Instruments of Darkness

by Imogen Robertson

  She would never cease to be astonished by the beauty of this child she had borne. His skin was as pale as the first warm milk of the day, perfectly smooth. She let the back of her hand rest on his cheek a moment; the pleasure of it was a sort of ideal pain.

  The door opened softly and the wet nurse came in with the baby. The women smiled at each other as the nurse settled on the easy chair near the unlit fire where the baby’s face would not catch the sun. The child began to feed eagerly, and Harriet felt a dull pull in her own breast, as if of a memory. She knew that women of her class were feeding their own children more and more, and when Stephen was born, rootless and afloat on her husband’s own patch of England, she had had no choice but to sustain him herself. Her little girl, Anne, though, she had handed over to another woman within hours of her birth, bound her own chest and continued with the business of the estate.

  As she watched, Harriet hoped that the decision had not been affected by the sex of the child. She had wanted a daughter, her husband had wanted a girl too, and Harriet looked forward to greeting a child much more herself than Stephen could ever be—but when the midwife had put the child into her arms, she had felt with that first terrifying rush of love a sort of hopelessness. And what can you be? she had thought, examining the neat little nails, the dark fuzz of hair, so different from Stephen. Married. Happily or unhappily, you have only one decision to make in your life and your whole life hangs on it. The weight of the thought had left her breathless, and the midwife lifted the baby from her, thinking her still exhausted by her labors. She had heard the child being handed to the wet nurse as she pretended to sleep, looking out over her gardens from her bedroom window, though of course, like everything she wore or ate, the horse she rode or the pen she used to write up the accounts, it all belonged to her husband. She lived on suffrance, like every prettily dressed lady in the world.

  She moved over to stand behind the nurse to watch the little girl feed. Her movement distracted the baby, who whined and refused the breast. Harriet shrank back a little.

  “Hush, little one.” The nurse smiled down softly, then said to her mistress, “Will you hold her for a moment, ma’am?”

  Harriet shook her head. “Anne is like her mother. Hates to be disturbed at breakfast,” then she leaned down to fit her finger into the tiny balled hand. The child’s eyes opened suddenly and they looked long at each other, and in a mist Harriet saw all her possible futures laid out in front of her. Then the child wriggled and opened her pink mouth with a soft mew. The nurse shifted her on her knee.

  “She’s flourishing, ma’am.”

  “Good, good. Thank you for your care of her.” Harriet stood up straight again. Then left the room without looking back, letting the door close soundlessly behind her.

  4

  It was only an hour later that Harriet stepped firmly into Wicksteed’s private study with a nod to the maid and sat herself in the low armchair by his window without waiting for an invitation. The estate manager looked up at her with surprise from the desk at which he was writing, then stood and bowed swiftly.

  Harriet waved her hand to usher him back to his chair and began to pull off her gloves. He watched her without speaking, as if observing some wild but harmless creature. A monkey behind glass, a bird in a cage. She had meant to study him, but found herself subject. There is a certain sort of man who knows how to look intensely at a woman and make her feel exposed. She wondered if even Jemima, Lady Thornleigh, might find something fresh in a gaze of such violent focus, marveling and amazed, unblinking. It held one. She swallowed before she began to speak.

  “Forgive me coming in like this, Mr. Wicksteed, so early in the day.” He began to murmur some compliment; she cut across him. “But I wanted to check with you the figure over the sale of the pretty roan we purchased from the estate for my sister in March.” She peeped at him through her lashes, with a sigh. “I fear I must have copied the wrong figure into my accounts. The column won’t add up correctly now, no matter how many times I try, and that was the one sum where I thought I might have made the error. I had it as twelve guineas, but twenty-one seems a more likely figure for such a pretty mount—and if that was the error, then all my sums will come out right!”

  She beamed up at him hopefully. His expression did not change.

  “I am happy to check, Mrs. Westerman. The books for March are in the main office, though I think you are right and twenty-one guineas was the figure.”

  Harriet leaned forward confidentially. “Oh, would you, Mr. Wicksteed? It would be such a kindness. The commodore hates coming home to find the accounts in anything but a pristine order, you know.”

  Wicksteed stood slowly and looked around the room. “I may be a few moments ...”

  “Oh, I am most happy to wait!” Harriet leaned back in her chair. “And I have another favor to ask. Your housekeeper has a receipt for jugged hare I think quite wonderful, and I promised Mrs. Heathcote I should try and find the secret of it. Might you ask her to jot it down for me?”

  Wicksteed frowned and Harriet thought she might have overplayed herself. He looked at her again and suddenly smiled. She had seen him do so rarely and it almost shocked her. His teeth were very white. She felt like a child who has done something charming in its innocent stupidity. He turned and stepped smartly from the room.

  Harriet let her smile drop as soon as the catch fell, and began to stand. The door opened again, and she managed to twist her body as if she had been doing no more than make herself comfortable. Wicksteed was still smiling.

  “Perhaps I can offer you some refreshment, while you wait.”

  “Oh no, I am perfectly comfortable, thank you,” Harriet reassured him.

  He bowed and closed the door. She counted to ten as slowly as she could, then stood and moved swiftly to the writing desk where she had found him. There was a heap of offcuts of paper on the table, but her first thought was for the fabled diary. She searched briefly through the neat pigeon-holes on the desk, looking hopefully for his brown books, his journal books. The little desk had two drawers; the first opened easily enough and contained nothing but spare quills and papers; the lower had a little brass lock and would not yield to pressure. She cursed under her breath and wondered if any of her household might confess a colorful enough past to encompass lock-picking, and whether they might teach her. She should have considered that.

  There was a noise outside, and she paused, counting the heavy beats of her heart till a footstep had passed in the hall, then turned her attention again to the pile of papers on the blotter. They were drafts or partial drafts of a letter, and she shuffled them between her hands for a few moments, frowning. Wicksteed had a very precise hand, she found herself thinking it a little too florid, too practiced for a gentleman ... then the fragments of phrases began to coalesce in her mind.

  “Oh really?” she murmured. “That is what we are about, is it not?”

  Another step. She dropped the papers and turned to the window, so that when Wicksteed pushed the door open again, a little suddenly, she could affect to turn away from the view. He paused in the doorway. Harriet looked at him expectantly.

  “Here is the receipt from our cook.” He held it out to her and she folded it neatly and slipped it into her glove. “And you were correct. The price was indeed twenty-one guineas.”

  She clapped her hands together. “You are so kind! That is perfect!”

  His eyes tracked across the room to the papers on the desk. Harriet saw, a little tightness growing in her throat, that she had pulled the locked drawer a little proud of the surrounding timbers as she tugged on it. Wicksteed met her eyes and she felt her smile start to falter from within.

  “I hope you have all the information you need now, Mrs. Westerman, for your calculations.”

  His dry voice seemed to press on each of her vertebrae in turn.

  “I have enough for now, I think, Mr. Wicksteed.” Her own voice was perhaps a shade too light. “Thank you for your assistance.” She made
as if to go, but he did not move away from the door, lifting and dropping the catch, watching it closely.

  “Can I trouble you for a little news?” he said. “I hear Joshua Cartwright was taken ill last evening, and Mr. Crowther was attending to him. Have you heard anything further?” Harriet’s mouth went dry. He looked up at her. His eyes were shadowed and black.

  “He died early this morning,” she said in a low voice. “In terrible pain.”

  Wicksteed looked away from her to his rather meager view.

  “Poor gentleman!”

  He did not move, and continued to deliberately lift and drop the latch as if fascinated by its redundant clatter. Harriet waited for him to speak again, willing herself to keep still as the latch clacked again and again. When she thought another strike would cast her into hysterics, he suddenly stopped and spoke, and she could swear she heard some hiss in his voice.

  “It seems none of us, however well established, can be sure to avoid terrible accident and great reversal, does it not?” He smiled a dead smile and then, with sudden energy, pulled the door wide enough for her to pass. “But I am keeping you from your books.”

  Harriet found she had not the voice to reply, and passed him with a slight bow. She had to go so close she could smell his breath, a sweetness, overlaid with lavender. She hurried out of the house, and set off rather fast toward her own estate, her cheeks flushed and her heart dancing against her ribs.

  Mr. Graves was still too much concerned with what to do next for the children to note the air of collusion and triumph in the faces of Susan and Miss Chase over breakfast. The black box had yielded up some other treasures as he sat with it the previous night, and he was keen to know what the advice of the Chase family would be.

  “I have found the will, Mr. Chase,” he said, putting that document into the buttery fingers of his host.

  Mr. Chase nodded a little cautiously and, having drawn a pair of spectacles from his waistcoat, began to read.

  “You are named as the guardian of the children then, Mr. Graves.”

  Susan gave a little yelp of pleasure and Jonathan clapped his hands. Mr. Chase looked narrowly at Graves over the top of his spectacles as he grinned back at the children. “It is a heavy responsibility to place on one so young. I hope you will not take offense when I say I think it wrong of Alexander to place such a burden on you.”

  The children’s faces fell, but Graves put his hands out to them between the bread rolls and coffee pots.

  “I am sure he never thought it would be necessary to pass on their care. I am honored he thought so well of me.”

  Mr. Chase continued to frown. “Yes, yes. That is all very fine and noble, sir, and I know you are a good man. But are you indeed a fit guardian for such young people? You are hardly established in the world yourself.”

  Graves instinctively looked out into the street where Molloy had been standing the last day. His place was empty. He turned back to Chase, his face serious.

  “You are right, of course, sir. But I am in a position to take over the shop, if necessary, in a way those with greater concerns,” he dropped his eyes, “might not be able to do.”

  “Though that might be moot, given what we have discovered about Alexander’s family.”

  “As you say.”

  “But I told you what that man said!” Susan looked at them both, wide-eyed. “We must not let him know where we are. The people at the Hall sent him to kill us.”

  Mr. Chase looked very dark. “If that is so, Susan, they will be punished. But, you are right, my dear, do not be alarmed, we must be discreet.” He looked at Graves again. “What do you propose, Mr. Graves? You and the children have a home here as long as you require it.”

  “You are all kindness, sir.” Graves paused and then declared, “I propose to write to the local magistrate, if I can find out who he is.” And when Susan shook her head violently, “No, don’t worry, Susan, we can ask for any responses to be sent to the White Horse coffee shop. There is no need for us to tell them where we are.” Susan’s shoulders dropped again. “Then we can see where we are at.”

  “Very well, Mr. Graves. That seems sensible, but I would be glad to talk to you more on these subjects.” Mr. Chase placed his napkin on the tablecloth. “Perhaps you will walk out with me today. I wish to see what the situation is in the town and would be glad of your company. My daughter and wife will look to the children in our absence.” He turned to his daughter. “Indulge an old man, my dear. Do not go beyond our street. Mr. Graves and I will know more when we return, but I think the streets are still too rough for ladies today.”

  5

  The vicar looked deeply uncomfortable. “Surely the squire ...” he began.

  Michaels’s voice in reply was almost a growl. “Squire’s got work enough. Your word is as good as anyone’s in the parish, is it not?”

  The vicar decided not to answer directly.

  They made an odd little group in the back yard of Crowther’s house. Hannah, rather pale, but steady on her feet, Michaels like an oak walking, with his unsuspecting dog at his feet, the vicar, red in the face already, and Crowther with the bundle under his arm.

  “Right then,” Michaels announced. “First off, Hannah, I want you to have a look at the bottle there and say if it is the one Joshua drank out of last afternoon, and if it looks as it did when we sealed it after he was taken ill.”

  She stepped forward smartly enough as Crowther unwrapped his bundle and showed her the bottle. She bent forward and ran her finger over the seal.

  “Just as it was, sir.” She looked up at the vicar. “See, the wax we put around the stopper is just as it was last night. That’s the color of our kitchen candles. Look! There’s a bit where I let the wax fall crooked, because my hands were shaking a little.”

  The vicar caught Michaels’s eye and hurriedly leaned forward to peer more closely where she indicated. He looked about him and shuffled his feet.

  “Yes, I see, I see.”

  The door to the house opened with a clatter and they saw Mrs. Westerman step into the yard. She paused for a second to look at them, before saying, “Good morning, Crowther. Gentlemen, Hannah. Your maid tells me you are about to kill a dog.”

  The gentlemen bowed, and Hannah gave a friendly bob. Crowther replied rather wearily, “Indeed we are, Mrs. Westerman. At least, I fear so. Do you wish to observe?”

  “If I may.”

  Michaels turned to Hannah. “No need for you to stay now, if you don’t wish it, girl.”

  Hannah glanced quickly at Crowther. “I am not afraid to see it,” she said, “but the kitchen at home is still in an awful mess.”

  Crowther blinked at her. “I don’t doubt your stomach. Best go to your work though.”

  She smiled in return, and at Harriet as she passed.

  “I shan’t delay you by asking about Joshua’s kitchen,” Harriet said, “but if you are going to get that poor dog to drink liquor, had you not better pour it onto some meat of some sort?”

  The men looked at each other in surprise and nodded. Harriet sighed and turned back into the kitchen, emerging a few moments later with a piece of beef shank on a cracked plate, that Crowther rather suspected had been designed for his own dinner. The dog caught the scent and whined. Harriet passed him the dish, and she saw the face of his own servant appear, then disappear rapidly at the back window.

  “Mrs. Westerman, you are the handmaiden of science.”

  She did not deign to reply, but took a seat on the edge of the raised herb beds. Crowther broke the seal and poured a glassful or so of the liquid over the meat and into the bowl. The dog whined again, and Michaels reached down automatically to stroke her head and pull her soft black ears. Crowther hesitated. Michaels caught his movement and looked up at him with a sad smile.

  “Needs must, Mr. Crowther. Perhaps I shall put a sign over her grave saying ‘handmaiden of science’ too.”

  The dog looked up at her master and licked his hand. Crowther set down the di
sh, and Michaels pulled free the string around the little bitch’s neck. She ran to the plate and paused briefly to sniff it, and then got down to eating with an appetite. They stood around and watched her. The dog dragged the last scraps from the bowl, sitting down to enjoy them in a splayed crouch on the flagstones, looking up every now and then as if afraid the strange figures standing around her might try to snatch it away. More minutes passed, and the dog wagged her tail and looked as if she planned to sleep.

  Harriet wondered vaguely if she should ask Betsy to bring out tea. She plucked a sage leaf from the bush beside her and crushed it between her fingertips, holding it to her nose for the scent. There was a sharp whine and she looked at the dog. Her ears were back tightly on her head and she slunk to her master’s boot. Crowther picked up the dish by its extreme edge and took it to the pump, washing and filling it with water before putting it in front of the dog again. She sank her muzzle into it, lapping greedily, then whined and shivered again, then with a retch began to vomit. Crowther touched the vicar’s sleeve. He started a little.

  “Note the yellow bile. Typical of arsenic, and just as Joshua.”

  The vicar nodded, his eyes wide. Michaels got down onto his knees and rubbed the dog’s flanks, as she looked up at him. Harriet felt the back of her eyelids twitch. Crowther cleared his throat.

  “It will not take long.”

  The dog howled and scrabbled her legs, the nails scraping along the stone. Michaels kept his hand on her.

  “Easy there, my dear. Easy there.”

  The dog tried to lick his hand again, then gave a sudden yelp. Harriet set her jaw. The animal continued to whine and whimper and wriggle under Michaels’s heavy paw. Crowther folded his long limbs to crouch alongside him, looking into the dog’s pupils.