The Death of Jane Lawrence(26)

“I shall take that into consideration,” she said. “But you may be surprised to learn that I have nerves forged of steel.”

“I’m not surprised at all,” he said, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. That single touch made her feel half drunk. “I’ll see you this evening.”

“I look forward to it,” she said.

He looked at her for another long moment, drinking in the sight of her in his foyer like a patient tasting rich broth for the first time in weeks, and then he turned from her, took up his oiled coat, and left the hall.



* * *



DRAPED IN DAYLIGHT, Lindridge Hall was still undeniably strange. Hallways did not run in sensible lines, and the house sprawled more than it needed to, given the rooms it contained. She found several fake doors that only confused her more. On the third floor, the pressed-tin ceilings were embossed with intricate geometric patterns, eschewing the more common botanical inspirations. More than once, as Jane wandered the halls that morning, clutching the chatelaine she had borrowed from Mrs. Purl, she would catch a glimpse of a room or the angle of a hallway and think that she saw some grander design to it, some shape that was only visible from a certain perspective. And then the illusion would disperse.

The things that made Augustine feel ashamed—the undusted gasoliers, the wainscoting with its chipped paint, the worn, mildewing runners in the hall—all barely registered in the face of such undefinable oddities.

She drew back dusty curtains to let the watery sunlight spill inside the house, and wondered at the small things she found abandoned. An iron candlestick with a half taper of melted wax here, a sheaf of pianoforte music there … all of them fragments of a life that had once been lived here. Beyond those shards of history, the rooms were empty, suppurating with an omnipresent damp. The west wing of the third floor smelled of must and rot, and it only grew stronger as she opened the last door onto the library.

Ceiling-high, empty bookshelves surrounded dusty chairs and tables. A great arching bowl of green glass, condensation running down its metal girding, crowned the room and trapped moisture within. Some of the panes no longer fit well in their frames, and rain entered along the seams, flowing down to where it had begun to rot away at the floorboards. The stench of mildew was relentless.

It had been abandoned, just like all the rest. This entire grand house, abandoned. How did that happen?

And yet how beautiful it must have been when the glass was polished and the sun shone in undisturbed, when the room smelled of wood smoke and paper and ink! She could have spent days lost in stories there. But now, here, she left it with a saddened heart.

At the stairs, she met Mrs. Purl, who was carrying something dark in her arms. It was sooty, the surface cracked like a half-burnt log, but the shape was all wrong. “Strangest thing, ma’am,” Mrs. Purl said when she noticed Jane looking. “I found it in the old master bedroom. But I am sure I cleaned the whole room last week, and there have been no fires there since I came here. It must be new, though the ashes seemed very old.”

“What is it?”

“A doctor’s bag, I think. But I can’t imagine why it would have been burned.” She shifted it in her grip and the contents rattled—metal and glass. She looked uneasy, holding it, and Jane held out her hands.

“I can take it,” Jane said. “I’ll get it cleaned up.”

“It’s no trouble, ma’am.”

“I have little else to do,” Jane said, and Mrs. Purl passed the bag to her. It was heavy and cold.

Mrs. Luthbright was not in the kitchen when she arrived, so she took the bag straight over to the basin sink. She eased it open, wiggling free the stubborn catch. Its structure held, revealing pockets filled with broken glass, several scalpels, and other tools she was not as familiar with.

Mrs. Purl was right. Why burn such a thing? The tools were of fine make, and aside from the fire damage she could see no other defect.

Jane fished out each shard of glass, piling them off to the side. The bag was likely unsalvageable, but it was an easy place to start. From there, she freed the larger tools, pieces of metal and horn she didn’t know the names for, and several clamps, delicate when compared with those used by carpenters but horrible when she thought of them applied to flesh. She washed them all under the tap with slivers of castile soap, then set them out to dry much as if they were silverware.

She’d learned a thing or two about instrument preparation from Mr. Lowell over the past week, most notably when she had assisted Augustine in what he’d called a pupillary incision surgery. She’d watched as he had taken a scalpel to an old woman’s eye, clouded over from an old injury and exposed by a metal spreader, and cut a slit that, he said, would become her new pupil, restoring some measure of sight.

The woman had thrashed when her eyelids had been opened, and had moaned from the ether, but when the surgery was done, she had thanked Augustine over and over again. The paradox of medicine: pain and relief, life and death.

She was cleaning the second scalpel when she slipped and cut the tip of her finger.

The metal clattered into the sink, and she hissed, closing her eyes against the pain. When she opened them again, crimson blood was spattered along the sides of the basin, tainting the water as it spiraled down the drain. Grimacing, she shoved her hand beneath the tap and squeezed at her finger until the blood finally slowed.