‘Father.’
I’m startled to find the freckled face of a young man with red hair and blue eyes inches from my own. I’m old again, sitting in my chair with the tartan blanket across my lap. The boy is bent at ninety degrees, hands clasped behind his back as though he doesn’t trust them in company.
My scowl shoves him a step backwards.
‘You asked me to wake you at nine-fifteen,’ he says apologetically.
He smells of Scotch, tobacco and fear. It wells up within him, staining the whites of his eyes yellow. They’re wary and hunted, like an animal waiting for the shot.
It’s light beyond the window, my candle long gone out and the fire down to ash. My vague memory of being the butler proves I dozed off after Gold’s visit, but I don’t remember doing so. The horror of what Gold endured – what I must soon endure – kept me pacing into the early hours.
Don’t get out of the carriage.
It was a warning and a plea. He wants me to change the day, and while that’s exhilarating, it’s also disturbing. I know it can be done, I’ve seen it, but if I’m clever enough to change things, the footman is as well. For all I know, we’re running in circles undoing each other’s work. This is no longer simply about finding the right answer, it’s about holding onto it long enough to deliver it to the Plague Doctor.
I have to speak with the artist at the first opportunity.
I shift in my seat, tugging aside the tartan blanket, bringing the slightest flinch from the boy. He stiffens, looking at me sideways to see if I’ve noticed. Poor child; he’s had all the bravery beaten out of him and now he’s kicked for being a coward. My sympathy fares ill with my host, whose distaste for his son is absolute. He considers this boy’s meekness infuriating, his silence an affront. He’s a failure, an unforgivable failure.
My only one.
I shake my head, trying to free myself of this man’s regrets. The memories of Bell, Ravencourt and Derby were objects in a fog, but the clutter of this current life is scattered around me. I cannot help but trip over it.
Despite the suggestion of infirmity given by the blanket, I rise with only a little stiffness, stretching to a respectable height. My son’s retreated to the corner of the room, draping himself in shadows. Though the distance is not great, it’s too far for my host, whose eyes falter at half the span. I search for spectacles, knowing it’s pointless. This man considers age a weakness, the result of a faltering will. There’ll be no spectacles, no walking stick, no aid of any sort. Whatever burdens are heaped upon me, they’re mine to endure. Alone.
I can feel my son weighing my mood, watching my face as one watches the clouds for an approaching storm.
‘Spit it out,’ I say gruffly, agitated by his reticence.
‘I was hoping I might be excused this afternoon’s hunt,’ he says.
The words are laid at my feet, two dead rabbits for a hungry wolf.
Even this simple request grates upon me. What young man doesn’t want to hunt? What young man creeps and crawls, tiptoeing around the edges of the world rather than trampling across the top of it? My urge is to refuse, to make him suffer for the temerity of being who he is, but I bite the desire back. We’ll both be happier beyond each other’s company.
‘Very well,’ I say, waving him away.
‘Thank you, Father,’ he says, escaping the room before I can change my mind. In his absence my breathing eases, my hands unclench. Anger takes its arms from around my chest, leaving me free to investigate the room for some reflection of its owner.
Books lie three thick on the bedside table, all dealing in the murky details of law. My invitation to the ball is being used as a bookmark and is addressed to Edward and Rebecca Dance. That name alone is enough to make me crumble. I remember Rebecca’s face, her smell. The feeling of being near her. My fingers find the locket around my neck, her portrait cradled inside. Dance’s grief is a quiet ache, a single tear once a day. It’s the only luxury he allows himself.
Pushing aside the grief, I drum the invite with my finger.
‘Dance,’ I murmur.
A peculiar name for such a joyless man.
Knocking perforates the silence, the handle turning and the door opening seconds later. The fellow who enters is large and shambling, scratching a head full of white hair, dislodging dandruff in every direction. He’s wearing a rumpled blue suit below white whiskers and bloodshot red eyes, and would look quite frightful if it weren’t for the comfort with which he carries his dishevelment.
He pauses mid-scratch, blinking at me in bewilderment.
‘This your room is it, Edward?’ asks the stranger.
‘Well, I woke up here,’ I say warily.
‘Blast, I can’t remember where they put me.’
‘Where did you sleep last night?’
‘Sun Room,’ he says, scratching an armpit. ‘Herrington bet me I couldn’t finish a bottle of port in under fifteen minutes, and that’s the last thing I remember until that scoundrel Gold woke me up this morning, ranting and raving like a lunatic.’
The mention of Gold takes me back to his rambling warning last night, and the scars on his arm. Don’t get out of the carriage, he’d said. Does that suggest I’ll be leaving at some point? Or taking a journey? I already know I can’t reach the village, so it seems unlikely.
‘Did Gold say anything?’ I ask. ‘Do you know where he was going, or what his plans were?’
‘I didn’t stop and sup with the man, Dance,’ he says dismissively. ‘I took his measure, and let him know in no uncertain terms I had my eye on him.’ He glances around. ‘Did I leave a bottle in here? Need something to quieten this damnable headache.’