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

A week later, James arrives at Grand Parade to find all the windows on the ground floor smashed. Mr Timmins meets

him at the door, explains that he cannot continue under such circumstances and must therefore, respectfully, regretfully James thrusts him out of doors, sweeps up the glass, has the glazier at work inside of an hour.

He is shunned. His practice slumps. Soon only those past caring what the world thinks, whose minds can travel no further than the relief of their pain and who hold like a precious secret the reputation of James Dyer, not as a man but as a surgeon, continue to come.

Those whose condition is less insistent, who still have one foot in the stream of the world, go to Mr Crisp, who is able, or Mr Farbank or Mr Boas, or any of the dozen other men who can flourish a certificate and wield a knife, and who have drunk damnation to James Dyer. They have their wish now. He shall feel the pinch soon enough. Then they shall see.

March. A shower of stones is flung at James's back as he walks to the Orange Grove after dark. The same night the new windows at Grand Parade are smashed.

April. Four new patients in the whole month. Dinah and the cook give their notice. Replacements are hard to find. Agnes takes to her bed, lies among the sour linen clutching a silhouette of her late husband. James does not visit her. They live in the house as strangers.

The hissers, the stone-throwers, grow more audacious. James, dozing in the saddle on his return from seeing a patient in St Catherine's valley, opens his eyes to find the road barred by four men carrying staves, their faces masked with scarves. One mns forward to strike. James kicks the man in the head, sends him tumbling. The others come up; one seizes the reins; they vvresde James on to the road. The fight is short, almost silent. James has no compunction as a fighter, no fear. He lashes out at eyes and throats, but four is too many. They overwhelm, pound him with their staves. Vaguely, he is aware of

their leaning, their whispers, their hard breathing. Then he hears them running. Then nothing.

When he comes to it is Ught. A yellow dawn. A fine rain. A crow watches him from the edge of the road. When it sees him move it hops into the air, flaps heavily away over the glistening valley. The horse is sheltering under an oak tree, the horse as still as the tree. Very slowly, James pulls himself into the saddle. There are not many to see him on his way home, yet enough for the news to spread: the bastard's black and blue! A modicum of justice for old Munro.

When Gummer finds James at Grand Parade next morning he shakes his head, laughs, then later on brings food and wine. The welts, the gouges, the imprints of boots on James's back, legs, arms, blossom, then melt back into his skin. He tends his own wounds; compresses, needle and thread. Within two days he is able to hobble about with his cane. In four he is quite recovered, sees the few patients who remain in the inoculation chambers and the pox ward, operates on a child's putrid tonsils. There is no search for his assailants. He does not think of them. None of this matters. He is James Dyer. Even his enemies call him remarkable, brilliant. He does not suffer. But for the first time in three, four years, he opens the old orrery and comforts himself with the sight of it, and the memory of himself at Blind Yeo, a boy convinced of his greatness.

The planets do not fail him. On the fifteenth day of May 1767 he receives a letter from Dr Fothergill in London.

My dear James,

Though you choose to forget your old tutor, he does not forget you. I take an old man's pleasure in following the progress of my more promising students, and I am reliably informed that you have put your talents to good use in the West Country. I understand you have made inoculation against the smallpox, that most vital of measures, something of a speciality.

Mr Pouschin, the Russian Ambassador in London, has made it known that the Empress Catherine is desirous of having herself inoculated as an example to her people, that the scourge of the disease in her kingdoms may be abated. To this end she has required her ambassador to discover an English operator, our people being renowned throughout the world for their skill and knowledge in this matter. Several names have been put forward and I have taken the liberty of placing yours among them. I trust you will not take it amiss.

Who it is who shall, at the last, perform this piece of business depends on who shall arrive in the city of St Petersburg first, for it is decided that, all those on the list being equally fit for the task, all should have a fair opportunity. A day shall be set when those who are willing to undergo the journey will be assembled in London, that they might set off together for the Continent and thence, as speedily as they may, to Russia. Though I cannot entirely approve, it is thought this will afford some sport and amusement, both here and in Russia.

Should you wish me to confirm your name, I ask that you call here as soon as you are at liberty to do so, as it is anticipated that the matter shall come off before the end of this year.

Were I a younger man I should be tempted to go myself. The risks are not inconsiderable, but the rewards are likely to be very handsome indeed.

I am your Humble Servant etc Fothergill

James is in London the following week, with Fothergill in Fothergill's garden. There is not a mark left on him from his recent beating. He wears