The Resurrectionist (5 page)

I
N THE DAYS
that follow the weather grows worse: first rain, then sleet, then a choking mist which settles on the streets and will not lift. Everywhere the air is thick with it, its fumes burning at the eyes and throat. Then as quickly as it came the mist is gone, the days as clean and clear as ice. No wind, just stillness, the freezing ache that comes before the snow. Upon the air the scent of burning coal and woodsmoke.

With the cold comes illness, blackened lung and pneumonia, all the afflictions of the poor, and so in the evenings we are often called to visit those who live in the narrow streets and tenements of St Giles and Saffron Hill. They have nothing to pay and yet we go to them, bringing what comfort we can, even if it is only a kind word or two.

It oppresses me, to be with these people, to see their naked need. There are so many of them, so few of us, the comfort that we bring is so small. I have no ease with them, no words to give, as Charles has, no sense of when I should be still and let them speak, as Robert does.

Afterwards, if we are alone, Charles will bid me come to
drink somewhere, or watch some show upon a stage. Sometimes the others will be there, sometimes not. In his company I begin to learn something of a city I would not otherwise have seen. That Robert knows where we go I am sure, though he never asks of it, nor does Charles often include him in the invitation.

Then, one evening early in December, I am woken after midnight by someone at the door below. Rising, I stand quietly at the top of the stairs, listening to the voice of Mr Tyne. We are alone tonight: Robert granted leave to visit his mother’s home, his sister being ill; Charles and Mr Poll gone home. Hearing Mr Tyne’s step coming up now, I begin to descend.

‘There’s a lady here,’ he says when we meet on the stairs, ‘asking for Mr de Mandeville.’

‘I left him two hours since,’ I say. ‘He will not be back tonight.’

‘You think I have not told her that?’ Though his words are sharp he checks himself, as if seeking my confidence.

‘What is her name?’ I ask.

‘She will not say,’ he replies, ‘only that she must speak with him.’

I step past him, down the stairs, not knowing what I will find. Some poor maid perhaps, sent running on her mistress’s behalf and ordered to be discreet; maybe some wretch from the streets of St Giles or Saffron Hill bringing word of a relative’s sudden worsening and too afraid of Mr Tyne to give a name. But what awaits me is neither. She stands by the fireplace, her coat still buttoned, and though I cannot see her face I know it is her immediately.

‘You are the apprentice?’ she asks. Her voice is deeper, less certain than it was upon the stage.

‘I am,’ I say. In the light of the fire her dark hair is the colour of burnished metal, and her face seems to shimmer as it did that night.

‘And Mr de Mandeville?’

‘He will not return tonight,’ I say.

At this she turns her head, and all at once I see she is younger than I had thought, perhaps not much older than myself.

‘Please,’ I say, ‘what is it you need?’

She looks undecided. Her eyes are that deep brown one rarely sees, more like those of a deer or some wild creature.

‘A child,’ she says at last. ‘A dog has attacked him.’

‘The child is your own?’ I ask, feeling a sudden pang, but she shakes her head.

‘A friend’s.’

‘His injuries are serious?’ I ask.

She nods. I think for a moment, then gesture for her to accompany me.

‘Then I will take you to him,’ I say.

Outside Charles’s rooms I strike the roof of the cab, and telling her to wait I climb out. A light is visible in Charles’s window three floors above; lifting my hand to the door I strike at it, then step back and urgently call his name upwards. Almost at once a figure appears behind the glass, drawing back the drapes before vanishing again. A few seconds pass, and then the street door opens, revealing not Charles’s valet, Holroyd, but Charles himself, a lamp held in his hand.

‘Gabriel,’ he says, holding the lamp higher, ‘is there some emergency?’ Before I can answer there is a step upon the stones.

‘Arabella?’ he asks. ‘What is this? What are you doing here?’

Though he seeks to hide it there is something in his voice, some fear, and it is in her face as well, that sad, wary
look we reserve for those with whom we have shared an intimacy which is now gone.

‘Is it Kitty? Has something happened to her?’

‘Not Kitty,’ Arabella says. ‘Oliver.’

At this Charles falls still. When he speaks again his voice is softer.

‘Dead?’

She shakes her head. ‘Hurt, most grievously.’ Her words are spoken in a flat voice which seems to speak of private meanings.

Charles hesitates. ‘Let me fetch my coat,’ he says then.

It is some moments before he returns, moments we spend standing in silence in the darkened street. Now we are here Arabella does not look at me. When Charles returns he places a hand upon my shoulder.

‘Thank you, Gabriel,’ he says. ‘I will speak to you tomorrow.’

‘I will ride with the driver,’ I volunteer, the cab only being large enough for two. Something in my manner must give Charles pause.

‘Very well,’ he says.

The cab delivers us to a street near Drury Lane. Although it is not the worst street in the district, it is a dilapidated place, the buildings stained almost black by the soot, broken windows gaping here and there, some left unrepaired, others boarded shut. Underfoot the road is rutted and muddy, and even in the cold a foul smell hangs over the place, as if a privy has overflowed.

The house Arabella leads us into was once a better place than it is now. Pale shapes on the wall still show where paintings hung, but any trace of luxury is long vanished, its rooms divided into a warren of individual lodgings, the
paper on the walls peeling and spotted with mildew. Charles says nothing as we ascend the stairs; his mouth set, face closed.

On the third floor we come to a room which must have been a study once, or perhaps a bedroom, for its walls are decorated with frescoes, much damaged by the damp, and heavy curtains musty with age hang across the windows. Now it is a parlour of some sort, furnished with a faded divan and two chairs. At the sound of our arrival a maid appears at a door on one side; she is thin and poorly dressed. Seeing Arabella, she motions to us to enter the further room quietly.

Inside a woman lies upon a bed, the child’s form cradled in her arms. As we enter she looks up, and though her eyes are swollen with tears there is no mistaking the anger in the gaze she fixes upon Charles.

For a moment Charles stands, staring back at her. Once, perhaps not long ago, she was beautiful, but now her face has the hard cast of poverty, its look of desperation. Without speaking Charles extends a hand towards the child. The woman watches his hand, then, as if it revolts her, she draws back. Charles lets the hand fall to his side.

‘Please, Kitty,’ he says. ‘I must see him.’

For a long moment she stares at him, then with a sudden, convulsive movement she passes the boy to Charles, who takes him in his arms and, bearing him to the divan under the window, lays him down. As he draws back the blanket he does not flinch, but I feel the way the sight of what lies beneath runs through his frame. The boy is barely conscious, his breath coming in shallow gasps, and at first it is hard to make out the extent of the injuries, for all that is visible is blood and ruined flesh.

‘A dog did this?’ I ask, regretting the vehemence of my words even as I speak them.

‘Its master said it was a country dog, that the carriages had startled it,’ Arabella says softly.

By the door the maid cuts in. ‘There were no carriages, the dog was wild.’

Charles is listening, his eyes not leaving the boy. His face is expressionless, as if all feeling has drained out of it.

‘Bring me water,’ he says when the women are done, ‘and rags. We must clean him.’

In the kitchen Arabella takes down a pot from above the fireplace, and begins to fill it, her arms cradling the pitcher as she pours. She is smaller than I had thought at first, and slighter, and as she stands lost in this task there is a fragility in her presence I had not glimpsed before. As the last of the water falls, and the pitcher rises in her hand, she looks up, and I see again the way she seems to exist within herself.

‘Were you there?’

She pauses, then shakes her head. ‘Tetty was with him.’

‘The maid?’

‘He gave her a sovereign; such a fine gentleman.’

For a moment we stand united thus, caught in the knowledge of this thing. Then she lifts the pot, heavy now with water, and places it in my hands.

‘Here,’ she says, ‘take this in. I will fetch some rags,’ her eyes level and clear.

Charles sends the women away before we begin, Arabella and the maid helping Kitty from the bed and leading her to the room outside. Then we take the water and sponge the blood from the boy’s skin, wary lest we set those of his wounds which have already skinned bleeding again. Several times he regains consciousness, whimpering and moaning, and once looking up with sudden clarity, but for the most
part he is quiet. As the extent of his injuries is revealed a heaviness descends upon Charles, as if he knows already that the battle is lost. The right arm is ruined, two fingers missing from the hand, the flesh on the forearm and elbow so lacerated and torn in places that bone and sinew are visible, shocking white against the oozing blood, while across the shoulder and neck and chest bruises and puncture wounds are everywhere. But it is the face and head which are the worst, his scalp torn clean away from the skull, the hair and meat hanging on a grisly flap where the ear protrudes. Perhaps once he was a handsome boy, but now the face has been almost destroyed as well, the nose and cheeks mauled, the right eye staring blindly from a mass of oozing flesh, its lid ripped away altogether.

When the wounds are clean we begin work. Carefully Charles stitches and sews, folding the scalp back onto the skull, closing those of the wounds he can. An hour passes, then two, and more, time slipping away as we are lost into the careful business of our craft. The boy by now is delirious, moaning and murmuring as dreams chase through his mind, mercifully oblivious to what is being done to him. The hand is beyond help, and we must remove part of it before the injuries can be repaired. As the saw bites through the tiny bones I see a look of revulsion mar Charles’s handsome face, but he continues nonetheless. And when we are done we bandage him carefully, and bear him to the bed, where we lay him in its centre, his breathing shallow, and slow.

Kitty and Arabella are seated on the divan, Kitty’s head laid across Arabella’s lap. As we enter, Kitty rises, her face searching Charles’s for some sign. Charles goes to her, and to my surprise Kitty grasps him about the neck and presses him to
herself, her body expelling a long, wrenching sound. Arabella places a hand on Kitty’s shoulder.

‘We have done what we can,’ Charles says to Arabella.

Arabella stays quiet, and for a long time the three of them stand like this, until at last Charles unknots Kitty’s arms from his neck and passes her back to Arabella.

‘May we see him now?’ Arabella asks.

Charles nods. ‘Send word if he grows worse.’

With Kitty, Arabella goes to the bedroom door. The maid starts to follow, but does not cross the threshold, lingering instead in the doorway, her back to us.

From within there is a murmuring, and then the maid turns away, looking at the floor. The gesture is so eloquent. Anyone would know without being told that it was she who had charge of the boy when he was mauled.

‘Come,’ says Charles. ‘There is nothing more we can do here.’

Outside the dawn has come and gone. Picking our way through the mud which sucks at our boots we walk slowly westwards. Here and there the business of the day has begun – a driver brushing the gleaming coat of his horses, a maid emptying a bucket into the roadway, the first sweepers of the day patrolling their corners – but for the most part the streets are still empty of life. Charles does not speak, his silence forbidding my questions.

By Drummond’s Bank, where we must part, one of the barrows bound for the market has overturned, spilling its load of turnips across the cobbles and attracting the attention of a pig, which roots and snuffles after them. Desperate to save his stock, the barrow’s owner, a shabby man with a twisted walk, is trying to drive the pig away with a stick. He is a small man though, and not strong, while the pig is a monster of a thing, all swinging belly and yellow tusks, and is little deterred, each blow merely evincing a squeal and
sending it tottering sideways on its absurdly dainty feet, without slowing its gobbling. Who the pig belongs to is not clear, but the scene has attracted the attention of a trio of urchins, who now dart about the barrow, eagerly filling their shirts and pockets with the turnips, while the frantic owner puffs and grabs at them, even as he battles with the pig.

‘What can be done for people who live like this?’ Charles asks at last. His words are spoken as much to himself as to me.

‘The child will die, will he not?’ I reply.

Charles nods, not looking round. ‘Most likely.’

Now the barrow’s owner strikes the pig across the snout. The blow is quick and hard, and it clearly stings, for the pig raises its head and bellows with rage, its hot breath clouding the freezing air as it turns to focus on its attacker. Apprehensive, the barrow’s owner takes a step back, but then he is struck in the head by a turnip thrown by one of the children. The pig forgotten, he wheels about, waving the stick and grabbing at his assailant.

‘Is Kitty an actress as Arabella is?’ I ask. Charles turns as if noticing me for the first time.

‘Once,’ he says. ‘Not now.’ The barrow-owner has grabbed one of the children by the collar, sending her spinning away, only to lose his footing and fall hard upon the stones.

‘I see no reason for Mr Poll or Robert to know of what happened tonight,’ Charles says suddenly, his words careful but deliberate.

‘Of course,’ I say. For a long moment we stand, then without a word he turns and walks away, across the almost empty space of Charing Cross, his body fading into the mist that lies upon the ground, until at last his shape is lost within it.