Page 15 of The Cursed Writer
Harry smiled, hoping to disarm him. ‘I’m not a nurse.’ She held up her notebook and pen. ‘See? No thermometer, no stethoscope and definitely no needles.’
His beady-eyed gaze came to rest on the notebook. ‘A psychiatrist, then, come to take me away. Do they let women do that nowadays?’
‘They do,’ Harry said, ‘but that isn’t why I’m here, either. I’m – well, to be honest, I just wanted to meet you. I’m a great admirer of your writing, most especiallyThe Blood-soaked Soil.’
Philip St John stilled. His eyes, which had been balefully fixed on Harry, flicked towards the bookshelves and then back again. The fingers clutching the blankets tightened, turning white with the pressure. ‘My hand,’ he moaned. ‘We agreed on the hand.’
‘Which one?’ Archer asked sympathetically. ‘The right again?’
‘The right!’ St John roared, spittle flying from his lips. ‘It was ever my right.’
With sudden, spasmodic jerks, the arm nearest the fireplace began to convulse. The pipe fell from his hand, showering glowing tobacco across the layers in which he was wrapped. With a muttered oath, Archer sprang forward, seizing the uppermost blanket and shaking the wool towards the fire, so that the burning tobacco fell to the hearth. With a great effort of will, his uncle gripped his quivering right arm with his left. ‘Be silent!’ he bellowed, his gaze roving wildly to the bookshelves once more, eyes bulging at something only he could see. ‘You shall not speak. It is mine as much as yours.’
He strained forward and, for a moment, Harry thought he meant to get up. But the impulse seemed to leave him almost as soon as it had arrived and he slumped back in his chair, lapsing into sullen, unintelligible muttering. Harry turned to Archer. ‘Do you have any idea who he is talking to?’
The sound of her voice seemed to rouse St John again. His eyes came into focus as he dragged his gaze towards her. ‘Who is it?’ he demanded, and his peevish tone was a stark contrast to the fury of the minute before. ‘Who’s there?’
‘None at all.’ Archer finished refilling his uncle’s pipe with tobacco from a box on the mantelpiece and laid it on a small table within his reach. ‘It’s always the same. I think his hands must pain him, although the right one seems the worst. The doctor thinks it might be from holding a pen for long periods of time when he is writing.’
Harry nodded. There was no typewriter in sight; Philip St John must draft his novels longhand. She studied him through lowered lashes, watching his fingers shake as he tried to grip the woollen blankets. ‘Has it always convulsed that way?’
Archer shook his head. ‘The doctor said it is a symptom of his mental distress.’
She frowned, her gaze travelling down to the carpet, where the puddle of wool twitched as St John moved. ‘There mustbe some medication that can help. Has he prescribed anything other than the sedative?’
‘A mild painkiller,’ Archer said. ‘To be blunt, he is a local doctor and not well versed in how to treat psychological illness, which is why he would prefer that my uncle be admitted to hospital. And while it may come to that eventually, I believe for the moment that he is better kept here, where I can observe him.’
Harry said nothing. Philip St John’s gaze had wandered to the bookshelves again, although his eyes lacked focus. ‘Be silent,’ he muttered, drawing in a rattling breath. ‘Your voice will not be heard.’
His chin sank slowly towards his chest. After a few seconds, he began to snore. ‘Come,’ Archer said softly. ‘I imagine you’ve seen enough.’
She had. Wordlessly, she rose and followed him from the library. Archer closed the door behind them and stood for a long moment, before glancing at Harry with a bleak smile. ‘Come now, Miss Moss. Surely now you feel the need of a drink?’
‘Yes,’ Harry said, resisting the urge to shiver in the colder air of the hallway. ‘I rather think I do.’
John Archer had not exaggerated the excellence of Mary’s cooking but, even so, Harry found she had little appetite for the food set before her at dinner. Philip St John did not join them to eat and Harry felt a little guilty at her relief when Archer said he would have a tray served in the library. Now that she had witnessed his illness for herself, she understood the strain his condition was placing on the house. Archer had been at pains to reassure her his uncle was not always so incoherent. ‘His agitation comes and goes, although I fear he eats less each day.’
Archer was a good host, despite the unease that hung over the dining room like a cloud. He regaled Harry with tales of his acting career that were both interesting and amusing, and she might even have forgotten the reason she was at Thrumwell Manor had it not been for the occasional distant hoarse shout that drifted from the library. ‘One of us sits with him most of the time,’ Archer said, after a particularly lengthy disturbance had died away. ‘Although there are occasions when he will not tolerate anyone being in the same room.’
Harry nodded. In other circumstances, she might have suggested he engage the services of a nurse but she suspected the presence of a stranger would only agitate Philip St John more. ‘Your domestic staff are clearly devoted to him. I’m given to understand that Agnes is the longest serving. Is that correct?’
‘It is,’ Archer replied. ‘She was scullery maid to the previous owner of the manor – a Mr Hobbs-Morton, I believe. My uncle bought the house in 1920 and Agnes chose to stay on as housekeeper, along with a groundsman and a cook.’
‘She must have been very young,’ Harry observed.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘I suppose she must. I’ve never really thought about it – she’s just always been here. I can’t imagine the place without her.’
‘I feel much the same about our family butler,’ Harry said, and then remembered she was R.K. Moss, not Harry White. ‘How long have you lived here?’
‘About a year or so,’ Archer said. ‘I used to split my time between my mother in Essex and Uncle Philip, when acting jobs did not keep me in London, but she passed away and I came here.’ He offered Harry a melancholy smile. ‘There’s nothing like the loss of a parent to make you value the family you have left.’
‘Quite,’ Harry said in sympathy. ‘Do you find being so far from London interferes with your work? Evening performances must make it difficult to return home.’
‘I tend to stay in town when I am in a production,’ he explained. ‘My uncle suffers my company but he doesn’t seek it out. I rather think he prefers it when I’m not here, but I don’t hold it against him. It’s how he’s always been.’
He launched cheerfully into another anecdote. They were like night and day, Harry observed as he talked, the nephew and his uncle. One garrulous and outgoing, unafraid to put himself forward and be admired or criticised by his audience, the other introverted and withdrawn, refusing to engage or even acknowledge those who read his work. It was astonishing they had anything in common, other than the bonds of family, but nothing she had seen or heard so far suggested their relationship was anything other than cordial. And yet she could not shake the certainty that not everything was as it seemed at Thrumwell Manor. In the world of crime fiction, a mysterious illness in a wealthy relative automatically cast suspicion on whoever was due to inherit their fortune, but Harry found it hard to believe that John Archer had anything to do with his uncle’s sudden decline, and she could not fathom what anyone else at Thrumwell Manor had to gain from it. And once she had eliminated the four people who had any contact with Philip St John, who else was there? The malign ferryman Agnes had warned her about?
Weariness caught up with Harry shortly after they had finished the dessert course – an excellent steamed pudding – and she excused herself. She slowed as she approached the library door, seeing Barrymore curled up at its base as though standing guard against intruders. ‘Hello, boy,’ she said softly, digging into her pocket for the biscuit she had saved for exactly such an occasion. ‘This is for you.’
