With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (26 page)

He was absent from breakfast the next morning, as well; Birch told me that he had again gone to visit the construction site, and this was echoed by Genevieve and Mrs. Threll. Evidently Atticus had broadcast his plans widely, and I was the last to learn of them. I wondered at this sudden, consuming interest in the building; was it merely a pretext for time by himself to come to terms with all that had lately passed? Or, perhaps, did he wish to put some distance between us? The thought of waiting who knew how many hours for his return chafed me, and I returned to my room and quickly changed my dress for one better suited to walking.

Genevieve scented my purpose and determined to join me. Mrs. Threll was able to give us directions to the building site, which was but a few miles distant, and furnished us with stout walking sticks. We set out in good spirits, for the day was fair and mild; a light breeze cooled our cheeks when we became warm from our exertions, and in the sunlight even the winter-bleached landscape took on some beauty. The gently rolling parkland and copses of wintry trees were a welcome sight, and it felt good to be out of doors and breathe in fresh air. After all of the recent rains I had feared that the walking might be difficult, but the ground had dried enough that our progress was fairly rapid.

“How are you faring?” I asked presently, after we had made our way in silence some half a mile.

“Oh, I am quite well; I am fit to walk many miles yet.”

“I didn’t mean that,” I said, trying to find a way to phrase the question delicately, but she caught my meaning then.

“I am well enough, Aunt Clara, although it is kind of you to ask. At first it was rather dreadful, feeling that I was the cause of so many terrible things.”

“But you weren’t,” I objected, and she nodded.

“When I thought a little longer, I realized that,” she said. “This Collier, he had a mono—what is your word?”

“Monomania?”

“That, yes. And I do not think it had much to do with
me,
exactly. I think it had much more to do with
him.
In the end, the choices were all his.”

This was so mature an insight that I found myself wondering what extraordinary school it was that had brought her up to think with such clarity. Or perhaps it was all Genevieve herself. She was a Blackwood, after all, and I had not met a single dull-witted member of that clan. I wondered about her mother, the late Mrs. Collier. Perhaps she had been a woman of intelligence; perhaps that had even been part of what had attracted Richard to her.

It still hurt, the knowledge that I had shared Richard’s affections with another woman—or more than one—but the pain was already far less than it had been. Now it was not Richard but his brother who was foremost in my thoughts. Where once I had looked upon Atticus as simply the least objectionable of my options, he had now become more precious to me than Richard had ever been. When I remembered that idyllic day in the folly and that conviction of being enfolded by love, it had not been an illusion; only it had been Atticus’s love, not Richard’s, that cast that day in such radiance for me. I realized now that all those times in our youth when I had seen him, as I thought, tagging along after Richard, it must have been me that he truly wanted to be close to. And I wondered not for the first time whether my own love for Atticus was endangering him—and if the curse would bereave me once again.

Even as my thoughts took this direction, a figure came into view over the next rise that I knew must be Atticus. But something about the sight of him struck me with inexplicable urgency. The dazzling sunlight and the mist it was lifting from the meadow obscured him to an extent, but I knew suddenly that all was not well with him. “Something is wrong,” I exclaimed, quickening my pace; I could not have explained how I knew, only that the motion of his progress struck disquiet into my heart.

“Why, so it is,” said Genevieve, likewise walking more rapidly, until she was almost trotting to keep up with my longer strides. “Uncle!” she called, waving her arm over her head, and after a moment an answering wave came—but more slowly, and with an odd constraint, as if… as if it pained him to move. I picked up my skirts in both hands and broke into a run.

When I caught up with him, Atticus did not at first glance seem to be the worse for wear. But his gait was less than regular because his left hand was the one wielding his walking stick, instead of his right, and there was a stiffness to the way he held his right arm that I noted with anxiety. His brow was furrowed as if in concentration or endurance, but when we came within hailing distance he said, lightly enough, “You organized a rescue party. That was most prescient of you, my dear.”

I didn’t know which of us the endearment was meant for, nor did I ask. “What’s wrong?” I demanded instead. “Are you unwell?”

“An accident at the construction site. Nothing serious, no bones broken… only I think I pulled some muscles in my shoulder. If you would permit me to lean on you, Clara, I think you would be a better help than my stick.”

“What kind of accident?” pressed Genevieve, taking his stick from him to free up that arm to pass about my shoulders. “Was it a sinkhole? Mrs. Threll was telling me how dangerous the ground can be after as much rain as we have had. With so many old mines, she said, one must be very careful indeed.”

His wan attempt at a smile betrayed how much pain he must have been feeling. “I had the same thought, which is why I went to inspect the site. No, fortunately the ground is all intact. But while I was there, I thought to go up into the scaffolding to examine the progress on the upper floor.”

“You
climbed
up?”

“There’s a kind of moving platform with a hoist and pulley device. It’s awkward for one man alone to operate, but not impossible. But I slipped—some loose boards shifted—and I managed to snare myself in the ropes.” He turned his head and gingerly held his collar away from his throat, and with a gasp of horror I saw a raw red weal like the mark of a noose on one side of his neck. Then Genevieve snatched at his hand and, ignoring his hiss of pain, pried his fingers open to reveal a similar raw mark across the palm.

“Atticus,” I breathed. “You could have been killed.”

“Now, don’t alarm yourself. If the rope hadn’t snared me I quite possibly might have been, but as it happened, it saved my neck.” His laugh was slightly forced. “It just left it a little the worse for wear.”

“I am going ahead,” Genevieve announced. “I shall send a servant for the doctor and have warm water and unguents and bandages prepared.”

“Thank you, Genevieve.” I watched her set off at a run back toward Gravesend, her sausage curls bouncing wildly and her skirts billowing out in her wake, and then looked long and deeply into my husband’s face. “Was that the truth?” I asked softly.

His eyes met mine briefly before drifting away. “It was an accident, Clara. Please don’t try to make it into anything more significant than an instance of clumsiness and carelessness.”

He made as if to resume our progress, but I held him still and reached down to grasp the hem of my topmost petticoat. “What are you doing?” he asked, startled, but when I ripped a strip of the fabric away, he held out his injured hand to be bound without having to be asked.

“This will be sufficient for the journey home,” I said, as I wrapped the cloth gently around the wound and tied it in a knot. “The doctor can clean the wound properly and bind it better.”

“It isn’t worth troubling the doctor for,” he said. “I should have called Genevieve back. If only she hadn’t gone haring away so fast…”

A little cold shadow that had started to form over my heart grew colder. If the doctor thought Atticus’s injuries looked like an attempt at doing away with himself, he would be forced to report it to the authorities—as my husband must know quite well.

It only
looked
suspicious, I told myself. It was nothing more than a mishap, as he said. Still, as we resumed our walk, he with one arm about my shoulders, I holding him tightly around the waist, I tried to find a way to tease out what he was not saying.

“No one was at the site to come to your assistance?” I asked.

A shake of the head. “No, I’ve not yet given the foreman orders to resume work. I wanted to examine the site, as I said, and make certain it was safe.”

“Which it clearly wasn’t,” I commented. “I consider the foreman to have been very much at fault. You should have the incident investigated.”

He turned his head to glare at me. It was an expression I had not yet seen from him, and the heat in his pale blue eyes made me recoil. “For God’s sake, Clara, I’ve told you,” he snapped. “I took a foolish chance on a hoist meant for two men, I lost my footing on an insecure surface, and if I got a bit banged up, it’s hardly worth mentioning. I’ll thank you to let the matter drop.”

My injured pride closed around me like armor. “As you wish,” I said coolly, looking straight ahead, and neither of us spoke again for the remainder of our halting progress to Gravesend.

Atticus must have assuaged any suspicions the doctor might have had about his wounds, for they parted on good enough terms—as best I could tell from my vantage point, overlooking the entrance hall from the stair landing above. Atticus had made it plain that he did not want my company; nor did he give me any opportunity to speak with him alone, shutting himself in the library all afternoon with Bertram, who was visiting once again, and who perhaps had expected to be closeted with Genevieve rather than her guardian. I had hoped to speak to Atticus at dinner, but he asked Birch to make his excuses and send in some sandwiches to him and Bertram in the library. Nor did he come to my sitting room as the hour for retiring drew near.

It was not until I at last retired to my bedroom for the night that I found myself at close quarters with my elusive husband. Through the closed doors of the dressing room I could hear the rise and fall of his voice, rapid and forceful; not quite loud enough to distinguish words, but I gathered that he was instructing his valet in something important.

Then the answering voice came, and my hands froze in the motion of unfastening an earring. Though low and rushed, and more difficult to hear, the second voice was his own. Atticus was carrying on a conversation with himself.

It would not have chilled me as much had it not sounded so passionate. He seemed to be arguing some important point, something urgent and yet furtive. What had unsettled him to this degree? Hesitating only briefly, I unlocked the dressing-room door as quietly as I could and crept into the little room. When I pressed my ear against the opposite door I could hear his voice—or his voices—slightly better, but still only enough to capture a word here and there.

…knew I would be there…

…only an accident…

…Collier…

…his neck or mine…

Terrible thoughts tumbled through my mind. Had Atticus’s so-called accident been some deliberate attempt to do himself harm? Did he bear some responsibility for Collier’s death, or feel that he did, and was that guilt driving him? Listening to the rise and fall of his monologue, the tone alternating between entreating and placating, anger and dismissal, made my heart hurt as if it were being closed in a giant stone fist.

This agony of mind… the peculiar injuries he had sustained, almost an echo of how Collier had done away with himself. His sudden secrecy, the taste for solitude, distancing himself from me—as if he were trying to hide something. What if Atticus was no longer in control of his own actions? Could he truly have become two people, two personalities in one body? I knew that such a premise had been employed in sensation fiction, but never had I considered that it might happen in reality, and the idea made my heart thud in dread.

What torment was he in that could make his own soul so divide itself? Did he feel guilt over his father’s death or Collier’s? Had he—I forced myself to contemplate it—actually played a part in one or both? Such a thing might drive him to injure himself. His determination to take his full measure of responsibility was one of his noblest features, but it might be one of his most dangerous now. Or perhaps it was the secret with which his father had entrusted—or afflicted—him. Whatever that confidence had been, I would never forget how it had devastated Atticus even before he learned of the old man’s death. Could that mysterious legacy that he was pledged to protect still be tormenting him, and to the point that he might harm himself?

The only consolation at hand was the reflection that, had Atticus truly posed a danger to himself, Dr. Brandt would surely have noticed and taken the matter in hand. Brandt was not so easily fooled, and too tenacious to have let Atticus put him off with a slim pretext. If there had been more to his accident than met the eye, I reasoned, Brandt would have insisted upon speaking to me about watching my husband—would have assigned someone to watch over him, or removed him to a private clinic or the like.