Dead of Winter - James Goss [9]
Mr Pond continued with his abrupt questioning. ‘But that’s not all, is it?’
Perdita looked up from smoothing down a rug and met his impudent stare. ‘Monsieur?’
‘I’ve heard the sea sings to them.’
Perdita shook her head.
‘And I’ve heard that people come from the sea and dance with them.’
Perdita permitted herself a smile. The scoundrel!
‘Am I wrong?’
Perdita gestured at the slumbering invalids. ‘As you can see, monsieur, there is no singing, no dancing here… My husband’s patients are too ill to move and are not to be disturbed.’ She continued, her voice as firm and hard as it could be. ‘Perhaps you would care to go in, monsieur? It is not long since your accident. I would hate for you to fall ill.’
‘Was that a threat?’ the rogue said, as good as accusing her.
She laughed off his rudeness. ‘I am afraid I don’t understand.’
‘I’m sure you don’t,’ said Mr Pond sourly.
‘Please, monsieur, I entreat you to go in, for your health. You have my guarantee that you will miss nothing… There will be no dancing on this beach tonight.’
‘Is that so?’ Mr Pond became even more outrageous. ‘But what if I were to ask you to dance?’
My wife quashed his impudence simply and firmly. ‘I do not dance.’
Mr Pond stood there for a moment, looking at the patients, and at The Sea. It was a cold evening and the canvas of the deckchairs started to flutter like the sails of a ship. My wife held her ground, equally firmly, until attendants arrived to fetch the patients in.
At that, Mr Pond turned to go.
My wife’s voice halted him. ‘You interest us, sir.’
‘I’m sure I do,’ said Mr Pond as he walked away.
When Perdita relayed this conversation to me, I was chilled to the bone. There is something terrible about these three people. I know it. What are they up to? I should never, never have taken them in! But Kosov assures me that they must be kept close. The Sea is very interested in them.
I must find out more about them, I must. So I have invited Dr Smith to dinner.
A Letter from Mr Nevil
St Christophe
5th December 1783
My Dear Octavius,
Greetings, etc., you old fraud. How dare you send me here to this school for charlatans? Outrageous! As if I don’t pay enough for your quackery, you ship me off here at vast expense and inconvenience to be practised on by foreign fools who speak English indifferently and balderdash fluently.
Do you know their idea of treating my poor old lungs? To freeze the devils like a sorbet! Indeed, that’s God’s honest truth – if I let them have their way, they’d plonk me down on the seashore on a flimsy canvas chair with a rug and a periodical. It is, need I remind you, December. I would be inhaling ice! They call it fresh sea air, I call it more work for the undertaker.
The society here is paltry and threadbare at best. Accounts are given that a Russian prince is also staying here, but he’s retreated to his rooms. I must say, I do not blame him.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, I must share common rooms with the insane. St Christophe? St Bethlehem Asylum more like – there is a gibbering lunatic in a most remarkable necktie who can only run around prattling that the mist is talking to him, they let young women run around without check, and the food… oh the food is disgusting.
The goggle-eyed fool with the necktie turned out to not only be a medical man (no surprise, dear Octavius – you are all fools), but also, to my everlasting shame, a fellow Englishman. This Dr Smith had no sooner seen me this morning than he insisted on sitting down at my table and disturbing my cheese-pairing breakfast (some kind of empty pastry – blooming thing was so light a strong breeze would blow it away).
He sat opposite me, grinning like a simpleton, evidently awaiting some kind of pleasantry. He looked as nervous as a courting spinster.
‘Well?’ I demanded.
‘Good morning,’ the impudent man said with a nervous lick