Resurrectionists (26 page)

“I can see that. Is Virgil happy about it?”

“Yes. At least I think he is. He is quite distant a great deal of the time.”

“Do you still keep your Diary?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. I have been too busy, and I wished to save the ink for Virgil’s work.” I nearly told him that Virgil had not written anything these last four months, but stopped myself. It would have been a betrayal of trust. Virgil might not want others to know that his creative wellspring was not flowing.

“I’m saddened to hear it, Gette. You must have a record of your life, so that when you are an old woman you may sit by the fire in your grand house and read about these leaner years.”

“Perhaps you are right,” I replied.

Which is when I formed the resolution to return to you, Diary. And now that I have done it, I do feel better. It helps to write some of my feelings down, helps to clarify my thoughts. And it matters not if the only person who ever reads it is me. I may be a very different me one day, as Edward suggested. My parents at any time could forgive me and offer us a house or some money. Virgil might recover from his malady and begin to write an empire of gold. Nobody can see into the future. Here, then, is a message to myself when I am old. If you are reading this, old woman, it is because you survived those times of poverty in that little cottage by the wood. I commend you. Perhaps you are surrounded now by children, by a loving husband returned to himself, and the fine things he buys for you. Enjoy it all, old woman, for here in the Past, things look very bleak indeed. Saturday, 15th March 1794

The weather was so fine this morning that we decided to take our breakfast out of doors. Edward helped me pack a basket with cheese, bread, and cold cooked mutton, and we brought our last remaining bottle of wine with us. Virgil took an age to get dressed, and when he finally joined us in the kitchen, I was struck by how pale and sickly he appeared. However, I decided that it was merely because I had robust, sturdy Edward to compare him to. Around eleven, the three of us headed down to the cliff-top with our basket. Spring is come a little early this year, and already the sun reflected off new shoots and green leaves, sticky in their infancy. We picked our way through the wood and found a soft square of green grass overlooking the sea, whereupon Edward and Virgil lay down their capes and we settled ourselves under the branches of an old, gnarled tree.

After we had eaten, I lay back and looked up at the pale blue sky through the branches of the tree, and watched clouds moving lazily in the spring breeze. Virgil and Edward were having a heated debate about Dante. I admit I was most pleased to hear Virgil’s voice imbued with colour and passion once again. I had not realised how important his disputations with Edward had been to him.

“No, no, the second circle of hell is the gluttonous. The third is reserved for fornicators,” Virgil said emphatically.

“I am certain it is quite the reverse.”

“Are you concerned you’ll be closer to Satan than you had planned?”

They laughed between them, and after a while fell silent. I heaved myself over on my side, which is no easy task with the load I am carrying. Virgil smiled at me lovingly, a smile which had almost faded from my memory. I was almost too shocked to respond. I made the resolution then that I would do all in my power to make Edward stay. He had cheered Virgil out of his opium haze.

“And so, Virgil,” Edward said, leaning back on his elbows. “Have you enough poems now for another collection?”

Virgil shifted uncomfortably. I pressed his fingers in mine. “I’m working on a long piece,” he lied. “Why do you ask?”

“I have saved this information for the right moment. I had occasion to speak with Mr Pitt, formerly of the Hammondslowe Press, now the manager of a small press called Saint John Pitt at Russell Square. He remembered our previous

collection and said that he had been most impressed with it at the time. He has asked if we have another in progress. With a view to publishing it this summer.”

I watched Virgil closely. His hands shook almost imperceptibly, a tiny muscle on his jawline pulled tight.

“Is he not interested in publishing our first collection?”

Edward shook his head. “He said, and rightly so, that a number of the poems are immature in their stylings. He is only interested in new work.”

New work. Exactly what Virgil had been unable to produce in the last few months.

“What do you say, old friend? Shall we give it another go?”

Virgil faltered over his words. “I . . . ah . . . I shall have to think about it. I’ve been working on a long piece, a great epic. I have . . . few ballads . . . no sonnets.”

“Ah, but it won’t take you long to dream up a few more, I dare say.”

“I –”

“Come, let us talk no more of business,” I said, trying to change the topic before Virgil went to pieces.

“It is a lovely day for a long walk.”

“A long walk, Georgette? In your condition?”

Edward said.

“Why, yes. I feel as healthy as a horse, and have done since the very start. Let’s save your plans for later.”

Virgil stood and helped me to my feet. Edward packed up our basket and we left it beneath the tree and walked out towards the rocky cliff path. We followed it around towards the village and the cemetery, where I noticed a man walking towards us from the other direction.

“Virgil, is that Reverend Fowler I see up ahead?” I asked. I was immediately concerned for him seeing me in my condition. Around Edward and Virgil I was comfortable, but the eyes of the Reverend were less forgiving, more given to scrutiny and judgement. I know what Puritans the English can be.

“Yes, I believe it is.”

“Perhaps I should return home,” I said, stopping and placing my hands self-consciously over my belly.

“Nonsense,” Edward said. “It’s no shame to be seen as you are.”

And so within a few moments the Reverend was close enough to say hello. He stopped, as did we, to exchange pleasantries.

“Good morning, Reverend,” Edward said.

The Reverend smiled tightly. “It is afternoon. In any case, good afternoon to you.” He dealt with Virgil and I with a quick, condescending glance. “And good day to you, also. Is all well with you?” Never had a man’s words and his sentiments been so ill-matched. His thin lips, his distant tone, his barely disguised recoil from us, all spoke of a man who had no care at all if we were well or if we were dying. I had been worried that my pregnant body would offend him, but clearly our humble clothes were of more concern. I know not why I was so anxious that he approve of me – perhaps because he did not know that I was really a fine lady of high birth. So I foolishly blurted out, “Very well, sir. We expect to hear any day from my father, who lives enormously in Lyon. You may not see us in Solgreve for very much longer.”

“Is that so?” he said, nodding towards Virgil.

“Doctor Flood will be most displeased when he hears. I must get on with business. Forgive me. Good day.”

And with that he was gone.

Virgil immediately turned on me. “Why on earth did you say that, Gette?”

“I’m sorry, I simply couldn’t bear him looking down upon me.”

Edward huffed a cynical laugh. “His opinion is hardly worth anything, Georgette.”

“He is the parish priest.”

“He is not what he appears,” Edward replied.

“Now I shall have to see Flood this afternoon to assure him I am staying,” Virgil muttered. “Really, Gette, I wish you had said nothing. He is not a man whom we need impress.”

“I doubt that the Reverend would mix with your Doctor Flood, if he can hardly be civil to us,” I protested. “I only wanted him to know that I am not the lowly thing he thinks he sees.” I knew I was guilty of a crass silliness, of displaying a Pride which I had long ago given up as my right.

“Reverend Fowler knows full well what you are, Gette. And that is because I have told Flood and Flood would have passed it on,” Virgil replied. He turned his back to me to face out to sea. I had upset him greatly, not only because it meant an extra meeting with Doctor Flood, but because I had reminded him of the difference in our origins.

“Besides, Georgette,” Edward added, leaning idly against a gravestone, “there is hardly anyone lowlier than Reverend Fowler himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean –”

“Don’t tell her,” Virgil snapped, whirling around.

“She doesn’t need to know.”

“Know what?”

“Sorry, Georgette,” Edward said.

“No, that isn’t good enough. What is there to know about Reverend Fowler?”

Virgil sighed, pressed a restless hand against his mouth. Both of them were silent.

“Come, no secrets,” I said.

“Reverend Fowler knows, Gette,” Virgil said at last.

“Knows?”

“About Flood’s experiments. He and the Doctor are very close.”

“And he lets it happen? Right beneath the church?”

I was appalled.

“He encourages it to happen,” Edward said. “He benefits from it as much as anybody else in this community.”

“Benefits from . . . from that monstrous business?”

Edward nodded. “As will you. If you stay here long enough.”

“I do not understand.”

“Flood has performed some work here, a new kind of science,” Virgil said, not meeting my eye, “to profit the residents.”

“Have I told you my great-uncle’s father lived to one hundred and nine?” Edward asked me pointedly. After a moment of confusion, the connection became apparent. I looked from Edward to Virgil and then out to sea. “Why, yes, Edward,” I said softly.

“Yes, I believe you have.”

Tuesday 18th March 1794

Last night, Virgil had to go out to work, and so Edward and I sat together by the fire. I remember the look in Virgil’s eyes watching the two of us there, warm and untroubled. I despise what he does, and I am beyond horrified to know that Flood uses some inexplicable, heinous science to extend the lives of the residents, but what on earth can we do? We have a child on the way and there are days we can barely feed ourselves. And so while I see Virgil’s pain at having to go outside into the dark, I must shut off that urge to cry, “Don’t go! We shall manage without, my love. Do not go.”

After he had left, Edward asked, “Are you worried for him?”

“Of course,” I replied. “But there is no other way.”

“You could both return to London.”

“I cannot travel so far with a child inside me.”

“After the baby is born?”

“Perhaps. Would Virgil find work there?”

Edward considered. “If he stopped taking the opium, he might.”

“I fear Flood has a hold over him. He pays him in the drug sometimes.”

Edward fell silent. I shifted my chair a little closer to the fire, extended my hands towards the flames.

“He has nightmares, Gette.” Again the use of my pet name while we were alone.

“Nightmares? Why, everyone has nightmares,” I replied, not looking at him.

I heard him rise and go to his room. When he returned, he carried a tray with ink and paper. He sat down and began to write. I watched him with the edge of my gaze, scribbling, crossing out, but not cursing and wailing as Virgil curses and wails. He continued to write, working at the paper, growing excited sometimes and dipping his pen too hastily, sometimes slowing, tapping his fingers thoughtfully on the tray. I envied him for Virgil’s sake, poor Virgil who had not written in so long. I began to doze in my chair, and was considering retiring for the evening when the front door opened and Virgil burst in, a good deal earlier than usual, shaking palely as though with shock or fear, his clothes in disarray.

“Virgil!” I exclaimed, leaping to my feet and leading him to the fire.

“Gette . . . I saw . . . I saw . . .”

“I’ll get some brandy,” Edward said, hastily laying aside his work and heading for the kitchen. Edward had kindly brought some brandy and other medicinals with him. As much as Virgil had always condescended to his trade, Edward’s being an apothecary proved very useful from time to time.

“What did you see, my love?” I asked, kneeling before him and taking his icy fingers in mine.

“Something in the graveyard.”

A chill swept over me, and at first I believed the door must still be open, and the last of a winter breeze had crept in. But the door was firmly closed, the fire hot enough to defend me from any external cold.

“What was in the graveyard?” I asked, my throat so tight the words barely made it to my lips.

“Here, drink this,” Edward said with authority, pushing a glass of brandy towards Virgil. Virgil took it with both hands and gulped it greedily.

“He says he saw something in the graveyard,” I told Edward.

“Something in the graveyard, Virgil? What could it be that has you so upset?”

Virgil finished the brandy and let his arm go limp, dropping the glass gently beside him. “I was out near the cliff, readying myself to dig. The moon, though not full, was bright, the sea quite calm beneath me. I picked up my mattock and was about to plunge it into the earth, when something moved in the distance. Instantly, I dropped my tools. I did not want to be seen about my work. I tried to focus on the figure but it seemed to adhere to the shadows, gliding towards me from shadow to shadow, as if gravestones and uneven ground meant nothing to it. It stopped, perhaps thirty feet from me, pressed against a tree, and watched me.”

“What was it?” Edward said.

“A figure. Cloaked, I think, in brown. But there was something awful, stretched and attenuated, about its shape.”

“Then it was just a person?” I asked, relief washing through me. Not a spectre, not a monster, but a person. Virgil shook his head. “I believe it was a ghost. Perhaps a ghost of one of the poor souls I have uncovered in my work.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Virgil,” Edward said, his voice strong and confident.

“It watched me, and I heard it breathing. Even over the rattle of the leaves in the trees I could hear it breathing: wet and eager, like a dog about to devour a half-rotted corpse. I could not pick up my tools again. I ran home. Flood will be displeased with me. Oh, I cannot bear it. Such a phantom, sinister among shadows. Do you know that as I ran, I looked back over my shoulder to see if it was following me. But it had disappeared. Vanished into nothing.”