A Curious Beginning

“Perhaps you ought to do the sewing,” I said helpfully to Leopold. “Mr. Stoker seems a trifle upset.”


“I will stitch it myself,” Mr. Stoker contradicted. “Now, be quiet.”

I faded away again, slipping into unconsciousness, but it was the pain that brought me back again. I opened my eyes to see him with a needle in his hand, and when I tried to protest, he ordered Leopold to hold me fast as he worked. By then I had grown delirious and only ever remembered pieces of that night—the awful pain in my head, the fever that rose, higher and hotter, as Mr. Stoker worked over me, forcing open my mouth and pouring in a foul and familiar remedy.

There were pleasanter things too, a cold compress upon my brow and a murmur of reassurance when I fretted and tossed. I thought at one point that I was on board a ship—a ship that sailed on endlessly with no shore in sight, tossed upon a black, raging sea of pain that would not let me go. I wanted to drown in it, to slip overboard and let the deep carry me down, but every time I stepped towards the beckoning waves, something called me back, some sense of business left undone. At length I slept and the sea was quiet at last.

When I woke, my head still hurt but the pain was milder now, a dull discomfort instead of a hot knife into my temples. I moved a little, surprised at the stiffness and ache in my arm until I saw the bandage, white and neat as a nun’s habit, and the memory of it all washed over me like a crashing wave. The caravan was dim and I sighed in relief. It had been a short bout, then.

“You have been unconscious for two days,” Mr. Stoker informed me.

I looked to the little armchair where he sprawled. His eyes were sunk in exhaustion and ringed with grey shadows. “You look a fright,” I told him.

“Yes, well, I still look better than you. Could you take some soup? There is a little on the hob and you ought to have some nourishment.”

I nodded and he busied himself, returning in a moment with a battered tin cup and a spoon. The steam from the cup was fragrant and my stomach growled in anticipation. Stoker nodded.

“That is a good sign.”

Tenderly as a mother hen, he spooned soup into my mouth until the cup was empty.

“More?” I asked hopefully.

“Not just yet. Let that sit awhile, and if you manage to keep it down, you can have more in an hour.”

I turned my head to the windowsill to see that my jar was empty. “Where are my butterflies? The Vanessa and the Gonepteryx?” I demanded.

“I let them go. They were drooping and I felt sorry for them. Now, be still.”

He felt my brow then, impersonally, and when he had finished reached for my hand. He kept his finger on the pulse at my wrist for some seconds, then settled back with an air of satisfaction.

“How long have you had malaria?” he asked in a conversational tone. He was clearly pleased with himself for making the diagnosis, and for that he deserved the truth.

“Three years. How long have you been a doctor?” I wanted a little truth of my own.

He gave me a smile that was no less charming for his obvious fatigue. “Considerably longer than three years. And strictly speaking, I am not a doctor. I am a surgeon. How did you know?”

I gestured towards his right arm. “Your tattoo. The asklepian—a serpent twined around the staff of Asclepius. No one but a medical man would suffer to get that. And given the anchor upon your other arm and the Chinese dragon upon your back, I would say you were once a navy man as well.”

“Surgeon’s mate aboard the HMS Luna. We sailed the tropics mostly, although I saw a bit of everywhere.”

“And that is how you recognized the symptoms of malaria.”

“I noticed the bottle of Warburg’s Tincture in your bag when you took out the oil of calendula. Bitter stuff, that. Most commonly used for tropical fevers—and the most common tropical fever is malaria. I have been watching for the symptoms ever since I found the bottle among your things.”

“Yes, well, I have had no recurrence for almost a year. I had rather hoped I was finished. The tincture was simply a precaution.”

“Pity you didn’t take a few more precautions,” he said meaningfully.

“You mean like telling you,” I countered. “It’s very simple, really. I didn’t want you fussing over me. I wanted to be treated as an equal.”

“And it never occurred to you that you might begin by treating me as an equal? Veronica, you cannot expect confidences if you will not give them.”

I closed my mouth, struck by the truth of it. I gave him a nod. “A palpable hit, Mr. Stoker. Very well, I will trade you confidences, tit for tat.”

“All right. What do you want to know?”

“Why do you hide your identity?” I asked.