Page 104 of The Shadow Key

At this the housekeeper stops in her tracks. Behind her, Linette shoots Henry a look of alarm.

‘What do you mean?’

He nods at the door. ‘Open it and I shall tell you.’

The scent of gorse is pungent: vanilla and coconut, cloying sickly with the scent of beeswax. Protection, Rowena said. But, Henry thinks grimly, what exactly does it protect against? Demonic spirits? Or evil intentions?

He crosses the room, past the housekeeper’s truckle bed, through into Gwen Tresilian’s bedchamber where he lays her gently down on the coverlet. Immediately the old woman moves to join her mistress, but Henry raises the flat of his hand to stop her.

‘Stay where you are, Mrs Evans. I’m afraid you have some explaining to do.’

The housekeeper watches him, eyes wide as moons. ‘No,’ she whispers. ‘I cannot.’

‘Enaid?’ Linette asks, leaving her vigil in the doorway and stepping further into the room. ‘What does Henry mean?’ She looks between him and Mrs Evans. ‘What is going on?’

The woman does not answer. Linette, Mr Dee and Rowena watch. Henry clears his throat.

‘Aside from her general lack of speech, and the fits – as she demonstrated to spectacular effect just now – in the main, Lady Gwen appears to be in tolerable health. Even so, there can be no denying that all is not well with your mistress. You keep her locked away in these two rooms. She never comes downstairs to eat, except that once when Linette had her dine with us. The only time I’ve been privy to one of her daily walks about the house is when, a few days ago, I found her alone in the garden.’

Something shifts in the housekeeper’s face.

‘I think we can all agree that Gwen Tresilian is barely present in her own mind. So it’s interesting, is it not, that she and I had a perfectly sane conversation before Mr Powell interrupted us.’

‘You never told me.’ Linette, this, staring at him across the dim room, confusion writ on her face.

‘I’m telling you now.’ Henry looks again to the housekeeper. ‘What do you have to say about that, Mrs Evans?’

The old woman hesitates. ‘It is true there are times she is more aware, shall we say, than others. Linette herself has told you that.’

‘Indeed. But when are those times? Perhaps,’ Henry says, eyes narrowing, ‘when the tincture you give her wears off?’

Linette looks then from Henry to Enaid.

‘What tincture?’

‘The tincture found in the vials she keeps in a box underneath the bed.’

A beat. Linette stares. Henry clears his throat.

‘Do you realise pupils widen when a person is drugged? Ordinarily this widening happens when the eye is subject to the dark. If you look at yourself in the mirror now, you’ll see what I mean. The term,’ he continues, ‘is “papillary response”, and it should not occur in daylight. Yet that day in the garden your mother’s eyes were dilated even though we were outside in full sun. I confess I did not mark it fully at first … not until I saw the same papillary response in Mr Dee last week.’

At the doorway the vicar’s face clears.

‘Ah,’ he says. ‘That is why you left in such a hurry.’

‘It is. I should have marked it long before then but I never had the opportunity. Clever of you, Mrs Evans, to keep the curtains drawn to disguise the fact.’

Even though the light is dim in the bedchamber, Henry sees how pale Linette has become. She watches as Mrs Evans reaches for the armchair by the bed and sinks down into it, puts her head in both hands.

But Henry will not feel pity.

‘I returned to the house immediately, went directly to her rooms. Your mother, Linette, was unconscious.’

‘Unconscious?’

‘Yes, for I cannot in good conscience say she was asleep. Thankfully Mrs Evans was not there so I took my chance; I opened the curtains and tested my theory.’ Henry’s lips thin. ‘There was no natural reaction to daylight – her eyes remained fully dilated. I searched the room, found under the bed a box of glass bottles, the contents of which I did not recognise. It was not laudanum. So I took one.’

On the chair, Mrs Evans’ shoulders shudder in silent sobs. Henry bends down, reaches under the bed. There is a clatter of glass as he pulls the offending box from beneath. He places it onto the coverlet and removes one of the strange grey-glass vials, holds it up to the scant light.

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