The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

I only have a morning’s worth of memories and I can’t even keep hold of those.

A passing servant directs me to the drawing room, which turns out to be on the far side of the dining hall, a few doors down from the marble entrance hall I entered this morning. It’s an unpleasant place, the dark wood and scarlet drapes bringing to mind an overlarge coffin, the coal fire breathing oily smoke into the air. A dozen people are gathered, and though a table’s been laid with cold cuts, most of the guests are flopped in leather armchairs or standing at the leaded windows, staring mournfully at the frightful weather, while a maid, with jam stains on her apron, slips unobtrusively among them, gathering dirty plates and empty glasses onto a huge silver tray she can barely hold. A rotund fellow in green hunting tweeds has set himself up on the pianoforte in the corner and is playing a bawdy tune that causes offence only for the ineptness of its delivery. Nobody is paying much attention to him, though he’s doing his best to rectify that.

It’s almost midday, but Daniel is nowhere to be seen, and so I busy myself inspecting the various decanters in the drinks cabinet without any clue as to what they are, or what I enjoy. In the end, I pour myself something brown and turn to stare at my fellow guests, hoping for a flash of recognition. If one of these people is responsible for the wounds on my arm, their irritation at seeing me hale and healthy should be obvious. And, surely, my mind wouldn’t conspire to keep their identity secret should they choose to reveal themselves? Assuming of course my mind can find some way of telling them apart. Nearly every man is a braying, beef-faced bully in hunting tweeds, while the women are dressed soberly in skirts, linen shirts and cardigans. Unlike their boisterous husbands, they move in hushed tones, finding me from the corner of their eyes. I have the impression of being surreptitiously observed, like a rare bird. It’s terribly unsettling, though understandable I suppose. Daniel couldn’t have asked his questions without revealing my condition in the process. I’m now part of the entertainment, whether I like it or not.

Nursing my drink, I attempt to distract myself by eavesdropping on the surrounding conversations, a sensation akin to sticking my head into a rose bush. Half of them are complaining, the other half are being complained at. They don’t like the accommodation, the food, the indolence of the help, the isolation or the fact they couldn’t drive up themselves (though heaven knows how they would have found the place). Mostly though, their ire is reserved for the lack of a welcome from Lady Hardcastle, who has yet to surface despite many of them having arrived in Blackheath last night – a fact they appear to have taken as a personal insult.

‘’Scuse me, Ted,’ says the maid, trying to squeeze past a man in his fifties. He’s broad chested and sunburnt beneath a thinning crop of red hair. Hunting tweeds stretch around a thick body that’s slipping towards fat, his face lit by bright blue eyes.

‘Ted?’ he says angrily, grabbing her wrist and squeezing hard enough to make her wince. ‘Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, Lucy? It’s Mr Stanwin to you, I’m not downstairs with the rats any more.’

She nods, shocked, searching our faces for help. Nobody moves, even the piano bites its tongue. They’re all terrified of this man, I realise. To my shame, I’m little better. I’m frozen in place, watching this exchange from the corner of my lowered eyes, desperately hoping his vulgarity doesn’t turn in my direction.

‘Let her go, Ted,’ says Daniel Coleridge from the doorway.

His voice is firm, cold. It clatters with repercussions.

Stanwin breathes through his nose, staring at Daniel out of narrowed eyes. It shouldn’t be a contest. Stanwin is squat and solid and spitting venom. Yet there’s something in the way Daniel stands there, hands in his pockets, head tilted, that gives Stanwin pause. Perhaps he’s wary of being hit by the train Daniel appears to be waiting for.

A clock drums up its courage and ticks.

With a grunt, Stanwin releases the maid, brushing past Daniel on his way out, muttering something I can’t quite hear.

The room breathes, the piano resumes, the heroic clock carrying on as though nothing happened.

Daniel’s eyes weigh us one by one.

Unable to face his scrutiny, I stare at my reflection in the window. There’s disgust on my face, revulsion at the endless shortcomings of my character. First the murder in the woods, and now this. How many injustices will I allow to walk by before I pluck up the courage to intervene?

Daniel approaches, a ghost in the glass.

‘Bell,’ he says softly, laying a hand on my shoulder. ‘Do you have a minute?’

Hunched beneath my shame, I follow him into the study next door, every pair of eyes at my back. It’s even gloomier in here, untrimmed ivy shrouding the leaded windows, paintings in dark oils soaking up what little light manages to squirm through the glass. A writing desk has been arranged with a view onto the lawn, and looks recently vacated, a fountain pen leaking ink onto a torn piece of blotting paper, a paper knife beside it. One can only imagine the missives written in such an oppressive atmosphere.

In the opposite corner, near a second door out of the room, a puzzled young man in hunting tweeds is peering down the speaker of a phonograph, clearly wondering why the spinning record isn’t flinging sound into the room.

‘A single term at Cambridge and he thinks he’s Isambard Kingdom Brunel,’ says Daniel, causing the young man to look up from his puzzle. He’s no more than twenty-four, with dark hair and wide, flattened features that give the impression of his face being pressed up against a pane of glass. Seeing me, he grins broadly, the boy in the man appearing as if through a window.

‘Belly, you bloody idiot, there you are,’ he says, squeezing my hand and clapping me on the back at the same time. It’s like being caught in an affectionate vice.