Days of Utter Dread, page 6
‘Innocent? Pah! These girls are about as innocent as Oholah and Oholibah. I presume you know your Bible, Reverend Dodgson? The two whores of Egypt.’
‘I am warning you, sir, not to lay one more finger on them. What have you given them to make them fall unconscious? Drink, was it, or some kind of sleeping draught?’
‘None of your affair, as it happens. Mrs Silver told us that you’ve been poking your proboscis in where it’s not wanted.’
‘I am doing nothing more than protecting these young girls from the depredations of two loathsome lechers. You will allow them to recover and then you will return them to The Beeches. In any event, I intend to report you to the Clerk of the Peace, so that he can decide what action to take against you. If there’s one thing you can be sure of, Sir Walter, you will never again find yourself presiding over the quarter sessions!’
Charles managed to say all of this without a single stammer. His chest had tightened up, but he was so fired up with righteous rage that he felt all-powerful, as if God were right behind him.
Sir Walter, however, seemed to be utterly unimpressed.
‘I’m afraid you’re deluding yourself, Reverend Dodgson. You still seem to be living in that topsy-turvy world you wrote about in that fantastical book of yours. Well, let me tell you this: this is the real world, and it isn’t ruled by rabbits, or smiling cats, or playing cards pretending to be kings and queens. This world is ruled by gentlemen like myself. It is up to us to judge what is moral, and what is not. We are the ones who will decide if a fellow is to be given an award for his service to the community, for instance, or if he is to be jailed for some petty misdemeanour.
‘These girls are nothing. Nothing but sluts, and thieves, and a needless drain on the public purse. The fate they will meet here this afternoon is in the common interest, and if they happen to afford us a little pleasure and a little nourishment as their miserable lives draw to a close, at least they will have made some contribution to this world before they leave it. Isn’t that so, Jack?’
‘Just so, Sir Walter,’ said Jack, and gave a rattling sniff.
Charles was aghast. ‘You intended to murder them? Rape them, and then murder them?’
‘Oh, come now, Reverend Dodgson. Congress with whores has never been rape, whether they’re awake or asleep, willing or unwilling. And sending a worthless soul to heaven can hardly be classified as murder.’
‘You are not to touch a single hair on these girls’ heads,’ Charles warned him. ‘Otherwise, believe you me, you will suffer the con – suffer the con—’
‘Spit it out, Reverend D!’ Jack said with a laugh.
Sir Walter stalked up to Charles, so that his swollen waistcoat was almost touching him. His breath smelled brown, tainted with brandy, cigars and dental caries.
‘I have never tolerated threats of any kind from anybody, ever,’ Sir Walter told him, and Charles could hear his lungs wheezing in and out like leather bellows. ‘You are making such a damned nuisance of yourself that I am tempted to dispatch you, too, here and now. Unfortunately you are too damned celebrated, because of that ludicrous book of yours, and if you were to vanish, the whole damned country would be gibbering to know where you’d been spirited off to.’
‘True, Sir Walter, too true,’ Jack put in, with a solemn sniff. ‘And think about it. There might well be a witness to his whereabouts already. He couldn’t have run here after us, could he? He must have followed us by cab or carriage, and if he didn’t drive it himself, somebody must have driven him.’
‘I’m not concerned too much about that,’ said Sir Walter. ‘You can induce most witnesses to suffer selective amnesia, if you reward them sufficiently. But we don’t know who else the reverend might have told where he was going.’
‘You can’t poh – you can’t possibly expect to get away with this,’ said Charles. ‘You can’t rape and murder three young orphans and then sail through the rest of your life as if you had done nothing wrong.
He paused, and looked down at the three girls sprawled on the blanket, their petticoats lifted, their dresses half-unbuttoned, and their eyes still closed. ‘Or perhaps you can. What did happen to Hetty, Charlotte and Emily? Were they really adopted, or was that a fiction to cover up the fact that you raped and murdered them too?’
Sir Walter looked at Charles with his eyes narrowed, stroking his moustache over and over in the same way that he might have stroked a cat on his lap.
‘Jack,’ he said.
That was all he needed to say. Jack immediately took three quick steps forward and punched Charles hard on the left side of his head. He was wearing two heavy signet rings, and so his blow burst open Charles’ earlobe, and blood spattered over the shoulder of his jacket. Charles staggered sideways, stunned, and then dropped onto his knees.
Sir Walter went up to him and pushed him, so that he fell backwards amongst the dead leaves that carpeted the ground.
‘No threat from nobody, mister airy-fairy storyteller, that’s what I said, and that includes you.’
Charles dabbed his blood-wet earlobe with his fingertips. ‘You’re a villain, Sir Walter. A villain of the darkest dye. I shall see you justly punished for this.’
‘Jack, strap him up,’ said Sir Walter.
Jack dragged off his thin leather belt. Charles tried to sit up, but Sir Walter kicked him in the ribs and then kicked him in the head, hard, so that his patent toecap caught him right on his bleeding ear. For a few seconds, Charles blacked out, and while he was unconscious, Jack pushed him onto his side, twisted his arms behind his back, and used his belt to lash his wrists together in a tight and complicated handcuff knot.
When Charles opened his eyes, his head was banging and his vision was blurry. Jack may have looked skinny and spidery, but he was deceptively strong, and he humped Charles backwards across the dry leaves until they reached the tree where he had been hiding. There, he propped him up in a sitting position with his back against the trunk.
‘There, Reverend.’ He grinned. ‘Now you have a seat in the front stalls. I trust you enjoy the show!’
‘The Lord will strike you down for this!’ Charles raged at him, although his voice was so hoarse that it was barely more than a squeak. His chest felt as if it had wide steel bands wrapped around it, and with every second they were being screwed tighter and tighter. He prayed that he wasn’t going to suffer an asthma attack. He didn’t want to die, gasping for breath by Gracious Pond.
‘Do you truly believe the Lord is watching us?’ called out Sir Walter. He had already pushed Hilda onto her side again, and was twisting open the remaining buttons of her dress. ‘Contrary to what you holy men purport, the Lord cannot keep his eye on all of us, every minute of every day. The population of the world now exceeds twelve hundred million of various colours, so it’s estimated. I think you’d agree that it must be impossible for Him to surveille us individually, even if He has eyes in the back of his head.’
‘I shall call on Him!’ Charles shouted back. ‘I shall cry out for His help, and He will hear me!’
‘Oh no, you bloody well shan’t!’ said Sir Walter. Now he was tugging Hilda’s dress up over her floppy arms. ‘Gag him, Jack! We don’t want him attracting anybody’s attention, temporal or spiritual!’
Jack pulled a grimy grey handkerchief out of his trouser pocket. He forced it between Charles’ teeth, almost choking him, and then he knotted it tightly at the back of his neck. Whatever Jack had been wiping with it, the handkerchief tasted sour, like vinegar and stale perspiration.
He had to watch, dumbly, while Sir Walter and Jack wrenched off all the girls’ clothes and left them naked and white-skinned. Both men then unfastened their britches and dropped them down to their ankles, although Jack left his collarless shirt on, and Sir Walter retained his shirt, his bow tie, his waistcoat and his tan tweed jacket.
They knelt down in the leaves and parted the girls’ legs, but after that Charles closed his eyes tightly shut. He could guess what repulsive acts they were about to commit, and the last thing he wanted was to be a witness. His mouth was flooded with bile, partly because of the stinking handkerchief that Jack had used to gag him, and partly because he felt so helpless to protect the girls from rape. He was unable to spit the bile out, so he had to swallow it, and that made him retch.
Although he could keep his eyes tightly closed, he was unable to stick his fingers in his ears, so he had to listen to the two men grunting and shuffling in the leaves. This went on for over a quarter of an hour, and then he heard a trickling sound as if they were urinating.
After that, there was silence for a minute or two, followed by a clanking sound. He opened his eyes to see Sir Walter buttoning up his britches and Jack setting up some kind of iron framework over the fire. The girls were still lying naked and unconscious on the ground, with crimson bruises on their thighs and breasts and their hair bedraggled.
Jack took hold of Fiona by her ankles and dragged her over to the fire. Then, to Charles’ utter horror, he took out a butcher’s cleaver and with three hard blows he hacked off her head. Blood pumped out of her severed neck and was instantly soaked up by the peaty ground.
Charles managed a throaty roar of protest behind his gag, and kicked his heels, but both Jack and Sir Walter ignored him. Jack nonchalantly slung Fiona’s head to one side so that it rolled off into the leaves. Following that, he briskly chopped off both of her arms, and then he picked up a carving knife and proceeded to cut out her ribcage. Her intestines poured out in a wriggling mass on either side of her body, and the wind blew dead leaves that stuck to them like butterflies.
Jack whistled and sang ‘Three Jolly Butchers’ as he worried her ribs away from her spine. He looked as if he were wearing glossy red gauntlets.
He finished up by cutting thick slices from her thighs, right down to her knees, and draping these slices over the framework that he had constructed over the fire. The fire itself had died down now to an orange glow, but its heat was intense, so that the air above it wavered like a gathering of ghosts, and Fiona’s flesh crackled and spat as it was roasted.
Charles had no choice but to watch as Sir Walter and Jack sat down by the fire and cooked the pieces of flesh that Jack had cut from Fiona’s body. Sir Walter took cutlery and plates out of the picnic hamper, as well as bread rolls and a ceramic butter dish. When the flesh was well browned, he forked it off the fire and laid it out as if it were slices of roast beef, with pickles and baby beetroots. Charles could smell it, and he couldn’t stop himself from retching again, and yet again.
Sir Walter and Jack took their time eating. The sun sank down behind the trees and the pond gradually grew dark, punctuated only by occasional bubbles as carp and tench came to the surface. The breeze became chillier, and stirred the dried leaves that lay on the ground so that it sounded as if an invisible crowd were rushing through the bushes.
Sir Walter and Jack spoke very little, although Charles heard Jack complain that Sir Walter had spread the butter on his bread too thickly.
The other two girls, Hilda and Mavis, remained where they were, naked, either unconscious or dead. Charles felt exhausted, physically and morally, and his chin dropped down onto his chest. He wished he could sleep. He wished he could die. But he could do neither. All he could do was listen to Sir Walter and Jack eating their grisly picnic, and occasionally making random remarks, or laughing.
At last they finished, and started to pack up. Jack dragged Hilda and Mavis into the woods, one after the other, and then he came back for Fiona’s remains, and dragged them off, too. Charles could hear the chopping sound of a spade, and he presumed that Jack had previously dug a hole in the ground somewhere in the woods, so that he could bury the bodies.
He came back after about ten minutes to dismantle the framework over the fire, and kick what was left of the ashes into the pond. Meanwhile Sir Walter folded up the blankets and stowed the plates and cutlery and other food into the picnic basket. By the time they had finished, there was hardly any trace of what they had done here, except for a grey burned patch on the ground.
Eventually, the two men came over to Charles. Jack untied his gag and unfastened the leather belt that was binding his wrists together.
‘You’re monsters,’ said Charles, rubbing his wrists. ‘I swear to God that you will be punished for what you have done here today.’
‘Oh, I think not, Reverend Dodgson,’ said Sir Walter. He was picking a shred of flesh from between his teeth with his thumbnail. ‘There are no witnesses, apart from your good self, and I am quite confident that you will not be speaking out. Not to the Clerk of the Peace, and not to the Surrey constabulary, neither.’
‘And what will stop me?’ Charles demanded. He started to get to his feet but Jack pushed him back down.
‘Your own good sense,’ said Sir Walter. ‘You have seven sisters, do you not, who live halfway up Castle Hill in Guildford, in a house called The Chestnuts? It would be such a pity if any harm were to come to your sisters. If the house were consumed by fire, for example, in the middle of the night, and all your sisters were to be cremated alive? Or if their water were to be mysteriously contaminated with strychnine, so that all of them were poisoned and died in agony?’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’ Charles challenged him.
‘Reverend Dodgson, we dare to eat orphans. Don’t think we wouldn’t dare to dispose of your beloved sisters.’
There was a long moment of silence. Sir Walter stared down at Charles, smiling, and Jack was shuffling his feet and grinning, too.
‘Now we’ll bid you good day,’ said Sir Walter. ‘You made your own way here to Gracious Pond. I am sure you will be able to find your own way back.’
With that, Jack went over to pick up the hamper and the blankets, and the two of them walked off, leaving Charles sitting against the tree.
He rarely wept, but he felt so helpless and so devastated by what he had been forced to witness that he started to weep now, his shoulders shaking and the tears streaming down his cheeks.
*
He kept his silence, and told nobody about the horrendous crimes that Sir Walter and Jack Sawyer had committed in front of his eyes – not the Surrey constabulary, nor the court of sessions, nor the press. He stayed with his sisters for a week longer than he had originally intended, in case Sir Walter took it into his head to harm them, by way of a warning. He sent a letter to Christ Church college in Oxford to inform them that he would be delayed out of concern for his sisters’ health. It was the nearest he could bring himself to telling a lie.
The following Thursday, though, he walked to The Beeches to inform Mrs Silver that he would no longer be visiting the orphanage to tell the girls stories. A fine soft rain started to fall when he was halfway there, so he was glad he had taken his umbrella. When he arrived, he was relieved to see that there was no sign of Sir Walter’s brougham.
Mrs Silver had the first signs of a cold, and kept coughing and blowing her nose on a lacy handkerchief and folding it smaller and smaller.
‘Well, the girls will sorely miss you, Reverend Dodgson. You always amused them, and your Bible stories were most improving. May I ask if there is any particular reason why you no longer intend to visit us?’
‘My publishers are pressing me to write a sequel to Alice, but I will continue to have my duties lecturing in mathematics at Christ Church, so my days will be far too crowded to spend any time here. It’s a matter of great regret, but there are only so many hours between rising and retiring.’
‘You’re sure that’s the only reason? We haven’t offended you in any way?’
Charles didn’t answer that, but gave Mrs Silver an ambiguous smile.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Silver, and thank you for allowing me to visit. May God be with you.’
As Netty opened the front door for him, Louisa came running down the stairs.
‘Reverend Dodgson! Reverend Dodgson! Aren’t you coming upstairs to tell us a story?’
Charles hesitated. It was still raining on the shingle driveway outside, although he could see that the clouds were clearing from the west.
‘Very well, Louisa. I think I may have time for just one.’
He followed her upstairs to the sewing room. Lizzie and Caroline and half a dozen other girls were there, too, embroidering and darning stockings.
Charles sat down in the spoonback armchair by the window and said, ‘You may find this story strange, but in common with Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, and some of the stranger stories in the Bible, there is a grain of truth in it, and a moral.’
‘I love the Cheshire cat,’ said Caroline. ‘The way it disappears, leaving nothing behind but its grin. Is there a cat in this story?’
‘No, but there is a walrus. A walrus, and his friend, who happens to be a carpenter. I know that is rather odd that the two of them should be companions, but there you are. One day they decided to talk a walk by the seashore. Actually it was one night, but it had been cloudy all day, much like today, and the sun was not yet tired, so it had decided to stay up for a few hours longer – much to the irritation of the moon!
‘Anyway, the walrus and the carpenter were strolling along the sand when they decided that they should like some company. They called on the oysters who lived in the shallows and invited them to join them on a pleasurable walk. The oysters were extremely bored, as you might expect, with nothing to amuse them but the tide coming in and going out again, and so they eagerly agreed to accompany them.’
‘But oysters can’t walk,’ put in Lizzie. ‘They haven’t any feet.’
‘You’re perfectly correct, of course,’ said Charles. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. But never mind… they came hopping along regardless. At first the walrus told them that they could take no more than four, so that they could hold their hands, and Lizzie – please don’t tell me that oysters haven’t any hands! However, more oysters wanted to come for the walk, and they ended up with scores of them, all walking along the beach together. A whole crowd of oysters!’
