Page 36 of Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
But I’m bothered. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am.
October 1886
Last time I said that I was bothered. This time I’m really bothered. That’s three months in a row now I’ve seen Miss Baxter laid up. My heart trembled a bit when I saw her on the settee by the fire, buried under a pile of blankets.
Mrs. Crosby was with her again. Later, I asked her about Miss Baxter, telling her that these past three months I’d only seen Miss Baxter laid up. Mrs. Crosby said that I just stumbled on the few days Miss Baxter was feeling poorly. And that Miss Baxter wasn’t even ill this time, but merely suffering from an unusually uncomfortable monthly.
I don’t know that I believe her. But I also have no way of proving her wrong. I just don’t feel right about it. Goodness knows Miss Baxter has never been nice to me. But she’s grand—scary-grand, like a tiger stalking through the forest. If you saw a tiger lying on the ground, being badly off, even if you were scared of tigers, you’d still feel bad for it, wouldn’t you?
The following report was written in its entirety by Theresa Felton
It’s been ages since Mr. [Redacted] came and took down my report. I hope he’s all right. Please send him or someone else.
I won’t write much as writing is hard for me, but I’m more worried than ever about Miss Baxter. I last saw her at the beginning of October. At the end of that month, I last spoke with Mr. [Redacted]. Since then, all of November and December and most of January have gone by. That makes it at least three whole months I’ve only heard, but not seen Miss Baxter.
I can explain what I mean but it would be too much trouble to write down. Please send someone. Mind you, I can’t prove that anything is wrong, but I feel downright uneasy.
“At least it’s good weather,” shouted Mrs. Watson. “Why, the sun feels almost warm!”
Charlotte, too, had her face tilted back to feel the hardly discernible prickles of heat on her skin.
London remained cold and wet, but here in the very southwest of Britain, winter seemed to have quietly departed. The sky was a clear blue dome, the breeze cool but not biting. The sea undulated gently, and the small boat they had hired cut through the waves with the flair of an experienced footman gliding across the floor of a ballroom.
The coast was high, but not forbiddingly so, the sheer cliffs largely bare, with patches of moss green here and there. They sailed past inlets and stony coves, mostly empty except for an occasional scavenger, hunched over among the rocks.
Mrs. Watson had the rudder in hand, Mr. Mears sat by the mast, and Charlotte, not much use on a sailboat, occupied the bow to stay out of the way. From time to time, the coastline lowered to near sea level, and a village would appear, a few dozen red-roofed houses nestled against the slopes. And then another expanse of unclaimed nature, white foam caps crashing into the base of the crags, while above, green moorland stretched into the distance.
Delightful day, delightful scenery, yet other than Mrs. Watson’s comment on the weather, the company had been almost entirely silent, their attention on the coastline not so much enjoyment as watchfulness.
The inclusion of Mr. Mears Charlotte had half anticipated. The dossier concerned itself almost exclusively with what took place inside the Garden of Hermopolis; they needed someone in the village of Porthangan to gather more context. Just as importantly, given all the known and unknown dangers, they didn’t want their nearest ally hundreds of miles away.
Mr. Mears had already proved his usefulness by being a good sailor, a skill he and Mrs. Watson had acquired together, she as the late duke of Wycliffe’s mistress, he as His Grace’s then new valet, upon her recommendation. He read the wind, adjusted the sails, and scanned the coastline with an unhurried competence, as if he were at home in the domestic offices, polishing the silver while waiting for the water to boil for Mrs. Watson’s afternoon tea.
“I see it,” he cried.
At first sight, the Garden of Hermopolis reminded Charlotte of nothing so much as a private asylum she’d once visited, a seemingly idyllic country dwelling made subtly sinister by the presence of unusually high walls.
On the map, the south coast of Cornwall extended roughly east to west-southwest. But this particular stretch was oriented north to south; the high bluff on which the Garden sat overlooked the sea to the east. The bluff dropped nearly vertically to an inlet to the north, but on the seaward side it dipped like the side of a bowl toward a promontory, flattening out in a shallow depression that resembled the palm of a slightly cupped hand, then rising again on the other side to two thirds the height of the bluff, before plunging into the waves.
“I think there’s someone on the little promontory,” said Mrs. Watson. “Actually, I see two people.”
The wind was rising. Mrs. Watson not only raised her voice, but stood up and leaned forward, and still her words barely reached Charlotte.
Charlotte looked through her binoculars. “It’s a woman and a man.”
The woman was elderly—Miss Fairchild, perhaps? The man appeared young. He spoke intently to the older woman, who listened with a grave expression.
Charlotte and company had meant to pass by close to the cliffs beneath the Garden of Hermopolis, but if those were indeed residents of the compound, then that would verge too much on trespassing. Mrs. Watson was already steering the boat seaward. Charlotte handed the binoculars to Mr. Mears, who looked through them for a moment before offering them to Mrs. Watson.
“There’s someone on the wall also,” she reported. “I hope it’s because the day is glorious and not because they are on the lookout all the time.”
The day had become less glorious—clouds gathered on the horizon. Charlotte was no old seaman able to predict storms with a look at the sky, but she would not be surprised if the weather took a hard, tempestuous turn.
When the binoculars came back to Charlotte, she saw that the person on the wall was a woman, also holding a pair of binoculars. She waved, but the woman did not wave back.
Their coastal voyage ended three miles farther south, at the village of Porthangan. There Mrs. Watson and Charlotte disembarked with their valises.
They were met by Mrs. Felton, a large-boned, ruddy-faced woman who was the source of much of the intelligence in Moriarty’s dossier. According to the file onherin the dossier, she was a native of Porthangan, but had spent nearly twenty years in domestic service in Exeter, before returning to her natal village to take up cleaning at the Garden of Hermopolis.
