Chapter 3 #2
“What’s that word that you use for when you have a corpse and you use lightning to stimulate its limbs and then the perfectly dead corpse that’s already decomposing moves its limbs, shakes its jaw, twitches its eyelids, and raises and clenches its fists as if it were alive?”
“Good Lord.”
“It’s nothing whatsoever to look so appalled about.
It’s currently all the rage, really. In fact, there have been research papers published on the topic by Giovanni Aldini.
He even had public demonstrations of it.
I would love to see it myself one day. George said he’d take me to one when he returns.
It’s in London, but I never get to go to London, you see.
I can’t wait for George to take me. But I forget the name Aldini called this process. ”
“George said he’d take you to London to see one of these horrific demonstrations?” His brother must have been more deranged than he’d feared.
“Naturally.” She twirled her pencil between her fingers.
He’d read about it. That Italian physics professor used the corpses of executed criminals for his experiments. It was a sensation, since he seemed to prove that with the use of electrical currents, one could bring the dead back to life. But of course, that was all tosh and nonsense.
She tossed her pencil aside and sighed. “But I see there is no use applying to you for help. What are you reading?” She tilted her head to read the title of his book. “Commentaries on the Laws of England by William Blackstone.” She pulled a face. “My, what utterly thrilling and charming fare.”
He snapped his book shut and rose. “It is indeed. Certainly, more useful than stories on how to revive corpses and other nonsense.”
“It isn’t nonsense!” she retorted hotly. “It’s science!”
“Balderdash.”
She jumped up and clenched her hands into fists. A rosy flush crept over her cheeks, and her eyes sparked with fury.
She looked dashed pretty when she was angry.
He blinked, for he hadn’t just thought that. No, he had not. It was utterly impossible.
And what was the milkmaid saying now? She was spewing forth an impassioned speech on the importance of imagination and creativity, besides abusing his character as he, clearly, with his priggish, humourless, frigid, arrogant nature, lacked either. When she drew a breath, he interrupted.
“Galvanised.”
She blinked. “What?”
“That was the word you were looking for.”
She spluttered and looked so adorably confused that he quirked one of his rare smiles. Those that he gave only to Nana and George.
Then he turned on his heel and fled.
He buried himself in the library for the rest of the afternoon, looking for a legal text, and found that confoundingly difficult.
He’d discovered an ivory button on the carpet that must have come from her dress.
How did she do that, that wherever she walked, she was shedding stockings, slippers, buttons, and what was this?
He bent down to pick it up. A hairpin? He knew nothing of female accoutrements, but even he could see that was too thin to hold her thick, wavy hair.
Then her ever-present scarf, which she’d left draped over the armchair.
He lifted the soft, flimsy material to his face.
Lavender, of course. And something else, feminine, womanly.
He dropped it. It fluttered to the carpet, where he stared at it as if it were a beast about to bite him.
After a moment, he picked it up again, folded it neatly and placed it on the desk, and the hairpin on top.
The button he twisted between his fingers before pocketing it absent-mindedly.
Now, he was standing on the ladder, holding a leather tome in his hands.
He looked at it with irritation. Dom Augustin Calmet: Treatise on the Vampires of Hungary and Surrounding Regions (1751).
Why the deuce did he pull this off the shelf?
This was not the legal treatise he was looking for.
He wondered whether she’d seen it since it had been placed on the very top shelf.
She might not have. Judging from the disorder on the lower shelves, she’d merely rifled through the books there.
Wasn’t there more? If his memory of the Classics served correctly, Petronius’s Satyricon contained a werewolf story. And Ovid’s Metamorphosis contained Lycaon’s story as a shapeshifter.
He pulled out the books and stacked them tidily next to her scarf.
He stared at the pile.
Good Lord.
He was becoming as deranged as his brother.
Weeks passed, and summer turned into an unsteady autumn.
Nana’s condition appeared to have stabilised, though she was still bedridden. He visited his grandmother daily, and most of the time she was clear-headed, though it happened rather frequently that she confused him with George.
He took care to avoid her.
Which was not an easy feat.
Once, he’d tried her way of drinking tea. He’d popped a lump of rock sugar into his mouth, then drank the tea. He’d swallowed it all down with a grimace. Not only was it too sweet, but he also did not like tea. He really preferred coffee.
One morning, she stood in front of him, unexpectedly.
There was something different about her, and it took him a while to discover what it was.
Her hair was tied back neatly in braids, revealing the long, elegant curve of her neck.
She also no longer wore her old, faded blue cotton dress, but a high-waisted white silk gown that flowed like water about her limbs.
For once, she wore shoes: delicate little white slippers with embroidered beads.
“Are you going to a ball?” He wondered why it had never occurred to him to take her to the village assembly ball.
“No.”
He stared, fascinated, at the dimples that appeared when she smiled.
“What do you think?” There was a repressed excitement about her as she clasped her hands, her eyes like stars. She twirled in front of him. “Pretty?”
She looked at him expectantly, as though his opinion mattered.
She was.
She was a fetching little thing, really. Quite pretty when she wanted to be. She could hold her own with any lady in the ton.
No, the truth was that she’d outshine them all. Easily.
The thought came unbidden, and with it, something that felt unpleasantly like panic.
“It’s passable.” His voice came out colder than he’d intended. “It’ll only be a matter of time until you stain it with tea.” He regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth.
She dropped her hands. The light in her eyes died.
He turned on his heel and strode out, desperate to shake off the sudden confusion that had taken hold of him.
He took a long ride in the park to clear his head, yet the image of her big, brown, hurt eyes, and the tears that welled up and quivered on her long lashes like dew on a blade of grass, haunted him for the remaining day.
When he returned, he saw her sitting on the library floor reading.
She was wearing her old blue dress again, and her hair flew wildly about her shoulders. She did not look up to greet him.
He hesitated, then decided to read his book elsewhere.
“Lonely little thing,” he heard a maid whisper to another as he passed them in the corridor. “Cook made her a cake, which she ate alone. Must be hard to have no one to celebrate her birthday with. What with Lady Regina so ill and Mr Fane always shut up in his study.”
He froze on the steps as the implications of the words sank in.
He ran his hand through his hair and ascended the remaining stairs slowly.
It was her birthday.
She’d dressed up because she was turning eighteen today. Nothing more or less.
What a fool he was.
He approached her after supper. Her face was drawn, and she drew up her shoulders stiffly to briefly acknowledge him, but intending to walk past him.
He cleared his throat. “I have this for you.” He held out a package. It was wrapped in cream silk paper and tied with a simple string. Nothing fancy. Merely a leather notebook he’d bought at his favourite stationer in London that he had no use for.
She looked at him questioningly. “Since you like writing, I thought it might come in useful.” He cleared his throat. “Many happy returns.”
She took the package and unwrapped it, turning the notebook in her hands. “It’s lovely,” she whispered. She clutched it to her chest, and suddenly they were back. The starlight in her eyes. The smile. The dimples. “Thank you.”
He nodded gruffly, mumbled something about having to answer some letters, and left, wondering with desperation when George was finally returning.
George. His beloved brother.
They’d been close when they were younger. He’d always been the one with the madcap ideas, and George, the fearless one, was the one who’d execute them. George, who then joined the military and who’d met Viola at an assembly in Inverness while stationed at Fort George.
George, who was now going through hell on the Continent. His letters had been few and far between, and no one could blame him.
Only this morning, Rawlinson had brought in a letter for him.
It had been written and sent eight weeks ago.
The mail delivery grew slower the longer the war drew on.
Oddly enough, George had written to him, not to his bride, who’d watched with anticipation as the butler distributed the mail, and her face fell when there was no letter for her.
It appeared George had forgotten her birthday. But Viola had looked on bravely and pretended it did not matter, when he knew very well that it did.
George said little in his letter. He attempted to be cheerful in the few lines that he managed to send.
“Greet my Viola from me,” he’d ended it. “She is my angel, and I miss her so. Promise you’ll take care of her for me. I entrust her to you, and no one else.”
The words landed like a blow.
He shot out of his chair, took an agitated turn about the room, and read the lines again. Rubbed his forehead, which suddenly felt feverish.
He couldn’t do this.
He couldn’t continue like this. This pretense that it did not matter. That he did not care.
It was unbearable.
He had to leave. Tonight. Now. Right away.
“Hawkins!” he bellowed for his valet. “We are leaving.”
Where the deuce did Hawkins put his travel bag?
Hawkins entered. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, sir. It is night, and it is storming badly outside. Perhaps we can leave tomorrow, but only if the storm has passed. Besides, your grandmother would like to speak with you.”
Nana.
Of course. He would have to speak with Nana first. She would understand, wouldn’t she?
He arrived in her bedroom, only to pause at the threshold.
Of course, she was already there . The blood rushed to his face, and for a while he could do nothing at all other than stand there and stare like an oaf.
She looked up briefly, a worried frown on her brow as she helped Nana sit up.
His grandmother looked even frailer. “My time is almost up,” she whispered. He could barely hear her words. “I can feel it.”
“Nonsense, Nana.” He felt something akin to panic well up within him. “You won’t be leaving us that quickly. You can’t just leave like that. I won’t allow it.”
That brought a smile to his grandmother’s face. “My Bastian. Always strong on the outside, trying to carry the burden for everyone. I don’t want you to do it alone. I have called for Athanasius.”
Viola looked at him inquisitively. “Who?”
“The Archbishop of York,” he muttered. “Nana’s brother.”
Her mouth rounded into a surprised O.
“I want a wedding,” Nana groaned.
Viola leaned forward and patted her papery hand. “Yes, yes. George will arrive soon. Then we can get married.”
Once more, a punch to the gut. He’d have to leave before then. Under no circumstances did he want to be around when that happened.
Viola looked up and gave him a worried look.
“No, now. It has to be now.” Nana’s head tossed on the pillow. “I want them to marry before I go.”
Heaven help them.