Imogen Robertson - Instruments of Darkness

“What do you know of Alexander, Harriet?” He pulled her toward him. His living eye danced over her face. “Is he alive? Have you found him?”

She stared at him, caught between fear and pity. The pink and yellow scarring across his cheek and eye looked like a mockery of hope. She felt Crowther move a little closer toward them. She could see tears forming in Hugh’s eyes. So the damaged one could still grieve, even when it saw nothing. She gently pulled her wrist free of him and stepped back a little way. She could feel bruises beginning to bloom under her cuffs like sprays of foxglove opening darkly under her skin. She shook her head, spoke softly, hesitating.

“He is dead, we think. Murdered some days ago in London. It was reported in the Advertiser . Alexander Adams-we think that is the name he was using in town.”

Hugh turned away with a roar of laughter.

“Done! Done! Dead and done.” Harriet stepped further back. “Then it is over. They have bound me and whipped me. All over! To think what I would have given to hear that name a week ago, what I was prepared to give to Brook-and now you give it to me during a morning call, and it is nothing. Useless! A thousand times worse than useless.”

He rested his head above the cold maw of the great fireplace, and struck his open palm against the old stone. Harriet waited till the echo had retreated back into the impassive walls. When Hugh dropped his arm to his side again, she could see the place where he had brought down his hand spotted in red.

“Who, Mr. Thornleigh? Who has done this? Are you in Wicksteed’s power? We must get your neck out of this noose, and show the court where the true blame lies.” When he did not move, she entreated him. “Would you leave this place in the hands of a pack of murderers? Will you always be remembered as a coward, a poisoner, a killer of the weak? You are a soldier!”

Hugh laughed in her face.

“Oh my dear, idiotic, Mrs. Westerman. You and your kind are babies! Crowther comes from old blood. He knows as well as I-this place has always been in the hands of a pack of murderers! It is a noble tradition. We take our responsibilities most seriously. And what do I care what is said when I am dead? Do you believe it will trouble me in the other place? I will happily swap this hell for another. I did not kill Brook, or poison Cartwright, but perhaps I deserve the noose just the same. Wicksteed has given Bridges my bloody knife, and I will not explain myself further. Let it come! Let them hang me! I shall avoid putting a bullet in my brain to give them all the grand spectacle. Let them see me choke! That’s my gift. The crowd loves to see a noble swing, don’t they, Crowther?”

Crowther was looking into the fireplace. Harriet thought she saw him give a simple sharp nod. She stepped forward again.

“Hugh! Is it Wicksteed? What hold can he have on you that you will not break free even now?”

He looked at her. His face was wet and red with tears; it made the scars across his cheek glisten like fresh meat. He trembled; she held his gaze, willing him to open his lips. He looked hard into her face, then sighed and turned away. His passions seemed to fall from his shoulders, leaving him diminished, weak.

“I am guilty. Do not make an enemy of Wicksteed, Mrs. Westerman. For the sake of your family.”

He let his boot circle in the space of the grate, as if stirring imaginary ashes. Harriet put her hand on his arm, pulling him around to look at her.

“A man murders your friends, has your brother killed, and you go to the noose for him? This is ridiculous, Thornleigh. What possible-”

He clenched his fists.

“Enough! I have my reasons. And it is my fault, Mrs. Westerman.” His fists opened out, anger became supplication in a moment. “ I am guilty . Now get the hell out of this house, and stay away. Alexander gave me that advice once. I tried to follow it and him, but it pulls us back. You may escape it yet. Go. Please. Go.”

They left the room, but not his house. Crowther thought at first Mrs. Westerman would be inclined to withdraw. He could feel the eddies of fear and confusion twisting around her. But she did not lead him to the grand entrance of Thornleigh, rather further into the house.

“Are you quite sure about this?” he murmured as soon as he became aware of the direction she was taking.

“Quite sure.” Then she stopped and looked up at him. He noticed the healthy white of her eyes. Wondered how long she had till they reddened with the scars of seeing to resemble his own. “Should we have told him about the children?”

Crowther sighed. “I cannot say. I simply cannot say.”

She seemed satisfied and raised her hand at the door of the housekeeper’s sitting room. A small middle-aged woman lifted the latch to them. Her eyes were red, and the apron over her day-dress tied carelessly. Harriet smiled at her, and saw a glint of relief in her eye.

“Mrs. Dougherty! My companion here is Mr. Crowther. A physician.” She could feel Crowther tense beside her as she said the word, but he did not protest. “We should like to see Lord Thornleigh.” She gave a matter-of-fact sort of smile.

The little woman in front of them looked confused. She rubbed her hands on the linen of her apron and pushed a stray lock of hair back under her cap.

“He is not a freak show, Mrs. Westerman. I am not sure my mistress …” There was a movement behind them. The maid they had rescued from being beaten in the courtyard put her head in the doorway. Her hair was neat again, the wound from Wicksteed’s crop still vivid, but clean.

“I’ll take them, Mrs. Dougherty.” She paused. “Mr. Wicksteed and Lady Thornleigh are taking a walk in the lavender garden.”

Mrs. Dougherty twisted her hands, then shrugged her thin shoulders.

“Very well. Very well.” She then put her head on one side and asked with an unconvincingly casual tone, “I suppose Mrs. Heathcote has not yet had an opportunity to try my jugged hare recipe?”

Harriet graced her with a full-beam smile.

“We are to enjoy it this evening, but she acknowledged you the master as soon as she looked through your notes.”

The little woman’s chin lifted triumphantly. “Indeed. Most fair-minded people would confess I know what I am about.”

That seemed to form their dismissal; they let themselves be led by the maid.

“I am called Patience, ma’am,” she said, before they had gone many steps.

“I am glad to know you,” Harriet told her.

She conducted them to the back stairs, and lifting her long skirts began the ascent to the upper rooms where Lord Thornleigh had been so long confined.

Daniel Clode was anxious. Having made good speed through the night, his progress into town was much delayed by the volume of traffic leaving the city. The possibility that he might be too late to prevent some injury to the children pressed him on. The road was crowded with coaches and wagons full of nervous-looking men and weeping women, their possessions bundled around them, children crying and complaining on their laps. The occasional horseman, head down, his animal panting and sweating, flew by, out of town. What horrors, what news needed to reach their masters at such a speed? It seemed as if the populace were fleeing a plague.

He stopped long enough at the last respectable-looking coaching house outside Southwark to hear a little of the riots and to change horses while he crammed his mouth with hard white rolls and weak beer. He would never get used to the chalk in the London bread, or the stink of the water in the basin where he washed his hands. How people could survive in a city where the necessities of life were so treacherous, he would never know. The landlord was too busy with the full road and the panicked commands of his guests to say much, but the serving girl was glad to talk while he ate, keeping herself tucked behind a bend in the wall to hide her idleness from her master. Clode was the sort of man serving girls spent their time over and smiled at. Not that he had ever been aware of it himself. Mostly, as now, his mind had been more concerned with other matters.