by H C Turk
“Why worry of that tale, miss, for did it not improve our friendship? But save yourself harm in your heart by trusting the true friend that I am, and believe that in this instance I am careful to do what is proper. Eric and I speak this night, and in the morn you will find me yet engaged. Of course, you’ve some notion of our nocturnal communication.”
“Aye, and you’re meeting him even those years ago, the mistress and I well know it. And I’m praying only for your godly decency, girl, for that is more important than society.”
“You are well convinced of my morality’s depth, then, miss?”
“Aye, and I’m ever praying you hold it, Alba.”
“Then understand I jeopardize my godly heart in no manner, but seek that Eric might understand my true decency. Go then, miss, and worry as little as possible, no more than you must. And when last you pray this evening, ask God not that I achieve the best tonight, but only what I deserve.”
• • •
“I come with no speaking,” the eyes stated hours later. “I come to hear.”
Neither had I words, only a gesture, a throwing motion as though Eric should fling himself to the street. There I flew to join him, down the vertical hill of this social wilderness. No fog this evening, but a drizzling rain as though a gift from God for my refreshment. And the air seemed cleansed, the city’s building crumbs washed elsewhere, perhaps to the wilds where no witches lived. Of course, all these folk were in London or in Hell.
“I could not call you by an identity,” Eric began, “for I know not whether you be demon or fiancée or loved one. The last is true, and I pray the second remains. The first, however, seems characteristic of your surrounds, not yourself, as you have maintained.”
Eric could bear some refreshing himself, for around him was a haze of brooding, as though a light burned within him that coated his chimney with soot.
“Miss Elsie, I presume, attempted kindness toward her mistress.”
“In her generosity, she did, but found difficulty in surmounting a continuing disappointment in the lady’s actions,” Eric pronounced, sounding weary. I need not guess what his exhaustion contained. “Her ending of the tale portrayed a damaged woman stricken in the soul. Perhaps I’ve some understanding of that.”
“Perhaps implies perhaps not,” I offered. “But I must add how controlled you are, sir, a condition I expect you to retain as we conclude our composition.”
“Very well,” Eric remarked, “let us be on with the show, with your exotic creatures of revelation.”
“Should not young lovers be holding hands when walking and speaking most intimately?” I replied.
“They should, but mature folk so established in their marriages that they’ve difficulty with them have less of this tactile romance.”
“Praise Jesus, for did I not mention how I detest such contact?”
“You did, miss, noting the acceptability of intercourse, another activity of young marrieds; whereas ancient folk battered by life’s turns find themselves to be people of discourse. Surely, this is the source of your repartee, in that you have lived forever. You must have for so many sinister events to have befallen you.”
“Either you attempt a method for purging your emotional regret at my small disasters without slobbering from your eyes, or else you are cursed with verse again.”
“I am cursed with the exquisite Alba, but even in my innocence I can imagine far worse burdens.”
“And one might be?”
“To have Lady Amanda as the superior in my household.”
“But it seems she is superior in your household, for is it not the Rathel who has turned your parents against the fiancée?”
“I am certain, yes, but her greater intent escapes me.”
“The intent is to torment your father. Certainly, you know of his former partner in business, the former Franklin Rathel, but know ye the business between Amanda and your father?”
“I know of no business between them.”
“Then I tell you, sir, the business is that most fugitive kind of entailing a vow, regarding the friendship between Franklin and Edward, though the vow was from the latter to the former’s wife.”
“If you have tales of these people as a triptych, I would hear of your source in advance, for the method of your having prepared me causes disquiet. Pray God, Alba, I now fear of my own father’s…misdeeds.”
“A misdeed be his, I believe, though the evil was all Amanda’s. My source, I say, was Miss Elsie, from her years with the Rathel family, lord and lady. A second source was a woman of my blood, as was the woman with whom I lived those years in the wilds.”
“The tale I have of that time is of your being stolen.”
“In fact, I freely lived with a person of family in harsh conditions, returning only upon her death. But you were a young man then, now having lost that trait, for you are a man, and so your innocence dies as did my family.”
“I am, of course, to fully trust your sources for my dying innocence?”
“Especially the last, for he is your father.”
“And how might this be, Miss Alba?”
“During a carriage ride to view Christ’s Cathedral, I was confronted by your Mr. Denton. His purpose—or his duty—was to reveal his past with Amanda, and to dissuade me from cooperating with her.”
“Cooperating in what manner?”
“By marrying his son, Eric.”
“Nevertheless, you comply with the mistress and consent to wed me. Are you so indebted to Lady Amanda? What hold has she on you?”
“Regardless of grasps, I consent because marrying you is better than not. I would not ruin my life merely to react against Rathel.”
“React against her in what manner? What vow was she given by my father?”
“He vowed in his generosity to care for Amanda’s well-being if the worst should occur to ill Franklin. Now we arrive at discrepancy. The meaning of ‘worst’ to your father was Franklin’s inability to continue with their mutual business should his illness increase. Death was not the idea dreamed by anyone, except Amanda.”
“Haunt me, then, with Amanda’s dreams, nightmare Alba.”
“How apropos, sleeping seer. To proceed with past awakening: during Franklin’s ill era, Amanda learned that a fever of youth had caused him to be incapable of procreation, whereas Franklin had ever insisted that the fault be Amanda’s womb. Since a child of her own was all Amanda desired from marriage, she found in your father’s vow an opportunity to achieve a more fertile male, one promised to care for her.”
“In your composition, Lord Franklin next arbitrarily dies?”
“His death was composed, exactly. Believe you, sir, that from a most honest source I have learned that Amanda sought a material, as though a poison, to kill her husband. But the material given was to Amanda in order to make her forget her deadly intents. It failed, however, though causing her alleged barrenness to become factual.”
“Alba, no tale of the real world could be this fantastical.”
“Sir, I laugh at your reality, for not a thing bizarre have you heard, but the sort of personal business transpiring among citizens of London each day—do you doubt it?”
“The generality, no, but I would more easily believe Amanda’s malice if you would better identify your honest source.”
“She was the person of my blood come to London before you departed for school. I swear to you, sir, not even your mother could be more honest than this woman; yet she had most to lose in conveying this tale, for she had provided Lady Amanda with the killing material under threat of her own death.”
“Alba, how can an average person be threatened with death so easily? In England are laws to protect people from threats of murder.”
“But Amanda made no such threat. Her promise was to reveal. You know of Rathel’s particular expertise?”
“That of demonology, which I find akin to the carnival and the fat man.”
“No, sir, her expertise is in witchcraft, a
nd surely you understand how powerful a belief this is in England. Even if no witch be real, consider the many women who have died by the accusation. You think such executions do not occur?”
“I know they have, but they stem from the failings of lawmakers who allow impious mobs to form, and therein lies the evil: ignorant, unjust hatred direct from Satan.”
“And as real as that black angel regardless. Thus, you understand the power of Amanda’s threats to allege my friend the witch, a believable charge because of this person’s unbeauteous form and the Rathel’s established expertise.”
“Yes, this now seems more believable.”
“Now that you better comprehend, envision this past business: not at first did Rathel discover her barrenness. Therefore, she returned to my friend to continue her plan, promising this person a certain death via English law if the woman did not provide Amanda with a poison to kill Franklin.”
“Alba, Alba, these words are incredible, unbelievable.”
“She murdered her husband, I say, via means supplied by my friend, Lucinda, whose choice was to allow death or die herself. And since the way selected was immoral and illegal, why would Lucinda admit the act to be her own if not?”
“I know not, Alba. I know only what you say.”
“Sir, know ye not that Rathel near beat me dead? Are you such a fool as to disbelieve this?”
“I believe, I do believe this,” he whispered. “But I’ve not heard your version of the cause.”
“Elsie’s, I assume, was one of liquor’s temporary affliction.”
“It was, exactly.”
“And not untrue, though incomplete, and innocent in not asserting the Rathel to be ever mad.”
“You allege that she is?”
“What term be yours to describe Amanda’s killing her husband to gain a father for her womb? What word besides madness for her further insanities?”
“What further insanities, and from what sources known to you?”
“The same persons as before. Even Rathel conceded this to me, in that I am the current composition she controls.”
“And my father’s part?”
“Simple it was. After Franklin died, Amanda confronted your father with an extreme denouement of his vow: with the husband gone, does not your promise mean that you shall care for me in the form of marriage? Yes, Edward said, yes I shall. He agreed to marry her because time had come for him to achieve a family with heir, for this was also his grand desire. But Edward soon learned that Amanda’s belly was barren. Then his vow was not rescinded, but reduced; for although Amanda received the benefits of her husband’s business, Edward would no longer consent to marry her. Being then exiled from her only true desire—a child—perhaps Amanda did indeed go mad, and came to feel ill toward your father. But not until his marriage did she hate him. Not until he married a lass who near instantly bore this Eric did mad Amanda produce a vow herself, one against Edward, not from his rejecting her marriage, but because he achieved the offspring she could not.”
“These things are preposterous,” Eric scoffed.
“Far removed from maturity you are to disbelieve the possibility of such things, for these are the lives of sinners. And to receive a further verity, you might well discuss my charges with your father.”
“My God, Alba, why not ask me to assault him with my hands?”
“You are the preposterous one now—what has he to hide? Ask of the vow, of his knowledge of Amanda’s barrenness, and whether he therefore refrained from marrying her. If some shame he finds therein, then shame he deserves; and as a moral man you will understand and forgive him. But ask not of things he could not know. Especially make no mention of Lord Franklin’s murder, for even if your father suspects, no proof exists.”
“But there should be proof and is. Despite this Lucinda’s honesty, she was yet accomplice to a murder, and must be held accountable along with Lady Amanda.”
“Held accountable she was, sir, and not along with Rathel, but by the Rathel. Know ye, sir, that Lucinda was the person with whom I spoke your last days in London instead of yourself. Trapped she was in the city and wished to exit in peace. But Rathel swore this woman a witch, and thereby was she executed.”
“The, the woman then executed for killing a man was, was this Lucinda?” Eric returned with difficult speaking. “I heard of this woman—I heard of the hideous method whereby she murdered a person.”
“The same woman was Lucinda, but no part in that murder had she, by God’s own knowledge. Being poor and ugly, however, she was arrested in suspicion of being a witch, and Amanda verified this charge. Exactly as she allowed my mother to die, Rathel condemned Lucinda to execution.”
“By the God of Heaven, Alba, you will kill me with these incredulities. Why would Lady Amanda have your mother killed—what part had she in Franklin’s demise?”
“None, none—the Rathel knew naught of my mother until Franklin was years dead. That part of my mother the Rathel desired was me.”
“And for what unbelievable purpose?”
“Why, to marry you.”
“What sin be this?”
“Your father is one for demonology, Eric, as you are aware. Surely, he suspects that Amanda caused his partner’s death, and well he knows her hatred for his rejection. Rathel has ever allowed your father to believe that I came from a clan of demons. Recall our first meeting and my speaking thus? I did so because I had heard this talk from Rathel. Recall as well your father’s distress upon finding you drawn to me. What a fine punishment for Edward would be his son’s marrying the daughter of a woman who hates him and has long implied revenge. But your father believes more: he believes that I, the demon, shall kill you in marriage. But the Rathel will have no further murder. Not if I am to be the cause.”
“B-but what now?” Eric blurted. “Without my death, Father will come to accept our marriage, in that no other lady could make me so ecstatic as you, despite your, your….”
“Demonic coldness?” I said as I halted in order to confront Eric’s face. “My promising you my groin but not my lips?”
Eric turned away, unable to suffer my demonic truth.
“I will marry you,” he said as though accepting a prison sentence.
“Was your father’s voice so damaged when he promised to wed Amanda Rathel? You might ask him this as well.”
“Let us seek comparison here,” Eric replied with some pain as he looked to me again. “My father sought nothing but an heir, but with you I have long sworn my desire: for you, not your womb. And without love, there is no humanity: witness Lady Amanda and her lack. You might correct me in our future, Alba, but now I feel that your killing me would be necessary to end my emotion for you. And nowhere in you or your past do I find enough pain to dissuade me from that love.”
“Your speaking is passionless, Eric. Are you condemned to this love?”
“I can count, and as objective as quantity is the measure of my emotion. One day, I may enjoy it more, but even now I do not suffer from it. Well have you taught me melancholy, Alba. First you demanded it of me and now you draw it with descriptions of the past.”
“It seems you’ve grown old this evening, Eric.”
“Surely, in my lifetime less than you in the previous few years. I have a fantasy, though, that the very decrepitude of your experience causes you to be abnormally distant in your person, though not your words.”
“No, I have ever been the ancient crone in this regard.”
“Pray God we become married soon so that I might sooner become accustomed to your uniqueness.”
“Well and good. But since you and Amanda are the ones for arrangements, may the expediting be yours. And along with your comfort in our marriage will come your parents’ understanding that you always shall be safe with me. Then the Rathel will be alone with her torment, and God remove it if He can.”
Chapter 30
Accepted By The Wife
“Miss Elsie, I would request of you that I be allowed to sp
eak with Alba a moment only to ourselves. No contact will we make nor fiendish plans plot against you.”
“Aye, and it’s a moment I’m giving you, lad, but your every move I’m watching from behind the window.”
As per Eric’s request, I spoke with him outside the Rathel’s home, Elsie behind glass seeking misplaced digits. Though nothing untoward was to be seen, Elsie surely preferred the silence, aware that no comfortable topics were being discussed.
“The speaking with my father went poorly,” Eric began.
“How so?”
“He freely conceded all I asked of him, but painfully. I mentioned only what he could directly know: of his vow, Lady Amanda’s barrenness, and the like. Though none of these things I held before him with distaste, his own confessions carried sufficient consequence for shame. More important, there was no dissuading him of believing in your evil. Though too painful for him to say outright, the fear that you shall kill me is the greatest emotion in his life.”
“You had quarreling?”
“No, we had weeping—on his part, the type you would condemn me for. And with him, Alba, your position became fully mine; for I would rather have accepted his shouting than his tears. But strength you have taught me, miss, and I would admire your education if only you could instruct me with some method other than misery.”
• • •
Since Elsie remained distraught from that revealing conversation with Eric, I was pleased to see this demeanor leave when Eric described our day, for therein he would lead his future women to their upcoming home.
Such a squeal the servant emitted that I thought a seat spring had popped up to stab her derriere. But, no, this was mere uncontrollable excitement, one to set Eric into pleasurable laughing and me toward wondering of these sinners’ facade of maturity concealing a childish state.
“Are you not pleased, Miss Alba, in that you’ve not even a smile?” Eric wondered as Elsie continued with her sprightly giggling.
“My pleasure must wait for a confrontation with the servant,” I replied, then turned to Elsie. “Miss, if this noise you make be opera, desist at once, for I will have no pet of mine, er, no servant of mine promoting such…Continental compositions.”