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Anna loved the rose garden. Roses in full bloom climbed up the grey walls of the mansion, casting over it a veil of dreamy timelessness and softening the gloomy harshness of the architecture.

She was sitting with Phoebe in the middle of the garden, in front of the trimmed hedges, reading, writing and conversing in French.

Phoebe proved to be not untalented, but merely unwilling to learn. She slouched listlessly in her chair and answered in monosyllables to Anna’s attempts at conversation.

Anna eventually threw up her hands. “Mademoiselle, it is exceedingly dull to converse on my own. If you prefer to write an essay in French instead on the book you’ve been reading…”

“No, conversation will be fine,” Phoebe interrupted, pulling a face. “I hate writing even more. Let us continue conversing.”

Anna had known about Phoebe’s reserved nature, since the girl had always kept herself apart from the other girls at the seminary. But here, at Hungersford Hall, she’d completely withdrawn into herself.

“Won’t you tell me what is the matter, Phoebe?” Anna probed gently.

“Nothing is the matter. I just don’t feel like talking.”

Anna sighed. “If you are still sulking because of Brighton…”

Phoebe plucked a petal from one of the roses that hung limply off the branch next to her.

“Maybe you could ask your uncle to see whether he would be amenable to taking you there. Once he is recovered, that is.” Yesterday evening there had been no sign of the illness that had been plaguing him. Anna wondered briefly what that had been about. Then she remembered when she’d listened to his heart through the stethoscope, and the strange moment that had followed.

She fanned herself with her hand.

“Miss Hilversham? Are you well? You’ve gone strangely red in the face.”

Anna rubbed her neck. “We must have been sitting too long in the sun,” she muttered, shaking her head as if to shake away the memories.

“I was saying that Uncle Christopher hates being in Brighton or in London or in any other town that is fun. He hates balls and assemblies and dinners and people.”

“I’m certain that isn’t true,” Anna began, but Phoebe interrupted her.

“It’s because people say he’s mad, and they shun him, and so he shuns them, and then starts behaving like a madman. I suspect sometimes he does so on purpose, to mock them.”

“You don’t truly believe he is mad, however, do you? He may be quite eccentric, and he may not give a fig about what people and society as a whole think about him, insisting on doing things his way… But that does not mean he is mad.”

Phoebe bit on her lower lip. “He does strange things,” she eventually whispered. “Once, I saw him covered in blood, head to toe. He was coming out of a room below stairs.”

Anna nodded. “I suppose it would be difficult for a surgeon not to be covered in blood when he must perform surgery on someone. And he has his surgery rooms in the cellar, does he not?”

Phoebe’s eyes went round. “He has a room of terror,” she whispered with overt exaggeration. “I once happened to chance upon it quite by accident, when I was younger. It is full of⁠—”

“Body parts,” Anna completed for her.

Phoebe’s mouth dropped open. “You know?”

“To use your words, I happened to chance upon it by accident, on my very first night here,” Anna said dryly. “It is an anatomical collection for medical study, nothing more or less. You should ask your uncle to show it to you; it is quite interesting.”

“He—he showed it to you?” Phoebe gasped.

Anna shrugged. “Yes. I must say that it was rather interesting.”

“And then he has those fits.” Phoebe’s breath came quickly. “Like at the inn. Except much worse.” Anna supposed that, to a young girl, witnessing one of her uncle’s fits would be utterly terrifying. She patted Phoebe’s hand.

“Well, he seemed much improved last night.” There hadn’t been a sound from the other room and she’d slept peacefully.

“They said Mama was mad, too.” There was a beat of a pause. “She was Uncle Christopher’s sister.”

“I didn’t know that.”