The anatomists, p.10
The Anatomists, page 10
“Yes, I know that,” Lancashire offered eagerly, happy to have found a thread in the narrative to which he could catch on. Thomas ignored the interruption.
“Officially a ‘club of mutual improvement and collegial collaboration,’ the Atheneum is also known for a tradition of rather riotous festivities, with more than one meeting in their illustrious history having begun with serious philosophical debate, and ended with a smashed punch bowl and broken furniture. When Alfred first hinted at his intentions to marry, it was less the fear of how the marriage would affect his work that bothered the other members than the prospect of losing such a jovial drinking companion.”
Thomas’s surprising account of Dr. Edmonds’s extracurricular activities was interrupted by a sudden surge in the noise from the crowd outside. “What’s happening out there?” asked a saucer-eyed first-year student. “Can anyone see?”
“He’s at the gate,” replied Jean-Claude, who had moved to a window on the opposite end of the hall. “There appear to be some officers of the militia. Yes. The doctor is speaking with them. The gates, for the moment at least, appear to be holding back the barbarians.”
“As I was saying,” Thomas snapped, more annoyed at being interrupted by the rioters than fearful of being attacked by them. “When the wedding actually came off, the whole ‘gang’ was in attendance, raising glass after glass in the couple’s honor until dawn forced them all to crawl back home and sleep it off. From that evening on, Alfred rarely darkened the door of the club, so very preoccupied was he with his ‘research.’” Thomas raised an eyebrow at Lancashire, and then continued.
“Shortly before his death, however, he dropped in on the club one evening to share a bowl of punch and to discuss plans for donating his vast collection of jade statuary to the museum. One bowl gave way to two, a third followed, and before long it was a typically merry evening at the Atheneum. The merriment was to be short-lived, however, for a chiming clock reminded Alfred of his domestic duties, and he prepared to bid everyone farewell. Just before he left, never again to be seen alive by anyone in the company—although none of them knew this then, of course—his manner grew serious, and he expressed his avowed wishes that, upon the occasion of his death, whenever that inevitable day should arrive, his body be placed upon the top of a wooden bier and burned until all that remained was ashes, which were to be scattered upon the surface of a pond on his estate.”
“I had read he was cremated,” I offered, recalling the story in the Gazette. “Because of his admiration for Oriental culture, wasn’t it?”
Now it was my turn to be fixed in Thomas’s sardonic stare. “No…” he said, with an exaggerated show of patience, much like a parent with a child who asks one too many foolish questions. “It had nothing to do with the Orient.” I looked at Jean-Claude for support, but he merely shrugged his shoulders. “It was for public health. In addition to all the frivolity that goes on at the Atheneum, the club does have a serious agenda, and one item near the top of it is the perpetual risk of widespread contagion posed by our overburdened church cemeteries. One proposed remedy, of course, is the creation of public cemeteries, but the Atheneum advocates, in addition, an organized system of cremation—it was Shelley’s beach cremation that gave them the idea, I believe—and Sir Alfred wanted to set an example.
“So, when word of his untimely death spread to the various members of the club, they gathered quickly to formulate a plan for carrying out their colleague’s final wishes. Our Dr. Edmonds, as the club member having the longest history with the old man, was sent to Darcy as an envoy, to carry the group’s intentions to Sir Alfred’s young widow. Dr. Edmonds expected resistance from that quarter, the idea being admittedly unorthodox, to say the least, but was delighted to find her in complete accord with her late husband’s wishes.” Then lowering his voice, as if the doctor out there at the gate might hear him above the roar of the crowd beside which he stood, he added, “And based upon the report of a very reliable messenger, the lady’s accord was not the only thing about her that delighted Dr. Edmonds. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that he was fairly smitten.”
“You’re not serious,” I said, trying to imagine the crusty old man keeping company with an exotic woman less than half his age.
“Oh yes,” he replied. “Unlike some human icebergs I know—” once again, glaring at Lancashire—“Dr. Edmonds is a creature of flesh and blood. Why, he was even married once, long ago, but his wife died of cholera before their first anniversary. The fact that he never married again, rather than indicating a lack of feeling on his part, quite to the contrary shows how very deeply his feelings run, his first loss paining him so badly that he avoided experiencing such loss again. But, I will admit, that is a bit of speculation on my part.
“What is not speculation, however, is the fact that, two days after Alfred’s death, the members of the Atheneum arrived at Darcy, fetched the man’s body, then traveled in procession to a predetermined secluded location where they had constructed an enormous bier, as instructed. Placing the body upon the dry wood, they ignited the pyre, and stood watch until the flames reduced his remains to ashes, which, when sufficiently cooled, were gathered into a jade urn and transported back to the Darcy Estate, where they were scattered upon the surface of a pond, as instructed.
“In the weeks following this ceremony, Dr. Edmonds visited the widow at Darcy two or three times—merely to assure himself of her well-being during the stressful period of grief, of course—but after the lady’s brother took up residence at the estate, he made it quite clear that the doctor’s services were no longer required. As far as I know, Dr. Edmonds never laid eyes upon her again, until called to Darcy one morning several months later to attend to her as a patient, apparently suffering from a cataleptical seizure. By the time he arrived, however, the only service left for a physician to render was the official declaration of death.”
Upon this final remark, Jean-Claude and I instantly locked eyes, transfixed with the same thought. “By whom was the doctor summoned to the estate?” Jean-Claude asked, making a poor attempt to strike a tone of “casual” interest. The question clearly struck Thomas as somewhat “off-subject,” for instead of answering immediately, he pondered silently for a moment, with a slightly bemused look upon his face, before finally venturing, “By the lady’s brother, I would assume. It was a hired man from the estate who actually brought Dr. Edmonds the summons.”
Before either Jean-Claude or I had time to formulate our next question, the discussion was brought to an abrupt and final halt by a cry from the platter-eyed first-year, stationed before the window formerly occupied by Jean-Claude. “They’re coming!” he shrieked, in a voice quaking with terror at the thought that his end had surely come. And while perhaps not quite as visibly shaken as this poor fellow, we were all, to a man, ready to leap through the nearest window and flee the premises, should circumstances warrant. Before making such a desperate exit, however, someone had the presence of mind to open the door slightly, in order to see precisely who “they” were.
Standing practically on top of one another, in order to get an eye close to the narrow vertical opening, we were somewhat puzzled by what we saw, and didn’t know whether relief or fear was the more appropriate response. Striding purposefully across the courtyard, shoulder to shoulder with an officer of the militia, was Dr. Edmonds, and immediately behind him were ten individuals from the hoarded angry mass of humanity at the gate. To our relief, the ten men were unarmed and appeared altogether to have been thus plucked from the bosom of the mob, for the indignant fury that was etched across the crowd en masse had completely deserted the faces of their individual members thus isolated, to be replaced by an expression far more closely akin to embarrassment. As the group approached the door behind which we stood huddled like so many curious children, we all scattered to different locations throughout the hall and pretended to be busily occupied with various tasks associated with the study of medicine, as if a mob siege were a regular part of our daily routine. Momentarily, the door burst open, revealing Dr. Edmonds and his motley retinue in tow.
“Gentlemen,” he addressed us in his formal “lecturing” voice, “there seems to have been a terrible misunderstanding. As a result of the heinous and shocking crime perpetrated at All Souls Church last week, a terrible rumor has been set abroad among some of the good people of London.” He paused here to close the door behind two stragglers, who were clearly having second thoughts about leaving the safety of the crowd outside. “It seems they have the mistaken impression that we practitioners and students of medicine routinely scavenge the local graveyards for newly buried bodies, which we bring back here to the hospital and desecrate in all manner of ungodly ways. In order to dispel this gross untruth, I have invited some representatives from among their substantial number to thoroughly examine the premises of our respectable institution, and satisfy themselves, and those out there at the gate whom they represent, how very mistaken—albeit entirely sincere—these concerns are.”
Throughout this bit of theatrical oratory, everyone in the room, with the exception of Dr. Edmonds himself, writhed uncomfortably where he stood. It would be difficult to say who felt greater consternation at the prospect of a stray dead body actually coming to light, the envoy who had entered the hospital with the expressed intention of finding such a damning piece of evidence, or we students who had gone to great lengths to hide any such evidence. Before anyone from either party had very much time to reflect upon the implications of such an unwelcome discovery, however, Dr. Edmonds set the school into a flurry of activity. “Make yourselves at home, gentlemen!” he ordered the cowed envoy. “And you students, put yourselves fully at their disposal! Show them around the whole place, and let them see what an entirely respectable facility we operate here.” In this final directive to us, the students, I detected a subtle emphasis of the word “around,” and we thereby proceeded to lead the ten mystified men throughout the premises of the school, making sure to divert them “around” anything that might validate their suspicions.
The entire tour went off without incident, our accusers acting positively apologetic as they neared the conclusion, and we were just on the verge of escorting them out the door and into the gathering evening, where they could report our innocence to the crowd, and everyone could return to the divers and scattered household fires from which they had been lately snatched by a collective fit of vindictive hysteria. We were on the verge, that is, until Thomas, grown overbold with a sense of imminent safety, threw open a closet door to reveal how very little we had to hide, only to reveal a human skeleton that we had moments before gone to great pains to hide. The air grew suddenly thick with tension, as we all stood looking eye to socket, as it were, with the mounted skeletal remains of “Captain” Jack McBride, a notorious murderer executed at New-gate some ten years earlier. Accepting the legal alternative to a murderer’s fate of “hanging in chains” after death until his body fell into pieces, which hungry dogs would transport to the four points of the compass, he had given his body over for dissection, which was carried out here at St. Alban’s within hours after his death. Following the dissection, his bones had been cleaned, boiled, and mounted, and the skeleton had stood dutifully in the corner of the lecture hall ever since, a perpetual exhibit of osteological study.
“What’s that?” asked one of the men, suddenly losing his diffidence in the face of this apparent confirmation of the mob’s worst suspicions. “Or should I say, who’s that?” he added, with rising heat. The other nine members of the party moved to stand at his side, and the afternoon’s drama threatened to take a tragic turn. But then a very familiar voice pierced the veil of tension with a steady, assured common sense.
“That is a plaster model of a human skeleton, of course,” explained Jean-Claude, in a tone that utterly belied the duplicity of his remark. “It is used to teach the framework of the human body, and to assist in the instruction of setting broken bones, such as you yourself might suffer in an accident—a violent fall from your horse, for example. Such models are very common—expensive, yes, but not at all difficult to attain.” He folded his arms, warming to his role. “It is one of the technical advancements of medical study.”
The ten men stood in silent uncertainty for an uncomfortably long minute, looking alternately at the remains of Captain McBride in the closet, and into each other’s anxious faces. Finally, a man who had yet to say a word since entering the door, chose an opportune moment to break his silence. “If it’s just plaster…” He hesitated, suddenly aware that he had moved to “center stage,” “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in it.” And with that timid observation, thirty men breathed a collective sigh of relief, and the halted procession to the front door resumed once again.
The delegation returned to the waiting mob at the gate to report what they had, or more importantly had not, seen inside the school, and within ten minutes the whole assembly had scattered like so many cockroaches under a lantern. Some years later, when a mob of twenty thousand angry townsfolk raided a medical school in Aberdeen and, finding three cadavers in various stages of dissection upon tables in the operating theater, assaulted the students and burned the place to the ground, I couldn’t help breathing a belated sigh of relief at the violent fate we had so narrowly escaped that day.
When the threat of danger had retreated with the mob, we all chattered giddily and nonsensically for some moments, intoxicated with the sudden release of nervous energy. Even Dr. Edmonds, typically immune to such frivolity, engaged in a bit of verbal sparring with some of the bolder students, clearly as relieved as any of us simply to have four sound walls around us and a roof over our heads. Finally, having spent its fuel, the impromptu celebration sputtered out, and students began making their way out into the evening, which many if not most would measure out, not in hours, but in tankards of ale or beakers of wine.
As Jean-Claude and I moved toward the door and prepared to follow our colleagues’ example, Dr. Edmonds arrested our forward progress by planting his substantial form squarely before the exit. Initially fearing that he had, after all, somehow deduced our role in the All Soul’s “incident,” and was preparing to confront us with charges to that effect, he quickly set our minds at ease with a broad grin and a genially proffered right hand, which we gratefully grasped, each in turn. “That was a quick bit of thinking there, Mr., eh…”
“Legard,” Jean-Claude assisted him. “Jean-Claude Legard.”
“Yes, Mr. Legard,” the doctor continued, “…a very dexterous maneuver. You likely saved us all a great deal of trouble.”
“It was nothing, really,” Jean-Claude demurred. “I have great respect for this institution and would have hated to see any harm come to it, especially as a result of public ignorance.”
“But that’s the devil of the thing,” said Dr. Edmonds, running a hand through his unruly gray hair. “Because it’s not ignorance, really. They know what goes on in here, at least most of them do. They just don’t like to be reminded of it—to have it shoved in their faces. Which is just what an episode like that spree at All Souls does. It shoves it in their faces, and they simply can’t let it pass without staging some sort of protest. But all’s well that ends well, I suppose, and you certainly did your part in helping it end that way,” he concluded, slapping Jean-Claude heartily on the shoulder.
“I was happy to do what I could,” he replied, wincing slightly under the pressure of the good doctor’s meaty hand. And then, spying an opportunity to gain some information—to capture a vulnerable pawn—Jean-Claude subtly diverted the drift of the conversation. “At the risk of appearing intrusive, sir, I would like to offer my heartfelt condolences for the pain your personal involvement in this situation must have caused you. You were acquainted with Mrs. Darcy and her husband, no?” I questioned Jean-Claude’s forwardness, wishing simply to drop the subject of Abigail Darcy altogether, fearing that prolonged discussion of the matter would arouse Dr. Edmonds’s suspicions regarding our interest, and involvement, in it. So relieved was he still to have been thus yanked from the jaws of almost certain disaster, however, that he appeared not to notice the non sequitur.
“It’s kind of you to say so,” he replied, nodding reflectively. “She was a dear thing, almost like a daughter to me.” I couldn’t help noticing the slight emphasis of the word “daughter,” and a furtive, almost defensive expression drift into his face, and just as quickly fade. “I felt it was my duty to look after her after Alfred’s death—she was so vulnerable, you know, and I did what I could to help her. But then that brother of hers entered the scene…” He hung upon the thought, quite literally scowling, and continued speaking, as much to the floor as to Jean-Claude and me. “I shall never forgive myself for letting him run me off like he did. He was a wastrel and a dissembler, I could tell the first time I laid eyes on him. And if he didn’t have something to do with her death, I’m a fool instead of a doctor—a young thing like that, in the very flush of health and vigor. What a jolly laugh she had.” A lengthy, pensive silence ensued, which Jean-Claude was ultimately compelled to break.
