going to Angel Meadow shortly,’ I added. ‘May I take Mrs Catchpole something? A salve, perhaps, for her head?’

‘You’re very kind,’ said Dr Catchpole. I could see I had disturbed him by even alluding to her. His chin trembled. ‘Oh, Annabel.’ He dropped onto a chair, his spirit broken, the tears running down his face. Dr Graves and Dr Magorian cleared their throats and looked out of the window at the night, embarrassed by the sight of such weakness.

I decanted the
Cannabis
tincture, and sealed the bottle with wax. I had made some lavender and oatmeal soap, which I sold to the ladies’ committee for sixpence each, and I put one aside for Mrs Catchpole. I filled a pot with salve made from beeswax, olive oil, calendula, lavender and comfrey. The comfrey would reduce the bruising to her head, and help the skin to heal, the lavender was astringent and would ease any inflammation, the calendula would soothe.

I handed Dr Catchpole his tincture. He slipped it into his pocket with hardly a nod of thanks.

‘Come along, sir,’ said Dr Graves gruffly. ‘Let’s find you a cab.’

I held the door open for them as Dr Graves and Dr Magorian helped Dr Catchpole out into the courtyard.

Later on, when it was all over, I looked back at those moments with Dr Catchpole, Dr Graves and Dr Magorian and I was amazed at my complacency. I prided myself on my powers of observation, and yet I could not have paid less attention to what was said and done if I had been deaf and blind. My mind was filled with my own worries – about my father and what might happen to him that evening; about Eliza and the herbs I had given her. And yet such excuses only serve to reveal my imprudence further. It was clear that it was either Dr Magorian or Dr Graves who had followed Will and me through the rookeries of St Saviour’s earlier that day. And yet still I was convinced that I was one step ahead of them. Was I not going to speak to Mrs Catchpole that very evening? Would I not then discover who, or what, she had seen as she looked through Dr Bain’s window? And did I not have one of Dr Bain’s coffins? Joe would deliver the other soon enough, as promised. We had yet to uncover their secrets but it would be only a matter of time and then we would know everything. Oh, how arrogant I was! And how greatly I underestimated our adversary. It was to prove my undoing. After that night, nothing would ever be the same again.

W
e walked up to Angel Meadow in silence, Dr Hawkins, my father and I. The evening was chilly, and I could feel the familiar lick of damp against my skin as a brown fog drifted up from the river. The air had an opaque, grainy look to it. In an hour’s time we would hardly be able to see to the ends of our noses. My father was too tired to speak. Dr Hawkins was deep in thought. And me? I would, at last, discover what made my father so sick, so unable to sleep that even laudanum appeared to have no effect on him, and he rose from his opium-induced stupor worse than when he lay down. I wondered what Dr Hawkins’s plan might be, and what role I would play that evening. I wondered whether I would see Mrs Catchpole and what she might say.

Angel Meadow was a dark fortress of a building. More like a prison than a hospital, at least from the outside, it was built of the same dark stone that had been used in the construction of Newgate. Once, like St Saviour’s, it had been situated outside London. Fresh air was considered beneficial to the inmates, and besides, who in the city wanted to be reminded of their relations condemned within? Far better to forget such tainted individuals, to condemn them to a life of incarceration in the country, out of sight, and, quite literally, out of mind. But the city had grown, and now, like our infirmary, Angel Meadow Asylum was surrounded on all sides by the houses of the poor. Slick with moisture from the rising fog, and coated with coal dust and soot, it had a black, sweaty appearance. There were only two small windows in the northern wall. Situated high in the brickwork, they glittered in the darkness like a pair of tiny yellow eyes. The main entrance was a large arched gateway to the west, through which secured coaches and padded ambulances rattled during the day, but which was closed, locked and bolted during the night. It was through those gates that Mrs Catchpole had been brought, her dress torn and soaking, her face streaked with mud and blood, crying and sobbing for Dr Bain.

Below the yellow eyes was the small door through which my father and Dr Hawkins had vanished on the night I had followed them. As I expected, Dr Hawkins knocked three times upon it with the head of his stick. Behind the door a man in a leather apron held up a lantern. Beyond, a low whitewashed passage plunged into the heart of the building. Dr Hawkins nodded to the man, but said nothing. He led us into the passage and the door closed silently behind us. There came the sound of keys jangling, of locks turning and bolts shooting home, and then the sound of footsteps – my own, Dr Hawkins’s and my father’s. The man in the leather apron moved noiselessly behind me.

‘Dr Hawkins,’ I said. ‘Is there time for me to see Mrs Catchpole?’

Dr Hawkins spoke to the silent turnkey, then he turned to address me. ‘Mrs Catchpole is an interesting case,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll be surprised at what you find. She’s found Angel Meadow to be a refuge from the world. The effect on her mind has been remarkable.’

‘And Dr Catchpole?’ I said. ‘Has he been to see her?’

‘She won’t see him. I’ve advised him to stop coming – for the time being at least.’

Dr Hawkins and my father vanished through a doorway. The attendant led me further into the building. He said nothing. He was no taller than I, but he was broad. His forearms bulged below his rolled-up shirt sleeves, his skin etiolated and as pale as fat. No doubt most of his muscular activity – which presumably involved restraining mad people – took place in dark cells or dimly lit wards, far from the hope of sunlight and rescue.

We ascended a long flight of stairs until we reached a heavy metal door. The man produced his great bunch of keys, selected one of them with the precision of a master safe-cracker, and inserted it delicately into the lock. All at once the place was illuminated by the warm glow of lamps. The floor beneath our feet was carpeted with drugget, the walls lined with pictures – soothing landscapes mostly, or images of trees and flowers. I noticed they were screwed tightly to the wall in their frames. Through a door to our right, I saw a room filled with large comfortable chairs. Attendants waited in the shadows.

‘Do you have wards?’ I asked.

‘Yes, sir.’ It was the first time the man had spoken to me. His voice was low and soft. ‘But not in this wing of the building. This is the east wing. The ladies have rooms to theirselves here. Your Mrs Catchpole’s on her own. The ladies don’t get wards. At least, not at first.’ He grinned. ‘But time changes everything at Angel Meadow. Ladies included.’

‘I assume she’s calmer than when she first came?’

He nodded. ‘She spent a night in the basement when she were brought back from Dr Bain’s funeral – shrieking and crying, wouldn’t change her clothes, wouldn’t get into bed, wouldn’t eat. Mud everywhere. Then Dr Hawkins saw her. She were calm after that.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Nuthin’. Spoke to her, that’s all. She’s been better since then.’

‘And has she had visitors? Her husband?’

‘He came with Dr Graves and Dr Magorian, but she went hysterical again and we had to ask them to leave. Later it were Mrs Magorian and her daughter.’ From somewhere at the far end of the gallery, the sound of one of Chopin’s nocturnes echoed. ‘Opus nine,’ said the man. His apron creaked as he moved. ‘Number two.’

‘Very soothing,’ I said. Music, heavy food, warm baths, were all part of Dr Hawkins’s therapeutic regime. I had to admit, the place seemed to be a model of order and tranquillity. Nonetheless, not everyone could afford such treatment. I wondered where the ladies were sent when their families could no longer afford to pay for them to be kept in such luxury. I doubted there were comfortable chairs and Chopin in those places.

We stopped at an open door, and the attendant stood back. ‘Don’t look at her for too long,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t look her in the eye. Stick to simple questions, like as though she’s a child.’

‘Another visitor for Mrs Catchpole?’ said the female attendant standing sentinel on the threshold. She raised an eyebrow. ‘At this time! Well, one more won’t make much difference. But you’ve not got long. It’s bedtime in half an hour.’

‘I only need half an hour,’ I said.

Mrs Catchpole’s room was about twenty-feet square. Its window was high in the wall, the shutters had yet to be closed and I could see that six white-painted bars covered it on the outside.

Mrs Catchpole was sitting in a chair beside the bed. Her hands moved in her lap, as though at work on some invisible knitting. Her blue eyes were focused on a spot on the floor, about a yard from the edge of the carpet. She smiled slightly, as though her own thoughts brought her amusement. Her hair had been pinned up inexpertly by hands that were neither her own nor her maid’s. Other than a deep purple bruise over her right eye, with a crimson cut at its centre, there was no sign at all of her recent escapade in St Saviour’s parish church.

‘Good evening, Mrs Catchpole,’ I said.

She looked up at me then, her eyes dull with grief. ‘Hello, Mr Flockhart,’ she said. I was glad to see that her mind was clear at least. ‘Have you come to ask me about Dr Bain?’ She tried to smile. ‘You were his friend, weren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. And then: ‘Mrs Catchpole, I have to ask you . . . did you see him before he died?’

Mrs Catchpole sighed. ‘I feel better if I pretend that he loved me, though I know he didn’t.’ She turned huge, sad eyes upon me. ‘Am I mad to say such a thing?’

‘No. At least, I don’t think so.’ I did not know what else to say.

‘He
said
he loved me. But he was lying. I know that now. I didn’t believe it at first, but Dr Hawkins assures me that it was the case.’ Her hand fastened about my wrist, the circling fingers drawing tight as a wire. She pulled me down so that her face was close, her lips almost against my ear. Her breath was stale, and tainted with a whiff of laudanum. ‘I know he’s dead,’ she hissed. ‘And I know I am not to have his child, not any more.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Dr Hawkins says I should be glad that scandal was so quickly and easily averted. But what do I care about scandal?’

‘But you
should
care, Mrs Catchpole,’ I whispered. ‘Your husband has many friends. He can make your life very difficult should he choose it. He can lock you up in a place far worse than this.’ I took her twitching hands in mine, and forced them to be still. ‘You must calm yourself,’ I said. ‘Don’t let him see you like this.’

‘I will not allow him to see me at all!’ cried Mrs Catchpole. ‘He says I might go home, but I’ll not go there. I’d rather die than go back to his home ever again.’

I looked into her thin face, the flesh sunken with worry and sadness, the skin stretched over her bones like white silk, her eyes dark and frightened. But behind them there was a calmness, and a serenity. There was nothing deranged about Mrs Catchpole, I was certain. I handed her the soap, and the pillow of lavender I had brought with me. I produced the pot of salve I had brought too. ‘It will help your head. Will you let me apply a little? It’s comfrey, rose water, beeswax, olive oil—’

She shook her head, but took them from me all the same. They lay in her lap, untouched.

‘Who did you see that night, Mrs Catchpole?’ I said. ‘You remember coming to Mrs Roseplucker’s? To Wicke Street?’

Her eyes darted to the door, and then back to me. She nodded.

‘You remember striking Mr Jobber – the fat man at the door?’

She nodded again.

‘Do you remember anything else? Did anyone follow you when you left, when you escaped from your husband? Was anyone waiting outside?’

Mrs Catchpole shook her head. She put a finger to her mouth and nibbled at the nail. I could see then that all of them were bitten down to the quick.