Chapter 19 Miss Darcy Invades #3
“Yes.” She used a dotted line to draw it out into the future. “I estimate you’ve no more than two months before it stops working altogether.” She glanced at me. “Don’t feel bad. Fresh eyes, is all.”
I put a hand to my mouth. God. It would all start again.
Miss Darcy blinked. “Oh. Your wall.” She grabbed a rag and started to scrub away at the stains. “Do pardon me. I get carried away sometimes and forget about paper.”
“That’s all right,” I said faintly. “This place is all soot and dust anyhow. What’s a little more?”
She allowed me to lead her back downstairs after that. I stayed as she washed her sooty hands and face in the basin next to my bed. Her bed. She turned her damp face up to me. “Did I get it all?”
There was still a smudge on one cheek. I reached out and wiped it away with my thumb.
“Thank you.”
“Of course.” I dropped my hand to my side. “Well… good night.”
“Mary, wait .” Her hand shot out and grasped my wrist. “You owe me more of an explanation. Why are you acting as though nothing is wrong?”
My ears grew hot. I didn’t want to tell her. She wouldn’t understand. What would she think of me? “Nothing is wrong,” I said. “I am medicating Mr. Pike. He is stable. You really needn’t have come.”
“Oh, needn’t I? The last time you wrote me you begged me to come! You said he was a monster, that he killed someone! You sounded as though the world was ending!”
“Yes. I did. Two months ago. And you didn’t come. So I fixed it all alone, like always, so what business is it of yours how!”
“I was ill! I’m sorry !”
And she truly was sorry. I could see it in her face. I turned away.
“Do you really want me to go, Mary?”
“Miss Darcy—”
“ Georgiana. ” When I said nothing, she said, “Holzmann, then.”
I laughed a little at that. “Herr Holzmann.”
“Ja, fr?ulein?”
I perched on the edge of the bed. She sat down beside me. In the cool night I could feel the heat of her through both our nightdresses.
“Come now, Sir Gregory,” she said softly. “I read all your letters, you know. Every last one. Pike was an utter monster to you even before he died. How on earth did you wind up so friendly with that walking midden?”
“He’s changed.”
“How?”
“I-it was a difficult time.”
“A proper lady would leave it at that, of course. But unfortunately, I am more scientist than lady.”
Could I? Could I tell her?
I’ve never even written it down. I am not sure I can.
“I’ll tell you,” I said, “if you give me my bed back.”
“Oh,” she said. “I… that is, I am sorry, no.”
She lay down, turning away from me. I felt a little better at that. No need to tell her all my secrets when she was clearly keeping some of her own.
“Is it true what you said before?” she asked. “Did your cousin really die here?”
“Yes. Shall I tell you about it?”
“If you do not mind.”
I told her. I am not sure why I offered. I suppose I felt guilty. Or maybe I just wanted to. I have had no one to tell things to since Harry.
“At first I did not know that he was to die.
I was excited, actually, that he was to stay with us.
I hoped he would stay forever, even though I knew he was ill.
Mamma was often ill, too, and it did not seem to prevent her from doing as she liked.
He liked air and sunlight, so they cleaned up the little room on the third floor for him.
“After he arrived my spirits were damped a little—he seemed so very weak, and slept all the time. But he would smile when he saw me sitting at his side, and was always ready with an answer when I showed him a little creature I’d smuggled in and demanded to know family, genus, species.
“After the nurse changed his sheets one day and discovered a fat toad snuggled against the feverish warmth of his side, I was banned from the sickroom.
“For a time I appeared to respect my banishment. In truth I was only waiting for an opportunity. One night when I was meant to be asleep, I heard the nurse and the apothecary go down to the kitchen. Seizing my chance, I slipped out of bed, up the stairs, and into his room.
“What I saw made me freeze to the spot, a scream trapped in my throat.
“In the flickering light of the candle, there were patches of dark across his form that I had first taken for deep shadows. Then, as I stood and stared, I saw that one of the little shadows actually reflected the candle’s light with a wet gleam. I screwed my eyes up, trying to understand.
“The shadow moved.
“My bare feet were pounding across the wood floor before I knew what I was about. ‘Get off him!’ I shrieked. ‘Get off!’
“My shrieks had drawn the adults, and when my parents, the nurse, and the apothecary crowded in the doorway, they found me leaning over him, screaming, enraged, bloody, practically out of my senses with horror, and no doubt looking as though I myself was the monster draining his life away.
“Someone slapped me. Someone else seized my arm and shoved me from the sickroom. ‘Hope you’re happy, girl, for you’ve killed him,’ someone snarled—that was the apothecary I think—and then the door slammed in my face, and I was sliding down the wall, too shocked to remember how to climb back down the stairs.
“Time passed. Ten minutes? An hour? An entire dark night? I could not say. I sat there in the dark, the cold seeping up through my nightgown, until the door opened again. It was my mother.
“She clucked in disgust when she saw me. ‘Really, Mary, could you not even wash, you peculiar child?’ She took my hand, pulled me to my feet, and led me into the room.
“Harry was awake now. He and his bedclothes had been cleaned. His face now, when he looked at me, had a hint of its old friendliness. I wanted to cry. He knew me.
“‘May—I have—a moment with her?’ he gasped out, the simple sentence seeming to take forever. The apothecary and nurse gave me scathing looks, but stepped outside. I found myself clutching Mamma’s hand. I had not done so in years, but this shadow of my friend still frightened me.
“‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Your Mamma—can stay.’
“Still clutching her hand, I shuffled a little closer.
“‘So,’ he said, seeming to gather his strength. ‘You have learned—a bit—of the anatomy of Hirudo medicinalis tonight, little cousin.’ My frown deepened, and a smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. ‘The leech.’
“‘Nasty things,’ I said.
“‘I am sorry they frightened you,’ he said. ‘You were—’ He stopped to cough. ‘You were very brave to come to my aid. But look.’
“His eyes beckoned me closer, gesturing toward his loosely closed fist. I drew right next to the bed, my curiosity overcoming my fear. He uncurled his fist. There, cupped as gently as he’d held my hand on all our nature walks, was a leech.
“‘There, you see,’ he breathed, so quietly now I could barely hear him. ‘Nothing to be frightened of. Just another of God’s creatures, doing as He made it to do.’
“Very gently, I reached out a finger and touched it. Its slimy surface twitched, and I fancied I could feel the movement of tiny alimentary muscles. ‘Oh,’ I murmured, ignoring my mother’s shudder. ‘How marvelous.’
“‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Have you any questions, cousin?’
“I see now he meant questions about the leech. But I looked at him and said, ‘What is it like to die?’
“His breathless laugh was a shadow of itself. My mother gasped. ‘Mary! How could you!’ She started to pull me away, but he shook his head a little.
“‘I do not know,’ he whispered. ‘And when I do know… I shan’t… be able to tell you. But standing… on the threshold… is not so bad. I, too… have been… as I was made.’ He drew a deep breath.
‘He made rainbows and ponies, but He made leeches and crickets, too. He made me and you, Mary. He meant to. Never… never…’
“But his speech had taken the last of his strength. With a sigh—the same sigh with which he greeted a comfortable chair after one of our walks—he died.”
By the end of the tale I found I had lain down across from Miss Darcy.
With her hair spread out on the pillow, her dark eyes gleaming in the moonlight, she looked like some sort of spirit out of a folktale.
The kind that leads you into the river and leaves you to drown. She really has grown into her looks.
“No wonder you love this bed,” she said. “He sounds lovely.”
“He was.” I waited for her to say Of course you must have it back, then; let us swap directly .
“Goodnight, then,” she said.
“Goodnight.”
I went down to my new room. Sleep eluded me, however, so I have taken up my pen once more. I think I know who to write these pages to now.
Dear Harry,
Holzmann is here. I cannot get rid of her.
Worse, I do not want to. Having her here may upset all my plans, and I am so close to being the kind of woman that you and Quindley could esteem.
But the thought of losing her again so soon makes me feel like I am being sliced open.
Surely, a little more time will not hurt.
I needn’t tell her all. Anyhow she did catch me in a serious statistical error. She could be useful.
I cannot shake the feeling, though, that associating with her will only lead me into more dangerous waters.
I wish you could tell me what to do. Perhaps writing to you will keep me on the right path. I will write to you, and read my Quindley’s , and all shall be well.
I wish Pike had smelled as good as she does. We could have avoided a great deal of trouble.