CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

He rises late, the sun already high in the sky, blinding-bright.

In front of the mirror Henry dips his razor into the fresh bowl of warm water that Powell brought up together with his clean clothes. He scrapes the blade across the plane of his jaw, sucks in his breath as a spot of blood blooms on his neck. Henry reaches for the towel, pats his skin to stem the flow.

When it stops bleeding he examines the birthmark that so upset Gwen Tresilian last night. He always made care to keep it hidden by collar and cravat, but the sight never particularly bothered him. In fact he found the mark fascinating as a child, perhaps was even the initial reason for pursuing a career in medicine. What made the skin produce such discolouration? What differentiated the anomaly from that of normal tissue? The notion was captivating.

Venous malformations was what the anatomist William Hunter called such marks, though Henry did not know the name in those early years. No, indeed, this information was imparted from a lecture he once heard the older man give during his apprenticeship, and Henry credits him for his own pursuit of the task at Guy’s. He stretches the skin with his fingers. The mark is livid purple in colour, like grape juice on linen. He runs his thumb over it – no raised bumps, no hairs … no change.

Satisfied, Henry reaches for his cravat.

He needs to check on his charge. Henry takes the stairs to the third floor and the vanilla scent hits him as soon as he opens the door, making his eyes water. The smell is not unpleasant but it is cloying, and for the first time he finds himself more than passing curious as to why Lady Gwen’s rooms are filled with the flowers responsible for that perfume. Is it another superstition? Or mere decoration only?

There is no answer to his knock. He tries the handle; the door opens easily. The rooms are, for once, flooded with light, the windows open wide, and the sound of birdsong trickles through them, taffeta curtains blowing gently in the breeze. Mrs Evans’ trestle bed is neatly made. He crosses beneath the floral overhang to the bedroom, but Henry can already see from the threshold that the bed is empty, its sheets pulled back for airing.

No one is here.

Henry looks about the room. In daylight it appears drab – threadbare carpets, moth-eaten curtains. Even Mrs Evans’ trestle bed seems, somehow, less . Henry regards the lumpy mattress with distaste. What way is this to live? He sighs, turns his head. A harp stands near the window and he goes over to it, plucks its strings. The sound is gentle, resonant, the mellow note lingering in the air. Thoughtfully he looks out over the grounds. The bedchamber faces the gardens; box hedges, a large pond filled with lily pads the size of dinner plates. And there, walking the paved footpath surrounding it, is Lady Gwen, a wraith in white.

She is alone. This, then, is an advantage. Henry told Linette that he could not deduce madness from one hysterical episode alone. Here is an opportunity to observe her without the eagle eyes of Enaid Evans to curtail him; always she has hovered like a stern sentinel, making Henry’s job damnably difficult. Even though the housekeeper’s reserve has begun to thaw these past few days, Henry has not missed the way she still looks at him as if trying to take his measure. If Henry does not speak to Gwen Tresilian now then his chance at finding her alone again is very slim indeed.

Outside, Plas Helyg is steeped in bright sunshine. The air is sweet, and a warm breeze lifts the curls at his crown. In the far distance he can make out the faint sound of the sea like a rumbling sigh upon the horizon.

Henry follows the gravel path around the side of the house in the direction of the ornamental garden, crosses the lawn in long fast strides. Lady Gwen is lingering now at the top of the pond under the shade of some trees, watching the fountain with a dream-like expression on her face. She is dressed in a flowing nightgown; from beneath the hem peek bare toes. Her long white hair is loose; it hangs down her back in thin rope-like strands, but the way they capture the glow of sunlight makes them look, almost, like spun silver.

How different she looks from the portrait, he thinks. How changed. Though her beauty is still etched into the thin plane of her face it pales in comparison to the loveliness captured in oil. The boldness Henry saw staring out of the canvas no longer exists, a mere watermark on silk.

‘My lady?’

Gwen Tresilian tears her gaze from the fountain. She looks for a long moment as if she does not know him, but then her face splits into one of recognition.

‘ Bore da , Dr Talbot.’

Her voice is soft, quiet, as if that too has been watered down.

‘Good morning. How do you feel today?’

When he, Linette and Mrs Evans guided her back to bed last night she had cried the entire way. Henry wants to ask if she remembers what she said – such odd things – but then Linette warned him that her mother uttered many things which made no sense. Would there be any use trying to remind her of it?

She answers him now with a sigh, reaches up to rub her left eye. Gwen is not wearing the veil Linette mentioned. Perhaps, Henry thinks, she does not need one for the trees here provide plenty of shade. Still, it is bright outside, bright enough that it should cause her eyes discomfort of some sort …

‘Do they bother you, my lady?’

She nods. ‘Ache.’

‘Where is your veil?’

‘I do not like it.’

‘But where is it?’

Lady Gwen looks as if she is trying to recall, but then she plucks a creamy flower from one of the nearby trees, holds it out to Henry in her small and delicate hand.

It tremors slightly. He has not noticed a tremor before.

‘ Criafolen ,’ she murmurs. ‘Rowan. The tree of enchantment. Its berries will come soon.’

Henry hesitates, takes the flower from her. She turns back to the fountain and politely he watches it with her, its merry trickle.

‘You play the harp,’ Henry says after a moment, and Lady Gwen pulls her eyes back, the soft smile that crosses her lips the very twin of Linette’s when she chooses to bestow it.

‘ Ydw , I’ve played since I was a child. The only true pleasure I have.’

‘What of your daughter? Is she not a pleasure?’

A beat. ‘My daughter?’

‘Linette.’

Gwen Tresilian frowns. ‘I don’t have a daughter.’

A knot tightens in Henry’s stomach. Once, in his most lonely years at the Foundling, Henry thought it was the worst thing in the world to have no mother to love him, but now he realises he was mistaken. This, this is worse – it is better to have no mother at all than one who does not recognise her own child. If she cannot even recall her own daughter, what else does she not recall?

‘Do you miss your husband?’ Henry asks, testing her, and immediately Lady Gwen’s face fills with an acute sadness. She remembers him , then.

‘Every day.’

‘Can you tell me about him?’

Lady Gwen nods. ‘A kind man, of noble birth. Father was so proud to unite us.’ She ghosts a smile. ‘The Tresilians are of an old Cornish bloodline, did you know that? ’Tis thought the Welsh and Cornish are the purest of Britons, and it pleased Papa to think our ancestry could be joined together. Hugh and Julian, you see, are the last of them.’

‘The last?’

Another nod, a wistful sigh.

‘My husband and his cousin were the only surviving heirs. Their fathers both died young of a wasting disease.’

In the lilting pause that follows Henry thinks of Julian’s illness. Hereditary, then. If not for Hugh Tresilian’s accident, might he have eventually suffered the same fate?

‘I’m sorry,’ he says now. ‘It’s no wonder your husband wanted to memorialise the Tresilian line by adding his family crest to Plas Helyg’s furnishings. The symbol above the fireplace is particularly impressive. One would not forget it.’

He has said it to test her, to see if – in her more languid state – she might rise to the bait, and her next words confirm his suspicions.

‘That is not a crest.’

‘It isn’t?’ Henry asks, feigning surprise. ‘Then what is it?’

But she does not answer, stares unseeing across the pond. Henry touches her arm; the gesture brings her back.

‘The goats,’ she says softly.

Henry frowns. ‘Goats?’

‘It’s said they represent vitality.’

It seems he is losing her to more of her strange fancies. Disappointed, Henry is about to change the subject when Lady Gwen turns her pale face to look at him.

‘The Tresilian crest, you see. Three goats within a chevron.’

That familiar tingle in his fingers again. Wait, he thinks, just wait until I tell Linette! Instinct told him that the symbol could not be a crest. But if the symbol is not associated with the Tresilians, what on earth is it?

Suddenly she takes his hands in hers, making him jump. They are very small; Henry feels the barely-there weight of them, marvels how childlike they are. He squeezes her fingers, wills some warmth back into them for despite the heat of the day her hands are freezing cold. Lady Gwen squeezes back.

‘You have been wronged, haven’t you? Wronged by people you trusted.’

The thrill of just moments before cools as Henry’s chest tightens, and he automatically pulls away from her.

‘Ah yes,’ she whispers. ‘I see it clearly. I see many things, you know.’

Wary now, Henry watches her. How can she possibly know such a thing?

‘What things do you see?’

‘Things that would terrify you.’

He remembers her ravings the night before: Wings, beating. People in the room, calling him .

‘What things?’

She gazes up at him, grey-green eyes guarded. There is something else about those eyes too, something odd that Henry cannot place. She releases him. The air between them grows so quiet one might hear a pine needle fall in the woods, and in the wake of it the woman takes a shuddering breath.

‘Within each of us there lies a devil.’

It is not the answer he expected, and Henry is silent a moment. He thinks of his unsympathetic ward nurse who dismissed his nightmares and ignored his cries, the schoolmaster who struck a little too hard with the birch and took pleasure from it. He thinks of the men and women in Bedlam and the people who keep them there. He thinks of the gentleman who died under his scalpel, of the governor’s unkindness.

He thinks of himself.

Within each of us there lies a devil .

Flustered, he pulls at his cravat. The humidity of the day must be getting the better of him, he thinks, and in that instant Gwen Tresilian’s gaze drops.

‘Oh,’ she says softly, stepping closer. ‘You’ve cut yourself.’

She reaches out thin fingers to touch his throat. The action shocks him, holds him still. Henry remembers her desperate grasping of last night, but he sees no fraught emotion in her now. Instead he sees only bewilderment; the moment she touched him her forehead had furrowed, causing a deep gully between her fair eyebrows.

‘What is it, my lady?’ he asks softly.

‘I thought …’ She shakes her head, sucks in her breath. ‘Last night I had a dream. But it’s nothing. ’Tis nothing.’

Lady Gwen drops her hand, turns away to the rowan tree, strokes its bouncy blossoms as if they were a robin’s breast.

She does not remember, Henry realises. Her mind does not acknowledge the truth of her subconscious. The laudanum Mrs Evans administered, then, must have been very potent indeed. He will not trouble with reminding her – her upset last night was so great he does not wish to risk distressing the gentle woman further. And she is gentle, Henry thinks, watching Lady Gwen touch the trunk, how she hums a lilting folk tune under her breath …

‘Milady?’

Across the grass strides Cadoc Powell. He pauses at a bench on the far side of the pond, retrieves from its wooden seat a piece of white diaphanous material (the veil!), before continuing on. As the butler draws closer Henry can see the deep expression of disapproval on his sour face.

‘Come, madam,’ he says when he reaches them, veil fluttering in the breeze. ‘Mrs Evans has charged me to fetch you. It is time for your nap.’

As Henry rounds the mansion back the way he came, two things strike him.

The first, that Gwen Tresilian cannot have been awake more than two hours which means a nap is entirely unnecessary. The second is that madness does not rule her.

It is something else altogether.

But what? What caused Lady Gwen’s outburst last night, the one before it, all the rest he has not seen?

When a mind is not engaged it becomes stagnant, repressed. There is nothing to entertain her here, nothing to keep her engaged. It is easy to trap oneself within the confines of one’s mind, to torture oneself with unpleasant memories when there is nothing else to do. Henry slows a moment before picking up speed once more. Perhaps that is it. Does a memory set off her anguished fits? Linette said it was grief that made her mother the way she is. In Henry’s experience, grief manifests itself in a variety of ways, all of which the lady of Plas Helyg exhibits in abundance: confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation. But Henry saw no madness in that pale face just now. Even the strange things she says do not account for such a condition. No indeed, never has he dealt with a patient such as she. Give him a body with something obviously wrong with it and he can apply himself with skill. But Gwen Tresilian has no superficial ailment. Here, he is working blind.

He strides through Plas Helyg’s cavernous front doors. There is something else that troubles him about her too, something his trained eye is missing but cannot place. What was it about her today that bothered him so? That has, he realises, bothered him right from the start?

It is a niggling and frustrating thought to be sure, but it is another more pressing one that drives him in this moment as Henry crosses the vestibule in the direction of Julian Tresilian’s study.

Three goats within a chevron .

By rights he should go straight to Linette, but this time Henry needs to look at Julian’s book in the cabinet alone, needs to consider this new piece of information without her challenging him at every point. He thinks of the question he asked Linette the other day. Why would an ancient book of philosophy have on it a family crest? It made no sense, he told her, and now Henry thinks with a satisfied smile, he has been proved right.

The symbol is something else.

This assurance buoys him, and Henry steps over the threshold of the study with a rising sense of excitement, only to stop dead on the rug.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

Angharad is standing at the cabinet of curios, duster in hand. Impossible to look now.

‘I got lost,’ he says, and Henry finds himself flushing at the weakness of the lie. ‘I meant to find Miss Tresilian’s study.’

Angharad looks at him shyly.

‘That way, sir.’ She indicates with the duster. ‘East wing,’ the maid adds when Henry hesitates too long.

‘Thank you. Of course.’

He turns, clenching his fists in disappointment. In the vestibule again he considers his next move, and, restless, finds himself returning outside to consider his thoughts on foot.

Books on philosophy, Julian claimed. What else? What were the precise words he used?

Frowning deeply Henry strides up the driveway, passes through the squeaking gates of Plas Helyg. The two paths – the one that takes him down into the village, the other leading to Moelfre – he ignores. Instead he ploughs into the woodland, and with each stride into the forest is conscious of a rising sense of frustration.

Religion, mysticism … Babylon? Henry remembers those words, but not the others connecting to them, for in truth he was not truly listening. He was tired and travel-worn, considered Julian’s enthusiasm as nothing more than the arrogance of the beau monde .

No matter what the books are, the symbol must be significant for the original stone above the fireplace to be changed. Significant enough to be included on the Tresilian portrait, and – more tellingly – etched into the rings that both Julian and Dr Beddoe wear.

Henry comes to a patch of wild garlic, slows his pace. A light breeze rustles the hair at the nape of his neck and he removes a handkerchief from his pocket, presses cotton to skin. He breathes in the pungent smell of allium, counts the beating pulse of his heart, and as he waits for it to slow Henry becomes conscious of the distant sound of running water. Deeper he goes, the forest floor twisted with exposed roots, cosseted with bracken, its green fronds spreading across the route like splayed hands, and it occurs to him suddenly what a foolish notion this was – if he takes a fall, no one knows where he has gone.

Beyond, the sound of water grows louder, a crushing roar. At length the woodland opens up to reveal a river, and Henry takes a moment to appreciate it; the water is clear, its bed a mass of pebbles. A heron stands tense on the bank. His eyes follow the river upward, sees that it drops thrice, waterfall upon waterfall.

For a long moment he stands, staring.

There is nothing like this in London. Nothing at all can compare.

Pulling himself away Henry stays close to the riverside, where fading bluebells line the bank, and walks downward until, eventually, the land levels off into a deep grove of willow trees. There is a dirt track here, a sure footpath, and Henry peers back into the dense woodland, tries to think where it might have led from. He listens to the rushing river behind him and then, with a spark of realisation, remembers the small stream running behind the gatehouse. Is that where it eventually leads? He is positive he is right, but Henry does not want to go back the way he came to prove it – he wants instead to go further on – and so he meanders along the winding footpath, the grove of bending willows forming an inimitable shade. Above there comes the gentle cooing of a dove and, suddenly, the willows open out.

He stands within a clearing. Above him tower stone walls carved out of the hillside, stark shards of shale and slate, and Henry must crane his head to see the top of its wooded banks. It is a sheer drop; one could break their neck if they fell. Across the whole length of the stone, ferns explode from the cracks like lush green fireworks and moss blankets the lower reaches of the wall like a curtain.

But it is the stone crypt that holds Henry’s attention.

It is a large structure reminiscent of a small-scale abbey, constructed from stone with intricate finials which mirror Plas Helyg’s at its top. They are connected by an ornately carved arch, a great moss-mottled skull set high in the middle, a cross of Celtic weave design above that. One word has been carved into the arch – CADWALLADR – age having smoothed the letters until they appear to meld together in the stone. The wide doors are decorated with carved willow trees, two large urns spilling more ferns flanking either side. And, kneeling between them, is none other than the Reverend Mr Owain Dee.