Lady Julia Grey Bundle

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  Next to the washstand, his best boots were freshly polished and placed at a careful distance from the fire. There was a clean towel hung there, and I was glad to see Mrs. Butters had at least attended to that. His razor was dry, and I noted the fresh growth of beard at his chin. His whiskers were coal black, and I wondered how he would look with a beard. I loathed them, but it occurred to me that Brisbane might look rather piratical with one. I was just about to suggest it when I noticed the bottle on his washstand. Clear glass and full of dark ruby-red syrup—no, not full. At least an inch had been emptied from it, and I saw the spoon resting next to it.

  I glanced back at Brisbane. He sat at the writing table, his profile sharp against the wall behind him. He did not look up as he wrote, his pen dashing quickly over the page in the bold hand I had come to know so well. Occasionally he paused to think, passing a hand over his brow or his jaw, and once he heaved a sigh, exhaling heavily as he scrawled his signature. He darted a glance at me, then folded the letter quickly, thrusting it into an envelope. He sealed it with a thick, old-fashioned wafer of wax and put it aside. There was no direction on the envelope, and I wondered to whom he had been writing so secretly. His colour was pale under the dark olive of his complexion, and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes, signs I had seen before when the headaches were upon him. He turned to me, his pupils quite small in the wide black iris.

  "Well?" His tone was not encouraging. Doubtless he thought I meant to needle him about returning the collection to the Allenbys, and it was a mark of how well he knew me that he should think so.

  "I do intend to persuade you to give the collection, or at least its proceeds to the Allenbys," I told him, "but we can quarrel about that later." I told him what I had found when I inspected the coffin, and what I had learned from my inquiry of Godwin.

  Brisbane said nothing for a moment, pursing his lips. His booted legs were stretched out before him, one arm thrown over the back of the chair. "So Redwall kept the coffin, then found mummies to fill it, against Mama's wishes," he mused.

  "Precisely," I said. "But there is something else, something rather more disturbing." I explained quickly about the inscription. "The cartouche was blank when Godwin last saw the coffin. At some point, Redwall Allenby chiselled an inscription, taking the text from a book on hieroglyphs, a chapter dealing with funerary customs, to be precise. He carved into the coffin a prayer for the dead."

  "You found the text?" he asked, his expression one of acute astonishment.

  "I did. It was rather obvious when I knew what to look for. I was prepared to translate, one character at a time, which I know is a preposterously difficult matter for someone not trained in Egyptology, but I was determined. Imagine my surprise when I found the entire text printed in the book." I preened a little at this point. I was immensely proud of my investigative accomplishments, but Brisbane wasted no time in praise.

  "Show me," he ordered. We moved into the study and he quickly extracted the coffin lid, placing it carefully onto the floor. I held a candle aloft and he ran his fingers over the cartouche, tracing the characters.

  "I ought to have noticed this before," he murmured. Then, to my astonishment, he began to chant in a language I had never heard, and after a moment I realised why: it was a language that had not been spoken in thousands of years.

  "Brisbane! You speak Egyptian," I said, feeling quite breathless.

  He flicked me a glance. "As well as anyone could be expected to. It is a dead language, after all."

  I shook my head. "How do you know what that cartouche says?" I demanded, my astonishment rapidly giving way to anger.

  "I conducted an investigation in Egypt," he said blandly. "I had to pass for an Egyptological scholar. My speciality was language, hieroglyphs and hieratic. I still remember bits of it, but you know what they say about losing languages you do not practise."

  My hands were fisted at my sides. I forced my fingers to unclench, although I longed to throttle him with them.

  "All this time, you have been letting me slave away in here in the dust and the grime, and you knew precisely what everything was. I never even needed to catalogue a single artefact, did I?"

  He shook his sleek, dark head. "No," he said, his tone remarkably cheerful.

  "You have been through this room already," I hypothesised. "You already knew every piece in this collection, didn't you?"

  "Not the coffin, nor the mummies," he pointed out. "Those were hidden. And they weren't in the catalogue."

  "The—the catalogue?" I was stammering in my rage. "There is a catalogue already?"

  He had the grace, or perhaps the sense of self-preservation, not to laugh. "In my bedchamber. I slid it under the bed."

  I was beyond angry. I felt the blood beating in my ears, and if he had smiled at me, I would have flown at him, regardless of his advantage in size and strength. "And you thought it would be amusing to let me toil away, doing my pathetic best to catalogue a collection I could not begin to understand, while you slept a foot away from a proper catalogue the whole time." It was not a question, and he did not bother to reply.

  "How could you?" I asked him finally. "I thought I was helping those poor women, and instead I was being made a fool of."

  He shrugged. "It was not meant to make a fool of you. It was meant to keep you busy and out of trouble."

  I stared at him, my mouth agape. It was several seconds before I could speak coherently. "Of all the arrogant, high-handed things you have done, this is by far the worst. I came here because I thought you needed me. We have faced down death and tracked murderers together, and I thought we were partners after a fashion."

  I paused, feeling flat and empty, as though the breath had been knocked quite solidly out of my lungs. "How stupid I was. Of course you would have made yourself acquainted with the collection. You had months, didn't you? Long, cold winter months with nothing to do. You would have searched the books and found the catalogue easily. I daresay it was even in his desk, waiting for you. And then I came, blundering in as usual and you could not resist having fun at my expense, could you? Stupid Julia, let her play at being useful. How you must have laughed, knowing what I was doing each day, and what pains I took to make certain you did not find out."

  "If you did not want me to find out, you ought not to have worn your perfume. I did remind you the first night that you smelled of violets. Next time, leave it off," he pointed out. That he chose to comment on that one matter, and said nothing of the rest, spoke volumes to me. I smoothed my skirts, and composed my expression.

  "There will be no next time," I told him, my voice calm and even. "I have had my fill of your mysteries and your secrets and your tricks. I will return to London tomorrow, and I will only say that I am sorry I have troubled you. I hope the amusement I provided has more than made up for the inconvenience."

  His expression did not change, except for the faintest flicker—of what?—behind his eyes. He merely inclined his head and folded his arms over the breadth of his chest, his knuckles white. I turned and took my leave of him, and it is to my credit that I did not shed a single tear, nor did I hasten my steps from the room. I walked slowly and with dignity, each footfall a death knell as I left him.

  THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER

  Death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.

  —William Shakespeare

  Julius Caesar

  I went directly to the maids' room, opening the door without knocking. Minna was alone, knitting and talking to Grim and Florence. She looked up in alarm.

  "Is there something amiss, my lady?" she asked, clearly alarmed.

  "We are leaving. Pack your things and the animals and be prepared to leave first thing in the morning."

  Unlike Morag, who would have peppered me with questions, Minna merely laid aside her knitting and rose.

  "Yes, my lady. I will begin at once." She had gone quite pale, and I felt a surge of pity for her. It could not be an easy thing to live one's life always at the mercy of
another's whims.

  "I will pack for myself, Minna. See to yourself and the animals."

  She dipped a quick curtsey and said nothing.

  I left her then and went to my chilly room, pausing to poke at the fire. I shoved viciously, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney until it was blazing. I opened my trunk and began to pitch things in, not troubling to fold anything. I was too angry to do the job properly. I knew that once I gave myself time to think about what had happened, I would be shattered, and it needed all my energy to get myself, a maid, an expectant dog, and a raven back to London.

  I had just hurled a pair of boots into the trunk with a satisfying clatter when my door was thrown back on its hinges. Minna stood there, panting as if she had just taken the stairs two at a time. Her round little face was dead white, and she was wearing her cloak.

  "Minna, whatever is the trouble?"

  She put a hand to her side, pressing a stitch, I guessed. "My lady, oh, you must come! I think he's dying!"

  I blinked at her. "Who is dying? What on earth are you talking about?"

  She tugged at my arm, dragging me toward the door. "I went downstairs to—oh, never mind! I heard him, at least, I heard a noise, as if something heavy had fallen. I went to his room to see if I could help, and I found him there. Please, my lady, you must come. He will die else!"

  I realised then that she was talking about Brisbane. I jerked my arm out of her grasp and flew down the stairs, Minna hard on my heels. I found him in his bedchamber, collapsed on the floor between his bed and the hearth. He must have reached for something as he had fallen, for a stack of books was scattered over the floor, and the little bottle of red syrup was shattered over the hearthstones. He was lying on his side and he had been sick, comprehensively so. He was unaware of Minna, or of me, bending over him, calling his name. I pushed back his eyelids, but his eyes had rolled white, and as I watched, his muscles began to seize.

  And as I looked down at him, suffering and broken, I knew that for the second time in my life, I was watching the death throes of a man who had been poisoned.

  "My lady," Minna sobbed, "what shall I do?"

  The world stopped then, for I knew whatever choice I made would determine whether Brisbane lived or died. He had been poisoned—deliberately, I was certain. But by whom? He needed help, and if I applied to the wrong quarter, he would certainly die. I had to know whom to trust with a life more precious to me than my own.

  A thousand questions spun through my mind in the space of half a minute, a thousand pieces I had to fit together instantly. I thought of the bottled mushrooms, lovingly prepared by Lady Allenby. I saw the beautiful red syrup distilled by Rosalie in her little stillroom in the moor cottage. And I thought of Godwin, with his tins of arsenic for dipping sheep. Any one of them might have poisoned him, and any one of them might be waiting to make certain they finished the job. There was no hope, I thought desperately. Brisbane was going to die because I did not know whom to trust. The only possible action at that point was prayer, I decided hopelessly.

  But before I could beg the Almighty's intercession, I knew.

  I rose and took Minna hard by the arms. "I dare not leave him, but you must go for help. Do you know the cottage at the crossroads on the moor? The one where the Gypsy lady lives?"

  Minna nodded, her mouth trembling. She was trying desperately not to look at the ruined man on the floor. "I do."

  "Go and fetch her. Tell her that Brisbane had been poisoned, and to bring whatever remedies she has. Tell her it was either mushrooms or arsenic, I don't know which—"

  I broke off, thinking rapidly. I did know which. In our first investigation, Brisbane's friend, Dr. Bent, had explained to me that a victim of arsenical poisoning would expel fluids that smelled heavily of garlic. No such smell hung in the air of Brisbane's room.

  "It was mushrooms, tell her it was toadstools and tell her if she wants to see him alive again, she must hurry. And if you make it there and back with her in quarter of an hour, I will give you a hundred pounds. Go!" I gave Minna a shove and she ran as if all the hounds of hell were at her heels.

  She did not return in a quarter of an hour. It was nearer a half, and those thirty minutes were the darkest of my life. I held his head over the washbasin, but there was nothing to be done for him, nothing except hold his still hand in mine and watch him slip away. I did not speak. He would not have known me in any event. I simply sat, feeling his hand grow cold and then hot in mine, the fingers limp one moment, then so tightly grasped I thought he would break my bones. I welcomed the pain. It was the only thing tethering me to that moment. Were it not for the grinding of those little bones together, I think I might have gone quite mad, waiting for Minna to return with Rosalie, listening to the terrible sounds of the poison ravaging Brisbane's body.

  At last Rosalie appeared, swirling skirts and long plaits swinging as she slipped off a man's greatcoat and pushed up her sleeves. She said nothing to me, merely bent over him and assessed him, as carefully and critically as any Harley Street physician.

  "Mushrooms, eh?" she said at last. I nodded. "A nasty business. I will do all I can, and still he may not live. Will you help me, lady?"

  I turned on her, angry as a cat. "Of course I will help you. Do you think I mean to sit idly by while he dies?"

  She made no reply, merely turned to Minna and delivered a litany of orders. The fire must be stoked up, kettles of hot water must be brought, sheets and towels, and various other implements of nursing. Minna bobbed a curtsey and fled, grateful, I think, to have something useful to do.

  Together Rosalie and I manoeuvred him onto the bed, stripping his soiled shirt off of him and saying nothing.

  When Minna returned, she folded back her cuffs and poked up the fire, heaping fuel upon it until the flames blazed up the chimney. She went to fetch the first of the hot water kettles and Rosalie turned to me. "You trust me, lady?"

  Her eyes were on mine, black and fathomless, and I felt a little faint at the power in them. I nodded. "Yes."

  She gave one short, sharp nod. "As I said, I will do what I can to save him, but I make you no promises. We may fight like tigresses and still lose him, do you understand?"

  "You will not lose him," I told her fiercely. "I will not lose him."

  Rosalie gave another nod, then gestured for her basket. "If it was mushrooms, he must be made to vomit, as much as possible for a short period of time. It will not help the poison that has already settled in his system, and it will make him very weak, but it will prevent the rest from harming him."

  She took a packet of ground herbs from her basket, a little paper twist that smelled like something rotten and decayed. She mixed it with water and told me to hold his head. "This will not be easy," she warned me. She was entirely correct.

  The next hours I cannot clearly remember. There are sounds and impressions, and fleeting, sharp memories. Brisbane was sick, over and again, because we made him so, and I found myself murmuring apologies under my breath as he heaved and groaned. In between, we rubbed his chest and arms with towels soaked in vinegar. Minna worked the fire until sweat ran freely from her brow. All of that terrible night she tended the fire, saying almost nothing, but every time I looked at her, her lips were moving in inaudible prayer. She left only to brew pots of strong tea. Mine grew stone cold, as did Rosalie's. I could think of nothing but Brisbane, and even now, when I think of that terrible night, I remember Rosalie's eyes, black and determined as she laboured to save his life.

  When he had been fully purged, she administered a solution of milk thistle and watched him carefully. At last, he settled into an uneasy unconsciousness, and Rosalie turned to me.

  "That is all I can do for him. Milk thistle now, and weak tea later if he will take it, and as much as he will take."

  Minna stretched, pushing her fists into her back and then went to the window, rattling back the draperies.

  "Oh, look!" she cried. I turned to see the moor, purple-black and stretching to the ends
of the earth, and just beyond, the first tinge of pink as the sun began to edge into the grey sky.

  "It is morning," I said, sagging in relief. "He has survived the night. Surely he will live." I looked to Rosalie in appeal, but she shook her head. Her face was deeply lined and her eyes darkly shadowed, betraying all of her years. I knew I must look as worn. We had all of us lived a lifetime in that night. I opened my mouth to argue with Rosalie, but she held up a hand.

  "This is the time of danger, lady, not the first hours. The poison may have settled too deeply, and we will not know until two, three days have passed. He is unconscious now, and he will either recover, or he will die. There is no way of knowing which, and there is nothing more to be done except to answer his thirst. We have done all that we could. It is in God's hands now."

  I wanted to scream or rage or put my fist into her complacent face. But she was entirely correct. We had purged and dosed him, and there was nothing more to be done but wait.

  I was surprised the rest of the household had not been raised during the night, but they had apparently slept on, peacefully unaware of our ordeal. At least, all but one of them had. Somewhere, a villainess must have lain awake, counting herself clever. I barred the door and gave Minna strict instructions that none of the household, particularly Lady Allenby, was to be admitted. Minna took it upon herself to prepare food for Rosalie and myself, although none of us ate much. That day stretched into another torturous night, and into the second day, the hours dragging past one and the same. I sat next to the bed, holding his hand, willing him to feel me there, to come back to me.

  And as horrible as the entire ordeal had been, nothing was as black as the second night, when the witching hour came and went and I felt his skin growing cooler under my touch. Minna had dragged a thin mattress downstairs and was sleeping by the fire, curled like a child. Rosalie, exhausted by her efforts, was slumped in the chair, her head on the writing desk, pillowed in her arms.