Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
M erelda’s reservations were unfortunately correct. ‘Awake’ was a very loose definition of Adelaide’s condition. She was on the chaise longue in the window bay with her eyes closed when they entered the room.
‘Kit is here to see you,’ Sybil said in a voice she might have used for a toddler.
Adelaide’s head lolled to the side. Her lips formed a wan smile, but she didn’t speak. Her eyes opened but they had a glazed air. Her hands flopped loosely in her lap. The sight of the usually vibrant woman was staggering. Kit glanced at Merelda and Enid, conscious that this was the first time they would have seen her. Merelda looked furious.
Kit took Adelaide’s hand.
‘Hello, Addie, it’s good to see you awake. We’ve all been concerned for you and hope you’ll be feeling a lot better soon.’
She did not respond to Kit’s greeting instantly, only turning her head and blinking slowly after perhaps seven or eight seconds. It was almost as if a stage hypnotist had put her under his spell.
‘You make sure you read those books,’ Merelda hissed. ‘Enid, come along.’ She turned on her heel and stalked out, Enid following behind.
Adelaide accepted a little beef broth by spoon but made no attempt to feed herself. This progress however, and a telephone call to Doctor Fulford, was enough to reassure Aunt Sarah that she was recovering.
‘I’m sure by tomorrow she will be perfectly well again and we will be able to travel home. We have a dressmaker’s appointment on Thursday.’
‘Well, you are welcome to stay as long as necessary,’ Kit told her.
He rode over to visit Oliver at his practice in Helmsley and told him of Adelaide’s progress.
‘That little fellow from the sack race seems to be suffering from the same thing. There’s a child who needs a bit more nourishment,’ Oliver said.
‘I’ll have cook send some beef broth over,’ Kit said. He thought for a moment. ‘I know Doctor Fulford didn’t treat him. Can you tell me which doctor he saw.’
The physician in question lived in a small, disconcertingly dilapidated cottage in a back street close to the castle. It was identified only as a surgery by the brass plate proclaiming it the home of John Smith, MBChB . He was an older man with wide, deep-set eyes, a beaked nose and a shock of curly, greying hair. He greeted Kit with a firm handshake and offered him a boiled sweet from a paper bag.
‘Yes, I saw the child. You say there’s another sufferer of the same condition? How interesting.’
Kit recounted Adelaide’s situation. ‘Do you think they might be suffering with the same illness?’
‘Almost certainly.’ Doctor Smith muttered something beneath his breath and swept along the passageway, past his consulting room and into a cluttered study. He tipped a pile of newspapers onto the floor, pulled out a box that had been buried beneath them and began rooting through it.
‘The latest name is Von Economo Disease – named for the neurologist who managed to get his name attached to a monograph – ha! I was in Paris during the war for a time and cases were rife. It’s older than that, though. Much older.’
‘So it can be treated?’ Kit asked, hope rising.
‘Not by any method known to medicine.’
The doctor placed a slight emphasis on the final word. Kit seized upon it the way a man submerged to the waist in quicksand might clutch a straggle of seaweed.
‘Any method known to anyone else?’
The doctor popped a sherbet lemon in his mouth and crunched it noisily. When he’d finished, he licked his teeth and looked at Kit.
‘Throughout history there have been unexplained epidemics. The dancing sickness in Medieval times, the writing tremors half a century ago, the plagues of Egypt.’
‘The last one had divine causes,’ Kit interjected.
‘Who’s to say the others didn’t, or don’t,’ the doctor said darkly. ‘Or beings other than divine.’
‘Thank you for your time,’ Kit said politely, standing.
‘If you discover anything else, please let me know,’ the doctor said. ‘Or if you encounter any persons who might offer more enlightenment, I’d be interested in meeting them.’
‘Of course,’ Kit said.
Outside he let a long groan erupt. It was no wonder this doctor came cheap; he was clearly a quack whose scientific methods were as sophisticated as Merelda’s explanations.
He set off home. The new gelding was an easy ride and already broken in. Kit trotted down the bridleways he had ridden since he’d first climbed into the saddle as a child. An impulse for something more challenging to release some of his frustration saw him turning off across the Home Farm meadows in search of more interesting terrain, with a stream or fences to jump. He cleared three low, stone walls with ease. The gelding found his head, whickering in delight. Spurred on, Kit dug his heels in to take the stream when he saw a young man emerge from the bushes at the other side.
Too late, the gelding had leapt, and it was all he could do to cry out in warning. The man threw himself to one side as Kit tugged sharply on the reins to turn the gelding in the other direction as soon as it landed on the bank. It neighed in frustration and reared up.
Kit jumped down, holding firmly to the reins, trying to bring the spooked animal under control.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked, looking over his shoulder. ‘You!’ he exclaimed.
The young man was not a man at all, but Miss Dove. She was dressed in a calf-length shepherd’s smock and a felt hat that had confused him.
She climbed to her feet (bare, Kit noticed) and walked to the horse, holding out a hand and whistling in a low tone until the gelding settled and bowed his head. She ran her hands over his nose and the horse blew out a warm breath. Through the veil of alarm that still caused his heart to race, Kit had to admit he was impressed. He let go of the reins, knowing instinctively that the animal would stay put and gave his attention to the woman.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘These are public ways. I’m not breaking any laws by being here,’ she said giving him a hostile look. Small bits of moss were stuck to the front of her smock and flew off in all directions as she brushed her hands briskly over it.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Kit replied. ‘I would swear there was no one around when I started the run up. I could’ve killed you.’
‘That’s unlikely,’ she replied with dignity.
‘Are you alone? Where is Mr Wilde?’
‘He has journeyed on.’
‘Leaving you alone here?’
‘Yes.’
Just for a moment, her voice sounded small, and she looked apprehensive, causing a flicker of pity in Kit’s stomach. She rallied, smoothing back her hair with a flicker of her fingers.
‘But I shall follow soon. How is Miss Wyndham faring?’
Kit’s subconscious tapped at him. There was something odd in her voice, as if she knew something was slightly askance, though he couldn’t say what.
‘She’s a little ill, as a matter of fact. Just under the weather I think.’
‘Yes.’
Faring . That was the word. If he hadn’t visited the odd doctor, he might have let it pass but he was beginning to wonder if there was something slightly more sinister at play.
‘Do you know something?’ he asked sharply.
‘I know lots of things,’ she replied.
It wasn’t the answer he was looking for.
Not divine means, but something else. A bell chimed in his head.
‘Do you know anything about Adelaide’s illness?’
Her lashes flickered, batting like moths against a window. That she didn’t immediately deny it was enough to assure him that she did.
‘I did nothing to her.’
‘But he did? Wilde?’
He was alert now to the subtleties of conversations with Miss Dove and Mr Wilde. Merelda, too. It seemed everyone was saying things without meaning to, and not saying the whole truth.
‘Look here, if you know something you have to tell me. Or tell the doctor. Not necessarily Dr Fulford, but that other chap in Helmsley. I think he’s quite interested, and he doesn’t think the causes are entirely natural.’
‘And what do you think?’ she asked, eagerly. She leaned forward, hands on her hips and gave him a coquettish look. ‘Would you like to come and find the answers with me?’
Fury fizzed inside Kit. ‘This isn’t a game. I want the answers, but why the hell would I want to go anywhere with you? Can’t you see, with everything going on here I have even less time to go rushing off on a mission of mercy. Adelaide is barely alive. She could die!’
‘She won’t die.’
‘There’s a local child who won’t wake, either,’ Kit said. ‘More people, for all I know. Whatever it is, it isn’t an isolated case.’
Her brows knitted and she looked genuinely furious. ‘That should not have happened. It was nothing to do with us.’
‘What shouldn’t have happened? Tell me.’ Kit grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to face him. She was wearing her pink bangle and the stone was cold against the edge of his thumb and finger. She looked up at him, her face contorted with anger.
‘Release me at once!’ she hissed.
‘Not a chance. You’ve just admitted now that you know something. I’ll drag you straight to the police unless you tell me. They won’t take kindly to suspicious foreign types drugging people.’
‘No one’s been drugged,’ she said. ‘There’s no need to be hasty. You’re so close to the answers now.’
‘Then give them to me,’ Kit bellowed.
‘That’s not how it works.’
She smiled infuriatingly, then kicked him on the shin.
The assault was completely unexpected, and as a consequence he let go of her. She fled, leapt across the stream and landed in a crouch. Kit ran to the gelding, which had sauntered to the stream to drink, clambering into the saddle to give chase. But by the time he looked up again she was nowhere to be seen.
* * *
Adelaide had resumed her sleeping state by the time Kit got home. Furious that he’d let Miss Dove slip from his grasp, he received the news with a grimace. The temperature had dropped dramatically and the wind was blowing an unseasonably cold gale. Twice, he caught sight of a statue lining the pathway outlined with the shimmering that resembled a heat haze, and jumped in alarm, believing it to be a living person.
After dinner – a sombre affair which not even his favourite trout croquettes and curried lamb chops could save – he went back to his apartment. His windows were wide open and the curtains billowed, forming shapes like the shroud on an unquiet banshee. He walked to the window and stared out. The grounds were too quiet, with not even a flurry of wings as birds settled for the night but he felt eyes raking over him.
He slammed the sash down and pulled the curtains closed. The pattern in the heavy brocade had always resembled comforting lions’ faces when he was younger. Now they smirked and twisted, as if wishing to be free from their prison.
He took off his shirt and replaced it with a comfortable old sweater. The weather had no business being so cold in May. He made a mug of cocoa, staring blankly at the milk while it shuddered to a boil in the small pan then took the drink to his favourite chair and sat down. Something jabbed him in the small of the back and he reached round to rearrange the cushion and found he was sitting on a book. He unearthed it and glanced at the title.
Virgil’s Georgics . He’d studied it at school, but this wasn’t his copy, which, last he saw it, was dog-eared and full of jottings, doodles and rude notes as befitted a book owned by a sixteen-year-old. He recognised it as one of the volumes that Merelda had hurled from her shelves. A feather was slipped into a page and he opened it curiously. It marked the story of Orpheus in book four. Something inside Kit’s brain twanged like a rubber band, snapping against his temple. He put the book on the table with the others, glancing with a smattering of weariness at the pile that he hadn’t even looked at.
Craving something sweet to eat, he fetched a tin of ginger biscuits from the shelf. Something twanged in his brain again and on the way back to his chair he paused and studied the titles in more detail. The Green Book of Fairy Tales , the Orpheus story again in Virgil, as well as a copy of The Tale of Orpheus and Erudices his Quene by a poet called Henryson that he was unfamiliar with. The Browning anthology, Men and Women, that he hadn’t read before.
One in particular caught his eye – The Science of Fairy Tales . He didn’t know that one so took it back to his seat and flicked through it as he dipped the biscuits into his cocoa. It was abook of fairy law that appeared to be a serious academic work, rather than the children’s stories he was expecting, detailing ways of dealing with the Fae, how to avoid entrapment, how to seek favours. One whole chapter was devoted to humans taken by the fairies, only to return when everyone they knew had grown old.Another listed examples of men and women who journeyed to the Fae lands to rescue stolen loved ones. It was very similar in fact to the story of Orpheus who followed Euridice into the underworld.
Browning’s Men and Women contained the poem of Childe Roland, whose sister was snatched by the Elf king. A book of fairy tales contained the same story, along with countless others of people beguiled into following a dazzling man or woman into a land of fantastic beings. Keats’ Belle Dame Sans Merci was a not unexpected inclusion. There was a common theme running through them all. Bewitchment or the stealing of someone to fairyland.
Merelda had told him with some force that the books held the explanation, but she could not genuinely believe that fairy enchantment or the work of ancient gods was behind Adelaide’s illness.
Kit laughed aloud.
Something thudded against the window, causing him to jump and drop the book. He crossed the room and flung open the curtains. A dove was beating at the panes, buffeted back and forth by the wind. The pink band on its leg suggested it was the same tame one from the previous day. It landed on the sill and folded its wings, gazing at Kit with a calmness that was disconcertingly sentient. Without knowing quite why, he lifted the sash. The dove remained where it was, cocking its head and giving a soft, warbling coo. He’d quite liked the carrier pigeons that had taken messages from place to place during the war. They were undemanding company. If this one was lost it would naturally gravitate to humans.
‘Hello, little bird,’ Kit said. ‘It’s a bit rough out there. Do you want to come in?’
The dove had something in its beak and when it dropped it, Kit saw it was a portion of walnut shell. The shell wobbled as it landed, then settled. The sight shouldn’t have unnerved him, but a shiver washed over Kit, cold sweat gathering in his armpits and between his shoulder blades.
‘Is that for me?’ he asked with a shaky laugh. ‘I’m not sure what I can give you in return, unless you’d like a ginger biscuit.’
The dove cooed again.
‘Shame Miss Dove isn’t here to talk to you,’ he said, with a laugh that he would later look back on and curse himself for his dullness.
He walked back to the chair and broke off a section of biscuit, crumbling it in his hands as he walked back to the window, but by then the bird had gone.
It was almost ten. He yawned and caught himself, nervous that he might be falling ill, too, but told himself to stop being foolish. He’d spent the previous night sleeping in an armchair in Adelaide’s room and the few before that feeling restless. He craved a good night’s sleep, though couldn’t remember one that hadn’t been plagued with the usual nightmares of war and his last fight with Andrew.
He finished his cocoa, extinguished the lamps in the sitting room then got ready for bed. He took the Browning with him and began to read but before long, his eyes grew too tired and he closed them for longer intervals at a time.
The church bells were ringing eleven when he awoke, book face down on his chest, aware by some primordial sense that he was not alone. He opened his eyes with a start to discover Miss Dove was standing at the end of his bed, shafts of moonlight illuminating her like a stained-glass window.
He jerked upright.
‘What the hell! How did you get in here? The door’s locked.’
‘You invited me. I didn’t come through the door,’ she said.
She stepped closer to the end of the bed and gestured to the book. ‘You are almost there. So close.’
‘Stop where you are!’ Kit held out his palm and sat up. The book slid to the floor. Miss Dove ignored his instruction and dropped to her knees at the side of the bed. When she stood, she had the book in her hand.
‘I never liked this poem, it’s gruesome and unsettling,’ she said, holding it out to him. ‘Only the worst of us would behave like that.’
‘I don’t care what you like,’ Kit snarled. He threw the covers back and snatched the book from her. ‘I don’t know how you got into my apartment, but I want to know exactly what you know about Adelaide. And tell me the truth, in plain words. I’m done with cryptic conversations and nonsense about fairy tales. It feels like everyone but me has become addled.’
‘You aren’t addled,’ Miss Dove said. ‘You just need to let yourself believe the truth.’
‘The truth being that Adelaide is under an enchantment. That Silas Wilde is a fairy and at any point she might wake up and follow him to fairyland.’
‘Almost right. Well done. Though we prefer to be called Fae not fairy and our land is known as the Faedemesne .’ Miss Dove’s lips curved into a delighted smile. ‘And your bride doesn’t need to wake up to follow him there. She’s already gone.’