The Resurrectionist Read online

  Before the fire in the kitchen Mrs Gunn is asleep, slumped low upon her chair, the ruins of her dinner on the table, a flagon of porter in her lap. The house above silent as the grave. Of Mr Tyne there is no hint, so carefully I help her up, and with my arm about her guide her to the room beside the kitchen where she sleeps. As I set her down she grabs at me and tries to plant a kiss upon my mouth, her wrinkled lips murmuring something I would rather not have heard, and ashamed for her I pull away. My room upstairs will be cold, so I sit before the fire, losing myself within the pictures in the flames.

  EVEN HERE IN THIS HOUSE, where we live pressed so close against each other, it is possible to feel alone. I have learned to mind my master’s temper, just as I have come to respect Robert’s silences. There is much of which we do not speak, and much I keep to myself. But these secrets can lie heavy on us when it is quiet, as it is in the days that follow. I have little to do, little work but my study, so I am idle, drifting through the empty rooms. With Christmas we have no classes to teach, few patients, and so, little need of bodies.

  This may be a blessing of sorts, for in these last weeks Caley has seemed altered. Though we have been careful not to speak of Lucan’s visit, he has other ways of uncovering things. But whether he knows or not, he has been more erratic of late, less reliable, and when questioned responds with anger and suspicion.

  And so I am surprised to be woken two days before the New Year by Robert telling me Caley is here. Rising, I button my jacket and follow him down to the cellar, where Caley and Walker are waiting with Mr Tyne. Caley looks agitated, moving nervously.

  The two bundles they have brought lie on the floor. With Caley watching, we kneel down to examine them, Robert unbinding the larger first. It is oddly shaped, and as he sits back on his heels I understand the reason. Within, there lie two children, their bodies wound together as if they lay tumbled close in careless sleep. For a moment Robert does not move or speak: we none of us have any love for purchasing the bodies of the young, though we do it from time to time.

  ‘They are twins,’ Caley says. Indeed, though one is male and the other female, the two of them are so similar they might be each other’s images. Robert reaches down and, moving carefully, touches their faces and necks, looking for any sign that they are damaged.

  As Robert’s hands move over the children’s skin, I feel Mr Tyne grow oddly still beside me. Glancing up, I see the way he stares, the way his whole attention is focused on their tiny forms. And opposite me Caley is watching him as well. Without a word he shifts his eyes to mine, a smile playing on his lips, and I realise he watches Mr Tyne not as one might an accomplice or a friend, but as a man whose weakness he understands.

  At a sign from Robert we lift the two of them onto the tabletop. Then, drawing my knife, I crouch down again to cut the cords which bind the other, smaller bundle. I feel a sort of wretchedness: there is still something horrible to me in this, something pointless and deadening in these voided shells. And then, as I draw the body forth, I see the stitching, this child’s ruined face.

  ‘What is it?’ Robert asks. At first I cannot speak, only sit, my hand held just above his little chest.

  ‘Gabriel?’

  ‘We cannot take this one,’ I say, leaning back.

  ‘Why not?’ He kneels beside me.

  I just shake my head, unsure of what to say. The child is Oliver, Kitty’s son. Robert extends a hand and touches him.

  ‘He is marked,’ I say, gesturing towards the ruined scalp and hand, Charles’s stitching, a ghastly patchwork.

  ‘We no longer have the luxury to pick and choose,’ Robert says.

  Behind us Caley is watching.

  ‘He is too long dead,’ I say.

  ‘Two weeks perhaps,’ says Robert. ‘Not so long in this weather.’

  I shake my head. ‘We cannot take him,’ I insist.

  Glancing back at Caley, Robert leans close. ‘You say we may not take him yet you give me no good reason.’ He keeps his voice low but I hear the frustration in it.

  ‘I have given you two,’ I say.

  ‘And I have said neither is enough.’

  Looking down again at poor Oliver, I shake my head. ‘Please,’ I say, ‘do not take him.’

  Caley draws closer, his eyes moving from the child to me.

  ‘What is this?’ Though he holds himself still the threat of his mood is visible. Robert stares at me one more time. Then, as if I have failed him somehow, he turns back to Caley.

  ‘We cannot take this one,’ he says.

  Caley’s face clouds, but before he may speak Mr Tyne is there, one hand raised to settle him.

  ‘Why not?’ he asks.

  There is a silence, then Robert shakes his head.

  ‘His injuries are foul,’ he says, his tone level, as if there is no more to be said than this. But Mr Tyne is not put off so easily and, kneeling down, he lets one hand touch the poor child’s cheek. The gesture is unpleasant in its intimacy, and I wish as his hard fingers brush that naked flesh that I might avert my gaze.

  ‘We have taken worse,’ he says, exploring the chest and the hidden spaces beneath the arms. ‘What is it you object to in this one?’ When we do not answer he looks up, first at Robert.

  ‘I see,’ he says. ‘It is not you that objects but him.’ Next he looks at me. ‘You know something of this child, I think.’ His face is suddenly so close I can smell the sour reek of his breath. ‘That is it, is it not?’

  I shake my head, although my eyes will betray me.

  ‘It is my decision,’ Robert says, his body guarding mine. Mr Tyne does not move, but slowly he lets his eyes shift to Robert’s face. At last he makes a sound of disgust and turns away.

  Though Caley is ill pleased, he binds the child up again and with Walker goes back into the night. Mr Tyne lingers in the room, watching as we wash the twins’ tiny bodies. With him there I cannot speak, and it pains me that this should be, for in the silence I feel a reproach which shames me. Only when we are done, and Robert and I are alone, do I manage to speak.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  At the stairs Robert turns, and for several seconds stands watching me.

  ‘I do not know what happened tonight, Gabriel,’ he says, ‘nor do I care. If you choose to have secrets that is your own affair.’

  ‘The secret is not mine,’ I say, but he shakes his head.

  ‘That is as may be.’ His voice is level, but I hear the anger in it. ‘I care only that these secrets not follow you home again.’

  I nod, but he has not finished.

  ‘That was badly done. Caley is Tyne’s creature and there was profit in it for him.’

  ‘I am sorry you quarrelled with him on my account.’

  ‘It is not for me I am concerned,’ he replies. ‘Tyne is a man to be cautious of and you have cost him money tonight.’

  WITH THE YEAR’S TURNING the weather grows worse, freezing rain giving way to black sleet and howling wind. In the cellar icicles form on the rafters; ice veins the water in the pails, in every room the cold growing deeper by the day. Then, without warning, the wind turns to the north, and overnight comes snow, clean and white, drifting silently earthwards, carpeting the dark roofs and transforming the city into a place of stark beauty, the spires of the churches rising like white-capped peaks, the trees stretching their branches into the freezing air, slivered with gleaming ice.

  And with the snow a kind of silence, as if the city were stilled by its weight. In the churchyards and the parks huddled figures move across the frozen ground, gathering sticks to burn, to warm themselves, and on the streets the carriages and people do still move, but their numbers are thinned, their motion less urgent.

  Of my refusal of the child there is no mention. But Mr Tyne has not forgotten: he watches me more closely now, and twice I am sure I see him from the corner of my eye in the street. Perhaps it would be easier if he were to speak of it to Mr Poll; his silence seems somehow more ominous, and I am uneasy.

&nb
sp; Upon Prince’s Street, before St Anne’s, a handful of crows move upon the cobbles, picking at the lines that trace the passage of the carriages across the snow – black against white. Overhead the sky is low, heavy and bruised. In the tower the bell tolls, the sound loud in the stillness of the freezing morning, and at its call I halt, staring back towards the church’s looming mass. Through the churchyard rails I glimpse the heads of mourners, the high hats of the bearers and the coffin on their shoulders just visible as it is borne across the ground.

  For several seconds I stand thus, gazing up, then slowly I turn and cross the rutted surface of the road to the gate. The iron cold beneath my hand. White here too, the crowded stones jumbled together. In places graves gape, dark against the snow, almost like doors opening emptily in the earth. Now the mourners come to a halt beneath the bare form of an oak, the coffin is lowered, then comes the voice of the priest.

  A stillness lingers in the yard, that silent space of graveyards everywhere. By the grave a woman weeps, her head cast down; a man beside her, a son perhaps, for he is younger than she, reaches out to steady her, but she will not have it, and shakes him off with an abruptness that is almost violent, the motion stilling even the voice of the priest. The young man stands, his hand outstretched, the woman staring fiercely ahead, and the small congregation shifts uneasily.

  Struck all at once with the sense of intruding, I turn away to leave – and as I do I see her in the street outside the gate. As our eyes meet she hesitates, as if she had meant to slip away but stayed despite herself and now is caught.

  ‘I fear I shall not like your reason for being here,’ she says as we meet.

  I shake my head. ‘I saw the funeral, nothing more.’

  She examines my face. Then, with a small movement she glances over her shoulder at the buildings that rise on the opposite side of Prince’s Street. Their windows gape emptily.

  ‘Walk with me,’ she says.

  Her pace is quick, as if seeking to be quit of this place.

  ‘It is a bitter day to be about on foot,’ I say at last. ‘Where are you bound?’

  ‘A friend’s,’ she says. I hear the evasion but do not press her. She is shivering, pressing her arms closer to herself; although her hat and collar are of fur, the coat she wears is thin, and her face is flushed with the cold.

  ‘I was very sorry to learn of Kitty’s loss,’ I say, the words sounding so clumsy I regret them immediately. But if I have trespassed she gives no sign. Instead she looks as if something in what I have said surprises her somehow.

  ‘A child dying is always sad,’ she says then, turning away. Her words seem hard, but something else is in the tone.

  ‘How is Kitty?’ I ask.

  ‘It was a grievous blow. And she was not strong before.’

  This last brings silence between us for a time.

  ‘I had hoped to see you again,’ I say then, my body trembling, again regretting my words even as they are spoken. Yet she does not laugh or sneer.

  ‘Does it bring you happiness, your work?’ she asks.

  I hesitate. ‘It was my guardian’s intention that I have a profession so I might provide for myself.’

  ‘What of your parents?’

  ‘They are dead,’ I say.

  She nods, gazing both at and through me, as if I were not quite real, or as if she saw in me something long forgotten.

  ‘And yours?’ I venture.

  For a fraction of a second she pauses, then she looks away. ‘Dead too,’ she says. ‘Long ago.’

  I wait, thinking she will continue, but instead she comes to a halt.

  ‘I have business here, Mr Swift,’ she says. ‘You must excuse me.’

  I bow. For a long moment she stands watching me. ‘I do not think we shall meet again,’ she says at last, then, her coat still wrapped tight about herself, she turns away, leaving me to watch her form as it recedes along the lane. At last I feel something upon my cheek, and looking up I see it has begun to snow once more, the white flakes drifting and spinning in the frigid air.

  In the dispensary I watch Charles measure a dose of belladonna into a bottle.

  ‘There is something I must tell you,’ I say, knowing he has noticed my silence.

  He smiles. ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Three nights ago, when Caley came, I caused one of the bodies he brought to be refused.’

  ‘Was it spoiled?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, not spoiled.’

  ‘Then why?’ he asks, his voice flat.

  ‘It was Kitty’s child.’

  He does not answer.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Not that they had brought him.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ I say, but even as I speak I know the words are wrong, and I have offended somehow. Corking the bottle he checks the dosage once more, then places it inside his coat.

  At the door he pauses, turning back to me. ‘I have not thanked you properly for your discretion in this matter. I will remember it.’

  THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOW bring little cheer. Though Caley and Walker bring us subjects, their deliveries are erratic, their promises often unfulfilled. They give no reason for their failings, though Mr Poll has little doubt Lucan is responsible. This would be trouble enough on its own, but with so few bodies Mr Poll and Charles are forced for want of subjects to cancel lectures more than once. To lose the money is galling enough, but to suffer the ignominy of seeing others teach when we may not is a bitter thing. Nor is this the only sting these weeks provide: from here and there come rumours that others take pleasure in Mr Poll’s predicament, and worse still, it is said the Duke of Kent has declined Mr Poll’s services in favour of those of Sir Astley. Without evidence we cannot know why this should be, but Mr Poll is not to be dissuaded from the belief the cause lies with his rival, who, for all his letters of sympathy, is said to have been working tirelessly to cast aspersions on Mr Poll’s abilities.

  Of Arabella there is no glimpse; indeed, as the days turn into weeks her parting words seem more and more likely to come true. Twice I take myself to the theatre where she plays and, seating myself among the cheapest seats, watch her moving on the stage. Though she is beautiful, there she seems impossibly distant, as if the woman that night in Kitty’s house were made less real by seeing her thus, which saddens me, and so after the second time I do not go back.

  In Charles too I have felt the change grow, the shift in his manner. Perhaps to another it would not be visible. There is much to Charles which is hidden, for all his apparent openness, much he holds close. But as these weeks have passed he has been less himself, his temper quicker, and though he still laughs and sings, he often seems distracted and harder somehow, as if some vital part of him is broken.

  I am sure Chifley senses it too, though I would not ask to know. What it is that binds the two of them I have never understood. Oftentimes they appear not friends at all, but as if they are connected by some deeper need for each other’s company, some unspoken bond of mind and temperament, against which each of them strains and pulls, this strain expressing itself sometimes in wild energy – that intoxicating exuberance they seem able to engender in each other – other times in sniping, silence and something closer to dislike.

  THOUGH FLEET STREET lies but a hundred yards away, here silence ticks, the rags hung on the lines overhead moving like wraiths upon the occluded air. Not for the first time in these last few minutes I glance back, thinking I hear a sound, straining to make out something through the fog. For a moment I think I see a shape revealed, but almost at once it is gone. With thoughts of thieves I draw my coat closer and turn aside, slipping down a covered passageway. And then all at once he is there, leaning in a doorway.

  ‘These are unfriendly streets,’ he says, straightening to block my path.

  ‘Do you follow me?’ I demand.

  ‘Why should I follow you?’ he asks with his silky laugh.

  ‘That is something I would not know,’ I say.

  ‘How goes the business of
your master’s house?’

  ‘The worse for your attentions,’ I reply.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that.’ He smiles, and I feel a twitch of complicity. Shaking my head, I make a noise of disbelief.

  ‘Yet it is said you refused a child.’

  I hesitate, realising as I do my reaction has given him whatever answer it was he sought. For a moment he is silent.

  ‘It ended up on van Hooch’s table,’ he says. When I do not reply he takes a cigar from his case and, striking a match upon his boot, lights it carefully.

  ‘Tyne is not a man to anger lightly. Why take such a risk?’ The smell of the cigar mingles with the sulphur from the match as he draws back on the smoke and lets it coil from his lips. Then with a lazy movement of his wrist he flicks the match away.

  ‘Your master did me a disservice, you know. I came to him as a friend and he insulted me.’

  ‘You threatened him.’

  He shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says. ‘It was he who took what was mine and sought to do me harm.’ I am uncomfortably aware of the passage walls close against us, the low roof overhead stained with soot.

  ‘These troubles of his, they are in his power to prevent. Remind him of that.’

  I nod, and he comes closer, the sweet, throat-searing smoke surrounding us.

  ‘It is said de Mandeville has made a project of you, that he takes you drinking, and to see his women.’

  I do not answer, and slowly he moves past me, until he stands at my back.

  ‘I could help you.’ His voice is lower now, more intimate.

  ‘I cannot imagine how,’ I reply, and he chuckles.

  ‘Come, think upon it. You are an orphan, without property or a name, and already it is said you owe money to the Jews.’

  ‘I am a gentleman,’ I say, the words coming stiff and broken from my mouth.

  ‘You are proud. That is good. But do not let that pride make you blind.’

  I stand, unspeaking.