The 29th of Ophus 2719 - Late Morning
A fine and picturesque place, brooding, time-heavy and weather-worn, bedecked in sclerotic dignity. The landscape warped around it, twisted, subservient. Smoke rose, pale and twisting for a forest of chimneys. Smoke was dispersed by the rain. Coming up the long drive, past yew hedges and freshly scythed and shorn lawns, he considered that this would be an excellent place to be murdered.
On the gravel of the drive, wheels of the hired coach, the best the Crown and Sprocket could muster at short notice and shorter funds, ground on. The rain was a virtue at least in keeping the dust down. Though the inevitable mud would be very shocking. His over-shoes, flood-patens from home, were high enough to handle a bit of mud, a bit of rain. They were made to handle the street floods of Florne. A little Anaxi rain would not faze them. He would not let it faze him.
He had tried mightily to prevent that. The efficacy of his preparations were still very much in doubt.
The morning had been no great treat. An indifferent bed and even more indifferent sleep had done a world of ill. He had awoken, groggy and cramped, a little after dawn. Attended to his morning ablutions, shaving carefully. The little mirror provided had been cracked. Sandalwood balm to soothe his face and talcum powder to keep him from perspiring. It promised to be a day of frayed nerves. He would assume so. Never let it be said that he was an uncivilized man.
One final preparation, and the most necessary. In his luggage, carefully wrapped in layers of cotton batting, he had brought two large bottles of the horrible Bastian spring water that seemed to act in a way to calm his racing mind, to level the fluctuations of his thoughts. It tasted vile, iron and sulphur, but some other mineral in it, he could never recall which, seemed to have that calming effect. Medicine. The vile taste only served to drive the point home. A glass in the morning, and another before he retired. It would not be quite enough. The buzzing in his head was already building, his thoughts in the starting blocks of their race. It was still far better than nothing.
“Well,” he said to an empty room. “Nothing for it.” Toasting no one in particular, he downed the glass. Rusty rotten eggs, slight carbonation, strangely thick-feeling, the mineral water slid down his throat, splashed into an empty stomach. Empty. That would not serve, the water was better taken with food.
It had been something of a pleasant shock to discover that the little inn actually managed a very passable breakfast. Toast with excellent butter, a small bit of smoked fish. Local, in innkeeper had claimed, and its firm flesh and fine flavor bore that out. He could have done with some soft cheese and mushrooms, but then nowhere was perfect. Then there had been the tea. Not the usual muddy black affair, but a fine sharp green tea scented with bergamot. Just the thing to settle the nerves, clear the fog in his mind.
And his companions? He left them to their own devices. Mornings were never his best hours, not unless he was approaching them from the other end. A poor companion before at least one, perhaps two, pots of tea. Abe knew this of old. She, at least, would not disturb his morning rituals.
In the late morning, the air still freezing, they had piled into the not-quite miserable carriage, and set out for the hall.
Now it loomed and lowered, grim and stately, before them. A few other carriages in the drive, waiting to discharge their passengers at the elegant porte-cochère to the east of the main entrance. Time ticked on and their waited their turn, all trying their level best not to succumb to the cold. The great plumes of smoke at least presaged the warmth of the hall itself. The physical warmth.
On his lap, open but half neglected, the auction catalog lay open. He had tried to read it, tried and failed. The coach had been ill-sprung enough that reading had been a near impossibility. Damnit, but he should have studied it last night. A light perusal before collapsing into the uncomfortable bed had not been enough. He was out of practice in such matters. Too many academic journals. An entirely different sort of reading.
“Borna,” he said, with a vague gesture to the catalog. “Have you formulated any plan of attack, at least as regards authentication? There are far more books than I had anticipated. It appears as if Miss Steerpike is liquidating the whole of the library.”