Teeth set tight as a ship’s hull and eyes glued to the mirror, I took in Mr. Quillfeather. He had aged, but not diminished, and the perennial forward sweep of his spine and the exaggerated arches of his nose and chin and brow would already have imparted an impression of relentless momentum without the additional trajectory of his steel-grey shock of hair as he swept off his shabby beaver hat.
“Quillfeather.” My employer quickly forced his features into neutrality, but this only left him resembling a tattered shoreline after a squall.
“I’ll come back after surveying the cellar?” Mr. Quillfeather proposed, voice retaining the old questioning lilt. “I’m before my time, I see—yes, three full minutes! Won’t you forgive me? I’ll just—”
“No, no, it’s all right.” Mr. Thornfield coughed. “Inspector Sam Quillfeather, may I introduce Miss Jane Stone, Sahjara’s governess?”
There was nothing for it: I forced my fists to unclench and turned to face the gallows.
He might not recognise you, not after so many years and so much sorrow, I told myself.
Gallantly, he made a neat bow over my hand; and then his eyes met mine, variegated hazel and canny as ever, and a spark flared to life, and I was caught. For Highgate House had been mine before my disappearance and here I was again, and he could not help but know me.
“Mrs. Stone, I take it?” he clarified. “It is very good to see you again in these parts. A country widow and so young?”
“No indeed, she comes to us from London.”
Mr. Quillfeather studied me, and then Mr. Thornfield added his curious gaze to the already potent atmosphere, and I was just considering the benefits of throwing myself into the fireplace when the inspector waved his hand in the air.
“Of course, of course, I must have momentarily mistook her? The older I get, the more everything and everyone manages to remind me of, well, of something or someone else entirely? Pleased to meet you, Miss Stone.”
“Likewise,” I managed.
The floor was opening like a pit beneath me, gravity turned upside down.
“Was Miss Stone affected by these dreadful events?” Mr. Quillfeather asked, politely addressing Mr. Thornfield.
The trail of bodies, oh God, he knows, he must know, first Edwin for certain and then Vesalius Munt in all likelihood, and now there just happens to be another carcass needs burying and here I—
Mr. Thornfield hesitated not a whit. “Miss Stone arrived downstairs first following the crash which alerted us, and suffered injury at Jack Ghosh’s hands—but thankfully, he was already bleeding out. I’ll show you the window and the glass, naturally, but it’s all quite straightforward. Hoisted upon his own petard at last, if you’ll pardon my satisfied tone, Quillfeather.”
“Nothing to pardon, my good man! You suspect Sack’s behind this?”
“I should be a simpleton not to.”
“Yes, yes, we’ll work it out between us, won’t we? How was the young lady injured?”
“Torn scalp. It bled considerably, and she nary made a sound. If you ask me, the blackguard could have died for that alone and I should have said good riddance,” Mr. Thornfield droned in his haughtiest tone even as his eyes dared me to contradict him.
“Might I see, Miss Stone?” Sam Quillfeather asked gently.
What could I do? I bent my head, and Mr. Thornfield cupped my nape in a tender touch I did not think planned, and Mr. Quillfeather tutted, “Shameful, Thornfield, simply shameful,” and I raised my face after a gentle press to my neck preceded both men stepping back.
“What luck it was only a minor insult?” Again Mr. Quillfeather turned to Mr. Thornfield for confirmation, and the latter nodded curtly. Then the inspector glanced back at me.
“A painful hurt, and a lucky escape,” he repeated. “Frankly, it . . . reminds me of something, Miss Stone?”
A torn sleeve and a cousin dead at the bottom of a ravine. My mouth turned instantly dry.
“Jane, why don’t you lie down for a little?” Mr. Thornfield suggested, the gash between his brows thickening. “These have been trying times, and for no one more than yourself. Go to the parlour and try the settee—I’ll be along after I post Quillfeather here, all right?”
“Just the thing—can you make it unescorted, Miss Stone?” the inspector asked, bending forward solicitously.
“Yes,” said I. “Please don’t concern yourselves.”
“We’ll talk further soon,” Charles Thornfield said, voice as tight as it was fond. “Sleep if you can, but we shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
“Take your time. Excuse me, gentlemen.”
When I walked into the corridor, I paused for only a second; one glance at the packed trunk persuaded me to leave it behind. It contained nothing I wanted, not without Mr. Thornfield, and I carried the cheque and my collection of letters in my reticule. Walking at first, then sprinting, I raced for the stables and ordered Nalin saddled and after stealing the horse he had given me, I rode hell for leather towards the village.
TWENTY-FIVE
Some say there is enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this day I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on.