by Coleen Kwan
“Exactly right. I call it my motor-chair. It can travel for two hours on one load of coal.” He grinned at her, pride in his machine showing through.
“I thought you were a doctor, not an engineer.”
“I’m a bit of both. I trained as a doctor, but I’ve always had an interest in making things. In Edinburgh I was able to combine my fascination with anatomy and engineering. These days I hope to use both skills to help my patients. This motor-chair is for an ex-soldier who lost both his legs in the war. Fortunately he’s wealthy enough to afford it. The motor-chair was easy enough to build, but other items are more of a challenge.”
She glanced at him curiously. “How so?”
“Well…” He gave her a considering look before beckoning her to one of the benches. “Come over here. I’ve been working on something recently. I wasn’t going to show it to you just yet, but since you’re here I see no reason not to.”
Thoroughly intrigued, Nellie moved closer. On the bench were a few pliers and cutters, together with coils of wire and a small wooden box. Julian moved around the bench to stand opposite her and placed his hands on the box. He studied her with an air of suppressed anticipation.
“Miss Barchester, unfortunately there is no remedy for your scars. I tried to stitch as carefully as I could, and of course the scars will fade a little, but you will never be rid of them.”
At his words, she lowered her head, unable to take the frank pity in his eyes. Julian had just acknowledged that she was ugly and unappealing, and would always remain so. Her heart dipped, and she had to clench her hands to stop them from trembling.
Julian began to speak quickly, stumbling over his words. “Deuce take it, I didn’t mean to offend you, Miss Barchester. I—”
“No, no. I’m not offended.” She gulped but could not meet his eyes.
“I meant no offence. I merely wished to point out that—oh, dash it all. See here, I have something to show you.” He threw open the box and pulled something out. “Look, Miss Barchester. See what I have made for you.”
Hesitantly, she lifted her gaze until she spied the object in his hands which he held out for her inspection. “What—what is it? It looks like a glove.”
“Precisely, but this is no ordinary glove. It has two artificial fingers to replace the ones you lost.” Raising the glove, he waggled it at her.
Nellie stared at the disembodied fingers waving in front of her. She’d never seen anything like that before. They looked bizarre…grotesque…like spare parts for a broken marionette… Is that what she was to him? A damaged puppet for him to dabble with? A surge of nausea stung the back of her throat.
She glared at him. “How dare you.”
A look of complete confusion came over him. “But, Miss Barchester, I only wish to help you—”
“Help yourself, more like. Is this what you do, Dr. Darke? You experiment on devastated patients for your own gratification? Am I just another of your human menagerie, like Figgs and Mrs. Tibbet and your legless soldier? Well, you can think again. I won’t be a part of your sick endeavours.” She stared at her dismembered hand, and all the anguish she’d been suppressing welled up in a bitter tide. “I wish to God you’d never rescued me. I wish you’d left me to die instead,” she muttered, before she whirled around and fled the building.
Chapter Four
Julian spurred his horse on down the muddy road, eager to put distance between himself and Monksbane. Or rather, between himself and Nellie. The stinging words she’d flung at him reverberated in his head. Had he done her a grievous disservice in saving her life? He’d been so puffed up with his deeds that he hadn’t properly taken into consideration her sensibilities. And now she thought he viewed her as nothing more than a sideshow freak, a submissive patient with whom he could experiment. Intolerable!
He’d become too distracted with Nellie Barchester. He’d allowed his blossoming feelings for her cloud his judgement. Yes, he admired her instinct for survival, her deep well of inner strength, her grace that transcended her ravaged face and hand, but he knew very little about her. She was connected to Sir Thaddeus Ormond, yet she refused to tell him what that relationship was, and until she did could not be trusted. He had to remember that. And, too, he had other fish to fry, not to mention numerous patients he’d neglected in the past week.
The road soon reached the built-up areas that marked the creeping tide line of the encroaching city. Fields and woodland gave way to rows of terraced housing, quiet receded before rumbling trains and raucous traffic, and the grey sky faded to a dirty smudge. He had a few patients here, some humble factory workers, other more well-to-do folk who commuted on the train to the city—shop clerks, articled clerks, government workers. He did his rounds, and then was on his way again.
The city burgeoned like a great, grimy pudding smothered in a thick sauce of smog. Hunched across the landscape, hordes of factories belched out smoke like so many fire-breathing dragons. Fine specks of ash sifted through the air to settle on everything in a sooty film. Julian’s pace slowed as the roads became choked with all manner of carts, wagons, omnibuses and carriages. He’d enjoyed his years of study up north in Edinburgh, but London was like no other city, and the place did not agree with him. It was too dense, too avid, too clamouring, too vast. The day was half-gone, and he still had a way to travel, but he pushed on. His ears ached with the din of clattering wheels and angry drivers. Pungent odours assaulted his nose as he neared Mr. Cazalet’s street. Here were row upon row of narrow houses, many of their front rooms serving as shopfronts. Tailors, watchmakers, milliners and shoemakers plied their trade, while match girls, organ grinders and costermongers tramped up and down the road, hawking their wares.
The retired jeweller seemed pleased to see him again—perhaps he didn’t have many visitors—and ushered him into his modest house. An enormous fire roared in the fireplace, filling the small sitting room with a stifling heat. Mr. Cazalet, apparently immune to the heat, made coffee for his visitor before taking the armchair closest to the fire. While the old man chatted about the comings and goings of his neighbours, Julian sipped the strong, black coffee from a seat furthest away from the fire and surreptitiously loosened his necktie. After a while, he was able to steer the conversation back to the subject of his brooch. This time, he did not have specific questions for the jeweller. On his previous visit, Mr. Cazalet had already pulled out one of the many ledgers that lined the shelves of the room and showed him the entry meticulously recorded—one ruby-and-diamond bee brooch repaired for Miss Ophelia Ormond—that had finally pointed Julian towards Sir Thaddeus Ormond. This time, he merely wanted to know anything about the Ormonds that the jeweller might be willing to tell him.
Mr. Cazalet was surprisingly forthcoming. He’d sold several pieces of jewellery to the Ormond family, and they’d sent many of their repairs to him. That was some years ago. And then suddenly they’d started selling jewellery through him too.
“Not only jewellery, but silver plate too,” Mr. Cazalet said. “Rumour had it Sir Thaddeus’s father had lost the family’s country estate! Gambled away, they said, just before he died. The Ormonds were hard put to meet their debts.”
This was news to Julian. He’d been inside the Ormond’s West End townhouse, had seen all its showy grandeur. How had the family fortunes been restored?
But Mr. Cazalet had gone on to a much more important subject. “That was about the time Miss Ormond came to me with her bee brooch. She came into my shop herself, you see. Didn’t send in her maid or footman like she usually did, just her and a companion, her old governess, I believe. No doubt she wanted to keep her visit a secret.”
Julian had brought the bee brooch with him. He drew it from his pocket and fingered it, the refracted light glowing into his eyes. It was a neat little piece, finely crafted even if the jewels were of no great value. Ophelia Ormond had personally brought in this brooch to be repaired because she didn’t want anyone to know of it.
“Ah, ’tis a pretty thing.
” Mr. Cazalet nodded his gnomish head towards the jewel winking in Julian’s hands. “Just the sort of thing a young beau would give to the woman he was wooing. Miss Ormond paid me in cash for the job. Didn’t want the account going to her brother. She was very afraid of her brother finding out, and I’m not surprised. Always a hard man, he was.”
“Do you know who gave her the brooch?” Julian sat tensed on his hard stool, barely able to breathe as the old man packed a long pipe with baccy.
Mr. Cazalet wrinkled his brow. “I don’t recall any name.”
Disappointment crushed his lungs. He shouldn’t have hoped; there was no reason why a genteel young woman like Ophelia Ormond would tell a mere jeweller something so personal.
“But that brooch was very precious to her,” Mr. Cazalet continued. “She begged me to take good care of it. Not that it’s worth that much, mind, but it must of meant something to her.”
“And the woman who accompanied her?”
Mr. Cazalet sucked on his lit pipe. “Nay, she were a plain old bird, anxious about Miss Ormond, is all I remember.”
“Did you see Miss Ormond again after you’d mended the brooch?”
“Never again, no.”
“You seem very sure.”
“After you left the last time, I checked my ledger, but there weren’t no more entries for Miss Ormond after that.”
Julian gripped his knee in some frustration. The date in the jeweller’s ledger was less than a year before he, a newborn babe, had been left at the door of Monksbane. Who had given Ophelia Ormond that brooch? A man she cared about deeply. Someone she’d kept a secret from her domineering brother. Someone not suitable to associate with the Ormonds, let alone sue for her hand.
Julian’s imagination roamed down a well-worn path. Disaster had struck Ophelia. She’d fallen pregnant, and either she was abandoned by her lover, or Sir Thaddeus had forbidden her to marry him. Julian preferred to believe the latter. So poor Ophelia had been bundled off somewhere to hide her disgrace, perhaps with only her old governess for support. It was a common, sordid story. Unwanted babies born out of wedlock could be handed off to so-called “baby farms”, to be used or abused as luck would have it. But somehow Fate had intervened on his behalf, and he’d been deposited on Elijah Darke’s doorstep. Ophelia Ormond might not have been able to keep him, but she had done her best for him, and the brooch she’d left with him confirmed that.
Moisture prickled unfamiliarly behind his eyes. He gritted his teeth until the weakness passed. On the street outside, a muffin man tramped by, his raucous bell jangling Julian’s nerves. Using his coat sleeve, he wiped away a rivulet of perspiration from his temple.
Still smoking, Mr. Cazalet, unaware of his turmoil, was rambling on. “That were the last I saw of the Ormonds. Shortly after, I heard tell Sir Thaddeus married a brewer’s daughter with fifty thousand pounds to her name. No doubt he didn’t want to do business with me again, not when he’d used me to sell off the family silver. Eh, I weren’t sorry to lose the business. Sir Thaddeus is a hard sort of gentleman, very hard.” Removing his pipe from his mouth, he sat forward in his armchair, his eyes gleaming behind his pebble-like spectacles. “Young man, would I be wrong in assuming you’re somehow linked to the Ormonds?”
Frowning, Julian contemplated the old man. How far could he trust him? Then again, he’d already revealed so much just by showing him the brooch. He twirled the piece about in his fingers, then pushed it back into his pocket. “I merely seek the truth.”
The old man shook his wrinkled head. “Be careful what you wish for. Especially if it involves Sir Thaddeus. He’s not a man to cross. If I were you, I would be happy with my lot.”
A quick retort rose to Julian’s lips, which he hastily bit off. Mr. Cazalet was an old man enjoying the fruits of his retirement. Of course he’d preach caution. But he, Julian, was young, fit and determined. He wouldn’t let Sir Thaddeus’s reputation scare him off. Nellie’s attack had shaken him, yes, but he wouldn’t allow mere thuggery to stop him.
He rose to his feet. “Thank you for your kind hospitality, Mr. Cazalet.”
“Oh, taking your leave already?” The jeweller looked disappointed. “I hope you’ll return. I have few visitors these days.”
“I will do that,” he promised.
The old man accompanied him to the front door. “This used to be a good neighbourhood,” he said, pursing his lips at a group of rough-looking men dawdling on the corner. “It used to be respectable people only around here, but with all the trouble on the continent this city is being overrun by foreigners.” He shook his puny fist at the loiterers. “Troublemakers, the lot of ’em!”
Mr. Cazalet’s own forbears would have been émigrés, but Julian refrained from pointing this out and instead took his leave. Outside, the setting sun was a dull bruise on the gritty bowl of the sky. His mare snickered at him as if to say she was weary of the city and wanted to return to her quiet stable. He patted her mane as he pulled himself into the saddle. He knew just how she felt. He longed to reach Monksbane too. But thoughts of home only reminded him of Nellie and her acrimonious accusations. As a consequence, he chose not to hurry, but instead kept his mount to a steady walk.
It was afternoon when Nellie ventured from her room, resolved to apologise to Julian. It had taken her less than five minutes to acknowledge she’d behaved appallingly and owed Julian a heartfelt apology. But she needed to calm herself first, and when she had and descended the stairs, there was no sign of Julian or his father in the house.
She entered the kitchen, where Mrs. Tippet and Figgs were sitting at a table. Figgs had been cleaning a lamp, but as soon as she entered he reared to his feet, a hunted look in his eyes as he nervously tugged at his cleaning cloth.
“Oh, Figgs, please don’t let me disturb you.” She attempted an encouraging smile, and he rewarded her by very slowly resuming his seat and warily continuing with his cleaning, using his pincer appendage with remarkable dexterity.
The cavernous kitchen, though thoroughly ancient, was surprisingly neat and well-kept compared to the rest of the house. Mrs. Tibbet sat at the table polishing a vast amount of silverware. The utensils were already gleaming and, by the look of them, a great quantity of their gilt had already been polished off, yet the housekeeper rubbed the silverware relentlessly. She pronounced to Nellie that she was about to prepare oatmeal and smoked kippers, but Nellie suggested that the hungry doctors would really prefer soup, guinea fowl and lamb cutlets. Mrs. Tibbet cocked her head and eyed her doubtfully, and then said, “Very well, missus,” as if Nellie were the mistress of the house. Thinking it was all to do with the borrowed gown she wore, Nellie decided to say nothing more and left the housekeeper alone.
She waited in the drawing room for Julian to return, but it was not he who arrived home first, but his father. When Elijah Darke entered the room, Nellie started to her feet, acutely conscious that she was wearing his late wife’s clothing.
“Good evening, Miss Barchester,” he greeted her in his deep, mellifluous voice.
“Good evening, Dr. Darke.” While she’d been convalescing in bed, he had briefly introduced himself to her, but this was the first time she’d met him on her own. As his gaze flickered over her garb, she diffidently tweaked at the skirts. “I hope I cause no offence, sir. This was the only dress Mrs. Tibbet provided for me.”
A flash of pain passed through his eyes so quickly she thought she’d imagined it. Inclining his head, he said graciously, “Not at all. I’m glad to see that frock being worn again. You look most charming.”
“Thank you.” She hesitated before adding, “May I ask when the younger Dr. Darke is due back?”
“Not for a while, I’m afraid, according to the message he left me.”
So it came about that she sat down to dinner alone with Elijah Darke. He was most impressed by the meal she’d persuaded Mrs. Tibbet to prepare and told her so. He talked about the new hospital he was helping set up, and about his son who had recently joined hi
s practice. Julian, he informed Nellie, was a great help to him, especially now, when the hospital consumed most of his time, and the years were catching up with him.
“But my son is a very different physician from me,” he said as they ate lemon syllabub. “Julian is full of unique ingenuity, for he’s not just a doctor but a gifted engineer too. He views the human body as a superb piece of machinery and comes up with the most amazing ideas. Take, for example, his inventions for replacing lost limbs. Most clever and innovative. I’m very proud of him, though I don’t often tell him that.”
Nellie felt herself grow warm as Elijah’s praise for his son only intensified her shame. When would Julian return so she could apologise to him?
“Well, it’s good to see you back on your feet, Miss Barchester,” Elijah declared when they had finished their meal.
“I feel much better.” She hesitated as she perceived a hidden question to his seemingly ordinary observation. “I want to thank you and your son for your kind hospitality. I’m very grateful to you both, and—and you can rest assured I will not overstay my welcome.” But where would she go from here? For a moment complete panic blanked out her mind. She was penniless and friendless and had nowhere to go. Even the clothes on her back were not her own.
Elijah Darke waved his hand. “Oh, you’ll not be leaving so soon, I hope. Not when you’ve shown such promise with Mrs. Tibbet. I haven’t enjoyed such a satisfying dinner in a long time. And besides, you are still recuperating from your nasty assault.”
“I am much obliged, but I’m not sure I should trespass on your hospitality indefinitely.”
“Come, now. You would be doing me and Julian a great favour if you could persuade Mrs. Tibbet to cook appropriate meals. A great favour. You’ve no idea how much I detest porridge for dinner.”
Nellie couldn’t help smiling at that and assented, even though she suspected this was only Elijah’s way of allowing her to stay without feeling she was a burden.
