Unknown to Beatty, the girl had been in the employ of the Bennets’ for well over two months, close to three. Because she worked indoors, Beatty had never laid eyes on her until now. The young maid had witnessed the altercation in the garden through a window and had sneered at Beatty’s adversity. She had reported the incident to her beloved great-grandmother. Being an offspring to Matriarch Theodora Blackwell, Maisie Blackwell was every bit as sinister.
‘I’m here to see Antonia and Freya,’ Beatty announced.
Maisie stepped aside and opened the door wide enough to let her in. ‘Come in, please,’ she said, her voice polite but cold. Her eyes stared ahead as Beatty stepped through.
Beatty shuddered as she stood in the foyer. A wave of nausea hit her straight away and a feeling of dread provoked the hairs on her arms to stand on end. Her goosebumps were the size of pinheads. She rubbed her upper arms as though a cold chill were in the air.
Beatty thought she saw a dark shadow move along the walls. She looked all around, but nothing was there. She told herself she was imagining things.
‘Let me take your hat and coat,’ Maisie said, unaware of the tricks playing on Beatty’s mind.
The icy maid was evidently well-trained in her work. Her manners were appropriate enough, but her persona could not hide her callousness.
A malicious troublemaker, that one, Beatty could tell.
Maisie attended to Beatty with cold indifference, taking her hat and coat to place them on the racks.
‘Follow me, please.’ Not acknowledging her guest, Maisie walked off and expected Beatty to follow.
Beatty was sure the shadow was following them. Sometimes she saw it creeping along the wall, but when she looked directly there was nothing.
She was convinced it was not her imagination. She could feel the presence of something dreadful. The nausea in her stomach did not cease all the while she was there. The closer the shadow crept to her, the more disorientated she felt.
They stopped at a closed door. ‘Wait here,’ ordered Maisie. She entered the door and closed it behind her, leaving Beatty standing on her own.
Beatty looked nervously along the walls. The black mass remained hidden, but she knew it was there. She tried not to dwell on the invisible spectre, lest her fear run away with her. She tried to think of other things. The only thing that succeeded to take precedent in her mind was recalling the day the girls turned nasty towards her. She rehashed all the insults and physical assaults. The wounds they inflicted began to fester.
While Beatty stood alone in the hallway, the black mass detached itself from the wall, floated across the hall, and entered her through her mouth.
For a minuscule second Beatty thought she felt something invade her, but she dismissed it as a wave of biliousness. Her throat closed up as though a foreign object had infiltrated her and caused an allergy attack. She buckled over and gagged. Spittle started to form at the sides of her mouth. She desperately wanted to dry wretch, but not in her neighbour’s hallway.
Maisie came out to find Beatty holding her stomach and making horrible throaty noises. For a moment, the snobbish girl was taken aback.
‘You may come in,’ Maisie said, passing on the mistress’s request, which was all she could think to do.
Customary etiquette was broken when Beatty turned and made a mad dash for the exit. Stunned, Maisie watched her fleeing down the hall to the stairwell that led to the foyer. When Beatty disappeared around the corner, Maisie stood motionless for a spell. She, slowly gathering her wits about her, returned to the neighbouring room to convey what had occurred.
Beatty ran all the way home holding her stomach, trying desperately not to heave, but her attempt failed. She stopped four times before reaching her mother’s doorstep. She felt as though she were going to die.
Lady Bennet had received word of how inappropriate her daughters had behaved towards Beatty. An elderly maid, who was in sympathy for Beatty, had overheard a conversation between Antonia and Freya and reported the details to her mistress.
The elderly maid was not local. Biddy had come with the servants already in employment and had travelled with the Bennets to Quarrendon. Sadly, many of the original staff had returned to the city, which meant she was now one of the few staff not related to the Blackwell or Seymour clans.
She was not influenced by their idle gossip and to her disgust the new maid, Maisie, who was a great-granddaughter to the matriarch Mrs Blackwell, was egging the Bennet girls on. Maisie’s name had come up quite a lot in the conversation. Antonia was accusing Freya of being too cruel and Freya was defending herself.
It all came out in their debate.
Appalled, Lady Bennet sent a letter to Beatty sincerely apologising for her daughters’ behaviour. She invited Beatty and her mother to come for a visit on another day when Beatty was feeling better.
In the letter, she courteously explained that the girls were getting sick and were often prone to delirium. Their fevers would become so high they were given to violent fits and ghastly hallucinations. Unfortunately, Beatty was the antagonist of their rambling hallucinogenic dreams.
Lady Bennet, by her own admissions, feared her daughters were falling to the sickness nowadays far too frequently. Freya, the youngest, was faring the worst.
Lady Bennet concluded the letter by explaining what had provoked the girls into viciously attacking Beatty that day. She confided with solemn regret she had recently discovered the new maid, Maisie, had provoked her daughters into their unseemly behaviour.
Maisie had been interfering with their minds, putting ideas into their heads and toying with what was real and what was imagined. She had successfully convinced the girls Beatty was bewitching them. Deplorably, the girls were adamant Beatty and her familiars were haunting them in their dreams.
Maisie, of course, had been given her first warning. Beatty would have preferred instant dismissal but knew Lady Bennet to be fair and just.
After the Lady’s sincere apology and permissible excuses, Beatty couldn’t stay away. She made up with Antonia and Freya and for a while considered them her best friends.
They were nowadays confined indoors. The situation meant that Beatty had to enter what she considered the evil-infested place every time she wished to see them.
Beatty felt infested was the appropriate terminology. She discovered many dark shadows on the walls during her visits. She thought it to be the same one until she saw two, three, and four at a time. At a later point, she was to discover it was one large shadow that could break off into many and come back together as one.
When she set foot in the haunted building, she felt the malevolent presence lurking in the backdrop. The unease consumed her like a night terror. Her stomach churned the whole time she was there. The abbey had an evil stench only she could smell.
Something was definitely there. She was always drained and nauseated when she went home.
Six
Circumstances provoked Beatty into a change of heart regarding her feelings toward the girls.
Over time things went awry, destroying any hope for reconciliation. The girls turned on Beatty completely. The taunting, name-calling, and physical attacks escalated. Antonia and Freya were cruel and relentless. When the girls turned nasty, the shadows were always present on the walls. When they disappeared, the girls would come out of their tirades.
To add salt to the wound, the maid Maisie Blackwell had joined in on the action. She claimed Beatty was taunting her too. Maisie took great delight in spurring the girls on, though never in the presence of the other staff or her employers. She continued to plant vicious little seeds and filled the girls’ heads with poison.
Maisie constantly played with the gullibility of the staff, though she was smart enough to leave the master and his wife out of her wicked little games. She had discerned them too clever to be fooled by her trickeries.
She was a vindictive child who enjoyed playing people off against each other. It was in her nature.
Maisie disapproved of Cordelia, seeing her as a penniless commoner who was befriending the lady of the house to benefit her own pockets. She felt the mistress was far above Cordelia’s station.
Maisie wasn’t going to have a user sniffing around her newly-marked territory. She despised Cordelia Clarke and her ulterior motives. She decided the old woman must go.
Maisie was in the background, dusting the furniture. The family were hardly aware she was there. It was her job to blend in and pretend not to acknowledge any of the family drama. She was employed to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye.
Antonia and Freya were trying to convince their mother to turn the witch over to the sheriff, or at least to keep her away from them. The girls were prone to ganging up on their mother.
Lady Bennet had her husband by her side to back her up that day, though she didn’t need it.
The girls hoped their father would see reason.
‘It is true, mama,’ Freya said, exasperated. ‘Beatty has bewitched me. Why will you not believe me?’
‘For the umpteenth time, Freya, there is no such thing as witches or spells, or curses or magic.’ Lady Bennet’s exaggerated eye roll mocked the ludicrousness of the whole theory. ‘Why do you bother me with this nonsense?’
‘Do not make fun of me, mama. It is true! I get sick when she is around me. She turns my stomach.’
‘You are sick all the time, Freya,’ Lady Bennet reminded her. ‘Even when Beatty is not present.’
Maisie brought the family saga to a halt. ‘It’s true,’ she hollered. ‘I get sick too when she shows up. Your neighbour is a witch, ma’am. She comes to me in my dreams and tells me to kill everyone in the house. I swear.’ She looked everyone in the eye with conviction. ‘She comes as herself and sometimes she comes as her familiar, a big red rooster.’
‘She calls the rooster, Big Red,’ Antonia confirmed.
Lady Bennet groaned. ‘That shall be enough of that, Maisie. I shall not hear anymore of it.’ She turned her back on the maid, remembering the trouble the girl caused between Beatty and her daughters not so long ago. She planned to put a stop to the girl’s troublemaking promptly.
Maisie continued to defy the mistress, even though the master sat beside her with a stern look on his face. ‘Do you not see the witch is causin’ harm to your children, ma’am? Why do you let it happen?’
The Squire was on his feet in a moment, glaring at the girl as if he would pummel her. ‘My wife does not have to convey anything to you, you insolent wretch of a child,’ he yelled.
Lady Bennet was in a state. ‘You are out of line. I’ll have you know that I am well aware of my girls’ predicament.’ She wanted to explode into a rage but managed to maintain some control. ‘Not that it is any business of yours, young lady, but we have corresponded with the best doctors and sent off samples as requested.
‘As it stands, three renowned doctors have already visited us to personally examine our girls. Top medical scientists are doing tests on the girls as we speak. They are diligently trying to find out what is causing these ailments. Something is causing my girls’ condition, but it is not black magic or witchcraft. I would rather get to the truth of the matter, wouldn’t you?’
Maisie had not noticed her mistress’s scorn. She was too wrapped up in her conviction.
Mr Bennet was appalled at her conduct. ‘I will not have you prying into my family’s business,’ he said. ‘I will not have you speaking out of line and I will especially not have you speaking disrespectfully to my wife.’ He walked the floor to burn off the adrenaline his rage had accumulated.
Maisie’s eyes were rounded with surprise and fear. She was not about to take on the master as she did his wife.
‘I will not have you speaking unless spoken to. Do you understand?’ he bellowed.
‘Yes, sir,’ she squeaked. With her head bowed, she did a quick curtsy to show her humble obedience.
The Squire was not yet settled. He paced some more. The girl stood in one spot with her eyes peeled to the floor.
‘I will see you in my study when you are done with all your work,’ he ordered.
‘Yes, sir.’ She bowed her head politely and left the room in a scurry.
Lady Bennet had been flattered by her husband’s protectiveness. She knew Maisie was in for one hell of a reprimand before her discharge. She couldn’t help feeling concerned for the girl, but she was mostly pleased to see her go. The girl respected no boundaries.
After Maisie was dismissed, Lady Bennet felt compelled to invite Beatty over and start anew. After all the drama, she admitted how badly Beatty had been treated and by her own offspring.
She was mortified she let it happen. From the bottom of her heart, she felt compelled to invite the poor girl over to sit with her so she could offer Beatty some kindness.
The remorseful Lady Bennet was so glad when Beatty accepted the invitation. In truth, she rather liked the girl. She saw no wickedness in her and thought Beatty had a lot of her mother’s kindly nature.
On the day Beatty was to visit, Lady Bennet gave her girls a good lecture concerning their attitude towards Beatty. They were to show her the greatest respect.
The Lady was sitting at the fireplace when she heard a soft knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ she called.
An elderly maid walked into the room and bowed. She was new to the establishment, Maisie’s replacement. Lady Bennet was rather taken with her, as was everyone else. She was softly spoken and conducted herself well. The guests and the children had warmed to her. She had also become well acquainted with Biddy, the only other elderly maid in their service.
‘Miss Beatrice Clarke is here to see you, ma’am.’
‘Do tell her to come in, Elsa,’ Lady Bennet said.
‘Yes, milady.’ Elsa curtsied and left the room.
Beatty entered and walked over to the fireplace where Lady Bennet was sitting. The girls and their brother were playing by the window. No sooner had Beatty seated herself in the armchair, Freya fell into one of her spells.
Beatty was ready for it. The presence of the shadows had forewarned her that unpleasantness would soon be at play.
Freya shifted onto her hands and knees, growling like a threatened beast. She crawled under a nearby table and stayed there, all the while staring and snarling at Beatty.
Lady Bennet was inclined to ignore the silly little game and implored Beatty to do so too. They carried on a conversation and managed to drown out the background noise.
A second lot of growls came from somewhere in the room. Antonia had fallen to the same malady as her sister. She clambered under the table next to Freya.
‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ Lady Bennet complained.
Beatty rose to her feet. ‘I think I better go, ma’am, before it gets out of hand.’
‘Nonsense,’ claimed Lady Bennet. She faced the girls under the table. ‘Girls, I order you to get out from under the table. I will not have any more of this behaviour.’
The girls looked as though they had no knowledge their mother was present. This realisation made Lady Bennet cower. It was demoralising that she felt scared of her own children. Yet, looking into their eyes, she thought these creatures were no longer her daughters. She looked at Beatty, hoping for some answers. Beatty was ready to make a run for the door if need be. She was as puzzled as Lady Bennet.
Lady Bennet’s son, George, was none the wiser to the goings-on. He was busy playing with his building blocks. He remained unperturbed during the whole event.
The girls leapt out at Beatty. They clawed and sunk their teeth into her. Lady Bennett stood back, screaming at the girls to stop. Beatty screamed with fear and pain as she tried to fight them off.
The noise was such a racket that Mr Bennet came tearing into the room with his valet in pursuit.
The men quickly took hold of the uncontrollable girls. It took all their strength to hold them back. Beatty came out of the ordeal covered in blood. The girls had left claw and bite marks everywhere. Her dress was tatt
ered and stained with blood.
Beatty burst into tears. While she cried, the girls came out of their daze. Although they appeared to be back to normal, the men restrained them, just in case. Taking in all that had eventuated and realising they were the instigators, the girls too began to weep.
Lady Bennet shook her head in disbelief as she watched Beatty holding her hands to her face and weeping. ‘I am so sorry, Beatty,’ Lady Bennet said. ‘Please forgive me.’
Beatty managed to lift her head up and wipe her face with her ruined dress. She had lost all regard for the girls. There was no friendship to salvage, nor were there any plausible excuses for their shocking behaviour. She could never forgive them. ‘Can I please go, ma’am?’
Lady Bennet nodded her head, unable to speak.
Beatty said her goodbyes and walked off.
‘Take care, Beatty,’ she heard Mr Bennet say softly. He sounded devastated.
She walked out of the building with no intention of ever returning. How many times must she do this, she asked herself.
Whatever partiality was left in her heart for the Bennet family was solely for the parents. They had always remained sensible and fair-minded, whatever cruel game their girls were plotting.
Seven
‘Why won’t you come, Beatty?’
Cordelia was trying hard to encourage her daughter to act like nothing was out of sorts. She wanted Beatty to keep visiting the girls as she used to, even after they had sent her home bloodied and scarred for life.
‘Ma, you know I feel sick every time I set foot in that place. There is somethin’ there. You’ve felt it yourself. And you’ve seen how cruelly the girls treat me.’
It had been three months since Beatty had returned home looking like a ravaged animal. She had not set foot in the abbey since and planned never to again. Cordelia believed her daughter’s decision to be rational and justified, but she was afraid her daughter’s absence would provoke suspicion. She wanted Beatty to show the town, including the Bennets, she had nothing to hide.
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