Ottilia hesitated. Tom must surely bring Francis at any moment. She had only to humour her, keep her sweet. The word threw question into her head and she spoke without thought, moving further into the room.
“Flora Sugars, is that the name?”
“Mine. They are mine, mine, mine.”
The rising note itched at Ottilia’s nerves, but she held her ground, infusing friendliness into her voice. “Did your guardian like confections, Tamasine? Sir Joslin?”
For a moment, the girl looked disconcerted. The gleam in the China blue eyes faded a little. When she spoke, she sounded altogether normal again.
“I eat the sugar out of the canes. Joslin likes sweetmeats. He makes them. Simeon makes them for me.”
A memory jerked in Ottilia’s mind. What had Cuffy said about distilling? Would Sir Joslin have combined that task with the making of sugar confections? And here once more was the fellow Simeon. How nearly had he been involved with the family in Barbados?
“Simeon makes them?”
“Yes, and Whitey gives me some.”
Mrs Whiting was responsible for doling out sweetmeats? Then her suspicion had some foundation. She dared not say more. Tamasine was on the move again, tripping around the mattresses and thumping at them.
Lord in heaven, where was Francis? It seemed an age since Tom had run off, but in reality it could not be many minutes. She contemplated making another shift towards the door, but her heart misgave her. The creature was utterly unpredictable today.
As if in answer to the thought, Tamasine loomed up in front of her, the beaming smile in place, but the eyes perfectly glassy.
Ottilia remained still, holding her breath, meeting that peculiar gaze.
Hasty footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs. Tamasine turned her head, listening. Then, giggling, she sped to the open door, hiding in the space behind it, flat against the wall.
Breathing again, Ottilia stayed just where she was, waiting. The footsteps drove down the corridor and Francis appeared in the opening and halted, his eyes flying to her face. Ottilia spoke as pleasantly as she could manage.
“Ah, there you are, Fan. Tamasine has been showing me her eyrie, you must know.”
She gave him a meaningful glance and flicked her eyes towards the door where the girl was standing. He nodded briefly, clearly catching her drift. He shifted into the room and deliberately leaned his weight against the open door, trapping the child behind. A grunt came, but Tamasine made no other protest. His voice was rough with concern and he sounded a trifle out of breath besides, but Ottilia thought it would pass for normal with the person for whom it was meant.
“That is excellent, my love, but I fear we must make haste. My mother expects us for dinner, as you know, and she will be wild with us if we are late.”
“Very true,” Ottilia said loudly and crossed with swift steps to the door, slipping through with a feeling of intense relief.
“Go! I’ll follow.”
The murmured command came in her ear as she passed. Ottilia needed no urging, relief coursing through her as she sped down that horrid corridor and made for the narrow stair. Within seconds, Francis was behind her. She glanced back.
“Is she following?”
“I don’t think so. But don’t stop. I’ve sent the boys home.”
No further word was spoken until they reached the comparative safety of the gallery above the main stair. Francis caught Ottilia’s arm to halt her and pulled her into his embrace. Ottilia snuggled, relieved not to have a peal rung over her immediately.
When he let her go, she gave him a deprecating look. “Are you livid with me?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I ought to be, you wretch, but I’m too relieved you came to no harm.”
Ottilia dropped her voice to a whisper. “She truly is out of her senses, Fan. There can be no doubt. I can readily believe she did indeed kill her guardian.”
It was excessively late and Patrick had still not returned, but Francis had not been able to prevail upon either his wife or his mother to go to bed and wait to hear the doctor’s news in the morning. Tillie’s recalcitrance was no surprise, despite her obvious tiredness after the excitements of the day. He had anointed the slight grazes on her palms with a salve, ordered coffee and made her rest before dinner, with the result that she declared herself fully recovered from her ordeal and anxious for her brother’s news.
Francis, using a stratagem as unscrupulous as any she had used as his fond wife later informed him, drew on their mother’s sensibilities to get the boys ordered off to bed within minutes of the company entering the parlour.
“They have had a most exhausting day, Sophie. I imagine you will wish them to have an early night.”
Sophie Hathaway at once swooped upon her reluctant sons, clasping first one and then the other to her bosom. “My darlings! Come up with me and I will tuck you in, for I don’t mean to linger. I will be lucky if this terrible day has not brought on my spasms.”
“But we want to wait for Papa,” protested Ben, throwing a reproachful look at Francis.
“Yes, ’cause he’s cutting up the body and —”
His mother’s shriek smothered Tom’s ghoulish glee, and she shuddered. “No, no, my darling boy, we have had quite enough of bodies for one day. Now make your bows, my loves, and thank her ladyship and we will go up directly.”
It was plain Sophie’s occasional cloying forays into motherhood were effective, for a couple of inexpert bows were made in the dowager’s direction and the reluctant boys were ushered out, Miss Mellis following with offers of warm milk and hot bricks.
However, when Francis tried a like tactic with his own mother, he found her as adamant as Tillie.
“Do you imagine I could sleep without knowing whether or no there is matter for concern with Giles in question?”
“Will you sleep any better for hearing a murder has been committed?”
“Hush, Fan,” admonished his wife. “At least there is a chance all of us may enjoy a good night’s sleep if my suspicions prove to be unfounded.”
“Ha! If I know anything of you, Tillie, you don’t want them to be unfounded, sleep notwithstanding.” She laughed, but there was a troubled look in her eyes. He abandoned his post by the mantel and went to join her on the sofa. “What is it, my love?”
He noted his mother glance across, her black gaze sombre. Inwardly cursing his nephew, he waited while Tillie seemed to gather her thoughts.
“Whether or not there is a murder, I am afraid we are in for a rough ride. What with that half-witted creature on the loose, and Giles infatuated, and poor Phoebe swearing she will have nothing to do with him, we are all going to have our hands full.”
His mother groaned. “Yes, and ten to one that stupid child will involve us willy-nilly. She ought to be confined.”
Since this point had been exhaustively discussed at dinner, Francis was relieved when the door opened to admit the maids, bearing the accoutrements for tea. The boys had talked without cease, their revelations causing Sophie to declare that she was unlikely to recover from the shocks of the day. Tillie showed no disposition to curb them, of course. Indeed, she had positively encouraged them to regale the company with all they had learned about ‘the madwoman’s attic’ in their illicit adventures at Willow Court.
While the women busied themselves about the tea kettle, Francis found his mind dwelling on Tom and Ben’s disclosures concerning the sugar plantation in Barbados. They had pumped the footman Hemp to some effect. Although the dowager had been sceptical, Hemp claimed the many slaves were well treated by ‘Master Matt’, although he was himself a free man.
“And so is Cuffy,” said Ben, “though he was a slave before. He came from Africa when he was a boy.”
The dowager exploded. “Stolen, I dare say!”
“Oh, do not say so!”
“I do not scruple to say so, Mrs Hathaway. I know all too much of that practice. An abominable humiliation, to be dragged from his rightful home by br
igands calling themselves traders, hauled across the sea in stinking conditions and sold like a beast at auction. The whole proceeding disgusts me.”
As Francis was well aware. His own views had been coloured by his mother’s forthright opinions, which she never scrupled to air to anyone she suspected of profiting by the practice of human trafficking. Sophie was clucking with distress, but before he could frame an answer to placate the dowager’s rising wrath, young Ben saved him the trouble.
“Hemp was never a slave though, ma’am, and he was born in Barbados. He says the plantation is home to him.”
“He says they are family,” added Tom, “even if they are black.”
Tillie seized on this, fostering Francis’s interest. “Does he mean they feel as if they belong to the Roy clan? Or have they been formally adopted?”
Both boys looked nonplussed, and Ben shrugged. “Don’t know, Auntilla. Hemp just said he’s a Roy too.”
Tillie’s quick frown told Francis this piece of information had piqued her interest. He made a stab in the dark. “Did Hemp say why he and Cuffy came with the family?”
“As if they had a choice!”
Francis frowned his mother down as Ben answered.
“Hemp only said they wanted to come, so p’raps they did choose.”
“Oh, I do hope so,” said Sophie. “How dreadful if they were forced to come away from all they knew.”
“Hemp’s a great gun,” Tom cut in, disregarding this. “He showed me a boxer’s trick and he told us about making sugar and everything.”
“But I thought he was a footman,” Francis objected.
“Hemp says you have to know all the special jobs,” put in Ben, “just in case.”
“Yes, ’cause if there’s a peddyemic, the work goes on just the same.”
“You mean epidemic, you noddy,” corrected Ben, punching his junior in the shoulder. Ignoring his mother’s deprecating protest, he added, “Barbados is a bad place for fevers, Hemp says.”
This accorded with the long-term illness suffered by Sir Joslin, and Francis was about to direct the conversation into this avenue when he was forestalled by Tillie.
“What did Hemp tell you about making sugar?”
Tom brightened at this show of interest. “He and Cuffy used to help in making it. ’Specially when it got boiling, ’cause the dead man was a weakling and he couldn’t stand it.”
“Goodness, Tom, whatever do you mean?”
Ben gave an exasperated sigh. “He didn’t say it right, Mama. He means boiling the sugar when the crop was ready. Everyone had to join in then because it had to be done fast. Hemp says boiling is a tricky job ’cause you have to wait for the sugar to crystallize and throw in the right amount of juice. Lime juice, he says, ’cause lemon would spoil it.”
“Was Sir Joslin in charge of this procedure?” Tillie asked.
“Yes, because the other fellow was lazy,” announced Tom.
“What other fellow?” Francis demanded.
“Simeon,” supplied Ben. “He wouldn’t do boiling work even though he was meant to supervise sugar-making. But he only liked working in the distillery and making rum and confections.”
Tillie’s startled look had intrigued Francis, but he knew better than to enquire into her thoughts in public. But as Toby and Agnes came in to serve dessert at this point, the discussion was abandoned. Recalling this now, Francis was about to enter upon the subject when his ear caught the sound of an arrival in the hall. Rising, he went to open the door.
“That must be Patrick at last.”
So indeed it proved, and Francis ushered him in, as eager as he knew his wife would be to hear the results of the post-mortem. But he was mindful of the needs of a man’s stomach.
“Have you dined, Patrick?”
“I had a bite of supper with Sutherland while we discussed our findings.”
“Then let me get you a tot of something. Port? Or would you prefer Brandy?”
Patrick heaved an exhausted sigh as he dropped into a chair. “Good of you, Fan, but as I see I’m just in time for it, I’ll take tea. I need to keep my wits about me to withstand Ottilia’s cross-examination.”
He threw a teasing glance at his sister as he spoke, and Tillie’s look of keen anticipation could not but amuse Francis, despite his inevitable disquiet.
“Well, brother mine? What did you discover?”
Francis handed him a cup and saucer and offered sugar. Patrick took up the tongs, dropped two lumps into his tea, and stirred the liquid thoughtfully. “It is as I suspected.”
Tillie jumped in at once. “Then Sir Joslin was poisoned with opium?”
Patrick took a meditative sip of tea, and Francis was obliged to suppress a riffle of irritation. “It is always difficult to be certain. The symptoms of narcotic poisoning are not conclusive.”
Francis cast up his eyes. “Capital!”
His brother-in-law spared him a glance, but made no comment, merely resuming his remarks. “Taken together, however, Sutherland agrees that everything we found, along with your combined observations at the instant of death, points to opium as the most likely cause.”
“Well, what did you find?” demanded his mother with pardonable impatience.
Patrick frowned. “Are you sure you wish to hear, ma’am? Such details are scarcely suitable for a gentlewoman’s parlour.”
The dowager snorted. “If your sister’s candour has failed to dismay me, my dear Doctor Hathaway, I doubt I will swoon at anything you may have to say.”
Patrick’s amused eyes flickered to Tillie. “Ah, I should have known you must have been well and truly broken in.”
“Yes, and it is not your practice to rein in either, Patrick,” she retorted, “so pray don’t keep us in suspense.”
He grimaced. “The facts are not pretty.”
“They never are,” Francis cut in, “but I can vouch for it that my mother is almost as hardy as your sister. She will not flinch.”
“I thank you, Fanfan.” She waved a hand at Patrick in her characteristic gesture. “Proceed, sir.”
A lurking smile remained, but Patrick inclined his head. “Very well, ma’am. The most telling evidence was in the blood clots, although the blood on the whole was fluid.”
“Where were the clots?” asked Tillie. “In the brain?”
“Yes, and in the cavities of the heart too. The blood vessels in the brain were congested, but that you may get also with apoplexy so it is not conclusive. However, there was lividity of the skin, which was also showing signs of peeling. With narcotics, the body is apt to pass rapidly into putrefaction. Hair and cuticles were already separating on the slightest friction, and the stomach, intestines and large vessels were distended with air.”
Francis could not forbear to comment. “How disgusting. How glad I am not to be a doctor.”
Patrick laughed, but Tillie was clearly too interested to pay the slightest attention to this divagation. “What of the stomach’s contents? Did you discover anything there?”
Patrick’s eye brightened. “The odour of opium was obvious immediately upon opening the stomach. Sutherland concurred, fortunately, because it dissipates rapidly and is otherwise undetectable in the juices of the stomach without chemical analysis.”
“How in the world can you smell opium?” asked the dowager frowningly.
“Oh, it has a very particular odour.”
Despite his queasiness, Francis was interested. “Can you test the stomach’s contents?”
“Fairly readily. A simple procedure is to use a frog. If it should go comatose and die, we could say with near certainty opium was present. But a better test is on urine, although it is a complex procedure. However, as we suspected, death had suspended natural functions so that the bladder was full. Sutherland is engaging an apothecary to carry out the necessary analysis.”
His mother appeared to have been following closely. “And if opium is found, can you conclusively state it to be the cause of death?”
&nb
sp; “Taken together with the incidence of perspiration and contraction of the pupils of the eyes, Sutherland and I are agreed on it without that,” Patrick said. “But to prove a point, it is advisable to ask for the analysis.”
Glancing at Tillie, Francis saw she could scarcely contain her excitement. “I suppose there is no way to tell how much opium had been consumed?”
“Only insofar as we know what level of ingestion is likely to kill a man.”
“Which is?” Francis demanded.
“It much depends on circumstance.”
Francis sighed with frustration. “I might have guessed as much.”
“The problem is that it raises too many questions. Is the person accustomed to taking it? What time of day was it ingested? Was the stomach empty at the time?”
“Oh, good God!”
A smile came Francis’s way, and it seemed to him his brother-in-law relished his catalogue of difficulties. “One must also take into account in which form the drug was taken. With grains, for example, thirty-six could procure death. But for a man the size of Sir Joslin, perhaps as many as sixty grains might be needed.”
“For pity’s sake! One would say there was nothing certain at all.”
Tillie disregarded this. “And if he happens to be an opium-eater?”
“Sixty must still kill him, if taken all at once.”
“But how does this translate into terms one may understand?” Thus his mother, echoing Francis’s sentiments. “If it was taken as laudanum, for example, how much would it be?”
“Then we would measure it by drops or ounces. An ounce or two could readily prove fatal within a reasonable amount of time, but a dose on the order of six ounces might kill within a half hour.”
The dowager threw up her hands. “Oh, this must be impossible to unravel!”
“I agree with you utterly, Mama.”
Patrick grinned. “I’m afraid it nearly is impossible. And it also makes it difficult to judge at what time Sir Joslin took the dose. It might have been as many as five hours before the poison started to act or as little as three hours. Even then, the point of death may have been delayed by some hours.”
The Lady Fan Series: Books 1-3 (Sapere Books Boxset Editions) Page 85