Templebane nodded approvingly, his hands busy with a short-bladed shucking knife as he opened another oyster.
“Quite, quite. He has no malice in him, none at all. As solid and upright and clean as a new mast of Baltic pine is the Danish reverend. Which will make his testimony all the more credible, should we require it.”
Here he paused and slurped another oyster, tossing the shell out into the road. He chewed the unlucky bivalve once, to burst it, then swallowed with a shiver of satisfaction.
“Mark it, Coram: there is no better instrument of destruction than an honest man who has no axe to grind.”
And with that the panel slapped shut and Coram Templebane was alone with the horses and the fog that thinned as he drove up towards the higher ground of Goodman’s Fields.
CHAPTER 4
HAND IN GLOVE
Sara Falk crouched in front of the trembling young woman and smiled encouragingly at her.
“Lucy,” she said.
Lucy Harker just stared at the door through which Mr Sharp had led Ketch, as if expecting them to walk back in at any moment.
“Lucy. May I?”
She reached for Lucy’s neck, pushed away the hair, and then lifted the collar of the pinafore as if looking for something like a necklace. Finding nothing she sucked her teeth with a snap of disappointment and shook her head.
The eyes stayed locked on the outer door. Sara Falk moved into her field of vision.
“Lucy. You must believe the next three things I tell you with all your heart, for they are the truest things in the world: firstly, that man will never walk back through that door unbidden and he shall never, ever hurt you or anyone ever again. Mr Sharp is making sure of that right now.”
Lucy’s eyes flickered and she looked at the slender woman, her eyes making a question that her mouth could not, her body still tense and quivering like a wild deer on the point of flight.
“Secondly, I know you have visions,” continued Sara Falk, reaching out to touch the pitch-plaster gently, as if stroking a hurt away. “It’s the visions that make you scream. Visions you have when you touch things. Visions that make you wonder if you are perhaps mad?”
The eyes stared at her. Sara smiled and raised her own hands, showing the gloves and the two rings that she wore on top of them, one an odd-shaped piece of sea-glass rimmed with a band of gold, the other set with a bloodstone into which a crest of some sort had been carved.
“You are not mad, and you are not alone. As you see, others have reason to cover their hands too. And if you come with me into my house, where there is a warm fire and pie and hot milk with honey, we shall sit with my glove box and find an old pair of mine and see if they fit you.”
She removed the rings, reached for the buttons at the wrist of one glove, quickly opened them and peeled the thin black leather off, revealing the bare hand beneath. She freed the other hand even faster, and then reached gently for Lucy’s bound hands.
“May I?”
Lucy’s eyes stayed locked on hers as she gently began to unwrap one of the hands.
“I have something that will calm you, Lucy, a simple piece of sea-glass for you to touch, and I promise it will not harm you but give you a strength until we can find you one of your own—”
Lucy pulled her hand sharply away but Sara held on to it firmly and smiled as she held out the sea-glass ring: the glass, worn smooth by constant tumbling back and forth on a beach, matched Sara Falk’s eyes perfectly.
“You need to touch this—”
Lucy goggled at it, then ripped her hand out of Sara Falk’s, shaking her head with sudden agitation, emphatically miming “No!”
“Lucy—” began Sara, and then stopped.
Lucy was tearing at her own bandages, moaning excitedly from behind the tar and hessian gag. It was Sara’s turn to watch with eyes that widened in surprise as the rags wound off and revealed their secret.
Lucy freed one hand and held out a fist, palm up, jabbing it insistently at the older woman.
Then she opened it.
Clenched in her hand was another piece of sea-glass, its light hazel colour like that of Lucy’s own eyes.
Sara Falk’s face split into a grin that matched and made even younger the youthful face she carried beneath the prematurely white hair. It was a proud and a mischievous grin.
“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, you clever girl. Clever, clever girl! You kept your own heart-stone. That’s how you survived that awful man unbroken! Oh, you shall be fine, Lucy Harker, for you have sense and spirit. The visions that assault you when you touch things are a gift, and though it is not an easy one to bear, believe me that it is a gift and no lasting blight on your life.”
A tear leaked out of one of Lucy’s eyes and Sara caught it and wiped it away before it hit the black plaster.
“And this heart-stone, I mean your piece of sea-glass, does it glow when there is danger near?”