The Midnight Man. Charlotte MedeЧитать онлайн книгу.
terror in the stoutest of men. What he didn’t mention was that with Lady Hartford’s incarceration came a monstrous fortune that was now his to oversee as her legal guardian.
“And, of course, a simple life away from temptation and self-indulgence will prove beneficial to Lady Hartford’s mental condition, I have no doubt.” He added significantly, “Mental hygiene is all important. Her licentiousness knows no bounds and can no longer be tolerated. As we well know, madness is a result of moral weakness, which my uncle’s widow has in great abundance. This last incident is but more evidence.” The bishop turned sharply on his heels, his color rising once again, disgust clear on his face. “The salaciousness of her so-called art work. Truly, Mosley, this will prove her undoing.”
Mosley bowed his head in acquiescence, quelling the elation rising in his soul. He thought of the brutal ill-treatment meted out to the insane. Harsh, unhygienic, crowded conditions where cholera and fevers flared, Bedlam was God’s punishment on earth. For a penny, eager spectators could peer into cells to view inmates and mock their antics. Once per month, visitors were invited to wield long sticks, poking, prodding, and enraging those who no longer had the freedom others took as commonplace. He thought of Lady Helena Hartford and a strange lust thickened his blood.
“It is God’s will,” he said.
Ignoring the Deacon and his zealous proclamation, the bishop continued, self-righteousness beetling his brow. He gazed at the clock and pursed his lips. “I don’t know what my uncle was thinking when he took her to be his wife.”
Mosley nodded vigorously while struggling with the rising temperature in his loins, hunger igniting his wayward thoughts. Lady Hartford was beautiful and flamboyant in a way that would appeal to any man and, in particular, to a man thirty years her senior seeking an elixir to prolong his vigor. He inhaled sharply, recalling the rumors of the duke’s widow paying young men to pose nude for her. Then, of course, there was her huge personal fortune—which she was proceeding to give away to charities with wild and outrageous abandon.
The bishop gave up his pacing and sank back down in his chair, fingers drumming the ornately carved arms edgily. “I don’t want her to receive any special treatment. Penance is good for the soul,” he said sourly. “She has much to atone for, foremost of which consists of squandering my uncle’s fortune on the homes of wayward women and their offspring, not to mention the schools.” He shook his head with exasperation. “If I were not to intervene, there’s no saying where she would turn her attentions next. Charity belongs in the hands of the Church,” he concluded, selectively forgetting that the fortune he was referring to had come to Lady Hartford by way of her family. “She cannot be incarcerated soon enough. And if additional inducements are required to tame her spirits, well then, we shall be obliged to examine the alternatives available to us. As a matter of fact, I would like you to take up this point with the mad doctor himself.”
“Very good, my lord Bishop.”
Sissinghurst sighed and took another sip of his port. “Now that Lady Hartford has been dispensed with and with my uncle’s legacy in the proper hands, we can continue our good works, can’t we, Mosley?”
“Indeed.” The deacon watched as the bishop picked up the Common Book of Prayer carefully positioned at his elbow. Removing his spectacles from their case, he thumbed through the pages, impatiently looking for something he couldn’t find. “And about that other matter, Deacon,” he said absently, as though inquiring about nothing more important than the running of a local parish.
The words trailed off, but Mosley cleared his throat and said firmly, “I have made preliminary investigations.”
“And?” The bishop peered over his spectacles. “You may sit if it makes you more comfortable.”
Mosley lowered himself into a chair across from Sissinghurst, his mouth set in a thin line. Excitement shone from behind his pale skin and he began his recitation as though reading from the Holy Scripture, hands folded on his knees.
“The X Club meets once each month at the Athenaeum Club,” he said, as always watching for Sissinghurst’s most minute reaction. “It comprises nine men who support theories of natural selection and academic liberalism. What brings these men together is, in their words, a devotion to science, pure and free, untrammeled by religious dogmas.”
The bishop’s eyes narrowed, transformed to raisins lost between his doughy cheeks and heavy brow. “Continue, sir.”
Requiring no further encouragement, Mosley barely stopped to take a breath before continuing with the blasphemy. “The objective is to provide a forum that encourages freedom to express unorthodox opinions and the freedom from clerical interference in science.”
Sissinghurst sneered. “Heretics, all of them, who are willing to overturn the heavens and worse, the earth,” he muttered. “The fools. And it began with that godforsaken treatise.”
“The Origin of Species,” Mosley supplied, his fingers flexing on his knees as though shaping something malleable that could later be crushed to nothing beneath his heels.
The bishop snorted in contempt and slammed his empty tumbler on the side table in agitation. “Nine men who work together to aid the cause of naturalism and natural history. And undermine God’s work on earth. These benighted souls have far too much power in shaping the social landscape in England, Mosley. Just last week that fiend Huxley was in the factories again, spreading his lies about social progress to the sons of toil…ridiculous notions and potentially destabilizing. He sets himself up as a type of Cromwellian, a revolutionary fighting for the advancement of science based on merit rather than on patronage and aristocratic privilege.” The bishop seemed to run out of breath, an almost personal anger fueling his tirade. “If I could, I would condemn Charles Darwin to the burning fires of hell.”
“We must overthrow this dangerous clique of allies,” echoed Mosley, leaning forward in his chair to make his point, an angel stepping out of a fresco. “They are not only popularizing hostility to religion but galvanizing the working masses. I would sacrifice my life to see it done.”
“And we will, we will see it done,” Sissinghurt continued, but this time more slowly and deliberately, having calmed himself with the last dregs of his port. “With my uncle’s legacy now under my control, we have resources to do God’s work on earth, to ensure everyone has and keeps to his place. This infidel socialism is rampant on the factory floor and cannot be countenanced.” His tone was implacable. “But you’ve yet to tell me, Deacon, who are these men of the X Club and where are they getting the funds to fuel such dissension?”
Mosley sucked in his cheeks, worry written large on his expression. “A question that requires an answer, my lord Bishop. As we well recognize, science should belong to the province of wealthy gentlemen with the resources and leisure to pursue their interests, or to those who can obtain the backing of rich patrons. Behind them stand archbishops and vicars of the Church of England, holding fast to the notion that all of nature is the working out of God’s divine plan.” He frowned before continuing. “Men like Lubbock, Huxley, and Busk, however, are middle-class professionals who lack the means to foment radicalism much less destabilize the Church of England. But there’s one among their ranks, Tyndall, who in my early contacts with him could prove to be less certain in his views.”
The bishop did not sound happy. “Inconceivable how a man like Huxley, the son of a schoolteacher and a cockney mother, could rise to such influence,” he grumbled. “Use whom you must, but I want you to discover who is funding the work of the X Club. It’s of utmost importance that we undermine the machinations of these heretics who would mount an assault on the divinely ordained social order.”
Nodding vigorously and as eager as a medieval crusader, Deacon Mosley bolted from his chair. “Consider it done, my lord Bishop.”
Sissinghurst fixed Mosley with a stare while picking up the glass at his side and taking the last lingering drop of port. “See that you do and keep me apprised. Money, of course, is no object now that I have secured the late Lord Hartford’s legacy. But we have little time to lose.”
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