The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

A maid is sitting beside him in a wooden chair, a large book open in her lap. She can’t be more than twenty-three, small enough to tuck into a pocket, with blonde hair spilling from beneath her cap. She looks up as we enter, slamming the book closed and leaping to her feet when she realises who we are, hastily smoothing out her white apron.

‘Miss Evelyn,’ she stammers, eyes on the floor. ‘I didn’t know you’d be visiting.’

‘My friend here needed to see Mr Collins,’ says Evelyn.

The maid’s brown eyes flick towards me, before pinning themselves to the ground once more.

‘I’m sorry, miss, he hasn’t stirred all morning,’ says the maid. ‘The doctor gave him some tablets to help him sleep.’

‘And he can’t be woken?’

‘Haven’t tried, miss, but you made an awful racket coming up them stairs and he didn’t bat an eyelid. Don’t know what else would do it, if that didn’t. Dead to the world, he is.’

The maid’s eyes find me once again, lingering long enough to suggest some sort of familiarity, before resuming their former contemplation of the floor.

‘I’m sorry, but do we know each other?’ I ask.

‘No, sir, not really, it’s just... I served you at dinner last night.’

‘Did you bring me a note?’ I ask excitedly.

‘Not me, sir, it was Madeline.’

‘Madeline?’

‘My lady’s maid,’ interrupts Evelyn. ‘The house was short-staffed so I sent her down to the kitchen to help out. Well, that’s fortunate’ – she checks her wristwatch – ‘she’s taking refreshments out to the hunters, but she’ll be back around three p.m. We can question her together when she returns.’

I turn my attention back to the maid.

‘Do you know anything more about the note?’ I ask. ‘Its contents, perhaps?’

The maid shakes her head, wringing her hands. The poor creature looks quite on the spot, and, taking pity on her, I offer my thanks and leave.

7

We’re following the road to the village, the trees drawing closer with every step. It’s not quite what I’d anticipated. The map in the study conjured images of some grand labour, a boulevard hewn from the forest. The reality is little more than a wide dirt track, wretched with potholes and fallen branches. The forest hasn’t been tamed so much as bartered with, the Hardcastles winning the barest of concessions from their neighbour.

I don’t know our destination, but Evelyn believes we can intercept Madeline on her way back from the hunt. Secretly, I suspect she’s simply looking for an excuse to prolong her absence from the house. Not that any subterfuge is necessary. This last hour in Evelyn’s company is the first time since waking that I’ve felt myself a whole person, rather than the remnants of one. Out here, in the wind and rain, with a friend by my side, I’m happier than I have been all day.

‘What do you believe Madeline can tell you?’ asks Evelyn, picking a branch off the path and tossing it into the forest.

‘The note that she brought me last night lured me out into the woods so somebody could attack me,’ I say.

‘Attack!’ interrupts Evelyn, shocked. ‘Here? Why?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m hoping Madeline can tell me who sent the note. She might even have peeked at the message.’

‘There’s no “might” about it,’ says Evelyn. ‘Madeline was in Paris with me. She’s loyal and she makes me laugh, but she’s an atrocious maid. She probably considers peeking at other people’s mail a perk of the job.’

‘That’s very lenient of you,’ I say.

‘I have to be, I can’t pay very well,’ she says. ‘And after she’s revealed the contents of the message, what then?’

‘I tell the police,’ I say. ‘And hopefully put this matter to bed.’

Turning left at a crooked signpost, we follow a small trail into the woods, dirt tracks criss-crossing each other until the way back is impossible to discern.

‘Do you know where you’re going?’ I ask nervously, swiping a low-hanging branch from my face. The last time I entered this forest my mind never made it back.

‘We’re following these,’ she says, tugging at a fragment of yellow material nailed to a tree. It’s similar to the red one I found when I stumbled upon Blackheath this morning, the memory only serving to unsettle me further.

‘They’re markers,’ she says. ‘The groundskeepers use them to navigate in the woods. Don’t worry, I’ll not lead you too far astray.’

The words are barely out of her mouth when we enter a small clearing with a stone well at its centre. The wooden shelter has collapsed, the iron wheel that once raised the bucket now left to rust in the mud, almost buried by fallen leaves. Evelyn claps in delight, laying an affectionate hand on the mossy stone. She’s clearly hoping I haven’t noticed the slip of paper tucked between the cracks, or the way her fingers are now covering it. Friendship compels me to play along and I hastily avert my attention when she looks back towards me. She must have some suitor in the house and I’m ashamed to say I’m jealous of this secret correspondence and the person on the other side of it.