Now it’s my turn to be flummoxed.
Since my initial confusion passed, I’ve tried not to dwell upon my condition. If anything, the loss of my memories has proven a frustration rather than a tragedy, my inability to recall Anna being one of the few moments when it’s seemed anything more than an inconvenience. Thus far in the excavation of Sebastian Bell I’ve unearthed two friends, an annotated Bible and a locked trunk. Precious little return for forty years on this earth. I don’t have a wife weeping for our lost time together, or a child worrying that the father she loved might not return. At this distance, Sebastian Bell’s life seems an easy one to lose and a difficult one to mourn.
A branch snaps somewhere in the forest.
‘Footman,’ says Evelyn, my blood immediately running cold as I recall the Plague Doctor’s warning.
‘What did you say?’ I ask, frantically searching the forest.
‘That noise, it’s a footman,’ she says. ‘They’re collecting wood. Shameful, isn’t it? We don’t have enough servants to stock all the fireplaces, so our guests are having to send their own footmen to do it.’
‘They? How many are there?’
‘One for every family visiting, and there’s more coming,’ she says. ‘I’d say there’s already seven or eight in the house.’
‘Eight?’ I say in a strangled voice.
‘My dear Sebastian, are you quite all right?’ says Evelyn, catching my alarm.
Under different circumstances I would welcome this concern, this affection, but here and now her scrutiny only embarrasses me. How can I explain that a strange chap in a plague doctor costume warned me to keep an eye out for a footman – a name which means nothing to me, and yet fills me with a crippling fear every time I hear it?
‘I’m sorry, Evie,’ I say, shaking my head ruefully. ‘There’s more I need to tell you, but not here, and not quite yet.’
Unable to hold her questioning stare, I look around the clearing for a distraction. Three trails intersect before striking off into the forest, one of them cutting a straight path through the trees towards water.
‘Is that—’
‘A lake,’ says Evelyn, looking past me. ‘The lake, I suppose you’d say. That’s where my brother was murdered by Charlie Carver.’
A shiver of silence divides us.
‘I’m sorry, Evie,’ I say at last, embarrassed by the poverty of the sentiment.
‘You’ll think me awful, but it happened so long ago it barely seems real,’ she says. ‘I can’t even remember Thomas’s face.’
‘Michael shared a similar sentiment,’ I say.
‘That’s not surprising, he was five years younger than me when it happened.’ She’s hugging herself, her tone distant. ‘I was supposed to be looking after Thomas that morning, but I wanted to go riding and he was always pestering me, so I arranged a treasure hunt for the children and left him behind. If I hadn’t been so selfish, he’d never have been at the lake in the first place, and Carver wouldn’t have got his filthy hands on him. You can’t imagine what that thought does to a child. I didn’t sleep, barely ate. I couldn’t feel anything that wasn’t anger or guilt. I was monstrous to anybody who tried to console me.’
‘What changed?’
‘Michael’ – she smiles wistfully – ‘I was vile to him, positively horrid, but he stayed by my side, no matter what I said. He saw I was sad and he wanted to make me feel better. I don’t even think he knew what was happening, not really. He was just being nice, but he kept me from drifting away completely.’
‘Is that why you went to Paris, to get away from it all?’
‘I didn’t choose to leave, my parents sent me away a few months after it happened,’ she says, biting her lip. ‘They couldn’t forgive me and I wouldn’t have been allowed to forgive myself if I’d stayed. I know it was supposed to be a punishment, but exile was a kindness, I think.’
‘And yet you came back?’
‘You make it sound like a choice,’ she says bitterly, tightening her scarf as the wind carves through the trees. ‘My parents ordered my return, they even threatened to cut me out of the will should I refuse. When that didn’t work, they threatened to cut Michael out of the will instead. So here I am.’
‘I don’t understand, why would they behave so despicably and then throw you a party?’
‘A party?’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Oh, my dear man, you really have no idea what’s happening here, do you?’
‘Perhaps if you—’
‘My brother was murdered nineteen years ago tomorrow, Sebastian. I don’t know why, but my parents have decided to mark the occasion by reopening the house where it happened and inviting back the very same guests who were here that day.’
Anger is rising in her voice, a low throb of pain I’d do anything to make go away. She’s turned her head to face the lake, her blue eyes glossy.
‘They’re disguising a memorial as a party and they’ve made me the guest of honour, which I can only assume means something dreadful is coming for me,’ she continues. ‘This isn’t a celebration, it’s a punishment, and there’ll be fifty people in their very finest clothes watching it happen.’
‘Are your parents really so spiteful?’ I ask, shocked. I feel much as I did when that bird hit the window earlier this morning, a great swell of pity mingled with a sense of injustice at life’s sudden cruelties.
‘My mother sent me a message this morning, asking me to meet her by the lake,’ she says. ‘She never came, and I don’t think she ever meant to. She just wanted me to stand out there, where it happened, remembering. Does that answer your question?’
‘Evelyn... I... I don’t know what to say.’
‘There’s nothing to say, Sebastian. Wealth is poisonous to the soul and my parents have been wealthy a very long time – as have most of the guests who will be at this party,’ says Evelyn. ‘Their manners are a mask, you’d do well to remember that.’
She smiles at my pained expression, taking my hand. Her fingers are cold, her gaze warm. She has the brittle courage of a prisoner walking their final steps to the gallows.
‘Oh, don’t fret, dear heart,’ she says. ‘I’ve done all the tossing and turning it’s possible to do. I see little benefit in your losing sleep over it also. If you want, you could make a wish in the well on my behalf, though I’d understand if you have more pressing concerns.’
From her pocket she pulls out a small coin.
‘Here,’ she says, handing it to me. ‘I don’t think our pebbles did much good.’
The coin travels a long way, hitting rock rather than water at the bottom. Despite Evelyn’s advice, I hitch no hopes for myself to its surface. Instead, I pray for her deliverance from this place, for a happy life and freedom from her parents’ machinations. Like a child I close my eyes in the hopes that when I open them again, the natural order will be overturned, the impossible made plausible by desire alone.
‘You’ve changed so much,’ mutters Evelyn, a ripple of emotion disturbing her face, the slightest indication of discomfort when she realises what she’s said.
‘You knew me before?’ I say, surprised. Somehow it never occurred to me that Evelyn and I might have had a relationship prior to this one.
‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ she says, walking away from me.
‘Evie, I’ve been in your company for over an hour, which makes you my best friend in this world,’ I say. ‘Please, be honest with me. Who am I?’
Her eyes criss-cross my face.
‘I’m not the right person to say,’ she protests. ‘We met two days ago, and only briefly. Most of what I know is innuendo and rumour.’
‘I’m sitting at an empty table, I’ll take whatever crumbs I’m fed.’
Her lips are tight. She’s tugging her sleeves down awkwardly. If she had a shovel, she’d dig herself an escape tunnel. The deeds of good men are not related so reluctantly, and I’m already beginning to dread what she has to tell me. Even so, I cannot let this go.
‘Please,’ I plead. ‘You told me earlier I could choose who I wanted to be, but I cannot do that without knowing who I was.’