Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

A MUNRO 'H.M.S. Aquiloii. He opens it, sniffs. Though empty so many years it yet retains a pungency which, rising through the Reverend's nose to his brain, so stimulates it that Munro momentarily looms, hesitant and ectoplasmic in the shadows beside the window.

He snaps it shut, drops it in the sack, farts tinnily into the enamelled pot. Another sheet; not a certificate but a reference, a most impressive one, for this signature is legible - John Hunter, that Alexander among surgeons, who finds James to be 'most excellent in the treatment of Fractures simple and compound, the management of Contusions and Amputations and the proper use of Bandages'. It is, thinks the Reverend, as if the Archbishop of York were to write that he finds me particularly devout, an exemplary pastor of my flock.

The last, a fine vellum though much beat up, is in French. A neat, even hand; its carefully flourished Fs and Ys are the work of a secretary at the Russian embassy. It is signed by the ambassador and stamped with the imperial birds. It is James's letter of safe conduct, introducing him as 'Un membre distingue de la fraternite de medecine anglaise!'

Now there is only the little book. The book that promised so much when he saw it first and which now taunts him more than ever. Surely it is some manner of diary? Yet the entire book is written in a code or shorthand that the Reverend, despite some attempts, cannot make out. Even the diagrams are cryptic; impossible to say if they are maps or visual notes for a surgical procedure, or nothing at all, merely lines without the least significance. The single legible word comes on the very last page - 'Liza'. An old love? Did he have old loves? Liza. That too must remain a mystery. Drowsily, the Reverend wonders if his own life will appear like this, a book in a language no one can understand. He thinks: Who shall sit by the fire for me, puzzling it out?

His evacuation is not progressing well. The matter, though noisily presaged, will not emerge. The effort of it wearies him and he fears a strain. It would not do to end like unlamented George Secundus. Sleep crowds him; he closes his eyes. The faces of Burke and Ross briefly form like faces in a tobacco cloud. Other faces follow: Mary, Tabitha, Dido; not James. The clock taps out the progress of the night. He wonders: What shall I say tomorrow, what shall I say, what shall I say . .. ?

From his uncurling fist, from the smooth, uncertain surface of his thighs, the papers of James Dyer tumble to the floor. The moth scorches its wings; the Reverend gently snores. From the stable, just loud enough to pierce the open window of Dido's room, where Dido stands, streaming tears, comes a voice, a song, husky and monotonous, utterly foreign, impenetrably sad.

SECOND

Three times a year the Reverend Lestrade and his sister have themselves bled. It is a ritual, like making the strawberry beds in October, or the increasingly tedious visits to Bath in May, w^hich serve to punctuate the year and which, to omit, vv^ould occasion a distinct unease. 'Bleeding', so the Reverend's father often declared - and so now, in his turn, the Reverend also declares, more for the pleasure of echoing his father than out of any deep conviction - is very good for men and horses. And right good for pragmatic, mithering women.'

Dr Thome is their usual operator, an able man, but this year, his horse having stumbled in a rabbit hole and thrown him, he cannot come.

'Why not James Dyer, then?' asks Dido, closing her book and holding out her hands to the evening fire.

The Reverend taps his teeth with the stem of his pipe. 'No, sister, I do not think it is well advised.'

'Sure he has seen blood before.'

'Surely,' says the Reverend, 'and enough perhaps.'

'If we cannot have Thorne and you are afraid to ask Dr Dyer - living as he does upon the fat of our hospitality -I shall open a vein myself Or if I cannot, I may call on Tabitha.'

With an air of studied innocence, the Reverend asks: 'Has Dr Dyer outstayed your welcome, sister?'

Indeed he has not. No, not so. You mistake me as ever, Julius. It is very vexing. It is because you vex me so that I must be bled.'

'How do I vex you, sister?'

'By crossing me in everything I wish for.'

'Like the spoons?'

'Oh, fiddlededee the spoons. Yes, the spoons. And now this.'

'You might ask him yourself perhaps.'

'I might. And I might walk up to Caxton's place and drink a bottle of his rum.' Dido stands, her dresses rustling like live things.

'Good night to you, brother.'

'Ay, good night to you, sister.'

She goes out of the parlour, very upright. It is, thinks the Reverend, a good twenty years since he bested her in an argument.

The moon, in its last quarter, rises at ten thirty. The Reverend sleeps, dreams of his garden, wakes and dresses, praying on his knees by his window, open-eyed, staring into the golden bowl of a November morning. Bacon and cabbage for breakfast, hot punch, then a pipe of Virginia tobacco in his study, going over Sunday's sermon. He hears the dogs. The sound thrills him, like the sound of bells. He opens the study window, leans out. George Pace, his manservant, is there with the dogs, and Mr Astick over from Totleigh for the morning's sport, sipping from his flask and talking dogs with Pace.

'Morning to you, Astick. Rare morning, eh?'

'Shall there be mornings like this in heaven, Reverend?'

'Assuredly. The dogs are sharp set, George?'

'Larky, but they shall settle.'

The dogs are dancing in their sleek coats, gently biting one

another's throats. The Reverend rejoices, feels himself to be twenty.

'I must speak a few words with the Doctor. Then I am yours.'

He finds James in his room, dressing. 'Forgive me breaking in upon you at such an hour.'

James says: 'I