CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

It does not take Henry long to pack his belongings for he brought very little with him to begin with. The medical books from Guy’s have been returned to his trunk, the unused vials of Lady Gwen’s poisonous tincture kept safely wrapped above those, his box of surgical implements laid carefully on top. Angharad has already left his laundered clothes in a folded pile on a chair, so little effort is required to fill his portmanteau once again. It is all done within minutes.

Three items of luggage: the trunk, the portmanteau, the knapsack. As Henry ties his cravat he looks at them set down by the bedroom door, and briefly feels sadness that this is all he has to show for his life, that it is so very little.

This will be the second time he has moved in as many months. He had not wanted to come here and yet, now, Henry does not wish to leave. He feels duty-bound to Lady Gwen, to Linette, for last night something shifted, like a chess piece moved across a board. He thinks of Julian’s grisly grimoire, what they found within it. Strange symbols, ritualistic circles. The feather of a black hen. He hears the word Linette uttered, teasing the back of his skull, tries to deny it but cannot.

Demons.

It was always said that the Hellfire clubs of Wharton and Dashwood’s day danced with the idea of Satanic rituals, but that had only ever been rumour, conjecture; Julian and his club, this so-called Order of Berith … did they really believe they could summon a demon? It was madness, pure madness, but what irritates Henry more than anything else is that after all he and Linette have discovered they still do not have any sure answers. What actually happened to Gwen Tresilian? Why has Julian kept her drugged all these years? Henry dips his hand into his pocket, presses his thumb into the shell he finds there, worries the dulled spikes with his thumbnail. With a frown he pictures the gold dagger they found in Julian’s desk. Linette told him her mother had spoken of a golden blade. Could it be she saw it in use? What else did she say? Wings. Beating. Poor, poor thing! Was it the hen she spoke of? And, of course, that strange chant he heard her utter at dinner: Hoath, Redar, Ganabel, Berith . So many things Lady Gwen has said now make perfect sense. Is it possible that the cult did something to her?

And what, if anything, does Dr Evans’ death have to do with any of it? Did he die as part of some ritual?

Henry does not know what to think. What he does know is that demons do not exist, any more than hounds of hell and everything else he has heard of since he came to Penhelyg. Whatever Julian is playing at, well, that is all it is. Play. A game. The Order of Berith is nothing more than a chance for him and his friends to exercise their sordid fantasies away from the prying eyes of London’s beau monde .

What is to be done though? Henry thinks of the page Linette took, the only clue remaining to them. That page is the key. They must, however, be careful. He and Linette might have come closer to discovering the truth of Plas Helyg’s past, but they are not the only ones to know it.

Cadoc Powell caught them. He caught them, but said nothing. And it is that very act – that lack of confrontation – which makes Henry distinctly uneasy. One more person not to trust. And to leave Linette at Plas Helyg alone does not sit well with him at all.

Yet what choice does he have? It is clear Julian wants Henry out of the way. Which means there is a reason, a reason Henry cannot know until he does leave. No, he will quit Plas Helyg today as instructed and become a willing player in this game of which he does not know the rules.

But first, he must see Gwen Tresilian.

He finds her hunched over the chamber pot, Mrs Evans holding back the heavy white plait of her hair. The stench of vomit fills the room, and Henry goes to the window, flings it open wide. Leaves scatter across the lawn below, casualties from the wind the night before.

‘Come, my lady,’ the old woman murmurs. ‘Back into bed.’

Henry watches as she helps her mistress under the covers. She is unsteady on her feet, bends to grip the bedsheets as if they were a lifeline, her spine poking from beneath her nightdress like the scales of a reptile he saw once at the British Museum.

‘Has she been eating, Mrs Evans?’ he asks, removing the vial of tincture from his pocket.

‘Middling,’ the housekeeper replies. ‘She doesn’t have much of an appetite at the moment.’

‘Even so,’ he says, pouring water from the carafe into its accompanying glass, ‘make sure she eats something. The sickness will pass in time, but she needs to eat to conserve her strength.’

He looks at his patient now, marks how very ill she looks.

‘It’s still early days,’ Henry says to her. ‘I promise, this will pass.’

Lady Gwen watches as Henry pours the drops into the glass of water, and when he holds it to her she shakes her head.

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You will.’

They stare at each other for a long moment, and Henry is gratified to see more green in her eyes than black.

‘Drink up, milady. I shan’t take no for an answer.’

Reluctantly she takes the glass, drinks it down. She coughs at the last swallow and then, in a petulant way that reminds Henry of Linette, flings the glass back at him, sinks into her pillows, plucks at the coverlet.

‘Enaid tells me you’re to leave Plas Helyg today.’

Her voice is hoarse, weak. But when she looks at him, her gaze is strong.

‘Only as far as the gatehouse,’ he tells her. ‘You’ll still see me every morning until I deem it unnecessary.’

‘I see.’

Lady Gwen looks away through the window, at the towering trees outside. She sighs, says nothing else. Henry sits down on the edge of the bed.

‘Do you know why I’m doing this?’

On the other side of the bed Mrs Evans sinks down in the armchair, gently takes her mistress’ hand, but Lady Gwen snatches it away.

‘I’m a grown woman, Enaid. Please stop mollycoddling me like a child!’

A shot of hurt splits the old woman’s face and she draws her hand back, tucks it away into her apron. Despite his earlier frustrations at the housekeeper, Henry feels now a deepening sympathy for her. To be shunned by not one but two of her charges is a cruel hand indeed.

‘Do you know,’ Henry says again, turning his attention back to Lady Gwen, ‘why I am doing this?’

His patient shrugs. ‘I’m sick,’ she says simply.

‘But do you know why you’re sick?’

A shadow passes across her face. A memory? Or confusion?

With a sigh Henry removes his pocketwatch, gently clasps Lady Gwen’s wrist to take her pulse. As he does her gaze drifts downward, her eyes widen, staring down at the watch, and Henry is sure this time a memory ghosts her face when her irises darken from green to grey.

By the time Henry comes downstairs his belongings have already been brought to the vestibule and Julian stands beside them, waiting.

‘Good morning, Henry,’ he says, as pleasantly as if they were old friends. ‘I see you’re packed promptly as agreed. Very good.’

Henry ducks his head in an effort to hide the look of dislike he knows has crossed his face. ‘I would not presume to disobey you, my lord.’

‘Would you not?’ Julian’s voice is laced with amusement, as if he recognises the lie. ‘Well, that is most gratifying.’

He clicks his fingers at Powell who comes forward from the shadow of the stairwell, Julian’s cane and cocked hat in hand, and as he passes them to his master the butler’s eyes meet Henry’s. Has Powell told Julian what he saw last night?

‘I am to Lord Pennant’s on mining business,’ Julian says now, placing the hat on his head. ‘Plenty to do, much to arrange. The accident set us back some weeks, as I’m sure you can imagine.’

At that moment Linette appears at the top of the stairs. Henry inclines his head, as much to greet her as to reply to her cousin.

‘If all goes as planned, then I expect we shall make good progress in due course. Not all is lost.’

Outside, the sound of wheels over gravel. Linette comes to stand beside Henry as Julian crosses the vestibule, pulls open Plas Helyg’s wide doors, steps out onto the drive. With an effort he pulls himself into his phaeton; Rhys hands up the whip. Then Julian flicks the reins and turns his dapple grey horse down the driveway, and Linette watches her cousin go, frowning deeply.

‘Are you really going to leave today?’ she asks.

‘I am.’

‘Henry—’ Linette begins, and he turns to her with a smile.

‘But I never said at what time, did I?’

Rowena joins them in Linette’s study, where the latter flattens the page out in the middle of the table.

In the cold light of day it does not seem quite so sinister – the text merely looks like brown ink, the ‘paper’ like old parchment. If Henry did not know better, it could merely be an aged diary entry filled with neat handwriting and itinerant doodles.

‘What do they mean, do you suppose?’

It is Rowena who has spoken, and together all three of them stare down at the page.

‘The whole book had symbols in it like this,’ Linette murmurs. ‘Much of it is written in a foreign language except for Julian’s words here.’

‘Some of it is Latin,’ Henry adds, ‘I can see that much. But these symbols … these I don’t recognise.’

Rowena hovers her finger over them. ‘Hebrew, perhaps?’

‘Hebrew or Latin,’ Linette retorts, ‘that hardly makes a difference if none of us can speak it.’

She leans over the page to rest on her elbows, looks closer.

‘There has to be a way to translate it. Was there a dictionary in Julian’s bookcase? I don’t remember seeing one.’

‘Nor I,’ Henry says, and in response she sighs.

It is heavy, drawn-out. Linette’s eyes widen.

‘Henry, look .’

‘What?’

Linette picks up the page, holds it between them.

‘When I sighed just …’

She puts her face close, sighs once more, and to Henry’s amazement a series of letters appears beneath the symbols.

‘Christ,’ he mutters, taking the page from her.

Letters have appeared beneath a few of the central symbols: an N , an O , a P , a Q . Francis Fielding had mentioned this once – steganography he called it, a way of hiding messages within an object.

Blood could not do this. Julian must have used a special kind of ink.

‘These aren’t symbols,’ Linette whispers. ‘This is an alphabet.’

‘Quick,’ Henry says, moving toward the fireplace. ‘We must light the fire.’

It takes some minutes to produce a decent flame, but soon the fire is roaring, and very carefully Henry leans into the grate, holding the page above the flames.

‘Be careful,’ Rowena whispers, but there is no need; already the fire is doing its job, and soon the letters appear beneath their corresponding symbols, clear now as day:

‘Get paper, quill,’ Henry tells Linette, but she does not need telling twice. Already she has pulled her desk drawers open, laying paper and ink next to the torn page, diligently dips the nib.

He watches as Linette makes fast work of the symbols, their corresponding letters, and when she has finished neither of them speak for some moments. Henry tries to deny what is before them, tries to convince himself Linette has mistranslated, that what he sees is nothing more than a trick of the eye.

‘This can’t be right,’ he finally manages.

Linette too is staring at the page before them, looking as shocked as he feels.

Their names. The symbols spell out her and Henry’s names.

‘Why would Julian have written our names in the grimoire?’ Linette whispers.

With a shaking finger Henry pulls Linette’s translation toward him.

This cannot be possible. It cannot be possible!

‘Our names,’ Linette cries as if he cannot see. ‘These are our names!’

But he does see. He sees and is just as baffled as she is, looks between the pages in confusion. Linette chews her lip.

‘You said the grimoire was ritualistic, did you not?’ she asks, and Henry nods, lowers his eyes once more to read the passage below their names:

To ensure salvation the bargain must be struck with the sacrifice of one’s own ancestral lifeblood, the bond of two united.

It means nothing to him. He continues to stare at the page, the strange lines of Julian’s handwriting turning themselves over in his mind: Ensure salvation. Bargain struck. Sacrifice. Ancestral blood. Two united. The answer is there, but Henry cannot see it. What, what , is he missing?

Next to him Linette is reading the passage too, mouthing the words under her breath. Three times she does this until she falls silent, eyes following the words now rather than her tongue. Then, suddenly, she draws in her breath.

‘No.’

‘Linette?’

But she has started to shake her head in dismay.

‘No,’ she whispers again. ‘How? How? ’

‘Linette, what is it?’

‘It can’t be. It can’t.’

‘ What? ’

She reaches for one of the chairs at the table and sits down, weakly looks up at him, scarce able, it seems, to form the words.

‘Think of your childhood, Henry,’ Linette whispers. ‘You were a Foundling, yes? You never knew your parents. The watch. Your token. What was supposed to happen to it?’

A creeping cold spindles itself up his limbs like needles.

‘It … it was for when my parents came to claim me. To identify me. But no one came.’

‘Perhaps they did, and you didn’t realise. Julian claimed you, when he brought you here. Ancestral lifeblood. The bond of two united. Don’t you see?’

Henry stares. Gently, Linette puts her hand on his.

‘Your name,’ she says softly, ‘is not Talbot. It is Tresilian. Henry Tresilian.’

For a long moment he is silent, scarce able to fathom it. This is madness, he thinks, it makes no sense, should make no sense and yet, somehow …

‘We’re related?’ His voice sounds wooden, far off. ‘I’m Julian’s son?’

‘You must be.’

‘But,’ Rowena cuts in, who until that moment has stood quietly, too shocked it seemed to speak, ‘this is all conjecture, surely? You’re finding ways to tie the threads, and yet there’s no way of really knowing.’

Linette turns to look at her.

‘Yes, there is.’

‘There is?’

‘The Bible,’ she says simply. ‘The family Bible, in the cabinet upstairs.’

Very slowly Henry raises his head to the ceiling, as if he might somehow look through Plas Helyg’s ancient bones up to the floor above. The women follow suit.

‘We must look inside,’ Henry swallows. ‘It’s the only way to know for sure.’

With something like her old strength Linette rises from her chair and crosses the room, reaches for the bell-pull by the door, its emerald sash.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Cadoc,’ she says. ‘He has the key.’

She tugs the pull. Within moments Powell appears at the study door.

The butler looks between them, his stern gaze going from Linette, to Henry, to Rowena and back again.

‘What is it you need?’

‘We need you to unlock the cabinet upstairs,’ Linette says. ‘Now.’

Henry watches the butler insert a small key into the curio cabinet. It is stiff in the lock and takes him a second or two to make the key turn before it gives with a dull thunk , to lift the glass lid. Instantly the smell of camphor rises, mixed with a faint aroma of must, a sure sign the Bible has not been opened for years.

As one Henry and Linette step forward.

The Bible sits grandly in the middle of the blue velvet bottom, an unopened promise. Henry has given it little mind since coming here – only the portrait above claimed his attention – but here it is in front of him, ready to confirm Linette’s wild claim, and a part of Henry now does not want to know the truth.

The Bible is truly beautiful. Though very like Julian’s grimoire, it does not hold the same sinister air; ornate patterns – ivy, he sees now – curl prettily around the holy cross, framed by brass filigree corners, held shut by handsome clasps, and Linette reaches down to unclip them from the pins that holds them in place.

With infinite care, she turns the cover. The family tree stares up at them from the first page, a sea of names inked into its coiling willow branches. Generations of Cadwalladrs trickle down from the top in looping copperplate, but Henry pays them no mind; he looks only to those at the bottom of the page, scarce able to believe what he is seeing:

He is too shocked to speak, too shocked to do anything. Even Cadoc Powell seems at a loss for words – he is staring hard at the Bible, a muscle working in his jaw. It is Linette who lets out her breath, Linette who reaches into the cabinet, though it is not to the Bible that her hand goes but to one of the small locks of hair either side of it. She hovers a finger against the blonde, then in turn the brown.

‘I always thought they were from my parents,’ she whispers, and finally Henry finds his voice.

‘When was your birthday, Linette?’

She licks her lips.

‘The day you arrived.’

A beat. ‘And mine.’

He has never marked his birthdate. A scrap of paper handed over with the pocketwatch, a worthless piece of information that always meant nothing to him.

Until now.

‘I’m not Julian ’s son,’ Henry says, the truth of it barely comprehensible. ‘I’m Hugh’s.’ He raises his eyes to hers, brown to grey-green. ‘You are my sister.’

‘Twins.’

Henry and Linette spin around. Standing in the open doorway of the upper chambers is Linette’s mother – his mother – crumpled nightgown trailing on the floor. Mrs Evans supports her meagre weight, clasping her mistress’ hand so tightly that the whites of her knuckles stand sharp against her thin skin.

‘Twins,’ she says again, taking an unsteady step forward. ‘Linette is older by two minutes. I remember now. I remember it all. The watch, you see …’

Beside him, Linette stills.

‘Mamma?’ she whispers, and Lady Gwen smiles weakly, a small sorrowful smile that makes a lump form in Henry’s throat.

‘It is time you both knew the truth.’