Instruments of Darkness

by Imogen Robertson

  “Mrs. Dougherty! My companion here is Mr. Crowther. A physician.” She could feel Crowther tense beside her as she said the word, but he did not protest. “We should like to see Lord Thornleigh.” She gave a matter-of-fact sort of smile.

  The little woman in front of them looked confused. She rubbed her hands on the linen of her apron and pushed a stray lock of hair back under her cap.

  “He is not a freak show, Mrs. Westerman. I am not sure my mistress ...” There was a movement behind them. The maid they had rescued from being beaten in the courtyard put her head in the doorway. Her hair was neat again, the wound from Wicksteed’s crop still vivid, but clean.

  “I’ll take them, Mrs. Dougherty.” She paused. “Mr. Wicksteed and Lady Thornleigh are taking a walk in the lavender garden.”

  Mrs. Dougherty twisted her hands, then shrugged her thin shoulders.

  “Very well. Very well.” She then put her head on one side and asked with an unconvincingly casual tone, “I suppose Mrs. Heathcote has not yet had an opportunity to try my jugged hare recipe?”

  Harriet graced her with a full-beam smile.

  “We are to enjoy it this evening, but she acknowledged you the master as soon as she looked through your notes.”

  The little woman’s chin lifted triumphantly. “Indeed. Most fair-minded people would confess I know what I am about.”

  That seemed to form their dismissal; they let themselves be led by the maid.

  “I am called Patience, ma’am,” she said, before they had gone many steps.

  “I am glad to know you,” Harriet told her.

  She conducted them to the back stairs, and lifting her long skirts began the ascent to the upper rooms where Lord Thornleigh had been so long confined.

  2

  Daniel Clode was anxious. Having made good speed through the night, his progress into town was much delayed by the volume of traffic leaving the city. The possibility that he might be too late to prevent some injury to the children pressed him on. The road was crowded with coaches and wagons full of nervous-looking men and weeping women, their possessions bundled around them, children crying and complaining on their laps. The occasional horseman, head down, his animal panting and sweating, flew by, out of town. What horrors, what news needed to reach their masters at such a speed? It seemed as if the populace were fleeing a plague.

  He stopped long enough at the last respectable-looking coaching house outside Southwark to hear a little of the riots and to change horses while he crammed his mouth with hard white rolls and weak beer. He would never get used to the chalk in the London bread, or the stink of the water in the basin where he washed his hands. How people could survive in a city where the necessities of life were so treacherous, he would never know. The landlord was too busy with the full road and the panicked commands of his guests to say much, but the serving girl was glad to talk while he ate, keeping herself tucked behind a bend in the wall to hide her idleness from her master. Clode was the sort of man serving girls spent their time over and smiled at. Not that he had ever been aware of it himself. Mostly, as now, his mind had been more concerned with other matters.

  “Half the city is on fire, they say.” She twisted a thin cord of her hair in her fingertips and examined the black ends as if she could read her fortune in them. “And the other half as like to burn as not.”

  Clode nodded, wiped his mouth and reached for the other white roll on the table, his hunger fiercer than his distaste for it.

  “They say even the Jews have put up blue banners and writ ‘we are all good Protestants here’ on the shop fronts.” She sniggered. “Didn’t know they could even write English. Just counting they do, isn’t it?”

  When Clode spoke he sent a spray of plastery crumbs onto the table. “Lots of people know how to write.”

  She shifted her weight onto one hip and lifted an eyebrow. “Well, I’ve never had need of it here.”

  The move exposed her to the view of her master.

  “Sephy! There’s other men need serving here!”

  She looked over in his direction, her face a pinched figure of boredom and disgust.

  “Coming!” Then, dropping her voice lower, “I shall turn witch and curse the old goat. I know what service he wants.”

  She turned and sashayed away, looking back over her shoulder to offer a full smile.

  Clode stood, and was out of the door again before his coins had stopped ringing on the tabletop.

  They were beyond the level of the state rooms and climbing still into the more rarely used parts of the house before they spoke again.

  “How is the wound?”

  The maid paused and turned on the stair.

  “It smarts, ma’am, but it will heal. I shall not stay here, though. This Hall is evil in its bones. I feel these things.”

  She turned to continue the climb.

  “I have sometimes wondered if this place had an evil at its heart,” Harriet said.

  Crowther had seen too many evils done by living breathing men blamed on malignant spirits, even on God Himself. He saw it as excuse, an abnegation of responsibility. A weakness. He spoke sharply.

  “For myself, Mrs. Westerman, I regard such things in the same manner I do the folk tales of sleeping with a pig’s bladder under your bed to bring on the birth of a male child, or leaving bread out for the fairies. I believe in what I can touch and see. If I do not understand it, I think that is a fault of my own intelligence, not proof of its otherworldly nature. I answer the questions of science—the rest I leave to priests and mystics.”

  He realized he was speaking with impatience, and regretted it. The women, however, seemed too lost in their own thoughts to catch, or be offended, by his tone.

  “There is evil here,” murmured the maid. “I can touch it in this house. I can feel it.” Then, “We are nearly there.”

  They climbed another flight into the uppermost rooms of the house, and Crowther found his eyes struggling in the gloom. The wide-open proportions of the lower stories tightened and shrank here, and he had to fight the inclination to stoop as they stood on the bare floorboards of the upper landing.

  “Lord Thornleigh is cared for in the old nursery.”

  Crowther felt his skin crawl as they moved through the shadows.

  “Is there anything you can tell us about Lord Thornleigh’s current condition?” he asked. Patience turned toward him and blinked slowly.

  “He can’t speak. He can hardly move. He sleeps most times, but sometimes his eyes are open. He is fed food that does not need to be chewed and a cup is held to his lip to allow him to drink.” The maid paused. “I think he misses Nurse. He seems a lot less calm since she died. None of us likes to share the room long with him.”

  Harriet stayed the girl’s arm just as she reached for the handle on one of the corridor’s tobacco-brown doors.

  “Does Lady Thornleigh visit him?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes she visits him alone—at other times she does not bother to send us away. Not Mr. Hugh though. He never comes.”

  She turned the handle.

  After the gloom of the narrow upper corridor, Crowther was not prepared for the plain white walls of the room he now entered. It gathered the available morning light and threw it at him, so he blinked in the doorway. As his eyes adjusted, he picked out the fireplace, a maid shuffling up onto her feet next to it, placing her needlework down beside her, and only then he saw the high-backed chair facing her. It was as massive as a medieval throne. Encircling the back was a thick belt of leather. Another was visible on the arm of the chair. Crowther could see that it held in place a thin arm in a loose linen shirt, ending in a hand so white it was almost translucent, the fingers twitching convulsively every few seconds.

  Harriet turned to the girl who had brought them up. “Thank you, Patience.”

  Crowther heard the click of a coin, felt the girl begin to leave. The maid, who had stood, protested.

  “Tell them only another hour! I shan’t stay longer th
an that.”

  Patience closed the door without replying. The maid turned to them both with a frown. She was a squat little thing, red in the face, and her hands looked too rough to be doing fine needlework. Her eyes flicked from Crowther’s face to Harriet’s and back.

  “What happened to her face?” she asked, referring to Patience.

  Harriet looked at her a little coldly. “Some disagreement with Wicksteed.”

  The squat maid screwed her own face up like an old handkerchief. “That little shite.”

  “Take your seat,” Crowther instructed her.

  She did so with a shrug.

  Harriet waited at the door while Crowther walked around the chair till he could let his eyes fall on this Lord Thornleigh, Earl of Sussex, Baron of Pulborough, Companion of the Arms, one of the richest men in society. He was ready for the sight, but he still felt a cold sliver of shock twist into his spine.

  The man in the chair was perhaps between sixty-five and seventy years old. His head had been shaved recently, and his scalp was dusted with new growth. The body was thin and wasted, a transparency wrapped around a skeleton. He would have certainly tumbled under his own weight, were he not held to the back of the chair by the thick leather band under his arms, which kept him pinned upright on his throne. Lord Thornleigh was dressed in a shift, and there was a rug over his knees. His arms were bound to the arms of his chair at the wrists. His jaw was slack, his head slumped loosely to one side, a thin sliver of drool hung from his mouth. His eyes were half-shut.

  Crowther bowed. “Lord Thornleigh, I am Gabriel Crowther. I am a . . . physician. May I examine you?”

  He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the saliva from the man’s mouth. As he did so, Lord Thornleigh’s eyes flicked up to his face. They were dead and empty, but still of such a startling ice blue Crowther almost leaped back. They reminded him of his own. Then Lord Thornleigh began to yowl softly. It was not unlike the cry of a baby in its formlessness, but it was older and more animal. Crowther thought of a wolf he had shot in Germany in his youth. It had not been a clean death and the despairing broken growl had affected him to the extent that he had never hunted again. He thought of it now looking into the white face in front of him. He glanced up and met Harriet’s eye. She looked a little sickened.

  Crowther took the thin flesh of the lord’s right hand between his fingers and pinched hard. The hand jerked, and the sick man yowled again.

  “Forgive me, my lord. I wished to understand the capacity for sensation in your limbs.” He watched the skin he had pinched drop back into place with the slowness of age, the blood retreat and return under its thin and failing protection. “Now if I may, I shall release your arms and look at you more closely.”

  He bent over to undo the strap at the elbow and took the bird-like weight of the man’s arm between his hands. He glanced up again into the lord’s face. The dead blank look of a few moments before had dissipated. The eyes looked conscious and, to Crowther’s astonishment, afraid. The lord’s yowling increased in pitch and volume.

  “Indeed, my lord, I promise you I shall not hurt you again, and any discomfort will be slight.”

  He did not know if he had been heard or understood. Lord Thornleigh was still looking at him, confused and unhappy. Crowther felt a coldness growing from the base of his stomach.

  The maid was on her feet again.

  “Aww! He’s upset. Perhaps he wants his necklace.”

  Harriet and Crowther looked at her in surprise. She was opening a box on the mantelpiece by her chair, and turned toward them with a locket hanging from a thin silvery chain in her hand.

  “Here it is now, don’t fret.”

  Crowther felt the convulsion in the thin arm. Lord Thornleigh’s head jerked violently from side to side; the yowl increased in pitch and volume as the maid approached, holding the chain open ready to drop it over his head.

  “For God’s sake!” Crowther slapped it out of her hands so it flew across the room and skittered to a halt under the window. “Can’t you see he does not want it?”

  As it hit the floor Lord Thornleigh trembled and the yowl dropped to a mewl. The maid stood back, outraged, with her hands on her hips.

  “Well! I’ve never seen the like! Understand him, do you? Well, you can care for him then. My lady said we were to put it round his neck from time to time as a treat. He’s excited, that’s all. She said it was a gift from all his sweethearts. She brought it in on Sunday before church. Thought it was a sweet gesture after his nurse up and hanged herself.”

  Harriet had crossed the room and picked up the necklace. It was a cheap little thing—she had seen peddlers sell such trinkets for a shilling and thought the price exorbitant. She opened it, revealing a curl of blond hair, nothing else. She snapped it shut again.

  “His sweethearts have not been especially generous.”

  The maid stood tall. “I expect it has associations, ma’am.”

  “Not pleasant ones, judging by my lord’s reactions.”

  “Nonsense. He was just excited.”

  “Did he get excited like that when Nurse Bray was in charge?” Harriet looked at her hard.

  The maid’s eyes narrowed. “Nurse Bray wasn’t a very exciting woman, if you ask me.”

  Crowther was gently pushing up the sleeve of Lord Thornleigh’s shift.

  “We didn’t ask you anything about Nurse Bray. You may—” He stopped suddenly. Harriet froze and looked at him. He spun round. “What is this?”

  He moved so that Harriet and the maid could see the quivering forearm he held. Harriet’s hand flew to her mouth. On the almost fleshless underside of Thornleigh’s right arm were a series of deep cuts. Parallel, fresh, struggling to heal, they shone against the blue of his skin.

  “How should I know?” the maid blustered. “He scratches himself sometimes. His hands fly about when they aren’t tied down.”

  “Nonsense. This is deliberate. These were made with a knife, and not by Lord Thornleigh’s own hand.”

  “Nothing to do with me, I just watch here and do my sewing.”

  “Get out.”

  She needed no further excuse, and slammed the door behind her. Harriet came into Thornleigh’s vision; he flinched, then as suddenly relaxed. She curtsied to him then looked at the wounds.

  “There are seven.”

  “Seven wounds. Yes.” Crowther bent over the man before him. “My lord, can you understand me? Will you blink once if you can?” The ice-blue eyes skittered back and forth over the room. “Please, my lord. Just try and listen to me. Blink once if you can understand me.” Again the gaze flittered around, glancing across Crowther’s face. Harriet could hear steps outside.

  “Crowther ...”

  “Please, sir. Just try.” For a moment the eyes locked onto Crowther’s own. The lids dropped and rose again. The door burst open. Lady Thornleigh stood on the threshold. It was as if a phoenix had torn off the front of a dovecote.

  “Mrs. Westerman. What do you mean by this?”

  Harriet moved smoothly forward. “Lady Thornleigh! I do so hope you are feeling better . . .”

  Lady Thornleigh held out her hand in front of her as if driving Harriet off.

  “Do not play the lady with me! You come here to torture my husband, do you?” She turned toward Crowther. “Size him up for specimens, perhaps?” Lord Thornleigh began again his low moan of distress. Lady Thornleigh did not look at him as she said, “Don’t worry, my love. I shall bury you in a lead-lined coffin as soon as your time comes.”

  “Is it you that has been torturing him, Lady Thornleigh?”

  Crowther asked conversationally. Rage made the woman even more beautiful than he had seen her before.

  “Get out! Get out at once! I cannot wait to see what the county will make of you now, when the story of this little adventure is known. I hope your husband is no longer interested in a parliamentary career.” Harriet merely folded her wrists in front of her and smiled. “Get out, I said! Now!” Lad
y Thomleigh crossed to the chair and shoved Crowther away, placing her husband’s arm on the chair again, and busying herself with the buckle that held his arm in place. “If you have not left by the time I have fastened this strap,” she continued with a growl, “I shall have my footmen throw you out bodily on to the highway.”

  Harriet and Crowther made their bows and turned to go, leaving Lady Thornleigh to the straps, her husband’s voice rising and falling with all the lonely desperation of the last soul in hell.

  3

  Harriet and Crowther climbed into the woods where Brook had died. They reached the bench and Harriet sat, covering her face. Crowther lowered himself at her side and waited. The crows bleated above them, the breeze turned a few of the leaves over in its palms. Harriet’s shoulders stopped shaking, and after a few minutes she pulled out her handkerchief and blew her nose loudly.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Not at all, Mrs. Westerman. Are you recovered?”

  “No.” She looked intently in front of her, as if trying to fix her own house and home in her mind, to drive out the other. “What horrors, Crowther. My head is spinning with them. How can a man be in that condition and live?”

  Crowther rolled his cane in his hands. Its foot buried itself among the debris of the ground at their feet with a cracking spin.

  “He has been well cared for—at least until recently. Alexander sent a good nurse. I doubt many doctors could have kept him alive so long.”

  “But his mind . . . ? Did you really believe it might be possible to communicate with him?”

  “The body does not always reflect or obey the mind that dwells within it. I think he is conscious of himself and his condition. At moments, anyway.”

  Harriet shuddered and leaned forward, putting her chin in her hand.

  “What is the significance of the locket, do you think?” she asked. “From all his sweethearts . . .”

  “I told you of the squire’s suspicions regarding the death of the young girl.”