Silent in the Grave

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  This did not ease my mind. I thought of what he had told me when we began our investigation. He had warned me of the danger, but I had not heeded him. I had thought it all a marvelous game, a parlor trick to winkle out a murderer before he guessed I was on his trail.

  I had been very, very stupid. I could see it now. I had confided in a few trusted souls. But should I? Were they worthy of my trust? Or were they simply waiting for that perfect moment when my attention faltered to give me a gentle nudge down a steep staircase? An innocent glove, laced with poison…a box of chocolates, envenomed with a pin…I sat in my study, torturing myself for the better part of an hour before I came to my senses. Honestly. I was no better than that stupid girl in Northanger Abbey, seeing danger behind every bush, villains behind every door. The only thing to do, in spite of Brisbane’s warning, was to proceed with the investigation. The sooner the murderer was unmasked, the sooner the danger would be past.

  Resolute, I pulled out a little notebook, wrote down everything, laying out all of the clues we had discovered, noting each of the developments that had led us to this point, and the blind alleys that had led us nowhere. I wrote tirelessly, knowing that if I just put it all down, somehow, something would leap off the page at me.

  And there it was. So simple I could not believe it had not occurred to me or to Brisbane before. The Psalter. We knew the text of the message I had found because it was still in our possession. But what of the others? They, too, had been scissored from the holy book. Was there a reason those particular passages had been chosen? The scripture we had seen referred to wickedness. Were the others more specific? Did they point to a particular wrong that Edward had committed against the sender?

  Fired with new enthusiasm, I fetched the ruined Psalter and an old Bible from the bookshelves. Comparing them carefully, I noted down the exact verses that had been fashioned into threats for Edward. There were eight of them altogether, including the last, the one I had found hidden away in Edward’s desk. I wrote them out onto a single sheet of paper and studied them.

  The first was a warning, it seemed.

  The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

  The second was much in the same vein.

  For lo, they that are far from thee shall perish; thou hast destroyed all them that go whoring from thee.

  Three and four were grimmer.

  God shall likewise destroy thee forever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living.

  Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell; for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.

  Five and six continued, more vicious than the ones before.

  But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction; bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, but I will trust in thee.

  As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish in the presence of God.

  I hardly had the stomach to read the last two.

  But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into the smoke shall they consume away.

  Let me not be ashamed, O Lord; for I have called upon thee; let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.

  I sat back, the words running like mad squirrels through my mind. So much talk of wickedness and destruction. Clearly the sender was accusing Edward of some evil, but what? There was talk of shame and deceit and destruction by fire, all vague enough. But there was one word that caught my eye. Whoring. Was it significant that the sender had chosen this verse, perhaps the only one in the entire Psalter to contain that particular word? If so, it pointed very clearly in one direction. The brothel.

  The one place that I could not investigate while Brisbane was out of town. I cursed him inwardly, as well as my own inability to get the information I required for myself. I could again assume a disguise and attempt to go myself, but I had taken Brisbane’s warning to heart. I felt, with some appalling certainty, that Brisbane would have had far more experience with such places than I. If he said there were thugs outside whose sole purpose was to inflict torture on the curious and the unruly, I had little doubt there were. I did not need to see them for myself. What I needed was a man. And I knew precisely where to find one.

  THE THIRTY-FIFTH CHAPTER

  Many will swoon when they do look on blood.

  —William Shakespeare

  As You Like It

  Absolutely not,” Valerius said when I presented my plan to him. “You must be barking mad.”

  “I am not. I simply want you to go to Pandora’s Box and ask a few questions for me. Surely that is not too much to ask.”

  “But it is! Putting aside for just a moment the wild impropriety of what you are asking, it is dangerous.”

  I sighed and pushed away my dessert plate. I had not expected him to be so difficult. I had presented him with a definite plan, beautifully conceived and completely financed by me. All that was required of Val was a little pretense. He had only to present himself at the brothel and request the company of a young lady. Once in private, he could ply her with a handsome gift of money to answer a few questions I would provide. It all seemed quite uncomplicated to me. He need not even scruple to undress the poor girl. She would earn her fee for nothing more strenuous than a little conversation, and the proprietress need never know. I pointed all of this out to Valerius. He said nothing, but sat, contemplating his pudding.

  “I cannot,” he said finally. His eyes did not meet mine. “I wish I could oblige you, but I cannot, Julia. Please do not ask me.”

  “No, no, of course,” I said, my voice chill with anger. “I have asked too much of you. A few questions of a poor prostitute, that was all. But there are other questions, you know, Valerius. Questions that I could ask you. Questions about the night you came home with a bloody shirt and a feeble explanation. Oh, I believed it the first time. But not the second.”

  He had gone very white, his lips bloodless where they pressed tightly together. He said nothing, and I went on, keeping my voice low and smooth.

  “I did not ask, Valerius, even though I realized then that there were many such nights, many such shirts. And I did not ask about Magda, even when I found arsenic in her room and she admitted that she wanted to poison you—even then I did not ask.”

  He started, his complexion draining to white. “What? What do you mean about Magda?”

  I took a sip of my wine. “She kept arsenic in her room. She meant to kill you with it because of what you had done to Carolina.”

  “Carolina! You cannot think I had anything to do with that awful business!”

  I did not listen to his words. I had expected a denial. Instead I watched his skin, observing the warm flush of colour into his pale cheeks, the wildness of those lovely eyes. I had always known when Valerius was lying as a child. His neck would grow spotted red, even to the tips of his ears. But now, as his natural colour came flooding back, it did not deepen. His neck and ears were pale and unblemished.

  “She said that you…” I paused. Had she ever named him? I thought back on our conversation. Had either of us?

  Val leaned forward, earnest but not pleading. “I promise you, Julia, I had nothing to do with Carolina’s exhumation. What I have done is terrible enough, but never that.”

  I looked at him sharply. “Valerius, we must have truth between us. Tell me. All of it.”

  He nodded, and I saw a gravity in his face I had not seen before. For the first time, I saw the man and not the child.

  “I cannot go to Pandora’s Box for you, because I am too familiar there. They know me.”

  I took another sip of wine, rough against my dry throat. “Go on.”

  “You know that Father will not permit me to open my own practice. You cannot imagine what that means, to be denied the chance to do the only thing t
hat I can do well. And I can do it. I could be a very fine physician, Julia.”

  He spoke quietly, without pleading. I gave him credit for that much. There was no petulance in his tone, only the sober dignity of a grown man.

  “Are you saying that you do not patronize this place as a client? That you are their physician?” I tried to mask the incredulity in my voice, but I heard it, and so did he.

  He smiled faintly. “Julia, if you could but see them, you would understand why I am not tempted. They are pitiful creatures, most of them. Pretty enough, for a few years, when they are young, before disease and rough trade coarsen them. That life ages them quickly. And there are so few people like Aunt Hermia who care to help them. She gives aid to those who have already left the trade. I do what I can for those still in it. I spend a few days each week at Pandora’s Box, administering treatment to their prostitutes and to those from the other brothels run by the same owner. Sometimes I am called in the evenings, if there is an emergency. The proprietress pays for their medical care, but I give the money to Aunt Hermia for her mission. It is all I can do.”

  He paused, gauging my reaction. I did not give him one, for I did not yet know what to think.

  “Does Aunt Hermia know?”

  He turned his wineglass around in his hands, strong, capable hands—a healer’s hands.

  “No. She thinks I am lucky at cards.”

  “Probably best not to tell her. She would enlist you to physic the penitents at the refuge.”

  Val smiled sadly. “I would have liked that, being open and aboveboard about the whole thing. Believe me, Julia, I never meant for it to come to this. I did not intend to deceive Father. I was offered the chance to work and I took it. I know it was stupid and rash, but I knew better than to ask Father. He would never have agreed.”

  “Better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” I said quietly.

  He continued to roll the wineglass in his palms, watching the wine turn through shadow and light, changing colour with the reflection of the candles.

  “We’ve always found that the best way to handle Father, haven’t we?”

  “I suppose. But what of the prostitutes? What do you do for them?”

  The wineglass rolled to a halt, then resumed its slow revolution. “Whatever I must. Sometimes the men are rough and there are bruises, even broken bones to treat. Many of them are diseased, and must be dosed for it. Some are pregnant, and must not be.”

  I held very still. “Abortions,” I said flatly.

  He nodded.

  “Oh, Valerius, how could you?”

  It was a question, not an accusation, and he knew it.

  “Because someone will if I do not, and likely it will be a drunken, ham-fisted old butcher who would perforate their wombs and kill them. At least if I do it, they don’t die.”

  “No, they live to go out and get pregnant again!” I hurled at him before I could stop myself. I held up my hand before he could reproach me. “I am sorry. That was unkind.”

  He shook his head. “No. It was true. That is the most difficult part, you know. Trying so hard to save them from themselves—healing the bruises and stitching up the wounds, hoping that this time, just perhaps this time, they will gather up whatever shreds of human dignity remain to them and leave while they still can. I always thought Aunt Hermia was daft for caring so much what became of her charges. I remember her coming home, weeping or creating a ferocious row with Father because one of her penitents went back on the game. I never understood why she couldn’t simply shrug and go on. There are so many of them to save. And yet I find myself doing just the same. I remember the faces and the names and the stories of every girl I have ever seen in that brothel. Sometimes one of them does not come back and I pretend it is because she’s gotten away. More likely it is because she died, or failed to please and was sold to a cheaper, rougher sort of place. And I always hope, when one of them comes to me because she is with child that this time will be her last—that she will listen and learn. I do my best to educate them, to help them prevent it from happening again.”

  “Are you successful?”

  There was that faint, heartbreaking smile again. “Once in a while there is a girl young enough to listen. And I hope that she will remember what I have taught her. And one day, if she leaves the game and marries and settles down to a respectable life, she will be able to have children, unlike many of her sisters.”

  “Oh, Valerius. Why this? Why not the workhouses? Or the orphanages?”

  The smile fell from his lips and his expression was one of raw, unblunted grief.

  “Because of Mother.”

  “Because she died in childbed?”

  “Because I killed her,” he said very quietly.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I told him sharply. “You were an infant. It was hardly your fault.”

  He shrugged. “I know that now. But there was a maid at the Abbey, one of the local girls who worked in the nursery. She always used to look at me slyly and whisper to me how much everyone loved the countess, and how she had died because of me.”

  “That was stupid and cruel—backstairs gossip, and completely untrue.”

  “But you believed it,” he said softly.

  “I was six years old! I also believed in fairy rings and wishes on clovers. As you say, I know better now.”

  He nodded. “Well, when I began to study medicine, I wanted to know—everything. All about birth and why some women, with no medical care at all, can have a child as easily as breathing and why others, even with the best doctors, die from it.”

  “You were her tenth child in sixteen years,” I pointed out. “Perhaps she was simply exhausted. In that case, blame Father.”

  “I did, for a while, once I stopped blaming myself,” he said blandly. “But I did not much like that, so I decided to blame God.”

  “When did you stop doing that?”

  “Oh, I haven’t. It’s rather easy to blame someone you don’t have to see over Sunday dinner.”

  “Yes, well, I shan’t criticize you on that score. I have been guilty of it myself.”

  We were silent for a while. Val rose and went to the sideboard, pouring us each a glass of port. Usually, I did not drink it as it was a gentleman’s drink, but this was a vintage Aquinas had selected, rich and dark, and it suited my mood to be a little rebellious.

  “So that is my truth,” he said finally. “What is yours?”

  I told him. This time, unlike my narrative to Portia, I neglected nothing. I even told him the truth about Brisbane’s indisposition and his Gypsy blood, warning him strictly against sharing either snippet of information with anyone.

  When I had finished, he poured us each a second glass of port.

  “We must have been utter dolts not to have seen it before,” he commented. “And even when I saw him speaking Romany I never made the connection. It was all so fast, and then he started to chase you over the Heath, and then—”

  He broke off and I let my eyes slide away. Val and I had shared many confidences this evening, but there were some things I was still unwilling to discuss. I cast around for a new subject.

  “Val, did you ever see Edward at Pandora’s Box?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “I did. In fact, he was the one who brought me to the place. Miss Simms, the proprietress, had complained to him about the difficulty of finding a physician who was willing to treat prostitutes and would be discreet about the business. He thought of me and asked me to accompany him to meet Miss Simms. I thought he was a benefactor,” he explained quickly. “I did not realize he was a patron. I suppose I must have known, but I did not want to think about him betraying you. So, I convinced myself he was simply there to see to their well-being. As I was.”

  “Perhaps he was, at first,” I said with a shrug. “It seems a pointless sort of thing to gnaw one’s heart out over now.” It sounded convincing at least, to my ears, anyway.

  “I think you are quite correct,” he went on. “The verses ab
out whoring probably refer to his visits to the Box. But if Brisbane got nothing from Miss Simms, I will not either, I can promise you that. She is hard as nails and twice as sharp. But there might be others…”

  He trailed off and I put my hand on his. “Try, Val. Please.”

  He nodded. “I have a case there, a girl with a broken arm I set just yesterday. She’s started a fever and I wanted to look in on her. I suppose I could ask a few questions—but I must be discreet, so discreet that I may not even be able to discover what you wish to know. I cannot jeopardize the trust I have gained, you understand?”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

  He rose and so did I. For the first time since we were children, he enfolded me into an embrace. And since this time he was not attempting to toss spiders down my dress, I rather enjoyed it.

  I went to Simon’s room after Val left, thinking to read to him for a little while. But he was sleeping quietly, with Desmond sitting nearby. I smiled at the boy.

  “How has he been this evening?”

  He rose noiselessly. “The doctor was here earlier, my lady. He said that Sir Simon had rallied a little. His temperature is down and his pulse a bit stronger.”

  “Really? Well, so long as he is comfortable, that is the important thing,” I said, watching as Simon moved a little in his sleep. “Is he warm enough?”

  “Oh, yes, my lady. Doctor Griggs gave very specific instructions as to his care.”

  His face was troubled and I hastened to soothe him. “I am certain you are doing an excellent job, Desmond. I know it is not the most rewarding of tasks, but it is an important one, and you have the family’s thanks.”

  For a moment he blushed deeply, his eyes downcast. His shyness was almost palpable. Before I could speak again to reassure him, he gathered hold of himself, dipping his head in a bob of respect. “Thank you, my lady. I have done my best.”

  I smiled again and slipped out, thankful that there was at least one situation I had left in capable hands. I was not so certain about Val.