Chapter 1 #2
It was only when she was halfway up the stairs that she realised the light was still softly glowing in the parlour at the rear of the building.
Her first thought was that it was unusual for Uncle Conrad to be up so late.
Her second was that he must have fallen asleep sooner than usual.
Her third, and most unpleasant, thought was that some ill had befallen him and with the servants absent he had been unable to call for aid.
She turned down the stairs but caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
She couldn’t risk going in dressed as a man and revealing her secret.
She hastily climbed the stairs and changed into her nightgown, wrapper and slippers, stuffing her hair beneath her nightcap, before she ventured back downstairs.
‘Uncle Conrad, are you awake?’ she whispered, pushing the door slightly wider. Despite what her imagination had conjured, the sight that greeted her was a complete surprise.
The brushes, which were usually kept neatly ordered by size and thickness, were strewn across a table. Three or four torn sheets of paper covered the floor between the door and the easel. Uncle Conrad himself was on his knees staring in wonderment at the subject of his painting.
‘Uncle Conrad?’ Jenny repeated. ‘Why aren’t you in bed?’
He turned slowly to her and put his finger to his lips.
‘Hush. Come and look.’
He pointed to the table and Jenny let out an audible gasp of astonishment.
When she had left the room earlier, the table had contained a large geode split open to show the pale purple crystals within, accompanied by the crab shell and dried bladderwrack.
Now it spilled over with an assortment of geodes, quartz and other minerals.
Uncle Conrad had added to this a mouse skull and two more dried crabs.
Obediently, Jenny knelt beside him, looking not at the display but at her uncle, searching for signs of illness. He looked healthy and, if anything, his eyes were brighter than usual.
‘What am I looking at?’ she whispered.
Uncle Conrad waved his hand with a flourish. ‘The Crab Necropolis. Isn’t it beautiful?’ He spoke in a childish sing-song voice that was disconcertingly unlike his usual tone.
‘Of course. A crab necropolis,’ Jenny agreed slowly.
Uncle Conrad gestured now to his easel. ‘I found it quite inspiring, my dear.’
Inspiring was not quite the description Jenny would have used.
The canvas was covered in daubs and swirls of emerald, cobalt and vermillion.
There was a sense of the original shapes, though clearly, as whatever madness had taken hold of Conrad had developed, they had been overlaid with his attempts to capture the effect of what was in his mind.
Despite her misgivings, Jenny had to admit it was rather beautiful in its way.
Not that she could imagine any gallery in the country would display it.
‘Well, I can see you have had quite an eventful evening,’ she said to Uncle Conrad.
‘I feel invigorated and enlightened.’ He beamed at her, looking more joyful than she could remember seeing him. ‘I hope your visit with your friend has been equally pleasant. I confess I did not hear you returning. Is the hour late?’
‘It’s almost half past ten. I really think you should get to bed,’ Jenny told him. She held her hands out and helped him to his feet.
‘Yes, yes.’ Uncle Conrad yawned for what seemed like an extended period of time before closing his eyes. A beatific smile crept over his lips.
‘Come with me,’ she said, escorting him out of the room.
She’d come back once he was safely in his own bedroom and try to clear up the mess.
There was no possible way she could leave the evidence of his exploits for the servants in the morning.
She left him at his bedroom door, drawing the line at crossing the threshold.
She went back downstairs and tidied away the crab necropolis, shaking her head in wonder at his imagination.
She wasn’t quite sure what to do with the painting so left it on the easel.
The last thing she did was pick up his glass of sleeping tonic.
She held the glass up to the light, puzzled.
She had only given him five teaspoons, so that couldn’t have been the cause of this alarming change.
It was a new bottle, however. Perhaps it was different to usual.
She uncorked the bottle and sniffed it. There was a slight edge to the odour that was unusual, but also something familiar, if only she could place it.
She had visited the pharmacy only that morning, calling in for it quickly and taking Mr and Mrs Walters by surprise. Had Mr Walters changed the recipe or had something gone wrong in his hurry to prepare it?
Once or twice, when her monthly cramps had been particularly bad, Jenny had taken a small dose herself.
There was only one way to find out if the tincture was responsible for Conrad’s odd behaviour, so in the spirit of ‘scientific experimentation’, which she had so often read about, she wiggled her little finger inside the neck and licked the resultant drops.
By the time she got into bed she was filled with a sense of gentle euphoria, and for a period of time that she could not later quite place, she found herself fascinated by the play of shadows on the ceiling.
It was the tincture. A sense of contentment filled her, and she sighed happily at having her suspicion confirmed.
Hail Science!