The Curse of the House of Foskett

by Kasasian, M. R. C.

  ‘The very first person I shall write to is you,’ Edward promised.

  ‘I shall not hold my breath,’ I said. ‘It took you three weeks to reply to your brother’s last communication.’

  ‘Well, this time you can.’ Edward pulled out a chair and sat at the table.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hold your breath,’ he said.

  I took a deep gulp and stood peering over his shoulder as he dipped the nib of his pen.

  ‘My Darling March,’ he wrote. ‘Thank you so much for my wonderful present. I shall treasure it always but not one jot as much…’ he re-dipped his pen, ‘as I shall treasure you for the rest of my life.’ He glanced back and up at me pinching my nose and going red with the effort, as he finished with deliberate slowness. ‘With all my heart, your ever-loving…’ he paused as I went purple, ‘Edward.’

  I let out the air and took a deep a breath. ‘Beast.’ He blotted the paper. ‘And you haven’t put any kisses on it.’

  ‘I did not think you had enough breath left for those.’ Edward smiled and stood up. ‘And I have not enough ink to give you all the kisses that I want to. Besides which…’ He took me in his arms. ‘I wanted to give them to you myself.’

  No one can describe love or happiness, but at that moment I had so much of both that I thought I would burst.

  27

  Poison and Predators

  Kew was much quieter than it had been for the royal visit and, without the crowds, there were no stalls or beggars – only a crossing boy sweeping the road with a tied bunch of twigs, some fine ladies flaunting their peacock-feathered bonnets in their carriages, and a salt carter clacking his rattle for the kitchen maids to run out of the big houses and purchase a block.

  ‘Why do we alight so far from the house?’ I asked as we walked along the side of the gardens.

  ‘It is a question of honour.’ Sidney Grice tugged his hat a little lower. ‘We cannot turn up at the front in a two-wheeler. It would be an insult to the noble blood of our hostess.’

  I stumbled on a loose slab. ‘Can I ask what happened to Rupert?’

  ‘You can and you have.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Rupert was a lion fed to the Christians. He forgot all my refutations and allowed the desperation of hope to drown his logical abilities in the swamp of blind faith.’

  ‘Are you an atheist?’ I asked and Sidney Grice paused in his stride.

  ‘When I have the time I shall investigate the matter. If there is a God, be sure of it, I shall track him down. And when I do, he has a great many things to account for. Rupert was a missionary in the tropics, but the natives decided they would rather eat a white man than listen to his sermons. They cooked him live for two days over hot coals, I was told. Apparently they believe that the louder and longer their victim screams, the more evil spirits he frightens away.’

  He cupped his nose and mouth in his left hand.

  ‘All the more reason to bring them the word of God,’ I said. ‘At least he died doing that.’

  ‘I am sure it would have been a great consolation to him.’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘A good master looks after his servants. One cannot help but wonder if God is a gentleman.’

  ‘Perhaps he is a she,’ I suggested.

  We turned the corner.

  ‘What a terrifying thought.’ He rang the bell and Cutteridge appeared almost at once from the ruins of the right-hand gatehouse. ‘Though it might explain the illogicality of creation.’

  ‘Do you think God could be a woman, Cutteridge?’ I asked when he had admitted us.

  ‘I do not imagine that a woman could be so cruel, miss,’ he said.

  ‘Also, there are no fashion tips or knitting patterns in the Bible,’ my guardian said and I laughed.

  ‘Why, that was almost witty,’ I said and he looked mildly indignant.

  ‘It was a serious theological point.’

  As we made our way through the undergrowth, Sidney Grice stopped to listen. ‘The dogs sound restless.’

  ‘Mastiffs do not like being kennelled, sir. I let them out at night to patrol the grounds.’

  A clamour of snarls and yaps cut through the air.

  ‘Are they as aggressive as they sound?’ I asked as we rounded a huge flowerless rhododendron.

  ‘A would-be burglar and his boy scaled the wall to the north of the property once,’ Cutteridge told me with a small shudder. ‘We heard their cries from inside the house. There was a full complement of staff in those days. Three gardeners and two footmen tried to beat them away with poles, but her ladyship was the only one who could command them. By the time she had been roused and called them off, it was difficult to imagine that what was left had been human.’

  ‘But how do you control them now?’ I stepped sideways to avoid a patch of thistles and almost trod on the remains of a viper curled in the soil and riddled with maggots. The head was missing. Whatever had taken that – a fox perhaps – would surely be dead by now.

  Cutteridge tilted his head in the direction of the barks. ‘I don’t, miss. I open the cage with a wire from the scullery and I throw horsemeat into it to lure them back. You can see the enclosure from the window. Once I miscounted and one of them got into the house and tried to mount the stairs. I was compelled to run it through with the fourth baron’s double-handed sword. Mind your face, miss.’ He held back a bramble for me. ‘Her ladyship was most annoyed and docked the cost from my wages.’

  ‘How many dogs are there now?’ Sidney Grice asked as we came to the gravelled clearing.

  ‘Fifteen, sir.’

  We turned another right and all at once it came upon us – Mordent House, tall, bleak and forbidding, its emptiness taking us in as we climbed the algae-green marble steps, its rancid air suffocating me as we entered the decayed hall, its corruption crushing me as we mounted the quivering stairs.

  ‘Did you observe that the lacewing has gone?’ my guardian asked me in hushed tones as if still mourning its passing.

  ‘It has probably been eaten.’ I hastily stepped up as a board cracked under my weight.

  ‘What a fine portrayal.’ Sidney Grice pointed to a darkly varnished painting on a far wall – Actaeon, having been turned into a stag, being torn apart by the goddess Diana’s dogs. ‘If you look carefully you can still make out gouts of his flesh dripping in the first hound’s mouth.’

  ‘And you thought a female god would be kind,’ I said, but Cutteridge made no sign of having heard me. He seemed to age with every step we ascended and his hand was shaking as he tapped on the oak panel.

  ‘Wait here, please.’ He entered the darkness, and a match flared and died while the candle flame grew into a glimmering halo, giving just enough glow to show us the outline of our chairs and the gauze box before us.

  ‘Sidney,’ the speaking tube hissed the moment we were seated, ‘is there no escaping you?’

  ‘Many have tried,’ my guardian said.

  ‘And many have succeeded,’ the baroness responded and his face fell. ‘Perhaps too many to enumerate, but permit me to essay. Thomasina Norton, exempli gratia. I am accurately informed that she slew two men whilst entrusted by her progenitors to your incommensurate care. I hope your present ward has no murderous intents.’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said and she rasped, ‘You have spirit, child, but do not fear. He will soon destroy that as he lays waste all things that are lured into the lair of his existence.’

  ‘Mr Grice has given me his protection,’ I said.

  ‘Just as he did with Horatio Green and Edwin Slab? A flimsy shield indeed behind which to shelter.’

  ‘I offered them no protection, Baroness.’

  The speaking tube clattered.

  ‘I am bored with you already – stifled and stultified almost to a state of mental paralysis. Why have you come?’

  ‘I am concerned for your safety, Lady Foskett. It does not appear that you can extricate yourself from that death society—’

  ‘I have already made my position clear,’ th
e voice broke in, husky and metallic, ‘and you cannot possibly have misconstrued it. The Last Death Club is my whoreson progeny and I mean to sustain it to its sour conclusion. I shall not permit any member to withdraw from their compact with me, nor shall I tolerate any interference with its constitution from you or any other man of woman born.’

  I saw Sidney Grice’s fingers twitch on his knees. ‘At least will you take some steps to protect yourself?’

  There was a dry throaty rustling. ‘Who can harm me when I cannot harm myself? Do you think Cutteridge will let an assassin into the house?’

  ‘He is only one man,’ I said.

  ‘I have a title, child. Kindly use it.’

  ‘And so have I,’ I said. ‘It is Miss. I may be a child to you, Lady Foskett, but you are elderly and I do not address you as old woman.’

  The baroness wheezed furiously. ‘You are an impudent hussy.’ She coughed four times. ‘But you are right. I am not dependent only on Cutteridge for my security, Miss Middleton. I have my dogs of war and when they are unleashed there is not a man on the slime of this earth who can hope to overcome them.’

  ‘Even so, your home is not impregnable, Lady Foskett,’ my guardian told her. ‘Two members of your society have been poisoned already. Will you at least have your food tasted?’

  ‘I could employ the services of small children.’

  ‘An excellent idea,’ my guardian said.

  ‘Ah, what unbridled joy I could obtain in observing their terror, perhaps even watching them writhe and die.’

  ‘I was thinking more of using their sensitive taste buds to detect any toxins.’

  There was a thump of boot on wood. ‘Stick to the terms of your employment, Mr Grice. When, as I so fervently desire, my rancid soul absconds to join the ragged battalions of the damned you will be at liberty to investigate its departure with all your limited powers. But, for so long as the sulphurous fumes of this tortured world continue to flood my alveoli, leave me in my squalid solitude.’

  Sidney Grice shrank where he sat. ‘Lady Foskett…’ he began, but did not seem to know how to continue.

  ‘See them out, Cutteridge,’ the voice exhaled and I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘Out… out…’ The voice faded.

  My eyes were getting accustomed to the light now and I could just make out her figure, tiny and erect in the high-backed chair, a long dress flowing over the platform, a veil over a shadowed face.

  ‘If you please, sir, miss.’

  We stood up and in the fluttering candlelight our projected darknesses stretched and bent, separated, twined and swayed, spectres of Sidney Grice and me locked in a danse macabre before we were torn apart again.

  ‘Goodbye, Baroness Foskett,’ I said, but only an exhalation responded.

  The stairs creaked more than ever and twisted under our feet as we made our way down.

  The sky was overcast and the path slippery and waterlogged by a shower. ‘The wind is getting cold,’ I observed as Cutteridge unlocked the gate.

  The dogs were clamouring and Cutteridge surveyed the sky. ‘There is a storm gathering, if I am not mistaken, miss.’

  A crow shrieked.

  ‘Predators.’ My guardian buttoned up his coat. ‘They are everywhere.’

  28

  Two Nurses and the Marquess of Salisbury

  Two nurses were stripping the bed next to Inspector Pound’s when I arrived.

  ‘Nice old chap,’ he said. ‘Came in with a cut finger and ended up with his arm off. He never recovered.’

  ‘And how are you feeling?’

  ‘Never felt better.’

  He did not look it. His face was white again and beaded with sweat, there were dark hollows beneath his eyes and a slight tremor in his hand as he held it out to me.

  ‘I have brought you a pork pie. It is still warm.’ I opened my brown paper bag to show him, and he twisted his head but could not lift it to look. ‘And two bottles of bitter from the Bull, poured less than twenty minutes ago. Would you like some pie now? I have a knife.’

  ‘Thank you. Perhaps later. I feel a bit green to tell the truth – and hot.’

  I pulled the blanket down and saw that his sheet was stained brown with old blood and that his gown was damp and clinging to his shoulders.

  ‘This patient’s bedding needs changing,’ I told the nurse and she snapped round.

  ‘Did it this morning.’

  ‘She did,’ he confirmed. ‘I expect the wound is weeping a bit. A couple of stitches pulled out but the surgeon is coming tomorrow.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  Inspector Pound clutched his blanket. ‘Hold on, Miss Middleton.’

  ‘I have worked as a nurse in three different countries,’ I said and took hold of the sheet.

  Inspector Pound let go and closed his eyes, as if not seeing me looking at him made it more respectable. Perhaps it did for him. I loosened his bandage and saw the wound was seeping pus. I pressed lightly on his stomach and he yelped involuntarily. His skin was hot and rigid with muscle contractions.

  The nurses were going.

  ‘Get me some carbolic acid,’ I said and they looked nonplussed. ‘Now.’

  ‘You can’t order us about.’ They put their hands on their hips.

  ‘I will give you two minutes,’ I said and they both hurried away.

  The inspector managed a smile. ‘I could do with a few of you in the force.’

  ‘Women?’

  He shivered and I covered him again.

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to think of you as a woman sometimes.’

  He meant it as a compliment, but I knew how he would have reacted if I had told him he was not like a man.

  ‘Do you believe in germs?’ I asked as he gingerly put a hand to his side.

  ‘I am not sure. I know Florence Nightingale says they are nonsense.’

  ‘Florence Nightingale is a wonderful woman,’ I said, ‘but she believes that fresh air cures everything. If that were the case why would agricultural workers be decimated by disease?’

  ‘By the poisonous miasma produced by the smells of cow dung.’ His voice was fading as the nurses returned with a blue bottle, a bowl and a stack of cotton squares.

  ‘Hold his arms,’ I said. ‘I am sorry but this will smart.’ I pulled out the cork and the fumes stung my eyes as I poured it on to his stomach. The inspector arched up and cried out.

  ‘Ruddy hell!’

  ‘Kindly moderate your language,’ the younger nurse scolded.

  ‘Cripes!’ he yelled, writhing as I wiped the muck from the wound.

  ‘I am sorry,’ I repeated and tossed a foul-smelling swab into the bowl.

  He cried out again and mercifully fainted.

  Matron marched over. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

  ‘What you should have done,’ I said, scooping out what infected matter I could and throwing the wad away.

  ‘You will leave this instant.’

  I trickled some of the carbolic over the wound. ‘He needs a clean bandage,’ I told the older nurse, ‘and please wash your hands first.’

  I wiped my hands as best I could on the remaining squares. ‘You can watch this man die or you can try to kill the cause of his infection.’

  She wagged a fat finger at me. ‘You are an insolent little madam.’

  ‘I am also the Marquess of Salisbury’s goddaughter,’ I told her. ‘The choice is yours.’ And I left.

  My father and I had seen the marquess go by in a landau on his way to the India Office once so I was only exaggerating a bit.

  ‘Do not be such a baby,’ I said as you clung on to your trousers.

  ‘If I were a baby I should not mind, but I am a man and it is not decent.’

  ‘Very well then,’ I said. ‘Bleed to death.’

  You tried to tell me it was only a scratch, but your trouser leg was saturated and when I eventually managed to coax you and clean the wound I could see your femoral artery exposed, as if by car
eful dissection rather than the careless slash of a comrade’s sabre in a mock duel. I saw your life pulse through it. One sixteenth of an inch more and you would have been dead. They say it takes less than half a minute. My father arrived with his suture needle and you fainted clean away, though we told you afterwards that you had not.

  You had a bit of a limp after that but I suspect you played it up, hoping the men and other girls might think you had been injured in action, besides which everyone knew that Lord Byron had a club foot so it was dreadfully romantic. You did not need to fake it for me. There never was a more romantic man. I still have that rose crushed and dried in my journal to prove it. Who else would risk their life because I loved a flower?

  *

  ‘I have just been to see Inspector Pound,’ I told my guardian on my return.

  ‘I know.’ He was fiddling with the levers on a metal box, another of his inventions.

  ‘How?’

  ‘You reek of carbolic acid. It almost masks the smell of tobacco and gin and parma violets. So, since you are clearly anxious to tell me, how is he faring?’

  ‘Not very well,’ I said. ‘His wound is suppurating and he has a fever.’

  He rifled through a tangle of wires and bolts and tools on his desktop and extracted a small screwdriver. ‘He is a strong man.’

  ‘Will you not visit him?’

  He tightened two screws on the side of his machine and turned it upside down. ‘For what reason? He is not involved in any of the cases I am investigating.’

  ‘To see how he is.’

  ‘You have just told me how he is.’ He took a bolt out and put it to one side. ‘I must find someone who will make a better coiled spring.’ He hinged a panel sideways to open a square hole.

  ‘To show your concern,’ I suggested.

  ‘How can I show that which does not exist?’ He picked up a pair of pliers.

  ‘Do you really not care?’

  ‘He is a good policeman in a world of incompetence and corruption and I should miss that, but my weeping at his bedside will not heal him any the quicker. Give him my regards if you wish.’ He poked the pliers through the hole and grasped something. ‘Now’ – there was a loud click – ‘if Cook uses this as instructed we should never have another lump in our creamed potatoes again.’