The Devlin Diary (36 page)

The Cavendishes’ withdrawing room is stiflingly familiar, not only because he has visited almost daily since his return from Paris but also because there is nothing within its tastefully and expensively well-appointed walls that hints at originality or invention. It is strangely austere, in spite of its efforts to the contrary: bright daffodil yellow damask-covered walls, gilt-framed Venetian mirrors, a ceiling swarming with pink-cheeked
putti
. Arabella and her mother sit down in their usual place on the French-blue silk settee. Sir William lowers himself into the large wingback by the fire, stretching out his gouty ankles and nestling his head into the crook of the chair. He’ll be asleep before the servants arrive with the wine and the fruit. Edward gravitates to the armchair nearest the window, where he can peruse the newest additions to Sir William’s library, stacked on a nearby parquetry table.

No one except Edward ever reads them. Today’s volume,
Observations on Monsieur de Sorbiere’s Voyage into England,
seems pleasant enough. He opens the book and runs a finger over its smooth ivory pages. Even before he attempts to read he knows he is much too distracted to do so.

Opening the book makes him think of Hannah. Not because of something specific in the book itself but because he cannot do any
thing anymore without thinking of her. When he looks out a window, any window, he thinks of her: maybe she will suddenly, magically appear. When he ties his cravat in the morning and stares into the looking glass, he thinks of her: would she approve? When he rides in his carriage he thinks of her, of how beautiful she looked the last time she rode with him (fatigued and distressed, yes, but with more grace and strength than any other woman he has ever known), and imagines what they would say to each other. When he rises in the morning, when he goes to sleep at night, when he is alone, when he is with others. Yes, even when he is in his fiancée’s withdrawing room, which he knows smacks of betrayal, but he is not quite sure whom he is betraying: Arabella, Hannah, himself?

All entreaties to his conscience and reason are useless. His desire for her is a constant sensation, like unquenched thirst. Something as subtle as a reflection on the river or a dried leaf scuttling across a barren field can set his mind afire with thoughts of her. Much more than his mind, if he is truthful. He finally understands what the poets have always known: romantic love, even the most noble, selfless sort, is a type of sickness composed of longing and continual sexual desire. It is not a quiescent or especially pleasant state. Memories of their passionate embraces keep him awake at night and preoccupied during the day. He cannot forget the sensation of Hannah’s body entwined and joined with his, her deep reserves of passion. He cannot close his eyes without thinking of her lips, her eyes, her voice, the sound of her, the
feel
of her.

He experiences her absence most intensely at the anatomy theatre. He can no longer be there without thinking that he may suddenly see her as he did the other morning, framed in the doorway, just come out of the rain and stricken with the news of Lucy’s death. Or as he did the first time, when she told him the story of her past. But more often he pictures her next to him, working with him; which to some may seem a morbid sort of fantasy, but the thought gives him deep and satisfying comfort, even joy.

Only a few months ago he could not have imagined sharing his work with a woman. Unquestionably he would not have believed that
he would help a female surgeon amputate a man’s leg. He knew that midwives and female bone-setters existed, of course, as well as skilled noblewomen who ably practiced physick among their families, servants, and country-folk, but he never expected to meet a woman whose education rivaled his own and was, he would readily admit, a finer physician than himself. As an anatomist he has few equals, but she is the better healer by far. He has always believed that a man’s vocation is something separate from his marriage and family. The thought of sharing his work, his life’s passion, with a woman—a woman who could be his wife—is one of the most extraordinary and revolutionary thoughts he has ever entertained.

But it is not to be. She refuses to see him. She refuses, even, to accept his letters; in the past two days since he last saw her, he has sent four, each one more desperate and imploring than the last, all of which she has returned unread. She has given him no indication that she would change her mind about him if he was free. She is independent and proud. He can’t imagine her marrying for anything other than the purest reasons. Wealth and position, two congenital traits he has always relied upon to recommend him, seem to count for little in her eyes. Take away wealth and position, and what does he have left to offer? Only himself. It’s a humbling thought. It occurs to him that if she can so easily stay away from him now, after what has happened between them, then she may not love him: a notion that falls just short of causing him physical pain.

“Edward!”

He looks up to see Arabella and her mother staring intently at him. The annoyance he heard in his fiancée’s voice is quite evident on her face. She must have called his name at least once already. “That must be a very engrossing book,” she says with a hint of the pretty pout she makes when she feels Edward is not being attentive enough.

“Not really,” he admits.

The effect of his honesty in place of the expected politesse is immediate and profound; at least, it is as profound as anything is allowed to be in the stultifying ambiance of the Cavendishes’ withdrawing room.
Arabella looks at him with widened eyes, as if she’s just suffered a mild shock. Her mother becomes suddenly, pointedly attentive, like a hound that’s picked up a new scent.

“What is wrong with you?” Arabella asks.

He wants to say that he can’t breathe, that he is suffocating, that he did not realize until now that he is being smothered alive.

“Edward, what is wrong?”

Instead of answering, he closes the book and returns it to its place on the table. He considers how odd it is, that the one person who’s supposed to know him best doesn’t have a clue to what’s troubling him. His entire life is in turmoil, yet she hasn’t noticed. No, that isn’t entirely fair to Arabella, or entirely honest. He has allowed his life to go on in its smooth, calm, unruffled way, even though he of all people knows that everything’s changed.

He rises and crosses the room to stand in front of Arabella. He thinks of the many ways in which he has already disappointed her and the many others in which he is sure to. He will be doing her a great favor, although she may not think of it as such, at first. “Arabella,” he begins, brought to a halt by her innocent, questioning gaze. His fiancée is completely unprepared for what he is about to say. Lady Cavendish, however, senses what is to come. She regards him almost mockingly, angry yet resigned.
Think of all the trouble you’re going to cause,
she declares with only the slightest tilt of her head and the minutest jut of her chin.

“Arabella,” he begins again. “May I speak to you alone?”

21 December 1672

S
OON AFTER ITS
excavation, the open grave began collecting rainwater. For three days now the storm has continued unabated, and the pale wood coffin nestled within the hollowed-out ground is already half-submerged. The storm’s initial bluster has given way to a monotonous, melancholy sort of downpour, the type that makes Hannah feel as if it’s always been raining, as if it always will be. A dreary daylight the color of a ripe bruise broods over the churchyard. The bell tower and the Gothic spire of St. Clement Danes stand out ominously against the sodden sky.

The priest holds the prayer book so close to his face that she can see almost nothing of his countenance except for two shaggy black eyebrows, which rise and fall as he speaks. He is a Welshman with pockmarked skin and a timid manner whose voice is barely loud enough to carry across the gravesite. Nevertheless he drove a hard bargain before agreeing to bury Lucy face up, with her coffin oriented east to west, so that she might rise up with the other saved souls come Judgment Day and take her place in heaven. Mr. Ogle too had to be paid. He leans on a shovel at the foot of the grave, near a mound of fresh earth that’s already turned to mud.

Hannah strains to hear the priest’s recital. “Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery,” he says. “He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not…”

She keeps a protective arm around her mother, who whimpers and sobs. She suspects Charlotte knows not why she is crying, only that the churchyard frightens her. Hester and Mrs. Wills stand nearby, huddled together for warmth. They both appear stunned, as if they have no more tears left to shed. Edward looks on from the opposite side of the grave. They are the only mourners present. Although Hannah made a generous donation to St. Clement Danes, the cuts on Lucy’s wrists proved difficult to conceal and rumors of her suicide spread throughout the parish. It isn’t the rain that’s keeping the other parishioners away.

“We have entrusted our sister Lucy Harsnett to God’s mercy, and we now commit her body to the ground,” the priest continues, “in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life…” Once the burial rites are concluded, he leads them quickly through the Lord’s Prayer and the final amen. Everyone except Edward is shivering with cold. Ogle begins shoveling mud into the grave, where it lands with a splash and a sickening thud, like a weighted body heaved into a river.

Mrs. Wills discreetly leads Charlotte away as Edward makes his way over to Hannah. Before he says a word, his eyes search her face; discovering, she imagines, all the subtle and not so subtle signs there.

“You are unwell,” he states simply.

“Not precisely, Doctor, but I have taken your advice. I’ve stopped using laudanum.” Three days now. Countless times she has longed to take refuge in it, but she has resisted. Her headache has been as unrelenting as the rain. She feels as though she’s hardly slept, but she has dreamt. Strange, disquieting dreams.

“But you’re suffering, I can see.”

With a single glance that encompasses Lucy’s grave, her goodwife, mother, and maid, she shrugs and says, “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters. How long are you going to punish yourself?”

She makes no answer.

He lowers his voice. “You are not to blame for Lucy’s death.”

“How can you be so certain? You hardly know me. Perhaps I’m a monster.”

“Lucy made her own decisions.” He lowers his voice. “Why have you not answered my letters? There is something very important I must—” He breaks off in midsentence, his attention captured by something on the other side of the churchyard. Hannah turns just in time to see a figure slipping behind Ogle’s cottage and out of sight.

“It’s Thomas Spratt,” Edward declares and races across the yard after him. Hannah follows, with Hester not far behind. By the time she rounds the corner of the cottage, Edward has the young man collared and one arm twisted behind his back. His felt hat has fallen into the mud, and his blond hair quickly darkens in the rain.

Not only rain but tears also wet his face. He’s clearly overwrought, too much so to attempt to break free. Edward pushes him up against the cottage wall. “You have much to answer for, young Mr. Spratt.”

Even if Hannah didn’t recognize him as the young man she saw the girls talking to weeks ago, she would know who he was just by the dumbstruck look of calf-love on Hester’s face. He does not appear to be the sort of boy who would lure Lucy away from home; but if he did not, why is he here, and why was he hiding?

“What happened with Lucy?” she asks him. “Did you abandon her?”

He looks at them wild-eyed. “Abandon her? I don’t know what you mean.”

“You and Lucy eloped together, did you not?” Edward says.

“Lucy? Elope with me?” He shakes his head, still distraught. “No! She wouldn’t have me.”

Hannah nods to Edward, who releases his hold on the boy and steps back. “Explain yourself,” she says.

“I loved her. I asked her to marry me. She turned me down.” He tries to collect himself, wiping at his face with his sleeve.

She and Edward look at each other, perplexed. “What happened?” Hannah presses.

“I told you, she wouldn’t have me. She laughed at me. Said she
didn’t need my sort, that there was a gentleman in love with her, and she was going to be a lady.”

“A gentleman?” Hannah asks, even more mystified. “What was his name?”

“She refused to tell me. She disappeared after that, but I kept looking for her. I discovered her a week later on Foster Lane, near Cheapside. I told her that ladies weren’t kept by gentlemen in a few rooms over a tavern, but she said she was happy. I’d hang about sometimes and see him come and go. It wasn’t long before he was gone for good. The next time I went by, I found out that she’d snuck away in the middle of the night, for want of the money to pay her account. He’d left her with nothing. Next I heard,” he sniffles, “she was here.”

“Did you ever learn the gentleman’s name?” Edward asks.

He grimaces as he tries to recollect. “I heard a coachman address him once. It was strange-sounding, foreign-like…” His voice fades. “Montagu, that’s it. Mr. Montagu.”

Hannah feels the blood drain from her face. Hester gasps, her long, freckled fingers covering her mouth, her eyes round.

“Hester,” Hannah says, turning to the maid. “Tell me what you know.”

“Mr. Montagu kissed her at the dance,” she confesses as if she didn’t quite believe it herself. “I saw them. Lucy swore me to secrecy. I didn’t think it meant anything. He was a gentleman and Lucy was a maid! I never imagined a gentleman would do such a thing as ask her to run away with him. I thought…” She glances at Thomas, then quickly looks away. “I thought differently.”

“Not all men who are called gentlemen are truly so,” Edward says. He turns to Hannah. “What do you think of Mr. Montagu now?”

She wants to protest that one biased eyewitness should not be allowed to condemn him, that Thomas may have recalled the name incorrectly, that there may be more than one Mr. Montagu; but she does not have to protest aloud to know that these arguments ring hollow. She shakes her head and says, “I fear you have been right all along.”

If what Thomas says is true, her own complicity in Lucy’s death is even greater than she first thought. She brought Montagu to her home,
took the girls to the king’s dance, allowed them to be in his company. All the while she believed that he intended to court her; instead he seduced her maid. Was that his design from the start, or merely a recent fancy?

“When did you last see Mr. Montagu?” Hannah asks Thomas.

“Over a fortnight ago.”

Montagu must have lied to her when he wrote that he was going abroad the next day. She couldn’t imagine what his aims were, but he could not have done Lucy any worse harm. He abandoned her to a fate of which he could not possibly be unaware.

“Hester, go with Mrs. Wills and my mother to the carriage,” she says. The girl reluctantly curtsies to Edward and offers a solemn farewell to Thomas before she walks away. “Dr. Strathern, we must be leaving. I cannot keep my mother out in this weather.”

“Wait,” he says. His hand clasps her arm. “What are you going to do?”

“I do not know.”

“Yes, you do. I can see that you do. Do not be so foolish as to imagine that you can confront him. Lord Arlington said that Montagu returned from Paris last week, which means he was here in London when my uncle was killed.”

“Yes, I understand that.” She pulls her arm away.

“Hannah, please. Do not be so hasty. At the very least, allow me to go with you.”

“I have little desire to be in the company of gentlemen just now.”

“We are not all so untrustworthy.” His eyes implore her. “I have much to say to you.”

“What could you possibly have to say that I don’t already know? That I behaved like a fool? That I should have known that a man could not possibly be interested in me when he might instead have the love of a fresh-faced young maid? Or, in another case, the devotion of a wealthy young lady? I know I have been an idiot. I know it more than anyone. And Lucy paid the price for it.” Hannah’s voice breaks as her throat tightens and tears threaten to overtake her. She gathers her resolve. “Do not imagine that I will allow his crime to go unpunished. But I do not need your help.”

“Hannah, please. I must speak to you—”

She tilts her head defiantly. “Well?”

“Not here,” Edward protests. “This isn’t the place—”

“Then you will have to find another place, Dr. Strathern, for I must be leaving.” She turns and walks to the hackney coach, where the others are waiting.

When they arrive home, Hannah goes at once to her desk. On a sheet of foolscap she draws the markings on the bodies from memory. On her father’s body were a dotted circle, a crescent moon, and the letter P. Roger Osborne had inscribed upon his skin a trident shape, rather like a curved
Y
with a line rising up from the center, another mark that Dr. Sydenham thought to be the astrological sign for Leo, and an O. On Sir Henry, the sign for Capricorn, the apothecary sign
menses,
and a T; on Sir Granville two interlocking triangles, a single triangle balanced on its point, and the letter I. It doesn’t make any immediate sense, but the longer Hannah studies it, the more she is convinced that these markings tell some kind of story. But who is telling this story, and why?

Could it be Ralph Montagu? Thomas Spratt’s revelations have forced Hannah to reconsider her opinion of him. If he could behave so unconscionably toward Lucy, she must concede that he may be capable of anything. Even so, it is hard for her to square her firsthand knowledge of Montagu—a man of wit, even temper, and gallant charm—with the secondhand reports of him. Was he truly capable of inflicting the terrible injuries she saw on Mr. Osborne’s body, wounds that she knew were also inflicted upon the others? No matter how hard she tries to imagine it, she cannot picture Montagu acting so violently. She could almost as easily believe that Edward did it. And though she doesn’t really think that these arcane symbols are going to indict Montagu or acquit him, they are all she has left to go on.

She draws the letters and signs in different combinations, clustering them in various groups. She annotates the known marks by type: astrological sign, Latin letter, apothecary symbol; all of which, it occurs to her, are used in the practice of physick. Although belief in astrological influence has waned in recent years and has few adherents among
younger physicians, there were those, including the late, popular herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, who placed great stock in it. And the other symbols? Perhaps alchemy or chemistry.

She stands up and walks over to her sizable collection of books, the combined result of her father’s bibliophilism and her own. Her eyes scan their worn leather bindings. The answers must be here somewhere.