Page 10 of All of Us Murderers

Six

Zeb couldn’t regain his concentration after that.

He wasn’t sure if he should go after Gideon and try to make things better somehow, or go back to Wynn and beg to be absolved from his promise, or what on earth he could do except take a vow of silence, because every time he opened his mouth he made things worse.

He’d have liked to get out for a proper walk, but the light was already dimming.

Instead, he flipped through a few books, failed to settle on one, and went up to his room early, with a vague idea of not being so late for dinner this time.

It was six in the evening by now, and pitch dark.

The gaslight was low, with an irritating faint flicker that gave Zeb a mildly seasick feeling, unless that was the wallpaper.

It was very quiet indeed, as though nobody else was staying in the corridor, or the wing, or the house.

Not that Zeb wanted to find himself closer to his relatives. If they had bedrooms in the other wing, that suited him very well. But the silence of the halls felt strange all the same.

He was more certain of his way to his room now, and found it with only one wrong turning. He came down the corridor, aware of his footsteps on the floorboards, with a rather library feeling of making too much noise. The portraits watched him as he passed.

His room had had a fire lit against the winter chill: this house was cold to the bone. The gaslight was burning low and Zeb fiddled with it to see if he could get it a bit brighter, but failed.

He couldn’t stop the flickering either. It sent shadows jumping across the ceiling and up the walls, and over Walter Wyckham’s leering face in that ghastly portrait, as though his painted expression were changing.

Zeb attempted to ignore it as he dressed, failed, made a noise of annoyance, and took the damn thing off the wall.

He didn’t want Walter Wyckham staring at him in his drawers.

The room felt slightly less oppressive without Walter’s presence. Zeb started the laborious business of shirt studs, and then the light flickered so dramatically, he feared the gas plant was failing and he’d find himself in the dark.

At that moment, he heard footsteps in the corridor, approaching his room. A human presence seemed welcome right now, even given the assortment of humans available, and he stepped to the door without thinking, pulled it wide, and looked out.

There was nobody in the corridor. Zeb looked up and down. Nobody there.

He shrugged, stepped back in, and started to pull the door closed. As he did, the footsteps went past the door.

What the blazes.

He looked out again, and this time, he heard the footsteps going by the other way. They echoed on the wooden floor of the completely empty corridor.

“What—?” he said aloud, and the gaslight dropped almost to nothing as if in response. It was very dark and, he realised, very cold.

Zeb stepped back into his room and shut the door. He stood there for a moment, concentrating on his breathing. Don’t rush off. Take a moment. Breathe.

Outside the door, the footsteps passed once more, this time fading into the distance. A moment later, the gaslight brightened perceptibly. Zeb exhaled, and relaxed his hands, which he seemed to have balled into fists.

It was just noises. Probably squirrels—they got into old houses and made an astonishing racket.

Or someone was on the floor above and the sound carried oddly.

Or even something to do with the gas pipes and not footsteps at all.

That was probably it, actually, and that would be why the two had coincided.

Zeb straightened his back and returned to his shirt studs, and if his fingers were a little unsteady, nobody else needed to know.

***

When he came down for dinner that evening, Gideon was already there, sherry in hand, face tense.

Zeb didn’t try to speak to him, or want to speak to anyone else.

He wandered around the room instead and pretended to reexamine the pictures.

He kept one hand in his pocket, running the rosary beads through his fingers, pressing the sharp corners of the crucifix against his thumb.

Elise was as elegant and poised as ever. She had decided to be charming tonight, and she was very charming indeed, speaking to Jessamine with a warm kindness that couldn’t be faulted, yet made the younger woman look like a gauche schoolgirl. Bram watched with a fixed smile.

Colonel Dash had attached himself to the women. He was a fine figure of a man: upright, with decided charm. He’d doubtless been a lady-killer in his youth, and he wasn’t bad in his forties.

Hawley arrived not much later, with a slightly blurred air that suggested the sherry wasn’t his first of the evening.

He didn’t look quite as smug as previously.

Possibly he hadn’t enjoyed thundering along after Jessamine and being reminded he was no longer a spry youth, if he’d ever been a spry youth.

Zeb imagined he’d mostly dodged games lessons in favour of smoking in the bushes.

He beckoned Zeb with a jerk of the chin. Zeb sidled up with his sherry. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Hardly, dear boy. Are you?”

Zeb shrugged. Hawley gave him a sideways look. “You and I would benefit from a conversation, Zebby. I will find you later. Ah, our genial host.”

Wynn arrived, and the party made the sort of scintillating conversation you got when nobody had done anything all day. If this was what the next fortnight held, they’d all die of boredom. Zeb wasn’t worried: the odds were there would be a screaming row within twenty-four hours.

They moved through to the dining table, where everything went in a perfectly civilised manner through the first course. Bram held forth about international politics; Colonel Dash made intelligent interventions. Zeb kept his mouth shut, except to eat his vegetable soup. It was oversalted.

The conversation rambled on as that was removed and replaced by a chicken fricassee.

Bram looked a bit waxen as that was served.

He was something of a gourmet, reviewing the occasional restaurant along with plays and exhibitions, since apparently the British newspaper-reading public had a bottomless appetite for his thoughts.

He had doubtless expected a much more generous and varied table, not to mention better cooking.

Elise took only a spoonful of the fricassee. “Not eating?” Hawley said. “Very wise. It does become harder to keep one’s figure.” He glinted at Jessamine. “That is a long way in your future. Never, if you continue your exercises.”

“Do you exercise, dear?” Elise asked Jessamine, ignoring Hawley. “That is a very suitable recreation for girls; it is so sad when we leave that behind for other pursuits. What do you like best to play at? Lawn tennis or lacrosse?”

“She runs,” Hawley replied, as Jessamine scowled like the schoolgirl she probably didn’t want to be any more. “And gloriously. Like a nymph, an Ariadne.”

“Atalanta,” Bram said. “Ariadne was the weaver. The spider,” he added, with a nasty glance at Zeb.

“Atalanta, then,” Hawley snapped. “She is remarkably fleet of foot. I should love to paint you in motion.” He let his eyes go out of focus and waved a palm in a significant way.

“A canvas of movement, of speed, a transient moment of beauty held for eternity. I can see it. ‘Jessamine, Running.’” He gave her his most charming smile.

“Will you let me capture you in flight?”

Jessamine’s eyes and mouth rounded. Elise’s face barely moved, yet she still managed to give a very strong impression of a cat about to hack up a hairball, and who could blame her. Gideon’s expression was blank in the very specific way he had when his opinions would be a sackable offence.

“I dare say you might paint Jessamine, if she cares to be painted,” Wynn said.

“Within the bounds of decency, I trust,” Dash added. “No wish to offend you, Hawley, but I read the reviews of your exhibition. Sounded rather too modern for me.”

“The human form has been considered a suitable subject for art for centuries,” Hawley observed, still smiling. “I hope you will judge my work on its merits, not on the sneers of those false moralists who conceal their own rottenness with a facade of outrage at others.”

Bram swelled with fury. “To judge your work on its merits, Hawley—”

“Let’s not talk about art,” Zeb said loudly.

“Don’t interrupt! You have been told a hundred times—”

“Let’s not talk about art,” Elise said. “It’s hardly a subject in which Jessamine can join. Have you ever been to an exhibition, my dear?”

Jessamine flushed. “No.”

“Oh, so many pleasures await you in London. The galleries, the theatres, the fashions. You really must let me take you shopping.”

“Are you going to London?” Zeb asked.

“We have suggested she come and stay with us,” Elise said as Jessamine opened her mouth to reply.

“There is so much for her to learn. New experiences, new friends—why, she has a whole new world awaiting her. There is nothing so delightful as to be a pretty girl in London, and I should love to have a little cousin to spoil.” She glittered at Jessamine.

“When you are dressed, you will be very much in demand.”

By a lot of men who weren’t Hawley, Zeb, or Dash. Zeb tipped his mental hat to Elise’s strategy. Hawley’s expression soured like milk.

“We can discuss that after the end of this month,” Wynn said. “After all, her fiancé might wish to take her to London.”

“I trust he will,” Elise said, eyes flicking between Zeb and Hawley. “I trust she will demand to see all the sights and meet all the best people. Have you ever been to the theatre, my dear?”

“The pantomime. And Shakespeare,” Jessamine admitted, with downcast gaze.

Elise laughed musically. “We can do rather better than that. Modern plays are so marvellous.”