by H C Turk
In the morning with Eric gone, Elsie became another worker out in the city, she and certain of Lord Andrew’s male servants traveling in a hired wagon to return with our personal belongings from the former flat, bringing all but the gigantic bed, for no men animal enough had Grand to carry it. Therefore, Elsie returned in failure, she believed, having brought the family’s artifacts, but leaving their greatest treasure. Pooh, I told her. You should have seen the handbuilt chamber pot I had to abandon in the wilds, and you worry about a stack of planks? Elsie found this comparison so foolish that she quit fretting about the bed, and wise was the witch to ease her friend’s sorrow.
When the husband returned that evening, he displayed a pleasant countenance instead of brooding, a natural response considering his homeless state, the failure to provide for his new family, and social so on. Taking me aside, Eric told of the latest developments regarding our illegalities.
“I have arranged with the court’s financiers to end my indebtedness to Lady Amanda via my current employment. She would have us all in prison, but England’s laws are more reasonable.”
“Should we then subtly mention to Lord Andrew, rich in his money and generous love, that coins spilled upon our persons would be regarded?”
“Do you desire, ma’am, to experience a repeat of that event held between my father and myself at our doorstep?”
No word was spoken of Eric and his mother at the stair’s bottom, but the event mentioned was enough to have me answer, “No, sir, I do not. Nevertheless, the fault here is trebly yours. First, for marrying from lust instead of love; second, for wedding a witch though warned in advance by unique and suffocating proof of her identity; and third, for not accepting the wife’s idea of withdrawing to the wilds and being away from Rathel’s madness and your parents’ incorrect emotions.”
“Recently I have applied some thought to your wilderness, missus, and no longer find the notion fit for ridicule.”
My only reply was, “Sir…?”
“Mark this day, Alba, for therein you have failed to reply elaborately to an idea of interest,” Eric observed. “But to proceed beyond your graceless, open-mouthed staring: I continue to consider the utter wilderness unappealing; that is, residing beneath bushes. But a type of simple cabin in the vicinity of acceptable foodstuffs…perhaps. After all, you and your mother lived for years in this manner and endured. I am not unlike you in certain respects.”
“Not in respect to being a witch.”
“These persons’ eating is different from mine since our marriage?”
“Have you spoken with Elsie about me and insects?”
“Missus, you would sicken me when I speak gravely? Do you say I must consume crawling bugs once stepping beyond the City’s bounds?”
“No, sir, and forgive me for my comedy. In fact, abundant are the foods to eat in the wilds, and well I know the nourishing plant life most sinners would pass by even if starving.”
“And if these sinners did not pass by, but stopped to dine, would they expire whereas the witch would not?”
“Perhaps regarding certain forms; however, we would have Miss Elsie for experimentation.”
“One severe failure and she would leave us without further studies.”
“One severe failure of our genders and you would be residing in the cemetery, leaving this family without employ. But another method of wild living is applicable to us, since we are not known as witches. Without need to conceal ourselves, we might reside near enough farms to have available those common eatings that sinners desire.”
“Being near farms, could I not slip away for a rib on occasion?”
“You would return with fatty flesh on your breath to find yourself in bed with Miss Elsie.”
“At least with her I could procure that normal sort of sex I’ve known only by accident with you and for a moment.”
“But you would have no benefit of her buttocks except for deriding you upon mentioning them in the same sentence as your maleness.”
Due to the unavailability of any arse, Eric set upon my mouth with his, willfully pressing his tongue against mine; and in his breath was passion, as well as some fat from breakfast. Rarely did I allow the male within me so, but return his moves I did, holding his head as he held mine, my tongue dancing within his mouth, and so on. The satisfaction I achieved, however, was not of sex, but of emotion; for as the husband well loved this kissing, I was pleased to satisfy him, though such generosity could not last forever. Not with a witch.
Pulling away from the slobbering sinner, I remarked as would any unenvious lady.
“I think you would find this well worth a lack of dead beast in your diet, for no meat will you find more alive than mine. But let us end this facial sucking, lest master or servant discover us and you suffer a sinner’s embarrassment.”
“Embarrassment from kissing? Since we are wed, kissing is no great shame if pursued within the bounds of one’s home and not in broad and public places.”
“True, but I doubt you would have any part of London gain a view of your pants with that current peak, for without looking, I notice a lustful rising.”
Eric looked down, arranging his little limb and clothing so that the former was barely noticeable by sight.
“What a nose you have, missus. Some use might be found for this talent.”
“Please, sir, be satisfied with the sex you achieve with the rest of my portions, and leave one part of my body in peace.”
Thereafter, we proceeded with our business of appearing pleased with our lives, although impoverished and without home, although pursued by the satanic Rathel. For the witch, at least, the ongoing task came with less effort due to the future, a superior life suggested by the husband, a life removed and wild. Then I wondered of a more immediate future, when Eric was without debt and again we might settle in a home our own. How likely would that home be in London rather than in God’s natural world?
Contemplating a wild life implied but not likely supplied by the husband was my main activity in the following days. Soon my pondering turned to moping, my concerns continuing one evening as I sat with the husband well away from the fire. So established was this dejection that it remained until driven away by visitors, family members so social as to bring hatred to their kin.
Chapter 34
Demonic Meal
To the door came paired guests well entered by a servant of Lord Andrew, and pleasant was their discourse with this chamberlain until as pleasantly he mentioned that their son was present.
Ah, the silence of unsettled hearts, the stillness of the racing brain. And the oblivion of innocence. As though the walking dead unable to lift their feet, Mr. and Mrs. Denton dragged themselves to the drawing room led by the servant, who pleasantly called out the visitors’ introduction. Dull, dull were these people, as was their son, who forgot how to breathe those moments. Happy Grand, however, was all sprightly as he moved to his guests and fully embraced them. How pleasant to be holding zombies, I thought, for the wife was stiff, Edward more of a torso than a son. Here Lord Andrew seemed another dog, for Randolph also knew these folk, running to them while yapping his love. Both visitors stared down to him, thereby avoiding a deeper look into the room, toward the son and his wife. Toward the witch and her man. Was natural Andrew so innocent of society’s policies that he could only yap happily to his family when he should be separating its members? No segregation here, for Grand with a hand on either back directed Hanna and Edward into the drawing room toward those other social folk.
Eric rose as though drawn from the grave, for dead he was to this meeting. Being tutored in etiquette, his wife remained seated, though she was certainly no lady with that smile, a common expression as brazen as a cackle considering that fiends should display only shame.
“Come, come—all of you now!” Andrew called out brightly as he pressed the moving zombies toward their static son. “I am aware that some differences lie amongst you young folk, but for this evening, let us well rejoice i
n our common love, and allow any discord to settle.” He then had the mother embrace her boy—and how loving these two sacks of meat were, rubbing as though mutually allergic. Then father and son were made to clasp hands, but could they even feel each other with that limp connection? All of this was colder than my holding Marybelle’s head to my crotch, for at least one of us had been alive.
Unsocial was Lord Andrew to have the lady greeted last, but she was so far removed, though truly central. No more than the slightest nod and bow I received from Hanna and Edward. I, at least, had the courtesy to call to them each a good evening, and here the salutations ended. As the latest Dentons faced me, Randolph ran to his new mistress as though to ask whether he were yet part of her family, in that the previous seemed to have abandoned him. Though his coat remained hot from the fire, his spirit was warm from love, and this I acknowledged, rubbing Randolph’s neck as Lord Andrew had the zombies seated.
Performing all the speech in this cemetery, Lord Andrew called for tea, then asked his son of business, how well the great cathedral was progressing, and how unfortunate that the grandson was no longer with him, continuing in his father’s profession no more than the last had with his. But, come, come, here was too much difference, since Eric was but an assistant to an accountant, and when would he return to his father’s firm where he belonged?
“Please, Father,” Edward urged in reply. “You must know better than to ask of such matters. Ask for the tea again instead.”
“Ah, but I need not request the tea twice, in that so well I called the first instance that its delivery be assured. Perhaps I should ask better of family business, in that my initial mention did not receive comprehensive response.”
“And exactly appropriate, Father,” Edward returned, “in that the previous family business of rearing a son turned out to be a task poorly accepted by the youth.”
“Drink your tea, Father,” Eric remarked as the servant entered, “and rest your weary brain.”
The chamberlain and his refreshments should have been a pause in the conversation, but such was the stress of the Dentons that their nerves never faltered, Hanna responding as a cup came toward her.
“Very well, Eric, then aid your father in his exhausted intellection by returning home where you belong—with your family.”
“And poor my rearing would be if I were to forsake my current and truest family now that I’ve achieved a servant plus the pet to care for—oh, yes, and the single wife.”
“End your jesting, son, and we can end your true difficulty,” Edward added. “In this England are acceptable means for allowing you to return home gracefully. If you would leave this woman through a legal and understandable annulment, your difficulties would be ended.”
“And therefore abandon the person I have selected above all others to live with forever?” Eric returned, his humor ended as requested. “You forget that I was born to you and your wife without being given the choice. But I would leave you and have done so rather than desert the greatest recipient of my love.”
“Eric! Would you destroy your mother’s soul by alleging to love this person more than she who gave you birth?” Hanna cried. “Would you lie to me and Jesus by saying that this woman could love you more than I?”
“Would you measure these respective loves as though accounts at a bank?” tense Eric returned. “The measure I make is not numerical, but emotional; for if Alba has never loved me more than you, she has never been so thoughtless as to engender my torment and call it love.”
Quickly I rose from my chair to glimpse down to the tea at my side, then toward the congregation, the audience this witch had drawn.
“No lemon?” I inquired.
“In the weeks of this new life of yours,” Edward said as though I had spoken no more than a painting on the wall, “she has worsened your ridiculous mind, for you believe that living with her is not dangerous.”
“To be ridiculous, I must have been encamped in your surrounds,” Eric answered, “since you have become the total fool.” And Hanna gasped enough to choke. “How long must I live with this woman to prove that she brings no danger? The only damage in this marriage is from your foolish thinking and incorrect fears that each day my wife proves false.”
“Evil does not always attack in a strike,” Hanna averred, “but can increase in force as though a slow poison. Witness how that person more and more ruins our family.”
“The poison consumed in this family is fear and by yourselves,” Eric admonished. “So fully are you addicted to this sinister liquor that you foment its increase, for the poison is a filling hatred you find nourishing. And yet you continue your unhealthy beliefs, as though a religion wherein Lord God is not worshiped, but some devil.”
“You sleep with a devil and call me a fool!” his father shouted.
“I sleep with an angel, previous sir, and since you’ve no experience beside my wife, I demand that you never again refer to her maliciously, for thereafter you will no longer be called Father by me.”
“And you’ve not been my son since marrying your own death!” Edward shouted, his face a bluster.
So great was Edward’s intensity in this conversation that his body shuddered, his limbs forming inspecific gestures that signified distress. Sitting beside her husband, Hanna found herself but one gesticulation removed; for with Edward’s quaking, she received blows on her shoulders sufficient to upset her carriage. But she moved no farther from him, for beyond she would be alone. Before the noisy pair could further devastate each other, the men were approached by three persons: Lord Andrew, who so much desired to smile; the young witch, who was taking her husband and cheerfully quitting the house; and the chamberlain, who gave notice that Lady Amanda Rathel had arrived.
What an impoverished conglomerate to consider the source of all their demons a relief. Only Lord Andrew’s greetings, however, were as cordial as due a guest, though perhaps done too grandly, as though to relieve him of the previous operatic tension.
The lady had brought gift, Andrew’s servant guiding Rathel into the drawing room while bearing an intricate tray whose engraved and raised edges retained a pair of clear decanters, their contents of different hues. Rathel explained their intended dispensing in advance, her speech welcome, for none of the previous guests cared to hear more of their own anger.
“Allow me to apologize for my intrusion, while conceding how a portion was in fact intended. That is, I knew beforehand that the young wedded pair had come here as though in refuge. My purpose in following is not to justify their difficulties, but my part therein. I would attempt to explain that my business was not intended to damage their happy marriage. Constables and financiers, however, apply themselves too strictly on occasion. But seeing that I now add to a present tension, I shall retain my justification. Instead, allow me to provide a thing to soothe us all and perhaps bond us together in relaxation. Being only drink, however, we cannot expect it to make all our lives as one, though it might make them a bit milder for this evening.”
“Here, here,” Lord Andrew responded agreeably, then lightly clapped his hands together, being the most appreciative member of the audience at this opera.
“Very well, then,” the mistress continued brightly, her speech surely a bout of acting, for the woman was vivacious only when gloating—but what cause had she for satisfaction? Was her plan to so drunken us all that we might set to one another with clocks? “Here are my rare selections, seldom seen in this country.” And she raised a decanter to pour a clear fluid; and what sort of mouth could a sinner have to blow a square bottle with facets? “From Siberia comes this vodka with its uncommon warmth of anise to restrain the spirits’ strength. This for the Dentons: Hanna, Edward, and Eric.” After filling three moderate metal chalices included on her tray, she proceeded to the next bottle. “From Persia, a liqueur made from figs, dark and sweet, but mild in its alcohol. This for the folks who should have a minimum of spirits: our senior, Lord Andrew, this Amanda, who understands that her drin
king itself must be rare, and our natural Alba, who imbibes only from etiquette.”
Rathel then flitted about to deliver her spirits, which had begun to fume the room. “God bless you,” she said to each person receiving a glass, all but the last, who received instead a quiet warning.
“Drink not the entirety, Alba, in that liquor makes the true witch ill,” and she gave me a small but thick glass. No metal.
Then to our general center did Rathel journey, lifting her hand with goblet and her voice with toast, one of family love in God’s eyes, of marital satisfaction in peaceful homes beneath the watchful stare of England, and so on, up with their little buckets one and all, and well set to drinking did some. Not I, who would not render myself sodden regardless of Rathel’s untrustworthy advice. Nevertheless, my drink smelled only subtly of spirits, being sweetly rich with the taste of liquid figs. I thus partook of a second swallow although the pledge had ended, thinking that this sipping would occupy me. But could I not have mimicked the drinking and retained a dry mouth? What guilt had I for being a witch who enjoyed her imbibing? Not alone was I in this fluid satisfaction, though supposedly alone in being a witch.
“This is most delicious,” Edward submitted quietly, looking down to his rounded trough to sniff the fumes.
One sip later and the group began to separate as though a herd of creatures scattered about a pasture. The parental Dentons, so continually together as to be of one body, floated away from their son. Espying a painting adjacent to the fireplace, Rathel had Lord Andrew join her for a view. Amanda then proudly mentioned a special piece, the portrait of Spanish royalty painted by a Portuguese master whose brushwork was most ferocious, as though attacking with his tools. Ah, but the Portuguese school characteristically employs this technique, Lord Andrew replied. Note, however, how this exceptional Iberian craftsman tempers his ferocity with fine layers of glazes that soothe the intense base colors, and so on.