The Death of Jane Lawrence(27)

She eyed the rest of the implements warily. There were only a few left, and she made short but careful work of them, ever mindful of another prick.





CHAPTER TEN


BACK IN THE foyer, Jane gazed up at the staircases and the gallery walkway, considering resuming her explorations where she’d left off. Aside from Augustine’s room and study, she’d seen very little of the second floor. But to her left stretched another hallway, and even with her knowledge of the rest of the house, she couldn’t picture where it might lead. She followed it.

There were only a few rooms branching from that hall: servants’ quarters or storage closets, only one of which was in active use by Mrs. Purl. Jane almost turned back. But then she saw a glint of metal in the dim light at the far end of the hall. There were no windows, and the gaslights did not extend all the way to where a door stood, shut tight. And yet the light caught, glittering, and drew her closer.

The door was sealed with a line of three old keyholes, and one newer padlock; that was what had glinted in the dark. It was attached to the door and frame by brackets that looked much weaker than the lock itself, out of place and hastily applied.

Frowning, she tried each of the keys on her chatelaine. The keyhole locks gave way, but the padlock remained steadfast.

She ran her thumb across the metal. It was bitingly cold, and she pulled away with a wince and a flash of reflexive, alien dread. The chatelaine fell from her hand. It swung from where it was attached to her dress, rattling in the silence of the hall.

What could be so wrong with a room that it would be locked up so tightly?

That the servants could not access it?

She stared at the padlock for a long time, waiting for her mind to present a solution, waiting to laugh, to be ready to move on. But instead, she only imagined breaking the brackets, smashing the door open, and looking inside.

Air. She needed air, to clear her head of these strange thoughts. She forced herself away from the door and upstairs to Augustine’s room, where she determinedly switched out her house shoes for her mud-caked boots from the night before.

The grounds outside of Lindridge Hall were ill-kept, rambling hillocks of dead shrubberies, all of it overgrown with vines now bare from the season. The rains had held off so far this morning, but the soil was still damp and spongy, and the sky was gray from horizon to horizon. No birds sang, not even as she climbed a low, sloping hill to the house’s left, the top of which was covered in the outmost edges of a young forest.

Everything was still.

When she’d come to Larrenton, not even ten years old, soon to be an orphan and shell-shocked by the violence that had descended upon Camhurst, she hadn’t known how to feel about such wide open spaces. She’d lived all her life in an apartment in the center of Great Breltain’s capital. She’d been torn between the terrible fear of being exposed and alone beneath a menacing sky, and the stranger feeling of peace. Now she could see over a mile in every direction.

She was alone, and wasn’t that a good thing?

Down below, on the road, a dark figure moved fast astride a horse. Augustine. Her heart leapt in her chest, and she found the last of her nerves fading away. She’d tell him about the tools, and about the locked door, and he’d have a sensible explanation for everything. He would tease her for fearing padlocks while accepting his medical curiosities, his skulls, and they would turn to more substantial topics, patients and plans and fascinations. They would return to Larrenton. Together.

She picked her way back down the hill. A few times the ground gave way beneath her foot, compressing into a slick slide, but she managed not to twist her ankle. Finally on level with the house, she quickened her pace.

But the rider, who now stood in front of the door, wasn’t Augustine.

It was Mr. Lowell.

Jane slowed to a walk, then stopped entirely at the foot of the small set of stairs leading up to the door. “Mr. Lowell,” she said, causing him to start, then twist to face her. “Is everything all right? Dr. Lawrence should have arrived in town by now.”

“Aye, he did,” Mr. Lowell said. “Sent me with his apologies, ma’am.”

She frowned. “Apologies?”

“He won’t be able to make it back tonight. The road is still washed out this far, and he wants to be on call for night emergencies. I’m actually here to return Mr. Purl’s horse, and give this package to you.”

“And how will you get back? Surely he’s not expecting you to walk.”

“There’s a carriage waiting by the farms. The road is still intact between there and Larrenton, heavens be praised.” He considered a moment, then said, “Pardon my asking, ma’am, but I could likely get you to it, if you wanted. There was only so much I could bring with me. If you’d rather be at home…”

She almost agreed. But the clouds seemed darker now, heavier with rain than they had been just a few minutes ago. She was not eager to chance another carriage wreck.

And Lindridge Hall was just a house; she had seen its roof rotting from her vantage on the hill. There would be no danger here, except of nervous fancies.

“No, it makes more sense to stay. What did the doctor send?”

Mr. Lowell smiled and went over to the horse, which was tethered to the bare-branched husk of a young, dead tree. He opened one of the panniers and pulled out a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. She took it from him, feeling the familiar weight of books. By the size, she suspected at least one of them was the surgery ledger.