The System of the World

The Temple of Vulcan
WEDNESDAY, 27 OCTOBER 1714

THE OPTIMISTIC SIDE OF DANIEL’S nature put in a rare appearance on the evening of Tuesday and convinced Daniel that Isaac’s collapse had been neither swoon nor stroke, but only another of those mad panics that would come over him from time to time and later subside. Daniel was so sure of this that he paid a call on Isaac’s house in St. Martin’s that evening, expecting that Isaac would be there. But he was not. He was in the care of Catherine Barton at the house of the late Roger Comstock.

Daniel went there on Wednesday, then, and found Miss Barton distraught. In retrospect he now saw it as a marvel that Isaac hadn’t died a long time ago. His troubles had begun in August when Leibniz had knocked him and Daniel over a wall. This had saved them from being roasted by phosphorus-fire, but had done damage to Isaac’s ribs, with the result that he’d breathed but shallowly for weeks afterwards. He’d picked up a catarrh that ought to have been minor, but had been unable to cough effectively because of the pain in his ribs, and so had not been clearing his lungs. This catarrh had entrenched itself and become a pneumonia.

The event yesterday probably had been a stroke, but not as grave as it might have been; according to Catherine, Isaac had suffered weakness on his right side for a time, but seemed to have regained some of his strength since then. That did not concern her so much as his rapidly mounting fever.

“Fever!?” Daniel exclaimed, and insisted on going in to see the patient. Isaac had left strict orders to keep all physicians out of his room, and Catherine had obeyed them; but Daniel Waterhouse was no physician.

Isaac was spread-eagled on a four-poster bed, dressed in a flimsy nightshirt. He had kicked the bedclothes off onto the floor and he or someone else had opened a window to let in cold air. Daniel had to stuff his hands into his pockets to keep them from freezing. “Isaac?” he said.

The patient’s head stirred, triggering a shift of his flowing white hair, and beneath half-closed lids his eyes focused. But the eyes were not looking Daniel’s way. Daniel came over to the bedside. Isaac was breathing rapidly and shallowly. Daniel bent down and pressed an ear to Isaac’s ribcage, wincing at the heat that came out of his body-like a loaf fresh out of the oven. In the bases of Isaac’s lungs, it sounded as though bacon was being fried. His heart was beating weakly but quickly, albeit with alarming skips and pauses.

During this examination, Daniel could not help but notice a rash on those parts of Isaac’s chest not covered by the nightshirt. He sat on the edge of the bed and unbuttoned the garment. Isaac’s eyes, then his head moved slightly as Daniel did so; the movement had caught his eye. He watched Daniel’s hands work their way down his heaving sternum, one button at a time, and when Daniel spread the nightshirt apart, Isaac’s eyes tracked his right hand. Daniel recognized it: Natural-Philosophic curiosity.

Isaac’s torso was covered with the rash. It was most obvious around the left armpit.

“When was the last time you were in Newgate Prison?” Daniel asked. For he had the sense that Isaac was entering in to a lucid phase.

“Ah!” Isaac said, and then had to cough for a minute, in a frothy way, to clear the pipes for action. “You and I agree on the diagnosis of gaol-fever, then. That is a comfort. We agree on so little else.” Long pauses held these phrases apart.

“When was the last time…” Daniel reiterated patiently.

Isaac cut him off with the answer: “A week ago. I went and spoke to Jack in the Condemned Hold.”

“Normally the incubation period for gaol-fever would be-”

“Longer, a bit. Yes. I know. But I am old. And weakened by other maladies. You are being tedious. I have little time. I stipulate that I have gaol-fever. It will get worse before it gets better. If it gets better at all. Now I am getting chilly. Will you please button me back up. My right hand has lost some of its dexterity.”

Daniel could hardly deny such a request, and so he began to re-button the shirt-even though he was sure that this was a ploy by Isaac to bring Daniel’s hands into view again so that he could observe the ring. Daniel ignored this, and worked the buttons as fast as he could, and cursed his own stupidity for not having simply pocketed the thing before entering the room.

“It looks heavy,” Isaac remarked. “You know of what I speak. Does it weigh heavy on your finger?”

“Sometimes.”

“Who gave it you? Not a woman, surely.”

Daniel finished with the buttons, and thrust his hands back in his pockets.

“I should like to give you something as well,” Isaac remarked. His gaze had tracked the bauble all the way to Daniel’s pocket and now flicked up to settle on Daniel’s eyes.

“And what might that be, Isaac?”

“Not so much give it you, as draw it to your notice,” Isaac corrected himself. “That stuff of Hooke’s. Found at Bedlam. Reposited here. For me it was neither the most…nor the least…convenient place to look at it. Since the death…of Roger…I have come here more often. For I could not attend to my work…when he was hovering…you know…and asking all manner of questions. I have made a study of that document. The one that figured in the Stake-out…of last summer. You know the one I mean. Hooke’s account of a patient…who died after a lithotomy…and was resurrected…there is no other word for it…by a certain receipt. A remarkable document.”

“You forged a fake version of it as bait for de Gex,” Daniel said, “but-”

“But I have returned to it. In recent weeks. As my health was failing. And I took many notes. And interpreted what was cryptic. And set down clearly what Hooke-who was no Alchemist-did not understand. I know you think it is all rubbish. But if you would look after it…and see that it finds its way into the right…hands…it would be a comfort to me.”

“Of course. Where is it?”

“Roger’s library. Table before the window. Top drawer on the right.”

“I’ll fetch it now,” Daniel said, “and take it to your house straightaway.”

“That is good,” Isaac said. “Take it to my laboratory. Put it with the rest.”

“The rest of what?” Daniel asked. But he could see plainly he’d not be getting an answer. Isaac drew in his limbs, curled up on his side, and began to shiver like a dog fresh out of the water that cannot fight the urge to shake. Daniel called for Catherine, and together they sorted out the bedclothes and drew them over Isaac’s body.

“He has asked me to tend to some things,” Daniel announced to justify leaving. “I shall send word to the Council that Isaac is unwell, and cannot attend the Trial of the Pyx, day after tomorrow.”

“No! You must do no such thing!” Miss Barton said, and laid a hand on Daniel’s wrist. For she knew well enough that her words would penetrate a man’s brain as effectively as a musket-ball, if she touched him while she spoke.

“Miss Barton,” Daniel said, “look at the poor man! He can’t possibly-”

“Uncle Isaac told me that he must be present at the Trial of the Pyx no matter what. Even if he’s dead.”

“Pardon me, but did you really mean that?”

“ ‘Even if I am dead,’ he told me, ‘you stuff my corpse in a sedan chair and carry me to Star Chamber on Friday morning.’ And that, Doctor Waterhouse, is just what I mean to do.”

“Well, God willing, he’ll still be alive,” Daniel said, and gently disengaged himself from Miss Barton’s smooth grasp, and headed for Roger’s library.