Skelbrooke wiped his forehead on a filthy and sweat-stained sleeve. He had once been forcibly confined, injured and ill, in the hold of a ship, an experience he was not eager to repeat. "Nevertheless, I would prefer to take my chances down in the hold, where I might actually do some good.
"I do not wish to speak ill of the doctor," he added, with a tightening around the mouth. "But he was somewhat . . . conservative . . . in his methods. I may, just possibly, be able to help where he could not. But if I should fail, at least there will be someone on hand to ease the agonies of the dying."
Though highly disposed to argue the point, the Captain finally allowed Skelbrooke his way, even (perhaps shamed by his example) providing more food and water, more blankets and mattresses, than he had first intended. While these were lowered into the hold, his lordship returned to his cabin and brought out a small chest containing several vials of the Sleep Dust.
Then he went down into the dark coffin of the hold, where he ministered to his patients as best he knew how, while two of the sailors nailed the grating shut, sealing him in.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
In which Things continue to go Badly in Hobb's Church.
The little town was in an uproar. Buildings continued to creak and settle as the earth beneath them shifted, to the great dismay and discomfort of the inhabitants. Glassware and porcelain, falling from shelves, shattered on the floor; mirrors and picture frames, descending precipitously, cracked beyond repair; doors and window sashes jammed shut. In one house, burning oil splashed out of a lamp which had been carelessly filled, and it was only the actions of a resourceful maid, who tore down heavy bed curtains to smother the flames, that prevented the fire from spreading. It was like living in a state of perpetual earthquake.
Then one terrible night, the bells in the clocktower rang out for the first time in years, as the entire structure shuddered, swayed, and collapsed, burying two men under an avalanche of falling bricks.
Shocked by these sudden deaths, a committee of angry citizens organized the next day, vowing to destroy the tunneling hobgoblins once and for all. Many schemes were contemplated, but none that could be immediately put into effect. In the spreading hysteria, other citizens, acting on their own, started digging tunnels of their own, in an effort to get at the hobs, or shooting pistols down existing holes. Someone even organized a bucket brigade from the town pump to the hole by the clocktower, hoping to drown the creatures out . . . an utterly futile effort, for the hole led to tunnels so deep and extensive it was doubtful that a single hobgoblin so much as got his feet wet.
None of this commotion reached Mothgreen Hall, and only vague rumors of the measures taken. The ladies did not learn any more until the Sunday, when they herded their little flock down the road and into the town for the morning service.
Very sweet and demure the girls looked, too, walking into town in two long lines, all dressed alike in their white muslin gowns, with pastel sashes and deep straw bonnets, and twenty pairs of yellow-gloved hands clasped properly over their prayerbooks. As soon as Miss Barebones caught sight of the restless and agitated crowd gathered in the streets, she turned the girls right around again, and she, Miss Eglantine, and Miss Fitch marched the girls back to the Academy.
But Sera and Elsie remained in town, joining a large crowd outside the Church of Seven Fates, who were listening to Moses Tynsdale hold forth with another of his fire-and-brimstone sermons. Strangely enough, the wild-eyed clergyman expounded the view that it was not the hobgoblins who were responsible for the present calamitous state of affairs.
"No, by the Nine Powers, no!" he ranted, as Sera and Elsie drew close enough to hear him. "It is the wickedness of the people that brings down the wrath of the Father Creator! And if you continue in your evil ways, he will continue to send his Divine Messengers to chastise you!"
Many people hung their heads and shuffled their feet, suddenly conscious of their secret sins. And Tynsdale continued to rail at them. They were vain, he said, they were corrupt. The citizens of Hobb's Church were wallowing—yes! wallowing—in their own sinful greed and luxury, and they made a mockery of everything sacred.
"Well, really, I cannot agree with any of that," Elsie said in Sera's ear. "The people who live here in Hobb's Church are hardly what I should call wicked. If Mr. Tynsdale wishes to see vanity, corruption, greed, and luxury, he has only to visit any large town across the sea and observe the manners of Fashionable Society. The people here are virtuous by comparison."
"Yes," said Jed, coming up behind her. "But according to men like Preacher Tynsdale, it's the good folk the Good Lord always comes down on the hardest. He just leaves the wicked to dig their own graves."
Elsie rewarded him with the faintest of smiles. Her face had lost all of its pretty natural color, and her eyes were dull and heavy. Jed shot Sera an inquiring glance, but Sera responded with a curt shake of her head. For the last ten days Elsie had been unable to sleep at night, only dropping off for a restless hour or two in the early morning, or for a brief nap in the afternoon. And she had conceived a sudden, inexplicable fear of the dark. Sera, who had devoted the better part of her youth to nursing Elsie, in the bad old days when her cousin was nearly always ill, felt considerably more frightened than she liked to admit.
As Elsie seemed absorbed in the sermon, Sera took the opportunity to draw Jedidiah aside. "She has been so well and strong for nearly two years now," Sera whispered urgently. "I cannot think what has caused this apparent relapse."
"Maybe it's the ghost," Jedidiah suggested, also very low. "Perhaps Uncle Izrael has left off plaguing you and started tormenting poor Elsie instead."
"Uncle Izrael is just as particular in his attentions as he ever was, thank you very much," hissed Sera. "He spends so much time following me about, I am persuaded he has no time for Elsie! Besides, she isn't a bit afraid of Uncle Izrael—or whoever is really behind all of that nonsense—and always finds his activities vastly diverting. Or at least . . . she used to laugh at them before she became so sick and nervous."
Elsie, catching the sound of her own name, glanced briefly their way. Jed motioned Sera away from the church, and they both moved away from the crowd, stopping by the statue at the center of the green.
"It's a funny thing, but we seem to have acquired our own ghost, over at Mr. Herring's," said Jed. "He's not given to rapping and moaning like your Uncle Izrael, but he does move things around when no one else is there, and not the sort of things that hobgoblins like, either. So far, only some books up in my room, but—"
"Books?" said Sera, with a twinge of apprehension. "What books?"
Jedidiah spoke even lower. "The books we brought with us from Thornburg: the books from the coffin."
Sera took him by the arm and pulled him farther from the crowd, so that they could speak more freely. "Jed, there are too many queer things happening here. I fear that Mr. Tynsdale is in some sense right. There is some unwholesome influence at work in Hobb's Church. And it really is time that we moved on.
"Oh, we can't go immediately, of course," she added, in response to Jedidiah's dark look. "For Elsie and I to leave the Academy without finishing the term would be utterly wicked, after all of Miss Barebones's kindness. But when the term ends . . ."
"After that, you and Elsie must certainly go," Jed agreed, with a troubled frown. "I am certain we can find friends of the Guild to take you in, somewhere. But as for me: my place is here with Mr. Jonas. The map . . . the island . . . You must see that I am obliged to stay on. It's not as though your Duchess is likely to come looking for me. I would wager you any amount she doesn't even know that I exist."
Sera gaped at him, utterly aghast. "And so we are to go off, Elsie and I, to some unknown destination, all by ourselves? You know that I was against bringing you along in the first place, uprooting you when you were doing so well back home in Thornburg. But once that was settled, once we all found ourselves in a foreign land, we agreed—indeed we vowed—to stay together, for mutual comfort and pr
otection, until we could all go home again.
"I don't know why I need remind you of this," she continued huffily. "For I am sure that you remember it as well as I do. And here is Elsie on the verge of a decline. Jedidiah! You don't mean to throw poor Elsie over, all for the sake of your wretched map and your imaginary island?"
Jedidiah hung his head. "It ain't—it isn't a matter of throwing her over. I know I've done wrong allowing Elsie to think we might have a life together, someday, when there's no way on earth . . . " His big hands knotted into fists. "I think it might be better if Elsie and I were apart for a time, if we neither spoke nor wrote. Otherwise, we might be tempted to do something rash."
"Well," said Sera, with an indignant sniff. "If by 'something rash' you mean getting married, I see no reason why you should not, except, perhaps, for a deal of false pride. It is true that you are both still very young, and it wouldn't be wise to marry too soon, but are you really concerned to do the right and honorable thing by Elsie, or just looking for an excuse to stay in Cordelia? I wish you would look me straight in the eye, Jedidiah, and not hang your head, as though you had something to hide."
Jed, reluctantly, met her gaze straight on. And it was then, for the first time in many weeks, that she really looked at him, studied his face as she had not done before. What she saw there disturbed her profoundly.
Because Jed had changed. The brown eyes were just as candid as ever, but they burned a little brighter, and the rest of his face . . . that was different, too, though Sera could not say precisely how. Perhaps it was only a matter of expression, a sort of restless eagerness which had never been there before.
"Jedidiah Braun!" said Sera, with a sudden horrible premonition. "What is it, really, that you hope to find on that island?"
"Not the thing that you are thinking. I've no wish to follow in your grandfather's footsteps, nor yet my Uncle Caleb's. I've not fallen prey to a lust for the stone Seramarias—or any other alchemical folly, that I can promise you!"
"Perhaps not," said Sera, with a hard little smile. "But perhaps you have fallen prey to an obsession every bit as dangerous, conceived a desire every bit as impossible, as our wretched family curse!
"You have the very same look that my grandfather had, there at the end," she added bitterly, "when he and your Uncle Caleb were conducting their secret experiments behind the bookshop. So I wish you would stop and think what you are doing, Jed— before you allow your obsession to destroy you, too!"
CHAPTER TWENTY
In which the Reader is encouraged to Contemplate matters of Medicine, Reformation, and Justice.
Francis Skelbrooke left the dark and stinking hold, more than a fortnight after he entered it, blinking a little in the brilliant sunlight, pale and unsteady from care and exhaustion, but in tolerably good spirits. Nearly half of his patients had survived, including the doctor; he had suffered only a mild attack of the disease himself; and it was apparent that the Yellow Pox had finally run its course.
He could not, of course, be certain that he had personally saved a one of them. There had been so little that he could do for any of his patients, and those who had not already died by the time that he took charge were likely to be those with the stronger constitutions. Yet perhaps he had saved some of them, just by being there to pour water down their throats and keep them alive while Nature did the rest.
After seeing all of his convalescents comfortably disposed in upper cabins he went on deck, still dirty and disheveled as he was, and listened and watched solemnly while the Captain read a brief service for the dead, and one makeshift wooden coffin after another was consigned to the deep. Tired as he was, it seemed that he ought to be there.
But then he felt free to go down to his own cabin, where he inhaled a larger dose of the Sleep Dust than he had allowed himself in weeks, threw himself down on his bunk, and slept for a day and a half.
He awoke, considerably refreshed, stuck his head out into the passageway, and demanded hot water from a passing sailor. A big basin of hot water arrived soon after, carried in by Lord Vizbeck's valet, who also came armed with scented soap, a sharp razor, and a message from Lord Vizbeck. Lady Ursula had begged her lord to send Mr. Hawkins her compliments. She did not think she would meet him again before they landed. Her constitution was not a strong one, and she feared some lingering contagion. Lord Vizbeck, however, would be pleased to receive Mr. Hawkins in his cabin, that very evening, for a celebratory glass of wine.
Bathed, shaved, barbered, and clad in clean linen, his lordship felt more himself. He put on a suit of lilac taffeta, a plumed tricorn, black stockings, and a pair of shoes with rhinestone buckles, and went up on deck for his first untroubled breath of air in three weeks.
He had entered the hold resigned to die—it had not been possible to do the one without first accepting the virtual inevitability of the other—and had emerged into the light and the air experiencing a sense of rebirth. Standing by the rail, gazing out across the dancing blue water, it seemed an appropriate occasion for examining his past life.
Not all of his adventures were pleasant to recall. Many, in retrospect, struck him as shameful, for in order to bring down dangerous men, he had been forced to adopt some of their methods: lying and cheating his way into their confidence; deceiving the innocent, as well the guilty; he had even, on occasion, stooped to assassination. Nor had only the wicked suffered. Now, with a sudden surge of self-disgust, he asked himself: When did the Vigilante, the self-appointed agent of vengeance, cease to be an instrument of Justice, and become just another embodiment of the forces of Evil—become, in effect, the very thing he loathed and despised? And once a man crossed over that line, what chance had he, then, of redemption?
Skelbrooke turned away from the rail, trudged back to his cabin, still turning these dark and troubling questions over in his mind. How clear and how pure, by contrast, had been his original ambition: to become a physician, to heal the sick and succor the helpless. One memory burned brightly in his mind, a certain conversation he had with Sera Vorder, two years back. Strangely, she seemed to think that he had abandoned a vocation for which he was particularly suited.
But Society at large would not applaud his decision, if he resumed once more his medical studies—no more than his own family had been pleased, all those years past, when he left the family estate and went off to Lundy to study medicine. A wealthy nobleman in the role of physician, that was a shocking anomaly, almost more shocking than his present calling.
But as for Sera Vorder . . . He had a strong presentiment that he stood more chance of winning her heart if he came to her, hat in hand, as a humble physician than if he swooped down and carried her off in the flamboyant style appropriate to a noble assassin.
***
Many hundreds of miles distant, at Mothgreen Academy, Sera was wishing for a trustworthy physician—though not, of course, with any intention of marrying one. Elsie's health had continued to fail, and Sera thought more and more about engaging the services of some reputable doctor. Yet the wrong sort of doctors had done Elsie so much harm in the past, that Sera hesitated, unwilling to consult with just any physician.
"The doctor in Moonstone is highly respected," Miss Barebones offered when Sera asked her. "He is not one of your young men with startling new notions, nor yet again an old man whose treatments are hopelessly antiquated. He is just what I would call comfortably middle-aged."
To take Elsie to visit this Dr. Bell now became Sera's ambition. After much coaxing, she finally gained Elsie's consent, wrote for an appointment with the good doctor, and convinced Mr. Herring to drive herself and Elsie into Moonstone.
The day was sunny but cool, with a breeze blowing in from the sea. Elsie sat in Mr. Herring's gig, bundled up in innumerable shawls and scarves, which she had donned at Sera's insistence. Though she shivered in the gentle breeze, two spots of hot color burned in her cheeks.
The ride was not a long or arduous one. Elsie had little to say and Sera was much occupied with her own t
houghts, but the cabinetmaker endeavored to keep up a cheerful flow of conversation as they bowled along through the green countryside, along the wide loop of road swinging east to avoid the marsh, and finally into the larger town.
On the Moonstone High Street they passed a gloomy coach, a grand but funereal-looking brougham draped with great swathes of heavy black crepe. As they drove past, Sera thought she saw one of the sable curtains move, as if someone inside were peeking out, though it was impossible to catch a glimpse of either the interior of the brougham or its occupants.
"My goodness, who can it be?" asked Sera, with an involuntary shiver. "That coach looks so much like a hearse that as we drove by, I could almost believe I caught a whiff of embalming fluid."
"I should suppose it was the widow woman and her brother, who recently let Stillwater Hall, out on the marsh," said Mr. Herring. "She rarely comes into town, they say, and always most lugubriously veiled. No one has seen anything of her brother, though she has mentioned him more than once."
As Mr. Herring pulled up before the doctor's big house, Sera resolutely put the coach and its mysterious owner out of her mind. Mr. Herring helped Elsie down from the carriage, and Sera ushered her into the surgery.
Dr. Bell exactly matched Miss Barebones's description: stout, fatherly, and comfortably middle-aged, with a gently solicitous manner that Sera found soothing. He examined Elsie carefully and asked a great many questions. Then, deeming Sera the elder and the more responsible, he took her aside for a few private words.
"I find nothing specifically wrong with your friend, yet she is certainly very ill. It would appear to be a nervous condition, perhaps a touch of brain fever. Despite what we like to pretend," said Dr. Bell, "we really know so very little about the causes of human suffering. We can mend broken bodies, but as for the diseases which afflict them . . ."
Though Sera was naturally pleased to meet with an honest physician, after all of the dreadful quacks who had attended Elsie in the past, this was scarcely reassuring.
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