The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton

  “This is it,” she says with a theatrical sweep of her arm. “Madeline will be passing through this clearing on her way back to the house. Shouldn’t be too long now. She’s due back at the house by 3:00 to help finish setting up the ballroom.”

  “Where are we?” I ask, looking around.

  “It’s a wishing well,” she says, leaning over the edge to peer into the blackness. “Michael and I used to come here when we were children. We’d make our wishes with pebbles.”

  “And what sorts of things did young Evelyn Hardcastle wish for?” I ask.

  She wrinkles her brow, the question flummoxing her.

  “You know, for the life of me, I can’t remember,” she says. “What does a child who has everything want?”

  More, just like everybody else.

  “I doubt I could have told you even when I did have my memories,” I say, smiling.

  Dusting the grime from her hands, Evelyn looks at me quizzically. I can see the curiosity burning inside her, the joy at encountering something unknown and unexpected in a place where everything is familiar. I’m out here because I fascinate her, I realize with a flash of disappointment.

  “Have you thought about what you’ll do if your memories don’t return?” she says, softening the question with the gentleness of her tone.

  Now it’s my turn to be flummoxed.

  Since my initial confusion passed, I’ve tried not to dwell upon my condition. If anything, the loss of my memories has proven a frustration rather than a tragedy, my inability to recall Anna being one of the few moments when it’s seemed anything more than an inconvenience. Thus far, in the excavation of Sebastian Bell, I’ve unearthed two friends, an annotated Bible, and a locked trunk. Precious little return for forty years on this earth. I don’t have a wife weeping for our lost time together, or a child worrying that the father she loved might not return. At this distance, Sebastian Bell’s life seems an easy one to lose and a difficult one to mourn.

  A branch snaps somewhere in the forest.

  “Footman,” says Evelyn, my blood immediately running cold as I recall the Plague Doctor’s warning.

  “What did you say?” I ask, frantically searching the forest.

  “That noise, it’s a footman,” she says. “They’re collecting wood. Shameful, isn’t it? We don’t have enough servants to stock all the fireplaces, so our guests are having to send their own footmen to do it.”

  “They? How many are there?”

  “One for every family visiting, and there’s more coming,” she says. “I’d say there’s already seven or eight in the house.”

  “Eight?” I say in a strangled voice.

  “My dear Sebastian, are you quite all right?” says Evelyn, catching my alarm.

  Under different circumstances I would welcome this concern, this affection, but here and now, her scrutiny only embarrasses me. How can I explain that a strange chap in a plague doctor costume warned me to keep an eye out for a footman—a name that means nothing to me, and yet fills me with a crippling fear every time I hear it?

  “I’m sorry, Evie,” I say, shaking my head ruefully. “There’s more I need to tell you, but not here, and not quite yet.”

  Unable to hold her questioning stare, I look around the clearing for a distraction. Three trails intersect before striking off into the forest, one of them cutting a straight path through the trees toward water.

  “Is that—”

  “A lake,” says Evelyn, looking past me. “The lake, I suppose you’d say. That’s where my brother was murdered by Charlie Carver.”

  A shiver of silence divides us.

  “I’m sorry, Evie,” I say at last, embarrassed by the poverty of the sentiment.

  “You’ll think me awful, but it happened so long ago it barely seems real,” she says. “I can’t even remember Thomas’s face.”

  “Michael shared a similar sentiment,” I say.

  “That’s not surprising. He was five years younger than me when it happened.” She’s hugging herself, her tone distant. “I was supposed to be looking after Thomas that morning, but I wanted to go riding and he was always pestering me, so I arranged a treasure hunt for the children and left him behind. If I hadn’t been so selfish, he’d never have been at the lake in the first place, and Carver wouldn’t have got his filthy hands on him. You can’t imagine what that thought does to a child. I didn’t sleep, barely ate. I couldn’t feel anything that wasn’t anger or guilt. I was monstrous to anybody who tried to console me.”

  “What changed?”

  “Michael.” She smiles wistfully. “I was vile to him, positively horrid, but he stayed by my side, no matter what I said. He saw I was sad, and he wanted to make me feel better. I don’t even think he knew what was happening, not really. He was just being nice, but he kept me from drifting away completely.”

  “Is that why you went to Paris, to get away from it all?”

  “I didn’t choose to leave. My parents sent me away a few months after it happened,” she says, biting her lip. “They couldn’t forgive me, and I wouldn’t have been allowed to forgive myself if I’d stayed. I know it was supposed to be a punishment, but exile was a kindness, I think.”

  “And yet you came back?”

  “You make it sound like a choice,” she says bitterly, tightening her scarf as the wind carves through the trees. “My parents ordered my return. They even threatened to cut me out of the will should I refuse. When that didn’t work, they threatened to cut Michael out of the will instead. So here I am.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would they behave so despicably and then throw you a party?”

  “A party?” she says, shaking her head. “Oh, my dear man, you really have no idea what’s happening here, do you?”

  “Perhaps if you—”

  “My brother was murdered nineteen years ago tomorrow, Sebastian. I don’t know why, but my parents have decided to mark the occasion by reopening the house where it happened and inviting back the very same guests who were here that day.”

  Anger is rising in her voice, a low throb of pain I’d do anything to make go away. She’s turned her head to face the lake, her blue eyes glossy.

  “They’re disguising a memorial as a party, and they’ve made me the guest of honor, which I can only assume means something dreadful is coming for me,” she continues. “This isn’t a celebration, it’s a punishment, and there’ll be fifty people in their very finest clothes watching it happen.”

  “Are your parents really so spiteful?” I ask, shocked. I feel much as I did when that bird hit the window earlier this morning, a great swell of pity mingled with a sense of injustice at life’s sudden cruelties.

  “My mother sent me a message this morning, asking me to meet her by the lake,” she says. “She never came, and I don’t think she ever meant to. She just wanted me to stand out there, where it happened, remembering. Does that answer your question?”

  “Evelyn… I…I don’t know what to say.”

  “There’s nothing to say, Sebastian. Wealth is poisonous to the soul, and my parents have been wealthy a very long time—as have most of the guests who will be at this party. Their manners are a mask; you’d do well to remember that.”

  She smiles at my pained expression, taking my hand. Her fingers are cold, her gaze warm. She has the brittle courage of a prisoner walking their final steps to the gallows.

  “Oh, don’t fret, dear heart,” she says. “I’ve done all the tossing and turning it’s possible to do. I see little benefit in your losing sleep over it also. If you want, you could make a wish in the well on my behalf, though I’d understand if you have more pressing concerns.”

  From her pocket, she pulls out a small coin.

  “Here,” she says, handing it to me. “I don’t think our pebbles did much good.”

  The coin travels a long way, hitting r
ock rather than water at the bottom. Despite Evelyn’s advice, I hitch no hopes for myself to its surface. Instead, I pray for her deliverance from this place, for a happy life and freedom from her parents’ machinations. Like a child, I close my eyes in the hope that when I open them again, the natural order will be overturned, the impossible made plausible by desire alone.

  “You’ve changed so much,” mutters Evelyn, a ripple of emotion disturbing her face, the slightest indication of discomfort when she realizes what she’s said.

  “You knew me before?” I say, surprised. Somehow, it never occurred to me that Evelyn and I might have had a relationship prior to this one.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she says, walking away from me.

  “Evie, I’ve been in your company for over an hour, which makes you my best friend in this world,” I say. “Please, be honest with me. Who am I?”

  Her eyes crisscross my face.

  “I’m not the right person to say,” she protests. “We met two days ago, and only briefly. Most of what I know is innuendo and rumor.”

  “I’m sitting at an empty table. I’ll take whatever crumbs I’m fed.”

  Her lips are tight. She’s tugging her sleeves down awkwardly. If she had a shovel, she’d dig herself an escape tunnel. The deeds of good men are not related so reluctantly, and I’m already beginning to dread what she has to tell me. Even so, I cannot let this go.

  “Please,” I plead. “You told me earlier I could choose who I wanted to be, but I cannot do that without knowing who I was.”

  Her obstinacy flickers, and she looks up at me from under her eyelashes.

  “Are you certain you wish to know?” she asks. “The truth isn’t always a kindness.”

  “Kind or not, I need to understand what’s been lost.”

  “Not a great deal, in my opinion,” she sighs, squeezing my hand in both of hers. “You were a dope dealer, Sebastian. You made your living alleviating the boredom of the idle rich, and quite a living it was too, if your practice on Harley Street is anything to go by.”

  “I’m a…”

  “Dope dealer,” she repeats. “Laudanum’s the fashion, I believe, though from what I understand, your trunk of tricks has something to cater to every taste.”

  I slump within myself. I wouldn’t have believed I could be so wounded by the past, but the revelation of my former profession tears a hole right through me. Though my failings were numerous, against them was always stacked the small pride of being a doctor. There was nobility in that course, honor even. But no, Sebastian Bell took the title and twisted it to his own selfish ends, making it perverse, denying what little good remained to him.

  Evelyn was right, the truth isn’t always a kindness, but no man should discover himself this way, like an abandoned house stumbled upon in the darkness.

  “I shouldn’t worry about it,” says Evelyn, cocking her head to catch my averted eye. “I see little of that odious creature in the man before me.”

  “Is that why I’m at this party,” I ask quietly. “To sell my wares?”

  Her smile is sympathetic. “I suspect so.”

  I’m numb, two steps behind myself. Every strange glance over the course of the day, every whisper and commotion as I walked into a room, is explained. I thought people were concerned for my well-being, but they were wondering when my trunk would reopen for business.

  I feel such a fool.

  “I have to…”

  I’m moving before I understand how that sentence ends, my body carrying me back through the forest at an ever-increasing pace. I’m almost running by the time I arrive on the road. Evelyn’s at my heels, struggling to keep up. She’s trying to anchor me with words, reminding me of my desire to meet Madeline, but I’m impervious to reason, consumed by my hatred for the man I was. His flaws I could accept, perhaps even overcome, but this is a betrayal. He made his mistakes and fled, leaving me holding the tatters of his scorched life.

  Blackheath’s door stands open, and I’m up the staircase and into my room so quickly the smell of damp earth still clings to me, as I stand panting over the trunk. Is this what drove me into the forest last night? Is this what I spilled blood for? Well, I’m going to smash it all, and with it any connection to the man I was.

  Evelyn arrives to find me ransacking my bedroom for something heavy enough to break the lock. Intuiting my purpose, she ducks into the corridor, returning with the bust of some Roman emperor or other.

  “You’re a treasure,” I say, using it to hammer the lock.

  When I yanked the trunk out of the cupboard this morning, it was so heavy it took all my strength to lift, but now it’s sliding backward with each blow. Once again, Evelyn comes to the rescue, sitting on the trunk to keep it in place, and after three enormous strikes, the lock clatters to the floor.

  Tossing the bust on the bed, I lift the heavy lid.

  The trunk’s empty.

  Or at least mostly empty.

  In a dark corner is a solitary chess piece with Anna’s name carved into the base.

  “I think it’s time you told me the rest of your story,” says Evelyn.

  8

  Darkness presses up against my bedroom window, its cold breath leaving frost on the glass. The fire hisses in response, the swaying flames my only light. Steps hurry down the corridor beyond my closed door, a jumble of voices on their way to the ball. Somewhere in the distance, I hear the tremble of a violin coming awake.

  Stretching my feet toward the fire, I wait for silence. Evelyn asked me to attend both dinner and the party, but I can’t mingle with these people knowing who I am and what it is they really want from me. I’m tired of this house, their games. I’m going to meet Anna at 10:20 p.m. in the graveyard, and then I’ll have a stable hand take us to the village, away from this madness.

  My gaze returns to the chess piece I found in the trunk. I’m holding it up to the light in the hope of worrying loose some further memories. Thus far, it’s kept quiet and there’s little about the piece itself to illuminate my memory. It’s a bishop, hand carved and freckled with white paint; a far cry from the expensive ivory sets I’ve seen around the house, and yet…it means something to me. Regardless of any memory, there’s a feeling associated with it, a sense of comfort almost. Holding it brings me courage.

  There’s a knock on the door, my hand tightening around the chess piece as I start from the chair. The closer I come to the meeting in the graveyard the more highly strung I’ve become, practically leaping out the window every time the fire pops in the grate.

  “Belly, you in there?” asks Michael Hardcastle.

  He knocks again. It’s insistent. A polite battering ram.

  Placing the chess piece on the mantel above the fireplace, I open the door. The hall’s awash with people in costume, Michael wearing a bright-orange suit and fiddling with the straps of a giant sun mask.

  “There you are,” he says, frowning at me. “Why aren’t you dressed yet?”

  “I’m not coming,” I say. “It’s been…”

  A wave toward my head, but my sign language is too vague for him.

  “Are you feeling faint?” he asks. “Should I call Dickie? I just saw him—”

  I have to catch Michael’s arm to prevent him from flying off down the corridor in search of the doctor.

  “I simply don’t feel up to it,” I say.

  “Are you sure? There are going to be fireworks, and I’m certain my parents have been cooking up a surprise all day. Seems a shame to—”

  “Honestly, I’d rather not.”

  “If you’re certain,” he says reluctantly, his voice as crestfallen as his face. “I’m sorry you’ve had such a wretched day, Belly. Here’s hoping tomorrow will be better, with fewer misunderstandings, at least.”

  “Misunderstandings?” I say.

  “The murdered girl?” He sm
iles in confusion. “Daniel told me it was all a big mistake. I felt a right bloody fool calling off the search halfway through. No harm done, though.”

  Daniel? How could he possibly have known Anna was alive?

  “It was a mistake, wasn’t it?” he asks, noting my bafflement.

  “Of course,” I say brightly. “Yes…terrible mistake. I’m sorry to have bothered you with it.”

  “Not to worry,” he says, slightly dubiously. “Think no more about it.”

  His words are stretched thin, like overburdened elastic. I can hear his doubt, not only in the story, but in the man standing before him. After all, I’m not the person he knew, and I think he’s coming to realize that I no longer wish to be. This morning I’d have done almost anything to repair the fracture between us, but Sebastian Bell was a drug peddler and a coward, the consort of vipers. Michael was a friend of that man, so how could he ever be a friend of mine?

  “Well, I’d best be off,” he says, clearing his throat. “Feel better, old man.”

  Rapping the doorframe with his knuckle, he turns away, following the rest of the guests on their way to the party.

  I watch him go, digesting the news. I’d quite forgotten about Anna’s flight through the woods this morning, our imminent meeting in the graveyard sapping much of the horror from my first memory. And yet, something momentous clearly happened, even if Daniel has been telling people it didn’t. I’m certain of what I witnessed, the gunshot and the fear. Anna was chased by a figure in black, whom I must now assume to have been the footman. Somehow she survived, as did I after my assault last night. Is that what she wants to talk about? Our mutual enemy, and why he wants us dead? Perhaps he’s after the drugs? They’re clearly valuable. Maybe Anna’s my partner and she removed them from the trunk to keep them out of his hands? That would, at least, explain the presence of the chess piece. Maybe it’s some sort of calling card?