C Harris - When maidens mourn

`I suppose that makes sense. I can admire you for your loyalty to your father, even if I don't exactly agree with it.'

He was surprised to see a faint quiver pass over her features. But she still had herself under rigid control. Only once had he seen her self-control break, in the subterranean chambers of Somerset House when they faced death together and created the child she now carried within her.

He said, `I spoke to Jarvis. He said to ask you how you came to know of his involvement with Gabrielle. Did she tell you?'

`Not exactly. I was visiting my mother Friday evening when I heard angry voices below. I couldn't catch what they were saying...' A hint of a smile lightened her features.

`We aren't all blessed with your hearing. But I thought I recognized Gabrielle's voice. So I went downstairs. I'd just reached the entrance hall when she came out of my father's library. I heard her say, I told Childe if he attempts to go ahead with this, I'll expose him and you too. Then she turned and saw me. She just stared at me from across the hall, and then ran out of the house.' Hero was silent for a moment, her face tight with grief. `I never saw her again.'

`Did you ask your father what it was about?'

`I did. He said Gabrielle was an overly emotional and obviously imbalanced woman. That she'd had some sort of argument that day with Childe but that it was nothing that need concern me.'

`He doesn't know you well, does he?'

She met his gaze; the smile was back in her eyes. `Not as well as he likes to think.' She closed the notebook she'd been reading and pushed it aside. He realized now that it was Gabrielle's translation of The Lady of Shalott. She said,

`I went to the Adelphi the next day to try to talk to her. Unfortunately, she was still out at the moat.'

`What time was that?'

`I don't know, precisely. Midafternoon sometime. I left her a message. Later that evening, I received this from her.' She withdrew a folded note from the back cover of Gabrielle's book and pushed it across the table to him.

He flipped open the paper and read,

`Hero,

Believe me, I would be the last person to blame anyone else for the actions of their family. Please do come up to see the excavations at Camlet Moat on Monday, as we'd planned. We can discuss all this then.

Your friend,

Gabrielle'

Sebastian fingered the note thoughtfully, then looked up at her.

`Did Gabrielle ever tell you why she was so determined never to marry?'

His question seemed to take Hero by surprise. She looked puzzled for a moment, then shook her head. `We never discussed it. I always assumed she'd decided marriage wasn't compatible with a life devoted to scholarship.'

`Bevin Childe claims it was because there is epilepsy in her family and she feared passing it on to her own children.'

Hero's lips parted, her nostrils flaring as she drew in a quick breath. `Epilepsy? That's the falling sickness, isn't it? Do you think Childe knows what he's talking about?'

`I'm not certain. I went by the Adelphi to try to ask Hildeyard, but he's still out searching for his cousins. There's no denying it makes sense of a number of things - all the strange statements made about the Reverend Tennyson's health, d'Eyncourt being made his father's heir, even some of the things said about the two boys.'

`You think the children could suffer from it?'

`I don't know. You never saw any sign of it?'

`No. But the truth is, I know almost nothing about the affliction. Do you?'

`No.' Sebastian pushed to his feet. `But I know someone who does.'

`The falling sickness?'

Paul Gibson looked from Sebastian to Hero and back again. They were seated on the torn chairs of the Irishman's cluttered, low-ceilinged parlor, the black and brown dog stretched out asleep on the hearth rug beside them.

Sebastian said, `It's the more common name for epilepsy, isn't it?'

Gibson blew out a long breath. `It is, yes. But I'm not sure how much I can tell you about it. I'm a surgeon, not a physician.'

`You can't know less about it than we do.'

`Well...' Gibson scrubbed one hand down over his beard-shadowed face. `It's my understanding no one knows exactly what causes it. There are all sorts of theories, of course one wilder than the next. But there does seem to be a definite hereditary component to it, at least most of the time. I suspect there may actually be several different disorders involved, brought on by slightly different causes. Some affect mainly children; others don't seem to start until around the age of ten or twelve.'

`The age at which the Old Man of the Wolds disinherited his firstborn son and changed his will to leave everything to d'Eyncourt,' said Sebastian.

Hero looked at Gibson. `There's no treatment?'

`None, I'm afraid. The usual advice to sufferers is to take lots of long walks. And water.'

`Water?'

`Yes. Both drinking water and taking soaking baths or going for swims is said to help. Sufferers are also...' Gibson looked at Hero and closed his mouth.

`What?' she said.

The Irishman shifted uncomfortably and threw Sebastian a pleading look. `Perhaps you could come with me into the kitchen for a wee moment?'

`You may as well say it; I'll just turn around and tell her.'

Gibson shifted again and cleared his throat. `Yes, well... There are indications... That is to say, many believe that the attacks can be brought on by certain kinds of activities.'

`What kind of activities?'

Gibson flushed crimson.

Hero said, `I gather you're referring to activities of a sexual nature?'

The Irishman nodded, his cheeks now darkened to a shade more like carmine.

Sebastian said, `I suspect that belief is a large part of why there is such a stigma attached to the affliction.'

`It is, yes. Smoking and excessive drinking have also been identified as bringing on seizures. The interesting thing is, when we think of epilepsy, we tend to think of full seizures. But the malady can also manifest in a milder form. Sometimes sufferers will simply become unresponsive for a few minutes. They appear conscious, but it s as if they aren't there. And then they come back and they're totally unaware that anything untoward has occurred.'

Sebastian noticed Hero leaning forward, her lips parted. `What?' he asked, watching her.

`Gabrielle used to do that. Not often, but I saw it happen twice. It was as if she'd just go away for a minute or so. And then suddenly she would be all right.'

Gibson nodded. `Sometimes the malady progresses no further. But occasionally a moment of great stress or excitement or something else we don't even understand can trigger a full seizure.'

Hero glanced over at Sebastian. `If you think this is the key to Gabrielle's murder, I still don't understand it.'

`I keep thinking about something Childe said to me, that Charles d'Eyncourt half killed one of the poor scholars at Cambridge who suggested he suffered from it. Most people see epilepsy as something shameful, a family secret to be kept hidden at all costs, like madness.'

`And no one is more ruthless and ambitious than d'Eyncourt,' said Hero. `So what are you suggesting? That young George started showing signs of epilepsy? And that when Gabrielle refused to bundle the child back up to Lincolnshire, d'Eyncourt killed her? Her and the boys, both?'

Chien lifted his head and whimpered.

`It wasn't George and d'Eyncourt I was thinking about,' said Sebastian, going to hunker down beside the dog. `There's no doubt the man is an arrogant, unprincipled liar, but he's also a coward. I'm not convinced he has what it takes to haul his cousin's dead body ten miles north of London to some deserted moat he's probably never heard of and surely never seen. And I suspect if someone like Rory Forster tried to blackmail him, he'd pay the bastard off, he wouldn't arrange to meet him in a dark wood and shoot him in the chest.'