Page 65 of A Devilish Element
“Straighten your hair, Miss Wakefield. Whatever mischief is afoot won’t be helped by you appearing disorderly, that much is assured.” She reached a hand to it and found the coil of it that had previously been fastened at the nape of her neck partially unwound. This she restored with the adjustment of several pins.
“I can hear Linfield. Discord amidst the newlyweds?” Jem said, arriving at their heels. He’d taken the time to pull on his topcoat, but he was still missing his cravat, nor had his shirt been fastened at the neck. “Eliza, your earbob.” He passed her the jewel that she hadn’t noticed was even missing.
“I fear it likely something of that nature,” Bell’s bewigged head was tilted to better hear the rumpus. “There is never a moment of peace in this place. Not a blasted one. If it’s not arguments, it’s phantoms, and if it’s not phantoms it’s melodramatic maids or our fair hostess taking another turn.” He advanced a couple of steps, before straightening up and proceeding with his usual long-legged stride. “Miss Wakefield. Jem, I think we might advance to the stairs. The wailer I believe is Mrs Cluett, not Lady Linfield, and if I’m not mistaken, young George has embroiled himself too. No doubt rallied to his mother’s cause.”
“So not a marital tiff.” A deal of tension seemed to fall from Jem’s shoulders.
“I definitely heard Jane.”
“Then I fear whatever has occurred must have embroiled them all.”
“I pray that we’re not about to walk into the aftermath of another spectral visitation,” Jem said. “They are most perplexing, and I do not care for the puzzle of it. In fact, I do not care for any more supernatural nonsense at all. Whoever is playing these games must desist in them.”
“Then you truly believe this all a person’s work?”
“Of course,” he shot back, prompting Eliza to exchange a look with Bell. She did not truly doubt that fact for herself, only a part of her wondered. There were no explanations to be had for Jane’s visions, nor her bed curtains’ spontaneous ignition. She believed the maid. Matter of fact, she readily believed her testament over any other given her by the inhabitants of this place.
“Is that your opinion too, sir?”
Bell tugged on the end of his ringleted wig. “Most malice does have a human hand in it, and I confess, I spend enough time alone with the deceased to question the notion of vengeful spirits. One would think that if they were a reality then some of the souls that have crossed my dissection table would have objected more strongly to their treatment, both in their last moments of life, and in their eternal slumber. Yet not one has ever risen to haunt me.”
That was certainly something to ponder. “Perhaps it was the nature of Old Lady Cedarton’s death that’s caused her to…”
Jem shot her a questioning look over his shoulder before he turned the bend.
Doctor Bell huffed. “Miss Wakefield, believe me the folks whose bodies have reached me have plenty that might prompt them to stir from their eternal rest, but perhaps we might ponder this matter later? It rather relies on the notion of a soul, and I can tell you that I have never found evidence of such a thing’s existence.”
“Nor would you, for in death it’s departed.”
“Or wasn’t there to begin with.”
“You’re an atheist, sir?”
“Agnostic. There are no rational grounds for the justification of a divine beneficent force, nor a maleficent one.”
Indeed, it was a discussion for another time. Eliza lifted her skirts and hurried up the first flight of stairs. For some reason his words disturbed her in a way she couldn’t rightly fathom. She was not an overly religious woman. Of course, she attended church as any good woman did, and said her prayers, but to go as far as claiming that the existence of a soul—and the Almighty—was no more than a myth…. Well, coming from an anatomist, it gave her the shivers.
Midway up the second flight of stairs, Eliza caught sight of Jane in the shadowy entrance hall. Despite it being only mid-afternoon, the large fireplace was lit, along with a number of cheap tallow candles, the stench of which permeated the air, adding to the sense of neglect and ruin that lingered over the whole castle. Several long shadows cast by the various stuffed stag heads loomed large across the chamber floor, so that it appeared as if two great grasping hands stretched out to seize the occupants scurrying about the cavernous interior. George and Linfield were lobbing items at one another.
Jane collided with her as she reached the top, drowning her in a cloud of rose pomade. “Eliza.” She threw her arms fast about her and proceeded to snuffle against Eliza’s shoulder.
“Dear, what has happened? What ill befalls you now? Not another scare… another sighting?” The room’s other occupants were in such a state of chaos it was impossible to tell what was going on.
“What I have seen is nothing worse than hell itself. Oh, I wish I could cut it from my mind.”
Eliza coaxed her upright, and hands clasped fast to her friend’s cheeks looked her square in the face. “Jane, what in heavens have you seen? Old Lady Cedarton? Has she appeared to you again?”
Her friend released a hysterical cackle. “Old Lady Cedarton. Oh, dear no, ’tis much worse than that. I am made wretched… wretched. ’Tis all a farce, a marriage in name and naught else. His affections lie with another. Eliza, it is as we suspected, he has a mistress, and that mistress is Henrietta.”
“Henrietta?” She could not keep the astonishment from her voice. “Come, you must tell me all. Surely, there is some misunderstanding.”
“’Tis a gift-horse of a marriage.” Jane clasped Eliza’s hand in a fearsome grip and dragged her through into the dining room away from the others. Here there was no fire lit, and the air held enough chill that their breath steamed before them. Outside, the daylight was already fading into night, making the rain streaming down the glass seem like a blackened waterfall. Jane cast herself into a chair and slumped against the table, only to bob back onto her feet a second or two later and begin a military-like march before the empty hearth.
“Jane, that seems… surely you’re mistaken.”
Her friend planted her hands assuredly on her hips. Her delicate feature screwed into a frown. “Mistaken, I am most certainly not. I saw them together, as plain as I see you. Heard her giggling and playing the coquette and caught him with his…with his falls unbuttoned and his… his… It was in her mouth. In her hand… No, both, I believe.”
“In the hallway?”
