Page 62 of Darkest at Dusk
“—off the High Street,” Pansy said. “When he died, men with wagons came for his things at dawn, quiet as thieves.”
Isabella sipped her tea, only half listening, her thoughts spinning with what they had revealed about the fire.
“Carried off every cabinet, bottle, ledger, and book,” Viola said.
“Men Mr. Caradoc hired,” Pansy said. “That’s what folks say.”
Isabella nodded, trying to look interested.
“Don’t know what he wanted with Dr. Hargreaves’s things?—”
“Dr. Hargreaves?” Isabella interrupted, the name catching in her throat. The room tipped a fraction.
Tap…tap…tap. Doors with wired windows. Screams echoing from the bowels of the building. A door slamming shut, trapping her inside. I have consulted my colleagues. I know what you’ve claimed. Hearing voices. Seeing people that are not there. No, surely not. It could not be the same man.
“From London? From St. Jude’s?” she asked, her voice strained.
“Indeed,” Pansy said. “Do you know of him?”
“Oh, my dear Miss Barrett, are you quite alright?” Viola asked. “You’ve gone pale.”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Isabella managed. She lifted her cup once more and forced a sip. She smiled and nodded as the two women nattered on. She managed a few more minutes, then rose. “Thank you for the visit. I will not overstay. And I must not delay Mrs. Abernathy.”
Both women rose, looking disappointed.
Viola said, “Of course. We understand. But?—”
“—you will return?” Pansy said.
“I will,” Isabella assured them, anxious to be away.
Outside, she drew a breath but found herself choked by all she had learned. For a man like Hargreaves, Marlow was a far step below London. How had he come to be here, and how had Rhys Caradoc felt about his presence? Had Hargreaves been his tormentor, his gaoler, or his savior? The questions bubbled in her mind.
She had come for gossip over tea, and left with poison steeping in her veins.
The return to Harrowgate felt longer than the ride down. The road curled along the river, gray water scudding under a sky the color of old pewter. The village fell away. Fields rose and folded. Hedgerows snagged the mist and held it like uncarded fleece. The carriage rocked and sighed, each turn of the wheels winding Isabella tighter until her skin felt a size too small.
Dr. Hargreaves.
The name had cracked something she had sealed years ago. She pressed her gloved fingers to her knee and willed them still. He could not be the same man, she told herself. And yet she knew it was he. The London doctor with a narrow mouth and a showman’s cruelty, fallen into disrepute, fetched up in Marlow like flotsam. And upon his death, Mr. Caradoc—Rhys—had sent men at dawn to take every bottle, ledger, and book.
Why? What had he wanted to find among the dead man’s effects?
The carriage rattled into the yard. Harrowgate rose before her, windows blank as eyes, chimneys inked against the sky. Do return. The command sang in her, bright and thin as a wire. She did not quite know whether the words comforted or bound.
She thought of the Burns sisters, Viola’s steady kindness, Pansy’s appetite for rumor. She thought of Hazel’s small watercolors and the soft ache of love that had kept a woman in a room where she no longer lived. She thought Catrin clawing at a barred door until her nails ripped free. And she thought of Rhys’s father. She had not known he died in that fire.
All of it left her mind churning with a slurry of suspicion, pity, and confusion.
Tom jumped down. Mrs. Abernathy gathered her shawl closer. “You’ll have a sit-down first,” the housekeeper said, a question folded into the certainty.
“In a moment,” Isabella replied. She tried for lightness, but the words took effort. “I’ll go up and put my things by.”
Mrs. Abernathy’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Very good, lamb. I’ll see to Cook.”
Her chamber was dim when she entered, the fire laid but not yet lit. She had just slipped off her gloves when a soft knock came and Peg edged in with a fresh ewer of water.
“Thought you’d want this, miss, after a carriage ride,” Peg said, crossing to the washstand.
