Mad Miss Mimic

by Sarah Henstra

  “Your sympathy for your patients could incriminate you, Doctor.”

  “A fluke! It must have been a fluke, Thornfax, an accident.”

  “Give me the damned dose, or I shall improvise with strychnine. Either way they’ll know the syringe was of your manufacture. Which would you prefer?”

  Silence.

  Then Mr. Thornfax’s boots thudded across the floor as Daniel led him through the house and across the court to his surgery.

  EIGHTEEN

  Iwatched from my bedroom window. It was only a minute or two until Mr. Thornfax took his leave. His hair flared gold in the doorway before darkness swallowed him.

  For a long time afterward, in the wan light of the surgery, the shadowy figure of my brother-in-law paced back and forth. Twice he opened the door and leaned out, hands bracing the door frame and chest heaving as if he battled some ineluctable force of resistance, as if to follow Mr. Thornfax would require him to slingshot his body out through the resisting air. Both times he retreated.

  Gazing down upon this private struggle I felt a moment of cold disgust for my brother-in-law. His dressing gown had come untied and his belly strained grossly under his nightshirt. The bare white legs underneath were spindly and knob-kneed; it seemed impossible they didn’t collapse under all the weight they supported. The jowly face, the little, blinking eyes, the bald pate shining in the lamplight— weak, cowardly man! Selfish, gluttonous, grasping man, who even now, extinguishing the lights, waddling back to the house, probably told himself it didn’t matter, it was out of his hands, there was nothing he could do to save Daisy. Who probably consoled himself—I heard the shuffling steps of his house slippers on the stairs, the click of his bedchamber door—that at least he’d made Daisy’s exit from the world a little more comfortable by killing her with the medicine she loved so much.

  I caught myself. How was I any different from Daniel? I too had stayed silent and allowed innocent people to die. Somehow I’d allowed myself to be consoled by Tom’s efforts to minimize the damage. I had let myself believe, somehow, that the train wreck would result in no deaths at all. Instead four more people had lost their lives because of my silence.

  I should have gone down to confront Daniel tonight directly after Mr. Thornfax left. I should have tried to spur his conscience into action. I should go this minute, I thought, and beg him to follow after Mr. Thornfax and stop him, or at least to go to the police! But if he asked me how I knew of Daisy’s involvement in the train wreck, I would not know how to answer without giving away Tom. My conscience and my caution warred within me long after I lay down in my bed.

  I could not sleep—could not even bring myself to blow out the candle. I felt numbed through, and my bones ached as if it were my own body wasted by the opiate fever. I kept imagining Daisy’s thin, bruised arms, her sunken eyes stricken with terror.

  I tried to stop these visions. It would not help Daisy for me to frighten myself picturing her fate. But now that I knew who Mr. Thornfax truly was, what monstrous pleasure he derived from exerting force over others, I could not help it. Daisy shut up in the dark. Daisy beaten—taunted and beaten, or worse—when she could not answer questions to Mr. Thornfax’s satisfaction. Daisy heartened by the sight of a syringe in Mr. Thornfax’s hand. Daisy soaring on the wings of the drug, blissful even as she knew she was flying into death.

  I woke to a wet cloth scrubbing my face and found myself gagging on a mouthful of tooth powder. “Get up!” Bess ordered, with uncharacteristic shrillness. “Oh, why must you be difficult to rouse on this, of all days?”

  I spat into the bowl she shoved under my chin. “W-what is it?”

  “Mrs. Dewhurst says it must be the white muslin, but we’ve had no chance for starch or iron.” Bess levered me to my feet and practically tore my nightdress off my shoulders. “And she told him you’ve been up here reading all morning long! As if you’re some sort of layabout!”

  I reached for Bess’s hands, but she turned away from me and began yanking open and slamming the drawers of my bureau. Clean undergarments flew through the air and fell to my feet; a hail of gloves, handkerchiefs, and stockings pelted the bed. “Rosewater!” she wailed, lifting the empty bottle, and fled the room.

  I dressed as fast as I could, shaking the sleep from my limbs. “W-what is it?” I tried again, as Christabel’s maid bustled in through the door.

  Emily held aloft my white walking-dress. “She didn’t tell you? Here, lift your arms. I’m to do your hair, Mrs. Dewhurst says, as I’m faster.”

  “Emily, p-please.”

  My head emerged through the neck of the gown, and she beamed at me. “There now! ‘Something to go with your necklace,’ he says. Well, my mistress guessed the white, and here’s proof again: my mistress is never wrong.”

  Little Bertie burst into my chamber. He was red-faced and giggling, sporting a paper eye patch and brandishing a wooden sword. His mission of mutiny was confirmed by Greta, also red-faced, saying she’d only turned her back for a moment and off he’d gone. A dog was yapping somewhere downstairs, and I heard the shouts of the servants trying to quieten it. Chaos seemed to rule the day at Hastings House.

  I grabbed Emily’s wrist as she laid ready my hairpins. “T-tell me what is g-going on!”

  “Mr. Thornfax—I mean the Lord Rosbury—has asked Dr. Dewhurst for your hand, Miss Somerville, and the doctor has told him yes!”

  “Well, of course he said yes,” chimed Bess, back again with the scent. “’Twas hardly a question. You’re going to dine at Whitehall in celebration. The Lord Rosbury had it all planned in advance!”

  I fell into the chair. My face in the mirror was ashen.

  Emily lowered the hairbrush. “Miss Somerville, are you well? Your tea’ll be up in a minute. ’Tis a shock before your breakfast, I’ll warrant. Though ’tis mid-afternoon.” She tutted.

  Not thirty minutes later I was seated in Mr. Thornfax’s carriage opposite Daniel and Christabel. My brother-in-law looked as exhausted as I felt, his eyelids puffed and the usual ruddiness gone from his cheeks. Christa by contrast fidgeted on her seat and prattled brightly about the fine weather and the gloss on the horses’ coats and oh, what a fine joke not to tell us in advance about the party!

  Mr. Thornfax had been standing beside the carriage to receive me as I was rushed from the front door, but I had turned my face away and thrown myself onto the seat without pause. Now, sitting next to me in a dove-grey suit, holding his matching grey top hat on his knees, he took my hand. He inclined his head to the black ribbon at my waist and said he appreciated my thoughtfulness in honouring his father. I nodded, still without looking at him. I’d tied on the ribbon in a kind of stupor, ignoring Bess’s comment that it was violet I wanted to match my necklace and that I needn’t wear mourning for my fiancé’s relation—it struck me only now that I’d worn it not for the late Lord Rosbury at all, but for Daisy.

  Daisy. Thinking her name brought a cold weight to my chest and a throbbing kernel of pain to the base of my skull. Did Tom know about her yet? Perhaps he didn’t even know. I was glad I hadn’t attempted the tea or the biscuits Bess had begged me to eat.

  We disembarked at the Royal Banqueting House at Whitehall, where Christabel, as she was handed down, nearly sprawled onto the curb and had to be righted by Curtis.

  Daniel put his wife on one arm and took me with the other. He bent to speak into my ear. “He will make good, you’ll see. I knew his intentions for you were pure.”

  I gaped at him. No matter what sort of friendship these men shared, no matter what sort of deal they’d arranged—no matter how badly the Dewhursts wanted to see me settled— surely after last night Daniel must know I couldn’t marry Mr. Thornfax! Disgust rose in me afresh. I had not imagined my brother-in-law to be as spineless—or as callous—as this.

  Mr. Thornfax led us directly through the red-carpeted lobby into the colossal ballroom. A dozen large circular tables were crowded with guests. As we were announced, the guests pushed back their ch
airs and showered us with applause.

  “My friends,” Mr. Thornfax shouted, throwing up his hands. “Thank you for coming!” So all these were his friends. Our friends. Most I did not recognize—parliamentarians, from their dress, judges and lords, solicitors and their wives. They took my hand, and the ladies kissed me, and one or two told me how much they had always admired my aunt, the Countess of Hastings, and were sorry not to see her here.

  I found myself forgetting each name as soon as it was given me, each face as soon as I turned away. I was not expected to speak, of course, but I found I could hardly think, either. The nights of lost sleep, last night’s horror, Daniel’s blithe betrayal—I was drowning under it. Above all: Daisy, Daisy, Daisy. I was drowning in her name. I moved as though under water, seeing indistinctly through the murk, my limbs dragging. I thought of the pond at Holybourne. If you put your feet down, the mud would hold your ankles fast. It was seething with leeches, and thrashing about would only make it worse.

  “C-Christa, where is our aunt Emma?” I asked my sister, the first time I got her alone. I had never needed anyone like I needed my aunt at this moment.

  “Silly. You know how she hates parties,” Christabel said. Her glass of champagne was still half-full, but she was slurring her words—already drunk, or laudanum-doped. Possibly both.

  Our table was next to a low stage where a string quartet played Mozart. There was champagne, and trays came round with miniature custards and pineapple-cream ices. I drank, and I gazed up at Rubens’s paintings on the ceiling. Rippling flesh, billowing robes, bristling weaponry. The figures seemed to break free of the plaster and paint, embracing or attacking one another randomly and without constraint.

  Christabel had gone to chat with a lady two tables over. Now she teetered toward us, unbalanced, and caught herself on Mr. Thornfax’s shoulder. She was rewarded with general laughter, and Mr. Thornfax and Daniel leapt to assist her to her seat.

  More champagne arrived—toast after toast to the blessed couple. I drank. Mr. Thornfax angled his chair next to mine and raked his eyes over my figure. “You know, I always forget how young you are. Those jewels of mine on your neck look practically obscene.”

  I could not look at him. I couldn’t stand to look at him: jovial, golden-haired, blamelessly handsome. Even worse would be to detect signs of tiredness after his labours last night. I could not bear that.

  A man introduced to us as “Mr. Taunt, the famous portrait-photographer” unloaded a camera from a handcart while his assistant balanced the tripod. We were asked to stand, and our chairs were adjusted further. We were seated nearly hip to hip, with the light from the window strong on our faces. Young men appeared in overalls, too, with palettes and brushes. “They shall make a photograph now, but I want an oil painting as well,” Mr. Thornfax explained. “They’ll be taking sketches and colour samples.”

  We held ourselves immobile while Mr. Taunt developed his image. I kept feeling Mr. Thornfax’s necklace tighten around my throat. I kept reaching up to tug at it, and poor Mr. Taunt had to begin again, and Mr. Thornfax finally caught both my hands in his and held them there.

  “I saw a ladybird on my window this morning,” I heard my sister say. “That means money, you know.”

  “Fortune favours the bold,” someone replied.

  Oxtail soup, sweetbreads and mushrooms, devilled eggs. More champagne. A fine crack spiderwebbed the plaster beside my head—had it been there a moment ago? I wasn’t certain. I waited for more fissures to appear.

  Dr. Dewhurst was explaining his methodology to a medical man visiting from Denmark. “We only treat the genteel classes with formulae that have already been proven safe and effective on the poor.”

  “But, sir, needn’t you care most for the lowliest of your patients?” the man wondered.

  Daniel leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands across his belly. “Society is like a great tree,” he said. “What tends to those blossoms on the upper branches will inevitably sift some pollen onto the lower flowers, so that all produce fruit according to their natural capacities.”

  “The Great Chain of Being!” Christa sighed. “All of us in our God-given places.”

  She was in the midst of pouring drops from a little glass bottle into her champagne. “Mrs. Dewhurst, you’ll exceed your dose,” Daniel warned her, and reached for her wrist, but she scoffed at him and emptied the glass in one swallow.

  A silver tray was wheeled round with twenty different types of cakes.

  Christa turned away from our table to speak to the Danish doctor’s wife. Mr. Thornfax nudged Daniel, took something from his pocket, and opened his palm beneath the table so the doctor could see. It was his watch case, twisted and scorched. “That’s the work of your boy Rampling,” he told him.

  “Whyever would Tom Rampling ruin your watch?”

  Mr. Thornfax spoke softly: “’Twas fused to the blast cap he manufactured for Watts. A mechanism for delay. For sabotage.”

  Daniel swallowed. “I don’t believe it of him.”

  “You will let me know his whereabouts when next he turns up?”

  “Surely—no real harm was done by it, Thornfax? I will deal with the boy.”

  “’Tis for me to deal with, Dewhurst. My business. As we agreed.”

  Daniel stared at him.

  “I insist,” said Mr. Thornfax.

  Daniel dropped his eyes and reached a trembling hand to lift sugar cubes into his tea.

  A whispering struck up inside the walls, a sound just below hearing that rang the crystal and vibrated the silver-ware and made the quartet’s melodies nothing but noise in my ears. Daisy lay at the bottom of the Thames, half interred by now in silt. Her open eyes were watching the hellish green shadows and the little fish come to feast on her flesh. Or she lay in the dust by a country crossroads, face down perhaps, waiting for the sun and the buzzards to do their work.

  Another memory from Holybourne came to me: red ants swarming over a bird’s nest, bristling and bright, devouring the hatchlings alive. The terrible beauty of that furious, bloody-minded tide. Mr. Thornfax was like that, in his spry little Heroine on the glittering ocean. And he was not alone in his self-interest and cruelty. I saw him as one of thousands, millions—hungry, war-making men swarming over the world, multiplying their horde from the helpless and hapless.

  Daniel was taken up in the frenzy, and Archibald, too, in his way—how else to account for his excitement over yesterday’s explosion?—and so would I be, once I had attached myself to Mr. Francis Thornfax and become the Lady Rosbury. I was halfway there already with my flashing jewels and my lips wet with champagne.

  I watched my sister’s heavy lids, her dull gaze upon the cakes, the smile not reaching her eyes. For a moment I envied her the numbness laudanum gave her, and I found myself wondering whether her little bottle might have something left in it for me. We were the queens, she and I, tucked deep away in the anthill. The fat white queens, nectar-drunk and bloated on the spoils.

  “Your brother-in-law gives his consent to our marriage,” Mr. Thornfax was saying to me, leaning in just enough to include Daniel in the conversation. “But I should like to know it has your approval too.”

  “M-my a-p-proval?” I said, struggling to hold him at the centre of the whirlpool so that, while the room bulged and wavered and revolved, his golden head stayed in focus.

  “Will you marry me, sweet little Miss Somerville?”

  With a suck of pressure everything came to a standstill. I felt it in my eardrums: a pop like going up in the balloon at Kew and coming down again. I took my hand from his and placed both my hands together in my lap.

  How could there be nothing in Mr. Thornfax’s face to betray him? I forced myself, then, to look at him—to really look, to search that handsome face for a sign. I examined the clear blue eyes. The broad, unlined forehead with its feathery brows. The straight, regal nose. The generous lower lip and the upper lip with its strong, shapely bow. If I’d imagined a sleepless night would
manifest in shadows under his eyes or a bleary look—if I’d thought the revenge he’d taken on Daisy might reveal itself in a hardness or tension somewhere—I needn’t have wondered. The man was as perfect as ever.

  Daniel nodded encouragingly at me from behind his teacup.

  “Ask m-me who I think is behind the B-Black Glove,” I said, “and then you shall have m-my answer.”

  The teacup clattered into its saucer. A beat of shocked silence, then Daniel said, “Leonora!”

  “Ask me who I think m-murdered your father.”

  “Leonora, how dare you?” Daniel said.

  Mr. Thornfax’s growl cut him off: “A word, Miss Somerville?” He hoisted me out of my seat and hauled me several paces away. The guests sitting nearby winked and lifted their glasses to us: the young lovers, swept up in our prenuptial passion.

  Daisy was dead, and Tom Rampling would be caught and killed, too, and I was in Hell. I had seen the etchings in Dante’s book in my aunt’s library. I knew that, at any moment, a snake might slither from a gentleman’s open mouth. A lady’s rib cage might crack apart to reveal a pulsing nest of maggots where a heart should be. These could be mere shells of people, dried husks the infernal wind would strip, any moment now, to skeletons.

  Mr. Thornfax put his arm round my waist and bent his head to my neck. The cool, firm pressure of his lips at my throat did not signify passion. I knew it now: his most ardent caresses at the opera had been staged, measured precisely for their effect on those around us. What I’d felt in Tom’s arms—that leaping heat, that thrumming pleasure—that was another thing entirely.

  “The bargain of a tongue-tied wife rather depends on her remaining silent,” Mr. Thornfax murmured. “You may think whatever you like of me in private, and I will oblige you by being your rogue. Only I hoped we might step out in society together. I shouldn’t like to be forced to keep you shut away at home.”

  It was Hell, but Francis Thornfax would survive it, I thought. Like a worm he would thrive on the rot and decay. I pulled back from his embrace. “The L-Lady Hastings will never allow it,” I told him.