He didn’t understand half of what she was saying, but her manner was enough to put the fear of God into him, and he cracked the whip over his horse’s back before she had quite swung the door closed. They set off and she had barely allowed herself to draw a dozen breaths, or so it felt, before they were rolling into the grounds of Tavy Castle.
Mrs Rush was at the door, alerted to the cab’s arrival no doubt by the servants at the work in the front of the house, and Adelia called to her as she alighted, asking her to “sort out the payment – give him whatever he asks for – where is my husband?”
But she didn’t even need to wait for the reply for she knew that Theodore would be upstairs in the central tower, in the makeshift laboratory, and she burst into the middle of the interrogation of The Countess.
LADY AGNES WAS THERE, too. She was standing behind The Countess’s chair, a deep armchair that had been carried in from another room, and both women looked furious. As soon as Adelia stepped into the room, Lady Agnes began to appeal to her.
She didn’t even pretend to be polite. “Lady Calaway, at last! Do something about your husband, if you will. This behaviour is intolerable. Have you seen Percy? We cannot be subject to such intimidation.”
Captain Everard stood a little apart, wincing with discomfort at the turn of events. He was markedly not meeting Lady Agnes’s eye. He said, “I do apologise for all this apparent intrusion. Please don’t consider this an interrogation. We simply wish to understand more about the family’s history.”
Doctor Netherfield nodded. He was sitting on a stool alongside The Countess, and hunching over, trying to look concerned and caring.
Theodore was on his feet and pacing around. He was, Adelia realised, completely the wrong person to ask any sorts of sensitive questions, especially when the person being asked was someone as clever, experienced and stubborn as The Countess.
And when she met his gaze, he nodded ever so slightly in relief. He knew that she would take over.
Adelia walked around the table so that there was no barrier between her and The Countess. She fixed the older lady with a stare, and saw no hint of confusion or weariness in the woman’s eyes. She was alert, and she was ready.
It felt to Adelia like a mediaeval jousting tournament. She mentally lowered her helmet, readied her lance, and charged. She addressed The Countess formally. “Lady Buckshaw, everything hinges on what happened in 1828. The lapis lazuli trade collapsed but other things happened, too. We know the family lost all of its money. But it didn’t lose its influence, did it? You were twenty-eight years old when it happened.”
The Countess hissed. “A woman of breeding does not discuss her age.”
“A woman of breeding does not let an innocent woman be tried for a crime she has not committed.”
“Your silly daughter? How do we know she’s innocent? I am not saying she deliberately did anything, and the police themselves don’t believe that. She is a victim too, you know. A victim of her own disordered mind.”
“It is curious, then, how ordered her mind has become since leaving her rooms here.”
“It is rather a shock to her, no doubt,” The Countess said. “Of course she will experience a temporary rallying, don’t you think?” She nodded at the doctor. “He will tell you that these things come in cycles, like the phases of the moon.”
Doctor Netherfield grunted which was neither approval nor disagreement.
“Her mind is under the influence not of the moon, but of her body,” Adelia went on. She pointed at her husband. “More investigation is needed, but I would strongly suggest that the source of all her malady be found in her bedroom.”
“Is this a cheap, crude music hall joke?” Lady Agnes put in.
“Far from it. It is a matter of poisoning. Long, slow, steady poisoning. Not all poisons kill quickly, do they? Some erode the mind and the body. I am afraid I shall have to defer to my husband for more detail in that regard.”
She could see the shock on Theodore’s face turn to understanding and revelation. He grew agitated with excitement and his pacing increased. He would wear a groove in the floor between the windows and the worktable at this rate.
The Countess laughed like a rusty hinge. “Poison? By whom? It’s usually the husband but my grandson’s always away and I know you don’t like it, but at least you can’t accuse him of being a murderer. Who else? Me? That’s why I am here, isn’t it? So you can try to hang a woman in her nineties.”
“I thought we were not discussing age?”
“Touché.” The Countess twisted her lips and looked as if she were working out a stubborn seed from between her teeth. Eventually she said, “The curse doesn’t date from the 1820s. It’s only loosely based on the collapse of our family’s trade.”
“Then how and where did the curse start? Why are we talking about it? No one has ever been able to fully explain it to me. It’s a children’s tale, nothing more. It adds something intriguing to talk about your family but it’s meaningless,” Adelia said.
The Countess snorted. Lady Agnes put her hand on her mother’s shoulders and tried to soothe her. “I started the curse,” The Countess said while Lady Agnes shook her head.
“Why?” Adelia demanded.
“Wrong question.”
“When?” Theodore butted in.
The Countess smiled in a thin, cruel sort of way. “When Oscar Brodie was born. And it was supposed to put everything right.”
Twenty-four
Adelia did some quick mathematics in her
