Finally we could don our nightgowns.
When we were younger, Mrs. Wren would watch us carefully while we took the little cup of medicine Dr. Fell left each night on our nightstands. And she would stand over us while we put our pillows on the cold floor, to kneel upon while we said our nighttime prayers. We had to pray aloud, in Latin, with Mrs. Wren standing by with a stopwatch, to make sure we got the cadence and the rhythm correct.
But all that had stopped long ago. Perhaps she had lost her religion as she got older, perhaps she wanted to depart from our chill room as soon as the blood samples were gathered. These days, she would merely wave her hand in the direction of the cups and say, “Take your medicine, my poppets, and remember your prayers. Angels heed the young and sweet more closely than you know.”
Recently she was in the habit of adding, as she turned to the door, “And say a good word to the Good Lord for poor old Jenny Wren. Ask on my behalf: your voices will carry farther than hers, I am sure.”
Then she would depart.
8.
Neither one of us took the medicine, of course. It was Victor’s most strict rule: no matter how sick we were, take nothing Dr. Fell gave out, if it could be avoided. Anything he made you take orally, hold in your mouth; if you absolutely had to swallow, vomit it up at the first opportunity. We poured our little cups into the chamber pot.
(Yes, we had a chamber pot. I remember once talking to a boy from the village, who envied us for living in such a fine manor house. I asked him if he was allowed to visit a bathroom with indoor plumbing when he had to go at night, or whether he was locked into his room. He stared at me, uncomprehending. I envied that incomprehension.)
Vanity sometimes said prayers, sometimes not, depending on whether or not there was something she wanted for Christmas, or a birthday rumored to be in the works. She prayed in her ungrammatical Latin. I don’t know if that officially made her “Low Church.”
Me, I had stopped praying not long after I had read The Talisman, by Sir Walter Scott. I had fallen in love with the character of Saladin, and it occurred to me that the God of the Saracens, Allah, might be the real one after all. Judging by surface area, the Mohammedans had conquered more territory more quickly than the Christians; in fact, the Byzantines had lost ground every year since Constantine.
This thought had led to the fear that I might pick the wrong God to pray to. I thought that, because praying to the wrong God was expressly a sin, and because a merciful God might forgive me for forgetting to pray, it therefore followed that, even without knowing which one was the right one, my best chances lay in staying quiet and hoping for the best. That strategy worked in class when I didn’t know the answer, so I supposed it might work in the arena of theology, also.
I do admit that sometimes, when I was particularly depressed, or sad, or hoping for some point or purpose to my life, I would pray to the Archangel Gabriel. Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans all believe in Gabriel, and apparently it is the selfsame Gabriel. Or Jibrael, as he is also called. I figured Gabriel, if anyone, would know what the situation was in Heaven, who was in authority there, and he could get the prayers to the right God.
After prayers or the lack of prayers, as the case may be, we would go to bed. If it was cold, Vanity and I would have a brief argument about whether she should crawl into my bed or I should crawl into hers, depending on who had done it last time, who was colder, and other esoteric considerations. We would pile both sets of blankets on one bed and cuddle up with our arms around each other for warmth.
9.
One of our windows faces North. Last winter, when we had many very clear nights, Victor spent hours in our bedroom, using a compass and straightedge, and scarring the glass with a glass cutter to make a star dial for us. The position of the polestar was marked; the motions of the major stars in Ursa Minor and Ursa Major were plotted against the time of year. In effect, Alioth, Mizar, and Arcturus in Bootes became the hands of our clock, telling us the hour as they swung around the polestar. To hide our marked-up window, all we need do is raise one sash, lower the other, and keep the blind at half-mast.
I think Victor enjoyed standing in our room, late at night, night after night, with his back to us, meticulously scratching the glass, while we girls in our nightgowns peered at him over the top of our blankets. He worked with his nose almost touching the pane, and his breath fogged the glass.
10.
Tonight, Vanity and I waited, our heads under the covers, arms around each other, her chattering in whispers, and me trying to take a nap until the appointed hour. Every now and again (after a brief debate as to whose turn it was) one of us would raise a nose above the covers like the periscope of a submarine, and look at the positions of the stars through our Northern window.
When finally Arcturus had reached the position marked XI (DEC), we slid, shivering, out from under the sheets.
I stepped over to the door, hopping a little from the icy touch of the floor stones on my feet. I have seen doors in modern houses; they are flimsy. If you want to see a solid piece of seasoned oak, bound with iron and riveted to huge hasps and hinges, visit a nice old-fashioned chamber in a manor house. Our door was massive and stern, heavy enough to keep any noise in or out. I yanked on the lock, just in case it had not been padlocked, for once. The door did not even tremble.
“What do they expect us to do if there is a fire?” I asked scornfully, hugging myself and hopping from one foot to another.
Vanity’s teeth chattered. She said mournfully: “Quentin says Mr. Glum should not have cut down the Great Escape Tree. He says there was a Dryad living there, who now wanders, houseless, among the winds.”
“And it was our only way down from the window. You don’t think Dryads exist, do you?”
“Well, that one doesn’t any more, obviously. Are you going to get dressed? Not there!” she added when I hopped over to the dresser. “Those will be ice-cold. I wrapped up things for us to wear in our pillows. They were under the sheets with us, nice and toasty.”
“Clever, clever!” I said. She also happened to pick out my favorite out-of-door outfit: jodhpurs and a heavy blouse, and high-waisted jacket of buff leather that went with it.
From the top shelf of the wardrobe I pulled my leather aviatrix cap and my goggles. I buckled the chin strap and slung the goggles around my neck. There was also a six-foot scarf which wound around my neck.
Vanity was staring at me in disbelief. “We are not going to a fancy dress ball. Why are you putting on a… costume?”
“What? This? This is my lucky helmet,” I said, tucking strands of hair beneath the cap. “Besides, how are we going to end up going anywhere? Are you going to pick the locks without touching them, the way Victor does?”
Vanity said, “I don’t think Victor actually can do that. Who has ever seen him?”
“The sun will come up in the West before Victor Triumph tells a lie!” I said. I was seated, pulling on my high-heeled boots.
But Vanity had pressed her cheek up to the stones along the East wall of the room.
On the other two walls, the stones were covered with white plaster and wainscoting. This wall was irregular granite blocks, cemented together, for about ten feet. Above that were deep casements and small, barred windows looking East, surrounded by plaster and uncarved wooden frames. Below these frames were massive iron mountings, carved into gnome faces. What these mountings were originally supposed to hold, either torches, or curtain rods, or other fixtures, I did not know.
11.
As a little girl, I had always been afraid of the faces, and was terrified to find them staring at me when I woke in the middle of the night. My fear was not alleviated when Primus (so he was called at the time) told me sternly that inanimate objects could not hurt anyone.
It was little Quartinus (Colin) who saved me. One day when he was playing sick, he sneaked from the infirmary, and stole nail enamel from the boudoir of Miss Daw, who was our music teacher, a fair-haired woman of ethereal beauty w
ith skin as clear as fine porcelain. He then went out to steal a ladder from Mr. Glum’s shed. Somehow he carried a ladder all the way up three flights of stairs in midday without being seen, and all the way to the girls’ dorm.
There he was, balanced precariously eleven feet high, painting the noses red on the ugly metal faces, crossing their eyes, giving them moustaches and goatees, and he had managed to deface six out of the seven goblins when Mrs. Wren walked in and caught him.
He was punished by being sent to his room without supper. I smuggled him part of the tuna fish casserole we had for dinner, wrapped up in my skirt. At that time, of course, the ash tree outside the North window gave me easy access to the ground. I tied the skirt in a bundle and threw it through the window of the boys’ dorm. Quartinus thanked me the next day, but he never returned the skirt.
I asked him why he defaced the goblins. He told me: “Your fear gives them energy. When you see them as stupid-looking, though, you get energy from them.”
Whatever the reason, it worked. They always looked silly to me after that; all except the one on the far end, whom little Quartinus had not gotten to.
12.
Vanity stood with her cheek pressed to the stones, her eyes closed, as if she were listening intently. She motioned with one hand, pointed to the long-handled candlesnuffer which (we assumed) had been in the room since before the candelabra had been electrified.
I handed her the pole, and she put the hook end (used for lighting candles) in the mouth of one of the gargoyle faces. It was the one at the far end. She tugged.
With a sigh and a click, a section of stone moved forward and then swung out, revealing a secret passage beyond.
“That’s impossible!” I said, flabbergasted.
The door was small and square, no more than three feet by three. The stones, which had seemed so thick and sturdy, were merely an eighth-inch of shaved granite face affixed to a wooden door.
The door was set to the frame with sets of hinges of a type I had not seen before: each hinge was riveted to a second and a third, to form a little metal W-shape. The triple hinges unfolded like an accordion when the door was opened, allowing the door to move directly out from the wall for a half-inch, before swinging to one side. This also allowed the door to swing outward, even though the hinges were on the inner side.
The crawl space beyond had a floor of unpainted, unvarnished wood, and narrow walls of brick. The three-foot ceiling was curved in an arch. It looked like a chimney lying on its side.
“When did you find this?” I asked Vanity. I was kneeling, with my head in the door, and she was peering over my shoulder.
“During the summer, after Mr. Glum chopped down the Great Escape Tree. I would check for panels every night. I could only find it, for some reason, if it was the thirtieth or thirty-first of the month. Weird, huh? I bet it’s on a timer.”
I turned on my knees to look up at her. “Dr. Fell gives us our injections on the first of the month.”
She blinked at me, her wide, emerald-green eyes brimming puzzlement. “What has that got to do with anything?”
Now I knew how Victor felt about me when I asked a question about something he thought obvious.
I nodded toward the dark hole: “Where does it go?”
“I was never able to get a light in here. If you follow the left-hand wall through two turns, you come out near the clock in the Main Hall. There are two other ways I never explored.”
“Left? You mean right, surely?”
“Just go as I tell you.”
We crawled in the pitch dark. My fingers felt occasional spiderwebs or splinters along the dusty wood floor. Once or twice I banged my head against the brick ceiling, and was glad for the humble protection of my aviatrix helmet.
The stale air was warm and close, and I was grateful for the warmth on a cold night like this. Once or twice I heard a noise: it sounded like the rumble of breakers.
“I hear the sea,” I whispered over my shoulder.
Her voice sounded very close in the pitch darkness. “Some trick of the acoustics, I doubt not. Like a whispering gallery. Maybe there is a tunnel which leads down to the sea cliffs…?”
“Ow! I found where the wall ends. It goes left and right.” I was glad I had bundled my hair into a cushion under my cap. I took a moment to adjust my goggles so they rode atop my head. Another extra inch of leather and glass might mute the next skull impact.
“Take the left-hand way.”
We turned left, which was impossible. By my reckoning, that would take us further East than the East Wing.
At the next fork, we turned left again. By my reckoning, this should have put us in the middle of the North Lawn.
“But how on earth did you get the notion to look for it in the first place?”
“Sometimes, in the night, I would get the feeling I was being watched,” Vanity explained. “So I figured there was a peephole.”
I thought that if there was a peephole, Mr. Glum might be using it, to watch us when we doffed our clothes before bed. I didn’t say anything, for fear of frightening her.
There came a tapping noise ahead, regular and rhythmic, like the noise of a sentry, in metal boots, pacing.
“What’s that?” I hissed.
Vanity ran into my bottom. “Oh, you! It’s the clock. Just keep on. We’d better hurry.”
But the noise unnerved me, and I did not hurry. Instead, I put one cautious hand in front of another. And I was glad I did, for my forward hand suddenly felt nothing.
Was I poised over a brink? I felt around in the air, and encountered a wooden step a few inches below, and another below that.
We were at the top of a stairway. I squirmed around so that I could go down feet first and, keeping my other hand on the stone overhead, I found that the ceiling did not drop as the stairs did but drew away as the stair descended. The ticking now was very loud; it seemed to come from directly ahead.
The stairway was only five stairs long, dropping just enough so that, by the last step, Vanity could stand upright, and I had to stoop.
There was a surface before me. In the dark, I could not tell what material it was, except that it was smoother than stone. It could have been wood, but it was so cold it felt like metal.
“Now what?” I whispered.
“There’s a switch, I suppose,” she said.
“You suppose? How did you get out this way before?”
“I suppose I found a switch.” And she crowded up against me in that little space, tighter than a phone booth. I could hear the soft noise of her hand fumbling along the panel.
“You don’t remember?”
“I think I wasn’t exactly awake last time I did this. You have to be in the right state of mind. Sometimes it’s hard to remember nighttime thoughts during the day.”
“You think? What do you mean you think you weren’t awake?”
“Well, how else do you explain the fact that you never saw me searching for the panel with a ten-foot pole in my hand every night before we went to bed? Now, hush!”
“This is ridiculous—!”
“Just be quiet! Don’t think you are too old to be spanked!”
“I’m taller and stronger than you, and I don’t fight like a girl.”
“I’ll get Colin to do it. You’d like that.”
I was so shocked that I actually did shut up. I was glad it was dark; I could feel my face burning.
A crack of light appeared. Vanity pushed the panel aside.
13.
This was about four feet tall and a little over a foot wide. A metal blade, tipped with a weight, swung past, inches from our faces.
I tried to shrink back, but Vanity and I were pressed up together too closely. She made an annoyed noise in her throat. I blinked and looked again. Blade? We were looking out at a pendulum, swinging back and forth, back and forth.
Beyond that was a pane of dusty glass, blurred with age. On the other side of the glass, moonlight fell across carpet, heavy chairs
, two mannequins in Norman helm and mail carrying pikes.
This was the Main Hall. We were in the grandfather clock, looking out.
Vanity whispered, very quietly, “The watchers will notice if the ticking stops. We have to slip past the pendulum without touching it, and get to the main doors and outside. Ready?”
I would have pointed out to her that, as a matter of mathematics controlling such things as volumes, moving bodies, and areas swept out by pendulums, that two girls (four-and-a-half and five-and-a-half feet tall, respectively), cannot turn sideways, and climb out of a one-foot-wide box, open the inner latch of a rusted antique clock, and get clear in the time it takes for a three-foot pendulum to swing back and forth once. Not to mention that there were weights and chains hanging in front of us as well.
But I did not get the chance. Vanity was already thrusting herself through the narrow opening. The pendulum jarred against her arm, of course, while she was yanking the latch free to open the glass panel of the clock.
The ticking stopped. The silence was enormous.
“Quick!” she hissed.
But we were not quick. We had to move the now-still pendulum aside, squeeze her out, squeeze the somewhat taller me out, and fumble with the pendulum to see if we could get it into motion again…
Tick tock. We could. The noise started up again.
“Yeah!” cheered Vanity.
I closed the cabinet door. “Quiet! We’re trying to be quiet!”
“Well, you’re making all the noise saying ‘quiet’!”
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