‘Ha!’ I said, and startled myself with the force of my utterance.
‘Then I will be free and she will be safe, Wilson. Do you understand?’
I shook my head. How simple-minded she could be sometimes. ‘May I speak frankly, Lady Mallet?’
‘Proceed.’
‘Although Lord Mallet has many weaknesses, total blindness is not one of them,’ I began, ‘at least not yet; although anybody can foresee that blindness will come to him. Surely he would recognise that she is not you?’
‘Well then, listen to me further. On Tuesdays and Sundays he expects to find me already in his bed and on hearing him enter, I am to bury my face in the pillow and raise my posterior into the air. Perhaps I should not speak so frankly to you, Wilson, but I have no other to tell.’ Here she paused, and I attempted, in vain, to picture what she was describing, ‘I am naked and the room itself is unlit because Lord Mallet cannot bear to see the face of a woman while he is . . . entertaining himself,’ she whispered.
‘Riding?’
‘Yes, Wilson, riding if you must,’ she replied with impatience. ‘So I need you to escort the shrouded one to his apartment on those nights then return to me to tell me she is safely in his keeping.’
I own that I was shocked to the core. The yellow leaves on the water surface floated around each other like small boats, and I wished I could be on one of them, far away from Hogsmoor House. ‘Then you are to wait without his chambers and collect her back at dawn, as Lord Mallet cannot bear to find himself sleeping next to a woman upon waking. You are to take her to her chamber and leave her there, but you are never to talk to her along the way, do you hear me? Never. Why are you shaking, Wilson? It is not yet cold, surely?’
‘I have questions,’ I whispered.
‘I thought so. It is natural. You may ask.’
‘Who or what is in those rooms, Lady Mallet? I feel I must tell you that all the staff are aware of the shrouded one and have become greatly uneasy as a result.’
‘Oh, Wilson! Do not concern yourself about it. I require you simply to follow my instructions as faithfully in this matter as you do in all your other works. Let us have no more questions on the subject now.’
I was almost out of my senses at the thought of walking beside Orgorp in the dead of night and terrified of the idea that one of the servants would eventually stumble across us and conclude by seeing us together, that I, as well as Lady Mallet, was a witch. Now the desire to leave Hogsmoor House was ablaze in my soul. ‘Do not be melancholy, Wilson; just looking at you gives me gooseflesh. Through Mrs Rivers, I pay you one hundred and twenty shillings each year, do I not? If, for this one service alone, I pay, straight into your own hand, tuppence extra each week, how would that suit?’
‘Suit, Lady Mallet?’
‘Yes, you silly child. Is there nothing you need extra money for—an extra eight shillings and six pennies over a year?’
‘Oh, yes, of course there is! How very kind you are!’
‘There we are then, do not gush like that, it is most unbecoming and false-looking. Consider it a deal. But once again let me remind you that you are forbidden to talk to my visitor. Today is Tuesday. You will be outside her rooms at ten minutes to nine o’clock this evening.’
I turned to Lady Mallet swiftly. She had one eyebrow only; the other had fallen onto her lap and begun to shrivel. She looked quite mad once again. ‘I will be there,’ I answered, ‘you can depend upon it.’
‘Good girl. I am blessed to have you.’
***
I was early. I waited for some minutes outside the monster Orgorp’s door, not daring to knock upon it. I could hear voices inside and movements and when finally they came out together, Lady Mallet turned to the right and left me standing in front of the Thing. As usual, it was shrouded and the cowl pulled down so far that nothing of the face was visible. I did not know if I should address it or not. My heart was beating so fast it was painful to me. ‘My name is Caroline Wilson,’ I announced, ‘I am to be your escort on your journey to the far end of the house every week.’
I think Orgorp nodded, and we set off with nothing but a small taper to light our path. I found that if I averted my face as much as I was able, the curious smell that exuded from her was more bearable; I wanted to bury my face in my cloak, but with the taper in one hand and the need to watch our way, it would have been impossible to proceed in that manner. I felt that the smell of Orgorp could utterly overwhelm me, were I to weaken in my resolve to block it from my senses using as much mental willpower as I could muster to the cause. There was a faint cloying edge of sweetness to it that riddled in and out of deeper smells that instinct told me were ancient—fetid odours like putrid excrement and wet animal fur which from moment to moment gave way to a stench much like the rotting of damp fungi-covered wood, but a long way off the innocence of such.
I delivered the monster Orgorp safely to the main door of Hog’s apartment, and shuffled away into the darkness, taking deep breaths of dusty air as I went.
That evening in my room, sleep was nowhere close to me. The Orgorp stink had crept down into my throat, and no amount of swallowing would dispel it. I sat on my bed with the curtains open so should I finally sleep, I would be awoken by the dawn light. Gideon had lent me The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe written by an elderly gentleman who he said was living outside London and not so far from Hogsmoor House, and as I clutched the book, I fervently hoped that when I could settle my mind to reading it, it would transport me as Gideon had declared that it should.
He and I were slowly coming to know each other although I had not yet begun to confide in him freely. Later, we would be thrown together in terrible circumstances which would quickly erode any formality between us. I do not intend to tease you, but I must tell this story in my own way as the scenes I recall unfold before my eyes—some with startling clarity, others hedged in with shadows of doubt.
I did sleep—and the following morning as the sun began to lighten the sky I awoke and dressed in haste. I waited in the passageway outside Hog’s rooms, and the monster appeared within minutes and shut the door quietly behind her. I could see no more of her than I had ever been able to when she was wreathed in shade in the gloom of the afternoon, or hidden in the stiller darkness at the coming of night, except this time I saw her hand, and it had the semblance at least of a human hand. Howsomever, my grandfather would have told me not to be surprised at the mimicry of supernatural creatures, for cunning is their greatest weapon in the world of mortals.
I believe I went about my devoirs like an automaton that day and by the time evening came I sensed a dread spreading over my spirits like fog. My quietness in the servants’ dining hall was noticed by everyone. Mrs Rivers in particular seemed concerned for me. ‘Miss Wilson appears to be coming down with the ague,’ she announced to the room. ‘Are you hot Caroline, or giddy?’
‘Perhaps she has seen the monster Orgorp once more. Have you?’ Patrick asked, ‘you know you must tell us if it is true.’
My heart seemed to drop to some lower region of my body; I so very much did not want to speak of it at that moment.
‘Oh, you can see that she has!’ Susan Blagget whispered. ‘She trembles; look.’
‘Do not embarrass her, Susan,’ Gideon said.
‘She cannot keep information about Orgorp from us, she promised always to tell us,’ Rose Gifford declared.
She was across the table from me and to my right side. I moved my chair so that I could look fully at her. ‘I did not promise anything,’ I announced.
‘You as good as did so, Miss Wilson,’ Patrick reminded me, ‘Mrs Rivers said you were to tell us in detail each time you saw it.’
‘But I did not agree to it,’ I said.
Susan Blagget leant forward across the table and stared hard at my face. ‘Something has happened,’ she said, ‘you have been very eager to tell us on many other occasions. Do not deny it.’
I was trapped. ‘I am tir
ed, that is all. My spirits are low. I have curious and very provoking dreams that I am unable to account for.’ That much was true; they were the type of dream that Grandfather calls Wilson dreaming.
‘We need you to be our eyes, as you work up there, Miss Wilson,’ Adelaide whispered. ‘We rely upon you. It is easier for us to bear the thought of the monster Orgorp if you keep us in the picture.’
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I did see it coming out of those rooms early this morning. I had gone down to collect some vinegar of squills for Lady Mallet and it appeared on the landing quite suddenly.’
‘You should have gone the long way around,’ Rose whispered, ‘that’s what I would have done.’
‘But she gets very peevish if I am gone too long on my tasks,’ I said. ‘So I would fain take the risk of making my journey shorter.’
‘Did you see its face this time?’ Mrs Rivers asked. ‘On several occasions now I have also seen the creature, but always in a dark cloak like that a monk would wear that covers all the head.’
I looked at her and longed to be able to tell her about the business I was involved in, and I thought that in time, perhaps I would. ‘Like you, Mrs Rivers,’ I replied, ‘I have never seen the face of Orgorp. I was hidden around that bend in the corridor, and as I watched the creature . . .’
‘Pray go on, Caroline, we are all waiting.’
‘As I watched the creature . . . it began to dance.’
‘Dance?’ Martin shouted, ‘damnation!’
‘That will be the Devil’s Dance, then,’ Susan Blagget announced. ‘If you watch it too long, you go into a trance and then drop dead with spittle appearing through your lips and your eyes going like glass.’
‘Do not be so foolish, Susan,’ Mrs Rivers scolded. ‘What do you mean, it began to dance, Caroline?’
‘Swirling around inside that shroud-like cloak, taking little steps, going in a circle.’
‘Oh my Lord!’ Rose screamed out, ‘the Maggot really is a witch and that thing really is her familiar. Oh, I just cannot sleep here longer, I cannot. I am going to beg on my knees for a bed in the cook’s house.’
I had not intended to cause such alarm, and had I not been so dull-witted, I might have remembered that the Devil is known to be fond of dancing and I would not have introduced it into my story of that evening. Of course, you will have realised that what I said was a lie—or perhaps a partial lie, for I hadseen Orgorp dance in my dream of the night before, and Grandfather had always told me that dreaming lives and waking lives are but two sides of one coin; not so very different, each from the other.
I stared at Rose’s face and while I was sorry to have gone so far, I noticed that her features had softened and her eyes held no scorn for me, and I was glad. Perhaps her jealousy was lifting, and in the place of it was growing a fragile sympathy for me. Perhaps I should take the opportunity of further nurturing her approbation. But how—should I do so by continuing with my frightening stories, or by trying to bring calmness and order into this morbid situation? I felt like a conductor who had lost control of the orchestra. At that moment—and now I really did feel as if I lived from one moment to the next—I yearned to dismantle the creature we had created in our fear and I was truly sorry that I had been responsible for the most part of its manufacture.
‘It may very well be hideous beneath that cloak, but we do not know if it is dangerous,’ I said when the others had fallen quiet. I was remembering my silent walk with it along the cold passageways towards Lord Mallet’s apartment. It moved slowly, almost in a creeping fashion, and I could hear tiny noises coming from it in the form of whistling, clicking and grunting.
‘Are you quite mad, Caroline Wilson? The thing is evil. What is the matter with you?’ Susan Blagget asked, half-rising to her feet and then sinking back into her chair. ‘It is the Maggot’s familiar—it will have the face of a weasel or a flint-bogey!’
‘Do not say that! Do not say that!’ Patrick shouted back, ‘I cannot bear to think of it. Will you come out of the house and bed down in the stables with me, Martin? It is not yet too cold out there. We can keep each other company, and you can tell me about your new friends in the village, and this time I promise I will listen to you sincerely.’
Mrs Rivers rose from her chair at the head of the table and held her hands up for silence. ‘I do not want to hear these terrible wild thoughts longer, nor your expressions of disrespect to Lady Mallet again. You may all think what you like, but be very careful in the words you utter.’
Martin turned from the table quickly and peered into the far corners of the room as if somewhere his eyes would encounter Lady Mallet and her creature gazing at us from a pocket of darkness.
That night, as I lay awake in my bed, I thought about Susan’s words. Perhaps I was mad; perhaps working in Hogsmoor House had brought about some disease of the mind. Could it be that Lady Mallet’s unending attention to her appearance, her grease and wax, her lead white and her ceruse, the spillages of which I was obliged to clean away each morning, was making a mad woman out of me? I had heard once, you see, that lead might be poisonous and could confuse the brain, and each day I got it on my hands as I applied her white powder, or for the matter of that, when I prepared it in the first place. And if lead really was poisonous, perhaps the same was true of the mercury in her lip paint.
I could not sleep that night and although it was forbidden in Hogsmoor House to keep a candle aflame in the servants’ rooms after ten o’clock, I nevertheless was sorely in need of its comfort, although what little light the candle afforded me merely exaggerated the darkness all around it.
I had several times dreamt of Orgorp over the last weeks and one dream was hideous beyond the others. I found myself in London lost in a reeking alleyway and I could sense that the River Thames was nearby—if you do not know it, it is the vast river bobbing with filth and crowded with jollyboats that runs through the middle of London. I could hear the wailing of a sickly child and dogs barking somewhere in the distance. I was mortally afraid and in search of a corner in which to hide myself until morning light. Then I planned to find that river, and on it a yellow boat in which to escape. I decided to clamber into an oak barrel I spied against a wall, and going to it, I gazed in. It was full of black water as still as a looking glass, and floating upon it were pieces of bread. That is to say, they were for an instant pieces of bread, and then as I watched, they became parts of a face amongst which there was one functioning eye in full gaze upon me—and knowing it was the monster Orgorp, I awoke in pure terror, sweating and trembling exceedingly.
I did not only dream in the night hours, but also during the day in quiet times when Lady Mallet had no need of me, although such occasions were not frequent as there was always some small thing that required my attention. For all the universe, I wished myself gone from my terrible employment, and once more, a wave of longing came upon me for my village, my family and my Grandfather’s voice. Lady Mallet left me two pennies on her dressing table each Monday morning and I was saving them beneath the false bottom in my box. I saw no reason why I could not get employment as a button maker back in my own country if I could find enough money to ease my way into that worthy profession—and that became my new intention, one which gave justification to my willingness to escort the monster Orgorp to the vile assignations.
For the eight weeks that followed, I carried out my morbid duty for Lady Mallet. Her melancholy seemed much improved as a result. She rewarded me with pretty hairpins and a silk handkerchief, the damaged hem of which she thought I could easily mend as I had dainty fingers. I was much pleased, as I had never owned anything silk, and by this time my savings had arisen to one shilling and three pennies, and a tiny speck of my soul at least felt lighter. Furthermore she no longer required me to report to her at night, saying only that should anything calamitous occur about the arrangement, I was to come to her directly.
Similarly, the other side of the Mallet marriage seemed to have improved. Gideon told us that Hog’s
uncouth language had softened somewhat, and he no longer kept such late hours or played at gambling quite so hard with his companions. No gaily dressed and highly-painted women had been seen in the house for a while.
And what of Orgorp? The creature seemed unaffected by her trysts. I wondered if she even had a heart and suspected she certainly could not have had a soul, in the Christian understanding of that idea, at least.
As for me, I naturally dreaded Tuesdays and Sundays and slept fitfully with vivid dreams clinging tenaciously to my thoughts during the daylight hours. Although I was forbidden from talking to Orgorp in waking life, over time I had many a conversation with her in my imagination. I would ask if Richard Mallet treated her kindly and she would reply wittily, saying, ‘Does he treat the chair he sits upon kindly, do you suppose?’
‘He does not think about it, of course,’ I would reply, and so feel emboldened to ask more. ‘Does Elizabeth Mallet treat you kindly then—she who first brought you here?’
‘Surely you can guess?’ the monster would answer, and I would become flustered and describe how difficult it was to understand the character of my mistress as she had such a nervous disposition and extremities of temperament. ‘Sometimes cruel, sometimes kind,’ I would suggest. Then, however much I tried to make my fantasy different, Orgorp would always reply by saying it was ever thus, and I could never understand her meaning.
***
I believe I carried out my ordinary duties in a great daze as I could never free myself from thoughts of the monster Orgorp. Sometimes at night I got out my box from under my bed and counted my savings many times over to give me courage to go on. There came a Sunday night when a storm broke directly above Hogsmoor House, and I was due to escort the monster to Lord Mallet in less than two hours. My bowels, my heart, my spleen were all knotted up in trepidation.
Seven Strange Stories Page 6