Page 57 of A Study in Drowning

For a moment, Effy could swear she saw the woman’s face change, sightless eyes shifting under marble lashes, but when she blinked, the statue was still again. It had never been a woman, had never been alive at all.

She dug her fingernails into her palm, and for some reason, found it appropriate to whisper, “This can’t all be from writing, can it?”

“That’s the family money, I’m guessing.”

It was so different from Hiraeth, and that, more than anything, was what shocked her. Why did Myrddin’s descendants live in such decaying squalor, all their once lovely things waterlogged and rotted and covered in a layer of sea salt and grime?

The bushes at Penrhos were groomed like equestrian steeds, no ragged leaves or split branches. Even without a family inheritance, the Myrddins must have had money—there was no good reason for Ianto and his mother to have been living like that unless they were doing it out of some misguided, superstitious deference to their dead husband and father.

Preston parked, and they got out. The air was cold enough that Effy’s breath floated out in front of her. She squinted in the evening light: there was a large stone staircase, and wooden double doors at the top of them.

In another moment, with a loud groan, the doors heaved open.

She couldn’t see Blackmar very well; she could only hear the clacking of his cane against the stone as he came down toward them. When he was close enough that Effy could pick out details, she saw the flash of his red velvet dressing gown, the sharp ebony of his cane, and, when he smiled at them, the gleam of a gold tooth in his mouth. His feet were ensconced in matching red velvet slippers.

His face was like a rusted mirror, stippled with a million cracks. He was the most ancient-looking person Effy had ever seen.

“Euphemia!” he said, with a rattling, excited gasp. “I’m so glad you took me up on my invitation.”

And then he seized her around the middle in a zealous but creaky embrace. Effy stiffened, unsure what to do, waiting for it to be over.

At last Blackmar let go, knifepoint eyes shining out of his shriveled-walnut face.

“Oh,” Effy said as he released her, feeling breathless. “Thank you very much for having us.”

“I’m always happy to entertain my admirers.” Blackmar smiled. From that close, Effy could see that nearly a third of his teeth were missing, and that they had all been replaced with gold imitations. “Is this your . . . compatriot?”

“Yes,” said Effy. “This is Preston Héloury.”

Blackmar’s wrinkled brow wrinkled even further. “Héloury,” he repeated slowly. In his posh Llyrian accent, he made the Argantian name sound almost like a curse. “That name is familiar—you’re a student at the literature college, aren’t you? You’ve written to me before.”

“I have.” Preston’s posture was stiff, arms folded over his chest. “I’m an admirer as well, just not as, ah, eloquent as Effy in expressing it. Euphemia.”

He had a bit of trouble with the first syllable; Effy could see the small furrow in his brow as he tried, with his subtle Argantian accent, to pronounce it.

Hearing her full name in Preston’s mouth for the first time made Effy feel strange. Not unpleasant, but distinctly odd, her skin prickling with unexpected heat. With the added effort that it took to articulate them, the vowels sounded softer somehow. Gentler.

“Well, Argantians are not known for their zeal or passion. Too cold up there in the mountains, I suppose.” Blackmar chuckled, very taken with his own joke. “Come in, both of you. I’ll get you some brandy.”

He had two black-clad domestic workers take their trunks from Preston’s car and carry them silently up the steps to the house.

Effy and Preston followed slowly. The low, flat clouds were hanging darkly around the turrets of Penrhos manor, almost enveloping them, like a pair of gloved hands. The domestics set down the trunks briefly to heave the doors open, and then they all stepped over the threshold.

Inside was as grand as Effy had expected: a double staircase of white marble that led up to the second-floor landing, plush velvet carpets that matched Blackmar’s slippers and dressing gown, damask wallpaper bulleted with gilt-framed paintings and portraits. A large tapestry rendered the Blackmar family tree, beginning with one Rolant Blackmar, who Effy assumed was that industrialist—oil or railroads.

Above it was an enormous taxidermy deer head, its black eyes gleaming emptily, staring at nothing.

“It’s beautiful,” Effy said, because she felt it was what she was expected to say, and because it saved Preston from having to lie again.

Penrhos was beautiful, in a particular way. It was perfectly ornate, the furniture and wallpaper and rugs impeccably matched, not a smear of dust or a cache of cobwebs in the corner. The portraits were all dour and unsmiling; the velvet curtains let in not a sliver of light. There were no audaciously kitschy lamps or brashly abstract paintings, no boldly ugly chandeliers that made you want to squint up at them, trying to gauge if they really were ugly or not.

It was a beautiful house, but not a clever one. It was a house with no imagination.

Effy found it almost impossible to believe that Angharad’s author could live here.

“Thank you, thank you,” Blackmar said, waving a hand. “But you haven’t even seen the best of it yet. Come into the study. I’m sure you’ll want to relax after your long drive.”

Effy did not feel that drinking with Blackmar would be relaxing at all, but she followed him into the study anyway, Preston just a pace behind her.