Page 28 of The Shadow Key

This time she does smile.

‘Come, Dr Talbot,’ Linette Tresilian says. ‘My mother is waiting.’

Henry regards the childlike woman sitting quietly at the table, tries to discern similarities to that strange portrait outside his room, but this woman is a mere shadow of her oil-stroked counterpart. This woman is painfully thin, pale skin stretched across gaunt cheekbones framed by long thin hair as white as a dove. A statue carved from marble.

‘This is Henry Talbot, Mamma, your new physician.’ Linette Tresilian gently takes the older woman’s hand, clasps it in both her own. ‘My mother does not usually dine downstairs,’ she adds to Henry, ‘but I thought a change might do her good.’

Henry bows. ‘A pleasure to meet you, my lady.’

Gwenllian Tresilian merely looks up at him from grey-green eyes the mirror of her daughter’s. Dark circles cup them like purple crescent moons.

‘Do not mind her,’ Linette Tresilian says, moving to take a seat a little further down the table. She removes her napkin from its pewter ring. Merlin trots over, settles down at his mistress’ feet beneath the table. ‘As I told you before, sometimes she will carry a conversation as if there were nothing wrong at all. Most days, however, she is as you see her now. Please, doctor, take a seat.’

Henry does not move, for Lady Gwen appears to be reading his features like a map – her gaze roves over him, pupils wide, as if looking for something she cannot find.

‘How are you, my lady?’

Her eyes move downward then, into the cushion of her lap. Linette Tresilian twirls the napkin ring between her forefingers.

‘If Mamma wishes to speak, she will. Sit, Dr Talbot.’

She indicates a seat opposite her, and as Henry takes it she jingles a small bell next to a bowl of apples set in the middle of the table. Lady Gwen does not react to the sound; indeed, it is as if, now, she is in some sort of trance, and Henry watches her thoughtfully. According to her daughter, the tenor of her mind changed after the death of her husband, but can grief really cause such drastic change in behaviour? And so long after the first terrible blow?

A small door behind Linette opens and through it comes Plas Helyg’s sour-faced butler.

‘Are you ready to be served, Miss Linette?’

‘Thank you, Cadoc.’

Powell bows his head, turns to an ornate sideboard and picks up a glass decanter filled with deep red liquid, pours Henry a glass before serving the women.

No one speaks. The fire crackles gently behind him, the carriage clock on the mantel ticks softly over the turn of its cogs. Linette Tresilian takes a small sip from her glass, eyes meeting Henry’s over the rim.

‘I wish to apologise for my behaviour today.’

Powell dips in a bow, closes the dining-room door behind him.

‘You’d be forgiven in thinking me an unfriendly, harsh-spoken woman,’ she continues. ‘But the truth is I’ve become rather too used to solitude. I’m not much used to seeing people outside of Penhelyg, and, well, I cannot bear for them to be maligned.’

As she trails off Henry reaches for his glass, is surprised to find only a mediocre claret. Perhaps Julian keeps the more expensive goods back for when he is in residence. Thinking of him now, Henry twists the crystal stem between his fingers.

Julian had asked him to be mindful of his once-ward, to judge if she shared her mother’s weakness of mind, but so far Henry has seen no evidence of it. An unusual woman, yes, indeed, precisely what Linette Tresilian has confessed to herself: harsh-spoken and solitary. He remembers her defensiveness when he suggested she was lonely. What sort of childhood must she have had, with no parents and a frequently absent guardian? It is clear to him, Henry thinks, that Julian Tresilian simply does not understand his cousin’s nature. Still, he must reserve judgement. One day is not enough for him to determine a person’s character. And did not Julian say Lady Gwen had been Linette’s age when her symptoms first began?

Henry places his glass back down on the table, offers a polite smile.

‘I do understand. But that does not change the fact that the gatehouse was vandalised and someone shot at me this afternoon.’

A flush appears on her cheek – with embarrassment or shame Henry cannot tell – but Linette Tresilian seems not to be led and changes the subject entirely.

‘I suppose after the delights of London, Penhelyg is quite a shock. What was it like? Did you enjoy your work?’

It is a question Henry should have expected at some point or another, yet he is not prepared for it, is struck silent a moment, the harsh words of the hospital’s governor turning over themselves in his head again and again like the cog of the carriage clock on the mantle:

You are a disgrace to this hospital, a disgrace to your good name as well as mine, a disgrace to all those who put their trust in you …

Henry means to reply with an answer that would serve not to reveal too much, but before he can Powell returns with a plate in each hand, the maid, Angharad, following behind holding another. Immediately Merlin scuttles up, nose raised, ears twitching, and the butler must sidestep the animal before he can set the plate he carries in front of Lady Gwen, her daughter in turn, leaving Angharad to set the final plate down in front of Henry.

‘Liver in gravy and onions, with potatoes and greens,’ she tells him quietly, her Welsh accent pronounced and lilting. Henry looks down at the dish – a less substantial portion than the night before – and he watches the steam rise from the brown sauce, the smell of onions sweet and rich. But, with unease, he notes how the flesh of the liver gleams in the candlelight, reminding him of the kidney he held in his hands all those weeks ago, slick and fat and pulsing.

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