CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Linette’s mother was once proficient at the harp, so Enaid told her many years ago. It had been one of her greatest pleasures to listen to her mistress play, to have fluting folk tunes fill the mansion’s cavernous walls. Servants would stop in their work and listen, such was the quality of her playing.

It is hard to imagine such a thing now; Linette’s mother sits at the little stool beside the harp absently strumming the strings with a look of bewilderment on her face, as if desperately trying and failing to conjure in her memory sounds that had once been pretty, but are now merely tuneless noises that send Linette’s ears into a painful ache.

Linette shifts on the armchair beside the bed, squints down at the recent treatise on farming resting on her lap. It is late. The sun’s dying rays are barely visible through the chink in the curtains, the room lit only with candles tiered in lofty corners about the room so as not to hurt her mother’s eyes. Some might think such a display beautiful and peaceful, the way the tapers flicker and bend, how the sprigs of gorse appear to glow in the wake of their flames, but to Linette it is distasteful. To Linette it echoes the sombre confines of the Cadwalladr crypt in the forest, a living shrine keeping out all the beauty of outside. What a wonderful sunset there must be across the horizon, she thinks, glancing up at that golden gap in the curtains. What a view it must afford from those great windows, a view her mother can never see!

On the opposite side of the bed, in a chair of her own, Enaid coughs. She is sewing up the tear in her mistress’ blue dress, a tear made when she writhed so violently on the dining-room floor the other night. Linette stares at the methodical rise and fall of the needle and thread, bites her bottom lip.

‘Why were you so difficult with Henry yesterday? You know he is here to help. He’ll not harm Mamma, I’m sure of it.’

Linette is not sure what she expected Enaid to say. A dismissive shrug, an apology, or, even, a denial. But whatever she expected, it was not this – the old woman rests the needle, and her pale eyes fill with tears.

‘Oh, Enaid. Please don’t upset yourself.’

‘I cannot help it,’ she whispers. ‘I love her as my own, as I do you. It hurts to see her like this. And to not have Wynn here …’

Feeling her own tears threaten to rise, Linette looks back down into her lap, grips the treatise hard, determined to keep her eyes dry.

‘I know,’ she says, with effort. ‘But it is Henry that must care for Mamma now. Be thankful, at least, she is not in the care of Dr Beddoe.’

Enaid sucks in her breath. ‘No,’ she whispers, ‘no,’ and a spark of resentment rises in Linette’s throat.

Dr Beddoe, who harshly told Linette that her mother should be kept chained to her bed, then left her weak as wet paper after bleeding her nearly dry with a vigorous course of leeches. Such a horrible, disagreeable man. Linette thinks of how kindly Henry treated her mother in comparison, his gentle touch when he held her wrist, counting her pulse.

The silence that settles between Linette and Enaid is broken by a plucked minor of the harp, two majors in quick succession. Linette returns to the treatise, Enaid tackles the particularly tricky tear. But, after a while, the housekeeper looks up.

‘Dr Talbot was kind to her. You’ve taken to him, I think.’

Linette raises her gaze to Enaid’s, but her eyes instead hold within them an odd expression of reserve.

‘I would not say I have taken to him, Enaid.’

‘You called him Henry.’

Ah, here it comes. That anticipated lecture on propriety, on social boundaries that she has never – not once – listened to. Linette lifts her shoulder in a shrug.

‘Only because it is easier. That is all. I barely know him.’ She pauses, rests the treatise on her thigh. ‘But yes, he was kind. Far kinder than I expected.’

‘Yes.’ A beat. ‘You must be careful.’

‘Careful? Of what?’

The old woman licks her lips. ‘You know so little of the world, of men. I could not bear …’

She glances at Lady Gwen who plucks another major note, then a few more together in the semblance of a melody that is not altogether tuneless.

‘Oh, Enaid,’ Linette teases, ‘you can hardly think me like to be in danger? You know I have no interest in matters of the heart.’

The housekeeper shakes her head, but at what she is not quite sure. Very carefully Enaid places the dress on the bed, reaches up to snap off a sprig of gorse from the floral canopy above them.

‘Take it,’ she says, reaching over the coverlet to hand it to her.

Linette sighs. ‘Enaid, I—’

‘Please,’ the old woman says, an urgent light in her pale blue eyes. ‘I know you do not believe in its powers, but I would feel happier if you kept it with you. Take it. For me.’

Often Enaid does this, presses a piece of gorse or rowan into her hand as if it were a talisman, and Linette sighs, takes the spiky sprig of yellow flowers, slips it into the pocket of her dressing gown. If it gives Enaid comfort, then she supposes there can be no harm.

There is a soft knock. All three women look in the direction of the sound. Placing the treatise on the bed, Linette goes to open the door.

‘Henry!’ she exclaims. ‘You’re back later than I thought. Is everything all right? Have you eaten? I asked Cadoc—’

‘Might I speak with you?’

Linette blinks. ‘Of course.’ She shuts the door behind her. The hallway is narrow, and at such close proximity she smells on him the briny essence of the sea.

‘What is it?’ she asks.

The young physician looks tired, travel-worn.

‘Beddoe. How long has he been in Criccieth?’

His tone is one of displeasure. So then, he does agree with her measure of him!

‘As long as I can remember,’ she says. ‘Why?’

‘It’s a Welsh name, is it not?’

‘It is.’

‘But he does not sound Welsh.’

‘No. He comes from a local wealthy family so does speak the language when it pleases him, but he was educated – like you – in London. There are many Welshmen like him in these parts; some hold a profession, others do not. Sir John Selwyn and Lord Pennant are two. I mentioned them before, remember? They own the estates neighbouring Plas Helyg.’

‘Did Beddoe and Evans ever work together?’

The question surprises. ‘No, not really. Julian asked him to offer a second opinion on Mamma’s condition, and Dr Evans was present for that. But otherwise …’

‘How did they get along?’

Linette hesitates. ‘They had different opinions, different methods.’

‘They argued?’

Again, Linette thinks of the leeches. Dr Evans was appalled, but under Julian’s orders he could do nothing.

‘Sometimes,’ she says.

Henry looks thoughtful. Linette frowns.

‘Why all these questions?’

He pauses, seems to contemplate his next words.

‘I believe there is more to Dr Evans’ death than you originally thought.’

Linette sighs. ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, not this again.’

‘Yes, this again!’ he hisses, and his hard tone makes her stare. Henry marks it, pulls back. ‘Forgive me, but can you honestly expect me to believe he should die so suddenly, with no previous intimations of ill-health? You yourself said he did not appear sick, and Mr Dee told me that he and Dr Evans climbed a mountain a few days before he died. A man who would endeavour such a thing does not strike me as a man of poor constitution.’

‘Who’s to say that signifies? Climbing mountains is hardly preservation against premature death. He died because he was old !’

‘Did he?’

She is about to scold him, to tell him his imagination is running wild, when Henry produces from his pocket a small and strangely wrought glass vial. Linette stares at it in the semi-dark.

‘What is that?’

Henry hands it to her.

‘I found it in the gatehouse,’ he replies, and Linette vaguely remembers how – after giving Angharad and Aled their instructions – she found the doctor sifting through the wreckage on the gatehouse floor.

‘Did Dr Evans ever use a vial like this?’

Linette turns it in her hand, presses her thumbnail against the unusual gold stopper.

‘Not that I ever saw.’

‘What of Beddoe?’

‘I don’t know.’

Henry sighs, runs his fingers through his hair.

‘Listen. I know something isn’t right here. If Dr Evans did not use such vials, then someone else certainly did, and my betting is on Dr Beddoe.’

‘But why?’

Henry looks at her meaningfully. ‘If my time working with Bow Street taught me anything, it is to trust your instincts. And my instincts tell me this vial has something to do with Dr Evans’ death. Think about it,’ he continues, when Linette stays silent. ‘An old but otherwise healthy man dies suddenly – Mrs Evans said it looked as though he had been frightened to death. But when I mentioned this to Beddoe he insisted this was not the case.’

Linette’s mouth goes dry. She had not mentioned Dr Evans’ face to Henry that day at the gatehouse, had found the memory of it too horrifying. Linette shuts her eyes, pictures the old man’s wide eyes, his twisted mouth held open as rigor mortis took hold. She assumed that was simply what happened, when one died in such a way, and it has haunted her, that expression; no one – not she nor Enaid and certainly not Dr Beddoe – could deny having seen it.

‘Impossible,’ she whispers. ‘It was obvious.’

‘So why did he deny all knowledge? Beddoe was hiding something, of that there can be no doubt. And, I was sure I saw …’

He trails off, looks confused, but Linette is no longer listening. Feeling ill she raises the vial up in the meagre light of the hallway. Something brown sits at the bottom.

‘What was in it?’ she asks, and slowly he takes the vial back, holds it at eye level between them.

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘But I do know this. Whatever it was, it wasn’t laudanum. I think, Linette –’ and here Henry’s expression grows grim – ‘it was some kind of poison.’