The Dark Water

by David Pirie

  ‘Why, Dr Doyle,’ he said, ‘are you back in the town, sir?’

  ‘Only on a visit,’ I replied. ‘I intended to catch Dr Bell. I know my way.’

  ‘I am sure you do,’ he said. He was staring at me now, no doubt thinking I must have fallen on hard times, for though I had done my best with my appearance it was hardly that of a prosperous traveller. ‘But you will not find him, sir. He is in Berwick at a funeral. Professor Fleming died earlier this week.’

  Professor Fleming had been an elderly anatomy teacher of some repute. I had never met the man and at that moment dwelt only on how inconvenient his death was to me. ‘When is he expected?’ I asked, trying to disguise my disappointment.

  ‘Why, he only just left, Dr Doyle. He will be away three days.’

  I thanked him and turned away, thinking furiously. There was nobody else at the university I could turn to. My friends were all long departed and I had no real rapport with any other teacher besides Bell. Of course in the past, I would have gone home but that was now impossible too, for there was no home for me here — not since my mother had decamped to Masongill in Yorkshire where Waller had his estate.

  As I walked those frosty streets, trying to keep up my spirits, I considered the position. Obviously I must await the Doctor’s return. But what could I do in the meantime? I had been sent away to school so I had no old school friends here. I suppose I could have approached some of my family’s older acquaintances; my mother still had friends here. But I had not heard from them in years and what exactly was I supposed to say? The idea of turning up in this condition, effectively begging for board and lodging, was simply not to be countenanced. Almost the first thing they would do is to contact my mother. I would rather freeze on the castle mound than that.

  Eventually I turned back down the hill towards Princes Street. Looking at it and the new town beyond, it suddenly occurred to me that there was one other person in the world who knew something of what I had endured from Cream. Sarah Carlisle was the sister of Elsbeth, the woman Cream had killed purely to spite me.

  I had not, it is true, told Sarah, whose husband was a knight and a member of parliament, everything that happened. But she knew from me that her sister had died at the hands of a man who was still at large, even if the authorities refused to accept this. Other than Bell, she was the only person in the world who might believe and understand the significance of what had happened to me. The house was down in the new town and I resolved to walk to it.

  Trudging back down the hill, I started to feel the cold and also my own hunger. A little of my strength had returned, but it would not last long unless I found some food and shelter. The money Middleton had given me was already exhausted.

  After about half an hour, I reached the Carlisle house, which lay in an imposing street, and stood before its magnificent doorway. Of course I had no knowledge Lady Sarah would be here and I was doing my best not to think about her husband, a raffish, self-important man who had made a packet in the colonies. Ever since I first set eyes on the man at the university, playing up to an adoring band of students, I had disliked him and did so even more after the night I saw him swaggering lecherously into one of the brothels of the old town. Indeed for a time, I had been quite convinced he was the murderer we sought.

  In the end he was proved innocent, and Bell told me shortly afterwards that Sir Henry seemed genuinely chastened. But that was years ago and I had no idea whether he had returned to his old habits. Nor, I thought as I stood on that doorstep raising my hand to the knocker, did I have any great wish to find out.

  It was after all a weekday morning, which gave me every hope I would find Lady Sarah at home. The knock rang out and I waited a little while for a servant to come. On the last occasion it had been a friendly housemaid, though when Sir Henry had been at his most imperious, an odious manservant had done his bidding.

  Still I waited. It seemed hard to believe the house was empty. It looked quite as prosperous as ever and I knocked again. Finally I heard footsteps and the door did open, but it opened slowly. At first I could see nobody, for a figure had stepped back a little into the shadows. And then I saw his face.

  Sir Henry had not aged badly. He had always been a good-looking man, if a trifle ruddy in complexion. Now his face was more lined but had lost none of its sensuality. I was startled, all the more so because he was staring at me, not in surprise but fascination. Why had a servant not come? I had never known Sir Henry to open the door in his life and where was Sarah?

  He must have seen my expression. ‘A thousand pardons, Doyle,’ he said, ‘for it is you and you have not changed so much. You will wonder why I open the door and show so little surprise. I saw you coming from my study and was curious. So I said I would greet you myself. Come in now.’

  He beckoned me to step inside and I did so, grateful at least for the warmth. The interior was pleasant enough. A lamp burnt brightly against the winter gloom, there were flowers and a smell of polished furniture. All of this showed Lady Sarah’s touch, but there was something about Sir Henry’s tone I did not like any more than the fact he had been observing me. Indeed I almost preferred his old hauteur to this curiosity, which made me feel like some strange and not particularly wholesome specimen on a slab.

  A housemaid came into the hall now and bobbed. ‘Ah, Rose, you may remember Mr Doyle — I beg your pardon, Dr Doyle. Please bring some refreshment to my room, I am sure he is tired.’

  We entered his drawing room, which was much as I remembered it with rich hangings and a blazing fire. ‘Ah,’ said Sir Henry, rubbing his hands, ‘I forgot to say, I am sorry that Lady Sarah is not here. She visits with an aunt in Harrogate, and will be away for a week more. She is back for Christmas, of course.’

  So all my hopes were dashed again and I felt suddenly overcome by despair. There was nobody else in this town to turn to and I could hardly trespass for long on the hospitality of a man who was once my sworn enemy. Still, I thought, I might as well take advantage of his refreshments. They were sorely needed. And so I sank down miserably into the comfortable armchair he indicated.

  The chair was by the fire and was one of the most luxurious I had ever encountered. For a moment, as I enjoyed the warmth of the blaze on my legs and the softness of the cushions below me which contrasted sharply with the train’s hard boards, I almost lost track of the fact Sir Henry had been speaking to me.

  ‘… of service?’ he was saying. It was obviously a question but I had no idea of the rest. Presumably he was asking in polite terms what in heaven’s name I was doing there.

  ‘I merely wished to pay my respects to Lady Carlisle,’ I said. ‘I have absolutely no wish to intrude.’

  ‘No no,’ he said. ‘You misunderstand me. I said I wish to be of service to you. I wish to offer that to you.’

  I was a little confounded by these words. Admittedly, I had missed their beginning but what exactly was he talking about? I had walked off the street to his house for the first time in several years, and he spoke as if he were waiting here only to oblige me.

  ‘Of course I am very grateful for your kindness but I have no intention of disturbing your work, Sir Henry.’

  At this he smiled as if I still misunderstood him but before he could say anything further there was knock and the maid entered with a tray. I had expected some tea with perhaps a few biscuits. Instead, to my joy but also to my perplexity, there was a feast on the tray: bacon, oatcakes, some sausages, toast, porridge, scones, butter and poached eggs, not to mention coffee and milk. My eyes fairly bulged.

  ‘I was quite sure you would want some real sustenance,’ said Sir Henry. ‘There was plenty left over from breakfast. Now I suggest I leave you to it for a short time while you do the best you can with this and then I will return and we can talk.’ And, once the food was laid out, he smiled and went out, closing the door.

  I really did not know what to make of this but I was in no mood to hesitate. I ate as much as I could. Then I drank two cups of coffee. After
that, feeling far more robust, I returned to the problem at hand.

  I decided there could only be one rational explanation. Sir Henry had indeed been chastened by the experiences some years earlier. Perhaps he spent more time at home now and had become lonelier and altogether more charitable. No doubt he saw me as an opportunity to practise his charity, possibly because he felt guilty about his past dealings with me. Here was the only possible conclusion, yet it squared so little with the man I had once known that I did not come to it easily.

  The maid appeared to clear away the things and I sat on there, feeling pleasantly sleepy and wondering where Sir Henry had gone. No doubt it was the warmth of the fire and the copiousness of the meal but soon I was falling asleep.

  I heard the door open and Sir Henry was back with me. I opened my eyes with difficulty.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘You have dined well, I hope?’

  ‘I am most grateful,’ I said, forcing myself to be more alert. ‘And now I am sure I should not trespass on your kindness any longer.’

  ‘My dear fellow,’ said Sir Henry, ‘I would hope you are going to stay here for a few nights. I would take it as a means of repaying past wrongs I may have done you. It is a long time ago but not forgotten.’

  That certainly was true. For in this very room I had once denounced Sir Henry before his wife and been ejected from his house. Of course, given my predicament, his offer could only be extraordinarily welcome, and yet it also made me feel uneasy. Even if he was consumed with the need to make amends, it still seemed odd and why did he not ask me more about myself? For all he knew I was already staying somewhere else in the town.

  ‘You are very good,’ I said. ‘I would like to explain something of what has brought me to Edinburgh …’ At once I started to relate some utter fiction about a misunderstanding with Dr Bell over dates but, to my astonishment, Sir Henry stopped me.

  ‘Much better,’ he said, ‘not to go into it now. There will be plenty of time for such things and I have a visit to make, in any case. Can I just say that the house here will be at your disposal? The maid is a good enough girl as you saw and you can summon her by the bell on the wall. There is a tolerably comfortable room on the second floor, and you may come and go as you please.’

  I was so taken aback by all this that I found myself almost wondering if he had some design against me. But how could that be so? It is true Sir Henry’s fall had been harsh, but Bell thought he was a chastened man. And, if he wished to take revenge, he could surely have accomplished it years earlier while I was still at university. It seemed only sensible, therefore, even though I sensed something behind his manner, to accept this gift from the gods. I had nowhere else to go and did not much welcome the chance of dying of cold in the streets. So I thanked him, telling him it would indeed be convenient for me to stay a few nights, since I was awaiting the Doctor.

  I was testing the ground, expecting his face would fall at the prospect of having me under his roof for that length of time. On the contrary he became positively effusive. ‘Of course, of course,’ he said. ‘Now I will get Rose to show you your room. And from there you may do as you please. I will look forward to talking to you over dinner.’ And he rang the bell.

  The room I was shown was a large and comfortable bed chamber high up on the second floor with its own dressing room and water closet, containing all necessary toiletries.

  There was also a desk at the window and Rose informed me that I could ring for whatever I liked from there or come down to the sitting room and ring its bell if I preferred. The master would not be returning until we both dined at eight.

  After she left, I looked down from the window and saw Carlisle enter his carriage. Once it had driven off, I stared round at my handsome quarters with surprise but a sense of foreboding. Once I had been treated as an enemy of this house and now, for reasons I could not fully grasp, I was being given the run of it.

  THE UNLOCKED DOOR

  Despite my apprehensive feelings, I was determined to put the opportunity to good use. I began by restoring a little dignity to my personal appearance. I bathed and washed and shaved. Then I sat at the desk and started to write some notes of my experience, making sure, of course, they would mean nothing to anyone else who should read them, but concentrating largely on trying to establish dates and places.

  Hours later, when I came down to dinner and a roaring fire, Sir Henry informed me with satisfaction that it was bitterly cold outside. I had already observed the frost on the windows and was happy to express my gratitude. But he waved it away. An excellent dinner followed, though I was too weak to do it justice and, under the eye of Sir Henry, I was all too aware how my hands shook. On my own I was less conscious of my condition, but in company it was obvious I was still far from fully recovered. Sir Henry clearly wanted to put me at my ease and did his best to talk about innocent subjects we might have in common. After he had finished outlining some of the more recent events in the medical school, we turned to politics and the failed attempt of Irish-American terrorists to blow up the office of The Times in London. I knew far less about this than he did and after that we moved on to the new commercial railway venture which had made its inaugural journey between Paris and Istanbul seven weeks earlier. It was strange to me to think I had read with interest about the Orient Express only a short time ago, for it seemed like another world.

  At last we repaired to the sitting room and he offered me a liqueur, which I declined. Then he helped himself to brandy and leant back in his chair for a time, regarding me ruminatively. ‘You are probably wise,’ he said at last. ‘It is something on which a man can become reliant, something that can in certain circumstances sap his strength. I am sure both of us can think of other things like that.’

  I supposed I knew what he meant, but the last thing I wished to discuss was his lecherous activities in the old days so I said nothing at all and then changed the subject, proposing that I would have an early night.

  His eyes gleamed a little. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have found mental and physical rest a great solace. Sometimes to be honest with you I will admit that I have weakened, but my wife has not often had any reason to complain. That is why I am happy to provide any help I can offer to a fellow sufferer.’

  This was too much. There was some other agenda in his charity, even if it was an unaccountable one. And why did he include me in his miserable self-reproach?

  ‘I fear I do not quite understand what you mean, sir,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘It is a painful thing to admit even to oneself, let alone to a fellow. I have no wish to hear the details unless you wish to tell me them. But you might be interested in the experiences of an old campaigner in that regard. A fellow who has been in the same boat.’

  His eyes were glittering again and, as he lingered over the phrase ‘an old campaigner’, there could be no mistaking the ‘campaign’ he meant. He was talking about women or more precisely the pursuit of them. Even if he was now reformed — a question I had absolutely no wish to explore — for some reason this man had got it into his head that I had had similar experiences and tastes to him. Perhaps some student gossip was the cause. After all, during that investigation, Bell and I had frequented some of the old town’s more notorious streets and brothels. It was perfectly possible that Sir Henry recalled or mis-remembered some idle malice he had heard at the time. Was this why he had been so welcoming? Did he anticipate exchanging some lustful memories of past temptations and conquests?

  I forced myself to control a deep sense of revulsion. It was not so much his lust that I found despicable, as all the hypocrisy I associated with it from the old days. My contempt for this man had once been intense, nor had he been any friend at all to his wife’s sister Elsbeth, the woman I loved. In fact, she hated him. At that time, faced with such provocation, I would certainly have got to my feet and quit his house. But now I was less headstrong and had just escaped death at the hands of my true enemy, so the stakes were far higher. I told my
self Elsbeth herself would have cautioned me to hold back my rage rather than risk freezing to death before I could even describe to the Doctor all that had happened.

  Even so, I was not prepared to be humiliated. ‘I think you are making some mistake,’ I said with more gentleness than I felt. ‘I am not aware we have been in the same boat, as you put it, except of course in the awful crimes we once saw perpetrated in this city.’

  He showed not the slightest offence. ‘Indeed,’ he said and he became a little more solemn, ‘that was something we shared, but I was not referring to that time. I was merely alluding to — how shall I put it? — a similar propensity. But please, I am not at all surprised you do not wish to take me into your confidence. I hardly expected you would. I am happy for you to rest and recuperate here as long as you wish. I only meant to let you know I understand the nature of the struggle we men sometimes have to endure in our hearts, that is all. Now let us move on to other matters.’

  And with that he returned to the topic of Watkin’s proposal for a tunnel under the Channel. Sir Henry thought the project was a risk to the security of our islands, but I was barely listening, for now I was truly baffled. This could not be some rumour from long ago. He had specifically excluded ‘that time’ and in any case, if it were, he would be far less certain of what he was saying. What was he referring to? The more I thought about it, the less I liked his tone. But for the moment I had no real wish to raise the subject again.

  Somewhat to my relief, Sir Henry was out again most of the next day and did not dine with me that night. He had some dinner to attend at which he was speaking and slept in late the following morning. I took the opportunity to return to the university and was pleased to discover Bell was expected quite soon, possibly the next morning.

  Then I made a solitary pilgrimage along Leith Walk to the Rosebank cemetery, which I had last seen when there were leaves on its trees. The grave lies beside a low wall right at the back and not far from a large ash tree. Its wording is very simple.