The Scent of Death (23 page)

‘Thank you, no. These inoculations do not always agree with patients, you know, and in the end the only thing is to let the infection run its course.’

At another point, I awoke to find Mrs Arabella sitting near me in old Mrs Wintour’s chair, her head and shoulders wrapped in a shawl. I stared at her in confusion. I had been dreaming of a great white mansion with many rooms. I knew in the dream that this house must be Mount George. I was searching with desperate urgency for someone or something. I ran from one huge, echoing room to another; there was no discernible plan or shape to the place, and the rooms went on and on; sometimes I seemed to enter rooms that I had already searched but by a different door, though I could not be sure of this. Now, caught for an instant between waking and sleeping, I knew that I had been looking for Mrs Arabella.

I sat up sharply. The fire had reduced itself to embers that gave off a dull red light. All the candles had burned out except one on the sofa table. I found I had a blanket draped across my legs. The Captain was still snoring.

‘Madam, I—’

‘Pray do not disturb yourself, sir. You were so soundly asleep, I hoped not to wake you.’

‘This blanket?’

‘It’s growing cold. My husband has more than enough.’

‘Is all well in your hospital?’

For a moment she did not reply. ‘I do not know.’ Her breathing had become irregular. ‘Not yet.’

‘You should rest,’ I said bluntly. ‘Can you not retire and leave Miriam to watch over your patients?’

‘I am quite rested now. It is you who should retire, sir.’

She leaned forward and threw fuel on the fire. I pushed the blanket aside, took up the poker and stirred the embers. Soon the flames were licking around the new log.

I added more wood and went to look at Captain Wintour. The snores had modulated from andante to adagio.

‘He’s smiling in his sleep,’ I said.

She did not turn her head. ‘He will have a better night than any of us.’

‘No doubt.’

This time she looked at me. ‘That is the way of things, is it not? But I must return to my patients.’

She stood up abruptly, wished me goodnight in the same, sour tone and left the room. I wondered if I had somehow offended her. Or was her bitterness directed at her husband or even at something deeper and broader whose shape was entirely mysterious to me?

I was now quite awake. I walked about the room, for my limbs had grown stiff in the chair. Mrs Arabella had taken her candle but there was still the one on the sofa table. I carried it to the fireplace and set it on the mantelshelf. I held out my hands to the blaze and glanced up at the candle to see if the wick needed trimming.

I discovered that the painting above the fire had acquired a sort of half-life. The varnished ridges and grooves of the oil paint sometimes reflected and sometimes absorbed the light of the candle flame. As the draught made the flame flicker, so the light it cast made the painting ripple and sway as though it lay under clear, shallow water whose surface had been agitated by a breeze.

There was the white house of my dream with its eight pillars and its porch. There were the grazing sheep and the plump cattle. There was the prosperous little family group in the foreground, together with the spaniel who was not paying attention.

Mount George. I raised the candle and studied the painting more closely. As Mrs Arabella had pointed out, the artists who produce such works play with perspective to magnify what they see. I tried to make allowances for this, to see the place for what it really was – or, rather, for what it had been.

By the same token I tried to imagine what the family had truly been like – Mr Froude in the prime of life with his chart and his telescope; Mrs Froude as a young and perhaps desirable woman; and the infant Arabella, implausibly poised and genteel. Mr and Mrs Froude were dead now, and so was the bored spaniel. I suspected that the dog had been truer to life than anything else, the artist’s solitary concession to what he actually saw before his eyes.

There was something about Mount George that eluded me. Why the devil should Captain Wintour wish to go there now? How could it profit him in its present state? He was not a man of much sensibility but Townley had surely been right this evening: Wintour must know of his wife’s dislike of the place where her father and her daughter had died in such distressing circumstances.

I sat down again and pulled the blanket over me. In the semi-darkness, Captain Wintour snuffled like a dozing hound in his basket. There had to be something at Mount George, I thought, something that he wanted or something he needed to do.

I fell asleep. This time oblivion rolled over me. If there were dreams, I do not remember them.

The next thing I knew was that I had been jerked into full consciousness. Lines of daylight showed around the shutters. I was very cold. The fire was nearly out. Wintour breathed steadily, more quietly than before.

I heard footsteps hurrying to and fro in the hall.

I threw aside the blanket, stood up and stumbled to the door. My limbs were stiff and still half asleep.

In the hall, Mrs Arabella and Miriam were clinging together at the foot of the stairs. Mrs Arabella was holding on to the newel post. They looked old beyond their time, older than Mrs Wintour.

‘Madam?’ I said. ‘Madam? What is it?’

Mrs Arabella did not reply.

But Miriam looked at me. The tears were running down her face. ‘We lost a child.’

‘A child?’ I echoed, not understanding.

‘A slave’s child,’ Miriam said harshly.

‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘No, sir. Nothing that anyone can do.’

Major Marryot arrived on the doorstep before eight o’clock in the morning with a regimental surgeon in tow. The Judge was roused by their knocking and came down the stairs in his dressing gown.

‘You must not alarm yourself, sir,’ I said. ‘Captain Wintour has had a comfortable night. I have just been talking to him and he seems quite his old self.’

Mr Wintour took my hand and pressed it. Then he almost pushed the surgeon into the drawing room. I lingered in the hall with the Major.

‘A blow to the head and a flesh-wound in the shoulder,’ I said. ‘Wintour fought back and his hand is cut badly. Fortunately his attacker was interrupted when the servant unbolted the door.’

‘And Mrs Arabella?’

‘She’s asleep now – she’s been to and fro between here and the slave quarters. One of the slaves died last night.’

‘The poor lady. Pray let me know if there is anything I can do, sir, anything at all. I would esteem it a favour.’

‘Of course.’ I nodded towards the drawing-room doorway. ‘You have already done a great deal, and done it sooner than any of us could have hoped.’

I sent Abraham downstairs to fetch a pot of coffee. Marryot and I stood just inside the room and watched the surgeon examining his patient. Wintour was awake. His face was paler than usual but he seemed in remarkably good spirits. He swore at the surgeon when the man probed at the wound in his shoulder.

‘There was no robbery, sir,’ I said softly to Marryot. ‘Abraham says the Captain’s assailant ran off towards Canvas Town. I can’t help wondering if there’s more to this than meets the eye.’

‘I doubt it. Why make it more complicated than it is? Man like Wintour – coming home at night, drunk as a lord—’

The surgeon straightened up and wiped his hands on a towel. ‘I see no reason for concern, sir,’ he said to the Judge.

‘Are you sure?’

‘As sure as a man can be. The wound is clean, no sign of inflammation. The blow to the head did no more than stun the gentleman. I’ll bandage him and return this evening. But sleep will be the best medicine, I believe.’

Marryot compressed his lips and looked sourly at the patient. Perhaps he would not have been unduly distressed to hear that the wounds might prove fatal. At that moment Abraham returned with a tray of coffee. Josiah was in the hall. I went outside to speak to him.

‘Mrs Arabella told me there was a death in the slave quarters last night.’

The old man’s eyes were red-rimmed. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’m heartily sorry – one of ours?’

‘No, sir. A neighbour’s.’

‘A child, I apprehend.’

He said nothing.

‘Your master is distracted at present,’ I continued in a low voice. ‘And Mrs Arabella is asleep, and has other responsibilities besides. If anything is needed, you must come to me, and I will do my best to help.’

He bowed. As he straightened up, a shaft of sunshine from the fanlight over the door shone full on his face. Tears glittered on his cheeks. Even a slave may be a creature of sentiment.

The surgeon was oversanguine. Later in the day the servants carried Captain Wintour on a makeshift litter to his room. The exertion tired him. He took a little broth and a little wine during the day and grew steadily more petulant.

He demanded amusement. I played a game of backgammon with him but he was unable to concentrate on the board for long. There was a hectic flush on his cheek. His mind flitted from one subject to another. Next, he demanded the latest news. His father read the
Gazette
to him but after a few minutes the Captain discovered that the news was too tedious for words.

He asked for Mrs Arabella but, when at last she came, he found that she had no conversation worth hearing and a face like a month of Sundays.

By the evening, he was running a fever. The surgeon came again and declared the wound might be infected. He returned again in the morning, found the fever worse and ordered the patient to be cupped. But bloodletting merely made the Captain weaker and his fever continued unabated.

I ate supper alone in the parlour. Josiah served me.

‘How are matters in the slave quarters?’ I asked.

He did not look at me. ‘Better, sir.’

‘And the child?’

He said nothing.

‘Do you need funds for the funeral? Will the child’s owners pay? If there is a difficulty, you must apply to me.’

He bowed. ‘Thank you, sir, but everything has been seen to.’

By the following morning, it was clear that Captain Wintour was very ill. The surgeon brought in two professional nurses. He ordered that the patient should not be disturbed and excluded all visitors from the sickroom including his immediate family.

Somehow the news was kept from his mother, but the Judge drifted about the house like a ghost.

Major Marryot called to enquire after the patient. So did Mr Townley, who also sent Noak over with presents intended to help restore health: but redcurrant jelly, port wine and the small, boiled chicken did not find favour with the sick man.

The fever continued to mount. On the evening of its second day, Wintour’s temperature was higher still. I was preparing for bed when there was a tap on the door. Josiah came into the room, stumbling from weariness.

‘The Captain’s asking for you, sir.’

‘For me?’

‘Yes, sir. The doctor sent me to fetch you.’

‘And the Judge? Mrs Arabella?’

‘Already there, sir. But he asks for you in particular. He is – he is talking wildly, sir.’

I pulled on a dressing gown and allowed Josiah to escort me downstairs. Captain Wintour’s chamber was directly beneath my own, though it was a larger, higher room. The doctor and the nurse stood by the bed. The Judge and Mrs Arabella sat in the relative gloom nearer the fire. They acknowledged my entry but neither spoke.

The doctor, a swarthy man with only one arm, beckoned me to approach the bed. The Captain was propped up on three pillows.

‘Pray talk to him, sir,’ the doctor murmured. ‘But try not to cause agitation. The crisis has come and I really do not wish to bleed him any more.’

‘Who’s that?’ Captain Wintour cried. ‘Who’s there? Juvenal?’

‘It is Mr Savill, sir,’ the doctor said. ‘He has come to see how you do.’

‘Savill – is it you? I do not like this darkness. Why is it so dark this morning?’

‘It is quite all right, sir,’ I said. ‘It is the evening now. We have candles.’

‘Let me see you then.’

I took up the nearest candle and held it high so the light fell on my face. The same light shone on Wintour. His nightgown was open at the neck and was damp with sweat. His head was bare and his face was rough with stubble.

He frowned and screwed up his face. ‘My eyes hurt,’ he said. ‘I do not like it.’

‘It will soon pass,’ I said. ‘You must not disturb yourself about it.’

‘I dreamed we were there, you know. We were playing backgammon on the terrace.’

‘Where?’

‘At Mount George, of course. You shall have your own apartments there, Savill, and you shall come and go just as you please.’

‘That’s most kind,’ I said, glancing at the doctor, who shook his head.

The Captain ran his tongue over his lips, which were chapped. He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Did you bring the box?’

‘Which box?’

‘The box of curiosities.’

‘No. Would you like some water?’

‘What?’ He looked about him. ‘Yes, I believe I should.’

I took a glass from the night table. I supported his head and held the water to his lips. The neck of his nightgown fell open, revealing the bulky dressing on the wound and the ribs poking at the skin. I had not realized he was so terribly thin.

He moistened his lips with water, spilling some on to his chest, and then took a few sips. He sank back, exhausted.

The doctor brought a chair for me and set it by the bedside. I sat down. For a moment neither of us spoke.

‘A whole wing,’ he said at last. ‘All to yourself.’

‘To eat?’ I asked, imagining he was thinking of chicken or some other bird.

‘No, no. Savill, my dear man, you are a dunderhead. A wing.’ His mouth dropped open in a rictus that was in fact a smile. ‘How – how very droll.’

‘What sort of wing?’

‘A whole wing.’

‘Indeed – you said that before, I believe.’

‘And I meant it, sir, as sure as my name’s Jack Wintour. A gentleman’s word is his bond.’ He looked fiercely at me, and the doctor stirred by my side. ‘And I dare any man to tell me otherwise.’