Blind Justice (13 page)

Mr. Donnelly looked suddenly so uncomfortable that I ransacked my English, Latin, and French vocabularies for some meaning to this new word. I could only suppose, having done so, that it had something to do with the goddess Venus. Was Mr. Boswell then lovesick? He didn’t seem the sort, somehow.

“Please,” said Boswell, “let me explain. You, as a ship’s surgeon, must have treated complaints such as mine scores, even hundreds, of times.”

“Well, I … I …” Now Mr. Donnelly seemed at a loss for words.

“Let me explain. I have had eight attacks since the age of nineteen, or perhaps not quite so many. It’s difficult to say. Oh, trust me, I know a full-fledged case of it: the gleet, the sore on the member, the painful pissing, the nasty discharge. Oh, believe me, I know!”

“You’re talking … you’re talking …” Mr. Donnelly seemed quite at a loss for words.

“Of the clap, simply put. Yes, sir, the clap. Now, there are two

lOO things that trouble me. First of all, there is my difficulty at putting a number to my attacks. For instance, does a clear discharge without the other symptoms constitute a full attack? The doctors in Edinburgh differ on this.”

“Please, sir, the boy!” He gestured toward me, though I had no idea how I figured in this.

“Ah, well,” said Boswell with a shrug, dismissing me as a consideration in this matter. “Secondly,” he continued, “and again I address you in particular as a ship’s surgeon, I must ask, how may I prevent this in the future? Fve tried armour, and it may work, but it prevents pleasure. What do you suggest?”

“Have you considered …” And at this point Mr. Donnelly jumped to his feet. “Have you considered abstinence, sir?”

“Ah yes,” said Boswell, “abstinence. It never seems to work so well with me.”

“Jeremy, are you done with dinner?”

“Oh, quite,” said I, glad at last to be released from my task.

“Then let’s be off.”

“Oh, don’t go,” said Boswell. “Dr. Johnson promised to come by. He’s at dinner with that dreary Mrs. Thrale, who didn’t invite me. When he comes, I’ll introduce you.”

“Tempted as I am by that prospect, I must, with Jeremy, take leave of you. This has been, let me assure you, a most interesting meeting.”

Boswell stood, and the two men then shook hands. As he did so, Boswell assured him that it had, for him, been a great pleasure. With that, Mr. Donnelly took me by the sleeve and dragged me out of the Cheshire Cheese, pausing only long enough to settle up the bill on his way out.

Finally, we were out on the street again, and if the air that we then breathed may not have been as pure as what Mr. Donnelly had breathed on occasions in the Austrian Alps, it was at least immeasurably purer than what we had inhaled for the past hour or so inside the Cheshire Cheese.

My companion drew in great draughts of it. I, too, took it in, feeling the healthier for it.

Then we set off walking exactly in the direction we had earlier come. For a few minutes we moved along together in silence. Then Mr. Donnelly turned to me and asked: “Jeremy, who was that terrible man?”

The next morning, a very busy one, began with Mr. Donnelly’s promised visit to Lady Fielding. The knock came early. Mrs. Gredge led the surgeon to the kitchen where I sat at breakfast. I jumped from my chair, thinking it the polite thing to do, but he waved me back to my place.

“Would you like something, sir?” asked Mrs. Gredge. “All I can offer immediate is bread and butter. But if you like, I’ll cut a pair of rashers off the flitch and cook them up.”

“Nothing, thank you,” said he. “If you will but notify Sir John of my arrival. He’s up, I take it?”

“Up and about. In truth, I think he barely slept at all last night. She passed a terrible time, she did.”

“Well, I may be able to help that.”

“It would be a blessing.”

That said, she disappeared up the stairs. The surgeon had with him his black bag. He placed it on the table and opened it up. With a nod to me, most professional, he busied himself with its contents, taking from it a mortar and pestle and a large corked bottle.

“Sir John will see you up here,” called Mrs. Gredge from above.

Mr. Donnelly started off, then turned to me as with an afterthought. “Jeremy, would you be a good lad and put some water in the pot and put it on the fire?”

“For tea, sir?”

“A kind of tea: a potion. You needn’t fill the pot full. A little water will do.”

And then he, too, marched up the stairs while I busied myself doing his bidding. A few minutes later, I heard the two men talking in hushed voices on the stairs—not so quietly, however, that I could not hear them plainly.

“What is the nature of the potion?” inquired Sir John most somberly.

“A tea of opium. I have a considerable supply of seeds from India.”

“I asked after it to one of the doctors who preceded you. He advised against it: He cautioned there was great potential for an addiction which might be difficult to satisfy.”

“Addiction? Yes, but it hardly matters now, does it?”

Sir John took pause at that. “Hardly,” he agreed after a moment. Then of a sudden, he asked, “It will not shorten her life, will it?”

“Believe me, I could never in conscience—”

“Forgive me for asking.”

The pot was boiling when they arrived in the kitchen. Mr. Donnelly took it off the fire, allowing it to cool a bit as he made his preparations. Then he turned to me and asked, “Jeremy, would you go up and fetch the woman? What is her name?”

Sir John looked up from the place he had taken across from me at the table. “Mrs. Gredge,” said we both together.

“I want her to know how this is done.”

Without another word, I raced up the stairs but held myself back from knocking loudly on the door: tapped, rather, and gave a quiet call to Mrs. Gredge inside.

When she appeared, I instructed her that the surgeon wished her below in the kitchen.

And then, from inside, a faint voice: “Is that the boy? Is that Jeremy?”

“Yes, mum, it is,” said Mrs. Gredge.

“I should like to meet him.”

As she passed by me, opening wide the door, Mrs. Gredge whispered fiercely in my ear, “Don’t dare upset her, now!”

I advanced timorously into the room.There in the bed, near hidden by the bedclothes, a tiny figure rested, propped slightly on two pillows. It was as if her head itself, the only part of her visible to me, had shrunk inside her nightcap.

“Come ahead,” said she in that same faint voice, which was like unto a sick child’s. “I want to see you close.”

I went to her bedside. Her face, once quite comely, for I have seen an earlier likeness Sir John kept ever after, was then so wizened by her disease that she seemed an old woman. I learned later that she was not yet forty. Her lips were pursed against her suffering.

I stood there awkwardly for I know not how long and then attempted a bow.

“Well done,” said she. “Are you a good boy, Jeremy?”

“I try to be, mum … Lady Fielding.”

“Jack thinks you are.”

Who could Jack be? And then, of course, I knew. What was I to reply? Since I had no notion, I did what is best in such a situation and kept my silence.

“He is usually good in matters of character, and so I shall trust him in this. Jeremy, if he chooses you for a son, I want you to be a good son to him. Help him as much as he will allow.” She stopped of a sudden, her words occluded by a new and fiercer flash of pain. Her lips quite disappeared into her mouth. It frightened me to look upon her.

Then the spasm passed, and at last, her eyes bright, she resumed: “He needs a son. I was never able to give him one. Be not forward, but help him, and do all he asks of you.”

Together we heard the trio ascending the stairs.

“I’ll do as you say, Lady Fielding.” I choked it forth somehow.

“I know you will. I’m glad … for the chance to meet you.”

They entered. Sir John, Mr. Donnelly, and Mrs. Gredge. I fell back from the bedside, leaving them room to do whatever they had come to do. Mr. Donnelly had in his hand a small, steaming cup which he bore with great care.

Mrs. Gredge grasped me by the wrist, and in that same sharp whisper I had heard from her last, she said, “You may go now, Jeremy.” Then she released me, sending me on my way.

Truth to tell, reader, I was glad to be gone from that room. Quite overwhelmed was I by the meeting and by my brief conversation with Lady Fielding. Only to be there beside her brought back to me woeful memories of my mother’s last hours. She had no last words to give me: delirious or unconscious she was through it all, ignorant even of my brother’s death. My father nursed her to the end. Strange to say, neither he nor I were infected by the fever.

But the import of Lady Fielding’s words filled me with awe, even something akin to terror. In the truest sense, I had not grasped their meaning. The idea that one might trade a dead father for a live one seemed near monstrous to me. Though in spite of her pain, she seemed in full possession of her faculties; still, what she had said seemed perhaps the product of delirium. In short, I was confused and greath burdened.

This should explain my state when Sir John entered the kitchen. I had been weeping at the table, but upon seeing him I wiped my tears and set about to hide it from him. I might have succeeded, but my nose betrayed me. I sniffed quietly twice.

He went straight to where I sat, felt for my shoulder, found it, and gave it a squeeze.

“Aye, Jeremv Proctor, ” said he, “it is a sad thing, is it not? Sad beyond telling.”

Bv the time we had settled once again in the librarv of the Goodhopes’ residence, carpenters had arrived to repair the broken door. They were a noisy pair, making plain with whistling and joking their indifference to us and our concerns.

It had taken the better part of two hours for us to arrive thus far. Although Mr. Donnelly had left immediately after he had ministered his potion to Lady Fielding, such faith had he in its working. Sir John sat bv her bedside until she succumbed to a deep sleep. Mrs. Gredge found diverse chares for me until Sir John appeared, his tricorn on his head and his stick in his hand, ready to depart.

As we had walked together to St. James Street, I gave him a summary of my findings of the evening before. I was disappointed that he set little store by my hope that I had found the secret exit from the house out beyond the privet hedge through my experience with a fractious team of horses. “I do believe there is something there,” said I to him, “perhaps a plate of some kind covering a tunnel to the house.” He replied: “I think it more likely that what you stumbled upon was the coal hole, or perhaps some entrv to the cesspool. You might look into that sometime today.” Of my report on Lord Goodhope’s “impromptus.” he had only this to say: “Although I am grieved at what you tell me. I am not surprised. It confirms Lady Goodhope’s suspicions, which were told me in your absence. I shall want to talk to both of those young girls when we arrive at our destination.” And finally when I sought to repeat James Boswell’s clever discourse on the likely meanings of “misadventure,” and found myself floundering somewhat, he waved me to silence. “Enough,” said Sir John. “Though the man is a popinjay, he is no fool. And as he reasons his way to murder, so will the multitude by means more crude. They seek sensation, and murder provides the greatest. I would that she had not placed that notice, but I suppose it had to be done. In truth, what Boswell said of Goodhope was quite correct. I had occasion to hear his lordship speak against a bill I had helped write, and he was most eloquent: pernicious in his reasoning, but eloquent nonetheless. What he had not for arguments, he supplied in histrionics. The man had a voice, though, I vow, quite unforgettable.”

And so we came to St. James Street, all lathered from our brisk walk on that raw spring morning. Once set on his course. Sir John traveled as well by shank as young Mr. Donnelly. His demanding knock at the Goodhope residence was answered late by none other than Ebenezer Tepper, who pulled on his forelock country-fashion and threw wide the door.

When Sir John inquired after Lady Goodhope, the footman said quite respectfully, “Oo’s getten a gast, sor.” Then he gestured grandly toward the sitting room nearby.

At that moment she appeared at the open door to that room, appearing quite distressed; in her hand she held what appeared to be a letter with a broken seal. Behind her, to my surprise, stood Gabriel Donnelly. I wished to notify Sir John of this last, yet saw no opportunity. He was immediately aware of her presence, however, and turned to her with a bow.

“Your ladyship,” said he.

“Sir John,” said she, “you are most welcome this particular morning, for I have received a most worrying communication.”

“Of what nature?”

“Of… well, of a financial nature. Would you not say so, Mr. Donnelly?”

“Mr. Donnelly?” said Sir John, showing some surprise. ‘You are the guest?”

“1 summoned him,” said she,“the moment I received this crude, presumptuous letter. I needed his counsel. Yours, of course, is also welcome.”

“That is gratifying,” he allowed; and then he observed a bit slyly: “Mr. Donnelly has had a busy morning.”

“That I have,” said the surgeon, “and each of my calls has been made in friendship and with due respect.”

“Indeed,” said Sir John, mollified and near apologetic, “I am sure that is true. My poor wife sleeps now in spite of her illness, thanks only to you. But now I understand your wish to get on quickly to your next appointment.”

“Enough of this,” said Lady Goodhope in a manner most willful. “Will you or will you not listen to this letter?”

“Of course! Of course!”

“Then come in, and shut the door. I do not wish this to get past Potter. I shall explain his role in a moment.”

She led the way into the room. All seated themselves save for me. I remained standing by the chair Sir John occupied, thinking it the proper attitude for a magistrate’s helper.

I noted that Mr. Donnelly regarded her with the utmost seriousness and sympathy. Lady Goodhope, holding the letter close and thus betraying her myopia, cleared her throat and began to read: ” ‘My dear Lady Goodhope,’ it begins. Can you imagine such impudence in that salutation? Especially from one such as this?”

“Such as what. Lady Goodhope?” asked Sir John.

“Well, just listen!”

“Please continue.”

Again, she cleared her throat: ” ‘Please have my condolences as is due you at a time such as this, for I saw early today that Lord Goodhope died in the Public Advertiser. It grieves me sore, for he was known to me well since he was often in my establishment as gentlemen do for games of hazard which is what I offer. And it grieves me special for I must inform you that Lord Richard, now deceased, piled up such a pile of unpaid debts and promises of payment that I was forced two weeks past to ask of him some earnest of payment. So we two settled on an agreement which was drawn up by my lawyer. The nature of it is such that I would call it a mortgage, but my lawyer says it is a lien. The amount of this lien, giving the benefit of the doubt to the lawyer because I knew he must have the right name for what he himself wrote, is twenty thousand pounds, and the property in question is the house to which I have directed my man to deliver this. To make it plain, unless you or someone in his name can pay this debt by the end of the month, you must move out and give the house to me. I could show you or anybody the debts I hold on Lord Goodhope, whilst he was alive, and you would see that his debts amount to far more than twenty thousand pounds. Yet it is a handsome house, and I would like to live in it. So I will settle for that. Send anyone you want to look at the lien and the promises of payment.’ “

She looked up. Her eyes flashed. She beat a well-shod foot down upon the floor. “ThereI” said she, ‘Svould you not say he has tested my Hmit?”

“How is it signed?” asked Sir John.

“With great effrontery, of course I” She brought the letter up close again and read the last two lines: ” ‘I remain your humble and obedient servant, John Francis Bilbo.’ ” She sniffed nobly. “Servant indeedr

“Hmmm,” said Sir John, “Black Jack Bilbo.” He mused a moment. “And how does Potter figure in this?”

“That was my suggestion,” said Mr. Donnelly.

“To wit?”

“That we send someone to examine the document in question, at least insofar as to sav if the signature on it is truly Lord Good-hope’s.”

“Is there am reason to doubt that it is?”

“Well, I … I … ” Lady Goodhope seemed quite at a loss for words. “Certainly Lord Goodhope gambled. Yet to such an extent as this? Surely not!”

“Some,” said Sir John, “have lost far more. You’ll recall, Lady Goodhope, that my first advice to you was to look into Lord Good-hope’s finances. Have you done that yet?”

“No,” she admitted, her ill temper still somewhat in evidence.

“But we intend to do it now, certainly,” put in Mr. Donnelly.

“In any case,” said Lady Goodhope, “that was when you supposed his death to be a suicide. I taught you your error in that.”

“Ah,” said Sir John, with a bow of his head, “indeed you did, indeed you did.”