Читать книгу The Midnight Man - Charlotte Mede - Страница 11

It was like herding cats.

“Order, I say. Let us bring the meeting to order.” George Busk cleared his throat and surveyed the men hovering around the heavy Queen Anne table, reluctantly taking their seats. A surgeon by training and instinct, he liked getting things done.

He scratched his heavy white beard impatiently. “We have many important matters to discuss this evening, gentlemen. Beginning with the debate last week up at Oxford.”

An instant hush fell over the room. Seven heads swiveled in Busk’s direction.

Joseph Dalton, on his left, puffed himself up like a balloon. “I do believe Huxley did an outstanding job! Outrageously good!” He punched the air for emphasis before scraping back his chair and sitting down decisively. The other men followed suit.

“Is he still up at Oxford?” asked John Tyndall, who had given up his work as an artisan to become a physical scientist, and had joined the X Club only two months ago through his association with Huxley.

“Indeed, Thomas will not be returning to London for another fortnight,” confirmed Busk, donning spectacles to peer at the agenda before him. He shook his head imperceptibly at the long list of items before removing his spectacles with a snap. “I know, gentlemen, what is surely percolating in your fine scientific minds. It would be your wish that we move the Oxford debate to the top of our agenda.”

“Hear, hear.” The voices raised in unison.

Busk leaned back in his chair, waiting for the rumbling to calm down before continuing. “And since our host has been delayed”—he paused with the slightest unease—“I would suggest that we proceed with Dr. Dalton, who was present at the scientific conference where Bishop Samuel Wilberforce chose to speak against Mr. Darwin’s views. I will cede the floor to you, sir.”

Dalton bowed his head in acknowledgment. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman.” He tipped his chair back and hooked his thumbs in the lapels of his melton jacket. “Having witnessed the debate firsthand, I can wholeheartedly endorse Huxley’s new moniker, Darwin’s bulldog.”

The room erupted in laughter with several of the men lifting their water glasses in a toast.

Raising his voice over the clamor, Dalton continued, “As we are all aware, the publication of Mr. Darwin’s book last year proposing a mechanism for evolution, that is, natural selection, caused outrage both in the Church and in society.”

Across from him, Edward Frankland nodded. “Implying, of course, that humans were not created by God but had evolved from other animals. And perceived as an assault on the divinely ordained aristocratic social order. This does not sit well in many circles here in England. And I must say, most unfortunate, that Darwin himself was too frail to attend the debate.”

A chorus of agreement met the statement before Dalton interrupted. “Unfortunate, yes, gentlemen, but hardly fatal, as you’ll discover if you would allow me to continue my account. First to set the scene.” The men leaned forward in anticipation, waiting as Dalton cleared his throat before carrying on.

“The room was crowded to suffocation long before the protagonists appeared in the hall, 700 persons or more managing to find places. The very windows by which the room was lighted down the length of its west side was packed with ladies, whose white handkerchiefs, waving and fluttering in the air at the end of the bishop’s speech, were an unforgettable factor in the acclamation of the crowd.”

Tyndall shook his head. “A behavior one would expect from the fairer sex.”

Dalton ignored the interruption. “Wilberforce took the podium first, attempting to undermine Darwin’s supporters with a provocative question: Was Thomas Huxley descended from an ape on his grandfather’s or grandmother’s side of the family? As you can imagine, a shocked silence blanketed the room.

“Huxley, just as formidable a public speaker as Wilberforce, responded sharply. And if I may quote: ‘If then said I, the question is put to me, would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence and yet who employs these faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion—I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.’”

Dalton barely paused before the room broke out in cheers of approbation, several of the men pounding the table with enough vigor to have it shake on its legs.

“Well done, well done,” Frankland applauded. “I’m sure Huxley’s suggestion that he would rather have an ape for an ancestor than a bishop caused an uproar.”

“As a matter of fact, yes. One lady actually fainted and had to be carried from the hall while Robert Fitzroy, Darwin’s captain on his voyage aboard the Beagle, if you can imagine, brandished a Bible and implored the audience to have faith in God.”

“Damn sorry I missed it,” Busk muttered into his beard. “And a damn fine show, by all reports, although I must ask the question, Where does this debate leave us?” Like the bearer of bad news, his query cast a negative pall on the proceedings. “As we know, anyone who publicly supports scientific views at odds with accepted religious dogma risks ostracization and worse.”

“There is much at stake,” concurred John Lubbock from the end of the table. A short man with rounded glasses to match his girth, he had lost his position as head surgeon at King’s College Hospital for his unorthodox views. “I have already heard it said that Wilberforce, the High Church, and evangelicals will organize petitions and a mass backlash. They propose to bring forward a declaration at the upcoming Anglican convocation reaffirming their faith in the harmony of God’s word and try to make this a compulsory Fortieth Article of faith.”

“And we have also learned that they will take their campaign to the British Association for the Advancement of Science,” added Frankland soberly. “We find ourselves, indeed, as members of the X Club, involved in the struggle for freedom from clerical interference in science.”

Busk stroked his beard contemplatively. “Clearly, this is simply the beginning. Huxley is not endearing himself to society by lecturing to workers who, apparently, arrive in droves to hear him speak. And vicars, in turn, are encouraging factory owners to dismiss freethinkers.”

“It is rumored that while only half the nation frequents Sunday services, next to none attend from the slums,” added Frankland.

Busk nodded. “I digress only slightly when I ask all of you to remember the night of our first meeting when Huxley proposed, in jest, that our club be named Thorough Club, referring, of course, to the concept of freedom to express unorthodox opinions.”

“Although it was your wife Mrs. Busk, as I recall, who proposed our current name because it committed us to exactly nothing,” reminded Tyndall, tapping his pen pointedly on the sheaf of papers in front of him.

It had also been decided that meetings would be scheduled on the first Thursday of each month with dinners taking place at St. George’s Hotel on Albemarle Street, Almond’s Hotel on Clifford Street, and then, finally, at the Athenaeum Club. Meetings always started at six in the evening so that the repast would be over in time for the Royal Society session at eight o’clock.

Save for this evening, an exception of which they were readily aware to the last man. Suddenly, they were all thinking the same thing.

“Has he arrived yet?” asked Lubbock from his end of the table. The imposing ancestral portraits of the fourth Marquess of Conway loomed over the assembly, as though each august personage were considering the question.

“He’s somewhat delayed, I’d heard earlier from his butler,” supplied Busk, somewhat reluctantly. He sifted through the papers before him, trying to ignore the fact that they were ensconced in one of the country’s most ornate homes, invited by a usurper whose motives were about as transparent as the muddy Thames.

Conway House was overflowing with treasures that the late marquess had purchased in the decades before his untimely death late last year. Everyone knew that his life had been devoted largely to dissipation and foreign travel, making him a considerable connoisseur. He had snared Titian’s Perseus and Andromeda and seventeenth-century gems such as Rembrandt’s Good Samaritan, along with a trove of French furniture, gilt bronzes, and Sevres porcelain. Attracted to the luxury and refinement of eighteenth-century French art, the marquess, along with other English collectors, profited from the dissolution of many Continental collections during the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars.

And now, as everyone around the table recognized with painful clarity, 500 years of a family’s wealth and riches were lost to a clever and monstrously powerful upstart.

“Survival of the fittest, all right,” muttered Lubbock, not unaware of the terrible irony in the situation. He looked pointedly at the heavy gold candelabra at the center of the table. “Very good of our host to fund our work and to invite us to have our meeting at his new home whilst he’s in London.”

Busk concurred, alert to the tension filling the room. “Very gracious, very gracious, indeed. He is abroad much of the time, I deduce, running his shipping and banking kingdom from all corners of the empire. Clearly a busy man. I’m certain his butler will announce his arrival, so in the interim, I suggest we continue with our agenda items, gentlemen, if you are in agreement.”

Before the members could respond, Tyndall cleared his throat noisily, rising to stand behind his chair, gripping the high back. He surveyed each man with a piercing gaze from under shaggy gray brows, his muttonchop sideburns trembling. “Perhaps we should take this time and opportunity, gentlemen, to discuss more thoroughly the motivations and background of our host and benefactor. Shipping, banking—is that all we know? And is that enough?” Like a malodorous scent, the words hung in the air. “Because when we accept someone’s resources, are we not as a matter of principle—”

“What exactly are you getting at, sir?” interjected Lubbock, throwing down his pen.

Tyndall’s color rose along with his condemnation. “It isn’t simply rumor that the late marquess was hastened to his grave by the unceasing demands of one monstrously, unconscionably wealthy individual, Mr. Lubbock.”

Lubbock snorted. “Our host and benefactor simply rescued an old man from his own debauchery, not to mention the spendthrift and wasteful ways that would have landed even a peer in the poorhouse.”

Tyndall squared his rounded shoulders. “And what of the source of that wealth? This man materializes out of nowhere, with fleets of ships and international banks at his command? Who is his family? Where did he come from?”

“You expect him to be listed in Debrett’s, for God’s sake, Tyndall?” Busk asked, his own doubts and unease warring with the exigencies of the situation. “Where are these suspicions coming from? You must have your own font of information, so do tell, sir. Because if all of this is about the source of our host’s fortune, well then, that’s an old story we should probably dispense with right now.”

Tyndall gripped the back of his chair more tightly, his knuckles whitening. “As I have been unexpectedly called away earlier this evening, I shan’t have time over our repast to elaborate—”

“So you won’t be joining us for dinner,” interrupted Busk impatiently.

“Precisely, all the more reason I should like to address the members currently present with some of my reservations, culled from the most impeccable sources, I will vouchsafe.”

“A capital idea, Mr. Tyndall.”

The voice was a low growl, disarming and dangerous at the same time. And it came from the back of the salon where the richly paneled French doors had, at some point, silently eased open.

A tall man strode into the room, a grim smile spreading across his face.

The X Club’s generous host—Nicholas Ramsay.

At first, she didn’t know who she was. Where she was.

Panicked, she grappled for her name, clutching a pillow to her chest. In a hoarse voice she vaguely recognized as her own, she found it in the dark and began reciting it to herself like a creed or a well-worn article of faith, willing the curtain to lift.

The bed was wide with heavy satin sheets weighing her down. Only then did she remember.

Her work, the attack, Ramsay.

Helena bolted from the covers with a groan.

Her bare feet sunk into three inches of carpet before she noticed the bed crown draped in blue-watered silk, the size of a small stage. The room was sumptuous beyond description, even for the standards of the Duke of Hartford and Belgravia Square. Rich wall paneling was interrupted by drawings of classical figures—she peered at a trio of nymphs frolicking around a fountain—quite possibly from Renaissance Florence. A pair of Louis IV Bergeres flanked the fireplace next to a small French desk made of exotic materials and set with a black and gold cup and saucer.

A gilded prison instead of Bedlam.

A quick exploration of the dressing room revealed her cloak, dress, drawers, corset, and chemise neatly pressed and waiting for her inspection. Bronze candleholders decorated an oversize English tall chest with eight drawers, next to a three-door French armoire, which, she discovered quickly, was empty. A water closet, equipped with the most modern fittings available, included a porcelain bathtub.

Back in the bedroom, a small mantel clock in ormolu and statuary white marble told her it was six in the evening and that she had slept nine hours since first stepping into Nicholas Ramsay’s London home.

He didn’t belong here. That much was clear.

It was impossible to reconcile the startlingly masculine and physically imposing man with the overly refined and studied décor of Conway House. Unless he had a wife, which somehow she doubted. He was too dangerous, too unmanageable. Her pulse jumped, the image of the bodies littering the atelier imprinted on her mind’s eyes. She swallowed hard, the shambles of the previous night rolling over her.

Who was Nicholas Ramsay and what did he want from her?

She quickly unbuttoned the demure nightgown she was wearing, her fingers stiff with nervousness. Convent-made lace, virginal and pure, encircled the neckline like a noose, and she was reminded of the ridiculous confection she’d been forced to wear on her wedding night. And the look in her husband’s eyes, cold and hungry at the same time.

With a sharp tug, the nightgown sailed over her head and onto the floor. Tossing it onto the bed, she recalled instead the tense silence that had accompanied her hurried arrival at the house north of Oxford Street midmorning. Fleeing from London’s constabulary with Nicholas Ramsay to this house was madness, part of the cloud of unreality that refused to dissipate. She was determined Conway House would be a temporary prison, despite its splendid five bays on its south front and a large Venetian window at its center topped with three stories like a wedding cake.

Temporary. Because at this moment, Ramsay was all she had and she would make the most of him. Freedom would be hers at any price.

Her heart ricocheted in her chest. She hated running, but she would not wait like a lamb to the slaughter for Sissinghurst’s men to make another appearance. If Ramsay was somehow part of the bishop’s plot against her, she would manage that too. She closed her eyes against the image of his hands and mouth on her body, burning like a desert sun.

Her eyes flashed open. She wasn’t pliant and she was never the docile doll her father or her husband had wanted her to be. Her moods, her outbursts, her unpredictability meant survival, an amalgam of determination and passion that neither her father nor her late husband had been able to strip away from her. Why then had she not been able to shut Ramsay out, to pretend?

Ten minutes later, she had completed her ablutions and impatiently drew her dress over her drawers, chemise, and corset. She was not a vain woman and her working garb had never included crinolines or hoops, fashion representing simply another stricture that had been forced upon her.

She hurried over to the exquisite French escritoire and penned a quick note on a page of smooth vellum to Horace Webb. She didn’t want to involve him any further in the disaster that was her life, save to spare him worry and apprise him that she was staying at Conway House until further notice.

A discreet pull on the servant’s bell produced a maid who took away her missive but not before presenting her with a note on a heavy silver plate, the bold black strokes dark against the white paper, giving away the author.

Helena glanced quickly at the message. Her presence in the dining room was requested for eight o’clock.

Her pulse jumped. That gave her thirty minutes to discover exactly how to use Nicholas Ramsay before he could use her.