The Dark Unwinding (19 page)

“You must have worked for a long time to make this,” I said. I felt him coil up again. He could not have known I would recognize the little statue to be of his own creation, and I could not explain why I did know it. But it was very important to me that before he left, he knew I understood. “When I look at it, I can feel it trying to fly.”

“You would like to fly, I think. That is why it’s yours.”

Mrs. Jefferies’s voice chopped through the room like a dull axe. “When are we getting to eat some of this? It’s all stone cold, I’ll warrant. And your fire needs tending. And can’t you see this child is famished?”

I turned away from the swan, too numb even to be annoyed. It would be later that I would cry. “It’s all meant to be cold, Mrs. Jefferies, and of course Davy may have something, and you as well.”

Davy truly did look miserable. I came to the table and picked up a plate for him, but Mrs. Jefferies snatched it from my hand. “I’ll be doing that,” she snapped.

“Shall we open the wine?” said Ben, coming across the carpet. My uncle was still absorbed in the workings of the boat. I smiled, grateful for the interference.

“Yes, Mr. Aldridge. That would very nice.” I turned to Davy. “Where is Bertram?”

Davy looked quickly around him, but his pet was only a few feet away, calmly gnawing out a hunk of chair leg. I lifted a napkin that had been draped over a plate of lettuce and greens and gave it to Davy, who favored me with the first, slight show of a dimple as he bent down to set the plate on the floor.

“Can I offer you a glass?” Ben said to Mrs. Jefferies as he pulled the cork.

“Never touch the stuff,” she muttered, heaping her plate.

“Mr. Moreau?” he inquired over his shoulder.

“No,” the low voice said.

Ben turned his back to the rest of the room. “Then it’s just the two of us, isn’t it, Miss Tulman?”

I looked at him curiously as the red-purple wine poured, with his brown suit and his boyish face with the side whiskers. Ben Aldridge was quite the gentleman. The gentleman that had walked me to the village and back and forth to the workshop, and had been jealous — yes, jealous, I decided — when I spent my time with another young man. I shook my head. How absurd to have only just opened my eyes. Properly encouraged, Ben might have rescued me from Aunt Alice. And I might not have even minded. Not that much. But I had ruined that as well. Now his saving would only be another kind of servitude; he could never compare with what I could not have. I stole a look at the long dark figure watching us from the hearth, still and tense, like a cat ready to spring as Ben handed me the wineglass.

If I were Ben Aldridge’s wife, I could lie to Aunt Alice without fear of repercussions. There would be no danger of starvation on a London street. But surely even I could not be so selfish as to saddle a man with a wife that was not in control of her wits. Or could I? If I could lie to my aunt, then Lane and Uncle Tully might not have to leave their home, not for a very long time. Or ever, if Mr. Babcock was correct. What would I sacrifice for that? Quite a lot, I decided.

“To your very happy future, Miss Tulman,” Ben said, lifting his glass.

I smiled at him from beneath my lashes, feeling slightly ill as I did it. “Thank you, Mr. Aldridge.” The expression coming at me from the hearth was disapproving, but I was careful not to look at him again as I sipped the wine. I’d never had claret, and could not say that I had acquired an appreciation for its taste, but Ben need not know that. I took another large sip. “May I help you to a plate, Mr. Aldridge?”

Eating took away some of the room’s tension, I noticed; it gave both hands and mouths something to do. When I came back from taking my uncle his customary tea and toast, Ben handed me a dish of my cucumbers and we sat close together on the settee. I gave him my best false smile and ate every cucumber while I listened to him talk, feigning interest in his new position in London, and the house he hoped to acquire there.

I finished the wine, little pendant crystals tinkling as I tipped back my head, while Ben went to sit on the floor with my uncle again, observing with enthusiasm as Uncle Tully played with the boat. The room was very warm, stuffy even, but I smiled as I dabbed my temple with a napkin. My uncle was so happy; the sight of it made contentment ooze all through me. Lane still stood at the fireplace, not eating or drinking, and not leaving, either, just watching me like a statue of some gray-eyed Spanish god while wind and rain battered the windows.

And then several things happened at once. Ben jumped to his feet and took a step back, startling the room. He was staring at Uncle Tully’s boat, which now bore some kind of mechanism with a spinning wheel in its middle. The boat was balancing perfectly, impossibly, on the point of its keel, falling neither right nor left on the carpet. Uncle Tully clapped his hands.

“Isn’t that just so?” he shouted. “Isn’t it right? For eighteen, and just as before. All just as it was before….”

The door to the corridor burst open, and Mary Brown ran in, her hair wild and chest heaving so that she could hardly speak. She closed the door as quietly as possible behind her and leaned on it.

“Men!” she shouted in a whisper. “Downstairs! Two of them, Miss, wanting Mr. Tully. And one of them’s the magistrate!”

I
t took ten heartbeats for my mind to sort out what Mary had said. The magistrate. Uncle Tully. Aunt Alice. Letters, unread, burning to ash in the fireplace. The time of reckoning was not in some distant future. It was now. I got to my feet, still sweating, keeping one hand on the settee for support.

“I told them I wasn’t knowing any Mr. Tulman and took off running but they followed,” Mary panted. “And I think they heard me coming up the stone steps. If they did, they’ll be finding their way in a lamb’s shake —”

“Lane!” cried Mrs. Jefferies, but he had already moved to my uncle’s side. Uncle Tully was shrinking against the wall, clutching his coat at the sight of Mary, while Ben stood with his hands at his sides, still transfixed, apparently, by the balancing boat.

“Come on, Mr. Tully,” Lane was saying. “Playtime is over now….”

“No!” Uncle Tully protested, now thoroughly panicked. “No, NO! It’s isn’t time, it isn’t …”

“Lane!” Mrs. Jefferies pleaded. “Please …” Then she spun desperately about. “Where’s Davy gone? Where …”

I hurried across the room and knelt before my uncle, Lane scooting over to make room for me. “Uncle, look at me.” I waited until the blue eyes were able to fasten on my face. “That is Mary Brown over there. I told you about her once, do you remember? She likes toys very much. Don’t you, Mary?”

Mary blinked like an owl at Uncle Tully, then nodded enthusiastically. I waited for my uncle’s eyes to come back to me. “Take your boat into Marianna’s room and show it to Mary. Wait for me there.”

Uncle Tully’s bright eyes were solemn. “I should wait?”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“I think they’re coming, Miss!” Mary hissed, her ear to the door, and my uncle’s gaze darted fearfully to Mary.

“Should I do what the girl tells me?”

“Yes.” That was an unexpected boon.

“Is this when the men come? Should I go to the tunnel if the girl tells me?”

I stared back into his serious face. “Yes, Uncle. But go to Marianna’s room first. Do you understand?” My uncle nodded, picked up the boat, its wheel still spinning, and took Mary’s arm as docilely as if he had done so all his life. They hurried away together through the connecting door, my uncle’s coattails flapping.

“She got him ready,” I heard Mrs. Jefferies whispering, “Great God above, Miss Marianna got him ready….”

Yes, Grandmother,
I thought, closing my eyes.
You got him ready so long ago because you knew it was inevitable. I hope you can forgive me for what I must do now.
Thunder rumbled, shaking the silent room. I hoped they could all forgive me, someday, for what I was about to do. I opened my eyes and tried to stand up, but had to grab the back of a chair to keep from falling. For a moment, the roses on the floor had gone out of focus. I felt sick. Lane took a step toward me, and then a male voice, a stranger’s voice said the word
light
right outside the door. I straightened my back, still holding on to the chair, neck and forehead damp with the effort. The hinges creaked, and the library door opened.

Two men stood in the hallway looking in at us, their top hats and greatcoats speckled with rain. One was tall and clean shaven, the other much shorter and with the wiriest, bushiest blond beard I had ever seen. The tall one took off his hat.

“You’ll pardon us, I’m sure,” he said, “but no one answered the door, and we’ve had the most extraordinary time finding a servant.”

No one spoke for a moment, and then Ben Aldridge stepped forward with his genial expression.

“Come in, gentlemen. We are very glad to welcome you. And do accept our apologies for your trouble. I am Mr. Aldridge. Have a seat by the fire.”

“No, thank you, sir,” said the man with the bushy beard. His voice was clipped, sharp. “My name is Lockwood. I’m a magistrate of this county, and this is Mr. Thomas Purdue, attorney-at-law. Take us to Mr. Frederick Tulman immediately, please. We’ve business that cannot be delayed.”

An uneasy silence permeated the room. Mr. Lockwood turned his beard from face to face, studying each of us in turn, while the tall man, Mr. Purdue, eyed the proliferation of flowers. “Are we … interrupting something?” Mr. Purdue asked eventually.

“Come now,” said Mr. Lockwood, ignoring the question. “We’ve traveled a long way through moor and storm, and I for one intend to do what we came for. We’ve a charge of lunacy to deal with here.” His shrewd gaze moved to the food table, where Bertram was now perched, head down, finishing off my cucumbers.
That is exactly how they will look at my uncle
, I thought, like a specimen in a glass, an exhibit at the zoo. It made me angry.

“If you would take us to Mr. Tulman, please,” said Mr. Purdue, his tone more apologetic, “we shall have the business over with as little trouble as may be.”

“And who has levied such a complaint, sir?” I said a little too loudly. The eyes above the blond beard moved to me, and now I was the specimen. I had a vague notion that something about me was odd, something about no corset and a chandelier, but my mind would not grasp it.

“That information is confidential at this time, Miss,” Mr. Purdue was saying. “The charges in this case are brought with the utmost regret, and only for the safety of the patient, of course. The party placing this charge has been promised complete anonymity.”

“Oh, come now,” Mr. Lockwood said again. “Look at the lot of them, Thomas. Like a den of thieves. Every soul in this room knows what we’ve come for. Why else did that slip of a girl take off like a jackrabbit? So, let’s get on with it, shall we? We’ve been outrageously delayed, and if we don’t leave in half an hour there will be no one awake to unlock the gates at Dr. Whitby’s. At this rate the …”

Mr. Purdue responded to this, and then Mrs. Jefferies began babbling nonsense while the magistrate’s beard moved up and down, and up and down, words blending together in a meaningless chorus. But I wasn’t listening. I was clutching the back of the chair as if I would break it off, not just angry now, but shaking with it, consumed with rage. Alice Tulman lacked the courage to even use her own name. And these men had obviously already made up their minds, or she had made it up for them. Because my uncle had a different way of thinking, a view of the world they did not understand, and money that others wished to spend. For this they would lock him in a cell without even a proper examination. Lock him up like specimen.

And then, all at once, with none of my ordering or logic or even a moment of real consideration, I knew that none of that was going to happen. I didn’t care if I lived out the rest of my life on a street corner, or picking rope in a workhouse, or died in a hedgerow. Aunt Alice’s greed would for once go unsatisfied. Next year, next month, even tomorrow would have to come as it would, but that magistrate was not going to lay the first finger on my uncle. My voice rose over the hubbub.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, but I’m afraid you have made some sort of a mistake. There is no one in this house in need of your services. We have no lunatics here.”

The noise died, and no one spoke, though I did see Mrs. Jefferies’s mouth drop from the corner of my eye. I clutched harder at the back of the chair, driving splinters beneath my nails.

“Perhaps you have come to the wrong address? And if you are late, then please, do not let us delay you for a moment. Can I have someone show you the way out?”

I was still shaking, burning with fury, and I felt rather than knew that Lane now stood behind me. I stared back at the men across the room, and Mr. Purdue’s face, very slightly, seemed to change its shape.

Mr. Lockwood removed his eyes from me and turned to Ben, whom he had evidently decided was in charge of this outlandish affair. “Sir, if you could kindly tell us where Mr. Tulman is, I would be —”

“Frederick Tulman is a respectable gentleman,” I said very clearly, so they could understand. “In fact, some say he is on the verge of a peerage.”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Jefferies.

“No doubt it will come through in a year or two, but in the meantime …”

“Katharine.” The voice came low from behind me, and my thoughts faltered at the sound of it. “Katharine, stand up straight….”

“… but … in the meantime, Mr. Tulman is just as sane as I am, no matter what my … no matter what Aunt Alice might have … might say about it….”

“Are you, by any chance, Miss Katharine Tulman, young lady?” said Mr. Lockwood. I blinked at him. “Hmph,” he said, “I thought you might be.” He sighed and turned to Ben. “There’s no use playing the gallant, Mr. Aldridge. If Mr. Tulman is here, let’s see him at once and have this business over with. We’ve a very competent doctor waiting in —”

“But she told you,” said Mrs. Jefferies, “there ain’t a thing wrong with Mr. Tully … Mr. Tulman.”

“Uncle … Mr. Tulman isn’t at home,” I said slowly. My head was spinning, and I was so hot, I could hardly breathe. “Mr. Tulman … went on a trip, a very long trip….” An arm snaked around my middle, and I felt a body against my back, the only solid thing in the room.

“There seems to be some sort of confusion here …” Mr. Purdue was saying.

“I’m not confused about anything, young man,” replied Mrs. Jefferies. “How about you?”

I could feel the nightmares creeping on the edge of my mind, and my fingers were burning; they were on fire. I was sweating with the pain of it. I clung to the arm around my middle.

“We want to see Mr. Tulman about a charge of lunacy …”

“Stand up,” the voice was whispering in my ear. “My God, Katharine, stand up….”

“… not for himself, of course. The charge of lunacy is …”

The fire was on my legs now, too, crawling upward with pricking feet.

“… against his niece, Katharine Tulman.”

Lunacy. Against his niece, Katharine Tulman. I remembered now. Katharine Tulman saw things that weren’t there. The arm tightened around me.

“Good heavens, John,” said Mr. Purdue, “she’s raving now….”

“She’s drunk,” said the low voice. I tried to brush away the fire. It hurt, like bugs, little stinging bugs….

“She’s raving, I say.”

Hands were trying to hold on to mine, but I had to get the bugs away, to brush them off. They were hurting me, crawling up my neck, making my breath come short.

“There now,” said Mr. Lockwood. He was very close. “Let me have her, son, so she can be kept from harm….”

“No!” I yelled, though I could hardly breathe. “Let me … make them … stop….”

I opened my mouth again, but there was no more air. I reached out an arm, and then an earthquake began in my own body. I shook, violently, overpowering the restraining arm, and I hit the floor hard, my teeth clacking together beyond any control. I tasted blood, and heard my name, and voices, and somebody shouting, “Doctor!”

Then a man yelled, “Look at the animal!”

My eyes flew open and through the shuddering world I saw Bertram on the table among the sweetmeats and the tarts. His legs dragged oddly behind him, his mouth white and frothing, as if he’d been eating cream. A pistol appeared from Mr. Lockwood’s jacket, leveled, and a brief flame spurted from its end, etching the air long before I heard the explosion of the shot. And when the sound did come, it came from very far away. I closed my eyes, and felt myself sink into a pit.