by P. N. Elrod
Elizabeth wrinkled her brows. “Earth baths?”
“Oh, yes, it’s very popular, supposed to draw out bodily impurities or something like that. I went to one establishment to see for myself, but the moment they found out I was a doctor, they refused me admittance. Claimed that I’d be stealing their secrets. I might well have done so, if they’d been worth the taking. What I did was simply to go to another place offering the service, claim an imposition and go inside for a treatment.”
“Which involves . . . ?”
“They, ah, have you in a state of nature and then bury you up to your neck in earth for as long as is necessary for your complaint. It’s quite an elaborate operation, I must say. You don’t expect to go into an otherwise respectable-looking house to discover several of the rooms looking like a street after the ditch diggers have had their way with it. Imagine whole chambers piled high with ordinary dirt. Thought I’d walked into some kind madhouse for gardeners. Wonder what their landlord makes of it, though they probably pay him well. The only evidence I saw of any kind of ‘drawing off’ was how they drew off money from their patients.”
“And you expect your electrics to be superior?”
“Most anything would be over that, but yes, I have great confidence that a judicious application of electricity in this case would effect a change for the better.”
“One can hope and pray so,” Elizabeth said. She looked at me.
“Oh, yes, absolutely,” I added. I hardly sounded sincere in my own ears or to hers since she knew the truth of what had happened to Tony, but Oliver accepted it well enough. One could hope for Tony’s recovery, but not if it proved calamitous for myself and Nora. On the other hand, if Tony’s wits were about him, he of all people would not want to discuss how he’d come to lose them in the first place.
Their food began to arrive and our talk moved on to more happy subjects.
* * *
The evening was highly successful. Elizabeth took to Oliver as though he were a second and long misplaced brother and not a first cousin she’d never seen before. He had her laughing at his jokes and of amusing stories and gossip of the town, for which I was exceedingly grateful. I hadn’t seen her sparkle with such an inner light for so long I’d forgotten what she’d been like before tragedy had crashed into her life.
We kept our revels going as long as we were able, but the wine and excitement had its way with them. The signs of fatigue set in and not long after midnight Oliver announced he needed a bed more than another bottle of port. Elizabeth also expressed her desire to sleep, and we gave her escort upstairs, bidding her good night at her door before going across to my own room.
Jericho had taken pains to do some cleaning, or to have it done, so despite the intrusion of our baggage into every corner, the chamber was more livable than before. I made introductions and he gravely bowed, assuming the near-royal dignity he wore as easily as his coat. Oliver was highly impressed, which was a relief to me. As we were intending soon to encroach ourselves upon him, it was important that everyone, including the servants, got along with one another. I told Jericho what had been planned, then asked my cousin if there would be a possible problem between his valet and mine.
“Don’t see how there could be since I threw the chap out last week,” Oliver responded.
“Heavens, what did he do?”
“What didn’t he do, you mean. Said he knew how to barber, but he was the ruin of two of my best wigs. Told him to give my favorite yellow velvet coat a brushing, and the fool washed it in vinegar. ‘Enough of you,’ I said, and out he went. He had a confident manner about him, that’s why I took him into service. Acted like he knew everything, but he had less brains than a hedgehog.”
Jericho nodded sympathetically, his gaze sliding toward mine, one eyebrow rising slightly for but a second.
“Perhaps Jericho can fill his place until you can secure another man,” I said, obedient to this silent prompting. “Then he can help you with interviews. He is an excellent judge of character.” And he would also see to it the next along knew his place in the household hierarchy. There was no question that Jericho would be running things.
“That would be damned kind of you. You don’t mind?”
I professed that I did not if Jericho did not. He, in turn, said he would be most honored to be of assistance.
Oliver was well-pleased. “As matters stand, I could use a bit of help. I’ve only got the one scullery and a lad who comes in with the coal,” he confessed.
“What? In that big a house?”
“Well, it’s bloody hard to get good help, though the city’s full of servants if you can believe the notices they post. But I’m busy with my calls all day and haven’t the time. I was rather hoping your sister would take things in hand and get me set up, if she had no objection to being the lady of the house.”
“I’m sure she won’t, but how long have you been without a proper staff?”
“Couldn’t really say,” he evaded airily. “You know how it is.”
No, but I could deduce what had happened. On his own for the first time he’d found it difficult to get established and dared not ask for help from his family or friends. Word would filter back to his mother and she’d upbraid him for incompetence in addition to the thousand other things she upbraided him for on a regular basis. In our four years of correspondence, he had also filled quite a lot of paper up on the topic of maternal woes.
“We’ll have things sorted out soon enough,” I said, directing a quick wink at Jericho.
“Excellent!” Oliver dropped into a chair and propped his feet on the table. I followed his example and we grinned at one another for a moment. “God, but I’ve missed your company. Can’t wait to go drinking and whoring with you again—that is, if it won’t interfere with your search for Miss Jones.”
“We’ll sort that out, too. Perhaps if you found her bankers . . . .”
“Already tried that. She hasn’t any.”
“No bankers?”
“Went to everyone in this city and Cambridge. No one had ever heard of her. I also tried the agent who sold her the London house. She’d paid him directly in cash, no bank draft. Then I asked around for her solicitor and finally found him last spring, but he had no knowledge of her whereabouts or how to contact her.”
“Good God, but her solicitor must know, of all people,” I said.
“Apparently not. She’d contact him when she wanted something done, and he’d only say she moved about a lot. I think he was over-guarding her privacy; he was a dreadfully proper man, but there was no way to press him without getting myself arrested. I did leave a letter with him to forward to her. I also wrote care of the Warburtons, but they said they never got it. The Italian post, if there is such a thing, would likely explain that. I am sorry, I know this is frightfully important to you.”
“You did your best.” I thought if I had a chance to speak to the solicitor that I’d get what I wanted from him. My influence was enough to break down any resistance to talk.
“There’s good reason to hope that she’ll turn up soon enough.”
“Indeed?”
“The coming holidays. There’s going to be all sorts of fetes going on next month and for the new year, and you know how she enjoyed going to a good party.”
I had to laugh. His unabashed optimism was enough to infuse me with fresh hope. “You may be right.”
“Now I’ve a few questions to pose,” he said, raising his chin to an imperious height so he might look down his nose.
“Question away, Cousin.”
“About Elizabeth, don’t you know, and this Norwood business. My mother had gotten a letter from yours saying that Elizabeth had married the fellow and was now Lady Norwood, but she can’t be because there is no Lord Norwood, and all I know about it is the chap was killed and in your last letter you told me for God’s sake not to ask h
er about it or refer to it in any way, that it was very complicated and you’d tell me everything once you were here. I await enlightenment.”
“But it’s a long tale and you’re sleepy.”
“I’m only a little drunk; there’s a difference.”
True. He looked quite awake and expectant. “I hardly know where to begin. . . .”
But eventually I determined a place and filled his ears with the whole miserable story. Jericho brought in tea halfway through, but Oliver was so engrossed he never touched it.
“My God,” he said when I’d finished. “No wonder you wanted it kept quiet. The scandal would be horrible.”
“The facts are horrible enough without worrying about trivial gossip, but for Elizabeth’s sake we decided to be less than truthful about them. What did my mother write to yours?”
“Only that Norwood died an honorable death fighting the rebels. Or so she told everyone.”
“Good. That means my mother gave her the official story, not the truth.”
“Just as well.”
Sadly, we deemed it necessary to maintain the lie of Norwood’s heroics before our neighbors at home. Better that Elizabeth be thought of as the widow of a man who had died defending his family and king, than for her to endure the torment of pointing fingers and whispers if the truth came out. Though Norwood’s foul deception was no fault of her own, it is human nature to think she might have somehow brought it upon herself.
As things stood, Elizabeth had put up with a great amount of whispered speculation over why she’d discarded her married title for her maiden name, but with our relocation to a new home, the whole thing could be buried and forgotten along with Norwood. But by God, after going over the story again I wanted the bastard resurrected so I’d have the satisfaction of killing him myself.
“I shall keep it in the strictest confidence,” Oliver vowed.
“She’ll appreciate that.”
“She won’t mind that you’ve told me?”
“I was instructed to do so by her. She said that since you were the one who discovered the truth of the matter, you were certainly entitled to hear the outcome of the revelation. If not for you, my dear sister would have been hideously murdered by those monsters. We’re grateful to you.”
Oliver flapped his mouth a bit, overwhelmed. “Well,” he said. “Well, well. Glad to have been of service.” He cleared his throat. “But tell me one more thing. About this ‘Lady Caroline’. . . you said the shock that she’d been discovered had brought on a fit of apoplexy that left her simpleminded. What has since happened to her?”
What indeed? Just as Nora had shattered Tony Warburton’s mind, so had I broken Caroline’s. Like Nora, I’d lost control of my anger while influencing another, but unlike her I had no regrets for the frightening results. Father had been hard shaken by this evidence of the darker side of my new abilities, but placed no blame upon me.
“It was more than justified, laddie,” he’d said. “Perhaps it’s God’s judgment and for the best. This way we’re spared the riot of a hanging.” Not too surprisingly, he’d asked me to avoid a repetition of the experience. I’d willingly given him my word on that endeavor. I had no desire to feel such anger toward another soul ever again.
“She’s being cared for by our minister’s family,” I answered. “His sister runs a house for orphans and foundlings and was persuaded to take Caroline in as well.”
Father had been worried that a creature like Caroline might prove a danger to the children, but that had lasted only until he’d seen she was unaware of them. She was unaware of the world, I thought, though she could respond docilely to any direct request. “Stand up, Caroline. . . . Caroline, please sit down. . . . There’s your supper, Caroline. Now pick up your fork. . . .”
She passed the days sitting with her hands loose in her lap, her eyes quite empty, whether staring out a window, into a fire or at the ceiling, but I had not a single regret for her mad state and never would.
“God a’ mercy,” said Oliver, shaking his head. “I suppose it’s all just as well. There’d have been the devil to pay otherwise. Is Elizabeth quite recovered? She seemed fine with me, but you never know how deep a wound might run in these matters.”
“She’s a woman of great strength, though I can tell you that it is her preference to not speak of it again. That’s why I was given the task of telling you; she’d rather forget the miserable business.”
“I understand entirely. Consider the matter sealed, then. “To family secrets, Coz,” he said, raising an empty glass. “May we never need resort to them again. Anything else I should know?”
I thought for a moment. “The sea voyage was hard on her.”
“Not a good sailor, is she?”
“Actually, I was the poor sailor. She and Jericho had their hands full with worry about me.”
He cocked a suddenly piercing blue eye in my direction. “Usually a person subject to the seasickness comes away looking like a scarecrow. You look fine, though.”
“They made me eat for my own good.”
He grunted approval. “It’d be a trial to have to get you fattened up first before indulging in the revels to come. What do you say that we ready ourselves for an outing?”
“At this hour?”
“It’s not that late. This is London, not the rustic wilds of Long Island.”
“I fear I’m still in need of recovery, but you go on if you wish.”
He thought about it and shrugged, shaking his head. “Not as much fun when one is by oneself. Also not as safe. But another night?
“My word on it, Coz.”
With that assurance, he heaved from his chair, suffered to let Jericho relieve him of his coat and shoes, then dropped into bed. His eyelids had been heavy with long-postponed sleep for the last few minutes (my chief reason for wanting to stay in), and now he finally surrendered to their weight. Soon he was snoring.
“What shall I do about tomorrow?” Jericho asked. “He will be curious that you are not available.”
“Tell him I had some business to see to and did not confide the details to you. I’m sure Elizabeth can put him off until sunset.”
“Since we are to all live in his house, would it not be fair to let him know about your condition?”
“Entirely fair,” I agreed. “I’ll tell him, but not just yet.”
Oliver had not been especially fond of or comfortable with Nora and her eccentricities. At one time he’d been one of the courtiers who supplied her with the blood she needed to live, but she’d sensed his lack of enthusiasm and had let him go his own way, after first persuading him to forget the blood drinking. Though she could have influenced him into behavior more to her liking, it would not have been good for him. She preferred her gentlemen to be willing participants, not slaves under duress.
“I’ll be taking a walk,” I told Jericho.
Without a word, he shook out my heavy cape. It still smelled faintly of the vinegar he’d used to combat the beer stink. “You will be careful tonight, sir.” It was more of an order than an inquiry.
“More than careful, as always. Take good care of Oliver, will you? He shouldn’t be much trouble, but if he asks for tea, don’t waste time getting it. I think he consumed the landlord’s entire supply of port tonight and will feel it in the morning.”
With any luck, he’d be in such misery as to not notice my absence for many hours. Hard for my poor cousin, but much easier for me. Jericho held the door open, allowing me to slip away into another night.
* * *
Church steeples pierced the city’s coal fogs like ship masts stripped of their crosspieces. Some were tall and thin, others short and thin, and overtopping them all in terms of magnificence was the great dome of St. Paul’s. It was this monument in particular that I used as a landmark to guide me toward the one house I sought in the smoky murks below.
Upon leaving the inn, I lost no time relinquishing solidity in order to float high and let the wind carry me over street and rooftop alike. Mansion and hovel looked alike at first because of the thick air pouring from the city’s countless chimneys. The limitation this state put on my vision added to the illusion, and I despaired of reaching my goal until spying the dome. With its position fixed in my mind, I varied my direction, wafting along at a considerable pace, far faster than I could have accomplished even on horseback. I was free of the confusing turns otherwise necessary to the navigation of London, able to hold a straight line right across the clustered buildings and trees.
Free was I also of the squalor and danger of the streets, though I was not immune to risk. Anyone chancing to look up or peer from his window at the wrong time might see my ghostly shape soaring past, but I trusted that the miserable weather would avert such a possibility. What windows I saw were firmly shuttered, and any denizens out at this hour were likely to be in a state of inebriation. Then might the sight of a ghost be explained away as a bottle-inspired phantasm and easily discounted.
The time and distance passed without incident until I reached a recognizable neighborhood, though I could not be absolutely sure from this lofty angle. To be certain, I materialized on the roof of a building for a good scout around. Though my belly tumbled with trepidation for my errand, yet was I also filled with exhilaration for the means by which I was able to carry it out. This height, near impossible to reach by ordinary means, was as careless a perch for me as for any bird. What a miracle it was to reach it; even the wind slicing my face served only to stir, not daunt, me for what lay ahead.
The house I wanted was but a hundred yards distant. I felt quite absurdly pleased at this accurate bit of navigation, but did not long indulge in congratulation. The coal dust was thick on my narrow roost, growing slippery as a needle-sharp sleet began to fall in earnest. Fixing my eye on one window from the many overlooking the street, I made myself light and pushed toward it. Upon arrival, the glass panes proved to be only a minor check. Once fully incorporeal I had but to press forward a little more until their cold, brittle barrier was behind me, and I floated free in the still air of the room beyond.