The Speckled Monster (61 page)

 

At the beginning of April, Sir Hans received his own summons to Leicester House. As he was announced, the princess dismissed all her women except Mrs. Tichborne and Prince William's nurse, and these two withdrew to a window seat to play with the baby.

The princess paced about for a while, and then came to the point directly. “I should be grateful, Sir Hans, for your frank opinion in the matter of inoculating the young princesses.”

He liked her. Not just as a princess, but as a woman. Fair of hair and fair of temperament, she had gray-blue eyes that were sharp with intelligence, without being hard. She loved her children, but without going loose in the brain over them, as most women did. At thirty-nine, her skin was still remarkably taut and so pale it was nearly translucent; at the moment, a rosy glow of excitement or anxiety or both was beating in her cheeks.

He bowed. “By what has appeared in the trials, Your Highness, it seems to be exactly what is claimed for it: a method to secure people from the great dangers attending the smallpox taken in the natural way.”

She was tapping an exquisitely shod toe in front of him. “I know what inoculation is, Sir Hans. I am asking for your opinion of its dangers. Of its worth.”

He continued. “For private persons, madam, I cannot think the practice anything other than very desirable, given the proper preparations of diet and body. Not being absolutely certain of the consequences, however, I cannot persuade or advise you to make trials upon patients of such importance to the public as the princesses.”

She turned away from him, hands on hips as she regarded her son in the distance; the boy was laughing as he held himself to a wobbly stand by the edge of a low table. “To me they are also children, Sir Hans. My children.”

He watched her with pity, but said nothing. On his side of the balance hung no less than his career, his livelihood, and possibly his life. It was all he could dare, to connive with her in the matter of luring the king into a favorable decision; the decision itself would have to be royal.

Other women might have raged or cried. Caroline of Ansbach, Princess of Wales, came to a standstill and stared at him, cocking her head. “Let me ask my question another way: Would you dissuade me?”

“No, madam, I would not. Most certainly not, in a matter so likely to be of such advantage.”

A smile of such sweet blue and gold flashed across him, that he had a sudden impression of a bluebird in spring. “I am resolved, then,” she said. “It should be done. It
must
be done.” She came forward and linked her arm in his, leading him to the door. “You will go to the king, and you will find some way to convince him.”

He bowed. “I have already received a summons.”

“What a charming coincidence,” she said, with a much more discreet sort of smile.

 

At St. James's, Sir Hans went on a brisk late-afternoon walk in the silver-green park with the king and the earl of Sunderland, first lord of the treasury, the three of them huffing and puffing through crisp, still-wintry air.
At least,
thought Sir Hans,
Sunderland is huffing and puffing as much as I am
. The king seemed impervious to either the cold or the length of the walk; he seemed rather to grow larger with goodwill and pleasure, the farther they went.

“So you are here to recommend this practice, Sir Hans?” he said, stooping for a stick to throw for his dogs.

“I am here to advise on any questions you may have, Your Majesty.”
Damned awkward, trying to bow and trot through damp grass at the same time,
he thought.

“You are a wise man,” said the king. “Irritating, perhaps, but wise. Let me think how to put my questions.” He fondled the dog who had outraced the rest of the pack to return with the stick; its tail wagged so hard there appeared to be ten of them. “It is a risk?”

“It is, sir.”

“And why do you think it works?”

“There are many theories,” he began, but a sharp look from the king made him change his answer. “We do not know why, sir.”

“But you have reason to believe it will work, though you cannot tell me why?”

“We have made a number of trials, all of them submitted to you in report. Every trial has indicated that inoculation for the smallpox produces a very favorable case, which bestows the usual survivor's protection against reinfection.”

“And how far can we be sure that it will not harm?”

“It is impossible to be certain. Raising such a commotion in the blood might produce unforeseen accidents—”

“Accidents are always unforeseen, Sir Hans.” He threw the stick into the distance once again.

“And some, sir, are dangerous. Even fatal.”

The king walked on, motioning to both of them to stay back. He went forward to a small copse, and watched with pleasure as his dogs roused several startled pheasants into the air. He came back. “Physic is always dangerous, is it not? People might well—no—people most certainly have lost their lives by a bleeding or a purge, let never so much care be taken, no?”

Sir Hans nodded.

“So you see, I am not asking if it is infallible. I am asking whether, as a gamble, it is a good one.”

They walked on in silence for another ten minutes, and then rounding a bend in a hedge, Sir Hans saw that they had come full circle; secretaries galore were rushing out from the palace to meet the king; Mehemet was stalking behind with a warm coat.

The king headed for his servant.

“Majesty?” Sir Hans dared to say.

“Eh?” said the King, stopping. “What?”

“Might I inquire whether you have come to a decision?”

“What? About inoculation? Wasn't I clear? Must be done. Without delay.” He allowed Mehemet to put on his coat. “What do you think, Sunderland?”

The earl, who had purposely said nothing the whole length of the walk, and had had high hopes of getting out of it without a word, now sighed. He had lost his first wife to smallpox; his own face was a map of its cruelty. He was no fan of letting the disease anywhere near his children: he did not believe it could be tamed. His third wife, Judith, though, had been pestering him to have her son inoculated for months now. Judith's sister-in-law, Charlotte Tichborne, had tried it herself, and was an intimate of the princess, and they both knew Lady Mary—though
liking
was not precisely the right term, he supposed. Charlotte liked the duke of Kingston's eccentric daughter; Judith, thank the Lord, was content to respect her head. It made for a mighty bustle of women.

Women he could withstand. However, if the king was going to begin hinting that inoculation was a good plan, he would have to surrender. “I will arrange for Mr. Maitland to inoculate my son William immediately,” he said.

“Excellent,” said the king. “You see, Sir Hans? Decisions are to be made quickly.”

 

On April 2, Mr. Maitland inoculated the Honorable William Spencer, two-and-a-half-year-old son of the Earl of Sunderland.

Almost two weeks later, on April 17, 1722, as young Master Will's pustules were scabbing over, Princess Emily and Princess Caroline dressed for an occasion of state, save that the sleeves were removed from their satin bodices. In the private sitting room in the nursery suite in St. James's, the royal family, the princesses' governess, the countess of Portland, and a medical council of war gathered, goaded on by the sounds of Princess Anne at the harpsichord, tripping furiously through a series of Mr. Handel's sonatas.

The wide doors remained open to the larger receiving room where Lady Mary and her miraculous daughter, Charlotte Tichborne, the duchess of Dorset, and other ladies of the Princess of Wales's household milled about with sundry men of the King's Council and the prince's household. The earl of Sunderland was not feeling well, so he had begged off for the sake of the princesses, as he put it; his wife was attending their son, and it was thought best not to toss any chance of infection about.

After an early-morning visit with his granddaughters, the king made himself busy elsewhere, though Mustafa, the junior of his two Turkish servants, made himself unobtrusively useful in the outer room, serving wine.

In the inner room, Dr. Sloane and Dr. Steigerthal were supervising, while trying to allow the prince the appearance that he was in charge—which he mostly maintained by marching about rapping on things with his riding crop, finding fault with everyone and everything, especially his wife. Mr. Maitland was there, of course, to advise, to point, to hold the lancet and the crystal vial of matter ready, and even to pinch the royal skin together, ever so gently. But it was Claude Amyand, principal sergeant surgeon in ordinary to His Majesty the king, who cut the royal skin.

Her Royal Highness, Princess Amelia, age eleven, demanded to be first, by right of seniority. She stepped forward, as if to a dance, and solemnly gave Sergeant Amyand her hand to kiss. But she did not offer to minuet; she turned sideways, just so, so as to offer the best view of her right arm, instead.

Sergeant Amyand winked at her, told her she was a brave princess, and proceeded through the operation step by step, while Mr. Maitland stood there instructing—for Sergeant Amyand of course had never done this operation before. Mr. Maitland pressed the little girl's muscle together just a bit, so as to loosen the skin, and Sergeant Amyand opened the upper layer of skin—the length of barleycorn, no more. In popped a bit of lint, and around the whole popped a bandage.

The princess presented her other arm; it went just as fast.

“It's easy, Caro,” she whispered, as she stepped back. “And it doesn't hurt. Or it hurts just a little. Not like we thought.”

“It does not hurt at all,” said her father, giving a table a good whack with his crop. “You will admit of no such thing.”

“It does not hurt at all,” said Emily, as Amelia was known to the family. With the precision of long practice, her obedience was precisely modulated between abjection and exaggeration. But the ghost of a smile played around her mouth—such that Caro could see it, but their father could not.

Princess Caroline, just nine, stepped forward clutching her favorite doll.

“Deeper,” said Mr. Maitland had said quietly, during the brief moment the family's attention was distracted. Mr. Amyand nodded, and this time he cut a bit deeper and longer, so that the princess gasped a bit, and a tear came to the corner of her eyes.

“May Anne-Caroline have a bandage too?” whispered the princess, as Sergeant Amyand finished.

It was all the surgeon could do to keep from wrapping her up in his arms, against the strutting rooster of her father. “Who?”

“Anne-Caroline,” she said, thrusting out her doll. “She has the names of my first sister and my lady-princess mamma.”

“Bien sûr!”
cried Sergeant Amyand. “What was I thinking? La Princesse Anne-Caroline must be inoculated as well.”

“What about Pierre?” asked Emily.

“No,” said her mother. “Most certainly not.”

Sergeant Amyand looked up in a silent plea, but the Princess of Wales was fighting off a smile. “Pierre is a spaniel,” she said. “Though most certainly he is a prince among dogs.”

“
Ah, non, ma petite princesse
. What is good for you, Highness, is not good for the dog, and vice versa.”

“Is that is all?” exclaimed the Prince of Wales from the far window. “Is that what all this fuss has been about? Perhaps I shall ride after all.”

In the outer room, Lady Mary noted that Mustafa had silently disappeared.

 

Sergeant Amyand sped home and inoculated the only two of his children who had not yet had the smallpox; if anything happened to the princesses, he must be seen as having taken the same risk.

To his horror, his youngest son, George, only seventeen months old, was struck with a bout of vomiting and a pretty sharp fever for four or five hours in the morning. He did not even wait for their own physician to arrive; he gave his wife a quick kiss and scuttled to the palace.

Finding everything calm, he dropped into a chair until the sweats evaporated. By then, though, the city had somehow got hold of his family's news, and were praying for his son and even harder for the princesses.

So later that day, when Lady Mary's friend Allen, Lord Bathurst, asked Sergeant Amyand to inoculate his six children, Sergeant Amyand came quite close to kissing him in the French manner of delight. He obliged that very afternoon—four daughters and two sons—at the Bathurst home in St. James's Square.

Perhaps the city's prayers did some good. At any rate, when the surgeon arrived home, he found his son's fever and nausea gone off, though the incisions had already begun to fester. His two-and-a-half-year-old daughter was as yet entirely unfazed, and was amusing her bedridden brother by spinning like a top and shrieking at the top of her lungs.

On the nineteenth, the world was shocked from the topic of smallpox by the sudden and quite unexpected death of the first lord of the treasury, the earl of Sunderland. Two days later, as little Princess Caroline began to grow tetchy under a light fever, the earl's young son, the honorable William, went into convulsions and died. A messenger went galloping to the palace.

“Was it the inoculation?” asked the king, after being pulled from a most delightful meeting with his architect. “Did he die of the smallpox?”

“We do not know, Your Majesty,” said one of the council.

“No,” said Sir Hans, “he did not. He was already shedding his scabs. How could that be?”

“No one knows how it works, Sir Hans,” said the king. “You told me so yourself. So how can anyone possibly answer your how-can-it-be question? I hope, however, that you will discover an answer for me directly.”