H C Turk, page 61
"The true question sought is misstated, Lord Naylor, but nonetheless I comprehend. In fact, you would not inquire of my special qualities, but of the unapproachable personality who is my wife. That unique character I cannot be expected to describe, not so soon after suffering from the evd to inhabit her. And suffer I do, sir, to a degree I believe unimaginable to those without equal experience. But when I come to suffer less, perhaps I might gain some understanding of Alba for us all. Perhaps not. But I suggest you prepare for a consequential waiting, for as long as I know of this woman, in some ways I shall suffer from her. After this has ended, sir, let us be pleased to speak again."
Eric learned from Naylor that only Rathel, not the wife, would receive a public trial. Though no request was made for his testimony, Eric had thoughts of another person who might bear witness against the evd expert. Eric had thoughts of the wife's attendance, and therefore imagined being amongst the audience. Observing the witch was an irresistible idea to him, yet how in God's world could he ever bear to see her again?
With the conflictual anxiety of needing to see an impossible sight, Eric attended the affair to find disappointment. This was no trial, but a sentencing. No testimony would be given by any person, only documents presented by Naylor's aide. No personal testimony meant no person the witch to appear where she could be seen by all of London. Here exactly was Naylor's intent, for a significant audience awaited the demon. The Lady Rathel was present, and was made to stand before the well-wigged justices like a row of social gods seated in a wooden heaven. With no word asked from her, Rathel was sentenced to a stay of two hundred months for her sought cooperation with demonic forces promoting the death of one Percival Bitford and the grievous injury of Eric Denton.
What a murmur went through the audience of commonfolk and gentry packed together within a room too small for unequal classes. Such is the power of witches, the exact force sought by this congregation, the greatest crowd ever drawn by the particular sister, and this without her presence, though not without her name. As the crowd began its complex sound induplicable by natural entities, the available wench replied. Led away by flanking guards, the Rathel heard murmurs of". . . witch . . ." never spoken by English official, and turn she did to confiscate the crowd as she had my life, calling toward them in outrage.
"Yes, the witch! Where is the witch and her deserved death when I am imprisoned enough to kill me?!"
Then the screaming began, followed by enough of a rush to imply a riot. Early to exit was unrecognized Eric, the audience not seeking the husband before he was gone. Also promoting their safety via fleeing were the barristers. Behind doors they hid themselves before the crowd arrived at the lockwork to shout past the constables for justice, for the witch, these two notions combined meaning the latter's head in their hands.
Though well heated in their pious emotions, the audience was not so volatile as to crush through legal doorways and have at the hiding men. Therefore, the constables allowed them to mull about and cry epithets until becoming bored enough to vacate the legal chambers; and what poor beggars would clear the disarrayed benches and broken chairs? Who would clear from these citizens' hearts an idea never to bore them, that of hated witches and an
evil individual yet to be given her proper, deadly due?
Since all of London was the source of this crowd, great was the rabble becoming distressed at a fine lady's being punished; whereas the witch was bloody well lounging on a throne for all they knew. Through the streets they paraded their concern, some wife songs of justice portraying the Rathel's release and the witch's permanent mutilation. Outside the prison they caroused, but the wrong side, for the witch was in a rear cell, yet her detractors marched on the wider boulevard before Montclaire. Scarcely did I notice them, being occupied with writing, my composition's heroine yet on Man's Isle, perhaps, affixed in a theater piece lusted over by Naylor daily.
How remarkable to be unaffected by a crowd to kill me when these same persons brought Eric a regard that harmed. Poor Miss Elsie was answering the door that day a throng appeared to burst past her and infiltrate the household, searching every room until Eric was found. With God in their mouths, they pressed Eric to his knees enough to wrench his hack as all went down for Jesus's sake, commencing a prayer. Several at once, for this church lacked the refined formality of a true congregation's clerical process. Then up with him as though a sack of beans, and the inquisition began, harsh, hot breaths so near Eric that their smell was left on him. Questioning Eric's salvation, the voices sought his continual prayer to purge the witch's evil. Then a separate sect formed to shout an unorthodox view: Since the man had taken sex with the woman witch, had not she left something within him instead of taking a piece? Mad humor this was as though a witch had been tutoring the sinners; but were they not squabbling over the same victim, under the auspices of the single, presumed Jesus?
Then began a mutual persecution, for these sects of anti-witch, pro-victim began a pushing to accompany their shouts, followed by smacks of fist on face. A third type of fanatic, Eric gained a salvation that situated him in his future world. As though enlightened by God Himself, Eric found the power to proceed in life, all his remorse and confusion replaced by anger. As the secular confrontations continued, Eric implemented their ending.
Elsie had long before gone running for the constables. The other servants, being elder and intelligent, well hid themselves lest they suffer from a witch scarcely seen. Proving himself father to Edward, Lord Andrew pressed forcefully through the crowd as best he could, demanding folk leave as he pulled them away; but Grand was too elderly for great success, his efforts absorbed by the mass. So were Eric's, but poorly; for with the beginning violence, he moved from the corridor into a bedchamber that had once been ours though never again slept in by the husband, removing that loose bedpost and presenting it to /the crowd with concise, controlled swings to the nearest backs and shoulders, poking the wood toward faces and bellies; and what mad humor for him to be praying with a stick not crossed in its middle. The congregation, large for a hallway, became small for all of Eric's anger, which passed like a sea wave over the audience members, its medium of transference pain. Then all who could stand ran from the house, not a crowd now but individuals with no religious affiliation beyond sole survival, each running for salvation, though not through Jesus.
When constables came in carriages with Naylor and Elsie, recuperating Eric was found with his grandfather cleaning the mess, these two weakened men sufficiently strong to drag the wounded intruders from their home with scant regard for injuries; for Eric had begun to rearrange his life, and would not end until only family members remained.
The trial in which Eric had failed to see the wife had been his last failure, the congregation she had indirectly sent delivering this message. Though exhausted and sickened by his exertion, Eric had fully recuperated, if not in the body, then in his heart. Eric had come to understand that his health and profession were insignificant, for he would spend the remainder of his days not working nor healing, but loving Alba. In an instantaneous, completing view of his future, Eric accepted that he would not pass his life pining over this ultimate love vanished as though a crowd of evil haters praying via trespass too late to change the court's adjudications. This decision was not only for Alba, but from her, Eric recalling the instances wherein she had refused in anger his lax, useless feelings, yet with a most subtle and special love accepted his best emotions, whether she agreed with them or not. And, yes, he knew it to be love, a type of love, an enhancing and fulfilling and desirable love that the wife had felt for him, this the very force allowing her to remain with an alien in an alien land. For this man and woman were together not merely in England's registers, but also in their hearts, a bond now obvious to the husband aware of his wife's emotion through her own peculiar manner that was no longer unique, for Eric had learned. The husband understood only when the wife was gone that they were truly wed, Eric ascertaining my desired position in his life not through a detailed cognition, but a subtle revelation of love.
The correct position of his personal witch was not in Eric's heart, but in his house. She should not be lodged in his emotions, but should live along with him, at his side. Together they should be on God's Earth, not within some sinning philosophy. Separating them now, however, was no bridgeable distance, but the space of English law, Eric coming to feel for the situation an emotion the wife might not approve of, though it was one she often displayed. Within him seethed anger, a demeanor that issued an intent of equal strength, one not to be quenched by love, but only fulfilled by achievement. Only with an act as intense and absolute as those initiated by the wife for her own survival would Eric save himself from the sinners' morality that had split his family. As though suffering from mad humor, Eric came to understand that since English law would not release his wife, he would have to take her.
Thirty-nine
"I shall now determine the size of your heart."
"And I'm begging your pardon, sir?"
"The size of your soul, miss, and the substance thereof."
"Ah, sir, but you're saying what I cannot understand."
"Miss, I wdl soon describe how the life of my family shall proceed in its following years, and wdl know your part therein. My famdy consists of myself, Randolph, yourself, and your mistress, Alba."
"Oh, and Master Eric, and Alba is enjaded now, like a tomb, and not to be released, and my fear has always been that you would be keeping her there if given the choice."
"No choice am I allowed by English law; therefore, I shall force upon society the selection of my family's ways. My choice, then, is to have the wife returned to her famdy with whom she belongs. And I ask you now if you can live and cooperate with the fact that I shall have my wife's release, even if criminality is required on my part."
"Oh, great Jesus, Master Eric, why should I be living free if Mistress Alba is not? No more injustice I can't be thinking than Alba not living as best a person can. God knows I've oft prayed to put me in her place and be releasing the girl if only you would accept her again."
"I think we both understand that a person in my reduced condition cannot be expected to desire such a woman beside him ever again. Nevertheless, despite how she has pained me, Alba is my life's continuing love. Herein I have no choice, though perhaps I would select no other, for Alba's life has surely been more distraught than mine. Therefore, I wdl have her returned despite the legalities that retain her wrongly. But from you I ask no criminality, Elsie, only your cooperation in spirit."
"But if Fm only praying for you, sir, then Fm doing not enough, for I can be praying in me sleep. If you're having Mistress Alba removed from the prison, then you're dealing with something beyond me, sir. But I would learn. I would learn in order to remain in this family."
"Thus are we conjoined in ignorance," Eric told her, and took Elsie's hand as though clasping a man to consummate a business venture. But Eric's exuded confidence made the servant no less fearful, for here the master had the force of anger, not cunning, a reversed demeanor fit the inverted wife, the lost companion.
He was certain no legal venue would release the wife. Too satisfied was the magistrate with his new expert to relinquish her, an impossible dismissal considering her confessions of Satanic murder. And dangerous her freedoqj would be, for though the parading of pious folk seeking her neck had subsided, alive in London during the following months were stories of the witch living in Montclaire Prison as though a hosteled queen. And Eric knew better than to draw further attention to the witch's husband, his secretive plans thus to be surmised by curious, clever sinners.
Though innocent of prison ways, sufficiently familiar was Eric with the greater realm of British society for him to deduce his task's beginning: finance. Not seeking employment in that payment for his talents would not support his fiscal needs, Eric approached the blessed Grand with lies, portraying himself as a man requiring funds to provide his wife with legal defense. Moved by Eric's forgiveness and fidelity, Lord Andrew allowed his grandson access to a sinners' bank, generous accounts therein to afford Eric that unparalleled power of ready currency, if only he could determine how to apply his new wealth.
Solicitors reinforced Eric's idea that the wife would not be legally released. The expertise Eric thereafter considered was not in English law, but appropriately its invert, the realm of crime. But what professionals could be sought on this subject? Constables were expert in felony, even moreso than barristers, who were insulated from criminal locales by the architecture of the courthouse. But obtaining the services of a constable willing to reject his profession for superior funding seemed unlikely to Eric as well as dangerous. Doubtless he would find honest lawmen before those corrupted, and therefore never gain the latter due to his being incarcerated by the former.
Cognitive Eric adjudged he was best to proceed by seeking established, not potential, criminals. No great enthusiasm enveloped him with this decision, but his life beyond the upcoming corruption would not be endured without his spouse. And who could be more fitting for him than the sex witch who hated sex? With no gender limb on the husband to require satisfaction, the married pair would likely live more comfortably than during that initial, raw-arsed time of marriage. Comfort, however, was not Eric's prime concern. That anger within him was both guide and torment, an emotion he would follow to its end.
Even a sinner could smell the difference. The bodily wastes and food remains tossed at the street's edges formed a sensual ambience, and that burned background was natural for no city. Surely the buildings themselves housed worse elements than their peripheral artifacts. Therefore, Eric traversed this street by remaining paces away from the buildings, away from the dogs whose bared teeth and low growlings threatened the interloper walking with no goal, his oldest clothes too good for this society.
Long he walked without seeing any person, though from the buildings' depths came anonymous threats to have his goddamned kidney cut out and et cetera. His first response was relief for having brought no money along, for at least he would not be robbed. One epithet was shouted so near Eric that he seemed to smell its source. Leaping sideways with a start, Eric saw but a hint of a man in the shadows, a man with no intent of retreating though his position be revealed. Here was a person to meet, perhaps, in that he neither attacked nor fled. But since he had also shouted obscenities worse than any of the wife's when most upset, Eric felt that some superior example of semi-humanity surely lay ahead.
Moving a few alleys north-as though seeking certain mosses-Eric came to a broader street with equal squalor and more human noise. Espying children playing with ungrowling dogs no more fetid than themselves, Eric presumed greater safety here, and a greater opportunity for success, in that the base of people for his communicating was increased. Thus, he walked several minutes before two men assaulted him with saps, in a flurry of activity clubbing the manless man to the ground, searching every portion of his attire for purses and watches; then, finding nothing, off with his boots to run away like playing children.
Foolish he felt to be sprawled on the street with no gentlemanly pose. No elite Londoners, however, were about for embarrassment. Even the former populace had now departed, as though refusing to be seen with a man so uncouth as to lie in the dirt and spit blood. But Eric was not concerned with etiquette, for he was seeking pain. His balance poor, Eric stood with difficulty; but with his left eye swollen shut and his jaws stiff and inoperable, why had he only numbness?
So pervasive was his dullness that Eric had no shame in shoeless walking. In fact, he was virtually pleased at the people staring in better London, for they wpuld not harm him. And once in a coach and before Lord Andrew's house, he well felt at home. If this be so, however, why the delay in leaving the cab, as though he had adhered to the seat? But no surprise had Eric here, for danger had been his expectation, though he was displeased to lose those boots; and what a fool to wear an ancient westcoat but excellent footwear. Having never gained mad humor despite long exposure to Alba, Miss Elsie had no understanding of Eric's stumbling into the house chuckling, mumbling about returning to Penstone with no shoes, but then they would steal his pants. And no explanation had he for that blood sputtering down his chin with the chortling, though Elsie guessed the source to be other than criminals, perhaps a witch.
"And, sir, it is I notice you in our area before, and wonder if you come for the selling. It may be some cooking wares you mean to peddle."
After recuperating from his latest damage, Eric returned to a similar section of Penstone Place. Two days of questing found him approached by a surprisingly young man with excellent teeth and perhaps the clothes he was given at birth, such was their
age, youthful for criminals but not for their artificial hides.
"I've a proposition for a genuine man, but not a coward nor a fool."
"Well, sir, and if you're giving me payment to be aiding you, genuinely I can do all you may wish, after a decent meal to get me thinking straight, which I've not had in some time."
"Your lack of straight thinking is readily seen. Therefore your difficulty in recading my previous speaking wherein I rejected those foolish, a category likely to include you amongst its members."
"Well, and, sir, you did seem less than the gent that day without your boots, and now with lumps yet showing on your nut."
Eric then stepped nearer the man to immediately state, "Sir, this day again I wear fine boots. Would you alone care to examine their fit?"
Not so foolish as to measure the emotion guiding Eric, the young man answered, "Perhaps not, sir, but perhaps I am not alone here."
