Page 5 of A Gathering Storm
“Ah, Mr. Gwynn. Please come in,” Godolphin said. “We have a contract of agency to draw up.”
Godolphin was as good as his word, but over the next several weeks, the few subjects he was able to send Ward’s way proved to be worse than useless.
Agnes Penrose, a frowsy woman of about forty, blushed every time Ward asked her a question, could barely stammer out an answer, and was impossible to hypnotise due to her inability to maintain her gaze where Ward needed it to be to achieve the requisite state.
Thomas Cadzow, a strapping young farm labourer, appeared a better prospect, at least at first. He succumbed to the trance state with ease, but it transpired he’d never suffered a bereavement in his life—not only were his mother, father, and six siblings alive and well, but all four grandparents and two great-grandparents were in fine fettle too. The man hadn’t lost so much as a pet cat.
The worst, though, was Jago Jones, a sullen man who’d recently lost his place on one of the local fishing crews after being drunk and incapable one too many times. Silent at the outset, in his trance he grew tearful and spoke like a frightened child till Ward, alarmed, woke him. On waking, Jago was mortified to find himself cowering and wet faced. He claimed to remember nothing of what had occurred and grew angry with Ward, though all Ward had done was ask him to call to mind his dead father. He stormed out of Varhak Manor insisting Ward had been trying to possess him with witchcraft.
A few days later, Godolphin called on Ward.
Pipp showed him into Ward’s study, and he dropped into the chair opposite Ward’s desk with a heavy sigh.
“Is something wrong?” Ward asked.
“Mr. Jones’s family are swearing blind he’s been abed since he returned from undergoing your experiments,” Godolphin told Ward flatly. “They say he’s unable to see, hear, or speak since you put him in a trance.”
Ward frowned. “Well, I can assure you, he was able to do all those things when he walked out my house shouting at the top of his voice.”
Godolphin nodded wearily. “I pointed out to them he must’ve got home somehow. Nevertheless, that’s what they claim. And if they start spreading that rumour, your chances of getting any more subjects for your experiments will dwindle to nothing, I’m afraid.”
Ward gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Well, that couldn’t be much worse than what I’ve had so far.”
Godolphin sighed again. “Yes, I know and I’m sorry for it, but the truth is, the villagers have been more wary of your experiments than I expected them to be. It’s not so much the hypnotism that bothers them as the rumours that your work involves electricity. Most people round here have lost men to storms at sea at some time or another, and they don’t consider that such things are to be trifled with.”
“Believe me, no one has more respect for the power of an electrical storm than I,” Ward replied. “I wouldn’t consider putting anyone in any kind of danger. For God’s sake, I’m erecting lightning rods round the Hole so that when I’m working in storm conditions, any strikes will be harmlessly discharged!”
“That’s not how the villagers see it,” Godolphin said, shrugging. “So far as they’re concerned, your lightning rods attract lightning, and they can’t understand why on earth you’d want to do that.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Ward exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “That’s ridiculous!”
“But that’s how they think,” Godolphin pointed out patiently. “And that’s why I’ve not been able to find anyone else willing to be a subject. Mind, I’ll keep looking, but in the meantime, if you want the Jones family to be quiet, I suspect you’re going to have to pay them some money.”
As much as that rankled, Ward hadn’t spent months building Varhak Manor and planning the work he would carry out there, only to throw his efforts away now by allowing the Jones family to defame him the length and breadth of the county. Besides, as much as he doubted the truth of their claims over Jago’s incapacity, he still felt faintly guilty every time he remembered the sight of the man weeping like a babe. And so, in the end, he instructed Godolphin to offer the Jones clan twenty pounds in exchange for their silence, and they happily took it.
Jago Jones was, of course, walking and talking as well as anyone else within a day of the money being handed over. He blew the lot at a boxing match at Trebudannon, got spectacularly drunk, overturned his buggy on the way home, and caved in his skull. He died three days later.
Within a week, the whole county was whispering that his death was down to Sir Edward Fitzwilliam’s mysterious electromagnetic experiments.
After that, there were no more subjects from Mr. Godolphin.
28th April 1853
The Hope & Anchor Inn, Porthkennack
“Well now, me ’ansome, what will you be having this fine day?”
Martha Trevylyn winked at Nick over the scarred wood of the bar and thrust her ample bosom out a little further. She was known to be a lusty one, Martha, and she’d made it plain to Nick on more than one occasion that she fancied him.
“A pint of ale, if you please, Martha.”
“No smile for me today?” she teased, lifting up on tiptoe to unhook a metal tankard from the beam above her. Nick just grunted in reply, and she sighed dramatically. “It’s a sin, is what it is, a man like you never cracking a smile. I daresay you’d be twice as lovely to look at if you did.”
“I’m hardly lovely to look at,” Nick scoffed, but Martha laughed.
“What’ve you to be so glum about anyway?” she demanded as she pumped out the frothy ale. “It’s a lovely day. The blossom’s on the trees, it’s warm as high summer, and the maypole’s going up today for the Young Oss on Sunday. If it stays like this, we’ll be dancing late into the night.”
“That so?”