She kisses me on the forehead quickly, offering the room a last glance to make sure everything’s in order.
The steps have reached the hall, two sets of voices jumbled up and rolling on ahead. I recognise Dickie, but not the second one. It’s deep, urgent, though I can’t quite make out what’s being said.
‘Who’s with Dickie?’ I ask.
‘Lord Hardcastle most like,’ she says. ‘He’s been popping in and out all morning to check on you.’
That makes sense. Evelyn told me the butler was Lord Hardcastle’s batman during the war. Their closeness is the reason Gregory Gold is strung up in the room opposite.
‘Are things always like this?’ I ask. ‘The explanations arriving before the questions?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ she says, standing up and smoothing her apron. ‘Two hours, I’ve been at this, and all I’ve had are orders.’
Doctor Dickie opens the door, his moustache just as preposterous as the first time I saw it. His gaze passes from Anna to myself and back again as he tries to stitch together the torn edges of our hastily severed conversation. No answers forthcoming, he places his black medical bag on the sideboard and comes to stand over me.
‘Awake I see,’ he says, rocking back and forth on his heels, fingers thrust into the watch pockets of his waistcoat.
‘Leave us, girl,’ he says to Anna, who curtsies before exiting the room, casting me a quick glance on her way out.
‘So, how are you feeling?’ he asks. ‘No worse for wear from the carriage journey, I hope.’
‘Not bad—’ I begin to say, but he lifts the covers, raising my arm to take my pulse. Even this gentle action is enough to cause spasms of pain, the rest of my response mangled by a wince.
‘Little sore, hmmm,’ he says, lowering my arm once more. ‘Hardly surprising given the beating you took. Any notion what this fellow Gregory Gold wanted from you?’
‘I don’t. Must have mistook me for somebody else, sir.’
The ‘sir’ isn’t my doing, it’s an old habit of the butler’s, and I’m surprised by how easily it arrived on my tongue.
The doctor’s shrewd gaze holds my explanation up to the light, poking a dozen different holes in it. The tight smile he flashes me is one of complicity, both reassuring and a touch threatening. Whatever happened in that hallway, the seemingly benign Doctor Dickie knows more about it than he’s letting on.
There’s a click as he opens his bag, withdrawing a brown bottle and a hypodermic syringe. Keeping his eyes on me, he pokes the needle through the bottle’s wax seal, filling the hypodermic with a clear liquid.
My hand clutches the sheets.
‘I’m fine, Doctor, honestly,’ I say.
‘Yes, that’s rather my concern,’ he says, jabbing the needle into my neck before I have a chance to argue.
A warm liquid floods my veins, drowning my thoughts. The doctor melts, colours blossoming and fading into darkness.
‘Sleep, Roger,’ he says. ‘I’ll deal with Mr Gold.’
22
Day Five
Coughing up a lungful of cigar smoke, I open a new pair of eyes to find myself almost fully clothed on wooden floorboards, one hand lying victorious on an untouched bed. My trousers are around my ankles, a bottle of brandy clutched to my stomach. Clearly an attempt was made at undressing last night, but such a course appears to have been beyond my new host, whose breath stinks like an old beer mat.
Groaning, I claw my way up the side of the bed, dislodging a throbbing headache that nearly knocks me to the floor again.
I’m in a similar bedroom to the one Bell was given, the embers of last night’s fire winking at me from the grate. The curtains are open, the sky sagging with early morning light.
Evelyn’s in the forest, you need to find her.
Hoisting my trousers up to my waist, I stumble over to the mirror to better inspect this fool I now inhabit.
I nearly run straight into it.
After being shackled to Ravencourt for so long, this new chap feels weightless, a leaf being blown about by a breeze. It’s not too surprising when I see him in the glass. He’s short and slight, somewhere in his late twenties, with longish brown hair and bloodshot blue eyes above a neatly trimmed beard. I try out his smile, discovering a row of slightly awkward white teeth.
It’s the face of a rascal.
My possessions are sitting in a pile on the bedside table, an invitation addressed to Jonathan Derby on top. At least I know who to curse for this hangover. I sift through the items with a fingertip, uncovering a pocketknife, a weathered hip flask, a wristwatch showing 8:43 a.m. and three brown vials with cork stoppers and no labels. Yanking a cork loose, I sniff the liquid within, my stomach twisting at the sickly sweet scent that drifts out.
This must be the laudanum Bell was selling.
I can see why it’s so popular. Simply sniffing the stuff has filled my mind with bright lights.
There’s a jug of cold water beside a small sink in the corner and, stripping naked, I wash off last night’s sweat and grime, digging out the person beneath. What’s left of the water I tip to my mouth, drinking until my belly sloshes. Unfortunately, my attempts to drown the hangover only dilute it, aches seeping into every bone and muscle.
It’s a foul morning, so I dress in the thickest clothes I can find: hunting tweeds and a heavy black coat that trails along the floor as I leave the bedroom.
Despite the early hour, a drunken couple is squabbling at the top of the stairs. They’re in last night’s evening wear, drinks still clutched in their hands, accusations passed back and forth in escalating voices, and I give their flailing arms a wide berth as I walk by. Their bickering chases me into the entrance hall, which has been upended by the previous evening’s escapades. Bow ties are dangling from the chandelier, leaves and shards of a smashed decanter littering the marble floor. Two maids are cleaning it up, leaving me to wonder what it must have looked like before they started.
I try asking them where Charlie Carver’s cottage is located, but they’re mute as sheep, lowering their eyes and shaking their heads in response to my questions.