Instruments of Darkness

5

Mrs. Westerman’s thoughts, as they walked down the slope to Caveley, still ran on Wicksteed’s journal.

“There must be a way I can get sight of his papers. There is business enough between the estates to justify me visiting the housekeeper, or Wicksteed himself. If I could get into his office and find a way to make him leave me there alone a little while …”

Crowther sighed. “Mrs. Westerman, he may not keep his diary in his office, and if it contains anything that might be incriminating, it is probably locked away.”

She looked up at him angrily, then kicked an offending branch clear of the path in front of her with a soft leather boot.

“I shall try, however. I will not slink away from this. I may find nothing, but I know we will learn nothing if we do not make the attempt.” And when Crowther allowed himself a roll of his eyes: “Do you have any better plan, sir?”

He studied the earth in front of him. “No.”

“Well then.”

There was a clap of a door slamming in front of them and they looked up to see Rachel hurrying across the grass toward them. They glanced at each other, saw their own worries reflected, and lengthened their stride to join her.

“Mr. Crowther, oh Harry! Thank goodness! It is Mr. Cartwright!”

Harriet looked confused. “What do you mean, Rachel? We were there only half an hour ago.”

“Michaels has just ridden up this minute. Cartwright has been taken very ill and the doctor is attending a sickbed in Pulborough. He has come to ask your help, Crowther.”

She was very pale. Crowther did not think to question or protest but, spotting where Michaels waited, mounted at the corner of the house with his own horse beside him, set off swiftly toward him. He climbed into the saddle with a vigor he would have thought impossible days before.

“How bad?”

Michaels handed him the reins. “Bad.”

The big man dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and Crowther set off after him at a gallop, the hooves throwing dust and grass out behind them, their bodies held straight and low. He caught a glimpse of the women stranded on the grass behind him, pale and distant on the great lawn of Caveley.

Harriet turned to her sister and took her arm.

“What do you know?” she asked.

Rachel was flushed, her breathing still shallow.

“Very little. Michaels arrived only a moment ago. Cartwright has violent pains. Michaels met his girl on the street, crying her eyes out because she could not find the doctor, and so he has taken charge of the situation.”

Harriet felt her head crowd with violent fears, felt her own hand tremble on Rachel’s arm.

“Let us go in, and send David after Crowther. He may carry messages to and fro for us. And Rachel …” her sister looked up at her fearfully … “I do not wish any family of mine to make use of any gifts we receive from the Hall for a little while. Can you find a way to manage that? Discreetly if you can.”

Rachel went very white, but nodded and they turned toward the house.

Michaels led Crowther into the house and straight up the narrow stairway to Cartwright’s room. The smell of vomit and bile as the door opened was enough to make Crowther sway on his feet. Both men paused, then Michaels took a chair from the middle of the room and seated himself on it in a corner. He was silent, but had the look of a guard dog about him. Crowther moved toward the bed. It was wet with sweat, and a basin sat beside it, half-filled with a yellowish vomit. Cartwright moaned, and opening his eyes and seeing Crowther, tried to pull himself up.

“Mr. Crowther! Are you well? Mrs. Westerman …?”

Crowther sat on the bed and took the man’s wrist in his hand. The pulse was exhausted, thready and jumping.

“I am quite well, and I left Mrs. Westerman in perfect health.”

Cartwright fell back on his pillows and let his eyes flutter shut.

“Thank God. I feared …” His body convulsed; he pulled his knees to his chest with a low groan. Crowther removed his coat.

“Mr. Michaels-water and all the salt in the house, please. We must do what we can to drive this from him.”

He did not look around, but heard the man stand and leave the room with quick steps. Cartwright tried to open his eyes again, panting.

“I have been poisoned, have I not, Mr. Crowther?”

“I fear so.”

“And will it kill me?”

Crowther hesitated, then let himself meet the red glittering eyes of his patient.

“The violence of the attack suggests you have been subject to a heavy dose. But we will purge you, and recovery may be possible.”

Another cry, and Cartwright’s knuckles whitened as his hands and jaws clenched. As the spasm passed, his hands loosened again and Crowther saw the tears in his palm where his neat nails had dug at the flesh. The sick man breathed hard a moment, then looked up again.

“It came so sudden. A strange taste …”

“Like metal?”

“Yes.” Cartwright looked confused. “How did you know?”

“Arsenic. Then came a violent headache and the sickness?”

Cartwright nodded again, though this time he kept his eyes shut. His skin was clammy and yellow. Crowther smoothed the man’s hair away from his forehead.

“I have some things in my store so we can make you more comfortable.” He did not know if he was heard.

Michaels came up the stair again with Hannah on his heels. Crowther realized as he mixed the salt and water together and held it to Cartwright’s lips that this was his first ever living patient. He doubted the case would be a credit to him; the dose must have been very large, and other than purging his stomach, there was little he could do but keep vigil. The effect of the salts was almost immediate. Cartwright groaned and twisted in his bed to vomit again into the bowl. It lay in a patch of late-afternoon sunlight on the dark wooden flooring, lapped by the edges of Joshua’s bedlinen. They caught a little of the spatter of bile from his mouth. There was some blood. Crowther wondered if the stomach was already bleeding, but perhaps it was only that Joshua had bitten the lining of his mouth while caught in one of the spasms.

Taking the glass, he filled it with clean water and raised his patient a little from the bed with an arm around his shoulders, getting him to drink. Cartwright took greedy drafts of it, and fell back against Crowther’s shoulder. Some water dribbled down the side of his face. Crowther removed his handkerchief and gently cleaned it away. The man let him, panting again, the body waiting for the next attack. His eyes opened briefly, the cornea flushed scarlet with blood. It was like coming face to face with hell itself.

“Will it take long, Mr. Crowther?” he panted.

“Perhaps a day.”

Cartwright grunted and turned his face away. Crowther stood and noticed Hannah.

“Can you read, girl?” She nodded. “Then go to my house and bring me the jar from the cabinet in the study marked Valerian.”

She looked confused and Crowther sighed impatiently. Michaels opened a drawer under a little table against the dark wall at the back of the room, then pointed to the ink and paper it contained. Crowther thanked him and wrote the word on the paper.

“And here is the key. My servants will show you where the cupboard is. Hurry back.”

She flew out of the room and Crowther watched the door shut behind her without moving. Michaels spoke.

“Do you know what’s doing it, Mr. Crowther?”

“From the violence of the attack and the metal taste he noticed-arsenic, I should think.”

“Any hope?”

Crowther shook his head. “When Hannah gets back I’ll go down with her and stop up the bottles,” Michaels said.

“Check the food too, if he has eaten in the last hour.”

“Why did he ask after you and Mrs. Westerman?”

“We were here a little while ago, to ask if he saw Brook on his way into town,” Crowther replied. “He gave us lemonade.”

“Which did you no harm.”

“As you see.”

Michaels bit the side of his thumb and turned away a little.

“And did he see Brook?”

“Yes. And had Viscount Hardew’s address waved in his face. He could not remember it, though.”

Michaels clenched his fists. “You found that nurse from the Hall?”

“Yes.”

“Murdered too, I’m guessing. Though the village is trying to tell itself suicide.”

“Yes. Murdered.” Crowther did not elaborate, but picked up another chair and set it by his patient’s head. He then arranged his limbs as one prepared to wait a long time.

Michaels looked at him sideways. “What was it you sent for?”

“An opiate. It should lessen his pain at the end.”

Michaels sighed and took his own seat again in the shadows.

Rachel picked up her book and then put it down again, having stared at the same paragraph she had just read twice without understanding it. Harriet continued to walk up and down the room. There was a light knock at the door and Mrs. Heathcote came in with a paper folded once. Harriet snatched it from her and opened it, biting her lip.

“Harriet?”

She turned to her sister and put the note in her hand.

“Poisoned. There is nothing to be done.”

Mrs. Heathcote started. Then recovered herself.

“I’ll send David back again to wait for more news, ma’am-if there’s no message, of course.” Harriet nodded without looking up. “Do, please. There is no message.”

Crowther was not sure if Michaels had sent for the squire himself, or if the air had carried the news to him without need of human informer. Whatever way, Bridges had arrived, and having spoken to the maid now took his place in the growing dark alongside Crowther and Michaels. The air in the room was heavy and fetid, and though Crowther had flung up the window there was not enough breeze in the air to carry much relief. Cartwright was becoming delirious, calling on his wife and son, sometimes in tones of desperate loss, at others joyously as if he saw them just in front of him.

Bridges waited till Crowther had cooled his patient’s forehead and measured again the struggling pulse before taking his arm and leading him into the hall.

“You think it is poison?” he asked.

“I am sure of it.”

“Is his mind still secure? Can we find from him how this came about? Some accident, perhaps.”

“I have given him a sleeping draft: if you wish to talk to him, do so now, then I may dose him with a more generous hand. His suffering is extreme.”

The squire sucked his teeth and nodded. “Very well, very well. From where do you think the poison came?”

“I have not yet examined the bottles or foodstuffs in the kitchen, but I suspect the aqua vitae he received from the hand of Mr. Thornleigh. The maid said he took some just after Mrs. Westerman and I left here. The symptoms came so hard and sudden I can think of no other cause. The lemonade we drank together was obviously not tainted. You can see that by the fact I stand here and speak to you now.” Crowther’s whisper was harsh and violent.

“Indeed.” The squire replied. “Unless it was only his glass that was tainted, as you put it.”

“That we can clarify with experiment swiftly enough. Give a sample of the liquor to any dog in the street. If it does not die within the hour you may believe what you like.”

“Very well, very well, Mr. Crowther.” The squire put his hand on Crowther’s arm and held it for a moment as a man might steady himself on a moving ship. “And you maintain the nurse was murdered also?”

“I do. Do you doubt it?”

“It is not a matter of doubt, I simply cannot understand what is happening here. Might it be a series of unrelated, unhappy events? Might that not be the simplest of conclusions?”

“It is unbelievable. These people have been murdered, and not by some lone thief.”

“You point to Mr. Hugh Thornleigh.”

“If Alexander is never discovered, or found dead, then he inherits the estate! Who else stands to benefit so?”

The squire looked at him hard in the gloom. “And if both brothers are removed? One by stealth and one by the law-who gains there? I would not expect you to be so keen to see a man hanged for the murder of one of his family.”

Crowther flushed. “I am not keen, as you choose to say it, to see any man hanged. But do not ask me to believe this an accident or Nurse Bray a suicide so you can keep Hugh safe!”

“Hugh may be better than what comes after him.”

“Even if he murders?”

“I do not necessarily believe that a murder has been committed.”

“Perhaps you might like to discuss that with the victim.”

Crowther pushed the bedroom door open again. Michaels had taken his place at the bed, and now moved aside to let him approach. He nodded at Crowther in such a way he suspected the conversation outside the door had not gone unheard. Bridges bent over the bed and cleared his throat.

“Now then, Mr. Cartwright, I hate to see you in such a state! What has happened here? Some mistake with the household poisons?”

Cartwright opened his eyes and the squire recoiled slightly. The breath came in rattling gasps.

“Water,” he said.

Crowther filled the glass and pushed past the squire to give him drink. Cartwright sank back, then sighing, opened his eyes again.

“Perhaps. Yes, perhaps. We were killing mice last Sunday.” He looked up into the squire’s round face with desperate eyes. “I took water with the liquor Captain Thornleigh brought. Perhaps. Must have been so.”

The squire rocked back on his heels with a satisfied smile and blinked innocently at Crowther. The latter said nothing, but did not trouble to hide his disdain. Joshua he would not blame. If the draper wished to believe himself a victim of accident, and that belief soothed him, then so be it.

Turning to the table, he added a few drops to the water glass from a brown bottle. A swirl of light purple sunk and spread in the water, and he offered the glass again to his patient. The eyes suddenly opened and locked onto Crowther’s face. Cartwright put up his hand and held the glass away from him, his bloody palm fixing round Crowther’s wrist with force, pulling him close to his lips. Crowther could smell death on him.

“Tichfield. It was Tichfield Street.”

Crowther felt the blood in his brain stir. He nodded carefully to show he understood; the tension fell away from Cartwright’s limbs and his eyes closed. He let himself be fed the water, and with a slow sigh slipped under the waves of his suffering again.

The squire stepped forward. “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing but the delirium of his brain.” Crowther did not take his eyes from Joshua’s face. “He will not speak again.”

It was past three in the morning when David returned to Caveley for the last time. The ladies had not gone to bed. Harriet would not give up the watch, and Rachel would not leave her. He came in without removing his cloak and handed over the paper to Harriet, but she could have guessed half of what it contained by the expression on his face. She smiled at him very sadly. He looked pale and uneasy in the candlelight.

“Thank you, David. You have been very good. Rest now.”

He looked for a second as if he wished to say something, then turned away, but paused again at the door.

“Just wished to say, ma’am, Miss Rachel, that Mr. Crowther was a gentleman to Cartwright. I hope I get care like that when I go. Though I hope not to die so hard.” He left before they could reply.

The door shut behind him and Rachel got up and took her position behind Harriet’s chair, so she could read over her shoulder. The note was short and to the point.

It is over. The dose was massive. I know where Alexander is.

19 APRIL 1775, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS BAY, AMERICA

They set out like boys promised a picnic that morning, but it was a shocked and bloody army that made its way back to camp the following evening.

Hawkshaw had a tear in his cheek from a farmer’s blunderbuss, and he had lost three of his company to the rebels on the retreat from Lexington. He had not seen Hugh since the carnage of Bloody Angle, where the rebels had taken advantage of a sharp turn in the road to ambush and harry his men. He had never felt so exposed. These pretty wooded hills and valleys with their irregular roads and riverways made for pleasant farming country, but it was the devil’s own work to fight in. The rebels came up out of nowhere at them as they made their way back into Concord, some piling right into their midst to send off a shot though it was certain death to do so. The army could not be sanguine about any meeting with these men in the future, surely. They were ragged and undisciplined, but brave, and knew how to use the land to their advantage.

Hawkshaw pulled off his coat in the relative peace of his quarters and tried to wash out his wound. He took some of the water from his bowl in his mouth and spat it out again, thick with his own blood. He had even seen a woman firing by the side of her husband from one of the farms along the way. Both had been killed, and the house set alight, but it was a chiling scene. If they could make their women fight like that, how great a force would be required to subdue them? More than were here, and more than were likely to come soon, and in the meantime they were in danger of being pinned down in this bloody bay like animals in a pit. The rebels seemed to him like little boys throwing sharp rocks at bears. Not much of a competition in a straight fight perhaps, but if they could not reach out a claw and connect, and the stones were sharp enough, it was plain where any sensible man should lay his bets.

The door behind him opened and he looked up, expecting to see his servant come in with a fresh shirt. It was Hugh. He was worn, and his shoulders slumped, but Hawkshaw could not see any sign of wounds. They looked at each other for a moment with satisfaction, then Hugh held out a long plain bottle toward him.

“Here. Brought this for you. My father sent over a half-dozen bottles of brandy so the mess can toast him and his new wife. We’ll use it to wash out our wounds.”

Hawkshaw took it from him and lifted it high, letting a long draft into his mouth and swilled it over his gums. It found the wound and made him wince. He could not say anything about the quality of the liquor. All he could taste was his own blood and dirt.

Hugh watched him. “Can you talk?” he asked.

“Yes. It looks worse than it is. No long speeches from me though. Who did you lose?”

Hugh kicked out at the wall of the little hut hard enough to make the floorboards jump.

“Four good men. Young, Spicely, Ball and Tom Cartwright. Spicely was one of the first killed up at the bridge. The animals scalped him. And Cartwright died hard. He only joined up six months ago, comes from my home, and took one in the guts. He was looking at me in the eye as he died, rattling back on the cart, and all I could think of was how pathetic that little mustache he’s been trying to grow looked. He was a baby still. And all the time looking at me like I’m a god who can heal him with a handshake and trying to be brave.”

“It was good you stayed with him.”

“Much good it did him. To hell with it! Four good men! And for what? Throwing half a ton of shot into a duckpond, and burning a couple of gun carriages.”

Hawkshaw passed him the brandy bottle and Hugh took a long gulp of it before he continued. “We cannot afford to throw men away like this. Two others wounded, won’t be fit for months. I’ll have to fill the company again. What about you? Seen your injured yet?”

“Of course. Parkinson looks in a bad way. The others who made it back will live. Thank God Percy made enough noise to be allowed to come up and cover the retreat. There’d be a lot fewer of us here now if he hadn’t.”

Hugh sat down heavily on the bed. “I shall send him some of the brandy.”

Hawkshaw watched him in silence for a moment, then began the work of getting blood and grit out from his fingernails.

“It’s true about the marriage, by the way.” Hugh looked at the emptying brandy bottle. “Of course you know. My father writes to say she will be an ornament to Thornleigh and the London scene.”

Hawkshaw took a seat on his trunk, and reached an arm out for the bottle again without comment.

“My father has made us ridiculous, and thinks it all a very fine joke. I hope he chokes on it.”

“I met an old friend of your family today.”

Hugh looked up with his eyebrows raised.

“A man called Shapin. He heard Gregson mention your name and claimed to know you as a child.”

“I don’t recall the name.”

“Seems he was a servant, transported for theft when you were a boy.”

Hugh shrugged and took the bottle back again.

“I am surprised my father didn’t arrange to have him swing. He has never been forgiving of other people’s sins.”

Hugh held the bottle to his forehead, as if he expected to find some cool and comfort in it.