Gordon Dahlquist - The Dark Volume

So much pointed to Charlotte Trapping. Yet if the children were only hostages to their mother's cooperation, what could one make of the vials and bloodstained cotton wool? With a grimace Miss Temple opened her mind to the memories of the Comte d'Orkancz—the three children, their mother, the vials—but was rewarded only with bitter retching and tears in her eyes. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She must rely on her own wits. The children had been brought here … and now they were being taken away. Why?

WHEN SHE ran out of lawn—the house now a darkening shadow behind her—Miss Temple tumbled into the beach grass without a break in stride. Another two minutes of running, her pace now spurred by fear, and she dropped into a sudden crouch. Ahead stood a silhouetted man smoking a cigar, its tip winking red. It was Captain Tackham. Miss Temple flung herself down.

Tackham stood scanning the high grass, turning his head stiffly like a marionette, his face emptied of all expression and intelligence. She held her breath. Another ten seconds and Tackham erupted into a fit of coughing. He raised both hands to his head, gagging like a man given poison.

From behind him came a call.

“Captain Tackham!”

Tackham wiped his mouth with dismay. “In a moment!”

He threw his shoulders back and staggered from Miss Temple's view. Quietly, she slipped after him. She could hear bootsteps on planking and creaking ropes… another few yards and she could see the canal itself. To either side of a long barge scurried shadowed figures—soldiers on deck and others, actual bargemen, readying sails and coiling the ropes that bound the craft to the canal side. Miss Temple saw nothing of the Trapping children, nor of Mrs. Marchmoor, but the glass woman had just inhabited Tackham in order to search the dunes. She must be in a cabin belowdeck. Tackham strode up the gangway to a knot of men. She recognized Mr. Phelps, Colonel Aspiche, and—his forehead wrapped with gauze—the ambitious engineer, Mr. Fochtmann.

Captain Tackham saluted the Colonel, gave some minimal report, and then stood back from the others, who talked on. Tackham's gaze was restless, studying the sailors, sweeping the dock, then returning to the grassy dunes. He raised a hand and the other men at once followed his gaze. Miss Temple plunged her head down to the sand, too terrified to move.

“Where have you been?” Mr. Phelps called directly toward her. “We have been waiting!”

Miss Temple pressed her body closer to the ground, hoping it was all a mistake, fighting the urge to leap up and run.

“Did you find Rawsbarthe?” called Phelps again.

“I did,” gasped a voice right behind her. Miss Temple nearly yelped with surprise. Not inches away, his feet kicking grass into her face, appeared the young Ministry man, Mr. Harcourt.

“My apologies to you all!” Harcourt was out of breath as he stumbled down to them. Phelps turned to the others.

“I suppose we can rendezvous with Rawsbarthe tomorrow.”

“I cannot think he will see morning,” gasped Harcourt, as he reached the gangway. “Mr. Rawsbarthe is overcome. He is quite unable to travel.”

“Lord preserve us,” muttered Phelps, and rubbed his eyes.

“What happened to this girl—this Miss Stearne?” asked Colonel Aspiche, his voice low.

“I questioned Mr. Rawsbarthe—but to be frank, he was no longer lucid.” Harcourt's voice was heavy with concern.

“Miss Stearne indeed!” snapped Phelps. “We have all been fools—”

Phelps stopped speaking, for Harcourt had suddenly begun to weave on the gangway, dangerously near to pitching headfirst into the water. Tackham took a step away, but Phelps caught Harcourt's arm. Harcourt tottered, then slowly spun, surveying the canal side and the darkened dunes. He seemed to stare directly at her. Miss Temple did not breathe.

“Gentlemen…” announced Harcourt, still facing into the night, his voice unpleasantly hollow. “Is it not time to set off?”

“We were only waiting for Mr. Harcourt,” replied Phelps.

“Has he seen Miss Stearne?” asked Fochtmann, his voice stiffly conversational.

“Mr. Harcourt has not,” said Harcourt, a phrasing that made the men visibly uncomfortable.

“She is dangerous,” said Fochtmann firmly. “She must be found.”

“Perhaps some soldiers could continue the search here,” offered Phelps.

“She is nothing,” announced Harcourt, his voice hollow. “An insignificant liar. Mr. Phelps is required in the forward cabin with Mr. Fochtmann and the Colonel. Captain Tackham will see to his men.”

“May I suggest that Mr. Harcourt remain on deck?” offered Phelps delicately. “I expect he will feel… unwell.”

“As you like,” intoned Harcourt. “It makes no difference.”

The younger man staggered again and Phelps rushed to catch his arm, guiding him off the gangway. Tackham hovered, but Phelps turned to him sharply.

“You have your orders—get below! I will follow in a moment.” Tackham went with a curt nod. Phelps looked at Harcourt—dazed and distractedly sniffing—and then shouted at the bargemen, startling them back to duty.

“Cast off at once! Barge-master! Make sail!”

MISS TEMPLE knew very well that she could stay where she was, allow the barge to go and walk back to the house and then to the train station—that her journey could end in a suite at the Anburne, with a proper bath and a proper pot of tea. Yet when she pushed herself up and drove her body on, it was toward the canal. The bargemen pulled the gangplank onto the deck, but Miss Temple kept running. With a catch in her throat came an awareness of how delicate the blue glass was. She cradled the case in both arms, holding it tight against her chest, and leapt the distance onto a pile of netting, the rough hemp biting into the soft skin of her knees and forearms. She rolled quickly off the ropes and into the shadow of a sail, out of sight but dangerously near to where Mr. Harcourt sat slumped.

The bargemen ran back and forth around her, their hard bare feet slapping the deck, gathering lines. She could see the pale hair above Harcourt's stiff collar. The knife was at hand and the ease of his murder fluttered atop her thoughts, a rippling pennant of cruelty. She imagined the man's shirtless back—she wondered if there would be scars, Chang would have all sorts of scars… even the Doctor might have them, as a soldier… ugly things… disfigurements—she felt a desire to trace her fingers down Mr. Harcourt's spine… or someone else's, anyone else's… and slide her hand beneath his belt like a knife into an envelope.

MISS TEMPLE slipped from her shadow to a hatchway at the rear of the barge. She stuffed the knife into her boot, and pushed the hatchway wide, wrinkling her nose at the stink of bilge water below her in the dark. She slid the hatchway closed above her, perched in pitch black, listening. Footsteps thumped above… but no cries of alarm, nor was the hatch flung wide. She groped around her—boxes, bales of moist cloth, coiled rope—and then wormed her way behind the ladder so that anyone looking down would not see her, no matter that they had a light. Shifting her buttocks and shoulders made room between the bales where she could sit and Miss Temple did so, leaning back, Lydia's case on her lap.

No doubt the barge was rife with rats. She snorted. If the rats knew what was good for them they would steer clear.

Miss Temple snorted again. For the very first time she understood the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza's slovenly room at the St. Royale. With death and desire such constant companions, what attention would a woman like that possibly waste on décor?

Or indeed, thought Miss Temple—curling onto her side to sleep, an animal in its lair—a woman like herself.