The Specimen

by Martha Lea

  Q: “It was Mrs Pemberton’s impression then, that the person who had harmed her on the night of August 3rd was still alive?”

  A: “Without a doubt, sir, indeed it was. She feared for her husband’s life.”

  Q: “And she seemed in genuine distress over this last?”

  A: “Sir, in my long career, I have seen many women make a sham over some thing or another, but I have known Mrs Pemberton some years now, and no doubt is in my mind that the fear she felt over her husband’s safety that morning was genuine.”

  Q: “Please, Dr Rathstone, if you can, would you tell me what her exact words were?”

  A: “She said, ‘He’ll kill my husband, I know he will.’ She said it many, many times until I could persuade her to take a sedative.”

  Q: “And did Mrs Pemberton give you the name of the man who had injured her and whom she believed would harm her husband?”

  A: “She did not; she was in great distress and would only repeat what I have told you.”

  Chapter LV

  Carrick House. June, 1866.

  Euphemia laughed, showing all her teeth. Gus Pemberton smiled, joining his face to her laugh, but he could not meet her gaze. Trout. He attended to the food on his plate. Done very nicely by Susan, gutted earlier by himself and Edward, Susan quiet by the sink waiting to deal with the guts and cleaned fish. The task of taking the trout from the pool (it was not large enough to be a lake, not really) could hardly have been less satisfying. As Edward lowered the landing net into the water, Gus had heard the gentle breaking of waves, fifty yards beyond the garden wall. An unsightly and abrupt end to the amble down the paths. In his mind, he vaulted the mortar and stone, and stood looking out at the scene Gwen had once described to him. The wall must be new. She had never mentioned a wall. The innards spilled neatly, releasing a muddy taint into the air.

  Gus Pemberton found Gwen’s sister charmless. He tried to discover something he could like in Euphemia’s character, so that he would not find himself being false with her. He thought that if he’d found himself married to such a creature, he would have spent twice as much time out of the house as Edward Scales.

  Initially, he had been struck by her appearance. How like Gwen she was, in that first instant, despite the obvious difference between the sisters. He could see how Edward would have fallen at once into tying himself to this woman, rather than striving to extricate himself—and then forever regretting it.

  Gus felt the tension creep down his back as Euphemia said, “You never did say, Ted, how the two of you met.”

  Edward’s reply was a little too studious. “We have an acquaintance in common. A Midlander, now living in London—”

  “What? Mr Coyne is Cornish—and he certainly isn’t—”

  Edward’s cutlery clattered onto his plate. He placed his hands flat on the table. Gus had his fork midway between his plate and his mouth; pink fish flesh dropped with an almost silent splat back onto his plate. He looked from Scales to Scales’ wife and back again.

  Euphemia said, “What I mean to say, is—”

  “Take the boys, why don’t you, Euphemia, to the kitchen, where I am sure Susan will be only too happy to give them their milk pudding,” Edward said quietly.

  “But the thing is, obviously—”

  “Take them, Euphemia.”

  Both men were quiet after the corralling had been accomplished.

  Gus said, “Would I be right in assuming that your wife’s comment just now came as much of a surprise to you, as it did to me?”

  “If she had made that comment before I’d had your news, I would have wanted to know what she meant by it immediately. As it is, I can wait. And I am even more convinced that your news should be withheld from Euphemia, for the time being at least. She has not been very calm these past few days. Her chirpy facade seems egg-shell thin.”

  The next morning Gus held Gwen’s notebooks in his lap. Looking into them by the open window of his room, he’d expected to see her watercolours and sketches laid out on the page in much the same way as the specimens themselves. Ordered by class, neatly labelled, a border of white paper between each regimented subject. No. Her pages were, to the uninitiated eye, a jumbled, mixed-up mess. A morass of things, jostling for space. Her written notes meandered around her work: lines, arrows, and dates seemingly confused, overlapping; nothing was chronological. These were her private thoughts and impressions layered year on year. Gus supposed that her intention had been to sort through and make fair copies of the best of it. It was obvious that she had never intended these notebooks to be used by anyone but herself. With this in mind, he looked more carefully. He got up and went downstairs to the library to find a magnifying glass. He could not read her tiny handwriting without one. The house seemed deserted. Edward, out for his morning ramble. No evidence of Euphemia and the children: perhaps they, too, had gone out. Gus stopped to crane his head at the landing window and studied the sky. If Euphemia had ventured out like her husband, she would get wet very soon. The pallid grey of the early hours had begun to transform into something much more forbidding, though the air was still. On the cusp of something, thought Gus, waiting for the telltale sign, and the rush of wind in the treetops. Always expecting something grander than British weather could produce; he hoped that Cornish weather might prove a little different.

  He went on down the stairs and to the library. He took a moment on the threshold. He had not noticed much about it the day before. It had been so terribly hot out, and he’d been so tired, so glad to be in a cool place, and only thinking of how he might tell Edward about Gwen and Augusta.

  Edward had wasted no time in giving the heap of Gwen’s sketchbooks to Gus.

  The room seemed to say that its owner had gone out of his way to make it utterly unextraordinary, bland.

  Gus found a magnifying glass on the desk and putting it into his jacket pocket made to leave the room. Susan was standing just inside the door with her hands behind her back, as though she had just shut herself quietly in with the guest.

  “Good morning, Susan. I’m just stealing a magnifying glass. I’ll not get in your way.”

  “It’s all right, sir, I don’t do this room today.”

  Later, he picked up the sketchbooks again and opened a page at random. A portrait of a girl wearing black and red face paint, bordered by a trail of crimson passion-flowers and studies of Heliconid butterflies and their larvae, as Gwen called them; not caterpillars. The sight of the girl brought a knot into his stomach. She was smiling, her gaze turned away from Gwen, unlike so many portraits of indigenous peoples of far-off places. Gwen’s portrait of the girl had caught her in a moment. It was perhaps as contrived as any other portrait; no one could paint that quickly. Gus could sense that, to the girl, this had not been the most important part of her day. Something more engaging had caught her attention, and the viewer was not allowed to look into her eyes. On the same page, Gwen had painted the leaves of the tree from which the red dye had been extracted. There was an unfinished study of a minis-cule yellow and black tree-frog. Gwen’s tiny script edged around it all, and Gus peered through the magnifying glass at her pencilled in words: “. . . each variant would seem to support its own kind of insect. A curious thing, for these relationships to be so specialised. On each plant stem there are tiny nodules, different on each variant, positioned half an inch or so below the leaf and sometimes around the edges of the leaf itself. The nodules vary in size from the almost invisible to the size of a pimpernel flower-bud. These nodules, I have come to realise, are almost exact representations of the ova belonging to the particular Heliconids which rely on the plant as its food source. It is unclear in my mind whether these nodules serve to act as some kind of attractant, or a dissuasive measure. Is the plant attempting to repel the butterflies by announcing that there is already a crop of ova about to hatch and thereafter devour the food ahead of the new additions. Or is it a reminder to the butterfly to lay her eggs? Either way it is a remarkable example of a plant imitating
its parasite. I cannot help but speculate that in some cases at least, nature is indeed perhaps as C.D. suggests, working independently of its Originator . . .”

  Gus smiled to himself at Gwen’s younger self and her tentative words. She was much more direct now, and unwavering in her conviction. The open window brought in a rush of cooler air and the first raindrops began to spatter the glass. With his gaze fixed in the middle distance through the gathering rain, he thought of her speculating, her imagination ignited by such tiny things as the almost invisible bump on a passion-flower stem. Gus spent the remaining hours of the morning lost in the pages of her work.

  Eventually, he heard nearby the commotion of Euphemia coaxing the children, filthy by the sound of it, from exploring the midden heap, into being scrubbed before Susan took them off to have their lunch in the kitchen. Gus heard the resonant clang of an enamel bowl put down on the flagstones and a cloth being dipped and wrung, punctuated by aggrieved noises from both parties.

  Two days after Pemberton’s stay had come to an end, Euphemia was high-pitched and overly loquacious. There was a worrying shimmer in her eyes.

  A darkening bruise spread out on the horizon casting a dull beginning to the day. As the sky turned a deeper hue of slate, the sea became pale and luminous under it. The wind frigged with Edward’s clothes, and he decided to turn back before he was blown off the path. The house, which only a few days before had been open at every window, was now battened down, and seemed to be as hunched as he was as he came in the back door. He kicked off his boots and shoved them under a chair, fully expecting Susan to appear from somewhere and tell him off. She didn’t. Edward poked around for something to eat, and finding nothing that wasn’t rising or steaming in the deserted kitchen, went along, still wearing his outdoor things, to the library. He kept dry biscuits there. It wasn’t exactly an appetising thought, and he was just considering the possible ramifications of ringing for Susan when he saw his wife.

  She didn’t see him; Euphemia was standing with her back to the door. She was busy searching for something to read. Edward waited for her to sense him there. She was leafing through a book; he could tell from her posture and from the tune that she hummed that she was unlikely to realise he was there unless he made a noise. He stayed perfectly still for a moment, enjoying seeing her absorbed in something so simple. The tune that she hummed was one that she had been practising on the piano very recently. The mistakes that she made over and over again on the keys had corrupted her memory of the piece so that she was humming it wrong. The wind hit the house in a smack of squall, rattling the windows. Edward took his cue and moved into the room, making a noise as he went.

  Euphemia turned and let out a yelp like a puppy being trodden on, her eyes widening in alarm. Almost immediately, but not quite soon enough, she said, “Ted, you quite startled me. Goodness, a storm.”

  Edward waited patiently as she fiddled, putting the book back into the case. His wife slammed the doors shut over the books, standing defensively—protectively? Edward couldn’t decide—with her back to them, her arms splayed out at her sides.

  “What a silly goose I am. Are you wet? I think I can hear one of the boys; he’s calling me.” She walked across the room briskly, intending to go past Edward without another word. Edward stepped in her way, and she bumped up against him, recoiling fractionally. Hardly at all, Edward thought, but it was there all the same. Now, he thought, whilst I don’t mind about it. “There is something I have been meaning to speak with you about.”

  “Well, I shall look forward to it over dinner, Ted.”

  “It is a private matter. A matter of great importance, which—”

  “I must get on, Ted. We can speak later.” She pushed him aside, and he let her go. As she left him, she gave him a parting kiss as an afterthought, her top lip beaded with moisture. There was a tang of ripe underarm heat in the space she left behind.

  Edward swore under his breath and locked the door after her. Since the arrival of the twins—no, since the very beginning of her bearing them—she hadn’t needed any medicine. The glitter of her eyes, in the first days of his taking her on, as he had come to think of it, had vanished. Her demeanour had changed. She was lighter; hadn’t cared about his insistence on her not taking clients in, for those evenings to cease altogether. That part of her seemed to have been smoothed right away.

  Edward couldn’t be sure when this edginess had come back. It was not easy to pinpoint. He thought that perhaps he was being too hard on her. But then there was the comment she’d made about Vincent Coyne; she’d avoided answering his questions, despite his attempts. He didn’t want to think about its possible implications. There were far too many little things that he wanted to avoid dwelling on.

  He rummaged for his dry biscuits; cramming one into his mouth, he sloped over to the bookcase Euphemia had been rifling through. He didn’t mind, on principle. The books there were as wallpaper to him. Certainly, he’d never read anything from those cases. Never even considered it. Euphemia had transferred her edginess; she’d left it in the room and it hovered right there at the bookcase. Don’t be a stupid ass, Edward told himself, as he scanned the shelves. He made himself assume an idleness and was about to shut the doors again when he saw it. A book not aligned with its neighbours or the shelf, its lower edge hovering. Edward slid his middle finger into the inch of darkness and grasped the top of the spine with his other hand. The book was wedged tight and when it came out it spewed papers, which drifted in all directions to the floor.

  Edward instinctively dropped to his knees to gather them up. It was as well that he was so near to the floor when he saw whose handwriting covered the papers. He read them hungrily, feverishly, spreading them all out on the carpet, sorting them into columns finding the chronological order, finding the extent of Euphemia’s game.

  Dear Euphemia,

  I write this letter to you in haste, much weakened by a lengthy ordeal which had me laid down very low with a case of the ague. I would have travelled back instead of this letter but for my young companion, who has fared much worse than I with the fatigue and the debilitating effects of the ague. I shall wait here, in Pará, as a guest of some friends here whilst my companion recovers. Do not concern yourself, dear sister, I am all in one piece. But there was some confusion, to put it mildly, when I became separated from my party. I have learned since my return that it was believed that all members of my small party had perished.

  Mr Scales has returned to England still under this illusion. I know that he would want to visit our house in person, to deliver this erroneous piece of news.

  Please relieve him of this misapprehension as soon as the opportunity may arise either by letter or in person.

  I hope to be able to travel home one month from now . . .

  —

  . . . I have managed to find a place to stay—temporarily, until I have sorted out my financial affairs, and until I am able to manage the final leg of the journey home. The voyage has taken much out of me, and, again, I am able to take advantage of the kindness of friends. I will need you to send me a cheque as an interim whilst you sign over the full amount of my inheritance to me. Please send it as soon as you are able . . .

  —

  . . . I have spent several days since your letter arrived redrafting my response. But I am now of the opinion, having had time to think on everything, that there is no response which would adequately encapsulate all that might reasonably be committed to paper. There was no need to include the cutting. I read the papers daily from cover to cover. At least, I know now that he is alive, safely returned to England, and that you are not unwell. Your timing, as always, is impeccable . . .

  —

  . . . Will you at least send on my work? I don’t presume to ruin your happiness, as you claimed in your letter; I wish only to allow him to know that I did not perish, as he and everyone else had previously thought. Don’t force me into the ridiculous indignity of having to beg you for something which would normally be give
n freely, without thought or preamble. I will be contacting the Bank, again, in due course.

  —

  You MUST inform your husband of my whereabouts. It is the only thing that I wish for, nothing more. I cannot see that any benefit can come from his continuing to believe that I am dead . . . As it would seem that I am virtually penniless, may I now, please, at least, have my work returned to me? There are a number of notebooks and sketchbooks which contain important notes in the work I carried out in Pará on some species of ants. You would find this dull, but it is most important that these books are returned to me.

  —

  Euphemia, you are and always will be my sister, but you leave me in an impossible position . . . Please be advised that I am not prepared to put up with this charade any more. Do what you will, and I shall do the same.