Dark Road to Darjeeling (30 page)

Just then Dr. Llewellyn tied the ligature about his arm for the second time and found a blue vein into which to plunge the needle. After a moment, Brisbane’s eyes rolled backwards, his grip loosened, and he fell heavily onto the bed.

The room was silent for a long moment, broken only by the sound of Brisbane’s steady breathing and the doctor’s quicker, more nervous inhalations. “Are you quite all right?” he asked me. “Let me see to your wrist.”

He pulled back my sleeve and the skin was already purpling. Dr. Llewellyn rummaged in his bag for a clean roll of bandages. He tore off a long strip, then dipped it into cold water and began to wrap my wrist. “Leave that on for a quarter of an hour, then we will rub the area with some arnica salve.”

I nodded, feeling the relief of the cool compress on the bruised flesh.

“It is not his fault. It is simply who he is,” he told me as he finished the wrapping.

I said nothing, but the doctor’s words struck a chord with me. Brisbane would sooner have cut off his own arm than hurt me. I knew the affliction he bore was simply a part of who he was, but it was a part I was helpless to aid. It was my place as his wife to offer him support and help, particularly in such a time of need, but I felt somewhat less than useless.

Or was I? I asked myself suddenly. I looked at the bandage wrapped neatly upon my wrist, and I knew exactly what I must do for Brisbane, exactly what Brisbane himself would have done in the circumstances were he able.

“Dr. Llewellyn, I must go out. Will you sit with him?”

If he thought me odd for leaving Brisbane in his current state,
he did not betray it. He merely nodded and assured me he would care for him in my absence.

I slipped out once more, but this time I was not alone. Portia emerged from her room, yawning sleepily. “What was the noise I heard from your room? And why are you abroad so early?”

“I cannot stop now,” I told her, tugging on my gloves. “Brisbane is unwell and Dr. Llewellyn is sitting with him. I shall be back directly.”

She stared after me, but I hurried down the stairs and out of the house before she could collect her wits enough to follow me.

I made my way to the Bower, moving quietly through the garden of the Pennyfeather house to the kitchen where Lalita was already up and preparing the family breakfast. I startled her when I appeared in the doorway, for I did not knock, preferring to catch her unawares.

“Ay! Lady, you have frightened me,” she scolded as she bent to sweep up the pan of kedgeree she had dropped.

“I want the letter,” I told her, advancing into the room. The air was thick with the good smells of her cooking, and my stomach growled a little in response. I should have to learn to eat before embarking on spontaneous adventures, I told myself.

“What letter?” she asked, but her eyes slid from mine and I knew I had her.

“I want the letter that the Reverend Pennyfeather entrusted to you.” I said no more. I was not certain if the letter was addressed to Brisbane or to me or the both of us together, and I wanted Lalita to be properly awed by the fact that I knew about the letter at all. To hesitate would be to lose the advantage I had over her.

She continued to scrape the bits of fish and rice into a bowl and when she had finished, she rose and went to the shelf that held her stores of dry goods. She reached behind a bag of lentils
and brought out a letter and a square parcel wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with string, holding both out to me. In spite of my conviction that she had something for me, I nearly forgot to take it in my surprise. I might so easily have been wrong, and in the course of investigations, I frequently was. But not this time, I thought triumphantly as my fingers closed over the envelope. I turned it to read the script neatly penned upon the front.

“For Lady Julia Brisbane, to be delivered after my funeral in the event of my death.” It was signed by the Reverend Pennyfeather and I put it into my pocket and fixed Lalita with a reproachful look as I took the parcel from her.

“I was not supposed to give you those until his funeral,” Lalita said by way of defence. “It was his wish.”

“Did you know what he meant to do, the Reverend?” I asked her.

She gave me a gesture I had seen often enough amongst the natives. It might mean yes, it might mean no. What it definitely meant was that the conversation would go no further. Lalita had given up what had been entrusted to her care; whatever else she knew, she meant to keep to herself.

“I suppose I should thank you for giving me these now,” I told her. “But I cannot help but think if you had given them over as soon as you had them, two lives might have been saved.”

She gave me a pitying look. “No, lady. Once a man sets his feet upon the path of destruction, no power on earth can save him.”

I turned and left her then, still messing with her bits of fish and rice, taking solace in her kitchen.

I did not return to my room at the Peacocks to read the letter. Dr. Llewellyn still sat with Brisbane, and according to the doctor, he would sleep for many hours yet. I went instead to the garden, well-wrapped against the heavy dewfall, and sat upon the bench while Feuilly and his pale consort strolled past.

My dearest Lady Julia,
it began, and I realised as I read that my hands were trembling.
I hope you will forgive my presumption, both in writing this letter and in begging your silence upon the matters contained herein. I have no right to burden you with my troubles, and yet I feel I must tell someone. You struck me from the first as a lady of great understanding and compassion, and I believe that if I plead to unburden myself here, you will not refuse me.

I have thought often of late on the subject of confession. Folk say it is good for the soul, and I have no one to whom I can confess my sins. But confess them I must, for I will die tonight, and although I will die un-shriven, I must know that the truth lives, albeit only within these few pages.

Now that the time has come to speak frankly, I find my pen falters and the words fail me. I can only think of how he was as an infant, that cap of dark hair and those little elfin ears. How could I know then what he would become, what he would force me to do? For now we come to the heart of it, my lady. I must kill my son tonight.

The words stare back at me in stark black upon the white of the page. I wrote them; I can trace the outline of them with my pen, but they seem unreal to me. How can any loving father contemplate violence against his only son? And yet the only virtue I have ever placed above love is duty, and I know well enough what my duty is.

I fear my resolve will fail me, that I will come to the sticking point and my courage will desert me. I shall pray for the strength of Abraham to stiffen my resolve, to offer up to God the sacrifice of my son, both as expiation for his sins and as a safeguard against his future. How can I know he will not do this terrible thing again?

You must realise by now that Robin killed Freddie Cavendish. It was no accident, of that I have made quite certain. It was an act of malice, thought out carefully and planned for some time. It was constructed within a cool and cunning brain and carried out by a vicious will. The motive was no trifling thing, for my son felt the sting of betrayal from his friend. Theirs had been an innocent friendship of many months’ duration. And in the course of this friendship, confidences were exchanged. You might think it odd that a grown man should befriend a boy, but Robin has always carried an air of solemnity belying his years, and Freddie—it does not profit me to whitewash his memory now—was childlike in his enthusiasms. Having taken on the burdens of inheritance, wife, and unborn child, Freddie was eager to escape them whenever possible. I am told such was ever his character; Freddie Cavendish was not a wicked man, but he was very much a boy, a child who never fully grew to manhood. And when the vices he indulged at the White Rajah’s hands demanded more of him than he could give, he found himself in desperate straits. At this point, Robin, in that ill-advised and time-honoured manner of boys,
confided that he had seen photographs of his sister engaged in unseemly acts. Freddie, I regret to say, did not resist the opportunity to seize upon this information. He persuaded Robin to take the album from the house and bring it to him; only later did he make it apparent to Robin that he had no intention—indeed had never intended—to return it.

Robin became angry, angry in the way that only a child can be angered. He pleaded with Freddie for the sake of their friendship, and here it was that Freddie made the fatal step that ensured his doom, for he laughed at the boy, and bade him leave. Pride is Robin’s besetting sin, and I fault myself for this. He showed such promise as a young child, such awareness and perspicacity, I made too much of him. And for this I must bear the blame. By failing to root out this flaw, I corrupted him as surely as if I had sold him to Lucifer. It was my duty to perfect him, to improve his character. I failed him, as father and as a servant of God.

I shall not distress you further with thoughts of my own inadequacies. I have many failures as a father for which to atone, and I shall. But you will want to know how it was done. Have you not yet guessed? Dr. Llewellyn taught Robin the rudiments of care for his animals, and Robin had been bandaging the wounded leg of Feuilly the peacock. He simply took one of the soiled bandages from the bird’s leg and used it to dress Freddie’s wound. So horribly simple, do you not think? And so horribly effective. The bite from Percival was a lucky thing, if I may be permitted to use such a phrase. Robin was still pondering the best method for inducing a wound when Percival bit Freddie, quite by chance. Or rather, he bit him because Freddie teased him and in this respect, one might almost see the hand of the Divine at work in the matter. Robin did. Any doubts he might have harboured about the correctness of his actions were allayed when the matter was taken from his hands and Freddie was injured without his efforts.

And so he resolved to finish the business. It was simple enough for him to mend his quarrel with Freddie, for Freddie was always eager to get along with everyone. He was very happy to win Robin’s forgiveness,
so happy in fact that he made him a promise that when he purchased a new clasp knife, Robin should have his old one. It was this promise that Robin recalled when Freddie lay dead, and he took it upon himself to take the knife even as he searched for the photographs. But the album had already been delivered to the White Rajah, and Robin soon forgot the matter, believing that Freddie’s death had put an end to it.

And so it would have been, I think, had you never come to the Valley of Eden. The White Rajah had kept the secret of the photographs close for many months before your arrival, and perhaps he would never have turned them to vicious purpose. Perhaps he meant to take pity upon us and destroy them? Who can say? I only know that death had drawn a veil over these misfortunes until you began to ask questions, to raise doubts. And when you came to me, I realised there was much I did not know, and so I purloined my son’s notebook and began to read.

I have enclosed Robin’s notebook so that you will see the truth in what I am telling you. It is there, in his own hand. And I offer it to you because I am a coward. I know that when you read this letter you will think it is fantastical, and you will doubt me. And I want one person to know the truth when I am dead. I cannot tell my wife or my daughter, for the weight of these secrets would crush them. So I am come to you, my lady confessor, and I bare my soul to show you my sins and those of my son and I hope that God will forgive us both.

I have made my confession and I have prayed for absolution. My fear now is not of damnation, but of failure, for mine is not the stoutest heart. But God will strengthen my hand, for He knows why I must do this, for Robin’s sake. To let him live would mean putting him into the hands of doctors who would lock him into an asylum and pick him apart, like one of his own little specimens. And to have him thus, shut away from everything he loves, would kill him slowly—a far more cruel death than even he deserves. So I will do this for him, both to right the wrongs he has done and to save him from them. It will be my last and greatest act as his father, and I pray God it will redeem the rest. I remain your devoted servant…

I could not read the signature through my tears. Whatever I had imagined, it had not been this. I thought of my father, of the tremendous and searing love he felt for all of his children. I thought of Black Jack, who had never given a father’s love. I knew which of them would have done precisely the same as the Reverend Pennyfeather under the circumstances.

With trembling fingers, I opened the brown paper parcel to find Robin’s notebook, stuffed with bits of leaves and pressed insects and drawings. I turned to an entry some months back, and it took me but a moment to find the words, written in his oddly precise scrawl. “Today I have decided I must kill Freddie. I will make an experiment of it…”

I shut the book. There was no need to read more. As I rose, a butterfly’s wing floated free, shimmering blue and green in the morning sun. I went to pick it up, but a sudden wind rose, carrying it aloft. It drifted along the grass for a moment, skimming the dewy blades of green, but just then the wind rose higher still, a brisk breeze from the peaks of Kanchenjunga, bearing the wing higher and higher until I could see it no more.

I dried the tears upon my cheeks and wrapped the parcel and replaced the letter in my pocket. I made my way slowly to my room. Dr. Llewellyn was there, nodding off in his chair. There was no change in Brisbane; he slept, deeply and, I hoped, dreamlessly. I touched Dr. Llewellyn gently upon the arm.

He started, blinking furiously. He looked quickly from me to Brisbane, then rose to palpate Brisbane’s pulse. After a moment, he nodded.

“All is well,” he murmured.

“You must be very tired,” I told him. “I smelled breakfast when I came in. If you go downstairs, I am sure Jolly will find you a plate of something.”

He gathered up his things. “I thank you. My appetite is finally returning,” he added, patting his stomach ruefully.

I walked him to the door. “You have been very kind,” I told him.

He smiled, and the years seemed to fall away from him for a moment. “It is easy to be kind to you, Lady Julia.”

“May I ask you a thoroughly impertinent question? How are you faring since the White Rajah has left? I believe he was the source of some of your troubles,” I added. The details were ugly and not worth naming.

“Some days I am poorly,” he said with a forthright air. “Those are the days that I wish either he or I had never been born. But other days, like today, I am simply happy to be alive. And I know I will not be tempted to destroy myself.”

He inclined his head toward the bed. “I shall look in on him again later, and I will simply tell the household he has a touch of fever. It will stop them asking questions you would rather not answer. Send for me if you have need of me.”

He left me then and I took up his post in the chair by the bed. I do not know how long I sat there, for I must have dozed. The next thing I knew, the smell of food filled the air and Plum stood at my elbow with a tray.

“You ought to eat,” he told me.

I stretched whilst he arranged the tray, uncovering a plate of eggs and a little dish of porridge. There was a rack of toast and some grilled sausages and a bowl of hot fruit compote with a steaming pot of tea. I began to eat, suddenly ravenous.

As I ate, Plum flicked a glance toward the bed. “Is it the migraine?”

I nodded, my mouth too full to reply.

“He told me about them,” Plum said softly, drawing a chair near to mine. “He wanted me to be prepared should we be alone
when it happened.” He put out a hand but did not quite touch mine. “I am sorry for him. It seems a devilish thing to bear.”

I shrugged. “He endures.”

Plum lapsed into silence, reaching for a slice of toast and munching absently as I consumed my breakfast.

“You are a lamb,” I told him, pouring out my second cup of tea. “I had not thought of food for myself, and I was utterly famished.”

He put his head to the side, regarding me curiously. “You really do love him quite terribly, don’t you?”

“Quite,” I replied succinctly.

“I envy you,” he told me. His eyes did not meet mine, and I knew his thoughts were far away.

“Violante?”

He slid down in the chair, crossing his booted feet at the ankles and lacing his hands behind his head. “Did you know they asked me to be godfather to their last child? Hellish. I had to stand at the font and hold that wretched infant as Violante looked at me so adoringly, and all the while I knew she was only thinking of me as her beloved brother-in-law, uncle to her little brats. For an instant I wondered what would happen if I dropped the child into the holy water and walked out.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I thought it might make a terrible mess,” he replied with a flash of his old insouciance. “It quite simply lacerates one, you know—not being with the person you love. I have looked back on whole months of the last few years and I cannot remember where I was, what company I kept, how I passed my time. I have paintings and sketches, and I know they came from my hand, but other than that, there is simply a grey cloud of misery that hovers over it all.”

“My God, Plum, this is a depressing conversation.”

“Oh, I know. And that is the worst of it, you see. I am a miserable fellow to be around, but I know it. You at least can walk away. I still have to endure myself. It is agony of the most acute variety.”

“Is that why you wanted to join Brisbane as a private enquiry agent?”

He shrugged. “It was either that or hurl myself off of the nearest Irish cliff.”

“Have they cliffs in Ireland that would do the trick?” I spooned up some of the fruit compote. It had been sweetened with honey and flavoured with spices—cinnamon and nutmeg and something else, smoky and sweet at the same time. Cardamom?

“There are some rather high ones in the west. I could have managed a broken leg at least,” he told me.

“I was mightily put out that you took up the investigation with Brisbane,” I warned him, “but you are far too pitiful for me to rage at.”

“I am,” he agreed. After a moment, he looked abashed. “I am sorry, you know. I did not realise it would make such trouble between the pair of you if I worked with Brisbane.”

I waved my spoon at him. “It is nothing to do with you. It is for the pair of us to puzzle out,” I added, nodding toward the recumbent form of my husband.

Plum peered at the figure lying so still upon the bed. “You don’t suppose he is actually dead, is he?”

I punched him in the arm, leading with my knuckle as I knew it would inflict the most pain. He smothered a cry and rubbed at his arm.

“That was not funny when we were children and it is not funny now,” he warned.