Dandy Gilver and a Deadly Measure of Brimstone by Catriona McPherson Page A

‘One hundred and thirty-five. Let’s walk through quite quickly, since you’re dressed in outdoor things.’ She held one of the curtains aside and I followed her into the warm room, across it into the hot room – an unspeakable hundred and seventy – and across that, at a trot, but still sure my hair was dropping out of set and my face-powder caking, through the last set of velvet curtains and into the delicious coolth of a marble chamber like a little temple, with niches all around and beyond it, steps leading down into a long bathing pond surrounded by silk ferns and soft lamplight.
    ‘The plunging pool,’ said Miss Laidlaw. ‘Dip your wrists, Mrs Gilver, and you will be refreshed.’
    I shrugged off my gloves, pushed back my sleeves and sitting on the lip of the pool reached my hands down into the water.
    ‘Oh!’ I could not help exclaiming. It was icy cold, as cold as the burn water in Perthshire. ‘Gosh, how do you keep it like this?’
    ‘It’s from the upper spring,’ said Miss Laidlaw. ‘It comes straight to us, beautifully cool.’
    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I suppose it’s healthier freezing cold than warm, anyway. Dirt and all that, I mean.’
    ‘Dirt?’ said Miss Laidlaw, looking rather startled.
    ‘Not to say dirt, exactly. But don’t germs at least do rather better in warm water?’ I gabbled on, making it worse than ever. ‘And I’m sure you’re never done draining it and cleaning.’
    Her face now was quite frozen, as well it might be at this blatant and clumsy meddling in her business. She said no more on the subject but only offered me a small towel to dry my hands and went on. ‘Through there is the Turkish bath or steam room.’ She indicated an etched glass door with a chromium handle. ‘And just here you see the beds for salt rubs and oil rubs.’ She had waved a hand back at the little temple and I thought to myself that she might call them beds but in fact they were marble slabs with water sprays looming above them. I felt quite sure too that it would be ‘cool’ spring water which would come spouting out of these sprays to finish one off after the pummelling.
    ‘Wonderful,’ I said, thanking God in His Heaven that I was well and needed none of it. ‘And do you advise the patients on how long to stay in and what have you?’
    ‘No, no,’ said Miss Laidlaw, ‘the Turkish and Russian baths are open to all our guests at their discretion.’
    ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘They’re … closed just now?’ I looked around the empty beds and still water.
    ‘Um, no,’ said Miss Laidlaw. ‘I expect everyone is having treatments.’ There was a pause while she and I both remembered the long passageway with empty treatment rooms on either side. ‘Or getting ready for luncheon.’
    I gave her a bright smile and then, to help the moment pass away, I strolled over to a second door leading out of the spray-bath temple and put my hand on its chromium handle.
    ‘And what—?’ I began, but stopped as I met resistance.
    ‘We don’t use all the facilities any more,’ she said. She glanced at the door and her face clouded briefly. ‘There’s a great deal of research being done all the time on hydropathy and physiology. Some of the earlier treatments have been superseded by others. And to be honest, fresh air and exercise are a lot more use than some of the more …’
    ‘I see,’ I said. I noticed that as I let go of the handle and moved away, the little bit of tension which had hitched her shoulders up left her and she smiled again. ‘Do you have trouble persuading your regular guests to move with the times?’ I asked. I was inching my way towards Mrs Addie. She frowned politely, not understanding me. Perhaps I needed to inch a little more boldly. ‘I would imagine that any of your father’s patients who had always enjoyed “the old ways” would be hard to dissuade of their benefits.’
    She threw another look at the locked door, her eyes showing a lot of white like those of a