Hearts of Darkness Read Online Free PDF

be if I were him, the amount of time you spend at the Mermaid lain drunk upon the floor.’ Jane raised her brows like I was a great fool. It was a good point I had not considered.
    She prodded Dowling’s shoulder. ‘So he has sent you both on some strange pilgrimage of repentance.’
    ‘Whether we repent or not is of no interest to him,’ Dowling replied. ‘He wants us to find a man called James Josselin.’
    I watched the two candles flicker in a sudden breeze that invaded from the corridor. Jane shook her head, lips pinched tight. ‘If you two ninnies wander woolly-headed into Essex then you will both die. The plague is worse there than it was here. They say half Colchester is dead already. For what did we spend six months living with pigs if it was not to escape the Pest?’ I saw tears in the corners of her eyes and felt my own eyes burning.
    ‘If we do not go, Arlington will have us killed.’
    ‘Who is this James Josselin?’
    ‘Arlington says he is a murderer, though Dowling and I have our doubts.’
    ‘Ha!’ Jane exclaimed. ‘You have your doubts. So you will ask this renegade the truth of it and he will confide all in you two? I think not.’ She pulled a face like she sucked upon a lemon. ‘
“Excuse me, sir,”
says the butcher.
“Wilt thou reveal unto me whether or not you be a murderer, that we may inform the Honourable Lord Arlington, that doth search for you?”
The gentleman thinketh.’ Jane frowned and looked to the ceiling. ‘
“Why do you hesitate, good man?”
enquires the short fellow that doth nothing but drink.
“Do ye not trust our good intent?”
With that the short fellow doth belch loudly, thus convincing the man who doth doubt his integrity, that these two good fellows are deserving of his trust.’
    Dowling laughed out loud until he met her gimlet eye.
    I saw she was afraid. Strange how quick I recognised it these days.
    ‘We have to attempt it else he will have us killed anyway.’ I said.‘We are to go to Shyam and fetch Josselin back to London, with the help of one of Arlington’s agents, a murderous dog.’
    ‘If Arlington and his agent know where this man skulks, then what use are you two buffoons?’
    ‘Josselin has taken refuge in a small village where the plague is rife, where the villagers have closed their boundaries,’ I answered. ‘We are appointed to fetch him out.’
    She dropped her hands and stared, speechless. A rare event.
    ‘So the instruction I would leave you relates to the disposal of my estate,’ I said, soft.
    ‘Your estate!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why tell me of your estate?’
    ‘Because I have no one else to leave it to,’ I replied. ‘I might as well leave the house and monies to you.’
    She stood bolt upright, shoulders hunched about her ears, arms held out stiff like the wings of a tall, wading bird. ‘To me?’ Her voice echoed strangely deep, like the uttering of a demon.
    ‘Aye.’ I watched nervous as she stepped closer. ‘I have no one else to leave it to.’
    She lowered her face and breathed over my nose. She smelt of sage and mint, just as she had that afternoon in Cocksmouth. ‘Leave it to your mother,’ she hissed. ‘Or leave it to her brother. But don’t you dare try and leave it to me.’
    ‘You don’t want it?’
    ‘You tell me you are sent to Essex.’ Her hand shot out towards my neck and I caught it just in time. ‘That you will likely die.’ Her voice tremored and tears gathered in long pools above her lower lashes. I hadn’t seen her weep before.
    ‘I didn’t say I would likely die,’ I protested. ‘You did.’
    She screamed loudly into my face, sweet lips wide apart, headthrust forward like an angry rooster. Once all the breath was blown from her body she fell back onto her heels and gazed, wide-eyed and bewildered.
    Dowling lumbered to his feet and attempted to wrap an arm about her shoulder. ‘I will look after him.’
    ‘What!’ She pushed away his arm and peered into his great blank face. ‘You