“Do I look it?” Mr. Amwell snapped. He tugged at his bottom lip, which had begun to swell and redden. “My mouth is so hot, did you use a pepper?” He dabbed at a bead of gravy stuck to his chin, and his napkin fell to the floor as if he had lost his grip on it. I could see it, then, so clearly: his fury curdling into something like fear.

“No, sir,” I said. “I made it just the same as I always have. The milk was to go bad soon.”

“I believe it’s bloody gone bad already.” He began to cough and clutched his throat again.

The mistress picked at her own gravy and eggs, then took a cautious bite.

“Damn this!” He pushed the plate away and stood, his chair tumbling to the floor behind him, rustling the pristine, daisy-print curtains. “I’m to be sick, girl! Take this away!”

I rushed forward and grabbed the plate, pleased to find that he had, indeed, finished the entire first egg and much of the second. Nella had promised one would do, if it must.

Mr. Amwell ascended the staircase, his footsteps echoing through the dining room. The mistress and I looked at one another in silence, and I must admit a part of me was surprised the plan had worked at all. I made my way to the kitchen, quickly wiping the plate, which I then thrust into murky old water.

In the dining room, my mistress still picked at her food. She seemed perfectly well, thank God, but Mr. Amwell’s retching from the floor above was so loud, I wondered if the effort of it would kill him before the poison itself. I had never heard such vomiting, such groaning. How long might it take? Nella did not tell me that, and I had not thought to ask.

Two hours passed. It would have been suspicious if Mrs. Amwell continued to hide at her writing desk downstairs, the two of us working on letters that didn’t need writing, acting as though nothing was awry.

Everyone knew that Mr. Amwell was fond of the drink and had suffered many a period of days and nights with his head shoved deep into the chamber pot. But the truth was that he had never moaned in agony like this; this was something different, and I thought a few others of the household must realize it. The mistress and I went to see him together and, when she realized her husband had lost his ability to speak, she directed one of the staff to fetch the physician.