by Tanith Lee
And yet the work had never been completed.
Somewhere the ghost of the Eastlands girl, cruelly nicknamed Pebble for her dirt and her common, uncared-for person, somewhere that
ghost roared in its limbo, unsatisfied and unappeased.
At last, the notion came aware in the midst of the unthinking but oddly reasoning entity of the curse that what deprived it of its intended victims must be a scapegoat insertion of two others, as innocent and beguiled as Pebble had been.
This, the seventh year, which brought the huzdra to the climax of its power, brought it also the solution to the deception.
Mirromi's magic runes on the ancient dead trees by the highway, registering two travelers journeying in any case toward the great house, selected no others, since the Countess had no requirement for more than two, a man and a woman, to enter her doors.
The travelers were like several others of the twelve who had gone before, poor and uneducated. They had much the same tale to tell, of the dead horse, the abandoned wagon, how no one had stopped to aid them. Yes, these two travelers were very like those who had gone before, except, perhaps, more pliable than they. And even in the bedchamber, having put on the fated velvet garments, they had spoken to each other in such a desolate, pathetic way. Almost as if they had known about the hidden lenses and the amplifying tube, known that the Count and Countess would listen and watch, and had wanted to convince the Count and Countess that all was going, for the seventh time, exactly to plan…
It was safe to return to the tower room after midnight had struck, absolutely safe.
The only occasion when it would not have been safe would have been if, by some extraordinary oversight, two flesh-and-blood scapegoats had not been left there after all.
Count Fedesha and Countess Mirromi returned a few minutes following the stroke. The Count carried a lamp, the better to inspect what lay about. Neither he nor his Countess was squeamish. They had been inflicting negligent torture and death on innumerable droves of men and women for sufficient years that raw bones were no trouble to them. Indeed, they were rather curious, rather intrigued, to observe this last scene of the doltish huzdra, this last proof of their triumph.
The stone door, unlocked, swung open.
The Countess gasped, the Count grunted.
For there, quite unharmed, were the brother and his crippled sister.
A couple of heartbeats, a couple of wild inner questionings.
Then the melting of the illusion of velvet clothes and of homespun, of gem and of poverty. Of humanity.
A brown man, seeing clearly now he was naked, not only through the two large eyes in his head, but out of the several glinting eyes in his breast, which blinked, and which opened and closed, and which finally focused with great intensity. And by him, no longer a cripple who could not walk, an amber-haired woman, who reared upright from the sinuous flexible column of a serpent's tail.
Now it was the brother and sister who were smiling, with sharp, sharp teeth, while they raised their long-nailed hands as if in welcome.
And the Count and the Countess began to scream.
Three Days
I have had some interests in reincarnation, and incidents similar to this do occur.
Men like Monsieur Laurent, I hope, are very few. Of all the many and dreadful evil characters I have written of, I consider him perhaps the worst. Can there be such things as clean evil and dirty evil? If so, he exemplifies the latter. For such, perhaps, there should not be lives, but a hell of flame indeed.
The house was tall, impressive, peeling, and seemed old before its time. The only attractive thing about it, to my eyes, was the dark-lidded glance of an attic, looking out of the slope of the roof, which such houses sometimes have. The attic eye seemed to say: There is something beautiful here, after all. Or, there could be something beautiful, if such a thing were allowed.
Below and before, a green haze of young chestnut trees lined the street, which gave on the Bois Palais. Behind, rising above the walled
gardens, were the stepped roads and blue slate caps of distant Montmoulin over the river, with, as their apparent apex, the white dome of the Sacré. All this was of course very pleasant. Yet I never come into the area now without a sense of misgiving. That is due to the house, and to what took place there.
One felt nothing extravagant could ever have issued from such a proper dwelling. And one would have been wrong. My friend (I use the term indiscriminately) Charles Laurent had issued from it. He was at that season making something of a star of himself in the legal profession, and also by way of a series of books, fictionalized, witty, rather brilliant studies of past trials and case-histories. It was in the latter capacity, the literary side, that our paths crossed. I took to him, it was difficult not to. Handsome and informed was Laurent, an easy companion, and a very entertaining one. I suppose also, the best of us may agree it is no bad thing to be on good terms with a clever lawyer.
I was at this time too attempting to become engaged, and the girl's father had suddenly begun to make my way stony. After a stormy, possibly hysterical scene, worthy of the opera, my love and I had agreed we should put some physical distance between us for a while, allowing Papa's temper to cool, and relying on letters and the connivance of the mother - who liked me, and was no less than a angel - to save our hopes, and prevent our mutually going mad. It is a shabby thing for a young man to be in love with one he may not have. It puts an end to a number of solaces, without replacing them.
In short, life was not at its nicest. To take up with a Charles Laurent was the ideal solution.
To say our relationship was superficial would be a perfect description; its superficiality was the shining crown of it. We knew just enough of each other as might be helpful. For the rest, food, drink, music, the arts, such as these were ably sufficient to carry us across whole continents of hours into the small ones before dawn. So it was with slight surprise that I found one day he had invited me to dine at his home.
'And well your face may fall,' he said. 'Believe me, it will be a hideous evening, I can promise you that. I'm asking you selfishly, to relieve the tedium and horror. Not that anyone conceivably could.'
Not unnaturally, I inquired after details. He told me with swift disdain that his father observed yearly the anniversary of his mother's
death.
'I'm a stranger,' I said. 'At such a function I could hardly be welcome.'
'We are all strangers. He hates every one of us. My brother, my sister.
He hated my mother, too.' He spoke frivolously. That did not stop a slight frisson of interest from going over me. 'Now I have you, I see,'
said Charles. 'The writer has been woken up and is scenting the air.'
'Not at all. But you never mentioned a brother, or a sister.'
'Semery won't be there. He never comes near the house on such occasions. Honorine lives there, as I do, and has no choice.'
'Honorine, your sister?'
'My sister. Poor plain pitiful creation of an unjust God.'
I confess I did not like his way of referring to her. If it were true, I felt he should have protected, not slandered her, with that able tongue of his, to loose acquaintances such as I. He saw me frowning and said, 'Don't be afraid, my friend. We shan't try to marry her off to you. I recall too well la bonne Anette.'
I frankly thought the entire dialogue would be forgotten, but not so.
The next morning an embossed invitation was delivered. A couple of nights later I found myself under the chestnut trees before that tall, unprepossessing house, and presently inside, for good or ill.
I was uneasy, that was the least of it, but also I confess extremely curious. Charles had hit home with that remark about the writer in me waking up. What was I about to see at this annual wake? Images of the American writer Mr Poe trooped across my mind: an embalmed corpse, black wreaths, a vault, a creaking black-clad aristo with long tapering hands… Even the daughter had as
sumed some importance. I think I toyed with the picture of her playing an eastern harp.
Naturally, I was far out. The family, what there was of it, seemed familiarly normal. Monsieur Laurent was a wine-faced portly maitre d'affaires. He looked me up and down, found me wanting (of course), greeted me and let me pass. He reminded me but too well of that other father I had to do with, Anette's, four miles to the west, and I felt an instant depression. There was also an uncle on the premises, who stammered and was not well dressed, two deaf and short-sighted
old ladies whose connection I did not quite resolve, and a florid, limping servant. I began to feel I had come among a collection of the deaf, the dumb, the halt and the lame. Charles, obviously, was not to be numbered among these. Like a firework he had exploded from the dull genetic sink, as sometimes happens. The younger brother, Semery, who after all attended, was also an exception. Good-looking, he had a makeshift air; Charles and he hailed each other heartily as rival bandits, meeting unarmed in the hills. Semery was the 'ne'er-do-well' with which so many families attempt to equip themselves. Some twist of fortune, some strain of energy, had denied the role to Charles who, I felt, might have handled it better.
The sister came late down. She did not have a harp about her, but alas, everything Charles had said seemed a fact.
The sons perhaps had taken their looks from the dead mother we were supposed to be celebrating. Poor Honorine did not even favour her father. She was that sad combination of small bones and heavy flesh that seems to indicate some mistake has been made in assembly.
She ate very little, and one knew instinctively that her dumpy form and puffy features were not the results of gluttony, or even appetite.
She was not ugly, but that is all that can be said. Indeed, had she been ugly, she would have possessed a greater advantage than she did. For she was unmemorable. Her small eyes, whose colour I truly do, God forgive me, forget, were downcast. Her thin hair, drawn back into a false chignon that did not exactly match, made me actually miserable: We writers sometimes postulate future states of freedom for both sexes, regardless of physical advantage. Never had one seemed so necessary. Poor wretched girl.
That her father detested her was obvious, but - as Charles had told me
- Monsieur Laurent cared little for any of them. The dire lucklessness of it was that, while his sons escaped or absconded, the daughter was trapped. She had no option but to wait out, as how many do, the death of the tyrant. He was hale and hearty. It would be a long wait. How did she propose to spend it? How did she spend her days as it was?
No doubt, my remarks on Monsieur Laurent sound unduly callous.
Patently, they are coloured by hindsight, but I took against him immediately, and he against me, I am sure. Yes, he resembled my own reluctant intended-father-in-law, but there was more to it than that. Lest I do myself greater injustice than I must, I will hastily
reproduce some of the conversation and the events of that first, really most unglittering, dinner party.
To begin with there was some sherry, or something rather like it, but very little talk. Monsieur Laurent maintained guard across the fireplace. Aside from snapping rudely a couple of times at the old ladies and the limping servant, he only stood eyeing us all, as if we were a squadron of raw troops foisted on him at the very eve of important hostilities. Annoyance, contempt and actual exasperation were mingled in that glance, which generously included us all. I found it irritating. He knew nothing of me, as yet, to warrant such an opinion. In the case of Charles, most fathers would have been proud.
We were meanwhile talking sotto voce and Charles said, as if reading my thoughts, 'You can see what he thinks of me, go on, can't you?'
'I assume,' I said, 'that his expression is misleading.'
'Not at all. When I won my first case, he looked at me just that way.
When I foolishly spoke of it the old wretch said to me, "The stupidity of other men doesn't make you clever." As for the first book - well, it was a success, and I recall we met on the stairs and he had a copy. I was stunned he'd even looked at it, and said so. At which he put the book in my hand as if I'd demanded it and replied, "I suppose you'll sell this rubbish, since the majority of the populace is dustbin-brained." '
Just then the food was ready and our host marched before us into the dining salon. No pretence was made of escort or invitation. Charles conducted the two elderly ladies. Semery idled through. I looked round to offer my arm to Mademoiselle Honorine, but she was making a great fuss over the discarded sherry goblets. I sensed too exactly the dreadful embarrassment of the unlovely, and left well alone.
Needless to say I wondered how on earth, and why on earth, Charles had procured me a place at this spectre's feast. I could only conclude that Monsieur Laurent's utter disgust with humanity en masse did not deign to distinguish between absence or arrival. Come or go as we would, we were a source of displeasure. Perhaps even, new specimens of the loathsome breed momentarily satisfied him, bringing him as they must the unassailable proof that nothing had altered, he was still quite right about us all.
'Sit,' rapped Monsieur Laurent, glaring around him.
Obedient as dogs, we sat.Some kind of entree was served and a vintage inspected. Monsieur Laurent then looked directly at me. 'The wine isn't so good, but I expect you'll put up with it.' This, as if I were some destitute who had scrounged a place at the board. A number of retorts bolted into my mind, but I curbed them, smiled politely, and had thereafter a schoolboy urge to kick Charles' shins under the table.
Whether the wine was good or not good, after a glass or two, the demon father began noticeably to brighten. I was struck by the flash of his eye, and realized that generalized contempt was about to flower into malice. I am afraid only two thoughts occurred to me at that moment. One was, I regret, that this was very intriguing. The other was concerned with wondering what I would do if he grossly insulted me. For I could sense, the way animals scent a coming storm, how the thunder was getting up. I reasoned though I was safe, being not such fun to attack as his own. He had not had time to learn my weaknesses and wants. While the rest of them - they had been his playground from birth.
Honorine - there was no attempt at fashionable order - sat three seats away from me, with Semery and an empty chair between. Behind Honorine, above the mahogany sideboard, a large framed photograph with black ribbon on it seemed to depict the dead wife and mother.
My current angle prevented any perusal of this, but to it Monsieur Laurent now ordered our attention.
'That woman,' he said, 'was a very great nuisance while she lived. I drink, as you see, to her departure. Ah, what a nasty wicked sentiment. Correction, an honest one. Besides, she has taken her revenge. Look what she saddled me with. All of you.' There was a concerted dismal rustle round the table. One of the old ladies dabbed her face with a handkerchief, but one saw it was a sort of reflex. It was plainly not the only occasion all this had been voiced. I looked surreptitiously at Charles. He was a perfect blank, composed and cool. Small wonder he could keep his head in a courtroom after being raised to the tune of this!
Beside me, however, Semery either deliberately, or uncontrollably, acted out the role of foil by snarling: 'Cher Papa. Can't you leave anything in decent peace?'
'Ah, my little Semery,' said cher Papa, smiling at him now. 'You have toiled up from the slime of your slum to say this? And how is the painting going? Sell well, do you, my boy? You came to ask… now what was it for? Ah, yes. For money. And I told you I would think about it, but after all what use is it to give you cash?' (Semery had gone white. I could hardly believe what I was hearing or that Semery could have given such a faultless cue for his own public castigation.
It was as if he had had to do it.) 'You squander everything. And have such slender talent. No, I really think after all, you must do without.
Tighten your belt. Or you could return and live here. My doors are always open to you.' ,
'I'd rather die in the
gutter -' shouted Semery.
'No you wouldn't. Or why are you here?'
'Not to ask anything from you, as you well know.'
'Begging from your brother Charles, then. This afternoon's most touching scene. Such a pity I disturbed you. But Charles isn't a fool with his money if he's a fool with everything else. You won't get if from him. And I promise you, you won't get it from me.'
Semery rose. An amazing change reshaped the monster's face. It grew rock-hard, petrified. But the eyes were filled by potent electricity. 'Down,' rasped the father. The room seemed to shake at the command. Semery sank back into his chair and his trembling hands knocked over his wine-glass. Seldom have I witnessed such a display of the casual, absolute power one mortal thing may obtain over another. I felt myself as if I had received a blow in the stomach, and yet what had actually happened? To set it out here does not convey anything.
'Yes, Semery,' Monsieur Laurent now said, 'you should return under my roof, and make your name painting portraits of this beautiful sister of yours.'
Having levelled one gun-emplacement with his unerring cannon, the warmonger had turned his fire from the rout of the wounded to the demolition of the totally helpless. I could not prevent myself glancing at her, in horrid fascination, to see how she took it. Of course, she too was well used to such treatment. She cowered, her eyes down, her terrible unmatched chignon shuddering. Yet the pose was native to her. It seemed almost comfortable. Her body sagged in the lines of
abjection so readily, easily.
'Compliment your coiffeur, Honorine,' said Monsieur Laurent. 'These enemies of yours have succeeded in making of you, yet again, a fright. Heaven hurry the day,' he added, drinking his wine in greedy little sips, 'when this pretence at having hair is done. A daughter who is completely bald will be a novelty. All this scraping and combing and messing. Fate intended you as a catastrophe, my child. You should accept the part. Look at you, my dear graceless lump -' At this point I put out my hand and picked up my own glass. I believe I had every intention of throwing it at his head, anything to make him stop.