The Resurrectionist by James Bradley Read Free Book Online Page A

she was beautiful, but now her face has the hard cast of poverty, its look of desperation. Without speaking Charles extends a hand towards the child. The woman watches his hand, then, as if it revolts her, she draws back. Charles lets the hand fall to his side.
    ‘Please, Kitty,’ he says. ‘I must see him.’
    For a long moment she stares at him, then with a sudden, convulsive movement she passes the boy to Charles, who takes him in his arms and, bearing him to the divan under the window, lays him down. As he draws back the blanket he does not flinch, but I feel the way the sight of what lies beneath runs through his frame. The boy is barely conscious, his breath coming in shallow gasps, and at first it is hard to make out the extent of the injuries, for all that is visible is blood and ruined flesh.
    ‘A dog did this?’ I ask, regretting the vehemence of my words even as I speak them.
    ‘Its master said it was a country dog, that the carriages had startled it,’ Arabella says softly.
    By the door the maid cuts in. ‘There were no carriages, the dog was wild.’
    Charles is listening, his eyes not leaving the boy. His face is expressionless, as if all feeling has drained out of it.
    ‘Bring me water,’ he says when the women are done, ‘and rags. We must clean him.’
    In the kitchen Arabella takes down a pot from above the fireplace, and begins to fill it, her arms cradling the pitcher as she pours. She is smaller than I had thought at first, and slighter, and as she stands lost in this task there is a fragility in her presence I had not glimpsed before. As the last of the water falls, and the pitcher rises in her hand, she looks up, and I see again the way she seems to exist within herself.
    ‘Were you there?’
    She pauses, then shakes her head. ‘Tetty was with him.’
    ‘The maid?’
    ‘He gave her a sovereign; such a fine gentleman.’
    For a moment we stand united thus, caught in the knowledge of this thing. Then she lifts the pot, heavy now with water, and places it in my hands.
    ‘Here,’ she says, ‘take this in. I will fetch some rags,’ her eyes level and clear.
    Charles sends the women away before we begin, Arabella and the maid helping Kitty from the bed and leading her to the room outside. Then we take the water and sponge the blood from the boy’s skin, wary lest we set those of his wounds which have already skinned bleeding again. Several times he regains consciousness, whimpering and moaning, and once looking up with sudden clarity, but for the mostpart he is quiet. As the extent of his injuries is revealed a heaviness descends upon Charles, as if he knows already that the battle is lost. The right arm is ruined, two fingers missing from the hand, the flesh on the forearm and elbow so lacerated and torn in places that bone and sinew are visible, shocking white against the oozing blood, while across the shoulder and neck and chest bruises and puncture wounds are everywhere. But it is the face and head which are the worst, his scalp torn clean away from the skull, the hair and meat hanging on a grisly flap where the ear protrudes. Perhaps once he was a handsome boy, but now the face has been almost destroyed as well, the nose and cheeks mauled, the right eye staring blindly from a mass of oozing flesh, its lid ripped away altogether.
    When the wounds are clean we begin work. Carefully Charles stitches and sews, folding the scalp back onto the skull, closing those of the wounds he can. An hour passes, then two, and more, time slipping away as we are lost into the careful business of our craft. The boy by now is delirious, moaning and murmuring as dreams chase through his mind, mercifully oblivious to what is being done to him. The hand is beyond help, and we must remove part of it before the injuries can be repaired. As the saw bites through the tiny bones I see a look of revulsion mar Charles’s handsome face, but he continues nonetheless. And when we are done we bandage him carefully, and