The Warlow Experiment

by Alix Nathan

  Scissors. No. Tied up his hair years ago. And mirrors all gone. Nails. Well. Need more than scissors for them. To stab. Stab. Ah! That’s it! They want him to stab himself. Kill yourself, you go straight to hell. He shudders. Shambles back to the fire.

  * * *

  —

  SHE THINKS: I should tell him but I cannot. He have sent no message to come so he must think I should not.

  Samuel do bring the money now and fruit at Christmastide.

  John still do live below. I fear always he will return. I think he be here when he is not. I see him come through the door. Think I hear him. Up the stairs when we be all in bed. Every night I do think he’s coming, hear his tread. I fear so I do often shake. Polly ask me if I be sick. I say no.

  The children all do know he will return. Margaret say she do wish he will not come back. Jack have left us.

  Sometimes I think to go to the house. But he did say don’t come until he send a message which he have not.

  Shall it be disgrace to him? Yet it were love. A child of love if it survive.

  What can I do? I cannot write to him for though I can read a little I did never learn writing.

  People do see, I know they speak of it. It were better I tell him myself, but no I dare not go.

  He will hear.

  Surely he will take me in.

  * * *

  —

  WHENEVER POWYSS SLEPT HE DREAMED. He was in a coach with his mother. Or was it a ship? They were travelling to some delightful unnamed town, at which they never arrived. She spoke happily to him, praised him for his wonderful experiment, patted his hand. He felt a great love for her, longed for her to hug him to herself, but she dismissed him and he slunk away. Another time he was lying on the brick path in the hothouse, his hands in piles of bone-dry leaves which he admired for their beautiful variations on the theme of red: dazzling variations from scarlet to a crimson that was black. He stood up and all about him the glass was smashed.

  Or he’d wake in mortal terror, fleeing from a noxious beast he had no hope of repelling, that had begun as Fox accusing him of some misdeed and instantly transformed itself, as is the way of dreams, into Warlow, hideous, huge, entering through every door and window. In another, he destroyed houses and bridges made by his father, pulled them apart with his hands, trampled on them, triumphant, as they cracked and splintered, gashed his feet with cuts that shrieked. In yet another, he strode out across a weed-filled lake towards someone who waited for him on the other side, shadowy, longed-for. The weed held him until midway he began sinking slowly, hopelessly into the depths.

  He dreamed always. Woke exhausted, needing to sleep.

  Jenkins addressed him.

  ‘Sir, I think to send for Mr Bywater.’

  ‘I rang for Samuel, not for you, Jenkins.’

  ‘I think to send for Mr Bywater.’

  ‘It is true that I am unwell, Jenkins, but apart from the tincture which I administer to myself I do not need medical attention. Do not send for him and do not mention him again unless I ask you to.’

  ‘They do speak of you in the village, Mr Powyss, sir. You have been abed for nigh a month.’

  ‘They would not speak if you had not given them something to talk about! I have no care for what they say in the village.’

  Nevertheless he got up and dressed. Samuel laid out his clothes each day whether he rose or not. He was aware of the young man’s complete devotion. Since it was still cold he pulled on flannel drawers and buttoned a flannel under-waistcoat, thinking as he did so that at all costs he must prevent an intrusion from Bywater followed by gossip all round the county. Once, Jenkins would not have spoken to him thus. Now, Powyss’s trust in him had thinned to almost nothing. Not that he was insubordinate like Price. Yet Powyss knew that Jenkins’s authority increased proportionately with each demonstration of his own weakness.

  He was sober, his thoughts unusually clear. He took tea in the sitting room, fidgeted a roll into crumbs, turned away from beckoning bottles on the table by the fireplace. Heard his mother’s voice say, Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink. Recalled his boyhood dismay at seeing her stare out at the sky as if expecting salvation.

  He didn’t care what was said in the village. No doubt he had always been criticised there for lack of activity outside his house and grounds, for the oddity of his one generosity towards the villagers which took the form of baskets of strange and even undesirable vegetables and fruit. He hardly needed to begin worrying about them now.

  Nor had he ever cared for the opinions of his landed neighbours. Yet there was Hannah to consider. How would they treat her, all those who came upon her?

  For the last four weeks he had avoided thought completely. Although Warlow remained stubbornly below ground, he had not sent for Hannah for six months.

  He dared not. Couldn’t trust himself not to keep her and refuse to let her go, not to damage her with his ravening desire, causing Warlow to emerge finally with unstoppable violence. Money was delivered to her, fruit and wine at Christmas. He convinced himself it was enough, crowded out all questions with sleep, blinded himself with brandy and the other. Nothing needed him: the house ran itself; the gardens, well, it wasn’t quite spring; Hannah was wise enough to look after herself. Think of all the children to whom she’d already given birth! She’d begun young, when Warlow rescued her from Kempton and took his reward. She was not old, perhaps thirty-five years, and strong despite her stature; he knew that well, though he tried not to think of her body. Tried not to think of her at all, and when he couldn’t stop himself there were always bottles to blot out the light. In moments of extreme obfuscation he even congratulated himself on having removed Warlow from her life.

  This morning he felt something like resolve. He’d walk. He’d not been outside the house for so long, but today there was a brightness that drew him, the wind had dropped and recent snow part-thawed. He put on his great coat and hat, ignoring unspoken comment from Jenkins, and set off.

  Having made one sacrifice earlier in the form of no brandy he was able to make another in forgoing inspection of the gardens. Old habit turned him towards the glasshouses, yet he passed by them rather than going in. Recalling his dream he winced at the unbroken glass of the hothouse.

  He caught sight of Price in the kitchen garden walking the paths, kicking snow viciously with his boots, retreated before he was seen and took the longer way round. In the new plantation dormant saplings stood moated by brown, pocked snow, patterns of bird footprints looping and whirling among them.

  Finding himself breathless he stopped, listened to the continuous dripping, the harsh commands of crows and ravens somewhere near. He hadn’t the energy to climb the hills and would walk instead through the fields on the lower slopes and circle back. At the thought of the house he became aware of mounting thirst and creeping cold. He’d not eaten at breakfast; rarely did these days. Hunger threw him back to boyhood, hours of wandering, vast helpings of cold meat and pies on returning straight to the kitchen. Now he would barely complete the walk and reach home and the bottle that cured cold, thirst and thought.

  He passed along a bank against which snow had drifted into fantastic waves. Nearby new-dropped afterbirth adorned the snow like streaks of paint. Ewes lumbered away from him. Then he understood the calling of the carrion birds he’d heard before. A half-gutted ewe lay by a fallen hawthorn, her eyeless lambs here and there where the birds had cast them in the vigour of their eating.

  The child was his. If a son and he acknowledged him, he’d be heir to Moreham House, to the Powyss estate and name. The idea confounded him. He pressed on home.

  * * *

  —

  DAY AFTER DAY SHE BRINGS FOOD. Takes his plates. Pot. Speaks kindly. Says ‘I’m no devil’ so often he begins to wonder.

  He wakes by the dead fire to so
ft sounds. It’s here again! Devil’s got in! He holds still. The sounds are different. Soft, small, sudden rushes. Not footsteps. Not rats neither. Reaches out for the lamp. Lights it easily since the glass chimney’s smashed. And now?

  A cat hurls a half-dead mouse about the floor. Runs after it. Crouches. Pounces. Shakes it about, hurls it again. Crouches. Pounces. Bites off its head. Crunches through fur, body, bones, tail.

  He is calm. If it hisses at me it be a devil cat. If it be a devil cat then that be a devil woman that comes each day. Lying. If it don’t hiss at me, it be no devil cat. And the woman be a woman.

  He reaches for the poker. Struggles up from the chair. The cat looks at him, its pupils big in the gleaming dark. He shakes the poker at the cat, shouts:

  ‘Devil cat! Devil cat!’

  The cat lifts its tail, turns its back. Darts across the room at a movement it hears.

  He makes up the fire. Sits again.

  The cat comes out of dark corners, drops a frog at his feet.

  He groans in sorrow. ‘Rats not frogs!’

  The cat sits close to the fire but out of his reach. Cleans itself.

  * * *

  —

  ANNIE WAS GLAD that it was Catherine who had taken charge of the task of winkling Warlow out of his horrid place. There’d been a time when she felt that only she had understood the poor man’s plight. Cook was always heartless. Catherine, too, seemed not to comprehend at first. Samuel was completely without concern. But she had more than enough to think about now. For either she must use all of her meagre powers of argument to hold Samuel off or else her wiles to coax him out of a cold lack of interest in her. She couldn’t understand him at all.

  Catherine had certainly found a new purpose. Her introduction of the cat into Warlow’s ‘apartments’ seemed to have been the turning point, though she couldn’t say why. Her idea had been simply that the cat would keep down vermin. She had worried that he’d think it evil, a witch’s cat, since he’d seemed determined to believe she was herself a devil. Why had he imagined that? There was an opinion in the village that he’d lost his wits.

  Somehow she must encourage Warlow to dare to emerge. It was something that he’d finally ceased calling her a devil. She could hear his breathing on the other side of the barricade, was sure he was listening to her.

  ‘John, it’s Catherine once more,’ she’d sing out. ‘Here is your supper. I hope you do eat it all.’

  It was strange to speak and receive no answer, until one day she heard him begin to clear his throat and stopped piling his plates to listen. There was something between a grunt and a growl, then: ‘I hates fish.’

  ‘I know you do. Cook forgets.’ Or does it on purpose, more like. ‘Give it to the cat.’

  ‘Won’t eat it.’

  ‘She’s too full of rats and mice, then.’

  He grunted in what she took to be agreement and she said no more.

  There were three opportunities each day. He said little. Sometimes struggled to speak as if he’d forgotten how to even since that morning. She would bring food, wood, tobacco, kindling, and though he said no to clean clothes she left them all the same.

  Then he agreed to pull out the small cupboard from beneath the table at the base of the barricade so she could pass through a bigger box of wood. She made sure not to look at him. Of course it was dark in any case, but she didn’t want him to see the horrified expression she might not be able to prevent. She did catch sight of a claw-like hand, his left, and forced herself not to cry out.

  She tried to talk on every occasion, however little time she had. After a meal of which he’d eaten every scrap, she smelled pipe smoke.

  ‘Did you enjoy the mutton pie, John? With the currants.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I made the pastry.’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Have you put on the clean breeches I did bring you last time?’

  ‘You don’t nag.’

  ‘How is Puss? Cats are always called Puss in Moreham House, you know. They never have a name of their own.’ She heard herself begin to chatter. ‘Do you give her the milk in the jug?’

  ‘Yes. Her likes it.’

  ‘Has she caught plenty?’

  ‘Her did find a nest of mice.’

  ‘Oh dear. She must eat the parents, then.’

  ‘Out o’ their shells.’

  ‘Mice don’t hatch from eggs!’

  ‘I know it. It were to make you laugh.’

  ‘Ah! Aha!’ She laughed in amazement. He hadn’t lost his wits then.

  ‘John,’ she said, regretting the question even as she spoke, ‘who have you thought of most while you’ve lived down here?’ His children perhaps. But oh, they did say he used to beat them.

  ‘Oh. Oh I do think of Mary.’

  ‘Mary?’ She was relieved it wasn’t Hannah.

  ‘Mary were always good to me.’

  ‘Do you mean your child Mary?’

  ‘No! That be Polly.’

  ‘Ah. So, Mary was…’

  ‘Sister.’

  ‘Your sister, Mary. She was good to you, was she?’

  ‘She were always kind to me. She were there when I come from the scarin. Give me a nob of bread.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Mary did keep me from beatin. When her could.’

  She was taken aback to hear him sob and shamble away with a slow shuffling as if on all fours.

  * * *

  —

  CATHERINE SOON GATHERED that Warlow’s sister Mary, whom he’d now mentioned on several occasions, had died some years ago. She’d seen the child Polly and an older girl, Margaret, in the garden, otherwise she knew of Warlow’s children largely by repute. The more she talked to him the more she wondered about Hannah and about his children. She thought of her own childhood. Might Warlow have some affection for a daughter even if he had beaten his sons? Like her own father, who would weep at her with drunken, disappointed love then lash out at her brothers.

  She decided that she might have something good to report to Warlow if she went to see for herself. And of course she was very curious. Hannah had not been to Moreham House for so long. People said she was near her time. She smiled shamefacedly, recalling her invasion of Powyss’s library, how she’d enjoyed shocking Annie with her inspection of the carpet. How different she was now! She had changed because of Abraham. She felt much older, her younger self so frivolous.

  She set off to Hannah Warlow’s one afternoon. It was the end of April yet very cold. She held down her hat with one hand and trod along the muddy path, her nose streaming in the sharp wind, her sallow cheeks reddened. The cottage was in a clearing, its plaster worn to wattle in places, small window panes blocked with strips of wood where glass had blown out in gales.

  The girl Margaret let her in. Awkward, sober with premature responsibility. Catherine felt for her. Hannah sat at the table sewing a garment, letting it out by the looks of it. Standing beside her was the little girl, Polly. Round-faced, she looked up at Catherine with serious intensity and suddenly smiled.

  ‘I do go to Mr Powyss’s garden,’ she said proudly.

  ‘I’ve seen you. Are you Polly?’

  ‘Yes. Mother did go to Mr Powyss’s house.’

  ‘Ah. I brought you this lattice tart, Mrs Warlow. I made an extra one.’

  ‘You are kind.’

  ‘Cook won’t know.’

  ‘Oh, I hope not,’ she said, indicating a chair for Catherine.

  ‘Mrs Warlow, you look well.’ It was true. Hannah’s body had filled out of course, but so had her face. She was older than Catherine, almost too old to bear another child, yet Catherine envied skin that was not sallow, a small nose, eyes that startled with their strange colouring. A quiet certainty of being that she, Catherine, had never known. She suddenly u
nderstood completely why Mr Powyss had wanted her. Yet, surely she must be anxious.

  ‘Your children, do they…?’

  ‘They have heard somewhat. Margaret, Polly, leave me with Catherine.’

  ‘May I call you Hannah?’

  ‘You are come to spy on me.’

  ‘No! That’s not true. Of course I am curious to see how you are. I have not seen you for many months. You have not come to the house.’

  ‘No. Mr Powyss have not called me. I did tell the children about John, he shall bring back a lot of money. I did tell them Mr Powyss helps us. But people talk so, say things.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Jack have left us. Gone with that Abraham Price. An evil man.’

  ‘Yes.’ She almost felt to blame. ‘But listen, Hannah. I have begun to talk to John, your husband.’ She spoke cautiously; her listener tensed. ‘I hope to persuade him to come out at last.’

  ‘It were better he stay. Better he don’t see me. Not yet awhile.’

  ‘Yes. I understand.’ She wanted to say, but couldn’t, that surely it would be no better John seeing her after she had the baby than before. ‘I’m certain it will take some time, though. Strange to say, the underground rooms have become his home, I think. When shall you be brought to bed?’

  ‘In May.’

  ‘I thought I could tell him how his children are faring,’ Catherine said.

  ‘He were fond of Polly before he left. She were the only one he did like I think. Childer were ever a trial to him.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘You must not tell him of me.’

  ‘No. If he enquire I shall say you are well.’ Then she had to ask: ‘Does Mr Powyss know, Hannah?’

  She saw her blench, look down at the garment. The pause was long. ‘He do surely know.’

  ‘You have not told him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh! You may need help when your time comes.’

  ‘He do help us already. The children have clothes. We do eat a good meal each day. Mother did never have help with hers.’