Page 22 of A Devilish Element
He had to give the physician his due, Bell never shirked his duty if circumstances arose where it seemed his services would be in demand. Jem had not forgotten that woman’s death, the way Bell had handled everything with effortless efficiency. There’d been nothing he could do to save her—she’d been dead by the time he reached her—but the fact that he’d made it his duty to take care of her said much for him, where some of his mannerisms and foibles might have given an opposite impression.
“That is Lady Linfield, if I am not mistaken.”
Jem and Linfield caught up with him on the main staircase. A footman was hurrying downwards. “Her ladyship,” he gasped. “She’s… she’s upstairs, by the … Dropped into a dead faint—”
“And you left her?” Jem asked, still on the move.
“Mr Cluett’s there.”
“With my wife?” Linfield’s brows knotted.
“He came out of his room,” the footman explained. “And was swift enough to catch her when she swooned.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. It’s not like Georgie to be so quick off the mark. But that must mean she’s on the second floor. What the devil is she doing there?”
“Perhaps the questions might wait.” Bell was already halfway up the stairs. “You,” he pointed at the footman. “Fetch my bag.”
By the time Jem reached the upper landing, Bell was already skidding onto his knees. He pushed George aside and took up her ladyship’s wrist to feel for a pulse.
“Is she all right?” Linfield had followed him up the stairs, though he seemed keen to maintain some distance.
“A faint. Smelling salts will set her to rights.” Bell produced a glass vial from his pocket and uncapped it beneath her nose. Lady Linfield awoke with a start, followed by some flailing and another anguished cry. “Get away. No… no, you shan’t have me.”
“Lady Linfield… Jane, calm yourself, there’s nothing to be alarmed about.”
“I saw it. Right there.” She pointed dead ahead to where Cluett stood. “Clear as day she was. Oh, she wants me. She means to kill me, I know it. We should not have come to Cedarton. It is cursed…cursed! Such utter folly. Linfield. Tell him we need to leave. Right now, this very moment. We have to leave.”
“What the devil is she babbling about? Ghosts and nonsense. Utter tripe,” Linfield muttered, prompting Jem to chastise him with a stare. While Lady Linfield was clearly overwrought, there was no need to be so impolite about it. The woman had clearly suffered a major shock, and Jem for one believed there was something to it. No one wound up this terrified without cause.
Linfield was barely cowed.
“What did you see?” George demanded, getting in on the huddle.
Jane didn’t respond, her mind seemingly unable to fasten on any one of them for more than a moment, and her body continued to judder in a most unnatural way.
“What I’d like to know is why you were wandering about the second floor in the dark?” Linfield said. “What business led you here? Your rooms are upstairs, madam.”
She gaped at him, then clamped her mouth closed, and a furious blush spread over her décolletage. Linfield chewed on his littlest fingernail.
The footman came running, carrying Bell’s bag, which the doctor immediately rummaged through, and thus produced a vial of reddish-brown liquid and dropper.
“Perhaps we might move her to some place more comfortable before you administer that.” Bell returned a nod, and so Jem lifted her. She was light as a child and easily settled in his arms. “Where to?”
Linfield cleared the way and ushered him towards the stairs. “Her chamber would be best.” They all followed in his wake, chittering and speculating as to the cause of her malaise as if she couldn’t hear them. He wasn’t sure when Henrietta joined them, only that it was her who first raised the notion of dear Jane having seen an apparition, and which set Jane off babbling madness again.
Up until this point, Jem had not taken the notion of a spectral presence at Cedarton remotely seriously. The maid’s story could easily be reasoned away, so too Lady Linfield’s supposed earlier sighting of the ghoul. They’d attributed it to an overactive imagination, without any attempt to dig into the matter. Jane herself had said she’d not been at all certain of what she’d seen. This time around, that was clearly not the case. The woman in his arms was bleached of colour and quaking so her limbs twitched seemingly of their own volition.
Eliza burst from her room with her hand cupped around a candle flame as he waited for someone to open the door to Jane’s chamber. “What happened?” she demanded. “Jem, is she hurt? I heard a cry, but it didn’t seem wise to run toward it in the thick of night. Where was she? Did you find her? Jane… Jane, dear, are you all right?”
“Eliza.” Jane clasped her friend’s hand fast and pulled her closer, making it almost impossible for Jem to move. “I saw it…her, old Lady Cedarton. Oh, Eliza, it was no mistake last time. No hallucination. She was right there before me as plain as you are to me now, yet insubstantial as the breeze. I could see right through her to the other side. Oh, Eliza. She means us harm, I know it, right here in my soul.” She tugged her friend’s hand to her breast. “We mustn’t stay here. You have to convince them. Tell Linfield. I know he won’t listen to me. We ought to return to town at once. All of us. Oh, Eliza, I’m so sorry. I should never have brought you here.”
“Nonsense, Jane. You need me, and right now you are overwrought. Darling, I know what you think you have seen, but ghosts are not real. They are stories we make up to teach one another the lessons of the past. I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for whatever it was you saw. You believe that too, don’t you, Jem? And Doctor Bell?”
Their nods of agreement did little to calm Jane’s panic. Her eyes were wide as saucers, and her skin so milk pale as to be almost translucent. Nor did Henrietta’s sudden cry— “It will wreak bloody vengeance on us all and harvest our souls,”—do anything to soothe matters.
“Cluett,” Bell swore through clenched teeth. “I’ve no desire to attend two patients at once. If you could return your mother to her chamber and stay with her until she’s settled. I’m sure a dash of brandy and a well-stoked fire will set her to rights.”
“Of course.” Cluett gave a bow, then snapped to attention as if he were a solider brought to attention by a senior officer. “Come, mother. There is nothing we can assist with here.” He led her away, supporting her against his arm.
