by Wolf, Jack
There was a brief Hiatus, as mine Aunt, presumably, was forced to draw Breath. Her Voice had been growing steadily louder during this Harangue, and suddenly I realised, to mine intense Horrour, that this was not because she was screeching any more loudly, but because she was rapidly drawing closer. Her Footsteps rattled the Staircase.
Erasmus stared at me. “Surely she cannot be—” he began, astonished.
Then I heard Katherine’s Voice, sharply upraised in Anger. I froze, like an affrighted Manes; and Erasmus could not help but do likewise, for it appeared to both of us that we heard a very Fury.
“How dare I? How dare you? You evil minded Hag, I would wed Tristan Hart without a Farthing, and be twice as quick! How dare you think you can insult me, because you have Money, and I none? You call me low, you dare to call me Creature—Bah! It is you who are low, for all your Silks and Wiggery, with your filthy Accusations and your foul Names. Faugh! You make me puke! If I thought you were a Lady, I would never want to be one—and if ’tis Money that hath made you the low Creature that you are, I would rather die a Pauper!”
“Wicked Strumpet!” screamed mine Aunt. “What, chide thy Betters, bold as Brass? Oh, every Name I have called thee hath been richly deserved—there is none bad enough! Thou shouldst not presume even to tell me todaye’s Date! Thou Slattern, thou Whore, thou vicious, conniving little Bitch!”
“She is here?” Erasmus cried. “Verily, Katherine Montague is here?”
“Why hath she left my Chamber?” I cried. “She promised that she would wait!” I leapt to my Feet. “She will strike her, for sure!” I meant that I feared mine Aunt would strike Katherine; in truth, I ought to have been more afraid that Katherine might readily, and with justifiable Provocation, have struck mine Aunt; but my Concern was only for her.
Erasmus had the Look of a Man who hath been struck by Lightning. Nonetheless, by sheer Force of Willpower mastering his Amazement, he took a deep Breath and got to his Feet, and saying: “Stay where you are. I will put a Stop upon this,” he started towards the Doorway.
Mine Aunt, however, prevented him. Precisely as Erasmus reached the Door—which I felt certain he was bitterly regretting that he had not locked—it collapsed with such Violence that it might have been blown inwards by a powder Keg. Mine Aunt Barnaby filled the Frame.
She had, evidently, received the incendiary News of mine Attachment halfway thro’ her Toilette, for she had come away with her Face whiteleaded but her Wigg un-stiled, and the Effect was as startling as it was ridiculous. The squat and shapeless thing that writhed untidily upon her shaven Head resembled, to mine Eyes, a Nest of Serpents, writhing and bound in bloody Fillets about a Visage as stark white as a death Mask. She had, however, succeeded in getting herself fully dresst, and was clad in a red damask Gown of such extream width that she was broader than she was tall.
Erasmus stood petrified for a Second, quite aghast; then, automatically, he fell back as mine Aunt turned her terrifying Gaze upon me, and keeping her Head intirely still, swivelled her Body so that she might enter side-ways thro’ the Doorway, which was otherwise too narrow for her Hoop. She pushed her Skirts into the Room, followed, and then, raising her index Finger to point it straight at me, she screeched: “Tristan!”
I stared at her, mute with Astonishment. Then a Movement behind her caught mine Eye; Katherine, determined not to be left out, appeared in the Frame. Our Eyes met; she opened her Mouth to speak; then all at once she disappeared, as if pulled thence by an unseen Hand.
“Madam!” said Erasmus, recovering himself and stepping between mine Aunt’s imposing Finger and My Self. “This is a sick Room. You must leave immediately.”
“Leave!” exclaimed mine Aunt Barnaby, drawing herself up to her fullest, and looking down upon Erasmus with unmitigated Contempt. “Who dost thou, little Man, think that thou art to order me to leave? This was my Father’s House! I grew up here! I will neither leave, Mr Glass, nor will I be given Instruction by a mere Servant. Lud! ’Tis high Time there was Order in this House! Tristan Hart, mad tho’ you are, you shall not marry with this Vixen, this Chit, this ill-bred Pauper! I did not intend, when I admitted that you were not like to marry well, that you should marry badly! You shall not marry at all! I will not have it! First my Brother, and now his Son, bringing God knows what Creatures beneath my poor dead Father’s Roof, polluting mine Home, bringing Disgrace and Shame upon my Family’s Name. I will not have it, do you hear? I will not have it!”
Mine Aunt had thoroughly lost her Temper. She was angrier than I had ever seen her, and I was certain that beneath the Whitelead her Face was as scarlet as her Dress. Nevertheless, I could tell that she was not even one half-Quart as furious as was Katherine, whom I could now see again, within the Doorway but blocked from entering the Chamber by the enormous Hoop, violently struggling with Mrs H., tho’ her Eyes were fixt upon me. The Housekeeper had seized hold of her Arm, and appeared to be remonstrating with her in an urgent Manner.
“Oh,” exclaimed my Father, quietly. I looked down. In the Confusion occasioned by the sudden Arrival of his Sister, mine Attention had been all upon her, not upon him; and I had not known that he had opened wide both his Eyes and turned his Head full to behold the Spectacle currently in Performance at the Foot of his Bed. His Expression was not clear to me, but despite that I sensed, radiating from him as if it were invisible Light, a sudden, terrible Anger.
For one panicked Second I thought his Anger to have been with me. He fears me, I thought; and suddenly that aweful Fact loomed with a Relevance and Import that I had hitherto ignored. Surely, he will cast me off. I will lose all: my Station, my Fortune, mine Home, my Family. Katherine and I will be forced onto Charity; and her Relations hate her, and have naught anyway to give. Oh, pray God, no! No! I must work. I will go to Dr Hunter and plead with him to find me an Apprenticeship despite mine Illness. I will do anything, anything. I will not send my Katherine away.
Katherine appeared again, quiet now, tho’ her Face was anything but still, within the Doorway. Our Eyes locked. How I love her, I thought anew.
My Father drew Breath. Then, into the brief and fragile Silence which succeeded upon mine Aunt Barnaby’s Outburst and his small Exclamation, he pronounced three, very short, Words; the clearest I had ever heard him speak.
“Fuck off, Ann.”
There was no doubting his Sincerity, or his Comprehension. Verily, my Father understood, and understood compleatly, what he meant; and he spoke, moreover, with such ferocious Profundity that it seemed as if the Words had sate frustrated on his Tongue for Decades. So great was his Clarity, so undeniable his Force, that I was, at once, the more astonished by his habitual Silence, for it seemed to me an Impossibility that a Man possesst of so potent a Spleen would have been able, much less would have chosen, to constrain it.
A long Silence followed my Father’s Words. Then Erasmus, as always the first to recover, cleared his Throat. “Mrs Barnaby,” he said. “With all due Respect, you must do as Mr Hart directs.”
Mine Aunt’s Mouth had fallen intirely open; she did not appear to be able to hear Erasmus. I did not suppose, given her previous Choice of Words, that it had been my Father’s Vocabulary that had proved so very shocking. It had been the mere Fact of his shewing Resistance; as long as I could remember, he had never before stood up to her once she had begun to set about him. Then the Thought struck me that she had not, in truth, set about him; her Ire had been directed quite at me, and he had stood up to her on my Behalf.
“John?” whispered mine Aunt.
My Father made an incomprehensible Noise that might have been an Attempt at complex Speech, but, equally, might not, and turned his Attention stubbornly toward the Wall.
On my Behalf! Mine Heart began to pound. “My Father hath nothing to say to you, Mrs Barnaby,” I said. “Nor have I. I shall not forswear mine Understanding with Miss Montague and I heartily detest and repudiate the Insult of your Conduct toward her, of which, Madam, I must tell you that I am deeply ashamed.”
Mine Aunt’s Expression, which had seemed something sorry, and perplext, when she had looked upon my Father, hardened instantly at mine Interruption. Her blue Eyes turned turquoise; she did not speak.
All on a sudden mine Imagination perceived, with an aweful Certainty, what it was that mine Aunt, in that same Instant, perceived in me; and I knew without Doubt that it was neither her Brother nor her own beloved Father, but someone alien: my Mother. I looked like a Jew.
Mine Aunt was Lady B.——, was Foremother to every Woman in my Life who ever had turned her Countenance from me in Distaste of my dark Skin, mine Hair, mine Eyes. She was Nero’s Mother, as surely as she was James Barnaby’s. Hers were the Perceptions, hers the Prejudices, that had encouraged Joseph Cox to demand of Margaret Haynes whether I was all over stained with tawny. And I remembered, without Shock or Sadness, but with a Flash of Comprehension, the numberless Punishments to which she had subjected me when I had been a Boy. Childhood, she had insisted, was the State of Original Sin, and the Devil must be beaten out else he refuse to leave; but it had not been Sin she had perceived upon my Physiognomy. Because mine Hair was black, mine Eyes also, because my Skin was olive and my Nose hooked like an Hawk’s, I had been falsely condemned straight out of my Mother’s Womb, and with no Hope of a Repeal.
But my Father, my shy, secretive brown Wren of a Father, who could not bring himself to meet another Man’s Eyes, who could not, in normal Circumstance, speak above a muttered Monotone, felt no such Prejudice. If he feared me, he feared me not for that. Because when he had been but one-and-twenty he had shewn the Courage to look beneath the Surface, and to love the Quality he had therein discovered, and I was the Result: Eugenia’s Heir, with her Looks and her Perspicacity; and whether for that, or for mine own Sake, my Father, also, loved me.
It was a stunning Thought.
“Get out,” I said to mine Aunt Barnaby. “My Father hath every Right never to allow you to set Foot within this House again. Mr Glass will see you to your Carriage.”
Mine Aunt made me no Reply; but her Position being intirely without Defense, she perhaps thought it better to attempt none. She bestowed one last, bewildered, outraged Look upon her Brother, and then, recalling something of her Dignity, she rotated slowly upon the Spot and steppt crabwise into the Hallway, to which Katherine had retreated, still in Mrs H.’s protecting—or restraining—Embrace.
Mine Aunt Barnaby stared at her; a slow Stare of such pure, petrifying Venom that mad Discord might momentarily have become the Medusa. She raised her right Hand high, as if to ring a Blow about Katherine’s Ears.
“You will not!” I shouted.
I did not know whether she had heard me, or if merely she thought the better of her Inclination, but mine Aunt lowered her Fist. “Marry!” she spat. “A fine Wife she will make you, I am sure!”
“What is todaye’s Date, Miss Montague?” I said. “Wilt tell Mrs Barnaby? She thinks you are not good enough to tell her. I tell you, ’tis the fourteenth.”
“I shall,” Katherine said. “Truly, Madam, it is the fourteenth of September.”
Mine Aunt drew herself up to her greatest Height, once more, and turned her Stare upon me in Disgust. “Ridiculous and absurd Boy,” she said, with withering Contempt. “I see you wilt choose a Shrew who is as crazy as yourself! Katherine indeed! You must make her avow the Sunne the Moon and stamp upon her Cap! Any one of sense would have known ’tis the third.” Turning sharp on her crimson Heel, she strode out of my Sight.
Erasmus, after a Second or so, bowed in an hurried Manner to my Father and quitted the Room, presumably to do as I had directed and see mine Aunt Barnaby securely off the Premises. I hoped that she would not abuse him; the whole Affair was none of his Business, much less any of his Fault. Katherine, seeing him and mine Aunt both departed, tore herself at last free from Mrs H.’s Arms, and ran into the Chamber. Then, at the Foot of my Father’s Bed, she stoppt, all of a Sudden caught by an hesitant Uncertainty. Her Gaze met mine, and for an Instant I thought that she would throw herself upon me; but then her Eyes fell instead upon my Father.
That Gentleman had turned his Head again that he might look with Ease upon the Doorway and all Proceedings thither, and his Attention seemed to have impresst itself upon a Locus some six Inches from Katherine’s left Hand. His Mouth moved, silently, wordlessly, as he battled to form his reluctant Countenance into the Shapes he desired of it. Finally, after an half-Minute or more of terrible Struggle, he gave it up; his Strivings ceased, his Features fell still.
Katherine looked at me in silent Horrour, her Fingers presst close against her Lips, as if she were stifling a Cry. Mrs H. took her by the Arm. “Come away, Miss,” she said. “You must not see the Master in such a State.”
“Damn good Piece,” said my Father, with dazzling Clarity.
Mrs H. started violently. Her Lips blanched, and the Muscles of her Cheekbones became instantly as rigid as if she had been upon the Spot turned into Marble.
Very short Words, I thought. “Mrs H.,” I said, sharply. “Doth he always communicate in such Vulgarities?”
Mrs H.’s fixt Expression crumbled. For a few Seconds I thought that she would give me no Reply. Then Tears welled up in her old Eyes, and she nodded, furtively, as if she did not want to acknowledge her own Experience. “Oh, Master Tristan,” she said. “He doth, and I am sorry, so sorry, to have to hear them—for as long as I have known him, he hath been the very best of Gentlemen, and hath held himself so far above any Profanity as I had thought him to have been beyond their Knowledge.”
“Plainly,” I said, “he is not. Release Miss Montague’s Person and let her come to me.”
I held out mine Hand for Katherine to join me. My Thoughts were working, furiously, and fast. As she approached, I turned mine Attention to my Father, and studied his Eyes. As I had hoped, they followed her, fluttering about her left Hand in the Manner of an half-wild Bird, that knows Nourishment to be contained within the closed Palm, but hath seen its Fellows in the Clap-Net, and is thus too wary ever to become tame.
Katherine reaching my Side, I took up her left Hand firm within mine own, and pressing it to my Breast, looked from my Father’s ravaged Face into her beautifull one.
Mine Heart leapt up in my Throat. I swallowed, and cast my Gaze once more unto my Father. “Sir,” I said, “this is Miss Katherine Montague, whom I love most dear, and with whom I would be married, as soon as shall be. May we have your Blessing, Father?”
For a long Moment, he was silent. Then I discerned within his Look the Beginning of a second Struggle, of the same Kind as the first. He tries to speak, I thought. He tries to use the Language and the Terms to which he, as well as we, have been accustomed; but he cannot, and the Difficulty lies not only in his Paralysis; no, no; the Ideas themselves are too subtile, and the damaged Channels in his Brain cannot contain them; yet when he useth the vulgar Tongue, the Words do not escape him, being made of coarser Stuff, and therefore he is capable of Speech. He doth not intend Offense; he doth not intend aught but to communicate.
At length, and as before, the Battle ceased. My Father’s Gaze took Flight from Katherine’s Hand, and brushed, soft, like a wing Tip, over her Face. “Bang up,” my Father said. “Hellish fine.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you, Sir.”
CHAPTER SEVEN-AND-TWENTY
Less than a Minute after this wonderfull Dispensation, Erasmus Glass returned, and insisted that we quit my Father’s Chamber, which had seen, he said, enough Excitement for a Month, let alone an Houre. Refusing to let Mrs H. be the Exception, he conveyed us all down the Stairs in one Party and straight into the Library. He crossed to my Father’s Desk, and immediately poured himself a generous Measure of Brandy from a large Flask.
“Madam,” he said, addressing Katherine. “What, for the Love of Heaven, are you doing here?”
“She is new arrived from Weymouth,” I returned quickly.
“That, Master Tristan, is a Lie,” said Mrs H. She turned to Erasmu
s, her Words spilling out in a great Flood. “I am very sorry, Mr Glass, but Miss arrived three Nights ago, at least, for Mr Green told me then he’d sent away a Beggar from the Door, and I thought nothing of it until Jakes found her soiled Cloathing the Morning after, and knew not what she ought do about it. Where she hath been hiding since then I don’t know, but ’twas somewhere within the House.”
“Mrs H.,” I said, sharply. “Prithee, do not call my Bride ‘Miss’ or we shall have a Quarrel, in which you will come off worst. Miss Montague hath been…” I hesitated, for I had already told the Truth to Erasmus, who was now staring at Katherine as if he were now as much inclined to disbelieve the Evidence of his own Senses as previously he had been to discredit mine. “She hath been in my Sister’s Chamber,” I finished.
“My Good God,” Erasmus murmured.
“Well,” I said, with a Shrug. “There is the whole Matter of it.”
“Lud!” exclaimed Mrs H., shaking her grey Head. “For Shame, Master Hart! And as for you, Miss—Miss Montague—but never mind. You must be hungry and thirsty, having been hiding out for half a Week living on Scraps from Master Tristan’s Plate. Why did not you come to me? I wouldn’t have turned you out.”
“I must repeat my Question to Miss Montague,” Erasmus said. “Miss Montague, were you not informed, by Lt. Simmins, that Mr Hart had become extreamly ill, and told of the Nature of his Affliction?”
“Yes,” Katherine answered.
“Yet you saw fit to leave your Uncle’s Guardianship and travel here, alone, knowing that you must put yourself into grave Danger, to arrive without Warning and—I need not continue. I should like to know your Reason, Madam, for compleatly disregarding my clear Advice to remain precisely where you were?”
“You are not my Master,” Katherine said.