‘The wrong word, I’m afraid,’ Andrew said calmly. ‘I would have preferred, forgive me, or perhaps, stop, I submit. There are various possibilities, but begging for help is not one of them. No one will help you, Oliver, nor would any right-minded person wish to. But I’ll not clog my cesspits with you, excrement though you are. I have a simpler end in mind. If you do not agree to leave immediately and permanently, I doubt you’d survive a sudden fall down these stairs. Make your choice.’
‘I’ll leave, I’ll leave,’ stuttered Oliver Ingwood, his head now lower than his body and his feet just scraping the top step. Andrew held him tightly, half-strangled, elbows bent back close to breaking. He released him suddenly, flinging him to the boards. Elizabeth Ingwood’s brother jerked backwards, just escaping the headlong hurtle to the lower floor.
Andrew shouted behind him, ‘Is Lizzie alive?’
Felicia shouted back. ‘She is. But badly hurt.’
Andrew gazed down on the cowering man clinging to the balustrade at his feet. ‘Get out,’ he said. ‘The next time I see you, I will certainly kill you.’
Oliver Ingwood ran. Andrew waited until the front door slammed, then slumping his shoulders, trudged slowly back along the corridor to Elizabeth Ingwood’s chamber.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Elizabeth lay curled on the floor of her bedchamber. She was barefoot and her knees were drawn up to her chin, while her face was hidden by the loose strands of her hair. Her room was tiny, little larger than a spice cupboard, but did not smell as sweet. Old rags and debris clogged every corner, soot and dirt drifted across the litter, while one precious pane of glass in the window was broken and the wind whistled through like a shaft of ice. The puddled bloodstains splashed across the floorboards were the only bright colours in a place of drab despondency. Felicia and Tyballis bent over Elizabeth while Ralph held a torch, burning twigs that already scorched his fingers. Tyballis looked up as Andrew entered. ‘He has cut her,’ she said. ‘I don’t think she’ll die if we can keep out infection, but it was a most vicious attack. Elizabeth has fainted. Her face is – ruined.’
Andrew came forwards and leaned over, one knee to the ground. He lifted Elizabeth’s face carefully between both his hands and signalled to Ralph to bring the light closer. The torch flame danced, painting the cuts in vivid scarlet and black. Two gashes sliced the small pale face, one to the left and one to the right, each carved from the corner of her mouth across to the lobe of her ear. Andrew stared for a moment, speaking very softly and only to himself: ‘These cannot be sutured, nor cauterised.’ He stood again, his hands sticky with her blood, and this time spoke to Ralph. ‘Get the others. We’ll make up a bed for her in the hall beside the fire.’
They scurried, preparing, discussing. Ralph called for his brother, and between them they carried Elizabeth’s heavy woollen mattress downstairs. It thumped, step by step, and was dragged to the hearth. ‘It’s rather damp,’ Ralph said. ‘I’d be pleased to give her mine instead. It’s a better bed.’
‘In this heat it will dry soon enough,’ Andrew shook his head. ‘Organise fresh sheeting and blankets. Her own are too badly soiled.’ He turned to Tyballis, who carried an armful of pillows. ‘There is clean linen in my bedchamber. No doubt you know where.’
She did and hurried off. Felicia said, ‘Dear Jon – tired, you know, from so much exertion – is asleep in our chamber. But Ellen can tear up bandages, and I have an excellent salve that I’ve used many times on the children’s cuts and grazes. It has always kept out infection.’
Tyballis and Felicia made up the bed on the floor. Andrew stood waiting, his back to the fire. He held Elizabeth cradled in his arms, her head curled against his chest. The blood still dripped from the open wounds and as his velvets turned black and sticky. Looking up from the floor as she tucked in the sheets, Tyballis swallowed hard. It had not been long ago that Andrew held her in just that way, and embraced her warm and safe and precious. She spoke to the floor, a half-whisper. ‘The bed’s ready. I think it will be quite comfortable and not too damp.’
Elizabeth wore only her shift and it was badly torn, outworn and thin, the linen almost transparent. As Andrew bent to lay her down, his fingers grasped her uncovered breasts. Tyballis sat on the ground beside the mattress and watched as, oblivious to where he touched, Andrew positioned and steadied the patient, making no effort to avoid intimacy, as if he accepted the familiarity of Elizabeth’s body. Then his hands were between her thighs, straightening her legs, then pulled up the blankets, enclosing her in modesty again. Tyballis sighed.
Andrew looked up suddenly and regarded her. He said softly, ‘She will need a great deal of looking after. Would you mind taking some share?’
‘I want to help.’ Tyballis smiled with studied sincerity. ‘Do you have any idea – will she be all right?’
Elizabeth opened her eyes, the black stare first uncomprehending. Then the pain kicked hard and she remembered the terror. Andrew once again knelt over her. ‘You’ll live, my sweet,’ he said softly. ‘And these are the last scars your brother will ever inflict on you. They’ll fade in time. The pain must be borne for now, but that will also fade.’
‘Scars?’
‘He has cut your face. What do you feel?’ She was crying. Frightened of stretching disfigured lips, Elizabeth turned her head away. Andrew turned her gently back to face him. ‘No, my dear. Don’t hide. I see only the woman I befriended long ago. There’s no difference to me.’ He looked up and spoke to Ralph. ‘In my kitchens are potions of henbane water and poppy syrup, labelled tincture of hemp, another of willow bark. I also need salves, one of alum, another of goose grease. They are kept in a small trunk under the main window. The trunk is locked, and Tyballis will bring me the keys. I shall unlock it for you, since the method is particular. But be careful not to touch an unlabelled package of white powder you will find amongst the others.’ He nodded to Tyballis. ‘The key, my love. I believe you know them all.’
Tyballis gulped. ‘How?’
He didn’t smile. ‘I know whatever changes occur in my rooms, what is touched, and what is moved. Fingerprints in dust tell stories and I know at once if someone explores the places I keep secret. You’ve cleaned away the dust, and that told me more. Quickly now, bring the key.’
She was not at all sure if she knew which was which, but bustled off to Andrew’s chambers. Embarrassed and flustered, she hung to one comfort: although speaking with considerable affection to Elizabeth, he had not called her love. He had used that word only to Tyballis.
Felicia was already in the kitchen when Andrew entered with the keys to the medicine coffer. She was boiling a little wine and mixing the condensed syrup with egg white for ointments. Ellen sat wide-eyed on the cold tiles under the bench, tearing an old sheet into bandages. Andrew waited for Felicia to leave and then unlocked the chest.
‘We could never stitch such wounds,’ Felicia whispered to Ralph as they hurried back to the hall, ‘so her face will be marked forever. Mister Cobham said her scars will fade but I’m quite sure they will not. So, what of her work? She’ll never find clients again, even if she lowers her price. Or do such men not care about the woman’s face? Hidden in some dark alley for a penny, perhaps. But who can live on that?’
‘Then she won’t work the streets anymore,’ Ralph muttered. ‘And will be the better for it.’
That night Tyballis returned to her own chamber and a solitary bed. She was cold and slept badly. She thought she heard Elizabeth crying. Then she realised she was crying herself.