The Dark Volume Part 11

Chang walked back to the bed and stood over the unmoving man. Everything in this room belonged to Eloise Dujong.

Three. Apparition.

UPON waking from his first sleep after the frozen, all-night struggle to save Miss Temple from fever, Doctor Svenson felt an unaccountable lightness of heart, so unfamiliar that he wondered if he'd succ.u.mbed to fever too. He had slept in the workroom to the side of Sorge's kitchen, on a pile of linens waiting to be washed, until the fellow's wife had dragged him from sleep with her rattling pans. Svenson rubbed his face, felt his stubbled jaw, and then shook his head like a dog. He stood, plucked at his steel-grey uniform shirt-still smelling of its immersion in the sea-and rolled each sleeve to the elbow as he worked first one foot and then the other into his boots. The Doctor smeared his pale hair back and smiled. They might all die within the day, but what did it matter? They had survived so far.

His sleep had been a few s.n.a.t.c.hed hours, but after collecting a mug of milky sweet tea from Sorge's daughter, Bette, hot water to shave, and a b.u.t.tered slice of black bread folded over a slab of salted cod, the Doctor threw himself back into his work, re-smearing Miss Temple's many cuts and bruises with a salve he had concocted from local herbs. The fever remained high and his options in this place were impossibly few-perhaps another mixture of herbs could be brewed into a tea. The door to Miss Temple's room opened-Bette with a new pile of towels. He had not seen Eloise. No doubt she was sleeping herself.

They had not spoken at any length since the sinking of the airship- nor had they ever, save for those few impulsive words at Tarr Manor. And yet Eloise had kissed him-or had he kissed her? Did that matter? Did it retain any momentum in the present?

He applied a fresh layer of damp, cool cloths to Miss Temple's body. She had worsened while he slept. He should have insisted she stay on the airship until a boat could be fetched from the village. It might not have made any difference-the airship might have gone under before any boat could arrive-but Svenson berated himself for not even considering it, for not even realizing the danger.

HE RETURNED to the kitchen, hoping to find Eloise, but met only the concerned faces of Lina and Bette, wondering about the poor young lady. Svenson served them a practiced lie-all was improving- and excused himself to the porch, where Cardinal Chang stood at the rail with his own cup of tea. The Doctor suggested that Chang might avail himself of the salve for his own welter of cuts, but knew even before he finished describing where it was kept that the man would not. They dropped into silence, gazing at the muddied yard and the three very squat huts, one for chickens, one for drying fish, and one for nets and traps. Beyond these were the woods, mainly birch, pale bark gashed with black, branches hanging slack and dripping from the fog.

"Have you seen Mrs. Dujong?" Svenson asked.

"She went walking." Chang nodded toward the trees. "Not that there is any notable destination."

Svenson did not reply. He found the isolated woods and the heavy sky splendid.

"Celeste?" asked Chang.

"Grave." Svenson patted his pocket by instinct for the cigarettes he knew were not there. "The fever has worsened. But she is a fierce young woman, and strength of character may turn the tide."

"But as far as what you can do?"

"I will continue to do it," said Svenson.

Chang spat over the rail. "Then it is quite impossible to say how long we are marooned here."

Chang glanced behind him to the door, then out again at the muddy forest, for all the world trapped on the porch like a tiger in a cage.

"Perhaps I will have a walk myself," Svenson observed mildly.

HE HAD no particular memory of Eloise's shoes-and wondered on the fact that he'd paid them no mind-but the muddy path to the sh.o.r.e showed small fresh prints with a pointed rear heel he doubted came from any fisherman. The surf was a brilliant churning line dragged between the nearly black seawater and the grey sky hanging heavily above it. Perhaps fifty yards away, her feet just above the reaching waves, stood Eloise.

She turned, saw him coming, and waved. He waved back with a smile, stepping clear of a sudden swipe of surf at his boot. Her cheeks were red with the cold, and her hands-in gloves, but thin wool- tucked under her arms. She wore a plain bonnet borrowed from Sorge's wife, but the wind had pulled strands of her hair loose and whipped them eagerly behind her head. Svenson was tempted to put his arm around her-indeed, upon seeing her his feelings were quite suddenly carnal-but instead he merely nodded, calling above the surf.

"Very fresh, is it not?"

She smiled and hugged her arms. "It is very cold. But a change from the sickroom."

He saw she held something in her hand.

"What have you found?"

She showed it to him-a small wet stone, the water darkening its color to plum.

"How lovely," he said.

She smiled, and tucked it into the pocket of her dress.

"Thank you for tending Miss Temple while I slept," he said.

"Thank Lina-you see I am here, having left well before you were awake. You did not sleep long, you must still be quite tired."

"Naval Surgeons are made of iron, I a.s.sure you-it is required."

She smiled again and turned to continue walking. He fell in step beside her, closer to the rocks, where the wind was less and they could speak without shouting.

"Will she die?" Eloise asked.

"I do not know."

"Have you told Chang?"

Svenson nodded.

"What did he say?"

"Not a thing."

"That is ridiculous," muttered Eloise. She shivered.

"Are you too cold?" Svenson asked.

She gestured vaguely with her hand at the waves.

"I have been walking..."

She stopped, and took a breath to start again.

"When we spoke on the stairs at Tarr Manor, when you had saved me-so long ago, a lifetime ago-well, since we have properly survived, we have not properly spoken again..."

Svenson smiled despite his desire to keep his feelings discreet. "There has been little time-"

"But we must," she insisted. "I told you that I came to Tarr Manor on the advice of Francis Xonck, the brother of Mrs. Trapping, my mistress-"

"To find Colonel Trapping. But you did not know Xonck was part of the Cabal, and had that very morning put the Colonel's body in the river."

"Please. I have been attempting to order these words for some hours-"

"But Eloise-"

"A train full of people came to Tarr Manor, to sell secrets about their betters to the Cabal-and I went with them. I was told they might know where the Colonel-"

"You cannot hold yourself to blame, if Mrs. Trapping authorized your journey."

"The point is that they collected these secrets-my secrets-into a gla.s.s book-"

"And the experience almost killed you," said Svenson. "You are uniquely sensitive to the blue gla.s.s-"

"Please," she said. "You must listen to me."

Svenson heard the tension in her voice and waited for her to go on.

"What I told them," she said, "whatever I had to offer...you must understand... I cannot remember it-"

"Of course not. Memories taken into a book are erased from a person's brain. We saw the same with those seduced to Harschmort- their minds were drained into a book and they left idiot husks. Yet perhaps for you this is even fortunate-if these were secrets you yourself were ashamed of sharing."

"No-you must understand. Confusing, intimate details of my life are missing-not about my employers, but about me. I have tried to make sense of what I do remember, but the more I try the more my fears have left me wretched! Every erasure is surrounded by sc.r.a.ps and clues that describe a woman I don't recognize. I truly do not know who I am!"

She was weeping-so suddenly, the Doctor did not know what to do or say-hands over her eyes. His own hands hovered before him, wanting to take her shoulders, to draw her in, but when he ought to have moved he did not and she turned away.

"I must apologize-"

"Not at all, you must allow me-"

"It is unfair to you, terribly unfair-please forgive me."

Before he could reply, Eloise was walking back where they had come, as fast as she could, her head shaking as if she was chiding herself bitterly-whether for what she felt or for attempting to speak at all he could not tell.

WHEN HE returned to the house, Chang seemed not to have moved, but as the Doctor climbed the wooden steps the Cardinal cleared his throat with a certain pointed speculation. Svenson looked into Chang's black lenses and felt again the extremity of the man's appearance and how narrow-like a South American bird that eats only a weevil found in the bark of a particular mangrove-his range of habitation actually was. Then Svenson considered his own condition and scoffed at the presumption of comparing Chang to a parrot. He himself might well be some sort of newt.

He could hear Eloise inside, speaking to Lina. The Doctor paused, and then tormented himself for pausing, only to be interrupted by a call from behind him: the fisherman, Sorge, limping across from the shed, accosting Svenson with yet another request for medical expertise-this time for a family in the village whose livestock were ailing after the storm. The Doctor dredged a hearty smile from the depths of his service at the Macklenburg Palace. He glanced at Chang. Chang was staring at Sorge. Sorge pretended the scowling figure in red did not exist. The Doctor stumped down the stairs toward their host.

AFTER THE livestock it had been the suppurated tooth of an elderly woman, and then setting the broken forearm of a fisherman injured during the storm. Svenson knew these errands established goodwill to compensate for the strangeness of their arrival, and also for the haunting figure of Cardinal Chang, whose company-the villagers made quite clear-was unanimously loathed. But the Doctor was left with little time for Eloise, and when he was free-brief moments in the kitchen or on the porch, perfectly willing for another walk to the sh.o.r.e-she became unaccountably busy herself.

At their evening meal, however, they must finally be together. Lina preferred the three of them to eat apart from the family, the better to isolate the cost of their board. Svenson was more than happy to oblige. He stood over the stove, watching the kettle, having offered to make tea. Chang pushed open the door, his arms full of split wood, which he carefully stacked next to the stove. The kettle began spitting steam and Svenson lifted it up, his hand wrapped in a rag, poured it into the open pot, and placed it on a cooler part of the stove. Eloise entered from Miss Temple's room. She caught his eye and smiled quickly, then gathered an armful of dishes to set the table. Svenson replaced the top on the teapot and stepped away, rubbing his temples with a sudden grimace. Chang smirked and sat, allowing Eloise to weave around him.

"You have my sympathies, Doctor," Chang said.

"Sympathies for what?" asked Eloise, setting out three metal mugs for tea.

"His headache, of course." Chang smiled. "The cruelties of tobacco deprivation..."

"O that," replied Eloise. "Hardly the best of habits."

"Tobacco quite sharpens the mind," observed the Doctor mildly.

"And yellows the teeth," replied Eloise, equally genial.

Lina came between them with a steaming pot of soup-her usual steep of potatoes, fish, cream, and pickled onion. Chang had announced he could not taste it at all, by way of explaining his regular second helpings. At least the bread was fresh. Svenson wondered if Eloise ever baked bread. His cousin Corinna had. Not that she had needed to, there had always been servants-but Corinna had enjoyed the work, laughing that a country woman ought to do things with her hands. Corinna... killed by blood fever while Svenson had been at sea. He tried to remember what sorts of bread she had made-all he recalled was the flour on her hands and forearms, and her satisfied smile.

"Sorge can get tobacco," said Lina, speaking to no one in particular.

"Sweet Jesus," said Svenson, far too eagerly.

"Fishermen chew it. But smoke also. Talk to Sorge."

She ran her eyes across the table to see if her obligations for their meal were met. A sharp nod to Eloise-they were-and Lina excused herself into the inner room. As soon as the door closed, Svenson held a chair for Eloise and pushed it in after she had settled herself. He took his own seat, then snapped up again to pour the tea.

"It seems you are saved," said Eloise, tartly.

"By the saint of foul habits, I am sure."

They did not speak while the soup was served and the bread pa.s.sed, each tearing off a piece with their hands.

"How is Miss Temple?" asked Chang.

"Unchanged."

Svenson dunked his bread in the broth, biting off the whole of the dampened portion.

"She dreams," said Eloise.

Chang looked up.

"She is delirious," said Svenson, chewing. Eloise shook her head.

"I am not so sure. We spoke very little together, at Harschmort- I do not presume to know her-yet I do know she holds her life quite tightly, with such purpose, for someone so young..."

She looked up to find both men watching her closely.

"I do not criticize," said Eloise. "Did either of you know she looked into a book? A gla.s.s book?"

"Not at all," answered Svenson. "Are you sure?"

"She said nothing," muttered Chang.

"But when would she have?" admitted Svenson. "What did she say about it?"

"Nothing at all, apart that she had done it-if I remember correctly she mentioned the fact to comfort me. But the book I looked into was empty-that book looked into me, if that does not sound mad."

"I saw the same at Harschmort," said Chang. "You are fortunate to retain your mind, Mrs. DuJong."

"It quite nearly killed her," said Svenson, a touch importantly.

"The point is that my gla.s.s book was empty," said Eloise, "its intent being to take my memories. But Miss Temple looked into a book that was full."

Doctor Svenson set down his spoon.

"My Lord. A full book... instead of the few incidents captured in a single gla.s.s card. One could experience entire lifetimes-and dear heaven, you would remember those experiences from other lives as things you yourself had done. An entire book... and depending on the memories it contained... and given the decadent tastes of the Comte..." The Doctor paused.

"So I suppose I merely wonder what she dreams," said Eloise quietly.