by H C Turk
• • •
“I am now to desert you here, miss?” the large woman confronted me. “All that is here is nothing. No persons pass near here except to pass by. And how is it you will be returning?”
“Being rationally adult, I shall accept the responsibility for myself, though you can scarcely imagine the honor I gain by your positing yourself as my mother. Be off, then, woman, and pray you may find good use for my pence…. And I pray that despite my unkind and needless remark about my own beloved mother, you will accept the truth of my appreciation for your transport and your kindly concern.”
Then I was alone. An increasingly fine state I was gaining, though the woman’s ending apprehension had nearly destroyed my prayerful pride in having survived another bridge. How strong I had felt to be so high and exposed on naught but a plank above the river yet pass over with no panic, no death. True, for those minutes, I had scarcely breathed, feeling that too great an intake of air would disrupt our travel and spill me into the water, which I did not view, though I smelled it, did not feel though it touched me everywhere. What a religious accomplishment the crossing was, and for minutes thereafter I could only praise the greatest Lord and God for allowing me to live through another river.
The smell of sinners was not so intense here, though I viewed across the Thames some indiscernible construction, between us a distance I cherished; for although not the same substance as that beyond Lucansbludge, it was more enrichening than the materialistic air above the Rathel’s roof. Cleaner was the river here, lightly rippled by a breeze. Every swell I viewed, those beyond smaller as their distance from the observer increased, though each ripple seemed immediate, the separation of their quiet lives not removal but a connection via God’s glorious substance of space. Some activity I could sense far beyond, plumes of smoke from sinners, boats on the Thames, but none were strong in my experience. Behind, too ensconced on a sinners’ roadway to be as wild as I, wagons passed as the woman said, gone without coming near. These as well I ignored until one approached to bring Amanda Rathel.
She formed her own space, instructing the coachman to move away, this distance to segregate the greater society of London from Rathel’s particular life. The mistress then approached her daughter, a murderous witch not evil enough for the demon lady.
“You have come for a swim, madam,” I spoke, “or might I hope you’ve dreams of drowning yourself?”
I saw her as never before, measuring the woman as though only now fully able to discern sinners. How remarkably young she appeared for all her living, but was her life not mainly of arrangements for other people to live and to die? How handsome was this lady, even in her middle life, the short lives of sinners come and gone like a cut witch’s teat. Well could I understand how she had drawn men to herself—wealthy Franklin, vivid Edward—for despite all their feigned, godly spiritualism, were sinners not a people to send body after body, passion after lust? How mundane for so well-souled a race.
“Why is he not dead?” the social lady demanded. “Why have you not proven yourself the witch I know you? Why does the bastard yet live?”
“Oh, and Mistress Amanda, never have I heard you curse. Lie, yes, and here again is your favorite trait; for the tremendous hatred you have is from Eric’s legality, the very fact that from your baby slot he did not and could not issue.”
“Much have you learned of my life, meddling witch.”
“Bless your compliment, dear mother. As for lives, importantly I have learned of mine. Never would I have done so except for your machinations that forced my education. Therein I learned of witches, and through experience, the white one. Learn I did how Satan kills through them, and also how any man might survive.”
“Not forever will this bastard avoid your sex. Kill him, witch, and depart from London. Sleep with him and be done with us all.”
“Oh, but lady, sleeping kills no one. Not even your wretched soul could supply nightmares intense enough to kill. What you mean is another obscenity: you mean ‘fuck.’ But, mistress, this man is my husband and well we mate and often. Extraordinarily often, so I understand, compared to common women. But this woman is not common. She is the witch and the white witch to draw men to her cunt and consume them. But this joy you’ve expected for years I now deny you. Eric is drawn to my sex better than any man, for I allow and encourage his coupling in that he is thereby pleased. But I have learned how the husband can avoid the deadly baby slot. Instead, the target allowed is the anus. Yes, Amanda, a man is perfectly safe fucking any witch within her bum’s hole, and therein does Eric gain great ecstasy from me. Every night, often, and often in a dead sleep. So accomplished am I at saving my husband that even when he sticks his prick you would love on your mantel against the wrong entry, he finds a closed hole he may not enter. Then to the rear does he march, and well up into my arse I take him, allowing his stick to wallow until his baby seed is accelerated far within me. To absorb his sperm makes me smile, mistress, if only because I can now spit his semen at you.” And, yes, I spat at the Rathel’s feet, though languidly, as though she were scarcely worth the effort.
At once she leapt toward me with a fury never seen, worse than during that clock beating, because then her abilities were tempered by drink, but here she was all hatred. But my front she faced now; so upon reaching out to strike me dead, the lady met my fingers. Both my palms I thrust to her cheeks and jaws, knocking Rathel to her backside. From this position, the startled sinner looked up to me as I commented on her situation.
“I suggest, lady, that you not assault a British citizen, lest Queen Anne herself spit in your direction.”
“You satanic bitch!” Rathel shouted, appearing less than the lady for sitting on her virgin arse in the dirt. “I will have you be what you are. You will kill the Eric bastard or your perverted arse shall be the soot beneath my mantel. Kill the bastard or I’ll prove you the witch. I shall prove that you murdered Bitford to gain transport out of London, and murdered Cameron because he discovered your identity. I will have you burned without beheading, bitch, so that long you will suffer, more than you ever dreamed, more than your mother.”
Being a lady, I replied mildly while straightening my cuffs, “Of course you shall, dear mistress, as soon as you teach Jacob Naylor to become so complete a fool that he will overlook your pimping deaths. Whenever a man died by my body, you were the cause. Aware of your expertise in witches, all of London will believe that you ever understood me the killer. So tell your tale, Amanda, and you will die in more pieces than I. Until you choose your own suicide, become accustomed to Eric’s happy life.” And I stepped away with a smile, gesturing for the distant driver to return his charge to her home, to her dedicated hell.
Chapter 33
Driven Away By Visitors
Days later, the Rathel attacked. Through the window, I viewed two men with grave visages clomping up the stairs, one with fingers on his jerkin and a thumb lodged in his belt, the other leaning on a belt scabbard with his elbow as though the knife were a walking stick supporting his upper body. More descriptive of these males than their extremities was their attire, those jerkins and peaked hats signifying the magistrate’s constables.
Elsie at her needlework well heard the sound of feet, but preferred in her uncertainty to wait for the additional noise of rapping. Like the dog, I could not wait passively. As Randolph set to his barking, I set to the door, opening the poor barrier to our home before it was violated.
“Might you have an exalted morning, gentlemen,” I greeted the pair upon opening the door with their rapping hands hanging startled in the air. After the males tipped their hats and nodded, the scabbard leaner spoke.
“And well we might, mistress, with God’s grace and your cooperation.”
“Gracious you are to align me with Lord God as though we functioned together instead of I in His servitude as is the truth of my life.”
“Very well, ma’am, and thank you for church this morning, but our business is the magistrate Sir Jacob
Naylor, as we are his men, and come we did to inquire of the Eric Denton.”
“A person currently at his employ, as are you, a person also my spouse, as you are not. Therefore, might your business with Eric Denton be told his humble wife?”
“The concern placed before Magistrate Naylor is by one Lady Amanda Rathel, that the Eric Denton has made himself indebted to this person and does now refuse to pay her in return what is due. Therefore, might we ask you his place of employ in that there we speak with him?”
“And if in distress from indebtedness my memory is so poorly returned as to negate my awareness of his profession, do I thereby incur your doubt?”
“No, missus, you incur our suspicion. And for incurring your humor shall we provide you with the true consideration your husband’s debt deserves.” And with a hat tip and head nod, the men quit my stairs.
The first consideration, however, was distress from Miss Elsie.
“Oh, and Mistress Alba, am I believing what I hear, for how is it the lady is taking such a turn? Is her business going so bad that she’s rendered poor and in need of every pence for survival?”
“As I have ever told you, miss, the problem is Eric’s survival, for Rathel now comprehends that the man shall continue living. Therefore, she seeks to expel her wrath as last she did upon my head. Perhaps you have forgotten that damage, Elsie. I have not.”
“Oh, and Alba, what next is occurring with this funding? Are prison cells not made for paupers?”
“No, miss, made for paupers are special prisons with great spaces folk can mill about within. Cells like stone boxes are for witches and murderous women, but not for dogs and servants. These pets simply wander to the next house in the ward.”
“And are we waiting, now, for the master to return before great worry?”
“In fact, miss, have you not begun without him?”
But we had little waiting for any emotion, for soon to our abode came a pair of men last seen toting our belongings, now climbing our steps with new strength and a pair of constables met that same morning.
“And we come with paper, Mrs. Denton, as writ by Queen Anne’s man the magistrate Sir Jacob Naylor and signed by he, upon which certain items are described and an order of us to be taking them as unpaid for.”
At once I moved aside, waving for the sinners to enter, for I’d not be taken away instead of furniture due to my interference. Randolph bounced about the males’ feet as though to aid them, so only Elsie was left to wail.
“Oh, Lord Jesus! To be taking a miss’s dowry is most grievous and ungodly!” And damned if she did not step between the porters to block their path, clinging to the armoire as though varnish. But since no prisons existed for servants, but yea for folk denying constables their duty, I pulled her away from the traffic of men and furniture through the flat, then spoke with the woman.
Guiding the weeping miss to her chamber, I offered, “Ah, Elsie, what a fine opportunity we now have to move into the wilds as I have ever desired. How easy your life shall become when your only caretaking is for the one small cave and its single room.”
Such a commotion transpired from Elsie that no ending could I achieve. Therefore, I left her with Randolph, and observed the pillaging of my (my) home.
Outside the master’s chamber, the two porters fiercely whispered while glimpsing within, attempting not to look toward the constables some distance removed. The carrying pair examined a paper, and here the witch could read their thoughts. They well recalled those weeks past and the recuperation required from manipulating that oaken tree in the guise of a sleeping instrument. Therefore, when the constables approached them to ask whether that bed were a piece written as to be taken, the transporters as though stuck with a pin or a pious revelation perked up to commence a denial while lowering the paper and stepping away from the room, down the stairs with them all.
The bed’s salvation scarcely helped Miss Elsie settle into our lately threadbare flat. Painfully she wondered of Eric’s knowledge of this predicament, wondered how he would react to see this barrenness. With outstretched arms, she longingly looked about at the space between our walls. Soon, however, we learned of Eric’s exact response; for another pair of men we heard talking and walking up our affronted stairs, and one of them was the master.
Only this family person entered. The second male completed pleading his position, then returned to his jewelry store; for he was proprietor of this shop, and owner of the entire building. During his ending speech, he begged for Eric’s understanding, for his bankers were insistent upon having his own debts called immediately due if the debtor above were not made to vacate the premises paid for with funds not his own.
A dreary master entered his former household to describe the family’s new position.
“So generous is our manager that he shall allow our scant possessions to remain in the flat until tomorrow noon. So insistent were the bankers, however, that our bodies must be vacated by dark, for the constables at evening will come to clear the place of any persons remaining.”
“We live on the street, then,” I affirmed, “for a person of my wilderness knowledge can well teach her family to survive the pavements.”
“No, missus, we do not,” Eric sighed. “For at least one day, we shall present ourselves at my grandfather’s house and allow him to aid us as well he would love.”
“Then away we are,” I affirmed again, “taking only what our figures wear, in that little can we carry while walking.”
“No, missus,” Eric sighed. “The distance is too great for us to walk.”
“Not likely, sir, can I make arrangements as per my previous journey where a person’s wagon was found in my path and gained for mere pence.”
“What pence we have, we save,” Eric added. “In advance I shall hire a carriage, and pay the fare upon our arrival, as borrowed from Grand.”
“And I’m praying the man be home when you arrive,” Elsie prayed, “so as no further difficulty become you. As well, I’m praying the Mistress Amanda will not be taking me in harshly when I retreat there, for in the past she has been decent to me.”
Turning sharply to the husband, I demanded, “Sir, do we burden Lord Andrew with our pets?”
“We do not abandon our family, missus, neither to Lady Amanda nor to the streets. Instead, we allow my grandfather the generosity that is prideful to him as a gentleman, and present ourselves, all four.”
“Oh, and please, Master Eric, do not be letting this dull woman so drag you—”
“This woman shall continue as our servant by determining with the missus what items we might take along, in that this task is one too many for me,” Eric stated. Then he quit our major, former room, moving to one away from all family members except the dog, for Randolph would best accept his sorrow.
• • •
So pleased was Lord Andrew by our coming to him in our need that he nearly dragged the entire family into his fine home, paying the driver with his own hand perhaps too generous a gratuity, as though the transporter were responsible for our visit. What, then, would Grand pay in tribute to Lady Amanda, who had sent us here by happenstance, in that her true goal was jail—or Hell? Eric’s only explication to Andrew was that we were less than fortunate in moving from the former homesite, having been caught without a roof—and might we stay the day?
“I defy you to leave,” he smiled happily, and welcomed us aboard.
Our family was provided with two chambers, Elsie situated in so grand a suite that she felt herself a queen, and felt herself weep. Such guilt she expressed to Lord Andrew’s servants that they had no poor feelings toward her, despite their base lodgings. Being unfamiliar with his surrounds, the dog could not decide which chamber to select. After much panting and prancing to and fro between those of his family, he bounded away, taking as his run the entire house.
Fed sublimely was this family, except Elsie, who insisted upon eating with the servants in the kitchen, in her cowardice running there instead of remaining to
argue with me. The witch who had banished burned creatures from her own home nearly fainted onto the plate while picking for potatoes and peas, though so strong and brave she was that no vomiting ensued. Delirious were the males of the family for the same fleshy reasons, so grateful that not the first hurt glimpse was proffered the mistress.
What fine relaxation we had with our bellies filled with beast meat as we sat before the fireplace and gazed at the flames. None of these satisfactions for the witch, however, for she had eaten only vegetable slivers, avoiding their accompanying grease called gravy. And not near the flames retained only by an upward draft and God’s grace would she sit, so far removed that none of its heat could be directly felt, so turned away as to see nothing burning in that square cave. What a terrible entity was fire when not contained by a solid metal stove—and what a sinner I had become to be lustful of iron. But neither did the husband gain relaxation, for despite Lord Andrew’s insistence upon the boy’s remaining till babies were born and grew to adulthood, Eric was not a man with new lodgings, but a husband who had lost his home.
A demon was amongst us. Though from my corner I saw no flames, Randolph luxuriating before the fireplace provided me with the sight of sparks alighting on his coat, unfelt, and the smell of hide made unnaturally warm, thus emphasizing my belief that the beast, too long in society, had become a sinner.
In this manner, our life proceeded. Since Eric retained employment, there he hied the morning after our first night of sleeping in a strange bed not so unusual as to preclude the husband from lustily coupling with my buttocks. Not so supportive of sex was this handsome bed as our own, however; for although sturdy as a whole, one piece was a threat, a particular post so loose that all of Eric’s repeated journeys within my tunnel had it totter side to side as though a sinner’s scrotum, implying that it might topple upon us. And please, Lord God, let it fall upon the male and put him to sleep and me to rest.