“There’s work in Newcastle, I hear,” one man whispered to Jack after they were both turned away from being bricklayers. “If there’s nothing keeping you here. And the Americas—there’s real money to be made there if you can stand the journey.”
Jack nodded politely, but the thought of putting another mile between himself and Hazel felt impossible. Where could he go when she was here? But how could he ask her to give up an earl when he couldn’t even make a decent wage? Recently, seeing her face—clean but for the sweat from leaning over bodies and treating new patients—had made Jack feel deeply ashamed of himself, as if the two of them were entirely different species. He was good at selling bodies, that was the God’s honest truth—good at digging without being caught, and negotiating with the physicians in their ruffled linen shirts for a few extra quid.
Even with the kidnapper, it couldn’t be more dangerous than working in the quarry or the mines. Jack could fight them off; he was smarter than Munro, and a hell of a lot better at fighting. He had made a promise to Hazel, that was true, but she never spent a night hungry the way he had, clenching his fists around his blankets and hoping to fall asleep sooner so he wouldn’t have to feel his stomach tightening and contorting any longer. She had never known the isolation of living in a city without a coin in her pocket, knowing that she’d have nothing but her wits to use to fend off cold or exhaustion. She had always been safe.
Poverty made Jack vulnerable, but it also made him reckless.
31
“HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE PARADOX OF THE ship of Theseus?”
The dinner party at Almont House was ostensibly to celebrate Hazel and Bernard’s engagement, though the two of them were seated at opposite sides of the banquet table and Hazel was trapped next to Baron Walford, who had been gradually leaning closer and closer to her as he spoke, while Hazel desperately tried to lean as far away as her chair would allow her without toppling over. Four courses in, the baron was so close Hazel could see the spittle on his lips. His acrid breath made her blink back tears.
“Yes, my lord, I actually—”
“It’s a complicated philosophical idea, but one I can explain simply enough for a woman by means of a story. Imagine a large ship. Over time, pieces of the ship become rotted. But each rotten wooden plank is swiftly replaced. Over time, every piece of wood that was used to construct the original ship is replaced. Is it still the same ship?”
Lord Almont stood a few seats down. “No!” he said with delight, pointing at Walford. “Different ship. All different wood.”
“Ah,” said the baron. “Then when would the ship no longer be considered the same ship?”
The lord’s outburst had caught the attention of the room. Bernard rose like his father. “Halfway, then. When half the wood is replaced, it stops being the same ship.”
“Even if everyone is still calling it the ship of Theseus?” Hazel said quietly.
Everyone turned to look at Hazel. Bernard glared at her. “Yes, darling,” he said through gritted teeth. “No matter what people call it. When it’s more than halfway, it’s not the same ship.”
“Some women,” Lord Almont said to his son, “have yet to learn that we enjoy looking at them more than listening to them.”
Baron Walford giggled, and his false eye rolled in its socket. “Aha! But now, return to the ship. Imagine that they’ve taken all the rotten wood that’s been removed, and started to build a second ship, in the British Museum. Which ship would be the real ship of Theseus then? The one still sailing with the original’s name, or the one in the museum?”
“The second one,” Bernard said immediately. “The second one. The one with the original wood.”
“We have a true scholar in our midst!” Lord Almont shouted, clapping Bernard on the back. Bernard beamed.
“Indeed,” Baron Walford said, swirling a glass of red wine before emptying it in a single sip.
“Why so philosophically minded, Walford?” Lord Almont asked.
“Well,” Baron Walford said. He adjusted his false eye. “I think I might be in the market for a new eye. Scheduled the procedure. Week from Monday at the Anatomists’ Society. Going to see for the first time in twenty years, least that’s what the doctor says.”
“What do you mean?” Hazel said, sitting upright at attention for the first time all evening. “What sort of procedure is going to let you see again? What sort of new eye?”