The anatomists, p.16
The Anatomists, page 16
“Good day, Mr. Hodge,” she said brightly, extending her delicate hand.
“Good day,” I replied, taking her hand. “And I must insist on ‘James.’” I winced slightly at the pseudonym.
“Very well, then, James”—she laughed—“and it shall be ‘Maddy’ for you.”
“As you wish,” I replied with exaggerated formality, and then joined her in laughter.
After speaking briefly with Peter, to make plans for meeting later in the evening, “Maddy” and I strolled off into the bright sunshine without a care for where our footsteps might lead us.
“I hope you don’t think me unduly forward in accepting your invitation to show me ’round,” she said, once Peter had disappeared into general traffic of the street. “But having lived on the Continent for so many years, I don’t place a great deal of stock in some of the formalities of English social custom.” Then she added, much to my great pleasure, “And besides, you’re so very ‘nice’ that one gets the impression she has known you for practically an entire lifetime.”
“I can assure you that my only reaction to your accepting the invitation was sheer unmitigated delight,” I protested. “And as for English formality, you’ll no doubt find that some of those customs have ‘relaxed’ a bit since you were last here…When was it?”
“Let me see, now,” she thought aloud. “Five years? No, six. Six years.” Smiling reflectively, and shaking her head, she continued, “Can it really have been that long? When I first crossed the Channel, my intention was to take a six-month tour. But when I arrived in Paris, I quickly realized that six months would hardly do justice to that grand city, let alone the entire Continent. And by the time I got to Venice, I tossed out all thoughts of keeping to a schedule. I believe it was in Florence, over two years after I first left England, that I suddenly realized I was no longer a visitor to the Continent but a resident. One enchanted city gave way to another, two years turned into three, then three to four, and in the wink of an eye, six years have come and gone.
“So you see, Mr. Hodge…James.” She caught herself just before I spoke up to protest. “I have lived quite an unconventional life. Some might even call it positively scandalous. But I can honestly say I wouldn’t have had it any other way.” She grew silent for a moment, looking up at the buildings surrounding us on either side, and then turned her attention fully upon me. “And what about you, James? What sort of life have you lived? Have you traveled much?”
I believe I actually blushed when I considered how extraordinarily conventional my life had been, when compared to hers. Quickly, and somewhat apologetically, I reviewed the details—childhood in Kent, university study in Oxford, and so on. I was on the very verge of mentioning medical study, when I remembered the confounded fiction Jean-Claude had created for us in which we were “detectives,” and sketched in the vaguest possible lines of my “career,” wishing all the while I could simply abandon the façade and simply be Edward Montague. Of course, I then reflected, were it not for this fiction, and the murder that precipitated it, I would never have had the opportunity of meeting Madeline, so I resigned myself to it for the time being.
Passing a delightful little café with which I was well acquainted, we stopped in for a bit of lunch, where we continued talking about Maddy’s “unconventional” life in Europe. “So what it is about Italy that so attracts you?” I asked, in regard to her having spent four of her six years abroad in that country.
“Two things, really,” she replied thoughtfully. “The vast antiquity, for one. The spirits of the Roman Empire, and of the Middle Ages, are very active throughout Italy. One cannot walk a hundred yards without feeling the palpable presence of the remote past. Venice is particularly rife with spiritual activity. The whole city is positively magical. Have you had the pleasure of seeing it?”
I reflected over my own six-month “Grand Tour,” following the completion of my studies at university, and felt as though, compared to her experience, I could hardly be said to have truly “seen” any place, even though I had visited many. Venice, however, was one I had not even visited.
“Oh you must spend some time there,” she said, growing animated. “To glide upon the water in a gondola, passing from the majestic Grand Canal into a labyrinth of dark romantic passageways is simply an indescribable experience.”
“Yes, I shall have to go there someday,” I said regretfully. “But you mentioned two reasons you’re so fond of Italy. What was the other?”
“The people,” she replied without hesitation. “They’re so very passionate, and altogether alive. Unlike so many of the dark-visaged specters you encounter in other places.” She glanced out the window at the throngs passing busily down the street, and sighed. “The Italians know the proper way to live.”
When our food arrived, we talked intermittently, between mouthfuls, about everything, and about nothing at all. After lunch, we casually made our way toward Pall Mall, to visit the newly opened National Gallery. Passing a bookseller, Maddy asked if we could drop in to buy some stationery, so she could send word of her whereabouts to friends on the Continent, whom she had not had time to bid farewell upon her hasty departure. While inattentively perusing some loose volumes laid out upon a table, I suddenly noticed that tears had welled up in Maddy’s eyes as she flipped though the pages of a magazine. “What’s the matter?” I asked, afraid I had perhaps unwittingly said something to upset her.
“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” she replied, dabbing the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief. “Just this.” She held out a copy of the British Historical Quarterly. “Here’s an article by Alfred Darcy—a translation. I believe it’s one he dictated to poor Abby.”
“There, there,” I said, taking the magazine from her hand and placing it back on the stand. “I know this has all been a terrible shock to you—your sister’s sudden death, and the theft…” I refrained from explicitly mentioning the object of the theft, not wishing to upset her further.
“Oh, I’m all right,” she said, breathing deeply and straightening her back, in a willful act of self-composure. “Let’s keep walking. I can purchase the stationery later.”
Once back out on the street, she regained her good cheer but grew nostalgic over thoughts of her departed sister. “Abby and I were identical in so very many ways, but quite different in others. We both had a strong sense of adventure, as you’ve no doubt gathered by now. But while my adventurousness was of a physical, geographic nature, leading me to leave the easy familiarity of England to explore an unknown continent, Abby’s was of an intellectual variety, never taking her physically outside of England, but making her perpetually restless to explore new worlds of ideas, for all her geographical insularity. Did you know she was fluent in four languages?”
“No,” I replied. “That’s quite remarkable.”
“Remarkable, yes, but merely one of the ‘adventures’ of her great intellect.” Suddenly, she stopped walking and looked directly into my face. “Do you believe,” she asked, intensely, “that women are as innately capable as men in matters of the mind?”
“Why yes,” I answered, somewhat reflexively, without having given the matter a great deal of thought. And then I reflected upon the strength of character of the woman standing before me, and of the scholarly work in which her sister had engaged, side by side, with her late husband, and I added, with complete sincerity and conviction, “Yes, I do believe women as capable as men. In some cases even more capable.”
Clearly sensing the dialectic drift of my thinking, Maddy rewarded me with one of her brilliant smiles, then continued, both walking and speaking. “Well, had you known Abby, you would have found your belief to be fully justified. It was the sheer stature of her intellect that ‘won over’ Alfred Darcy, an eminent scholar who recognized greatness when he saw it. His death was unfortunate, certainly, but he at least had a full career’s worth of work to leave behind him. Abby was cut off before she barely scratched the surface of her potential. She lost her life, but the world lost a great source of enlightenment. All her life, ever since we were children, Abby dreamed of greatness—greatness that, for a woman, would have been condemned as heresy in many households. But our dear father, perhaps because he found himself with two very headstrong daughters on his hands, or perhaps simply because he was very, very wise, encouraged us to dream without limitation. I dreamed of seeing the world, and Abby dreamed of changing it. I have, to an extent, realized my dream, but Abby, alas, was cut down in the pursuit of hers.”
“How do you mean ‘cut down’?” I asked, recalling Dr. Edmonds’s suspicions regarding Abigail’s death. “Do you think her studies had something to do with her death?”
“No,” she answered pensively, as if considering the possibility. “I shouldn’t think so. But then again, she ‘thought’ so very intensely…I wonder if one can overtax the brain to such an extent that it literally ruptures, as Abby’s did. Ah, well, whatever caused her brain to burst, it ended a very fruitful life before harvest season.”
We walked in reflective silence for a few moments, then I ventured onto a new, hopefully less painful subject. “So do you think you’ll remain in England now—to live? Or will you return to Europe?”
She looked at me so intently, and searchingly, that I was forced to turn my eyes away, out of sheer vulnerability. “I have sojourned there for so very long now, that I can think of few alternatives. But then again, my life these many years has been such a vagabond existence, that I have come to realize there is really no place on earth that I can call ‘home.’” She paused thoughtfully, and, I sensed, significantly. “It would be quite nice to put down ‘roots’ somewhere,” she concluded.
Our conversation trailed off in midthought, when we found ourselves at the entrance to the National Gallery. As we stood upon the steps, preparing to go inside, Maddy laughed, suddenly and brightly, like the sun bursting out from behind a dark cloud on a windy late-autumn day. I smiled in return, and we left off “serious” subjects for another time, turning our attention instead to “art” as an altogether-more-comfortable topic of conversation.
Since its grand opening the previous year, I had visited the National Gallery on two separate occasions, but was quickly driven away by the intolerable tightness resulting from hundreds of people crowding all at once into a long narrow hallway. Today, I was pleased to see, attendance was a good deal less abundant than on my previous visits, so that one could actually see the paintings without having to climb upon someone else’s shoulders. Being accustomed to the wider, more open spaces of the major European galleries, however, Maddy soon felt oppressed by the closeness of the place and wished to cut our visit short.
Ambling down the street once again, we very intentionally restricted our conversation to light subjects—the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the omnipresent cats of Rome, the smell of Venice’s canals in the summer—feeling that we had perhaps ventured into deep waters a bit too rapidly. We were such kindred spirits, and felt so entirely comfortable in each other’s presence, that talking freely and candidly seemed the most natural thing in the world. Still, whatever our futures might hold in store for us, we sensed that it was best to permit it to mature in its own good time, so we simply reined the whole thing in just a bit.
In the afternoon, we had tea in St. James’s Park, then, whimsically pursuing the address listed on a sign posted there, attended an electrical demonstration in the parlor of a well-known authoress. The highlight of the demonstration was the bestowal, by the hostess herself, of “electric kisses” upon the cheeks of any gentlemen present who cared for a “shock.” I, for one, gratefully declined.
After the demonstration concluded, it was time for us to make our way back to St. Paul’s, where we were to meet Peter. Throughout our walk back up the river toward the church, I struggled to fight off the melancholy that threatened to settle upon my spirits like a dark, wet fog. As delightful a day as we had passed together, I couldn’t imagine when, or under what circumstances, I should be able to see Maddy again. Having effectively withdrawn from any further involvement in the search for their sister’s body, Peter and Maddy had no “official” need for our continued service as “detectives,” and seeing as how this ruse was the sole basis for our communication with the Worthingtons, the cessation of this role effectively closed off that avenue of contact. Suddenly, the thought of a moment made my heart soar. The termination of our detective services closed off contact between the Worthingtons and James Hodge. But what about Edward Montague? He, or rather, I, was not bound by the ridiculous role Jean-Claude had created for me, in order to chase down a “wild goose.” It was I, Edward Montague, not James Hodge, who had spent a delightful afternoon with Maddy. It was I, not James Hodge, to whom she had revealed her fondest memories of the past and strongly hinted at her dreams for the future. And it was I whom she felt she had known an entire lifetime. “Why not simply tell her the truth?” I asked myself. Why not drop the façade and reveal the true identity of the man she already truly knows?
Then just as quickly as my heart had soared, it dropped once again. And what if I were to admit to her that I am not who I said I was? I asked myself. Was it not my “disarming sincerity” that most distinguished me from other Englishmen she knew. Was not my “spirit,” in this sense, “more Italian than English”? To reveal but a hint of dissemblance would strike at the very heart of that which she most valued in me.
So very perplexed was I as to how best to proceed in the future, that I let the present slip by unawares, and in what seemed the mere blink of an eye, St. Paul’s Cathedral, with Peter Worthington standing upon the front steps, materialized before me. Mercifully, fate, or rather Peter, granted me a three-hour reprieve in which to give the thorny question further consideration. A spectacular nautical show, The Pilot: or A Tale of the Sea, was playing at the Adelphi, and Peter suggested we go and see it. I readily agreed. So very distracted was I, however, with the issue of what I should tell Maddy regarding my identity, if I ever wished to see her again, that I saw precious little of the play, and, I fear, rather sorely neglected my companions. Fortunately, they were so captivated by the spectacle that they appeared not to notice my inattention, and when the hour of our parting once again drew near, we all remained on good terms, so I decided for the moment simply to let the matter rest until I should have more time, and solitude, in which to think it through.
As I helped her up into the carriage and bid her good evening, Maddy left me with a parting smile that utterly vanquished my doubts and fears of the past few hours. Whatever solution I managed to come up with regarding the distant future and the issue of my confounded identity, I felt certain that the immediate future, at least, would take care of itself.
CHAPTER 20
While I was gallivanting around London with Maddy Worthington, Jean-Claude traveled out to Darcy to take advantage of its master’s and mistress’s absence and “have a word” with the housekeeper, Mrs. Bow. As certain as I was of the Worthingtons’ ignorance of, and innocence in, the bad business surrounding the gentleman’s murder, Jean-Claude stubbornly persisted in his belief that they were somehow involved. Recalling Simeon Rupp’s vitriolic observation that the Darcy housekeeper had prepared Abigail’s body for burial before he arrived, and thus robbed him of a fee he considered to be his right, Jean-Claude had concluded that the lady might very well have information that would prove useful to us in our ongoing investigation. Knowing my friend far too well to think I could dissuade him from this purpose, once he had made up his mind, I merely cautioned him that it might be a very good idea, while he interviewed the housekeeper, not to make unsubstantiated accusations against the lady’s employers. At just about the same moment that Maddy and I were having lunch in the café, Jean-Claude dismounted from a coach at the Rose and Crown and set out on foot for Darcy House.
An initial knock at the front door producing no result, he feared Mrs. Bow might have gone out, perhaps even with the Worthingtons. A second, louder knock, however, invoked the faint sound of footsteps across a slate floor, followed by the appearance of Mrs. Bow in the open doorway.
“Good day, Madame,” he greeted her.
“Mr. Peter and Miss Madeline are out, sir,” she unceremoniously replied. “Gone for the day, I believe.”
“But that cannot be,” he protested. “I was supposed to meet them here at one o’clock, to discuss a matter of great urgency. Are you quite sure it is for the entire day they plan to be gone?”
“Quite sure,” she repeated. “They told me not to bother with dinner because they’d be dining in town.”
“I suppose they have forgotten. Very well, then. I shall be on my way.” He turned upon the walkway toward the road he had just a moment before traversed, and sighed. “Do you think, Madame, that you could be so kind as to provide me with a refreshment of some kind before I begin my journey back to London?”
“Well I suppose,” she agreed, reluctantly. “Come take a seat in the foyer, if you must sit down. I’ll fetch you something to drink.”
“Thank you very much, Madame. You are quite kind.” He followed her through the door and sat on a bench along the wall. While Mrs. Bow was in the kitchen, he allowed his gaze to wander casually down the hall, pausing briefly at each of the Japanese watercolors. At the rear of the hall, he saw a door that appeared to lead onto a porch, perhaps in the rear garden. Not wishing to disobey, and hence antagonize, his hostess, he resisted the strong urge to creep quietly down the hall and have a look outside, which was a fortunate decision, since Mrs. Bow reappeared just at the very moment he would have had his hand on the doorknob.
