The old woman’s wooden dentures slipped a little as she smiled. ‘An exaggeration, but I did perform at a few soirées, which, I’m told, were memorable.’
‘Perhaps you could play for us now?’
As Madeleine Huntington took her place at the harp, the rest of the guests broke into small clusters in order to exchange the gossip that was an essential commodity—who was courting whom, which Scottish estates one had to be invited to for the hunting season, the latest mode for riding skirts and so on.
‘Gwen, have you heard about the Tillings scandal?’ Lady Morgan leaned in close to Lady Gillingham. ‘Apparently Countess Tillings finally tired of the Count’s numerous liaisons. By fortuitous coincidence, the Count was a frequent user of Fowler’s Solution—for aphrodisiac purposes naturally…’
‘Naturally.’
‘Which, as some of the ladies here know, contains arsenic and is fatal in large quantities…’
Lady Gillingham’s eyebrows shot up in mock horror. ‘She didn’t?’
Lady Morgan tapped her nose with her fan. ‘I have it on entirely reliable authority—directly from her maid. Of course, they can’t prove a thing.’
‘Well then, we must have a tea party to comfort the newly bereaved widow,’ Lady Gillingham concluded merrily as she reached for a sandwich.
‘Can it not be proved he was poisoned?’ Lavinia interjected, fascinated.
Lady Morgan, embarrassed by the young wife’s blunt indiscretion, glanced around to see if anyone had overheard.
‘Poisoned? Goodness, child, the gentleman merely met with an accident, a natural consequence of his use of the drug. Why on earth would there be an investigation? My dear, you have so much to learn.’
Lady Gillingham, determined to steer the conversation into safer waters, leaned forward. ‘You will attend the hunt this Sunday, Lady Morgan? You were sorely missed last week.’
‘I would, except I have lost my companion and it really does not suit a woman of my position to be seen unaccompanied.’
‘Frances, dear, just cultivate a replacement. The city is full of them, and we have all learned to tolerate the mercantile class.’
‘No, Mr Hamish Campbell was my final folly. I have arrived at the point in my life when I must surrender myself fully to the pursuit of charitable acts.’
‘There are worse fates than having a fountain dedicated to oneself.’
‘Indeed, a seat at the opera would be worse.’
They all laughed, but Lavinia’s unhappiness undermined the frivolity of the moment. She fidgeted constantly and an unnatural brightness glimmered about her eyes—a consequence of an overuse of laudanum. Although she was painfully aware that her trembling hands and propensity to interject impolitely betrayed her, Lavinia could not help herself—she was no longer in control.
‘Well then, surely we can expect your company on Sunday, Mrs Huntington?’ Lady Gillingham enquired.
‘I’m afraid my husband has asked the aforementioned Mr Campbell to accompany him, so I shall take the opportunity to promenade with my dear little son through the park.’
‘The Colonel is seen with that young man awfully frequently these days. Why, only the other day Lord Birley remarked how Hamish Campbell is as close to Huntington as a son, “but twice as beloved”.’
Lady Gillingham glanced at Lavinia, hoping to catch a nuance of expression that would betray a greater meaning.
Lavinia winced, then allowed the laudanum to mute her flooding anxiety.
‘My husband has a penchant for nurturing aspiring young scientists,’ she replied, and fixed her expression into a grimace of pleasantry.
‘As he should.’ Lady Gillingham
, trailing silk, floated away to another group of women.
Lavinia spent the following day in James’s study. She had placed a specimen of the root bark from Mimosa hostilis and a section of ayahuasca vine, used by the Bakairi to make their Jurema brew, on a small stand and was sketching it studiously while Aunt Madeleine executed her needlepoint by the fireplace.
Lavinia stared at the withered bark and twisted vine, thinking on their properties. She remembered the book she had read, which described how the extracts could be lethal if mixed with opium or peyote fluid. Could it be administered in a manner that would be undetectable? And how would one mix it with opium? Was this a way she could win her freedom?
She glanced across at her custodian, the danger of her observations making her pulse race for the first time in a month. And what of the moral ramifications? Even if she did succeed, her soul would suffer eternal condemnation. I would be less than human, she reminded herself. But the thought of her life petering away in the twilight of this house while she mouthed the platitudes of an empty marriage was overwhelming.