by Deryn Lake
“Who was Evalina’s secret lover, do you think?”
“My money is on Justin. I think it started off as a dare - something of that nature, anyway - and ended up as a great deal more. Probably not love, as we know it, but certainly a sort of admiration. He was definitely knocked out by her death.”
Emilia spoke up. “Oh John, I do wish you would stop putting yourself at risk. How I worry when things like this happen.”
It came so suddenly that it almost sent him flying. Black hair, mocking eyes, the scar that ran down one side of her face, making her so ugly and so attractive at the same time. The words that Emilia had spoken were repeated in his head, but this time he was saying it to her, to Elizabeth di Lorenzi, he was begging her to be careful.
“What?” he said after a moment or two, staring at his wife.
“Oh never mind,” answered Emilia angrily, and rose to her feet. “If you’ll forgive me Serafina, Louis, I am well weary. I shall make my way to bed.”
Immediately John was full of apologies. “I’m sorry if I…”
She cut across him. “Goodnight, everyone.” And that said, she marched out.
Serafina took her cue from Emilia. “I, too, am tired. Will you forgive me?”
Suddenly there was nobody left in the gracious living room but the three men, who sat for a moment looking from one to the other.
“John, forgive me for not giving chase immediately. I was very nearly asleep,” said Samuel apologetically.
“My dear old chap…” said the Apothecary, and then he spoke at some length about friendship. But his brain had cut off from his lips and his mind had gone westwards, reminded of Elizabeth, wondering if he would ever see her again, if the extraordinary grip she had over him would ever release him from its hold.
He slept late next morning, so late indeed that there was no smell of breakfast in the air. Further, there was no one about upstairs to enquire as to the whereabouts of his family. Consequently, John washed and dressed and hurried downstairs to where he knew the servants would be.
The revelation was the day itself, which was as bright blue and shiny as the previous had been dull and misty. Everywhere the
Apothecary looked there seemed to be glorious vistas of burgeoning green beckoning to him, speaking of the mysteries of the year’s cycles, of the fact that spring had stepped forth and settled on the land. Suddenly full of excitement, he longed to get himself out and face his captors, who last night had seemed so mysterious and strange. Full of determination, he turned away from the window and bumped straight into a manservant who was walking along with a bucket of coal.
“Ah, life!” said the Apothecary, somewhat to the man’s consternation. “Tell me, where is everybody?”
“They’re all out, about their business, Sir. The two ladies and the children have gone to East Clandon to see Mrs. Boscawen, who has only been widowed a year. Monsieur le Comte and Mr. Swann have disappeared off somewhere, but I’m afraid I have no further information.”
“Did they leave any message for me?”
“No, Sir, they didn’t.”
Much annoyed, John said airily, “Be kind enough to tell them that I have arisen and gone off on my own. I do not know what time I shall be back.”
This said, he donned his hat and coat and, walking round to the stables, borrowed a fast dark horse he had spotted amongst the group of other, lazier, animals. It eyed him as much as he eyed it but there was to be no argument. John mounted it and cantered off in the direction of the Bussells’ estate. As he went he calculated the miles he was doing, and everything worked out. Unless he had come from an entirely different direction, a fact he did not think possible because of the terrain, it was indeed the Bussells - or one of them - who had held him captive on the previous night.
Raising his whip to his hat in salute, John passed through the lodge gates and came up to the front door in good array. Here he dismounted.
“Is Mr. Bussell at home?” He deliberately did not say which one.
“No, Sir. Mr. Bussell is out.”
“But it is the other one I wish to see.”
This flummoxed the footman, who stood opening and closing his mouth while he thought. Eventually he said, “I shall go and see, Sir. If you would be so good.”
He allowed John to enter and perch on the corner of a couch, fixing him with a look that did not bode well if he should so much as move a muscle. Then the man walked off in a dignified manner and slowly ascended the stairs.
Wandering in from an entirely different direction came the bleary figure of Justin, ill-shaven and dressed in a night-rail. He pulled up short when he saw John, then sat down on the other end of the couch.
“Hello,” was all he said.
“Hello to you,” John replied, as charmingly as he could muster.
“And you are?”
“Rawlings. John Rawlings. We have met several times but you swore I saved your life yesterday. Of course I didn’t but it seemed as good a way as any of making you remember me.” He pulled a long face. “Obviously with few results.”
Justin, to give him his due, looked terribly embarrassed. “Look, I do apologise. It all comes back to me now. I do indeed recall you. We certainly have met before. I didn’t see the arm but I clearly recollect the way that you smashed the glass from my hand.” He suddenly looked suspicious. “I suppose there was an arm. You didn’t make the whole thing up to draw attention to yourself?”
“No, I didn’t. Listen, you must have got some idea. Who was it?”
Justin looked at him for the first time, his face terribly unkempt but completely sincere. “I have no idea. That’s just the devil of it. I truly don’t know.”
John remained silent, turning ideas over and over in his mind. Finally he said, “I was hoping that you weren’t going to say that. That you had some notion who it might be.”
Justin shook his head, then stood up. “I can’t help you. I’m sorry but I’ve got to go and get dressed. Your appearance has reminded me that there’s still a life out there.”
John also rose. “Thank you for your time. I must…”
They were interrupted by a loud banging of the front door and the next minute Greville had come in. “Are you up?” he was calling, then he saw John and his entire manner changed.
“Oh,” he said.
John gave his third best bow. “How dee do?”
There was no answering bow back but at least he said, “Very well,” before he went on with, “I trust I find you in good order.”
“Excellent, my thanks.”
“I see. And how is dear Serafina?”
So that was going to be it. He had decided on trivial chitchat as his means of communication.
“Very well, heaven be praised.”
Greville gave John rather an odd stare.
“I actually called to see if Justin would care to come riding with me,” John continued smoothly.
Justin looked as flabbergasted by this remark as did Greville, but boldly said yes.
His brother turned on him a look. “But surely you’re not ready.”
Justin fingered his chin nervously, then said, “No, perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I’m not.”
John tried to bluff it out. “Oh, come as you are. Just throw on a riding coat.”
Greville was clearly used to having his own way. “I think another time, Mr…. My brother was very poorly at the funeral yesterday and quite honestly cannot take any rough exercise at the moment.”
The Apothecary decided that enough was enough. “Very well. But soon, I insist.”
Greville opened his mouth to refuse but Justin’s voice cut across. “Yes, Mr. Rawlings, I shall be ready. In fact I will ride over to your place one morning shortly. Shall we say ten o’clock?”
“Yes, let’s,” John answered, and with that, and with only the briefest adieu, bade them farewell.
There was nothing for it but to make for the hamlet of Stoke d’Abemon and Foxfire Hall, the great house which lay a c
ouple of miles beyond it. However, various internal rumblings had already told the Apothecary about his missing meal and a call at The Onslow Arms became imperative. Therefore, one hour later and past three o’clock, he set out for his destination, determined that he must not stay long nor would he venture back through the woods.
The way, which yesterday had been so evil, today seemed blessed. John cantered through the trees unchecked and arrived at the mansion, standing proud and dominant, just over an hour later. He was immediately ushered in and was told to await Mrs. Rayner in the small parlour. Indeed, he was glancing through a copy of a newspaper, several days old, when a sudden noise in the doorway startled him. Looking up, John saw that Millicent was standing there, hovering uncertainly. John immediately rose to his feet.
“Miss Millicent, how are you? Is everything well with you?”
She flashed her eyes at him gratefully. “Oh my dear Mr. Rawlings, how very kind of you to ask. Yes, I’m as well as can be expected with all the losses we have had to endure recently. Really, I don’t know how to get over it. First Aidan, then the two Bussells, bless them. They were such jolly people, you know. Always made everything seem so much brighter, somehow. Then, of course, like a bolt from the blue, Evalina. I mean to say, Mr. Rawlings, where and when is it all going to end? Who is the next in line, I ask myself? Surely not Jocasta - oh surely, surely not.”
“Miss Millicent, you must keep a grip on yourself. It is almost certainly over now.”
“But is it?” she said, advancing close to him, her little dark eyes positively rolling with anxiety. “Is it, I say?”
“Yes, it is. Now sit down and be calm, I beg of you.”
She was beginning to breathe very irregularly but John managed to get her to take a seat and lower her head, from which position she gallantly fought to bring her panting under control. Meanwhile, he knelt in front of her, patting her hands and making soothing sounds, all of which were quite useless but made him feel a great deal better. Eventually, Miss Millicent raised her head.
“Mr. Rawlings, you are a life saver in every way. I don’t know what I should have done without you. I had been working myself up into quite a state.”
She gave a little tremulous laugh and his heart warmed to her. Impulsively he kissed her hand and then rather regretted it, for she giggled madly, went red as a beet, then gave him a coquettish smile. John stood up rather hurriedly.
“Now, where is Mrs. Rayner. She has promised to show me…”
He had almost betrayed the reason for his visit and cut himself off in mid-sentence.
“Yes?” asked Millicent, suddenly very girlish and eager.
“Some of the family portraits,” John improvised rapidly. “Are you familiar with them. Miss Millicent?”
“Oh, just Millicent please. I feel that we know one another well enough by now.” She, too, got to her feet and John was terribly aware of how tiny she was. “Shall I start showing them to you? Jocasta can catch us up if she so desires.”
He paused, not quite certain what to do. “Well, if you think…”
But his dilemma was about to end, and less painfully than he had feared. There was the sound of footsteps - several pairs of them if he was not mistaken - making their way towards the parlour.
“Cooee,” Millicent called out.
“Where are you?”
“Here.”
And the next minute Jocasta appeared framed in the doorway with Samuel, of all the people in the world, right behind her. Millicent was clearly aghast.
“Oh, Jocasta,” was all she managed to say.
The Apothecary was equally thunderstruck but far better at concealing it. He gave the most elaborate bow while he tried to think what to say. Meanwhile, his friend spoke up.
“Well, John, we do keep running in to one another in the oddest places.” He gave a bow in Millicent’s direction. “How do you do, Ma’am? Well, I trust.”
“Very well, I thank you,” she answered coldly. She turned to Jocasta. “I was just about to show Mr. Rawlings the family portraits, dearest. Would that be in order?”
Jocasta gave her a sweet, sad smile. “Oh course. But why don’t Mr. Swann and I come with you.” She turned to the Apothecary. “Mr. Rawlings, you are rather early. I apologise but I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon.”
He gave her the most charming smile he could muster but his feeling of irritation with Samuel, which had started on the previous evening and had only just gone away, returned with a vengeance.
“This way, Mr. Rawlings,” chirruped Millicent, and led the way as if she hadn’t a care in the world, across the mighty Great Hall and up to the Long Gallery, which ran the entire length of the west wing. Jocasta and Samuel, meanwhile, positively dawdled behind them.
Instantly the Apothecary’s eyes were drawn to a picture which hung, dominating the others, at the far end. So much so that his feet were drawn there despite the fact that Millicent was already starting to speak about some of the earlier portraits.
“My God,” he said, beneath his breath, and stood away from it, regarding it in awe.
It was of a woman, her face closed and shuttered, her expression secretive. Her hair, what little he could see of it beneath a Tudor headdress, was dark, dark as the eyes which seemed to regard the Apothecary with a knowing look. Yet knowing was perhaps the wrong word. It was a look that unconsciously shared a secret, as if he was aware of the darkest workings of her mind, while she, it was obvious to John at least, knew everything in the world that there was to know about him. By the very fact that he had come to look at her portrait, he felt himself drawn into a secret that he could not explain.
In the far corner of the portrait crouched a monkey, its little face sad and wizened. Yet when the Apothecary stared into its features he saw that it had a look of the woman about it. He gazed and gazed, realising that Millicent had come to join him and was standing at his side.
“That’s a portrait of a cousin of ours, all of the family I mean.”
“Oh yes?” said John, continuing to stare.
“Yes. Lucinda, Lady Tewkesbury, her name is. They say that she betrayed her husband.”
“Oh yes?” John repeated, suddenly very interested.
“Oh yes indeed. He was one of old blood - his ancestors came over with William the Conqueror - and she had no titled blood at all. Yet he fell madly in love with her and after his second wife died took this one for third. She gave birth to one son, the son who was our common ancestor, but nobody could be sure that the boy was his.”
“Goon.”
“Well, she had fallen in love in her turn.”
“With whom?”
“With Roger de Courtenay, a noble from the North of England who came visiting.”
John turned to look at her and saw that her little fingers were working the cuff of her sleeve.
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, I don’t know that much. All I’m aware of is that she and Roger disappeared one night…”
“What, literally?”
“Yes. One moment they were here, probably in the Long Gallery. The next they were gone. Well, that’s what we are told anyway.”
“But what happened?” asked the Apothecary, suddenly irritated to have got so far and no further.
“I truly don’t know.”
He leant forward, as if being closer to the portrait would give him the answer, and there was a sudden whirring sound. John turned just in time to see Miss Millicent’s nervous eyes, then suddenly hurtled forward through the panelling into a strange, black room that lay beyond. For second time in that twenty-four hours, the Apothecary found himself alone in the darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
This time, however, he was wide awake, and as he got used to the light realised that he was in a large room, so large that it was not easy to see the far comers. From somewhere - at present he had no idea where - a great deal of light was being let in. But to find its source was not his top priority. Instead John turned and beat l
oudly on the panelling, shouting at the top of his voice.
“Millicent, Millicent, are you there? Let me out, there’s a good girl.”
He strained his ears but there was no answering sound, in fact no sound at all except for a faint scuffling. “Oh ‘zounds and ‘zoonters and damnation,” he said aloud. “What the devil’s happened to her?”
There were two possible solutions, neither of which appealed to him. One was that she was lying unconscious, the other that she had taken to her heels and fled to wherever Jocasta and Samuel were at that particular moment. Both of which involved time.
He turned back to the panelling and set up a mighty pounding which got something in the room behind him jumping. Cursing wrathfully, the Apothecary gave up and decided that the best thing he could do was get out of his present situation as quickly as possible. This meant starting with a proper examination of the place in which he found himself.
It was a very large room, partially furnished with decaying bits, long since left to moulder into obscurity. The source of light was, he discovered, a chimney breast, a good-sized opening at the top allowing daylight in - and more. Birds’ nests lay in the hearth, together with twigs and other detritus which had fallen down the chimney over the years. But just as he was going to pass the fireplace by something made him pause and come back to it. Recently, within the last month or so, somebody had lit a fire in part of it. The smell, though faint, was still in the air. Thoroughly intrigued, the Apothecary conducted a hasty search of the room, then made for the door, which opened at once to his touch.
He was standing in a corridor which ran to both right and left, albeit narrow and carved from stone. Never having had a good sense of direction the Apothecary stood for several minutes, wondering which way to go, and eventually decided on left. But after a few moments of making his way, he turned back. Neither right nor left were going to be any good until he found some sort of light to guide him.
Back in the room there was very little of use; a drinking cup, a rotting cushion, a piece of a rug being about the only things. Then, as he passed the mantelpiece, instinctively he searched once more. And there, tucked in amongst the cobwebs and invisible to the naked eye, was a small piece of candle, about ten minutes’ burning time in all.