The Lazarus Curse (Dr. Thomas Silkstone Mystery) Read online

  Her mistress darted a cursory glance in the boy’s direction. “I can see that,” she replied coldly. “But this noise! This screaming! I will not have it, you hear!” She had turned to Phibbah and cuffed the side of her head.

  “Get Roberts to deal with her,” she instructed Venus. The housekeeper’s body tensed as if braced against the storm of harsh words that came from her mistress’s mouth.

  “Tell him to put her in the bridle. That’ll quiet her crying.”

  At these words, Phibbah’s eyes widened with terror.

  “No, missa. No, please!” she pleaded, shuffling on her knees toward Mistress Carfax. She pawed at the hem of her gown, just like the small dog that sniffed at the corpse as his mistress ranted. This time a heavier blow was dealt to the top of her head, as if the girl were a troublesome fly to be swatted. “And another twenty lashes,” she snarled, as Phibbah collapsed sobbing at her feet.

  Venus remained expressionless and nodded slowly. “Yes, ma’am,” she replied without enthusiasm. Her voice was carefully neutral.

  “And see he is”—she pointed at the child—“disposed of.”

  With these words, she turned and called Fino, who by now was licking the child’s face. She tucked the dog under her arm and headed out of the room. Before she could reach the narrow stairs, however, Thomas appeared, blocking her exit.

  Fearing his professional skills might be needed, he had followed the woman up the service stairs.

  “Do you need my assistance, madam?” he asked her.

  Mistress Carfax, her anger still not fully abated, shook her head and tried to make light of the situation. “ ’Tis nothing.” She let out a self-conscious laugh and patted the dog in her arms. “A Negro boy is dead. He took a chill. ’Tis all.”

  Thomas edged forward on the small landing. “Then I shall certify the death,” he said, looking toward the open door of the attic room.

  Mistress Carfax’s back stiffened. “Is that really necessary, Dr. Silkstone? He was only a . . .” She broke off as she read Thomas’s disapproving expression.

  “A slave, ma’am?” He finished her sentence for her.

  There was little room to maneuver on the cramped landing and only a few inches separated them. The woman’s breaths came in short, sharp pants. She nodded and stuck out her chin defiantly, stiff-faced, as if her cheeks and lips had been starched. “Yes,” she said finally. “A slave.”

  Thomas leaned closer to her and lowered his gaze to meet hers. Her eyes were as cold and unseeing as those of the fish in his laboratory. Flattening his lips in a smile, he began to shake his head. “The law may be ambiguous as to whether a slave is an animal or a human, but I would be failing in my duty as a physician if I did not examine the child.” He let his words linger on the air until the woman blinked and agreed with a sullen nod.

  “Very well, Dr. Silkstone,” she muttered, letting Thomas pass into the room.

  He walked in to find Venus comforting Phibbah, trying to still her sobs. Her long thin arms were wrapped ’round the girl, whose head was nestled on her shoulder.

  “I am a physician,” he told her, walking toward the boy. As Venus nodded, Phibbah pulled away. She eyed Thomas suspiciously as he knelt down, took the child’s emaciated wrist, and felt for his pulse. There was none. Lifting his lids, Thomas looked at the boy’s pupils. They were fully dilated. He was satisfied that his short life had ebbed away.

  “The fever?” he asked, lifting his gaze and looking at Venus. She simply nodded.

  Pulling back the coarse sheet, he looked at the boy’s torso. His ribs showed through his brown skin like the veins of a leaf. He was evidently malnourished, thought Thomas, so that his guard was already down before the fever struck.

  Mistress Carfax returned to the room, without the dog, and walked over to Thomas, fixing cold eyes on the corpse.

  “I shall write out a certificate,” Thomas told her, even though he knew the death would probably not be registered. The child’s body would, in all honesty, be dumped in an unmarked grave.

  “Thank you, doctor,” she replied, not bothering to lift her gaze from the boy’s face. It was the first time she had displayed a modicum of civility.

  Standing upright, Thomas waited until it was obvious Mistress Carfax was ready to return downstairs. On the landing he paused and faced her squarely as she lifted her skirts to descend.

  “Mistress Carfax,” he began.

  Surprised, she turned. “Yes?”

  “Perhaps next time one of your slaves is seriously ill, you might think to call me,” he told her, adding: “I will not charge to see them.”

  She digested his words as if they were bitter pills and nodded slowly before heading downstairs to join her husband.

  Left alone in the attic room, the housekeeper and the slave stood motionless, staring at the dead child. The cruel taunts of the fever were nowhere to be seen on his face. In its place was a peace and a contentment that neither of them had seen while he was alive. Perhaps he had been reunited with his mother. Perhaps he was running wild and free in his homeland, thought Phibbah.

  It was Venus who broke the silence. “Sleep well, child,” she whispered. She straightened her long neck and switched her gaze to the girl, slight and hunched, at her side. The look Venus gave Phibbah dragged her from her mourning and she shivered as if suddenly recalling the fate that awaited her downstairs. Both of them knew what had to happen next.

  Chapter 15

  Thomas returned to the quay the following day to meet with Mr. Bartlett. As soon as Captain McCoy appeared, however, he did not need to be told that the young artist had not returned from the Customs House. He could read the captain’s sober expression as he met him on deck. The nonchalance he had shown before had all but disappeared to be replaced with apprehension.

  “ ’Tis most out of character,” said McCoy, shaking his head.

  “And you have checked with the Customs House?” pressed Thomas, clutching for any grain of information.

  The captain, a man whose skin was chapped by the wind and burned by the sun, hesitated, then said, “They denied sending any official to board us, Dr. Silkstone.”

  Thomas balked. “Then who . . . ?”

  “I fear I have no idea,” replied McCoy, shaking his head.

  The doctor thought for a moment. “And you say he had Dr. Welton’s journal about his person?”

  “Aye. I believe so. In a large satchel.” Thomas’s insinuation suddenly seemed to register and the captain’s brows lifted. “Surely it could not be that anyone would wish to steal the doctor’s diary?” he asked.

  Thomas felt a mounting sense of frustration. “If, as it seems, this customs official was an imposter, can you think of any other reason for Mr. Bartlett’s disappearance?”

  The captain faltered and he shook his head, as if recalling a conversation.

  “I remember Mr. Bartlett said that the information was of great value and for Sir Joseph’s eyes only,” he said.

  Thomas could not hide his surprise. As the man charged with cataloguing the expedition’s specimens he felt entitled to be privy to all its findings. Sir Joseph had made no mention of any momentous discoveries, or indeed anything of material value. Unlike Captain Cook’s expedition, where the primary goal was to discover the transit of Venus, Sir Joseph had not spoken of any specific goal. As far as he had been briefed, the expedition was purely to gather specimens of potential medicinal interest. Thomas felt slightly aggrieved.

  “Why should that be?” he asked curtly.

  “I cannot say,” shrugged the captain. “ ’Tis all I know.”

  “I will inquire if Mr. Bartlett has been in touch with Sir Joseph,” said Thomas finally.

  “A good idea, Dr. Silkstone,” acknowledged McCoy. “In the meantime, you’d best take these.” He handed Thomas a sheaf of Matthew Bartlett’s sketches and several folios of Dr. Welton’s notes.

  Thomas glanced through them. “These will be of great help,” he said.

  And wi
th that the two men bade each other a good day, neither, it seemed, any the wiser as to the whereabouts of the one man upon whose shoulders the success or failure of the Jamaican expedition now rested.

  As soon as he climbed into the carriage that was to return him to Hollen Street, Thomas began to read Dr. Welton’s notes. Scrawled in a haphazard manner across several sheets of paper, they were secured by a thin ribbon. A cursory look told him they appeared quite perfunctory. They were notes and observations, rather than the detailed scientific reports that he was anticipating. He supposed the doctor had reserved his most important findings for his journal. And that, of course, he had yet to see.

  This collection seemed to be arranged in no particular order, as if the pages had been thrown together without great care and in haste. Nevertheless from the very first line of the text, Thomas was drawn in.

  Kingston, May 6, 1783

  Some Negroes fervently believe they will return to the Country of their origin when they die in Jamaica. They therefore have little regard for their own deaths, so convinced are they that they shall be free from the white man’s shackles once more. To enable this to pass, I have heard many cut their own throats. Whether they die by their own hand, or naturally, their kindred people make a great show of lamentations, mournings, and howlings.

  Thomas looked up from the page and felt his own breath judder. He thought of the Carfaxes’ dead child slave, thousands of miles away from his native land. No one would be attending his grave.

  Chapter 16

  Boughton Hall

  Brandwick

  Oxfordshire

  November 1, 1783

  My Dearest Thomas,

  As I write to you the first snows of winter have fallen early. We have endured frosts for many days but we awoke this morning to find the hills and vales covered in a thick carpet of white. From my study window the chapel spire looks like a needle piercing through a crisp linen sheet and the twigs on the trees are draped in lace. I wish you could be here to share the view with me, my love.

  Lydia looked up from the piece of paper on her desk and glanced toward the fire blazing in the grate. Richard was lying on his stomach on the hearth rug, his legs bent upward, waving restlessly in the air. He was playing with some tin soldiers Howard had found in the attic. They had once belonged to her late brother, Edward. But she knew their novelty would wear off in a few minutes and her son would seek some new adventure. She took up her pen once more.

  Richard continues to prosper. His arm grows stronger by the day, thanks to the exercises you showed him. I am teaching him to read and write and to count, although he is not a very willing pupil. He would much rather be outside on the estate.

  She was about to write riding with Mr. Lupton, but checked herself.

  When Richard had woken that morning and looked out onto the snow-covered landscape, his first reaction was one of wonder and delight. This was not the first snow he had ever seen, but such was his joy that it took all of Nurse Pring’s strength to stop him from rushing downstairs and out of doors in his nightshirt.

  Over breakfast Lydia had promised to venture out with him herself, although she was worried that the icy air would harm his already delicate lungs. So now, almost every ten minutes or so, he asked her the same question. When could they go out into the snow? And when she replied, as she always did, that she would take him out after she had finished writing her letter to Dr. Silkstone, he sulked and moaned and knocked down the soldiers in a display of temper that she found understandable but unseemly. And here it came again. Her son shifted himself up onto one elbow. Only this time his question was more strategic in its phrasing. It showed the military tactics worthy of a good general.

  “Can Mr. Lupton take me out in the snow?”

  Her pen hovered over the paper. Lupton. For some reason she had not thought to mention the new estate manager in her last letter to Thomas. She felt he was settling in well. He had been in post for just over a week and was getting to grips with the day to day management of Boughton. Richard also seemed to have taken to him. Ever since they had ridden out together, her son had continually asked if he could accompany Lupton in his duties. Not a day had gone by when Richard had not stood by the front door in his riding boots, waiting to saddle up with his new friend, only to be told he could not.

  “Mr. Lupton is a very busy man, my sweet,” Lydia would say, adding: “Besides, you have your letters to learn.” That riposte was never well received and the child would whine and trail his feet into the study to sit sullenly while his mother taught him his alphabet. She knew full well that Richard needed male company, a man he could look up to, someone dependable, who would always be there for him. And the worm of doubt that had crept into her brain ever since Thomas had returned to London almost two months ago began to reemerge.

  Now she found herself beginning to lose her patience, but she bit her tongue. “No, Richard. He cannot take you out,” was her curt response.

  Taking a deep breath, she poised her nib once more, but before she could resume her letter, Howard appeared at the door.

  “Mr. Lupton is here to see you, m’lady.”

  Lydia arched a brow. Their daily meeting was not scheduled until the afternoon. She put down her pen. “Very well,” she replied.

  Nicholas Lupton marched in wearing a thick coat and a muffler about his neck that obscured his chin, but not his mouth. His face was wreathed in a broad smile.

  “Good morning, your ladyship,” he greeted her, jovially. He made a shallow bow, but his movement was severely restricted by the fact that he carried something large and wooden under his arm.

  “Good morning, Mr. Lupton,” replied Lydia, somewhat bemused by the object that her estate manager was holding.

  By this time Richard, on seeing Lupton, had scrambled to his feet and was dancing around him, tugging eagerly at his coat.

  “Richard, please!” scolded his mother. “Leave Mr. Lupton alone or I shall have to send you upstairs.” She found herself raising her voice to the child, something she was doing with increasing regularity, and she disliked herself for it. She looked at the object of her son’s excitement. “I do apologize, Mr. Lupton,” she said.

  The estate manager merely laughed. Waving dismissively with his free hand, he bent low to greet the young earl, who immediately began inspecting the strange object tucked under his new friend’s arm.

  “What is it?” inquired the boy.

  Lupton beamed again. “Why, this”—he announced with all the flair of a showman—“is a sledge.”

  Lydia was shocked. Her son looked puzzled. The estate manager was holding what appeared to be a small wooden table with curved runners attached to its legs.

  “A sledge. What is a sledge?” asked Richard, forming the unfamiliar word carefully.

  Lupton eyed Lydia, trying to gauge her reaction. Had he overstepped the mark? She returned his gaze for a moment, before she, too, began to smile.

  “A sledge is like a carriage for the snow,” she told her son.

  The estate manager crouched down and planted the sleigh on the floor. “You sit on it, see?” he said, pointing at the planks, “and then I will whirl you ’round and ’round on the ice till you’re dizzy as a gadfly.” There was an infectious enthusiasm in his tone.

  The boy laughed and plonked himself on the seat, then brought both his short legs up at right angles and tried to shuffle as if to make the strange contraption move.

  “You have taken to it naturally, sir,” Lupton told him, patting the child on the back.

  “Can we go now, Mamma? Please? Can we go on the ice?” Richard looked at his mother with large, pleading eyes and melted her resolve.

  “Very well,” she relented. “But we must wrap up warm!”

  And so the small party, Lydia, Richard, and Nicholas Lupton, boarded the dogcart and headed off on the track toward Plover’s Lake. The brilliant blue sky was cloudless and the sun was bright, but the air was freezing and their breath billowed about them like steam
as the horses trotted along. Lydia was swathed in a fur stole and hat and her hands were tucked into a muff. She had made sure that Richard was equally protected, with woollen stockings, a worsted coat, and stout boots. A thick scarf hugged his neck.

  The snow lay three or four inches deep on the road, but on the verges and against the hedges the overnight wind had blown it in drifts. In some places it was as if a giant had spread a bedsheet over the fields and hedgerows and forgotten to smooth it down. Lydia found herself smiling, despite the fact that her cheeks were tingling with cold.

  After twenty minutes or so they arrived at the lake. Its surface was frosted white, like a huge mirror, and the reeds that fringed it were rigid as spears. A few ducks skidded comically on its icy surface as they drew up close by. Lupton offered Lydia his hand and she descended from the cart, her feet crunching into the snow below.

  “How do you know the ice is thick enough to walk on?” she asked warily.

  “I have measured it, your ladyship. ’Tis four inches thick. Safe as stone,” he replied.

  The estate manager seemed sure of himself, but he held her gaze until she gave a nod of approval, then clapped his gloved hands gleefully.

  “Come, come then, sir!” he chirped.

  Richard, already standing up, jumped down into Lupton’s arms, then, taking him by the hand, pulled the estate manager, with the sledge in tow, toward the lake. Together they set foot on the ice, edging very slowly at first, keeping close to the bank. Lydia watched anxiously from the shore, but every few seconds Lupton gave her a reassuring smile.

  “You’re sure the ice will not crack?” called Lydia, nervous as an ill-sitting hen.

  “I give you my word, your ladyship,” came the unequivocal reply.

  Both man and boy had stepped out onto the lake’s surface now, the ice taking the full weight of both their bodies. In one hand Lupton carried a stout log and, without warning, he hurled it out into the middle of the frozen plane. It hit the surface hard and skidded a few feet before finally coming to rest near the centre, the hollow echo that it made reverberating loudly in the still air.