Consciousness came and went, and time passed. For a while, she believed that she was dead. She was floating like a wraith above her own body, which lay on the bed looking small and shrunken, drowned in a sea of flowers. Worse still, she thought she saw the young photographer Mr Beckler. She had met him last January when he had insulted her in a manner that was so distressing, she had spoken of it to no-one. In her imagination he had come to take a portrait of her corpse, hoping to capture on his glass plates an image of her angry spirit. In her vision, her dead eyes snapped open, creating alarm in the onlookers, and she returned to her body with a shock.
Slowly, Mina came to herself and found that she was alive. It was almost as if her desire to chase the elusive truth of Mr Holt was the only thing keeping her in the world.
She fell at last into a deep healing sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
When Mina next awoke, she was content for some time simply to take pleasure from the fact that she was not drenched in perspiration, her head no longer imitated the beating of a drum and her breathing while not precisely painless, was much less of an effort. She became aware that a hand was gently holding hers and opened her eyes. Sitting beside the bed was her younger brother Richard, the handsome scapegrace of the family. He usually lodged with their older brother Edward in London, and his visits to Brighton tended to be impetuous and unannounced. Exasperating as he so often was, it always warmed her heart to see him.
‘Mina?’ he asked, hopefully. She squeezed his hand, and he laughed in relief. ‘Darling girl, you have given us all such a fright! How are you now?’
Mina considered this. ‘Thirsty,’ she whispered.
Miss Cherry was at her side in a moment, offering a cup, and Mina drank deeply, with only a slight cough marring the exercise, then sank back onto the pillows with a sigh. ‘I think I would like to sit up.’
Miss Cherry placed a hand to her forehead and smiled. ‘The fever is gone. Would you assist me, Mr Scarletti?’
Mina was carefully raised into a better position, then Miss Cherry went to refill the cup from the carafe on the night table, but there was not enough left. ‘I’ll fetch some fresh,’ she said, and left the room.
‘I suppose you know that Nellie is abroad at present?’ Mina asked.
In the recent past Richard’s visits to Brighton had by some extraordinary chance coincided with the absence on business of Nellie’s husband, John Jordan, who was a partner in the fashionable clothing emporium of Jordan and Conroy. Richard and Nellie had been intimate friends before her marriage, and the friendship had continued subsequently to an extent that society would have considered inadvisable and a suspiciously jealous Mr Jordan unacceptable.
‘I do, yes,’ said Richard, ‘She and her horrid husband are in Italy. Darling girl, I came to see you. Dr Hamid wrote and told us you were unwell, and I came as soon as I could.’
Mina was unusually touched by his concern. ‘It was very good of you to come. I suppose Edward is occupied with business as usual?’
‘Oh yes, he seems always to be working in that drab office, or talking about his wedding. He has almost no time for anything else. Miss Hooper has him well in harness, but he doesn’t seem to see it. I never saw such a girl. She seems so meek, but she can crack a whip with a flutter of her eyelids.’
‘I wouldn’t insist that Edward abandons such a paragon,’ said Mina, who, to her great shame, was rather fonder of Richard and his foolishness than of their sensible but duller older brother. ‘I think if I was to find all the family standing in a circle about my bed it would not be a good sign. But, tell me, how is Enid? I assume there is still no word of Mr Inskip and when he might return?’
Richard rolled his eyes. ‘No, and the matter is a constant trial to her, as it is to us all. I do try to be sympathetic, but it is very hard when so many of her woes she brought upon herself.’
Mina reflected sorrowfully on the tribulations of her vain and wilful younger sister and found it hard to disagree. Enid’s husband, whom she had married on a whim and grown to despise was negotiating some property business with a Romanian count and had spent much of the autumn and winter hemmed in by snow and wolves and fighting an unnamed indisposition. Letters had been scarce, and he had not yet been apprised of Enid’s blossoming condition which was incompatible with the period of his absence. The previous autumn Enid’s undisciplined and selfish nature had led to indiscreet assignations with Mr Arthur Wallace Hope, the famous explorer and crusading spiritualist whose lectures had taken Brighton by storm. Too late, she had discovered that he had been associating with other foolish wives and cared nothing for any of his conquests. Some two or three months were required before Enid’s delicate situation could be restored.
‘She prays for her poor husband daily,’ Richard added, with a meaningful look which suggested that Enid’s most fervent wish was for Mr Inskip to continue to be abroad for as long as possible, and for preference never return at all.
‘How long will you be able to stay?’
‘Oh, Edward said as you were so ill, I could stay as long as I liked,’ said Richard, airily. ‘I could do with some sea air — anything that doesn’t smell of ink or pencil.’
‘Really? That is kind of him.’ Richard, whose ambition in life was to become rich without it costing him any effort, had abandoned his recent attempt to become a playwright on discovering the profession to be both arduous and scant of remuneration. He had been working initially as a clerk and later a sketch artist for a ladies’ magazine. The Society Journal was a product of the Scarletti publishing house, which had been managed by Edward and the senior partner Mr Greville since their father’s death.
Mina was well aware that Edward had only offered Richard a position in the company from brotherly loyalty without any anticipation that he would ever discover the satisfaction of hard work. It was typical of Richard, she thought, that drawing, which had once been the idle amusement he had resorted to when bored by the clerkly tasks he was supposed to be doing had lost its appeal for him once it became his occupation. His extended absence from the office was unlikely to be a handicap to the business, which had however provided his longest ever period of gainful employment.
Mina wanted to question Richard further, but the conversation had taken all her slight energy, and as Miss Cherry returned to her side, she was obliged to accept that for the time being at least, her principal occupation would be resting.
The next morning, after a peaceful night, the sound of the postman’s daily delivery alerted Mina’s attention. ‘Are there any letters for me?’ she asked Miss Cherry.
‘I don’t believe so,’ said Miss Cherry, but she turned her face away as she spoke.
‘Not even one from Mrs Vardy?’
‘I am sure I have not seen any letters at all.’
By the time Richard visited her again, Mina was quite certain that there were letters and felt frustrated at not being allowed to see them. Fortunately, Miss Cherry understood that Mina might wish to converse with her brother alone and went to speak to cook on the subject of chicken broth.
‘Richard, tell me something,’ said Mina, urgently as soon as the nurse had gone.
‘Careful, my dear, Dr Hamid has said you are to remain very quiet and still, and not to worry yourself about anything.’