That alarming duty done, i returned to the high street to be told that Mr. Boyle had fallen ill at his sister’s house in London and intended to stay there for a few days yet. Then I went to Tillyard’s, to fill my stomach and catch up on the news. Locke was there, and seemed mightily glad to see me; I was not so content to see him.
“Next time you have a patient, Mr. Cola,” he said once I was settled, “pray keep her to yourself. I have had the devil of a run with her. She has deteriorated since you left.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. Why, exactly?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea at all. But she is weakened a little. It began the day that daughter of hers was arrested.”
He willingly told me all the details, as he had been attending the woman when it occurred. It appeared that the bailiff had come for Sarah at her house, and had shackled her and dragged her away in full view of the mother. Sarah had not gone quietly; she had screamed and scratched and bitten until she was forced to the floor and bound; even then she continued screaming and had to be gagged as well. The mother had attempted to rise from her bed and it had required Locke’s full strength to force her back.
“All the time the poor woman screamed that her daughter had not done anything, and they should leave her alone. I must say, when I saw the girl’s performance I could quite believe that she had killed someone. I’ve never seen such a transformation in a human being before. All quiet and gentle one moment, the next a screaming, raging monster. Quite a horrible performance. And the strength she had! Do you know, it took three full-grown men to pin her down while the chains were put on?”
I grunted. “Her mother?”
“She curled up on the bed and began to cry, of course, and afterward became weak and fretful.” He paused and looked at me frankly. “I did what I could but it had no effect; please accept my assurances on that.”
“I will have to go and see her,” I said. “This is something which has concerned me ever since I heard of the arrest. I greatly fear the mother’s condition is bound to get worse, unless we do something drastic.”
“Why is that?”
“The transfusion, Mr. Locke. The transfusion. Think of it. I didn’t know for sure, but I wondered whether the state of the girl might affect that of the mother, now their spirits are so intermingled in her body. Sarah, no doubt, can withstand the effects; her mother is so much older and weaker, I have no doubt this is what has caused her decline.”
Locke leaned back in his chair, his eyebrows raised in what seemed like supercilious disdain but which I now believed was his habitual appearance when deep in thought. “Fascinating,” he said eventually. “This experiment of yours has all sorts of consequences. So what do you intend?”
I shook my head sorrowfully. “I do not know. I have no ideas at all. You must excuse me. I should go and see her immediately.”
And so I did, the visit confirming the very worst of my fears. The woman was indeed weaker, whatever progress her wound had made had stopped and the stench of sickness hung in the dank little room. I could have wept to see the sight. But she was conscious, and had not yet deteriorated too far. Close questioning discovered that she had not eaten now in near two days; the girl Lower had hired to watch over her had abandoned her post when Sarah was taken, refusing to stay in the house of a murderess. Naturally, she did not refund the money.
It seemed to me that part of the trouble was that the woman was hungry; she needed to eat well and regularly to have any chance at all, so the first thing I did was march straight to a cook house and demand some bread and broth for her. This I fed to her myself, spoonful by spoonful, before I examined and redressed the wound. It was not as bad as I feared. Locke had done a decent job in that respect, at least.
But she still should not have been that ill. Hunger and the dismay of seeing her daughter taken no doubt made her despondent, but I was sure—indeed my entire theory depended on it—of a communication between her and the daughterly blood now commingled in her veins. And if being cast into a rat-infested prison could have this effect, then clearly worse was to come.
“I beg you, kind doctor,” she said when I had finished, “how is my Sarah, do you know?”
I shook my head. “I have only just returned from the country, and know less than you do. All I have heard is that she is to go on trial. Have you not had any messages?”
“No. I cannot go there, and she cannot come here. And there is no one who will take a message for me. I hesitate to impose on your goodness…”
My heart sank. I knew what she was going to say, and I dreaded the request.
“…but you know her a little. You know she could not do anything like this. She has never harmed anyone in her entire life, quite the opposite in fact; she is known—even Mr. Boyle knows her—for her willingness and ability to heal. I know you cannot do anything for her but would you go and see her, tell her that I am well and she is not to worry on my behalf?”
I desperately wanted to refuse, to say that I wished to have nothing further to do with the girl. But I could not bring myself to say the harsh words; it would have weakened the poor woman still further and, if my theory was correct, then the more content the girl, the greater the mother’s chances as well. So I agreed to the request. I would visit the jail, assuming I was allowed in, and would convey the message.
I hope I have led a good life, and that the Lord recognizes my efforts to conform to his laws so that I am spared the miseries of eternal torment, for if Hell is half as diabolical as the cells of an English jail on the day before an assize, it is a terrible place indeed. The small forecourt in front of the castle was far more crowded than on the previous occasion I visited it, alive with the bustle of men and women come to succor prisoners, or drawn merely by the possibility of watching new ones arrive. The unfortunate wretches are brought in from far and wide when the judges come to town, that they may stand their turn and hear their fate. The jail, virtually empty last time I was there, was now bursting, the stench of human bodies overwhelming and the noise of the sick, the cold and the desperate deeply affecting. However much many of the creatures deserved to be so lodged, I could not but feel sorry for them, and even had a momentary burst of panic that I might be confused for a prisoner and refused permission to leave again once my task was done.
Men and women are separated, of course, and the poorer sort make do in two large rooms. There is no furniture of any type except straw pallets for them to lie on, and the sounds of the heavy iron chains clanking as the prisoners tossed and turned in a futile attempt to find comfort sang loudly in the background as I picked my way through the mass of bodies. It was bitterly cold, as the room was near the waterline of the old moat, and centuries of damp clung to the walls. The only light came from a few windows, so high up that only a bird could have reached them. It occurred to me that it was just as well the assizes met soon, otherwise an underfed, underclothed girl like Sarah Blundy would die of jail fever long before the hangman had his turn.
It took some time to find her, for she was leaning against the clammy wall, arms around her legs and her head bowed down so that only her long brown hair could be seen. She was singing softly to herself, a mournful sound in that dreadful place, the plaintive lament of a caged bird, singing in memory of its freedom. When I greeted her it was some moments before she lifted her head up. Oddly, I was most saddened and alarmed to see how her normal demeanor had vanished. Instead of the insolent haughtiness, she was quiet and passive, as though as deprived of the air she needed as the dove in Boyle’s pump. She didn’t even reply when I asked her how she did—merely shrugged her shoulders and hugged herself as if to try and keep warm.