Instruments of Darkness

by Imogen Robertson

  Dear Mr. Adams,

  I have been received into the household with much relief. The people here have no experience, I think, in dealing with such an illness as the earl’s. He has lost his powers of speech almost entirely, and they fear the noises he makes. I believe he is just as he ever was behind his eyes though, and am happy to offer the poor gentleman what comfort I can. My lady visits from time to time, and I think it pleases him to look at her. I admire her devotion in remaining in residence. She has asked if he might ever be able to travel, and gave him a bitter look when I said I thought it not advisable. I think the earl must have missed the look though, for he continued to seem very content. They say that Mr. Hugh Thornleigh has decided to return from the wars in America to take charge of the estate in a few months, as soon as he can take passage over.

  I should like to thank you again, Mr. Adams, for putting me in the way of this position, which I think shall suit me very well, and for your kindness in fitting me out for the journey. I shall continue to write every six months as we agreed, and of course keep quiet about how I happened upon this place. I would of course respect your wishes in these regards without your continued generosity.

  Yours most sincerely, Madeleine Bray

  Graves ran a hand across his forehead. “What can this mean? Who are these people? Have you heard of them, Miss Chase? Do you recognize any of the names, Susan?”

  The little girl shook her head and looked afraid. Graves was worried he had spoken with more heat than he had intended.

  Miss Chase took hold of the little hand and patted it. Then she said slowly, “Was there not an earl who married a dancer a few years ago, then fell ill within a year?”

  Graves frowned at the tabletop in front of him, trying to pull the threads together.

  Miss Chase continued: “Perhaps Alexander had family at the house. He was an educated man. I remember once hearing of a gentleman who was brought up very well in a country house. He was the son of the steward, got a thorough education and was raised to take his father’s place. He fell out with the family as a young man though, wanted to go and make his own fortune rather than look after that of another man.”

  Mr. Graves looked at his fingernails, then curled them into his palms.

  “What became of him?” he asked.

  “He became rich and bought an estate of his own. That is the way of the world these days, I think. Good men can make their own way, if they keep their courage.” She looked at him with a gentle smile and he felt his heart lift a little.

  Susan turned another letter toward Graves, her smooth forehead drawn down into a rather fierce frown.

  “This is a funny letter! From the same lady, I think. Will you read it, Mr. Graves? I am not sure I understand it.”

  He took it from her and cleared his throat.

  Thornleigh Hall, Sussex

  Dear Mr. Adams,

  All continues here much as in my last. Mr. Hugh Thornleigh and Lady Thornleigh are not very friendly, and it is a shame when a family cannot comfort each other in such times, do you not think, Mr. Adams? I have learned however that the eldest son, Alexander, Viscount Hardew, has been missing from this place some years—indeed, I had the opportunity to see a portrait of that gentleman in his youth while cleaning some miniatures with the housekeeper and heard the whole story. I would tell it to you now, sir, but I suspect you know it already! I do not wish to give you any disquiet, Mr. Adams. Your secret, I swear, will never be won from my lips, nor will I ever make allusion to it again.

  Yours, Madeleine Bray

  Graves stopped reading, and there was a heavy silence in the room. He looked cautiously at the little girl, trying to guess if she had understood.

  Susan stared hard at the tabletop; she could feel nothing but the gentle weight of the ring around her neck. A lost son? An Alexander? Her father was Alexander and a gentleman, but could he be so grand? She had seen earls while walking out in the park. They had none of them looked like her papa, and they had none of them seemed comfortable to her. Her mouth was dry. She blinked and looked up into Graves’s dark blue eyes.

  “Might my papa have been the son of this sick man?”

  Graves wet his lips and looked down a little hopelessly at the paper in his hand.

  “This Miss Bray seemed to think so! It all seems very strange, Susan. Did your father ever say anything to you, that might have suggested ...”

  Susan shook her head vehemently. “No. Only when he asked about carriages and dresses the other evening.”

  “There must be something else here.” Graves reached into the box again. “Let us go through the pages one by one.”

  They set to work on the box again, each apparent offcut of score turned over, every bundle shaken to check nothing hid within.

  It was Miss Chase who found it—a trio of papers concealed within a bundle of music Graves had previously put aside as mere camouflage.

  “Here! Oh here, Mr. Graves.”

  She spread them out on the table. A marriage certificate and two others registering the births of Susan and Jonathan. The names on the marriage were Elizabeth Ariston-Grey and Alexander Thornleigh. The children were Susan and Jonathan Thornleigh.

  They stared at the writing until Graves was sure he would be able to recall the penmanship on his deathbed. He looked at the little girl.

  “It seems ...” His voice cracked and he swallowed as the little girl stared up at him, her eyes wide. “It seems Alexander always wanted you to have the means to return to the Thornleigh family, if you wished it, Susan. There is no doubt. These are your true names.”

  “So I am not Susan Adams at all?”

  “You are your father’s daughter, and he was too honorable a man to deny you what he chose to deny himself.”

  He looked up, feeling Miss Chase’s eyes on him. She smiled at him and nodded. Susan’s hand suddenly flew up and covered her mouth with a little cry.

  “Oh! But we must not say, we must say nothing! I do not think they are good people!” Her eyes filled with tears.

  Miss Chase took her hand and held it between her own. “What is it, Susan? Why are they not good people?”

  Susan turned her head from one to the other a little wildly.

  “The man, the yellow man, said it was a message from the Hall! That’s what he said: ‘a message from the Hall.’ That must be this Hall, mustn’t it? If we say anything, they may send another man to kill Jonathan and me.”

  5

  Mrs. Westerman’s thoughts, as they walked down the slope to Caveley, still ran on Wicksteed’s journal.

  “There must be a way I can get sight of his papers. There is business enough between the estates to justify me visiting the housekeeper, or Wicksteed himself. If I could get into his office and find a way to make him leave me there alone a little while ...”

  Crowther sighed. “Mrs. Westerman, he may not keep his diary in his office, and if it contains anything that might be incriminating, it is probably locked away.”

  She looked up at him angrily, then kicked an offending branch clear of the path in front of her with a soft leather boot.

  “I shall try, however. I will not slink away from this. I may find nothing, but I know we will learn nothing if we do not make the attempt.” And when Crowther allowed himself a roll of his eyes: “Do you have any better plan, sir?”

  He studied the earth in front of him. “No.”

  “Well then.”

  There was a clap of a door slamming in front of them and they looked up to see Rachel hurrying across the grass toward them. They glanced at each other, saw their own worries reflected, and lengthened their stride to join her.

  “Mr. Crowther, oh Harry! Thank goodness! It is Mr. Cartwright!”

  Harriet looked confused. “What do you mean, Rachel? We were there only half an hour ago.”

  “Michaels has just ridden up this minute. Cartwright has been taken very ill and the doctor is attending a sickbed in Pulborough. He has come to ask your help, Crowther.” />
  She was very pale. Crowther did not think to question or protest but, spotting where Michaels waited, mounted at the corner of the house with his own horse beside him, set off swiftly toward him. He climbed into the saddle with a vigor he would have thought impossible days before.

  “How bad?”

  Michaels handed him the reins. “Bad.”

  The big man dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and Crowther set off after him at a gallop, the hooves throwing dust and grass out behind them, their bodies held straight and low. He caught a glimpse of the women stranded on the grass behind him, pale and distant on the great lawn of Caveley.

  Harriet turned to her sister and took her arm.

  “What do you know?” she asked.

  Rachel was flushed, her breathing still shallow.

  “Very little. Michaels arrived only a moment ago. Cartwright has violent pains. Michaels met his girl on the street, crying her eyes out because she could not find the doctor, and so he has taken charge of the situation.”

  Harriet felt her head crowd with violent fears, felt her own hand tremble on Rachel’s arm.

  “Let us go in, and send David after Crowther. He may carry messages to and fro for us. And Rachel ...” her sister looked up at her fearfully ... “I do not wish any family of mine to make use of any gifts we receive from the Hall for a little while. Can you find a way to manage that? Discreetly if you can.”

  Rachel went very white, but nodded and they turned toward the house.

  Michaels led Crowther into the house and straight up the narrow stairway to Cartwright’s room. The smell of vomit and bile as the door opened was enough to make Crowther sway on his feet. Both men paused, then Michaels took a chair from the middle of the room and seated himself on it in a corner. He was silent, but had the look of a guard dog about him. Crowther moved toward the bed. It was wet with sweat, and a basin sat beside it, half-filled with a yellowish vomit. Cartwright moaned, and opening his eyes and seeing Crowther, tried to pull himself up.

  “Mr. Crowther! Are you well? Mrs. Westerman ... ?”

  Crowther sat on the bed and took the man’s wrist in his hand. The pulse was exhausted, thready and jumping.

  “I am quite well, and I left Mrs. Westerman in perfect health.”

  Cartwright fell back on his pillows and let his eyes flutter shut.

  “Thank God. I feared ...” His body convulsed; he pulled his knees to his chest with a low groan. Crowther removed his coat.

  “Mr. Michaels—water and all the salt in the house, please. We must do what we can to drive this from him.”

  He did not look around, but heard the man stand and leave the room with quick steps. Cartwright tried to open his eyes again, panting.

  “I have been poisoned, have I not, Mr. Crowther?”

  “I fear so.”

  “And will it kill me?”

  Crowther hesitated, then let himself meet the red glittering eyes of his patient.

  “The violence of the attack suggests you have been subject to a heavy dose. But we will purge you, and recovery may be possible.”

  Another cry, and Cartwright’s knuckles whitened as his hands and jaws clenched. As the spasm passed, his hands loosened again and Crowther saw the tears in his palm where his neat nails had dug at the flesh. The sick man breathed hard a moment, then looked up again.

  “It came so sudden. A strange taste ...”

  “Like metal?”

  “Yes.” Cartwright looked confused. “How did you know?”

  “Arsenic. Then came a violent headache and the sickness?”

  Cartwright nodded again, though this time he kept his eyes shut. His skin was clammy and yellow. Crowther smoothed the man’s hair away from his forehead.

  “I have some things in my store so we can make you more comfortable.” He did not know if he was heard.

  Michaels came up the stair again with Hannah on his heels. Crowther realized as he mixed the salt and water together and held it to Cartwright’s lips that this was his first ever living patient. He doubted the case would be a credit to him; the dose must have been very large, and other than purging his stomach, there was little he could do but keep vigil. The effect of the salts was almost immediate. Cartwright groaned and twisted in his bed to vomit again into the bowl. It lay in a patch of late-afternoon sunlight on the dark wooden flooring, lapped by the edges of Joshua’s bedlinen. They caught a little of the spatter of bile from his mouth. There was some blood. Crowther wondered if the stomach was already bleeding, but perhaps it was only that Joshua had bitten the lining of his mouth while caught in one of the spasms.

  Taking the glass, he filled it with clean water and raised his patient a little from the bed with an arm around his shoulders, getting him to drink. Cartwright took greedy drafts of it, and fell back against Crowther’s shoulder. Some water dribbled down the side of his face. Crowther removed his handkerchief and gently cleaned it away. The man let him, panting again, the body waiting for the next attack. His eyes opened briefly, the cornea flushed scarlet with blood. It was like coming face to face with hell itself.

  “Will it take long, Mr. Crowther?” he panted.

  “Perhaps a day.”

  Cartwright grunted and turned his face away. Crowther stood and noticed Hannah.

  “Can you read, girl?” She nodded. “Then go to my house and bring me the jar from the cabinet in the study marked Valerian.”

  She looked confused and Crowther sighed impatiently. Michaels opened a drawer under a little table against the dark wall at the back of the room, then pointed to the ink and paper it contained. Crowther thanked him and wrote the word on the paper.

  “And here is the key. My servants will show you where the cupboard is. Hurry back.”

  She flew out of the room and Crowther watched the door shut behind her without moving. Michaels spoke.

  “Do you know what’s doing it, Mr. Crowther?”

  “From the violence of the attack and the metal taste he noticed—arsenic, I should think.”

  “Any hope?”

  Crowther shook his head. “When Hannah gets back I’ll go down with her and stop up the bottles,” Michaels said.

  “Check the food too, if he has eaten in the last hour.”

  “Why did he ask after you and Mrs. Westerman?”

  “We were here a little while ago, to ask if he saw Brook on his way into town,” Crowther replied. “He gave us lemonade.”

  “Which did you no harm.”

  “As you see.”

  Michaels bit the side of his thumb and turned away a little.

  “And did he see Brook?”

  “Yes. And had Viscount Hardew’s address waved in his face. He could not remember it, though.”

  Michaels clenched his fists. “You found that nurse from the Hall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Murdered too, I’m guessing. Though the village is trying to tell itself suicide.”

  “Yes. Murdered.” Crowther did not elaborate, but picked up another chair and set it by his patient’s head. He then arranged his limbs as one prepared to wait a long time.

  Michaels looked at him sideways. “What was it you sent for?”

  “An opiate. It should lessen his pain at the end.”

  Michaels sighed and took his own seat again in the shadows.

  Rachel picked up her book and then put it down again, having stared at the same paragraph she had just read twice without understanding it. Harriet continued to walk up and down the room. There was a light knock at the door and Mrs. Heathcote came in with a paper folded once. Harriet snatched it from her and opened it, biting her lip.

  “Harriet?”

  She turned to her sister and put the note in her hand.

  “Poisoned. There is nothing to be done.”

  Mrs. Heathcote started. Then recovered herself.

  “I’ll send David back again to wait for more news, ma’am—if there’s no message, of course.” Harriet nodded without looking up. “Do, please.
There is no message.”

  Crowther was not sure if Michaels had sent for the squire himself, or if the air had carried the news to him without need of human informer. Whatever way, Bridges had arrived, and having spoken to the maid now took his place in the growing dark alongside Crowther and Michaels. The air in the room was heavy and fetid, and though Crowther had flung up the window there was not enough breeze in the air to carry much relief. Cartwright was becoming delirious, calling on his wife and son, sometimes in tones of desperate loss, at others joyously as if he saw them just in front of him.

  Bridges waited till Crowther had cooled his patient’s forehead and measured again the struggling pulse before taking his arm and leading him into the hall.

  “You think it is poison?” he asked.

  “I am sure of it.”

  “Is his mind still secure? Can we find from him how this came about? Some accident, perhaps.”

  “I have given him a sleeping draft: if you wish to talk to him, do so now, then I may dose him with a more generous hand. His suffering is extreme.”

  The squire sucked his teeth and nodded. “Very well, very well. From where do you think the poison came?”

  “I have not yet examined the bottles or foodstuffs in the kitchen, but I suspect the aqua vitae he received from the hand of Mr. Thornleigh. The maid said he took some just after Mrs. Westerman and I left here. The symptoms came so hard and sudden I can think of no other cause. The lemonade we drank together was obviously not tainted. You can see that by the fact I stand here and speak to you now.” Crowther’s whisper was harsh and violent.

  “Indeed.” The squire replied. “Unless it was only his glass that was tainted, as you put it.”

  “That we can clarify with experiment swiftly enough. Give a sample of the liquor to any dog in the street. If it does not die within the hour you may believe what you like.”