Page 119 of The Shadow Key

He finds her hunched over the chamber pot, Mrs Evans holding back the heavy white plait of her hair. The stench of vomit fills the room, and Henry goes to the window, flings it open wide. Leaves scatter across the lawn below, casualties from the wind the night before.

‘Come, my lady,’ the old woman murmurs. ‘Back into bed.’

Henry watches as she helps her mistress under the covers. She is unsteady on her feet, bends to grip the bedsheets as if they were a lifeline, her spine poking from beneath her nightdress like the scales of a reptile he saw once at the British Museum.

‘Has she been eating, Mrs Evans?’ he asks, removing the vial of tincture from his pocket.

‘Middling,’ the housekeeper replies. ‘She doesn’t have much of an appetite at the moment.’

‘Even so,’ he says, pouring water from the carafe into its accompanying glass, ‘make sure she eats something. The sickness will pass in time, but she needs to eat to conserve her strength.’

He looks at his patient now, marks how very ill she looks.

‘It’s still early days,’ Henry says to her. ‘I promise, this will pass.’

Lady Gwen watches as Henry pours the drops into the glass of water, and when he holds it to her she shakes her head.

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You will.’

They stare at each other for a long moment, and Henry is gratified to see more green in her eyes than black.

‘Drink up, milady. I shan’t take no for an answer.’

Reluctantly she takes the glass, drinks it down. She coughs at the last swallow and then, in a petulant way that reminds Henry of Linette, flings the glass back at him, sinks into her pillows, plucks at the coverlet.

‘Enaid tells me you’re to leave Plas Helyg today.’

Her voice is hoarse, weak. But when she looks at him, her gaze is strong.

‘Only as far as the gatehouse,’ he tells her. ‘You’ll still see me every morning until I deem it unnecessary.’

‘I see.’

Lady Gwen looks away through the window, at the towering trees outside. She sighs, says nothing else. Henry sits down on the edge of the bed.

‘Do you know why I’m doing this?’

On the other side of the bed Mrs Evans sinks down in the armchair, gently takes her mistress’ hand, but Lady Gwen snatches it away.

‘I’m a grown woman, Enaid. Please stop mollycoddling me like a child!’

A shot of hurt splits the old woman’s face and she draws her hand back, tucks it away into her apron. Despite his earlier frustrations at the housekeeper, Henry feels now a deepening sympathy for her. To be shunned by not one but two of her charges is a cruel hand indeed.

‘Do you know,’ Henry says again, turning his attention back to Lady Gwen, ‘why I am doing this?’

His patient shrugs. ‘I’m sick,’ she says simply.

‘But do you know why you’re sick?’

A shadow passes across her face. A memory? Or confusion?

With a sigh Henry removes his pocketwatch, gently clasps Lady Gwen’s wrist to take her pulse. As he does her gaze drifts downward, her eyes widen, staring down at the watch, and Henry is sure this time a memory ghosts her face when her irises darken from green to grey.

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