Page 24 of A Devilish Element
“Is he paying you to cajole me?”
The doctor wafted such a suggestion away. “I just fear the consequences for those of us around him if his issue persists.”
“What the devil do you mean by that? What consequences?”
“Would you not agree that prior to her arrival here, Lady Linfield was of sound mind and body? Yet now she screams and faints and bleats of apparitions.”
An entirely uneasy thought settled in Jem’s gullet. The thought had not occurred to him so fully formed before this point, but it loomed large into life now. Linfield’s unwillingness to engage, his revulsion. How far would Linfield go to free himself of his current bind and unwanted wife?
“I trust that you’ll not stoop so low as to taking part in such a plot?”
Bell halted his long-legged stride. “What is clear to me is that she saw something. As for what that was… We are both men of science, Mr Whistler, I for one cannot entertain the notion that the dead walk abroad, and that leads to the uncomfortable conclusion that this abomination currently hounding our hostess is man-made.”
“You think Linfield means to scare his wife out of her wits? Good God, man. You’re under his roof. I know he’s a cad, but…”
Dammit, the more Jem churned the matter over in his head, the more events seemed to point towards some manner of manipulation.
Bell’s pupils blazed black in the poor light. He tore off his wig, revealing hair as black as ebon, shorn short and describing a marked widows peak. “All I’m saying is that it would suit Linfield extraordinarily well if his wife was found to be mentally deficient. She could be removed from his vicinity, and moreover the demands of his family would cease. He would never have to worry over getting a rise to prove himself by planting his seed, and his family would never need to know his true nature as a champion of the windward passage.”
Jem sagged from his shoulders to his knees, suddenly weighted by the expulsion of dark thoughts. “You truly think him capable of it?”
“More than. As do you.”
“And you’d willingly condemn her.”
The man gave him a thin smile. “It may surprise you to learn that I have my own code of morals. I will have no part in such a diagnosis, but if he seeks it, he will secure the necessary evidence. I am but one physician. This country has many, and most will value the tinkle of coins in their pockets over a woman’s fate.”
“We can’t let it happen.”
“We can’t stop it.”
“If it’s shown to be a trick, we can. She was nigh to the door of George’s chamber when we found her. What if we poked around?”
Bell nodded his consent and followed Jem downstairs to the lower corridor, which stood in the same inky gloom as the rest of Cedarton’s environs, and not helped by the dark bowling green hue of the walls, coupled with an excessive array of ancestral portraiture.
“There’s nothing here that I can see,” Bell remarked, as they pulled back rugs and patted around various picture frames.
“What’s in these rooms? The Cluetts are opposite, but where do these other doors lead? And what was she doing along here, anyway?” Jem asked.
“That is a very good question. One must assume some business with the Cluetts, but it’s curious that neither made mention of it, nor gave any indication of having seen her before her screech alerted them—”
“We can ask her when she awakens.”
Jem turned the handle of the nearest door, which opened on curiously silent hinges. Every other door in the place wailed and groaned like an arthritic old roué bemoaning his inability to function as he had in his youth so, it was a novelty not to hear a screech. “Good lord, there’s a whole unused suite of rooms here.”
“Two suites, I should say.” Bell let himself into the room a little further along the corridor. “Nothing but shrouded furniture.”
And little of that, judging by the echoic ring of his voice.
“Likewise, here.” The room Jem had entered had been stripped of comforts, retaining only a couple of larger pieces of furniture too cumbersome to remove. Jem peeked beneath one shroud and discovered an old settee, the seat now tattered and wriggling with baby mice. He dropped the cover again and took an idle stroll to the window. It was black out, the clouds sitting low on the moors obscuring anything beyond a few feet. There was no moon.
“Anything?” Bell joined him in the room, swinging the door to behind him after he passed, and thus revealing a second glass-panelled door set at an angle behind the first. He opened it at once and stuck his head inside. “Nothing,” he said, emerging immediately. “The same miasma of neglect as the rest, only accompanied this time by the most godawful ox blood stain on the walls. Whoever was responsible for decorating this place had morbid tastes.”
“And that coming from an anatomist.”
“The body is a fascinating instrument, but I don’t endeavour to smear its fluids across the walls of my abode like some sort of demonic slaughterer.”
Jem joined the physician in the doorway. The side-chamber was as Bell described it. Devoid of contents except for an old, overturned box, and the stub of a candle in a jar. There was a faint current of something honeyed entwined with the general miasma of neglect in the room, beeswax, perhaps?
