Heaven's Bones (23 page)

At the top of the steps, he reached out and stroked his hand across the surface of the fog. It swirled and rippled as the surface of a still lake might, and as it parted beneath his fingers he saw, not the thyme and heather of the Cornwall landscape, but the damp glistening bricks and cobbles of an alleyway, lit by the harsh glare of a naphtha light.

Trueblood ventured down one step, then another. As if impatient, the fog thickened around and behind him, all but pulling him into the urban lane. The silence of Bryani House was left behind, and he entered into the sound of a light patter of rain on the slate roofs overhead and the cry of peddlers on the main boulevard beyond the alley.

He would make it his own.

Trueblood smiled at the red sky overhead, where factory stacks belched smoke into the moonlight, and made for the grumble of traffic at the end of the close passage.

Cornwall, 1870

Lady Cecelia Agnew looked out the carriage window at Bryani House. The vines that gave it its name had engulfed the proud stone
walls, twining untamed across windows and the tops of arches. The front gardens, once so cheery and charming, were neglected and derelict, with sad gray stalks where roses had bloomed.

It was as if with her sister's death, the house she loved had decided to die too, slowly—flower by flower, stone by stone.

She drew her collar close about her chin and shivered. The day was chilly, and the warmth of the heated brick that Gertie had tucked beneath her cloak that morning was long gone. And Bryani House looked cold at its very heart, and wisps of coastal mist clung about it, although she hadn't seen fog anywhere else on the way.

“Shall I come with you, milady?”

Alexander's gruff voice broke through her reverie. Her coachman stood at the door, bulky in the window. She hesitated. Alex had been her escort through many a rough part of London; he was six feet tall and seemingly as broad, and few cared to challenge him. His close-bristled head and unbeautiful face made him even more imposing.

But this was not Limehouse, nor the burnt-out tenements where she hoped to build her clinic—this was Bryani House, where her brother-in-law lived, where Margaret had lived and loved, hoped and dreamed. There was no danger here, only melancholy.

“No, Alex,” Cecelia said, as he opened the door and handed her out carefully. “That won't be necessary. Will you be warm enough, in the coach?”

Alex gave her an odd look. “ 'Tisn't midsummer but it ain't as cold as that, milady. I'll do well enough.”

But she did feel cold, and as she walked up the path bordered by barren flowerbeds she felt a chill strike to her bones. Perhaps it was the mist that still clung, despite the late morning sun, to the house and the bare trees about it.

Last year's dead leaves, curled and crisp and drained of autumn color, drifted across the upswept steps. Margaret would never have tolerated an abode so unwelcoming.

The ram's-headed knocker was oxidized and the massive doors were weathered and starting to splinter. Cecelia lifted the green copper knocker with the tips of her gloved fingers and let it fall. A dull clank sounded.

She was startled to hear footsteps, quick and sharp, on the other side of the door, incongruous in all this decay. Instinctively she backed away from the door.

She did not recognize the man who opened the door. He was tall, with a thin face and dark eyes and hair to match. He wore the neatly pressed clothes of an upper servant, somewhere between a butler and a personal valet, and his expression was bland.

He didn't seem at all surprised to see her.

“I know I'm unexpected,” she said to his mutely inquiring expression. “I'm Cecelia Agnew—the late Mrs. Robarts' sister. I was hoping to see Doctor Robarts.”

“I'm sorry, Lady Agnew”—an upper servant indeed, if he knew who she was and the correct form of address—“but Doctor Robarts has gone abroad.”

“Oh!—but …”

It must be a mistake. Surely he would have told her, sent word at least?

But then, she'd barely seen him after Margaret's death, and the baby's—perhaps once or twice after the funeral. Each time he'd looked paler, and more haggard, and he'd isolated himself more and more at Bryani House. Finally he hadn't returned to London, and then there were all the affairs to be settled after her husband's death …

She gathered herself together. “And when is he to return?”

“I do not know, milady.”

She frowned. “It's very strange he didn't let the rest of the family know. Very unlike him.”

The—what? Butler? Maybe a valet—smiled pleasantly. “I am
sure of that. By all means to come in, milady. I must apologize for the condition of the house—I am the only one in attendance at this time.”

He stepped back and opened the door wide, inclining his head in invitation. She studied his face covertly for a hint of a smirk, but if it was there, she didn't see it.

She hesitated, tempted to call Alex to her side. But this was no Limehouse tenement—this had been her sister's house, once. She stepped into the foyer.

Dust and cobwebs wreathed the blown-glass sconces, and dust covers shrouded the furniture of the living room beyond. Cecelia looked in dismay at the chandelier, once ablaze with light, now wrapped about with canvas. The place was a ghostly mockery of her sister's warmth and cheer.

Suddenly the walls were much too close and every instinct told her to leave, to get out of this place, before …

Before what?

… before it is too late …

Absurd. But she found herself backing away from the dusty, desolate interior, to the door and the blessed air and wind and
life
outside.

She clung to the doorframe with one hand, steadying herself.

“Tell Sebastian,” she whispered. Then she straightened and faced the too-polite, indeterminate servant, forcing herself to smile.

“What is your name?” she asked.

He bowed correctly. “Trueblood, milady.” He paused. “I had the honor of serving Doctor Robarts during his years in residency.”

“I see. And the other servants?”

His expression was bland. “Doctor Robarts chose to let them go well before my time here.”

“Tell Doctor Robarts,” said Cecelia. “When he returns, please do tell Doctor Robarts that I called. That we are concerned for him.

He has only to send word.”

“I will, milady.”

Cecelia nodded and turned away, then started as she saw Alex was standing behind her. He was staring at Trueblood with the intent expression usually reserved for the worst kind of tough. Trueblood smiled innocuously and shut the door behind them.

“Doctor Robarts is abroad,” she said, as Alex handed her into the carriage.

“That's what that one says, is it?” he said gruffly through the window. “I wouldn't trust 'im as far as I could toss 'im—not near so far.”

“Goodness, Alex. Such an attitude toward your fellow man.” Cecelia smiled and tucked her skirts around her legs. She still was cold, but it felt good to be out of Bryani House with its chilly desolation and memories of happier times.

“My fellow man's well enough,” came Alex's voice from the driver's box, as the carriage shifted into motion. “But I've seen eyes like his in worse than man, and that's saying some.”

Cecelia wasn't listening—she was watching the gray bulk of Bryani shrink behind her like a solitary gravestone.

Trueblood hung onto the handle of the door for a few seconds after he closed it behind Cecelia. When he turned finally toward the foyer, all had changed. A fire burned on the hearth, and all the dust covers were gone. The furniture was pushed aside to make room for a strange contraption in the middle of the room—a man-sized assembly of tubes and brass fittings that stood next to a misplaced couch.

There were some horrible brown stains on that couch, which was otherwise empty.

Past the jumble of table and chairs a large curving stairway
led to the upper floors. Trueblood glanced at the figure that was descending.

It was a woman—or had been once—of middle height, with dark hair that streamed down her shoulders in stark contrast to her white skin and pale garments. Below her breast her gown was split and buttoned neatly back, then gathered again at the waist, so that her midriff was exposed to the top of her pubis.

Once, a long time ago, her name had been Nellie Howard.

The skin of her belly was peeled back vertically, stitched neatly to the sides as one would tie a curtain back, exposing a fleshy cavity framed all about by puckered scar tissue. Inset in this hollow inside her was a fetus of about six months' growth, still coiled up but swiveled about so that it faced Trueblood. Strips of skin were bound around it that it might not tumble out.

The woman's mouth was stitched shut in tidy X's, the black thread stark against her white lips. One eye, the left eye, was also sewn shut. The right eye, once hazel and now a milky gray, stared at Trueblood, unblinking.

“Where is the doctor?” he asked.

The baby stirred and answered in a high, croaking voice.

“He is resting. This morning was tiring for him.”

Trueblood nodded. The woman and her baby stood unmoving. The baby's eyes were shut tight; the woman watched him close with her one clouded eye.

“You are wondering why I didn't take her,” Trueblood said.

The woman's head moved in the barest hint of a nod.

“Because she is watched, and because there will be time enough.”

“The last one isn't going to live,” said the baby. “Not unless he puts her back together. She's too young. You should put her back.”

Trueblood considered this. “If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out,” he said. “But what shall we do with the other, little Angel?”

Neither the woman nor the baby answered.

From behind them, from the upper reaches of the house, came a long, hair-raising moan.

London, 1875

The more observant of Bartholomew McPherson's medical students noticed that before he gave a lecture or remarked upon their work he had a habit of picking up the nearest smooth object—a paperweight or a fountain pen, for example—and fiddling with it. It was possible that he was unaware of this habit, which served the purpose of allowing him to compose his thoughts before he spoke. And so he turned a fossilized ammonite—a curiosity which was undoubtedly the gift of some long-ago student or associate—over and over in his hands as he considered the girl perched on the edge of the chair on the other side of his desk.

Sophia Huxley was by no means a pretty girl, he thought—but there was something in her wide, intelligent eyes and pointed chin that promised obstinacy and had the potential of charm. He noted to himself with some amusement that it wasn't the general custom to consider stubbornness in a female an attractive quality—but if she was going to accomplish what she proposed to do, she would need that stubborn streak.

Having delivered her startling proposition she was poised as if ready to take flight, her body tense, her hands folded in her lap in a pretense of calm. She stared at him without blinking and that pointed chin quivered almost imperceptibly.

He remembered her as a little girl, called into the drawing room to make her curtsey and be polite to her parents' guests before being taken to bed. Were the signs of some unconventional ambition imprinted on her face at that tender age? He had to admit to himself that he had barely noticed her at that time. She had been no more than part of the normal furnishings of an unremarkable, pleasant
middle-class family, and as an up-and-coming medical professional he had no interest, like most busy men, in talking to little girls.

Dr. McPherson placed the ammonite carefully on the desk in front of him.

“You realize, of course, Miss Huxley, the enormity of what you are asking?”

She let out her breath at that—she hadn't realized she'd been holding it. At least it wasn't an outright “no.”