‘You were discussing a murder together, not having an assignation.’ Elisabeth was silent for a moment. ‘Had you been alone with Gregory since . . . ?’ I shook my head. I had been alone with the professor on far more occasions than was good for even my reputation, but not since the night he had saved my life. Or rather, the morning afterwards, when we had shared breakfast and secrets and his mouth had been so close to mine . . .
The door slammed and I nearly leapt out of my skin.
As if on cue, Randall’s voice sounded in the hall, and the ruddy-cheeked lecturer entered, beaming at his wife. Behind him, shaking the snow off his hat, was Merchiston. I was uncomfortably aware of my bare feet and loose hair, and scrambled around for the pins I had pulled out and tossed carelessly on the floor. Elisabeth plaited my hair swiftly as her husband greeted us and Merchiston looked everywhere but at me.
With the exception of our sleuthing partnership, outside the university our paths rarely crossed. Although he and I were both friends of the Chalmerses, ever since we had almost kissed, he contrived to be working late whenever I was expected at dinner, and when he was expected, I found myself needed urgently at home by my aunt.
‘Miss Gilchrist.’ He nodded.
‘Professor,’ I replied awkwardly. How was it that this morning we had been simpatico, and now we could hardly look at each other? Maybe, I thought glumly, I was only capable of polite social interaction with a man when in the presence of a dead body. Well, that would enliven my sure-to-be dull marriage.
Dinner was stilted – Randall refused point-blank to allow us to discuss murder, medicine or politics over our meal and I realised anew how limited my conversational skills had become since moving to this freezing ice block of a city.
Even Elisabeth was on edge. ‘Do you have to call them both “Professor” while we’re around the dinner table?’ she grumbled. ‘It’s so starchy. It’s like sitting in an examination.’
‘Except if we were in an examination, Miss Gilchrist would at least be quiet.’ Merchiston grinned. There was no warmth in it.
I felt my fists clench next to my plate.
She frowned. ‘I thought the students were tested verbally?’
His smile was wintry. ‘That’s what I meant.’
I had choked in the Christmas exams, I knew I had. Too little sleep and too much worrying – over the exams, over my engagement, over the unspeakably rotten year I had endured – and by the time I was standing in front of Professor Merchiston, all I could remember was the look in his eyes as he stood before me, spattered with the blood of my friend and mentor.
He had passed me anyway – with a mark just shy of being insulting – and we had never spoken about it until now.
‘That doesn’t sound like Sarah.’ Elisabeth shot me a concerned glance. Her look was already more interest in how I had got on than my aunt and uncle had shown.
‘I was as surprised as you, believe me. But there was no sharp retort or know-it-all rejoinder to be found. Pity, I’d been looking forward to an argument over potassium solutions.’
I bit my tongue so hard it bled. I wanted to tell him he was an ass; that I had performed exceptionally in every essay I handed in, every test he set. That standing in front of him with Mrs Mitchell – a widowed schoolteacher with a sour expression and bad breath – eyeing us suspiciously had made all my words evaporate. That I had spent most of my first term convinced he was a murderer and I had realised in that moment I had been right all along. I would have liked to see him rattle off equations and dosages and medicinal properties under those conditions.
Randall and Elisabeth watched me carefully, waiting for my explosion. Instead, I concentrated on cutting my chicken into smaller and smaller pieces until it was practically minced.
‘I do hope it isn’t your forthcoming nuptials that have you so distracted?’ Merchiston asked, tone dripping with feigned concern.
‘I believe my last essay proves that my mind is on my studies, nowhere else.’
He snorted. ‘Poor chap.’
The man I had spent several companionable hours with that morning was gone, and so were whatever small shoots of friendship had started to emerge.
‘You’re in a filthy mood. We’ll take our dessert into the parlour once we’re finished here. You may join us when you’ve decided to be civilised.’
Merchiston winced – Elisabeth’s gentle temper made those times when she was angry all the worse.
‘I’m sorry, ladies. I have a rotten headache and it’s making me irritable. I should have dined at home tonight.’
‘But then we wouldn’t hear what the police have to say about that poor girl’s death,’ she reminded him sweetly.
‘Really, Lizzie, that is hardly dinner-time conversation,’ Randall grumbled. ‘Or appropriate conversation for ladies at all.’
He wasn’t looking at me, but I knew where his comment was directed. I felt a pang of guilt that I was corrupting my friend with my ghoulish fancies – but why shouldn’t Elisabeth take an interest? She had been there as well, and she was hardly a simpleton.
Still, she kissed him on the cheek, wagged a warning finger at Merchiston and, as our plates were taken away, practically dragged me into the parlour.
‘What on earth was that all about?’
‘He’s a beast,’ I muttered. ‘He wasn’t doubting my competence when I was slicing open Clara Wilson’s torso this morning.’
Damn. Merchiston hadn’t said it in so many words, but I suspected he meant for me to keep our grisly labour a secret.
Elisabeth’s eyes were like saucers, and she pushed away her chocolate torte.
‘What?’
I cleared my throat awkwardly. ‘The, ah, professor allowed me to assist on the autopsy.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’ Her eyes shone with hurt. ‘Sarah – were the two of you alone?’
‘No.’ It wasn’t entirely a lie.
‘Allow me to rephrase,’ she interjected crisply, lips pinched in fury. ‘Were the two of you alone aside from the dead body of your future mother-in-law’s maid?’
I nodded reluctantly.
‘You could be sent down for something like that! Not to mention what would happen if your aunt found out. And now you’re having dinner together – if anyone heard, they’d think I was facilitating an assignation. I’d lose my position, Randall would be in danger of losing his . . . Sarah, do you have any idea how reckless you’re being?’
I hadn’t thought of it like that. As usual, I had only thought of myself and my own insatiable curiosity.
She closed her eyes for a moment, looking pained. ‘As your friend, I have to ask. Has anything improper occurred between the two of you?’
I had accused him of murder, seen him shirtless and brawling, watched as he killed a woman and saved my life and then come within half a breath of having his mouth on mine. ‘Improper’ didn’t come close, and yet I knew what Elisabeth meant. She wanted to know if we had kissed, truly and incontrovertibly. If this morning’s post-mortem was merely an excuse for him to get me alone and his behaviour this evening a smokescreen for his feelings. She didn’t mean the unsettling bloom of fondness I couldn’t quite quash even when I wanted to hurl my plate at him; she was concerned about furtive meetings and dishevelled clothing.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat at the thought.
‘I promise, nothing of that nature has happened. And it won’t – he’s my professor, nothing more.’
If it was a lie, I didn’t know what could disprove it, what words could be found to capture this fragile camaraderie he kept dashing.
‘You took her to the bloody morgue?’ Randall’s voice boomed out. I winced.
‘I needed an assistant and she’s perfectly capable when she isn’t panicking in an exam or getting herself into trouble.’
Perhaps he didn’t think I was a complete idiot after all.
Randall stormed through, a black expression on his face. ‘I should have sent you all home immedia
tely. I don’t know what I was thinking, treating you like you were—’
‘A man? You have no problem with my studying to be a doctor,’ I snapped, stung. ‘It’s a little late to worry about my fragile feminine emotions now!’
‘This is murder, Sarah,’ he sighed. ‘Not a class test or a penny dreadful. A woman has been killed and you’re treating it like an academic exercise.’
‘I’m already involved,’ I argued. ‘It happened while I was in the house, I know these people better than any of you. Just let me be useful.’
‘Useful doesn’t mean locking yourself away with a man while you dissect a cadaver unchaperoned. The dead may tell no tales, but all it takes is one living person to start a rumour that could end both of you. Despite what you think, Sarah, I don’t see you as weak or fragile – I’d like to see you finish your studies and practise medicine, and that won’t happen if you’re sent down for immoral behaviour.’
‘You’re wrong.’ Merchiston had been silent, staring into the fire as we argued, but now he was looking up at us. ‘The dead have an awful lot to say, and Miss Gilchrist was invaluable in helping me translate. More than I had expected – I can show you, if you think you can keep down that marvellous dinner we just enjoyed.’
I met his gaze. ‘I’ve dissected an arm less than an hour after lunch and I didn’t so much as heave. Show me, Professor.’
Randall moved to protest, but Elisabeth gave him a warning glance and he settled in a chair by the fire with a resigned grumble.
Merchiston placed a series of photographs on the table in front of me. Whatever nerve my brain thought it possessed, the rest of me violently disagreed. Somehow it was worse seeing it in reproduction. Up close, I could get a sense of the living, breathing woman that Clara had once been. Here, in smudgy sepia, it felt voyeuristic. I wasn’t examining her in the pursuit of scientific knowledge; I was just satisfying my idle curiosity. I had no right to stare at the wound on her head the way one might examine a painting, taking in each brushstroke and striation. And yet I couldn’t look away. Somewhere here was the answer to the puzzle.
‘Look here, at the bruising around her mouth. And her eyes were bloodshot when I removed them.’
He looked at me as though this were another examination.
‘Suffocation,’ I whispered. It was a horrible thought.
‘As I suspected, when whoever attacked her hid her body, she wasn’t dead. She must have come to, and he – or she – panicked. I’ve spoken to the other servants, but they didn’t see anything.’ He glanced up at me. ‘They’re all rather fascinated by you. Not only are you that rare butterfly, a lady doctor in training, but you’ve consented to marry the family dunce. I think they’re more shocked by that than by the murder.’
I scowled. I might not want to marry Miles – I might not even like him – but Merchiston’s needling made me feel oddly defensive. The instinct would have boded well for a life together, were it not for the fact that I had no intention of becoming the poor man’s wife.
‘You know, you won’t even have to change your monogram,’ Merchiston said cheerfully. ‘All those handkerchiefs you have with SG embroidered on will serve you till the end of your days. Steamer trunks, letter-openers – all that nonsense women like to scribble their initials on will work just as well for Sarah Greene as for Sarah Gilchrist.’
I wondered if it was in poor taste under the circumstances to imagine stabbing Gregory Merchiston with said monogrammed letter-opener before stuffing his body into an equally monogrammed steamer trunk and packing it off to America. I wasn’t sure I minded.
I smiled slowly as a thought occurred to me. Merchiston, I noticed, looked rather frightened.
‘You know, my engagement may be the talk of the servants’ quarters across the New Town, but there’s one advantage I have that you can’t possibly compete with.’ He raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘None of them dare talk to you or the police, but they’re all dying to meet me.’
I rose, and left him with his grisly portraits. I had plans with the living.
Chapter 7
I arrived at the Greenes’ residence the next day unsure what I would find.
A murdered servant didn’t exactly require mourning, but it felt wrong to turn up at a house that had so recently seen a tragedy in bright colours. I wore a mauve dress tailored so that it almost looked like a riding habit – Aunt Emily had deemed it ‘masculine’, which only gave me greater delight in wearing it – with a matching coat, plumed hat and mink stole. Beneath my pristine gloves, my fingers were stained with ink and face powder. I had been in my bedroom trying to work out a method of making myself look both ladylike – so that my appearance wouldn’t shock the Greenes – and like the radical bluestocking the below-stairs staff were expecting.
If Aurora thought it odd that I wanted to give my condolences in person to those who had worked with her maid, she let it slide and waved me in the general direction of the kitchen. I wondered if she was still drugged – it would explain her unnaturally calm demeanour.
The servants were anything but calm. As I sat at the kitchen table, the housemaid, Blackwell, tried unsuccessfully to hold back her sobs and I found myself consoling her.
‘Clara was so young. And so pretty . . . Really, it was a tragedy. Did she have a family?’
Blackwell nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. I passed her a handkerchief and her eyes widened. ‘Miss, I couldn’t! It’s too nice for me to rub my face on.’ It was one of a dozen in my dresser, and I felt an ugly stab of guilt over something I was as likely as not to lose within the week.
‘Please. I insist. Clara deserves more than crying into a tea towel.’
She smiled, dabbed her eyes gingerly and tucked the handkerchief into her sleeve.
‘She was the eldest of six. Her mother died and her father’s health is bad – he was a miner up north, and it broke him. She and her sister raised the bairns – all of them in service except the sister, who nurses after her pa.’ She looked up. ‘You’ll know all about that, miss, with your doctoring.’
I imagined raising four siblings only to find myself, instead of enjoying a blooming womanhood with all the suitors and frivolities that should come with it, looking after a parent and trapped in the same cramped, grubby house I was born in. My studies and all that would hopefully come after were nothing to that.
‘Will you no’ gi’ the doctorin’ up when you’re married to Master Miles?’
I sighed. ‘I suppose that’s up to him.’ I realised that Clara was not the only one the girl had information on. ‘Do you like working for him? Please, answer honestly; I’d like to get a sense of who he really is.’
‘Nicest of the family, if you ask me.’ I suspected that wasn’t difficult. Still, it was promising. ‘He doesnae mind if I make a clatter when I’m blacking the grate. Sometimes I catch myself humming a song if I’ve been at the music hall.’
At least he wouldn’t be one of those fractious men who complained endlessly of their nerves and demanded complete silence. Not that I could imagine what we would talk about.
‘Did Clara like him?’
‘There was nothing like that goin’ on, miss, I swear. Clara was a good girl, church every Sunday and not one of those who only mouths the words. And I’ve never heard anything said against Master Miles, not by any of the girls.’
Her words were telling. ‘What about Colonel Greene?’
‘Him neither, miss.’
‘I suppose Clara would have known more about that, as Mrs Greene’s maid.’
‘She wasnae one to tattle, I’ll tell you that. Always very close when it came to the family. Said she wouldn’t betray a confidence for a king’s ransom, she thought that much of her job.’
Her job, not her employers. And why say that if there were no secrets to tell? A king’s ransom was one thing, but a genuine chance for money to buy her family’s way out of poverty – that would be harder to turn down. And knowledge held only by one person could command
a much higher price than backstairs gossip.
‘She doesn’t sound like the kind of woman to steal from her employer.’
The girl shook her head violently. ‘I’d never have thought it of her. But Mrs Greene did have jewellery going missing. She said it was carelessness, didn’t want us to report it to the polis or mention it to Colonel Greene. Clara looked as shocked as anyone about it.’
Either she was a better actor than she was a thief, or there was more to Clara Wilson’s pockets full of jewels than met the eye.
I changed tactics before the maid could question my motives for being below stairs.
‘I must say, my future mother-in-law looks as immaculate as always. Has she hired a new maid?’
Blackwell blushed. ‘She asked me to help her. I’m no’ trained, but I’ve been working here a time and she says she trusts me.’
‘I’d much rather have a maid I knew attend to me than a perfect stranger,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll happily put a good word in for you.’
Her face lit up. ‘Oh, miss! That’s awfully kind of you. But I thought . . . Well, will you no’ be looking for a staff of your own?’
I couldn’t promise her a job in a household I had no desire to build – and if I somehow wormed my way out of this damn engagement, my aunt was hardly going to reward me with my own maid. Still, it would be useful to have a friend below stairs.
‘I will,’ I said slowly, ‘but that won’t be for a while yet; we’re having a long engagement. You’d learn an awful lot from Mrs Greene and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me poaching you eventually.’
I hoped she would learn an awful lot about Mrs Greene as well, information that she would be more than happy to pass to a future employer over a cup of tea and a slice of Dundee cake. In return, I promised myself that if I were ever in a position to have my own servants, then Blackwell would be the first name on my list. I wondered how good she was at getting bloodstains out of fabric.
‘Miss Gilchrist!’
Miles stood in the doorway, looking shyly pleased to see me. When I returned his smile, it was genuine – out of all his family, he was the one who had truly seemed stricken by Wilson’s death, and he at least had bothered to learn her name.
The Unquiet Heart Page 6