Beatrice: An Alarming Tale of British Murder and Woe

by Tedd Hawks

  “That’s unbeliebable.”

  The morning stillness exploded as both the lady and the apprentice lawyer broke into frantic, unbridled laughter. Tears rolled down Crockett’s cheeks. Brontë doubled over so that the sleeves of her housecoat slipped into the mud. A few times they tried to gather themselves together, but it proved futile. In the end, both of them had dry throats and wet cheeks. They panted as the rosy light of morning turned golden.

  “Thank you,” Crockett finally rasped, “for taking it well, not…making me feel like I was incompetent.”

  “Well, we all can act rashly and irresponsibly.” Brontë crossed her arms. “I often treat my poor sister like a leper. She’s just so frustrating, but I immediately regret it. She’s sweet and has so much imagination. Sometimes I think I may be jealous, you know. Grandmother likes her better because of her creative tendencies. She says she has an opal spirit.”

  “Is that good?” Crockett’s eyebrows raised.

  “I assume so. She says it’s better than being amethyst.”[16]

  “I’ll take your lady’s word on the matter,” Crockett said uncertainly.

  Noises from the house alerted them others were waking. Crockett reached for something to say, but nothing came to his mind. Phrases started to form on his tongue, but the moment he lifted his face and gazed upon Brontë, they vanished like dew in sunlight.

  It was she who finally broke the silence.

  “I miss him.”

  “Who?”

  “Grandfather. He was an odd man.” She thought to herself for a moment then smiled broadly. “For example, he once told Kordelia and me that one should never be painted before their hair turns white, because it makes portraits less regal.” She laughed quietly to herself. “He stayed true to his word—there’s not a single image of him as a young man.”

  “I suppose it’s little use to remember youth.”

  “I think I’d like to,” Brontë smiled warmly. “I can’t imagine not having a picture with my children or from my wedding.”

  Crockett flushed at the word wedding. Brontë appeared not to notice, turning her glance to the house, where Robert Edward and Dexter (or who Crockett assumed to be Dexter; that morning he was wearing a coonskin hat and American Indian–styled leather breeches) came out the front door.

  “You were lucky to have him, even if it was a short time,” Crockett said, his voice sullen. “I never had anyone—a mother, father, or grandfather. Petrarch’s been like a father to me. His wife died shortly after we met; it caused a unique bond for us, a family formed from the ashes. I suppose that’s why I try so desperately to impress him,” Crockett sighed, “why I try so desperately to impress anyone with some authority or who inspires a passion in me.”

  Crockett’s gaze had fallen to the ground, but when he looked up, he found Brontë’s eyes fixed on him. Her expression was melancholy; she appeared to want to reach out and lay a hand on his arm, but she refrained. A warmth, separate from the rays of the sun, radiated from them both. Without fear, nervousness, or compunction, Crockett smiled.

  Brontë turned to the house, her gaze settling briefly on Robert Edward and Dexter. “Family is always interesting, whether it’s something destined by birth or a found object encountered later in life.”

  “Your family has its share of unique found objects,” Crockett said. “Robert Edward is—well…”

  “As I mentioned before, I try not to ask questions, as they tend not to clarify.”

  “His face…” searching for the word, Crockett made a swirling motion around his own countenance to express the confusion of Robert Edward’s facial arrangement. “It’s…not aligned, I guess I would say.”

  “Well, it could be an expression of his amethyst spirit.” Brontë winked at Crockett. “I would like to ask about its ugliness, but it would be indecorous, I believe.”

  “Sorry,” Crockett spoke quickly. “I didn’t mean—your family is lovely. Kordelia is very unique. We have spoken a few times…She is sometimes lightness and sometimes so very leaden with sorrow.”

  Brontë pulled a strand of hair from her face. “That’s the general story of our family. It’s an odd tension.”

  More voices erupted from the house, what sounded like August making a comment about eggs.

  “I suppose we should go in,” Brontë said.

  “Yes, we’ll be missed if we wander about much longer.”

  “Well,” Brontë said beginning to walk toward the house, “this chat was wonderful. It is a true deblight getting to know you, Mr. Cook.”

  Crockett concealed his face. His smile spanned ear to ear. “The feeling,” he said quietly, “is mutubull.”

  Chapter 7: A Voice in the Dark

  When Crockett returned to his room, the warm June sun flashed through the windows in bright white beams. He was in abnormally high spirits and couldn’t help but whistle a tune from his childhood[17] as he put on a fresh shirt and combed his hair. His thoughts strayed to Brontë and the magnetic nature of her smile during their conversation. It felt as if something changed in their little talk; he believed her thorny exterior had bent or even broken.

  “Hullo.”

  Crockett leapt upward. He had been in the middle of an especially aggressive stroke through his hair and nearly pulled out a clump due to the surprise.[18]

  “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” It was Kordelia, oddly clothed in a long silk housecoat, her fine blonde hair wrapped in a turban. In the center of the headwrap, a glittering, red jewel glinted in the morning light.

  “Kordelia…” Crockett said slowly. “Are you practicing for the play?”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Your…clothing seems out of place for a day in a country manor.”

  “Your clothing seems out of place for a séance,” she said, an edge to her bell-like voice.

  “I’m sorry—a séance?”

  But Kordelia had fled. Crockett, again, was left with nothing to say in response to the spritely apparition that was the Hawsfeffers’ youngest granddaughter.

  He finished combing his hair and went into the corridor. Petrarch was waiting outside his room, looking out the hazy, cracked windows that faced the front courtyard.

  “Kordelia was just here. She mentioned a séance,” Crocket said.

  Petrarch laughed. “At least she told you in plain English. She invited me to join her fortune teller’s tongue. ‘Abbiminy jugtildamesztch’ were the words, I believe.”

  “Petrarch, I don’t think it’s out of place for me to mention that that girl confounds me.”

  “It’s the Swiss influence, Crockett. I think the cheeses and clocks are affecting her. I’m hoping her mother, June, pulls her back into a good, staunch English finishing school, where there are no plays, just some good embroidery courses and less dairy, of course.” As Petrarch said this, he spun with a flourish and marched away.

  In the dining room, Martha had put out a simple breakfast. Brontë sat at the head of the table tapping a soft-boiled egg with a spoon. When Crockett entered, she started. Her face flushed, and she nervously played with her hair.

  “Hullo, Miss Winterbourne,” Crockett said dreamily. Brontë suppressed a smile into her napkin.

  Petrarch tsk’d quietly viewing the interaction. He took a seat and gave Crockett a look, which he hoped reminded him of the futility of his flirtations. Crockett, however, failed to notice. His gaze remained fixed upon Brontë.

  The only other person in the room was May, whose expression was, if possible, even more pinched in than when she appeared the previous evening.

  “If you’d like to join the séance, you better eat quickly,” May said, judgment dripping from her tone.

  “Grandmother has already taken up the biscuits she keeps exclusively for the ghosts,” Brontë added.

  May snorted with contempt. “Mother used to be religious; she was the one who coerced us to attend services and taught us from the Holy Book. I don’t understand her new propensi
ties for the occult. It’s diabolical—absolutely wicked.”

  “Well, according to her, she’s heard things during the night which indicate a spiritual presence,” Brontë said.

  Crockett nervously played with his napkin, the reverie born of his attraction for Brontë replaced by his fear of the occult. “I told you Kordelia mentioned ghosts yesterday. She said Petrarch and my rooms are full of them.”

  Brontë looked at him, her eyes smiling. “Crockett, have you seen the windows in those rooms? Even a gentle spring breeze would howl through them like a screaming banshee.” The mirth in her eyes faded. “To be honest, it’s Grandmother who got Kordelia into all that ghost nonsense, hence the arson and now her exile on the continent.”

  “Well, I would much rather enjoy breakfast than talk to ghosts, even if they do have good taste in biscuits.” Petrarch said, ladling a heaping mound of porridge into his bowl to punctuate this statement.

  Crockett was about to reach for some jam, when he suddenly thought the better of it. He had never been to a séance and, even with the wily Kordelia leading it, the experience would be novel.

  “You know, I would like to join,” he said. “Where are they gathered?”

  May groaned. “In the study. Be careful when you barge in; they lit enough candles to be seen from the moon.”

  #

  May’s remark on the candles was not exaggerated. They were arranged on every empty space in the study—the desk, the carpet, the couches, the window ledge. They had not pulled the drapes over the large window; it was needless as an expansive oak tree grew outside. Its long shadow fell through the clear panes, keeping the room deep in shadow. In the center of the room, the participants gathered around a circular table draped in a blood-red cloth. Corinthiana wore a similar costume to Kordelia, a silk dressing gown but with a more ostentatious turban. Beside her, swimming happily in her bowl, was Beatrice (a tiny, flamboyant headpiece matching Corinthiana’s placed on top of her transparent home). June and August looked disinterested but nevertheless occupied spaces next to Kordelia. Facing them, across the table, were Robert and, to Crockett’s surprise, Martha. In the center of the small group was Kordelia, a large book with yellowed pages open before her.

  “Welcome, our beggaaarly friend. They haaad saaaid yooou maaay aaarrive.” Although Corinthiana spoke to Crockett, her gaze was fixed on a point above his head.

  “They?” Crockett asked.

  “The spirits,” Kordelia said. Her eyes sparkled in the candlelight.

  “Mummy was in touch with them this morning, evidently.” June threw an embarrassed glance at her mother.

  “Zey have been very chatty recently vith ze passing of Master Hawsfeffer.” Robert looked over at Crockett and smiled. Something about the gesture was off, the rising of his mouth delayed just a moment too long after speaking. Although he wore a new set of clothes, a pinstripe suit of black and gray, it retained the gothic-horror tones of the previous evening. On his neck he wore a tie covered in ugly skulls, while a chain hung from his jacket pocket. In the nascent morning light, he looked even more haggard than Crockett previously thought, his beard ragged and unkempt, almost as if the hairs had all twisted in his sleep. His face resembled a child’s painting, the nose slightly off-center and his eyebrow at a bizarre forty-five-degree angle above his right eye.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been remiss as to not comment on how very stylish you are,” Crockett said, employing Petrarch’s lesson from the previous day of insulting compliments.

  Robert’s eyes flashed.

  “Get on with it!” Martha grunted, munching on one of the biscuits reserved for ghosts.

  Corinthiana reached out and swatted it from her hand. Her vowels plumped with rage. “Steeealing whaaat is not yours aaagaaain as aaalwaaays, Maaarthaaa.”

  A proper row would have erupted had the table not jumped beneath them.

  Terror seized the gathered party. June clutched August. Martha’s mouth dropped open, biscuit crumbs falling onto her lap. Crockett goat-froze, as he was wont to do under duress; being at the table, however, kept him from fully collapsing.

  “What was…” August looked around nervously.

  “The dead.” Kordelia said softly.

  “I told yooou! Weee must entooomb deeear Bixby or weee will continuaaally faaace theeese terrors!”

  A pregnant silence filled the room. In the quiet, the group noticed a great number of sounds they had not hearkened upon entering—the slight, eerie twitter of a bird outside the window; the wraithlike mutter of an unseen draft; the crackle and hiss of the candles, so many lit that it sounded as if they were surrounded by snakes.

  “Very interesting,” Robert said, the chain on his suit rattling.

  “Jumbiminy jumocha maraxes twiddle haux,” Kordelia muttered as she read from the tome before her.

  “Silence,” Corinthiana said in a low tone, which shook with a rising fear. “Kordeliaaa will now reeead from theee aaancient texts.” She paused for a moment, then quickly added, “Yooou maaay leeean in closer. I haaave given her some herbs for her haaalitosis.”

  Everyone was very pleased by this effort to make the young girl’s breath more bearable.

  “What are we hoping to learn?” August asked, his mustache lightly shaking in terror.

  “We are attempting to speak with Grandfather.” Kordelia’s eyes did not lift from the book. “It is hoped he’ll tell us where his body is.”

  What followed was a long reading from the shadowy book before Kordelia. Although at first Crockett was filled with terror, as the reading went on and questionable words arose in the ancient tongue (“pettifogerry,” “tea cozie,” and “philanderer” all sprinkled in), the fear subsided. August joined Crockett in renewed skepticism, along with June and Martha who exchanged suspicious glances across the table.

  Finishing the speech, Kordelia threw up her hands. Corinthiana looked up to the sky, her fingers clutching a large, gold necklace that was around her throat.

  “Theee gaaatewaaay of theee dead is opened.” Her voice shook. “Weee caaan now aaask theee phaaantaaasms whaaat they know.”

  The candles continued to hiss. An elongated moan came from the draft flowing through the room.

  June was the first to speak. “Daddy…” she asked warily, “are you here with us?”

  Martha tensed. Her wild eyes scanned the room. Robert was intently focused on Corinthiana, his knotted hands stroking his wild beard. From outside the room a clock chimed.

  “Bixby Hawsfeffer is not here,” Kordelia said slowly. “Who else would like to address the undead?”

  “Lucinda?” Martha asked softly. “Lucinda…do you wish to speak?”

  At that moment, a great thud was heard in the room. Corinthiana and June both shrieked. Robert fell back from the table. Even Kordelia lost her composure, her turban slipping from her brow. Only Beatrice was unperturbed, her dead fish eyes revealing no emotion.

  “Sheee is heeere!” Corinthiana gasped. “Lucindaaa! Speeeak tooo us!”

  “Missus,” Martha said softly.

  “Silence!” Corinthiana whispered. “Lucindaaa speeeaks!”

  Martha crossed her arms, her face filled with abject loathing. Crockett, heart racing, hands braced on the table, followed Martha’s vindictive gaze and saw that she was looking to the window, which was covered in blood.

  “Mrs. Hawsfeffer,” he said softly, “Martha was pointing out that a bird crashed into the window…It may not have been the voice of the dead.”

  Martha grumpily interjected, “Poor thing was probably confused by the number of candles in here. He thought we were signaling to him.”

  “Martha is correct,” Kordelia said softly. “Lucinda is not present, but that bird is dead.” There was a collective sigh of relief. Kordelia closed her eyes and put her fingers together. “Who else would like to ask something of the dead? Address the name of a lost one, and they may respond.”

  “Bixby Von Bunson?” Corinthiana asked.

  Silence.
>
  “Aunt Merriwether?” August amusedly set this name forward.

  Nothing.

  “Hercule Poirot?” Kordelia posed.

  A sound was heard, but it was merely Martha knocking over a candle while reaching for another biscuit; the disturbance was quickly classified as a very living sound.

  “Recently dead bird?” Crockett asked sadly, looking to the window.

  No contact from the bird; Kordelia then explained to the group that the dead (even birds) do not communicate until after a full moon phase has passed.

  A prolonged silence filled the space. Each of the gathered looked tentatively between Kordelia and Corinthiana.

  “Perhaaaps,” Corinthiana began apprehensively, “theee voices I heard this morning were not signs of theee dead.” She gingerly placed her finger into Beatrice’s bowl, stroking the fish's silver-blue scales. “But, I just,” her voice tremored, “I waaanted some sign. In theee river…of aaall plaaaces, where sooo much traaagedy haaas haaappened tooo this faaamily…Caaan weee never haaave closure? Must it aaall be mystery and murder?”

  Crockett’s heart felt for the old woman. For the first time he saw all the trappings of Corinthiana stripped away—her accents, her garish garments, her posturing—all gone, and in their wake only infinite ripples of grief. The young country girl, who found a handsome, landed gentleman who promised her a fuller life, merged with the gaudy, outré matriarch to shape the anguished figure before them. The rest of the family felt similarly, their faces conveying empathy and grief—the squabbling, the blaming, the desire for money, and the old grudges evaporated in the dim candlelight. August gently reached out and gripped June’s hand. Even Martha looked on Corinthiana with a (tepid) look of understanding.

  But it was then that the table jumped once more. The door to the study flew open, and a strong breeze whipped through the room making the pages of Kordelia’s book dance. A large proportion of the candles blew out, leaving the corners of the room dark.

  Then it started slowly, mournfully. It was a tune played from some unseen place. In the darkness, it felt as if it was coming from each shadowed corner. The twitching silhouette of the oak tree danced eerily along with the lilting notes.