I surprise myself by groaning at his mistake.
‘You know chess?’ Evelyn asks me, her eyes still fixed on the board.
‘It appears so,’ I say.
‘Then perhaps you would play after Lord Ravencourt?’
Ignorant of my warning, Ravencourt’s knight swaggers into Evelyn’s trap, only to be cut down by a lurking rook. Panic takes hold of his play as Evelyn urges her pieces forward, hurrying him when he should be patient. The game’s over in four moves.
‘Thank you for the diversion, Lord Ravencourt,’ says Evelyn, as he topples his king. ‘Now, I believe you had somewhere else to be.’
It’s a curt dismissal and with an awkward bow, Ravencourt disentangles himself from the table and limps out of the room, offering me the slightest of nods on the way.
Evelyn’s distaste chases him through the door, but it evaporates as she gestures to the seat opposite.
‘Please,’ she says.
‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ I say. ‘I’m looking for a maid who brought me a message at the dinner table last night, but I know nothing more of her. I was hoping you could help.’
‘Our butler could,’ she says, restoring the pieces of her bedraggled army to their line. Each is placed precisely at the centre of a square, its face turned towards the enemy. Clearly, there’s no place for cowards on this board.
‘Mr Collins knows every step every servant takes in this house, or so he leads them to believe,’ she says. ‘Unfortunately, he was assaulted this morning. Doctor Dickie had him moved to the gatehouse so he could rest more comfortably. I’ve actually been meaning to look in on him myself, perhaps I could escort you.’
I momentarily hesitate, weighing the danger. One can only assume that if Evelyn Hardcastle intended me harm, she wouldn’t announce our intention to go off together in front of an entire room of witnesses.
‘That would be very kind,’ I respond, earning a flicker of a smile.
Evelyn stands, either not noticing or pretending not to notice the curious glances nudging us. There are French doors onto the gardens, but we forgo them, departing instead from the entrance hall, so we might collect our coats and hats from our bedrooms first. Evelyn’s still tugging hers on as we step out of Blackheath into the blustery, cold afternoon.
‘May I ask what happened to Mr Collins?’ I say, wondering if perhaps his assault might be linked to my own last night.
‘Apparently he was set upon by one of our guests, an artist named Gregory Gold,’ she says, knotting her thick scarf. ‘It was an unprovoked attack by all accounts, and Gold managed to thrash him pretty soundly before somebody intervened. I should warn you, Doctor, Mr Collins has been heavily sedated, so I’m not sure how helpful he’ll be.’
We’re following the gravel driveway that leads to the village and, once again, I’m struck by the peculiarity of my condition. At some point in the last few days, I must have arrived along this very road, happy and excited, or perhaps annoyed at the distance and isolation. Did I understand the danger I was in, or did it come later during my stay? So much of me is lost, memories simply blown aside like the leaves on the ground, and yet here I stand, remade. I wonder if Sebastian Bell would approve of this man I’ve become. If we’d even get along?
Without a word, Evelyn links an arm through my own, a warm smile transforming her face. It’s as though a fire has been kindled within, her eyes sparkling with life, banishing the shrouded woman of earlier.
‘It’s so good to be out of that house,’ she cries, tipping her face to meet the rain. ‘Thank goodness you came along when you did, Doctor. Honestly, a minute later and you’d have found me with my head in the grate.’
‘Lucky I stopped by then,’ I say, somewhat startled by her change in mood. Sensing my confusion, Evelyn laughs lightly.
‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ she says. ‘I loathe getting to know people, so whenever I meet somebody I like, I just assume a friendship immediately. It saves a great deal of time in the long run.’
‘I can see the appeal,’ I say. ‘May I ask what I did to earn a favourable impression?’
‘Only if you allow me to be frank in my answer.’
‘You’re not being frank now?’
‘I was trying to be polite, but, you’re right, I never seem to land on the right side of the fence,’ she says with mock regret. ‘Well, to be frank, I like your pensiveness, Doctor. You strike me as a man who’d much rather be somewhere else, a feeling I can wholeheartedly sympathise with.’
‘Am I to assume you’re not enjoying your homecoming?’
‘Oh, this hasn’t been my home in a very long time,’ she says, skipping over a large puddle. ‘I’ve lived in Paris for the last nineteen years, ever since my brother was killed.’
‘What about the women I saw you with in the Sun Room, are they not your friends?’
‘They arrived this morning and, truth be told, I didn’t recognise a single one of them. The children I knew have shed their skins and slithered into society. I’m as much a stranger here as yourself.’
‘At least you’re not a stranger to yourself, Miss Hardcastle,’ I say. ‘Surely you can take some solace in that?’
‘Quite the contrary,’ she says, looking at me. ‘I imagine it would be rather splendid to wander away from myself for a little while. I envy you.’
‘Envy?’
‘Why not?’ she says, wiping the rain from her face. ‘You’re a soul stripped bare, Doctor. No regrets, no wounds, none of the lies we tell ourselves so we can look in the mirror each morning. You’re –’ she bites her lip, searching for the word – ‘honest.’
‘Another word for that is “exposed”,’ I say.
‘Am I to take it you’re not enjoying your homecoming?’
There’s a crook in her smile, a slight twist of the lips that could easily be damning, yet somehow comes across as conspiratorial.
‘I’m not the man I’d hoped to be,’ I say quietly, surprised by my own candour. Something about this woman puts me at ease, though for the life of me I can’t tell what it is.
‘How so?’ she asks.
‘I’m a coward, Miss Hardcastle,’ I sigh. ‘Forty years of memories wiped away and that’s what I find lurking beneath it all. That’s what remains to me.’
‘Oh, do call me Evie, that way I can call you Sebastian and tell you not to fret about your flaws. We all have them, and if I were newly born into this world, I might be cautious too,’ she says, squeezing my arm.
‘You’re very kind, but this is something deeper, instinctive.’
‘Well, so what if you are?’ she asks. ‘There are worse things to be. At least you’re not mean-spirited or cruel. And now you get to choose, don’t you? Instead of assembling yourself in the dark like the rest of us – so that you wake up one day with no idea of how you became this person – you can look at the world, at the people around you, and choose the parts of your character you want. You can say, “I’ll have that man’s honesty, that woman’s optimism”, as if you’re shopping for a suit on Saville Row.’
‘You’ve made my condition into a gift,’ I say, feeling my spirits lift.
‘Well, what else would you call a second chance?’ she asks. ‘You don’t like the man you were, very well, be somebody else. There’s nothing stopping you, not any more. As I said, I envy you. The rest of us are stuck with our mistakes.’
I have no response to that, though one is not immediately required. We’ve arrived upon two giant fence posts, fractured angels blaring their noiseless horns on top. The gatehouse is set back among the trees on our left, splashes of its red-tile roof showing through the dense canopy. A path leads towards a peeling green door, which is swollen with age and riddled with cracks. Ignoring it, Evelyn pulls me by the fingers towards the back of the house, pushing through branches so overgrown they’re touching the crumbling brickwork.