THE GODMOTHER by Tina Rath
When I first read “The Godmother” by Tina Rath in Ghosts & Scholars 8, the mordant elegance of the prose made me suspect that Tanith Lee might he playing a game of pseudonyms. A query to editor Rosemary Pardoe ended my hopes for a detective career: Tina Rath is indeed Tina Rath. Further, she has had stories published in the respected anthology series, The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories and The Fontana Book of Horror Stories, as well as in such magazines as Amazing, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Woman’s Realm and Catholic Fireside.
Of herself, Rath says: “I was born in 1943, in Surrey, because of the bombing, but I am a Londoner. I have a B.A. from London University, an M.A. from North London Polytechnic (my dissertation was on the Theatrical Vampire) and I am currently working on my Ph.D. in vampire fiction.” Wonder about the job market on that.
“She’s been like this all morning, doctor.”
Old Mrs. Rothiemay heard her granddaughter’s voice, querulous as usual, but now with an undertone of some more positive emotion. Anxiety? Or could it be hope?
“Is she really bad?”
Then the doctor’s rumblings, harder to make out, because she was less used to his voice, but clearly offering reassurance, suggesting perhaps that there was a lot of it about. Mrs. Rothiemay, a gripper all her life, gripped the sheets, and wished the voices away. She was such a very old woman now that she could only manage one thing at a time. Now she did not want to listen, but to think, to remember. Gratefully she let herself sink away from the voices, back through the years ... A last, shrill exclamation from her granddaughter held her back, but only for a moment:
“She’s been like this ever since Den brought her the paper up.”
Mrs. Rothiemay had started life in the last century as Susannah Deborah Jewkes, named for her aunt Deborah and her godmother, Susannah Paget. Mrs. Paget had proved the better investment. When her namesake was twelve years old she found her a place at Satterthwaite, the big house where she reigned as housekeeper. Aunt Deb had been good for nothing but a plain cross and chain of doubtful metal. The young Susannah, or Sukey as she was called, had even then a well developed sense for personal property. She wore the cross permanently round her neck, where it left a greenish mark, to keep it away from her sisters. But she was well aware that Mrs. Paget was a more glittering prize. In the weeks before she went away she drove her family nearly mad with her accounts of the splendors of Satterthwaite and the glorious life she would lead there.
It was useless for her mother to point out that she was going as scullery maid, and not as an adopted daughter, and that scullery maids do not, as a rule, wear black silk dresses and eat roast chicken every day. Mrs. Paget might indeed wear silk, but she was the housekeeper. And she would only wear it on Sundays and holidays. And, as for chicken, words failed her! Nevertheless Sukey went on with her tales. It was unfortunate perhaps that Mrs. Paget arrived to take her to Satterthwaite wearing a silk dress so rich that it could have stood without the support of its wearer’s ample figure, with silk petticoats audible beneath it, and silk stockings! The stockings alone were enough to give a normal child delusions of grandeur, besides giving a prudent mother pause for thought.
Mrs. Jewkes studied her old friend carefully as they sat sipping tea and talking over old times, and wondered about those stockings. They certainly were silk. She could hear the rasp as Mrs. Paget crossed her ankles. And was that ring on Mrs. Paget’s large white hand a diamond? Was it possible that such things could be come by honestly, and if not was she right to let Sukey go? But after all, Sue had always been a saving woman, and who else had she to spend the money on but herself? Besides both stockings and rings could have been presents. Upper servants were often given such things by grateful employers ... she did not want to stand in Sukey’s way ... and she wanted the child out of the house. She was undisciplined, lazy, and as inquisitive as a monkey.
So Mrs. Jewkes contented herself with fervently kissing her daughter, reminding her of her prayers and her duty and bidding her write a line now and again, to say how she did.
“You don’t want to fret about her,” said Mrs. Paget, comfortably. “Satterthwaite’s not China, nor yet Tartary.”
And Mrs. Jewkes dabbed her eyes with her apron, obscurely comforted by these self-evident truths.
She might have felt some disquiet had she seen her daughter’s reception at Satterthwaite. Do even housekeepers, she might have asked, go to the front door? And are they let in quite so respectfully by a man-servant?
“Ah, Thomas,” said Mrs. Paget to the great fine gentleman who opened the door to Sukey and herself, a gentleman so fine that Sukey took him for the master, until her godmother spoke, “you can tell the master that I’ve brought the little girl. I’ll take her to my room and give her some dinner for we’re both tired after the journey, but when we’ve had a bite and sup I’ll bring her to see him.”
And up the great stairs they went to a room that Sukey thought grand enough for the Queen herself, that Mrs. Paget called her sitting-room, and there they sat and had dinner brought to them. They really did eat roast chicken, with bread sauce and vegetables all complete and after that a sort of creamy pudding. Her godmother drank wine with the meal, but Sukey, somewhat to her disappointment, drank milk. The grandeur of her surroundings and her mother’s warnings about good behavior kept her silent, and her godmother seemed pleased with her. After their dinner Sukey, under instructions, washed her face and tidied her hair and then went pattering after her godmother’s dark bulk like a pet lamb through the long, ill-lit corridors of Satterthwaite, to meet her new employer.
It was here that she had her first shock. A little before they reached his room Mrs. Paget bent down and murmured that she was not to be afraid, but the master was not quite well and had to sit mainly in the dark for the light hurt his eyes. Sukey was to curtsey as she had been taught, and say yes sir and no sir, and not ask questions. It had not crossed her mind to question the master, but she would dearly have liked to question Mrs. Paget. She was given no time, but hurried into the dark room, dark not only with the night, but muffled from floor to ceiling with great long velvet curtains and lit only by a little fire. There was a sickly sweet smell as if someone had been burning pastilles, and underneath that something rather unpleasant that caught at the throat and made Sukey think, for no reason that she could imagine, of Farmer Tyson’s beast yard.
Mrs. Paget stopped just inside the door and pushed Sukey forward.
“I’ve brought the little girl,” she said.
A thin, petulant voice from the gloom said: “Well, bring her in, bring her in. Don’t stand in the doorway like that!”
Mrs. Paget seemed inclined to send Sukey in alone, but she clung to her skirt and in the end she guided the child across the dark room until they came very close to the wing chair by the fire where the master sat. Sukey curtseyed, then as no one said anything she dared to raise her eyes and look at him. She was almost shocked into an exclamation of surprise. She had been expecting a sick old man huddled up in rugs, wrinkled like grandfather Jewkes. Instead he was young and almost angelically beautiful. True he was pale, and his brilliant golden head hung back in the chair as if he were too tired to hold it upright, but even his pallor was beautiful, like marble. Sukey, forgetting her manners, stared and stared.
At last he spoke, still in that thin, weak voice: “So. This is Sukey.”
“Yes sir, if you please sir,” said Sukey, bobbing another curtsey to be on the safe side.
The effort of speaking those few words seemed to have exhausted him and there was another long pause.
And then he said a rather strange thing:
“And you named her?”
“I named her,” said Mrs. Paget in a queer, solemn way, like someone making a response in church.
The master’s great blue eyes closed. Sukey half thought he was dead, but Mrs. Paget shook her gently and whispered: “He’s gone to sleep. Quietly now!”
&nb
sp; And they both tiptoed away. The dim corridor seemed quite bright after that dark room and Sukey blinked. She opened her mouth to ask the dozen questions that were buzzing in her head, beginning with “What’s wrong with him then?” and going on to “What did he mean, asking if you named me?”, but Mrs. Paget hurried her along so fast that she got no time to ask anything at all.
She took her back to her own rooms. Her bedroom led off the sitting-room, and off that again was a little room which she called a powder room—giving Sukey some uneasiness as she took it to mean the place where the gunpowder was kept—where a truckle bed had been set up. Still giving Sukey no time to talk she told her to get herself undressed and into bed as soon as she liked, for she must be tired. Once she was in bed Mrs. Paget came in, both to take away the candle for fear of fire, and to give her a cup of milk, with honey, to help her sleep. Warm milk and honey must have had a wonderfully soothing power for, in spite of the strangeness of the bed and all those unanswered questions, she fell asleep at once.
The next day came remarkably close to Sukey’s dreams of life at Satterthwaite. After a breakfast of bread and milk taken in her godmother’s room, Mrs. Paget told her that, although by rights she should now go to the kitchen to start her new duties, “the whole house is quite at sixes and sevens what with the master being so bad, and Mrs. Colleywood, Cook that is, can’t be doing with you down there for a while. So if you’ll sit quiet up here and let me see what sort of a hand you are with the needle, like a good girl, maybe you could take a walk in the garden this afternoon. We’ll see.”
“Is the master going to die?” Sukey inquired cheerfully.
Mrs. Paget took a quick shocked breath. “Why no, bless you, he gets these bad turns regular. He’ll be right as ninepence in a day or two.”
Sukey tried to see that strange, sick figure “right as ninepence” and failed. Nevertheless she held her tongue and took her godmother’s needlework bag when it was offered, with another bag stuffed with scraps of cloth and bits of ribbon, and settled to work. She was very handy with her needle when she cared to be and she set herself the task of making a little tablecloth in patchwork, each patch edged with ribbon. Working with such pretty stuffs, at her own pace, gazing out of the window when she cared to or taking a turn round the room to admire her godmother’s handsome china ornaments, hardly seemed like work to Sukey and she was able to pass the morning very agreeably, although about eleven it came on to rain and she could take no more pleasure in the window.
Mrs. Paget brought her a lunch of cold bread and meat and admired her sewing.
“Why I never saw such fine stitches! You could get to be a lady’s maid, Sukey, if you work hard and mind your manners.”
Sukey was flattered but somehow she did not feel that her godmother really had her mind on what she was saying. She broke right through Sukey’s discussion of whether a glossy green edging or a dull purple one would look best on a patch of crimson silk to say: “I’m afraid the weather’s changed, Sukey, as you can see, and you can’t walk out this afternoon. I must be about my work so you stay here like a good child. There are some magazines you can look at if you get tired of sewing.”
And she hurried off, without waiting for Sukey’s answer. Now, Sukey had been unnaturally good for one whole day and a half. She had watched her tongue and minded her manners and studied to please her godmother. But now, left to her own devices for a whole afternoon it was not surprising that her good behavior should become somewhat strained.
At first she went back to her sewing, flattered by Mrs. Paget’s praise of her stitches. But she still could not make up her mind about the edging and began to think that a rest might do her good. Following the housekeeper’s instructions she looked round for the magazines she had been given leave to read. They were not immediately visible, so she began to hunt for them, and found at once a much more absorbing task than either reading or sewing. She began to poke and pry through every drawer and cupboard.
If this was an amusement in Mrs. Paget’s sitting room it was a positive fascination in her bedroom. Sukey was neat-fingered, and knew the penalties of discovery very well. Careful to leave no trace she sorted delicately through drawers full of scented underlinen, took her godmother’s dresses from their hangers to hold them against her own skinny shoulders, and spent a long time over the jewel box, admiring the effect of the glittering stones and shiny metal against her own neck and ears. It was at the bottom of the jewel box that she found a small brass key. Now, nothing in either room, not even Mrs. Paget’s desk, had been locked. Sukey, her curiosity really roused now, determined to find what lock the key fitted.
It was so small that at first she looked for a small box, coming close to disaster when she opened a tiny coffer on the dressing table that proved to be full of face-powder and nearly spilled it all over the floor. When she could not find a box she went back to the desk to search for a locked or better still, a secret drawer. Again there was no such thing. Back she went to the bedroom. All the cupboards there opened easily. She drifted to the middle of the room, uncertain, half willing to give up the search and go back to her sewing. After all, her godmother would very probably soon be back. The afternoon that had been so dark and rainy was ending in a wild golden sunset. It would soon be night ... and then, in those last golden rays she caught sight of a glitter on the dark paneled wall. Idly she went to see what it might be.
It was, of course, a tiny keyhole. She slipped the key inside, turned it and pulled. The paneling swung open to reveal a hidden cupboard, as tall as a man, but very narrow. Hanging inside was what Sukey took to be a dressing gown of very thin red silk, trimmed with gold. There was more silk on the floor, apparently wrapped around something. And there was a picture painted on the inside of the door, a life-size figure that Sukey characterized as “mucky.” Even as she stooped to investigate the silken wrappings on the floor she heard Mrs. Paget’s step in the corridor.
She shut and locked the door, put the key back where she had found it, launched herself back into the sitting room and was sitting at her sewing, with nothing but a slightly heightened color to betray her when Mrs. Paget came in.
Sukey came very close to mentioning her discovery. If she had not found the key while meddling with the jewel box she might have done so. It never crossed her mind that Mrs. Paget knew of the hidden cupboard, and its strange contents, and certainly not about the picture. She supposed they had all belonged to a previous owner, probably one of the gentry who were well known to admire that sort of thing, and the key had simply been tidied away by Mrs. Paget. But one thing her mother had impressed on her was that meddling was wrong. It could lead to a box on the ears and bed with no supper. Best, she told herself, to keep quiet.
Her godmother seemed even more agitated than she had that morning. She praised Sukey’s work again, though anyone but a fool could have seen how little she had done of it, then rustled up and down the room, like a large and agitated moth. When at last she settled it was on a chair a good distance from Sukey and though she began to talk to her she seemed curiously unwilling to look her in the face.
“You know, Sukey dear,” she began, “that gentlemen, and ladies too, have all sorts of odd ways ...” and then she hesitated for so long that Sukey thought she had finished and put a few more stitches into her patchwork. But then she started again: “Well, the master has got it into his head that he wants to sit out in the garden. Now, with his eyes being so bad he can only go out at nighttime. He’ll want things fetched to him, and of course I must wait on him, it’s no more than my duty, but I don’t care for walking through the grounds alone at night, so I thought that perhaps you, Sukey, could go along with me. You could sleep late tomorrow, you know,” she added.
“Yes, I’ll walk with you and welcome,” said Sukey as she had been taught. “But won’t the master take cold?”
“Oh, he’ll have a fire,” Mrs. Paget said, briskly. Now her message had been delivered she seemed calmer, though she would eat no dinner, and went
to lie down for a while when Sukey had eaten hers, promising to call her when it was time to go to the master.
Sukey went back to her sewing. The evening dragged on. It seemed to her that it was almost morning when her godmother called her, though in fact it was not quite midnight, as she saw by the little traveling clock beside the bed. Mrs. Paget was already wrapped in a black cloak. She wound Sukey in a shawl and gave her a covered basket to carry, then led her not down the main staircase but through some narrow passageways and down a steep flight of backstairs, through the empty kitchens and across the stable yard. It was not especially cold, but very dark. The rainclouds had come back and there was neither moon nor star to be seen. Sukey tried to ask a question or two, but she was immediately hushed, and once they were in the park she found she needed all her breath to keep up.
They seemed to walk a very long way, through shrubbery, across a wide expanse of dark grass, and then downhill, until Sukey smelled stagnant water and saw the lake glimmering ahead. They walked along the lake shore for some way and then at last they glimpsed a fire in the distance. As they got closer Sukey saw that the master had not one fire but four.
They were burning in cast iron braziers, set, though Sukey did not know at the time, at the four points of the compass, in a strange white building that was mostly pillars. He was feeding one of the fires, and he looked worse than Sukey remembered. He was sweating, and he had clearly not even had the strength to dress properly for outdoors, for he was wearing what she took to be a long white nightshirt that left his arms bare.
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