The place was still and silent, though I had the impression that it had not been so for long. ‘Gabriel?’ I said. ‘Gabriel?’
I was answered by a moan from the back of the apothecary. I bounded over the books, almost slipping as my foot landed in a pool of spilled honey that oozed from an overturned pot. Gabriel lay at the back of the shop, pushed into a corner with his face to the wall. His hands had been tied behind his back with a length of the string I used to secure bunches of leaves before hanging them up in the herb drying room. One of the muslin bags we used for straining infusions had been pulled over his head and secured at the neck, his ankles bound over and over with string and tied with a length of it to his tightly secured hands. He whimpered, and tried to move but he could not. A red stain had seeped through the fabric of his hood. For all that he was tied so cruelly, and shoved into a corner, he had also been laid quite neatly upon some sacks. One of the lavender and lemon balm pillows I made for ladies overcome with the headache had been slipped beneath his head. The hood he wore was not a heavy sack, but was light and breathable. Altogether it was a most humane bondage.
Behind me I heard Will stagger in and dump the camera down. In an instant he was beside me. Before us, Gabriel sobbed and moaned, his voice muffled and bubbling with snot. I pulled out my knife. The knots at his wrists and ankles told me nothing, but as I bent to examine them something caught my eye. Something had adhered to the muslin hood that covered the lad’s head; something small but familiar. ‘Quick,’ I said to Will. ‘Pass me the magnifying glass, the tweezers and a saucer.’
Gabriel made a muffled screaming sound and thrashed, as far as he was able, against his bindings. ‘Lie still,’ I commanded.
‘Jem,’ said Will, handing me the glass and tweezers. ‘Can you not release the lad—’
‘Another few seconds will not cause him any harm,’ I murmured, bending close. ‘If he was truly hurt he could not moan and fidget so. Keep still!’ I snapped. ‘We don’t want to lose this in the mess and confusion,’ and I plucked from his hood two small fragments and laid them in the saucer. ‘Put them on the counter,’ I said to Will. ‘Now lie still, Gabriel, and we will have you free in an instant.’
I snipped through the string and held it up to the light, the magnifying glass still in my hand. ‘The knots that secured his ankles are tight and strong,’ I said. ‘The ones at the wrists less so.’
‘He has been trying to kick his legs,’ said Will. ‘The knots have become tighter.’
‘And yet the evidence remains. The knots are tied more forcefully at the ankles.’
‘So?’
I gestured to the pillow: ‘And why not just leave the boy lying on the stone floor?’ Then to the muslin hood: ‘Why not use a sack to cover his head? There is one to hand right here, whereas the muslin has to be got from the other side of the room.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Will. ‘Did he know the boy?’
‘He? Are you sure?’
‘She?’ said Will. ‘Damn your riddles, Jem. You think it was a woman or a man who did this?’
‘I think it might be both.’
Once his hands and feet were free, Gabriel curled into a ball, scrabbling his fingers at the hood that still covered his head. I cut the string that held it in place and gently pulled it off. His head was bloody, his hair matted, his eyes awash with tears. A gag – a length of torn muslin – pulled his mouth taut. When I saw his face I regretted my tardiness in liberating him. I untied the gag and cradled him in my arms. I could feel his shoulders shaking beneath my hands as he tried to muffle his sobs. ‘You’re safe now,’ I said. ‘We’re here. Everything is well.’
‘Everything is not well, Mr Jem,’ he cried against my shoulder. ‘They were here. They were waiting for me.’
‘Shh,’ I said. I rocked him in my arms. ‘Let’s see to you first.’
We steered Gabriel through the wreckage and sat him in my father’s chair. Will put a blanket around the boy’s shoulders, put the kettle on the stove top and poked the embers inside back into life.
‘Let me see to your head,’ I said. I filled a basin with warm water and added a few drops of tea tree essence, and a sprig of camphor. I found the bottle of iodine standing, untouched, on the counter – almost as though someone had left it out for me deliberately. I bathed his head as he talked, drying it gently and applying a balm, and some iodine, to the wound. It was a bruise, more than anything else, though the skin had broken and the blood had congealed in a black mass in his hair.
‘Can you tell us what happened?’ said Will, handing him a cup of tea.
‘I came back from Sorley’s and saw the mess—’
‘Was the lock forced?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘Had you left the door unlocked?’
‘No! No, Mr Jem, I swear it! I never leave it unlocked, never.’
‘I know,’ I said. I patted him on the head. The boy had many failings as an apprentice – he wasn’t the brightest, he lacked initiative, he was lazy, greedy and slovenly by nature. But he was loyal; he had loved my father and had promised him that he would work hard – he’d meant it too, and he tried his best to be a good apprentice. The apothecary was his home, as it was mine and Will’s, and it meant as much to him as it did to me. He was honest when it came to the important things, and if he had done wrong he would admit it. It was not impossible to open a locked door. All one needed was either the key, or the requisite skills. ‘So they were already here?’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t see them?’
‘I saw the mess they had made and was going to go out to find you. I didn’t see no one. Then they hit me.’
‘“They”? Did you see more than one person?’
‘No,’ he frowned. ‘But I heard . . . I heard you say.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I did say, didn’t I?’ I dabbed his wound with iodine. ‘They aimed well.’
‘What did they use, d’you think?’ said Will.
I looked at the bruise at the back of Gabriel’s head, and the skin that had broken beneath his ear. ‘Something long and heavy. Something hard, but softish too.’
‘An iron bar!’ cried Gabriel. ‘Or a weighted cudgel. I’m lucky my head weren’t stove in and me eyes and mouth stitched. Stitched ugly, like them doctors. It’s all in Vicious Dick—’ His face was pale and greenish. I pushed him back into the chair and slipped a cushion beneath his head.
‘Rest now,’ I said. ‘I’ll clear up.’
‘You’re sure there were two of them, Jem?’ said Will in a low voice.
‘Maybe. It’s a strange mixture of violence and kindness. Someone did not pull the knots tight. Perhaps the same person who laid his head on a pillow, though it might take a stronger stomach to hit a lad over the head. And then there’s this,’ I said, picking up the saucer upon which I had laid the fragments plucked from Gabriel’s muslin hood. I handed Will the magnifying glass.
He bent his head. I saw his knuckles whiten as he gripped the glass tightly. He stared at the fragment for a long time. When he looked up, his expression was troubled. ‘Did you suspect this?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘Not for one moment.’ He held up the tweezers. Between their silver pincers quivered a pale yellow stamen with a dusty saffron-coloured tip.
Chapter Twenty
Will and I tidied the place up as best we could while Gabriel dozed before the fire. When he awoke he said he felt much better. The afternoon was growing dark, though it was not yet five o’clock. I sent them out for some beer and a cold roast pheasant for our tea.
I was relieved when they had gone. I sank in my father’s chair. My mind whirled with thoughts and images, from the present, from the past – Dr Stiven and Susan Chance, Dr Hawkins and my father. The skeleton of Dr Bain grinned down at me.
‘What are you laughing at?’ I said. ‘D’you think you could do any better?’
The herb woman had been to us that morning and in add
ition to the mess our intruders had made there were sacks of hops and bushels of lavender stacked against the walls and beside the counter. I set the stove roaring, for the day had turned cold and damp and I wanted the place warm. I missed the herb garret we’d had at St Saviour’s – that warm room, in the roof space at the top of the infirmary chapel where I had stored my botanical supplies. Everything had dried quickly, and I had had plenty of space for working. In our new premises we had to make do with the storeroom at the back. It was adequate, but not quite enough.
I was up a ladder against the high shelves when she came. Perhaps the sound of my own breathing distracted me, perhaps I was preoccupied with the questions in my head, but when I turned from the ladder and saw her there I was so surprised that I dropped the jar I was holding. Then I remembered that Mrs Speedicut had broken the clapper in the doorbell. No wonder the woman had been able to enter so silently. Aniseed spilled across the work bench.
‘How long have you been watching me?’ I said crossly.
‘Since we first met,’ she answered. ‘At Angel Meadow the night Dr Rutherford was murdered.’ The clock ticked as I waited for her to say more, to tell me what she wanted or why she had come. ‘He is not my father, he is my stepfather,’ she said suddenly. ‘Though he insists that I call him “Father”. I am one of his philanthropic projects.’
‘I see.’ Then, fearing this might not be enough, I added, ‘And your real parents?’
‘I never knew them. I’m not sorry about it. One cannot be sorry for something or someone one does not know.’
I nodded. I remembered saying something similar about my own mother, who had died as I was born. And yet the truth was quite the opposite.
Constance Mothersole ran her fingers across the face of the globe I kept on the counter top – I used it to try to teach Gabriel where some of our more exotic herbs came from though the lad was unable to grasp the distances I talked about.
‘I would like to travel the world,’ she said. ‘Europe, America, Australia.’
‘Why don’t you ask your father?’ I said. ‘There is plenty of philanthropy to be had abroad, and all countries have ways of treating their mad. He might well be more open to the idea than you think.’
‘Might he?’ She looked about at the mess, her hands clasping and unclasping. ‘The place seems very untidy. I would have thought you would have made more of an effort for me.’
‘How was I to know you were coming?’ I retorted.
‘Because of the flowers I gave to you and Mr Quartermain.’
‘Chickweed and corchorus? For itchiness and venereal diseases?’
‘Oh, you’re so prosaic,’ she said. ‘They mean far more than that.’
There was once a time when I might have known what such meanings were, for Eliza Magorian had enjoyed such playful use of herbs and flowers and I had loved her dearly. But she was gone, and so was my interest in such trifles. ‘Perhaps they do,’ I said. ‘But I’m an apothecary, Miss Mothersole, not a lady who has nothing better to do than communicate in riddles and codes.’
‘Well perhaps you should understand a lady’s riddles and codes,’ she retorted. ‘How else might I say what I mean when my mother is watching? You might understand me far better – you might even have expected me – if you had bothered to find out what I meant.’
‘If you had said what you meant I would not have to find out. But enlighten me, please, Miss Mothersole. What is the meaning of chickweed and corchorus?’
‘Chickweed: “I would like a rendezvous”. Corchorus: “I am impatient for your absence”.’
I blinked. ‘I didn’t—’
‘Yes, well, I guessed as much. And so I gave you a note too. Far more explicit.’
‘When?’
‘At Angel Meadow.’ She laughed. ‘Right under my mother’s nose too. Oh, come now, Mr Flockhart. Don’t be so arch with me. The card I gave you with the flowers pasted upon it. Did you not recognise them?’
‘Yes,’ I said. I pulled the folded card from my pocket. ‘Pimpernel. Buttercup. Violet.’
‘Pimpernel “Let us meet”, buttercup “Today”, violet “Five o’clock”. It is five o’clock precisely.’
I sighed. ‘Miss Mothersole—’
‘You would like to see my notebook,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘From the night Dr Rutherford was killed? Yes, I would.’
‘And yet there are other nights, and other days.’ She watched me, her expression guarded. ‘I think you might find much to interest you.’
‘Have you brought it?’
‘No. I’ve nothing but myself for you today.’
‘Where is it?’
‘It’s in the library at Angel Meadow.’ She gave a faint smile. ‘The best place to keep a secret is in full view, don’t you agree?’
‘Why, yes, I suppose that could be true.’
‘I think you know that it is. Equally, the best place to hide a book is amongst books.’ She licked her lips, and fell silent.
‘Is there something else?’ I said after a moment.
She picked up one of the spilled aniseeds and nibbled it.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you, Miss Mothersole. But I must really get on—’
‘There is also something on which I would like to ask your opinion.’
I motioned her towards the chair near to the stove.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I cannot speak to you here.’ She looked about. ‘We must go somewhere private. I have locked the door but people may look in and see us. Where does this door here lead?’
‘To the storeroom,’ I said, mystified.
‘Perhaps in there might serve. Is it private?’
The storeroom was small, warmed by the flue from the stove and from the bake house in the property next door. It was lined with shelves upon which were baskets full of dried herbs, leaves, seeds and petals. The walls were hung with bunches of calendula, feverfew and comfrey. I also stored our household linen there, as the spike lavender, rosemary and cedar deterred moths and made the bed sheets smell fresh. Constance Mothersole vanished into its cabin-like interior, her skirts whisking against the hop sacks and causing a basket of mallow root to spill its contents across the floor. I kicked them aside irritably and followed her inside.
‘Miss Mothersole—’
She reached behind me and pulled the door closed. ‘I must be private,’ she hissed.
The only light came through a single narrow window high in the wall. Upon its ledge was a row of glass vessels containing various tinctures – St John’s wort, sea buckthorn, rosehip. The light filtered through them warmly, and I could not help but notice how pretty and clearskinned it made her look. There was something on the girl’s mind, for even in the dim light I could see a vein pulsing in her neck. With the door closed and the stove next door well stoked the smell from the herbs quickly grew heavy, drowsily floral with hibiscus and heliotrope. Beneath these I could smell the earthy, visceral scents of the green, low-growing plants – chickweed, plantain and burdock. Miss Mothersole’s skirts pressed against my legs as she moved.
‘My father,’ she began. ‘My father says that . . . that I’m not fit for a man. That I’ll never make a wife. You have heard him yourself—’
‘Miss Mothersole,’ I said. ‘I think you should leave that to the judgement of men other than your father.’
‘I am not interested in the judgement of men.’
‘Then you must trust to your own.’
She seized my hand. ‘I am doing. That is . . . I wish to trust myself to your judgement. If you . . . if you could . . .’ I felt the blood rush into my cheeks. ‘I didn’t mean that I—’
‘Shh!’ She laid a finger on my lips. ‘You must listen.’
I swallowed, feeling my birthmark pulse as I blushed to the roots of my hair. Her face was close, her finger warm as blood so that all at once a familiar feeling of fear and loneliness welled up within me; an aching desire for tenderness that I knew could not possi
bly be fulfilled. What did she want from me, this tall curious girl? Surely she could not want me for a lover. As a man I was ugly, as a woman I was hideous – tall and blighted, an abomination to be pitied and scorned, my birthmark an indelible mask behind which I hid my true self from the world. The only one person I had ever allowed to see behind it was Eliza. She was lost to me, but the need to be loved, touched, wanted, remained within me no matter how hard I tried to get the better of it.
‘Mr Flockhart, my father says I will never make a wife. For my part, I hope I shall not for I could not bear to end up like my mother. And yet,’ she hesitated. ‘And yet I would like to know.’
The scents of the storeroom grew thicker, the air warmer, so that my skin prickled beneath my shirt. Once more I felt an aching loneliness. ‘But I do not love you,’ I said.
‘I know that.’ She leaned towards me. ‘You’re nothing like a man.’ Her breath smelled of aniseed and apples. In the dim glow from the window her eyes were huge. In her expression I read kindness, and apprehension. But there was something else too. The pulse at her throat beat in time with my own. ‘I see things that others do not. My father talks of the need for observation, and yet he sees nothing but himself, nothing of the world but his own place in it. But I? I see everything.’
‘Miss Mothersole—’
‘I see you,’ she said. ‘Like me, you watch and listen. You listen to me, here and now, and you don’t object, you don’t bluster and barge past and tell me to return to my father. Nor do you snatch what I offer as if it were yours for the taking. Why? Because you are not what you pretend to be.’
‘You misunderstand—’
‘No, I do not. We’re the same, you and I. You’re tired of your burden of loneliness and deceit, as I’m tired of my role as drab, loveless daughter. But I am not drab, not in my heart, nor in my mind. I will die an old maid, I know, and I’ll never know the love of a man. But I would like to know the love of a woman.’
Dark Asylum Page 23
