Cupids, page 9
“Isabelle’s daughter,” I say at last, feeling a heave of regret that I must speak at all, but determined to unearth all guilt. “Helen,” I add. “I was trying to give you some light. It is past six o’clock and I have your breakfast.”
I approach the bed now and stand a yard or so distant. I do not proffer the bowl yet and Mr. Egret makes no move to take it.
“Why don’t you light a candle, girl?” The edge of impatience remains in his voice.
It’s only now that I realize how incongruous the darkness feels. I have delivered Mr. Egret’s breakfast so many times before dawn, and I have always carried a light. His question is so obvious, my omission so inexplicable, it takes me a moment to gather myself.
“Yes, sir.”
I go toward the table by the window, placing the bowl there, then with trembling fingers I unlatch the tinderbox. Sparks rise like small fireworks and finally the candlewick takes. I let the wax drip upon the saucer, and then as I turn the candle upright, the droplet of flame grows into a blade. Fixing the candle base on the saucer, I pick up the bowl and spoon again and shuffle through the glowing light toward the bed.
Grey hairs poke out from beneath his nightcap like hay after an August drought. His pinched and clay-like face makes him seem much older than usual. These are his last hours, the portentous words echo in my skull. But there is something forced about it, like a funeral liturgy spoken without the presence of a corpse. It’s the silence and calmness that surprise me as I stand before him. He looks at the bowl, his filmy eyes hungry, and his bony fingers reach to receive it. My eyes settle on the white foam in the corner of his lips. Then suddenly, just as his fingertips are about to touch the bowl, I jerk it from his grasp.
His eyes narrow and the reaching hand wavers in midair. It’s too late already. There is no explanation for the action, none that might see the bowl delivered to him again.
My eyes fix upon the mush of oats and milk-sodden berries.
“Sorry, sir,” comes my disembodied gasp, “I saw a maggot in the bowl. I should go and get you a fresh breakfast.”
“A maggot, you foolish girl! Are you trying to kill me?”
I’m backing off already. He fades into the blue dawn as the light retreats with me.
“Leave the candle here!”
“Sorry, sir.”
I rush toward his night table, put down the light, and then back off once more facing my enemy like a retreating soldier. Groping with one hand I find the door handle, and slip through into the dark space of the landing.
“You’re as stupid as your mother!” The words slice through the closing stripe of the door crack.
In the darkness now, holding the untouched, poisoned food bowl, the reality of failure descends. Moments ago, just after my hand jerked the bowl away, I was thinking not of failure, but of a change of heart. What did this man mean to my mother? the question prodded me. I was acting for her if I was acting for anyone. To kill where she loved was surely a betrayal. Then, when I looked upon my victim with his sunken cheeks, his palsied strands of hair, and the froth of sleep on his lips, angels of pity had swirled in my blood. He was a babe again. No matter his crime, no matter what obstacle to the fortunes of others he might represent, he was defenseless and old. Nothing can blunt the blade of vengeance as swiftly as advanced years. All journeys end in the feebleness of their beginnings, in the spawn of helplessness from which all life rises and to which all life returns. The time for vengeance had passed.
All this I thought in mere moments after withdrawing the poison. Fear makes alibis grow with tenacious speed, with plump leaves and elaborate entwining branches. Stupid as your mother! His rusty cane scores me again in the darkness. Did she also try to settle a score? I wonder. Did she make some plea for recognition for herself or for me?
My heart thumps hard. If I could return to him now with the same bowl, I would. But this time he would surely suspect. The discipline of morals weighs upon me like some ungodly chain as I make my way through the descending darkness. The angels of pity were demons in disguise. The spoon bumps against the bowl rim and the thought passes through me that someone must take the poison, so it might as well be me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Bartholomew
“YOU ARE RATHER EARLY, young man.”
A smile I would have considered uncharacteristic a day ago passes across Mrs. Egret’s face. The housekeeper who admitted me moves quickly out of the main room muttering something about Helen still being upstairs.
I give Mrs. Egret a low bow. “Dear Lady,” I tell her, “our time is hardly our own. As your much-honoured late husband must have known, the colonizer does not have leisure for sleep.”
“Nor do old women, young sir.” As if to illustrate the remark her fingers twitch toward the knitting on her lap. Despite the dawn now showing through the windows, a flame still bobs above her inch-high candle. She must have been up for several hours. “You say it is our Helen you wish to see?”
“Yes, my Lady, if it pleases you.”
The same smile comes into her face again, but this time there is a knot of curiosity. I decide to offer some explanation. “Helen has, we believe, some relatives in the country who have shown an interest in our colony. I wanted to ask her about their skills.”
“Relatives in the country,” she repeats, weighing the words. “I am aware of no such people, but I suppose you must know your business. She has gone to give the master his breakfast.”
Too late, the words echo in my head with sickening reverberations. I attempt a pleasant smile. “So early?”
“So early?” she repeats. “Not too early for you to call, Master Bartholomew.”
“Indeed,” I say.
“Do take a seat, young sir.”
I stare at the vacant chair that stands close by the old lady. My limbs are so agitated, it would seem like imprisonment to sit, but I don’t know how to stop Helen and there is little else I can do. I shuffle over and perch myself on the chair’s edge. A profound hush descends. Mrs. Egret takes up her knitting again and the pat of the needles is the only sound for some while. I glance sideways at the wavering candle flame.
The flame bobs low as a soft thump comes from somewhere close by. I look up to see Helen, her face ashen, her shoulders slumped and tired. The chair jolts beneath me, the dead wood again spelling the phrase: too late.
“You asked to see me, sir.”
Although she addresses me, her gaze is locked firmly on the floor, her mouth tight. In the grey light of early morning she seems as far from me as a portrait of a woman long deceased. I wonder how she must view me now I have turned her into a murderess.
“Indeed,” I say, rising. “If I may.”
“Proceed where you are, young man,” says Mrs. Egret without looking up from her knitting. Her words, and the keen observation that accompanied them, give the old lady an unexpected authority and I lower myself once more upon the chair.
I hadn’t considered that Mrs. Egret would not let me take the household servant from the room. But then again, why would she? There couldn’t be — or shouldn’t be, at any rate — anything private between us.
“How are you, Helen?” I ask. I am merely playing for time, but the question comes with a splash of sentiment that I distrust.
Her eyes narrow slightly and her gaze remains on the floor.
“Fine, sir,” she says.
“And your duties? Am I keeping you from them?”
She winces but this time looks up and catches my eye. It’s not the look of anger I was expecting, but something else — desperation, pleading, a sense of urgency that is communicated.
“My duties are done,” she says, and I see whiteness in her lips, “all except one which evaded me this morning.” She holds my eyes for a moment longer before biting her lip and gazing at the floor.
“Oh?” I ask softly.
“A rat I meant to dispose of. It got away.”
A sudden weight falls from my shoulders. My lips itch to know more, but Mrs. Egret, still knitting, beats me to it.
“Helen,” she says, “you are like your mother, too softhearted.” Helen seems to reel for a moment. There is a glassy look in her eyes when she turns to the old woman.
“I couldn’t help it, ma’am,” she says. Then, meaningfully, she turns back to me. “It looked at me in the face. I saw its fear.”
“The executioner hides his face, Helen,” says Mrs. Egret, still looking down at her work. “Otherwise his work would simply go undone.”
“Mrs. Egret is right, of course,” I say quickly, “you should not be hard on yourself for being tender of disposition.”
“But I wanted to have the task accomplished,” she says, “now more than ever.”
The conviction takes me by surprise and I want to hear more, but again Mrs. Egret breaks in.
“Where are these people of yours, Helen?” she asks. “The ones I hear about?”
Helen’s gaze moves from me, to Mrs. Egret, to a beam high above the family crest, then back to me. I edge forward, not knowing quite how to interrupt.
“Ma’am?” she asks after what seems an age.
“Your relatives in the country,” says Mrs. Egret. It may be my imagination, but her needles seem to clack together with more force than before.
“Helen,” I blurt. “I mentioned my mission to Mrs. Egret. That you have people in the country who might be interested in working in Cupers Cove.”
“Oh,” she says softly.
“Perhaps you can get them to rid you of the rat, Helen,” says Mrs. Egret. And now I am sure. The movements of her fingers are more swift and decisive even if her voice is measured. The needles clink like falling icicles. “You know I came from the country to the east of Bristol and we had a custom in winter. Everyone would dress from head to toe in a disguise and roam from house to house.”
“The mummers,” I say.
“Exactly, young man: the mummers.” Her small, grey eyes dart up at me for a second. “And mostly it was fine sport.”
“Mostly, ma’am?”
She stops her knitting and begins to unpick a thread. “Mostly, young sir. But when there was something to settle, it was a different matter. The troupe of mummers would draw lots, and the loser would deliver punishment, swift and sure. When the disguises were off, no one was any the wiser about whom had delivered the blow.”
She lays her knitting upon her lap, smiles, and closes her eyes as though remembering the most golden of times. For the second time in less than the sun’s full cycle it seems the old lady has opened the door to murder.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Matilda
WHAT IS THIS STRANGE poison of mine that seeps into the world regardless of any decision on my own part? Yesterday morning’s interview with Mr. Guy and his young companion provided the motivation for murder and, implicitly at least, even my blessing. Now I have gone much further. I have counselled the young people on their mistakes and suggested a new approach.
Now, alone once more, the pale morning streaming through the windows, I trace the thread of the conversation between Bartholomew, Helen, and I, trying to fix upon an innocent interpretation. It is no use. We all knew we were talking about more than rats and mummers. The young man’s soft footfalls, the hush in his voice as he bowed and made his way to the door; the way Helen followed him, so unlike any maid, skirts shuffling close by his side, shoulders hunched in whispering confidences, left no doubt. I knew. They knew. We each saw knowledge in the other.
Had the true purpose for his visit been less obvious, I might not have spoken as I did. Like a schoolmaster obliged to unearth a pupil’s covert behaviour, I spoke the language of their true desires better than they could have spoken it themselves. But while a good teacher would have used knowledge to shame the miscreant, to spread the light of wisdom and virtue on the darkness of subterfuge, I did the opposite. I began to excavate deeper, to elaborate on the labyrinthine tunnels of their code.
I know why they called my brother-in-law a rat. He scurries and runs from peril and guards a horde that is only partly his. He bites with a mean, quick temper, keeping from the house any perceived danger, even if that danger might bring joy to his dead brother’s widow. I think of Philip and Nicholas, of the joyful years and the trickles of laugher that might still have come my way even as a widow. A rat indeed.
Then what am I? I who tease and deepen the vices of the young, insinuating myself into their world then pulling upon a thread to make the would-be murderer think again before abandoning his goal?
I must be a spider, a creature of merciless patience that weaves and plans but does not like to expose the extent of her control. Such power as I have lies in the fact that I am unnoticed.
Like a spider, I must now wait. “The mummers will come tonight, ma’am,” was the young man’s warning, or perhaps his promise.
I looked at Helen as he spoke. She stood close to young Bartholomew, staring into his eyes, as if she was ready to declare her love before the world. Terror and anticipation were in her face. Her fingers rose to lift a hair wisp from her forehead. Frightened as she was, there was consent in her silence. Maid, gentleman; the façade of such roles fell away.
Was I not looking into the mirror of the past and seeing myself and Nicholas as we were thirty years ago? We were different in many particulars from the young people standing before me now. The dangers of travel and the trials of waiting were enough for us without the weight of mortal sin. But this change in intensity is merely part of the natural course. For each generation the forfeit must increase, or how can the son outdo his father?
“If you wish to borrow our maid for your plans, young man, go ahead,” I broke into their hushed leave-taking. “I’m sure Bertha will manage the household well enough.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Helen replied, stepping before her companion and toward the door.
“No,” replied her young man in an urgent whisper. “You can’t be part of this!” He cast a sidelong glance in my direction, unaware it seemed that I caught every word. It is my curse perhaps that my hearing is as acute as ever. I know from the creak of a door a storey below when servants come and go. The wonder of it all has kept me awake these last two nights.
“I am part of it already,” she told him more quietly still, but I caught the words again. “I have to share this with you. I can’t explain why.”
She tugged at his sleeve and, reluctantly, he seemed to relent. In any case they did leave together, and since the house fell into silence again I have felt a stirring in my belly. The spirit of Nicholas has returned to me at last. Together we have set our proxies on their quest.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Guy
CANDLELIGHT SKIMS ACROSS THE opening above me. At last I can see, as well as sense from the boxed-in feeling at my shoulders, the shape of the receptacle within which I lie. The dry oak measures out a hollow oblong, deep and foreboding.
The flame is encouraging at least. I cannot begin to guess how long I have been incarcerated, nor do I know which drug has prevented movement for this passage of time. But the golden light, the glimpse of wormholes close to the rim, even the confirmation of what I already knew, that this place of confinement is a coffin, is welcome after a whole phase of existence in darkness.
A white-gloved hand gathers itself at the rim — finger joining finger until it perches like a giant spider, palm down, and ready to make a spiralling descent. The light becomes sharper and I hear a soft breath.
Eliza’s face comes into view, her eyes turquoise in the flame, her hair more golden than the setting of her father’s pendant. The candle itself appears. Dripping wax oozes over the white-gloved hand that holds the shaft.
“My poor Guy,” she says softly.
There is such a real sadness, and even a slight moistening of her eyes, that I struggle for a reply, something that might strive to be worthy of her sympathy. Phrases tumble into my imagination — no longer poor . . . my dear Eliza . . . with you to gaze upon — but my mouth can’t move to voice them; my jaws open but my lips remain closed. My tongue turns helplessly like a worm struggling upon a hook.
“Don’t try to speak, it’s over,” she says in the same caressing tones. “Poor man, you can’t act to get your wish. You can’t even delegate without a sudden change of mind. Still, you deserve something for thinking of me.”
The hand on the coffin lifts to join the one holding the candle. As both sets of fingers move up and down the candle, streams of wax ooze faster, spilling over her gloves until she smiles, lays the candle upon some unseen surface beyond my coffin, and shakes her gloves free of those drops yet to congeal.
She turns from the coffin. As her face gradually comes into view again, I hear a scraping as of wood against wood. Only when she backs off a little and slides the long, flat object to partially block the space above me, do I realize the thing she has been dragging is the coffin’s lid. She picks up the candle again and holds it in the narrowing space between us.
“Now my not-so-brave knight,” she says, her face a sweet smile beside the fluttering flame, “I’ll say goodnight.”
The lid slams into a complete horizontal then judders along inch by inch until the light above me narrows to a slit. Like those of a drowning man, my lungs fill, and when the slit disappears, thunder reverberates through my body. If all the air in the world were available to me now, I think I would draw it all into myself. I would hold it in storage for myself. Others might use it, but only if I am pleased at the nature of their request. Life now ebbing from me, I have no dearer wish than to be the gatekeeper of life itself.
My fingers ache to move, but they are helpless. My lips tingle with the impulse of one last hope, that if I can call her name, if I can draw her into some conversation, I might save myself. The tip of my tongue quivers against the insides of my lips, searching for a way through.
