CHAPTER 1 #3
The Humane Society’s icemen went to work immediately.
They flung ropes to desperate men bobbing in the water.
They rammed wheeled ladders between the chunks of ice and rolled them in as far as they could.
Several icemen braved the water, pulling skaters to safety, buoyed by their cork life belts.
Others recruited bystanders to help carry skiffs from the boathouse by the lake’s western shore.
They launched them with difficulty, oarlocks clanking, bows dinging ice blocks, progress blocked by the jagged floes.
Within twenty minutes, many had saved themselves. Bystanders had pulled out the skaters within easy reach, but scores still struggled in the water.
Knots of onlookers kept watch from the shore over selected victims. From time to time, a moaning wail went up as the skater in their sights slipped from a floe and vanished.
When a top-hatted gentleman sank under the water, someone cried, “Look, he’s gone, poor soul.
” Only his hat remained floating on the surface.
An old barrow-woman wrapped in tattered shawls rocked on the ground, keening, her basket of bright oranges at her side.
“Jack, Jack,” she moaned. “Dear God, will no one save him?” Her husband was beyond help.
The onlookers watched the old chestnut seller slip off the edge of a floe.
His wheeled, coal-fired brazier tumbled in after him, sinking amid the hissing steam.
Mary and Louisa stood among the desperate, watching loved ones struggle to survive. Charles was up to his neck in freezing water, clinging to a section of ice about thirty yards from them.
Louisa sobbed, “Charles, Charles.” She clutched her sister-in-law’s arm. “Mary, what can we do?”
Nearby, an exhausted iceman stumbled up the bank and fell to his knees. Someone untangled the rope that bound him to the man he’d saved. Then two others took the sodden, freezing pair away to the Humane Society’s tent to be warmed.
Mary rushed forward and seized the discarded coil. She raised its looped end over her head.
“Twenty pounds to anyone willing to rescue that man in the deerstalker cap.” She pointed to her struggling brother. “And two pounds each to the first three men who’ll volunteer to pull them in.”
A burly man shrugged off his jacket, grabbed the other end of the rope, and tossed it to his friend. Mary handed him the looped coil; he slipped it over his head and shoulders. Another man broke from the crowd, spit into hands the size of boxing gloves, and grasped the line with his meaty fists.
* * *
Julia knew something was wrong the moment her cab turned into Sussex Terrace.
Crowds streamed across the Outer Circle roadway, heading toward the park.
When her rattling hansom stopped at her aunt’s town house, Julia heard a muted din rumbling in the distance.
Her aunt’s front door opened while she paid off the cabbie, and the butler and footman struggled down the steps holding the handles of a large wicker basket.
“What’s happening?”
“The ice in the park,” the butler said. “It was rotten and gave way. Hundreds of skaters fell into the lake. Lady Aldridge is sending blankets and warm clothing.”
Julia’s Aunt Caroline appeared in the doorway. “And there’s a call for doctors, my dear.”
Julia and her aunt’s servants rushed to the swamped relief station. The Humane Society had equipped it to treat the minor accidents that washed up on any given day. But that afternoon, the catastrophe surged like a tsunami, overwhelming its resources.
As Julia arrived, a soaked, shivering man pushed through the canvas flap and headed for the brazier.
A burly laborer followed, backing through the opening, holding an unconscious skater under his armpits.
His partner supported the victim’s legs.
Julia pointed to an empty cot. “Strip off his coat and lay him on his stomach.”
A flame-haired woman of about thirty, visibly distraught, clutched the hand of a younger woman. “He’ll be all right, won’t he, Mary?”
“Of course he will.” The fair-haired girl caught Julia’s eye, looking less confident than she sounded.
“Perhaps if your companion took that seat,” Julia said, smiling reassuringly, and nodded at a chair.
Then she leaned over the bearded skater.
She judged him to be a fit man in his early thirties, and that was all to the good.
Julia applied her stethoscope and listened.
“His lungs are clear, and he’s breathing without difficulty. ”
“Oh, thank God,” the older woman said with a shuddery sigh.
“And his color is good.” Julia straightened up. “Let’s make him more comfortable, shall we?” With the fair-haired girl’s help, she stripped off his sodden socks and tugged on dry ones from her aunt’s basket. Then Julia covered him with a blanket.
“May I have another?” The young woman nodded at the pile of blankets. “That shivering gentleman by the fire saved my brother.” Julia handed her a blanket, and the girl draped it over the man’s shoulders.
The older woman dragged her chair close to the cot.
She raked tangled curls from the man’s brow and stroked his cheek, murmuring, “Charles. Dear, dear Charles.” The frost that clung to his fair beard and mustache had melted in the warm tent.
She used her handkerchief to trace slow rings around his mouth and nose.
Then she pushed it into her pocket and covered his hand with hers.
The girl touched Julia’s arm. “Thank you for your help, Miss . . .”
“Doctor Lewis. Julia Lewis.”
“I’m Mary Allingham, and that’s my sister-in-law, Louisa Allingham. Doctor, may we take my brother home? The men who rescued Charles are waiting to carry him to our carriage. Unless you don’t think . . .”
Julia smiled. “Oh, I think he can spend the night in his bed. Best place for him.”
Louisa looked up. “His hands, his fingers. Doctor, is frostbite. . .”
“There’s no sign of it, Mrs. Allingham.”
“Thank heaven for that,” Mary said. “Charles writes articles for journals. He’s an art critic.”
“That’s one less worry,” Julia said. “Your brother’s ordeal exhausted him. Dry him off, build up the fire, and watch for respiratory distress. Are you comfortable looking after him?”
“Louisa trained as a nurse, hoping to serve in the Crimea,” Mary explained. “She’ll take care of him.”
Julia put her hand on Mary’s arm. “Should you need assistance, please call for me at any hour. A note to number seventeen Finsbury Circus will find me.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Will you come to us tomorrow morning? See how Charles is faring?”
She smiled and said, “Of course.”
“We’re in Kensington, near the Horticultural Society’s gardens.
” Mary produced a calling card, scribbled her address, and gave it to Julia.
Then she supervised her brother’s removal by stretcher.
The sodden man at the brazier handed Julia the borrowed blanket and followed the Allinghams out the door.
“Gone to collect his twenty quid.”
Julia turned to the speaker. He was one of the Humane Society’s icemen, still wearing his cork life belt. “What do you mean?”
“Saw it happen. That lass offered the chap twenty pounds to save her brother.”
* * *
For the next two hours, Julia treated and released a score of skating victims and sent others by ambulance wagon to the hospital. She also pronounced several young men dead. Attendants removed their bodies to the Marylebone Workhouse to await identification by loved ones.
Sometime after six o’clock, Julia hesitated. She held a blanket at the shoulders of a dead young officer. The two pips on his tunic told her he was an army lieutenant. Not a day over thirty. She’d noticed his wedding ring. A young husband. Perhaps a father? Pity washed over her.
A rumbling bass behind her asked, “This is what you call resting, Julia?”
She turned around. “Grandfather. How did you—”
“Your aunt sent a message. Ogilvie is waiting with the carriage.”
Dr. Andrew Lewis had removed his bowler, and his silver hair glinted in the lamplight. Julia was a tall woman, and her grandfather had grown more stooped over the years. Their eyes met nearly on the level. Julia held his gaze and said, “I had to do what I could, Grandfather.”
He touched her cheek. “I know, my dear. I know.” Then he looked down at the contorted face of the dead lieutenant. “A terrible last memory for whoever identifies the body.”
“Yes,” Julia said, thinking of the young wife.
She wiped the froth from the lieutenant’s mouth and wished she could do the same to the ghastly smile on his frozen lips.
Her hand trembled as she drew the blanket over his purple face.
Her grandfather put his arm around her, closed his hand over hers, and squeezed.
She looked at him, knowing they were two minds with one thought.
Two weeks ago, Grandfather might have been looking at me.
Until that moment, she’d been too busy to think about her close call at Regent’s Canal.
Julia spoke with the Humane Society’s surgeon, then linked arms with her grandfather and opened the tent’s flap.
“On the way in, I had a word with the police officer in charge,” Dr. Lewis said. “They’ve suspended the search until tomorrow.”
The light had left the lake hours earlier. As Julia’s eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw two icemen drag the last boat ashore. Scattered, mournful watchers remained, but most had gone home. The treacherous ice had frozen over, trapping the missing.
The grim recovery of the final victims would wait until morning.