‘The sister has departed,’ she tells him. ‘We must move quickly.’
A boy does his best to sweep a path for them across the road and Simon tosses him a penny.
The rain has failed to wash the sooty fingerprints from the window of Pearl’s house, but Simon is able to read the advertising cards aloud.
New and scientific treatment
The Magnetic Touch for chronic disease
No medicine given
No pain caused
The White Sylph
Conductress of Spirits
Blessed with the gift of trance-mediumship
Enquire within
He raises an eyebrow at Agnes.
‘It is hardly Pearl’s doing,’ she points out and knocks at the door.
There is no answer.
The rain intensifies, running out of the eaves in great torrents. Agnes knocks again and again.
‘Pearl,’ she calls. ‘Pearl, it’s me. Agnes. Do not be afraid, dear. I have brought the doctor.’
‘Perhaps she does not wish to see us,’ Simon surmises.
‘She is afraid of her sister,’ Agnes corrects him, knocking until her knuckles hurt. ‘Either that or … Oh, Simon, you do not suppose Miss West has beaten the child? Perhaps she cannot answer the door.’
Simon bites his lip. The crowd on the pavement has thinned; even the street sellers are seeking cover now. He glances around, then hands Agnes his medicines. She takes them awkwardly, juggling the umbrella.
‘Stand back.’
Raising a foot, he kicks open the door.
It is a cheap thing with a paltry lock but all the same, Agnes is surprised by how quickly it yields. She hears a gasp from inside as the door bangs back against the inner wall.
No one on the street remarks or cares.
‘After you, Miss Darken.’
She passes him the umbrella to disassemble and enters the house, where acrid fumes replace the damp street smells. If she had her hands free, she would pull out her handkerchief and cover her nose.
Her vision takes a moment to adjust to the unnatural gloom; it is only when Simon closes the front door and squelches in after her that she discerns Pearl, hovering at the end of the hallway with all the fragility of a moth.
Her pinched face is wary, unsure.
Agnes cannot make out any bruises, but the child does look ill-conditioned. Her once alabaster skin appears jaundiced and her wrists look thin enough to snap.
An arrow of guilt quivers in Agnes’s heart.
‘Look, dear,’ she croons, holding up Simon’s purchases. ‘We have brought medicine.’
The girl regards them the same way Agnes inspected the cabinet and the crystal ball on her first visit.
‘You’re … not meant to be here,’ Pearl croaks at last.
Simon comes forward, past Agnes, but still leaving a comfortable distance between himself and the girl. Puffing, he bends down to her height. If he is surprised to see an albino child, he does not show it.
‘Forgive the intrusion, Miss …’
‘Meers.’
‘Miss Meers. My name is Dr Carfax. I understand that your father is very unwell and I should like to help him, if I can.’
Pearl looks at her feet, scuffs one against the floor. The struggle is plain on her face. The poor child wants to trust Simon, but all her education – or rather her indoctrination – tells her not to.
‘Myrtle says your medicine’s poison.’
‘Phosphorus can be a poison,’ Simon counters. He is trying to be amiable to gain Pearl’s confidence, but Agnes knows him well and can hear the concern in his voice. He is grieved by the sight of this waif she has produced. ‘That is the substance your father used, to make matches for his employer. The phosphorus has hurt his mouth.’
‘We give him magnetised water to drink. Myrtle’s going to exchange his bad energy with hers. She’s strong, she’s got the vit – vite – vitality.’
‘Good. That’s good.’ He balls a hand by his side, the only indication of his outrage. ‘Miss Meers, I would like to take a look at your father and see how he gets along. I will not hurt him, I promise. I will not administer any medicine or even touch him, if you do not wish it.’
The little body retracts like a concertina. ‘He did say … he always wanted to see another doctor. But Myrtle wouldn’t let him, after the first one sent us here to Bath …’
Simon nods, rises awkwardly to his feet and offers her his hand. Pearl accepts it like something that might burn her.
Agnes trails them into a chamber at the end of the corridor, which is about the size of a small parlour – an innocent-looking room to be the source of the rot she has smelt since the first day she entered the house. The stink here is not just humming but festering, choking the breath from her.
‘Miss Darken, this is not a sight that—’ Simon begins.
She wonders what end he intended to put to that sentence, for there is not a word adequate to describe what lies before her. That is cruel; she should say who lies before her, but in all honesty she is struggling to identify the person on the narrow bed.
He is too horrible to concentrate on for any length of time. The wasted, skeletal body she can just about stomach, but the lower half of his face is dribble, corroded flesh and gaps where no gaps ought to be. Perhaps the worst circumstance is that his eyes, nose and forehead all look perfectly regular. It is only below them that he becomes a puppet with a wide, oozing grin, the teeth poking out at angles.
Has such a spectacle been a normal, everyday sight for a young girl like Pearl?
‘I will help,’ she murmurs, hardly knowing how.
Of course Simon is more practised. ‘Mr Meers?’ he asks, approaching the bed. ‘My name is Dr Carfax. With your consent, I should like to examine your jaw.’
The man blinks, struggles to focus. When at last his brain registers who Simon is, he gives an approximation of a nod. One atrophied hand motions to his face. The gesture is crude, but understood. Cut it out.
Simon takes a breath. ‘Miss Meers, it would help my inspection to clean the area a little. I will use only soda, perhaps a touch of alkaline if necessary. Is this acceptable to you?’
Pearl wavers but her Father’s pleading eyes get the better of her.
‘If he wants it.’
‘Miss Darken?’
Agnes realises Simon is asking her for the packages, and she begins to unwrap them for him. Her hands shake. She has never seen anything quite equal to this.
‘The necrosis is advanced,’ Simon whispers to her as she hands him his apparatus. ‘The abscesses on the gums have not even been lanced.’ He turns to Pearl, in the corner. ‘Miss Meers, it is conceivable this will cause your father some discomfort. Perhaps you might hold his hand?’
Pearl plaits the gaunt fingers between her own small, pale ones. ‘You’re brave, Father,’ she says. ‘You won’t even feel it.’
Agnes does not want to watch. She just holds the bowl of water and soda, and passes fresh lint when Simon asks for it. She notices light, pea-sized balls fall from the jaw as Simon wipes, and realises they are bits of dead bone the body has cast out.
God above.
The man clenches Pearl’s hand. ‘That’s it,’ she whispers. ‘It’ll be better in no time.’
Although Pearl whispers words of encouragement to her father, she frequently breaks off to narrow her eyes at Simon. She appears to think he is a sort of dark magician who requires her constant supervision. Whatever her suspicions, she can be in no doubt that he is proving useful; when the abscesses are burst and everything is cleansed, Mr Meers looks much less swollen and discoloured.
He has proved astonishingly stoical, with fewer groans than Agnes expected. She is pleased with herself too, for not swooning. Constance always used to mock her squeamishness, but now she is stronger, capable of seeing gore like her sister was.
Simon gathers all the dirtied lint and places it into her bowl, making the water filthy. ‘Could you dispose of
that for me, Miss Darken?’
She cannot imagine where he intends for her to take the bowl; it is doubtful this house has its own privy and she does not know where to find the close stool. Carrying her stinking cargo out into the corridor, she dithers for a while before finally deciding on the scullery. She places the bowl beside a box of matches and walks away from it, shuddering.
How can this family bear to light a match, after all that they have done?
She re-enters the sickroom to see Simon administering drops of opium. Pearl has crept over to stand beside him.
‘Agnes said you’d take Father to a hospital,’ she ventures.
Simon concentrates on his task. ‘It would not be advisable to move your father at present, Miss Meers.’
‘Then you’ll do it here? Cut the rotten bone out and cure him?’
He does not answer straight away but frowns, hands Pearl the drops and takes his patient’s wrist to feel the pulse.
Mr Meers’s eyes close and he seems to drift out of consciousness.
‘Is it like a trance?’ asks Pearl. ‘Do you do it while he’s sleeping?’
‘Leave him to rest a while,’ Simon sighs. ‘We will discuss the matter outside.’ He gestures to the bottle in her hands. ‘Retain those for his pain, Miss Meers. I have given him five drops. I should keep it to … Forgive me, but can you count?’
Pearl nods proudly.
‘Let us say a limit of twenty drops a day.’
After a moment of consideration, Pearl hides the bottle beneath the mattress. Her father moves in his sleep.
Simon nods and wearily trudges outside.
Agnes follows him. In the hallway, she touches his arm.
‘What can be done?’
He only shakes his head.
Together, they pass into the parlour. A single black candle burns on the circular table, making a moon out of the crystal ball. Dark shapes flicker again; black claws running along the red plush tablecloth and swarming up the curtains.
Agnes wets her fingertips and pinches the wick out. She is sick of shadows.
‘It has gone too long untreated,’ Simon admits dejectedly, leaning against the sofa. ‘I fear that the poison has entered his bloodstream.’
‘Do not say so,’ she begs.
‘I am afraid it is true. He is beyond help, Miss Darken.’
She sits down heavily at the séance table. It feels like she has suffered a physical blow.
Pearl’s father was meant to be her atonement. If one person could emerge from this turmoil happier than they began, Agnes would be – well, not content, but easier within herself.
Now Pearl will become fatherless.
The pain of Agnes’s own bereavement comes roaring back. Not just the grief for Montague, but for dear Papa. She misses him so much. She was not there at his final breath and she will never conquer her remorse for that.
She pictures him on his deathbed, and a morbid instinct forces her to try and imagine her own. Who will be there to hold her hand at the end? Cedric? What if he is never found? She once worried about being a burden to her nephew in her old age, but she would rather that than face death alone.
From what she has seen of the Other Side, it does not seem to be a better place. How, then, can she offer comfort to little Pearl in this dire situation?
‘I fear it is doubtful he would survive the ordeal, Miss Meers.’
She jerks out of her abstraction to see Pearl has entered the room and is talking to Simon. The girl looks very slight, very vulnerable.
‘I don’t understand, sir,’ she stammers.
‘What I am trying to say, Miss Meers, is that your father does not possess the strength to undergo an operation. Even with ether, the shock to his body would be more than he could stand.’ He withdraws a handkerchief from his pocket and mops his brow. ‘Putting that fact aside … I believe the performance would be futile, anyhow. The disease has progressed too far for me – for anyone – to help.’
‘But you’ll cure him,’ Pearl asserts. ‘Agnes promised you’d cure him.’
Simon’s throat bobs as he swallows. ‘In this instance, Miss Meers, I regret to inform you that it is quite beyond my power.’
The hush that falls is agonising.
‘Miss Meers, you are unwell—’ Simon starts forward, but Pearl dodges away from him.
She is shaking so much that her features seem to blur in the shadows. ‘Get out.’
Is she possessed of a spirit? Agnes would like to believe so, but the voice is entirely Pearl’s own. The child’s weakened form cannot contain the emotions that are blasting through it; she is forced to lean upon the wall.
‘Get out of my house!’ she shrieks.
Agnes rises to her feet. She can feel a faint rumbling through the floor.
‘Indeed, I cannot, while you are so ill,’ Simon protests. ‘I have been observing you and your health appears much depleted. I would like—’
‘Don’t touch me! We don’t need quacks! I don’t need you at all.’
‘Pearl—’ Agnes tries, but the girl is beside herself.
‘Myrtle will cure him,’ she insists, ferociously. ‘Myrtle’s curing him with Mesmerism. She was right about you lot. You don’t know nothing.’
On the table, two candles ignite.
‘I can assure you—’
‘Bunch of bleedin’ tricksters!’ Pearl cries, batting Simon away. ‘Get out! Get … out!’
A line forks through the crystal ball like a crack in ice.
‘Simon,’ Agnes whispers, ‘I think that we had better go.’
He gives a defeated nod, but his eyes do not leave the child as they walk out of the parlour and towards the front door.
The girl slides all the way down the wall to the carpet where she sits, arms around her knees.
The last sight Agnes has before the door closes is Pearl’s white face, drenched in tears.
Outside, it is still mizzling. Walcot Street goes on the same, as if it could possibly tempt them to eat sheep’s trotters or buy a ballad, after what they have seen in that house.
Agnes looks into her friend’s troubled eyes.
‘That child is very ill, Miss Darken. Did she work at the match factory also?’
‘I do not know. I am so ignorant!’ She groans, hating herself. ‘I did not even trouble to acquaint myself with her properly, I have simply blundered into her life and caused all this distress!’
He wets his lips, nods. ‘It was only natural that you should sympathise with Miss Meers. You know what it is to have a sister who controls … I mean to say, you have been treated in a manner that … You can easily put yourself in the child’s position,’ he finishes awkwardly.
She pictures Miss West and Constance, side by side. He is right. There are similarities there.
‘Oh, Simon. Whatever have I done?’
CHAPTER 29
Nine chimes of the clock and the sickroom is already rank. It stinks like cabbage soup. Pearl’s opened the window, even the curtains a little bit, but the cool morning air won’t come in.
They’re burning up, her and Father. If anything, the December wind only fans the flames.
What is she meant to do now? Looking at Father makes her as giddy as if she were staring into an abyss. Did that fat doctor hurt him yesterday? Make it worse? She’d almost be glad to believe that, for it would mean that Myrtle was right, and all the doctor’s sad hmphs and shakes of the head would be proved as humbug.
But she’s got eyes – even if it is harder to use them without her green spectacles. And those eyes can see that Father slept much easier with the magic drops.
Their spell must be wearing off now. He’s fidgety again, making that dreadful bubbling moan. The wisps of the spirit world are closing in around him; daylight scares them off, but Pearl knows they’re still there, reaching out in expectation of plucking a treat.
She crosses the room and bends down to the cheap tick mattress. The bottle’s still hidden under there. She pulls it out an
d weighs it, heavy as sin in her hands. It’s got a cork in the top and a label covered in writing on the side; she squints at the weird symbols, but they don’t mean anything to her.
It doesn’t look like poison, it looks like really strong tea. But then, how would she know? Didn’t the doctor say that even matches could be poison?
She can’t decide what she’s meant to do; who to trust, who to believe.
Father starts to twitch.
She walks to the head of his bed, the bottle still in her hand. ‘You want this?’
Maybe he does, but that’s not the gesture he’s making; it’s the one he used when the doctor came.
Cut it out.
Her eyes fill with tears.
‘He’s coming back,’ she lies. ‘The doctor’s coming back and he’ll do it; he’s just … busy.’
Father gurgles a relieved sigh. Very briefly, the creases leave his forehead. He points to the bottle.
‘All right.’
She wipes the sweat away from her eyes and awkwardly pulls the cork stopper out. She hasn’t got much strength, and nerves are making her dizzy. The doctor said she could give him up to twenty drops, but that’s the biggest number she knows and she’s going to have to concentrate hard on her counting.
She aims at Father’s tongue.
The drops fall slowly, landing with a tiny pat.
She gets lost counting around sixteen, so adds two more for luck – that will have to do.
Father’s breathing slows. He gives her what she has always taken for a smile, though it’s only in the eyes.
Cut it out, he gestures again. Then he drifts off to sleep.
Pearl leaves the room, hollow.
The Bath Society of Spiritual Adventurers are due over again tonight. It feels like a direct punishment for the broken door, but of course Myrtle couldn’t have known about that when she arranged the séance. In fact, Pearl’s still waiting for the real cost to become clear. Myrtle obviously didn’t believe her stupid story about an attempted robbery, but she didn’t do anything either; just went to the kitchen and brought back a piece of bread loaded with jam, which she made Pearl eat. Her face looked nearly black with choked-up rage.
Today, Myrtle’s making the parlour ready for their guests: dusting with an old rag, while the carpet is strewn with used tea leaves. A vinegar scent lingers from where she’s been scrubbing at the crystal ball. There’s a line on it that won’t come off – she says that’s Pearl’s fault, too.
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