The Devil's Breath (9 page)

O
n the third day of the great fog Mistress Lightfoot could bear it no longer. For the past two days each knock at the vicarage door had presaged another death. There had been six so far, all fine young men who had been out in the fields when the poison rain fell on that terrible morning. Her husband had been in demand to administer the final sacrament, but prayers at the graveside were foregone; standing outside while the noxious vapor persisted was clearly injurious to health.

Mistress Lightfoot had comforted young widows and informed the parish board of the likely newest occupants of the poorhouse. There was much to be done and more to do in the future as the fog showed little sign of lifting. Many were falling ill. Breadwinners. Men with young mouths to feed. She could not sit idly by and watch the terrible events unfold with a resigned inevitability.

“What are you about, my dear?” asked the Reverend Lightfoot as his wife donned her hat and put her shawl about her broad shoulders. He was in the middle of writing his sermon for Trinity Sunday, though not many would hear it. Most would wisely stay indoors if the fog persisted.

“The Lord helps those who help themselves,” she replied enigmatically and, he thought, rather unhelpfully. Her chin was jutting out. It was always a sign that his wife had a plan, the vicar told himself.

“I do know that, my dear,” he replied, a mild irritation sounding in his voice. “But where are you going in this fog?”

She looked at him with eyes as bright as brass buttons. “I am going to see Lady Thorndike.”

Reverend Lightfoot frowned. He was barely any wiser. He knew there was no love lost between the two women who were as different as chalk and cheese. His wife was a doer, a cog that turned wheels, whereas Lady Thorndike . . . There were many words to describe her ladyship and none of them was charitable. She treated most of those with whom she came into contact just as she treated her servants, with utter disdain. She seemed to be in a permanent state of ennui, except, that is, in the presence of virile young bucks. Her ailing husband, who was at least forty years her senior, seemed oblivious to her flirtations. If he was aware of them—and so blatant were they, how could he not be?—he showed no reprobation at all. Instead he merely humored his wife with yappy dogs and ridiculously fashionable clothes that were more suited to Paris salons than Oxfordshire drawing rooms.

“And why, pray tell, dearest, would you want to see her?” His voice could not hide the contempt he felt.

His wife, struggling to put on stiff gloves, stopped and sighed. Looking her husband squarely in the eye, she said, “Those men who’ve died, they were workers on the Thorndike estate. I am hoping we can make some sort of provision for their families until the parish hears their cases. There are upward of a dozen children now fatherless, with no one to put bread on their tables.”

Reverend Lightfoot nodded thoughtfully. “And you would try and persuade Lady Thorndike to provide for them in the meantime?”

“Exactly so,” said his wife, brooking no argument. “They are deserving of our charity,” she told him, adding: “not like that wretched vagabond.”

The vicar admired his wife, but he worried for her safety. The episode with the knife-grinder the night before had been most unsettling for her and he worried that this varlet, who had been so impudent, was still in the vicinity. He voiced his misgivings.

“I wish you would take more care, my dear. That rascal is still abroad and the fog is simply abominable.”

From her desk drawer his wife produced a square of muslin with a flourish and held it up to her face, so that just her eyes showed, like a veiled woman from old Araby. The vicar nodded his silver-streaked head and smiled.

“But you think of everything,” he said, with a wry smile. He was not sure whether his wife had heard his last remark. If she had, she did not show it. She simply disappeared out of the door, headed for Lady Thorndike at Fetcham Manor, without another word.

 

The vicarage lay on the edge of the Thorndikes’ estate and it was only a ten-minute walk along the lane to the manor house. Although it was not yet midday, Mistress Lightfoot took a lighted lantern with her. The route was very familiar, but even though she did not admit it to her husband, she was slightly apprehensive about venturing out in this damnable fog.

The temperature had climbed steadily over the past two days and yet the grass appeared blackened, as if by frost. It crunched under her sturdy overshoes. She found it strange walking down the lane in silence. In winter the rooks croaked from high up in the copses and in summer the skylarks trilled and the cuckoos called, but this vapor seemed to have robbed the birds of their voices. The hedgerows, too, only last week bustling with butterflies and bees, were deserted. What was more, many of the hawthorn bushes were shriveled and brown; their leaves turned like claws. Worst of all, however, was the vapor itself. It seemed to inveigle its way into every orifice, so that by the time the silhouette of Fetcham Manor loomed large before her, her eyes were smarting and her throat was irritated. She had never been more pleased to climb the steps to the big house.

Even though Mistress Lightfoot was uninvited, Lady Thorndike consented to see her. The vicar’s wife was received in the morning room, where she found her ladyship seated at a card table playing baccarat with only her two small dogs for company. When the butler announced her, the creatures came charging toward her, skittering across the polished floor. Lady Thorndike looked up.

“Come here, darlings,” she called. “Here, to Mamma.” She patted her skirts and the dogs, no bigger than rabbits, bounded back to her and skidded under the card table.

“What an unexpected pleasure, Mistress Lightfoot,” she said laconically, still petting the dogs.

The vicar’s wife noted her disinterested hostess was wearing a very low-cut bodice and there was a patch in the shape of a heart on her left cheek.

“It is kind of you to see me, Lady Thorndike,” she replied with a hint of irony in her voice.

“Won’t you be seated?” Her ladyship motioned to a sofa and Mistress Lightfoot duly obliged. “Shall we take tea?”

The vicar’s wife would have loved to take tea. Her mouth was as grainy as if she had eaten sand and the taste of rotten eggs lingered, but she had not come on a social visit, so she declined the offer.

“You are most kind, Lady Thorndike, but I am here on a pressing matter.”

“And what might that be?” came the imperious reply.

“ ’Tis about the families who have been most grievously affected by this wretched fog.”

Her ladyship reached for a plate of morsels on the card table and began to feed the small dogs that pawed at her skirts. “Yes, the fog. So tiresome. I should have gone riding today.”

Mistress Lightfoot felt her hackles rise. Men are dying and yet all this woman can complain about is that she has had to forego her ride, she told herself. She forced her lips into a brief smile. “Yes, we are all suffering, your ladyship,” she acknowledged. “But some more than others.”

Lady Thorndike looked up. Both dogs were on their hind legs in begging positions. “How so?” she inquired.

Mistress Lightfoot shifted uncomfortably on her seat. Surely this woman cannot be unaware that her estate workers are dying, she thought. She watched her drop the morsels into each dog’s jaws and smile gleefully as they chomped. There was no polite way of putting it, so she cut straight to the chase. “The fog has killed six of your men, my ladyship, and several more are ill.”

A look of vague concern manifested itself on the woman’s aristocratic features, but altruism was not its cause. “That is most troubling,” she agreed, adding disingenuously: “So who will collect the harvest?”

Mistress Lightfoot felt a wave of mounting despair rise deep within her. Did this woman not possess a shred of humanity? “I was thinking more of the men’s families, your ladyship. For their food and shelter they are totally dependent on your estate, and now their men are dead. . . .”

Lady Thorndike lifted her hand, stopping the vicar’s wife in mid sentence. “You are right, Mistress Lightfoot,” she nodded, as if she had just received a revelation.

“I am so glad you agree,” retorted the vicar’s wife, relieved that she would no longer have to labor the point.

Lady Thorndike smiled, too. “But I am sure our steward is already out looking for new men to take their place,” she added.

In an instant the smile was wiped off Mistress Lightfoot’s face. How foolish she was to believe her task so easy. “I was thinking more of helping the men’s families, with parcels of food. Just to tide them over,” she suggested.

Lady Thorndike’s lips curled into a smirk. “Parcels of food?” she repeated. A peevish laugh escaped from her rouged lips. “Oh really, Mistress Lightfoot, that sort of thing is best left to people like you. If those workers are dead, then their families need to vacate their cottages to allow men who can harvest to do so. That is why we pay our parish rates, is it not?”

Feeling as if she had been dealt a punch to her ribs, Mistress Lightfoot rose quickly to her feet. The dogs reacted to her sudden movement and began to yap frantically. “I had hoped you would show a little Christian charity, your ladyship. But I see my faith was misplaced,” she said, raising her voice over the yelping.

Ignoring her dogs, Lady Thorndike pulled the cord near the card table. “Charity begins at home, I believe,” she sneered, “so I bid you leave mine.” And with that, she signaled to her butler, who had just appeared at the door, to show Mistress Lightfoot out.

“Good day to you,” she called as the vicar’s wife was led away, then bending down to stroke her dogs, she said to them: “We hope she has a safe journey home, don’t we, my loves?”

 

It was obvious to Thomas that Mistress Claddingbowl felt a little uneasy allowing him into her kitchen. Using her ingredients and mixing them in her bowls was one thing, but rubbing shoulders at the table was an altogether different matter. He knew he would have to tread carefully. He had complimented her on the texture of her pastry the other night and thanked her profusely for the flask of lemonade she had provided for his journey from Oxford. He understood that she felt undervalued. He doubted whether Captain Farrell had ever praised her pies or puddings. Yet he did know one thing about the late captain’s tastes from Lydia. He had apparently insisted that the cook try her hand at a dish with strange spices so favored by the Indians. He had developed a liking for the flavors of Madras when he was serving in His Majesty’s Dragoon Guards. Mistress Claddingbowl had found a recipe for a chicken curry in a cookery book. Frying the poulets, she added the ground spices, beaten very fine, to the dish. A quarter of an ounce of turmeric, a large spoonful of ginger, and a teaspoon of milled pepper were all mixed together, along with a little salt to taste. She had finished it off with cream and lemon juice and the captain had pronounced it satisfactory—praise indeed for one so sparse with his kind words.

So, when Thomas asked her whether by any chance she might have some turmeric in her spice rack, she was delighted to oblige. He was conscious of her watching him intently as he pounded the seeds in a pestle and mortar, then added the powder to a pint jug of milk.

“The turmeric has antiseptic qualities, Mistress Claddingbowl,” he told her. “ ’Twill help heal any damage done to Mr. Kidd’s mouth and throat.”

The cook nodded her head thoughtfully, then puffed out her ample chest. “If that is the outcome, sir, then you are most welcome to work in my kitchen any time you please.”

Amos Kidd lay in a room a few doors away from the kitchen down a long corridor. This was where the under gardeners usually slept, but they had vacated it so that their master could be nursed more easily. Thomas found his patient conscious and coughing, and his eyes still glassy with fever. Susannah was by his side.

“How fares he?” he asked, bending low and feeling Kidd’s pulse. He noted the burns around his mouth and eyes were crusting over, but there was a general listlessness that troubled Thomas. Kidd’s head jerked up in another involuntary spasm.

“He coughs like this for much of the time, sir,” said his wife wearily. The vigil was taking its toll on her looks, too. Her eyes were puffy and her face was gray.

“Then let us see if this will ease him,” said Thomas, pouring out a cup of orange-colored milk from the jug. He held it to Kidd’s lips and the gardener managed to take two or three sips before the coughing resumed. It was the doctor’s hope that the milk would neutralize at least some of the acid Kidd had ingested and the turmeric would help heal any of the internal blisters.

“Make him drink a few sips of this every hour,” he instructed Mistress Kidd with a smile. He did not wish to cause her more distress. At the very least he hoped his remedy would relieve the constant coughing spasms and delay what Thomas feared was inevitable.

I
t was market day in Brandwick, but the streets were strangely quiet. Most of the farmers and drovers had not dared bring their livestock to town for fear the journey would kill either them or their animals. Many of those who did brave the fog were in no mood to buy or barter. They had questions and they wanted answers. By ten o’clock small clusters of men could be found huddled in doorways, under cover in the butter market or in the porch of the church. In fact, anywhere that afforded a little shelter from the clawing fog, laborers were gathering and their mood was as bitter as the air they were breathing.

Gabriel Lawson was resting his body up against the bar of the Three Tuns, a tankard of ale in his hand. He had decided to make the journey because he needed more supplies and could not wait another week. He had considered sending a man in his stead, but then he thought of the pleasurable female company that the inn afforded and decided otherwise. His spirits needed lifting and Molly or Jessie or whoever happened to be hanging around the bar that morning would suffice.

The damnable fog meant that the wheat could not be harvested. Not that there was much wheat left that had not been scorched. He had been unable to count how many acres they would have to simply plough in again, but there were many. The other crops, too, had all fared similar fates: the barley, the turnips, and even the apples in the orchards. Worse still, the men who had been picking and digging had also fallen ill after a few hours’ exertion. Four of them now lay in their beds coughing their lungs out, no good to man or beast.

He turned his gaze outside toward the market square. It, too, was wreathed in mist and was almost deserted. He could barely see to the other side of it. The traders had not even bothered to set out their stalls. Three or four women scurried from shop to shop, their mouths and noses swathed in stoles or shawls. One of them caught his eye. Even though her face was covered, he liked the way she moved her hips. He smiled. It was then that he saw them: a group of men, he could not say how many. They were a dark smudge that spread across the square, then suddenly stopped.

Intrigued by the throng, Lawson downed his ale and walked out onto the street. He wrapped his scarf around his mouth and traversed the road toward the din. Now he could see the men were laborers. Although he did not recognize them he knew their sort. They were gathering around a man, his head trussed in a red scarf, who was shouting on the steps of the market cross. He clenched a fist and punched the air and several of his audience made the same gesture. From the corners of the square, from the doorways and the porches, more and more men braved the fog to swell the number, until the count was at least sixty.

Lawson moved closer. He could hear snatches of the man’s words, punctuated by choruses of “aye” every now and again.

“And I ask you, how are you going to feed your families if there is no corn? You will starve. We will all starve, while the lords and masters will take what little there is for themselves!” cried the swarthy speaker.

Lawson kept his distance, but listened intently to the man’s words. A troublemaker, he thought to himself. He had dealt with many such in Ireland. They’d died in the thousands in the famine not thirty years before, then, quite recently, when the landowners switched to growing grain for export, the men and their families were forced to eat potatoes and groats.

It all gave rise to the Rightboys, the Hearts of Oak, and the Steelboys, the peasant secret societies that would kill and maim livestock and tear down fences to redress their grievances against their landlords.

When the worst had come and the men refused to work, he’d been ordered to call in the King’s militia rather than accede to demands for better wages or living conditions, or both. Blood was shed. It was never a pretty sight. It spilled on the very dirt that was being fought over. He hoped it would not come to that, but the longer this wretched cloud hung over the land, spreading its poison and killing the crops and those who harvested them, the more likely it seemed.

 

Thomas had not seen Dr. Felix Fairweather since their encounter in court more than a year ago. Then he had shown himself to be an arrogant ass, the very epitome of everything he hated about the medical profession. While Thomas did not follow the fashion of prescribing purgatives for every ill, he had sometimes mused that a good purge would work wonders for the likes of Felix Fairweather. Yet when he presented himself in the drawing room at Boughton Hall, the physician’s arrogance seemed to have dissipated. In its stead there appeared a genuine concern, even fear.

“How may we help you, Dr. Fairweather?” inquired Lydia as he stood before her, his shoulders hunched.

“I am afraid it is a most grave matter, your ladyship,” he replied. Gone was his courtroom conceit. His manner seems almost humble, thought Thomas. “Mistress Lightfoot has taken ill. She has succumbed to the fog and is finding it increasingly difficult to breathe.” There was an uncustomary meekness in his tone.

Lydia frowned. “I am so sorry to hear that, Dr. Fairweather, but what is it that you would like us to do?”

The physician looked over to Thomas as he stood by the fireplace. “I would ask you, sir, to see if you can alleviate her distress.”

The young doctor could have taken satisfaction from such a request. Instead he saw courage in the statement from a man so previously prejudiced against him and his fellow countrymen. “I am flattered you ask, sir,” he replied. “And I will, of course, do anything I can to help.”

Stopping off at the larder to collect a flask of milk and turmeric that was already mixed, Thomas climbed into the waiting carriage with the physician. The fog felt less moist than it had the day before and the sun seemed to be trying to break through, but the stench still clung to the hot air.

The ten-minute journey took them along lanes and fields that were empty until they reached St. Swithin’s vicarage in Brandwick. It was a solid, square house on the edge of the town, just a few yards from the church. Even though it was only early afternoon, a single lamp that burned in an upstairs window was clearly visible through the gloom.

Dr. Fairweather led Thomas upstairs into a large but sparsely furnished room where Mistress Lightfoot lay in bed. At her side, on a chair, sat her husband. He was holding her limp hand, studying it as if it were a precious object. He raised his head at the sight of the two doctors.

His wife coughed and moaned slightly on hearing the men enter the room and the Reverend Lightfoot rose to his feet. “All’s well, my dear,” he comforted her. “Dr. Silkstone is come to make you better.”

Thomas smiled awkwardly. Such an expectation never sat easily on his shoulders. Now that he knew this deadly fog contained droplets of sulfuric acid, he was uncertain as to the efficacy of any remedy. “I can only do my best to alleviate your wife’s discomfort,” he told the vicar, sitting down by her side.

The woman wore a lace cap, but Thomas could see that the hair that showed beneath it was plastered to her head by the fever. Her skin was grayish in hue and around her mouth and nose were the telltale acid burns that marked Amos Kidd’s face. The blisters looked like yellow-crusted sequins as they scabbed over, but they still needed attention.

“I take it your wife was caught in a rainstorm?” said Thomas, opening his medical bag.

The vicar frowned and sucked deeply, as if recalling a moment with so much concentration that he was actually reliving it. “She went visiting in the fog, Dr. Silkstone,” he began. “I asked her not to, yet she insisted. On the way back it began to rain and even though she wore a scarf over her face, the water soaked through and burned her skin.” His mouth pursed into a grimace and he turned away, stifling tears.

Mistress Lightfoot began to cough again, in long, fluid notes that concerned Thomas. It was obvious to him that there was already liquid in her lungs. Holding the flask of milk to her lips, he tilted it back and she supped a little.

“She must drink this every hour,” he instructed. “It will help heal her burned throat.”

Yet, just as soon as the woman swallowed the milk, it returned once more in a single spasm, splaying out across the counterpane. It was then that her coughing resumed, the sound of phlegm and mucus rattling ’round in her lungs like beer swilling in a barrel. Her husband held her upright so that she could breathe better between the coughs, which were now almost incessant. It was then she began to retch. She managed to hold a handkerchief over her mouth the first time, so that Thomas could examine its contents. The mucus was dark brown and smelled vile.

A few seconds later, however, after a brief respite, the coughing began again. This time the spasms were even more violent, so that Mistress Lightfoot’s shoulders were heaving in great waves with every ferocious contraction of her diaphragm. Her languid lids now opened wide with fear.

“Can you not do something, doctor. Please?” pleaded her husband, trying to steady his wife as she jolted and lurched on the bed like a woman possessed. But Thomas knew that it was hopeless and he dreaded what would come next. He prayed it would be over sooner rather than later and in another three or four minutes his prayers were answered.

With one final great judder, frothy pink foam spurted from the woman’s mouth, spraying out over the coverlet and over Thomas. Her husband cried out in terror, but from his wife there was no further sound. She slumped back on her blood-flecked pillows and closed her eyes as the life ebbed away from her.

 

The somber journey back to Boughton Hall was spent discussing what, if anything, could be done if the fog persisted much longer.

“Men and women are dying daily from this poison, Dr. Silkstone,” said Dr. Fairweather. “I’ve lost three of my patients in the last two days.”

Thomas thought of Amos Kidd and the outcome that awaited him. He nodded gravely. “There is sulfuric acid in the air, doctor.”

Fairweather’s expression grew even more troubled. “Sulfuric acid?” he repeated. “How so? You did your tests?” He emphasized the word “your” as if Thomas were the only scientist to entertain such examinations.

Thomas’s methods were often regarded with suspicion by most of the physicians he had encountered in England so far. Yet, on this occasion at least, Dr. Fairweather seemed curious rather than skeptical.

“Yes, I carried out experiments,” he replied. “There is sulfur in the rain and in flakes in the air, but I have no idea how they came to be there.”

The physician shook his head and sighed deeply. “Then it seems as though all we can do is pray that this fog lifts soon,” he said.

Thomas nodded. He thought of the Reverend Lightfoot, lost and bewildered at his wife’s side. With his shortcut to the Almighty and his capacity to conduct funerals, he feared that the services of the recently bereaved vicar would be in fierce demand.

 

As soon as the carriage drew up in front of Boughton Hall, Thomas saw Lydia open the door and begin to hurry down the front steps.

“No, stay there!” he shouted as he jumped down and ran up the steps to greet her. “You must not come out here,” he scolded, taking her arm and leading her back inside.

She looked up at him anxiously. “Thank God you have returned,” she cried breathlessly. “Amos Kidd has taken a turn for the worse.”

Thomas hurried through the hallway and down the stairs to the servants’ quarters. He could hear the rattle of Amos Kidd’s cough a few doors away and arrived in the room to find him convulsing violently, just as Mistress Lightfoot had. His young wife was standing a little way off, wringing her hands anxiously, not knowing what to do.

Rushing in, Thomas sat the gardener upright, so that he could breathe more easily between spasms. Dr. Fairweather had followed behind and now held Kidd as the young doctor reached for the flask of milk in his bag. Just as he did so, however, the final convulsion surged. Kidd’s wife screamed as the blood sprayed out of her husband’s mouth. It came like a summer rain before thunder, in large droplets. The irony of it was, Thomas noted, it was the same crimson as the fairest roses in his beloved garden.