by Kim Wilkins
“Nothing,” Anne said. “A dream. Go back to sleep.”
But not a dream. She had been with him, and somehow he had returned her to her own bed. She lay back and closed her eyes, began to drift off again, dancing in her imagination, spinning and turning with his warm arms around her.
Mary stood on the ledge, her back to the wall, and breathed deeply. Sometimes she took a few moments up here, on her way home from her secret room, to enjoy the fresh air and relive the glorious moments she had just spent with the angel. Her skin shivered as she remembered the hot wax he had drizzled over her, the silk scarves he had used to tie her hands and wrists, and the bold places into which he had slid the warm candle. The aftershocks of passion still ached between her legs.
She looked down. Sometimes she imagined jumping — not because she wanted to die, but because she wanted to feel the sensation of falling. That’s how it felt with Lazodeus: falling and falling, abandoned to pleasure. She sighed and leaned her head back. Almost every day since the three of them had summoned him, she had spent precious moments in his company. Almost every day. Some days he told her he wouldn’t come; he told her the intensity of her sensation would be doubled on the following day because of his absence. And maybe that was true, but it wasn’t the intensity of sensation that she was addicted to any more. It was him she was addicted to, and not to see him was to suffer. She would do almost anything to be near him. And that meant tomorrow she had to smuggle Father’s manuscript to the secret room for the angel to read. Though why he wanted to waste their precious time together in such a dull pursuit was a mystery to her.
Gathering her wits, she slipped in the bedroom window. Anne was nowhere to be seen, but she could hear sounds from Deborah’s closet. Max came running up to her, tail wagging, and yelped a quick hello.
“Hello, darling,” she said, scratching his ears. She glanced up to see Liza emerging from Deborah’s closet, staring at her astonished. They spoke at the same time.
“What are you doing here?”
“Where did you come from?”
Mary glanced towards the door and noticed that the dresser had been pushed in front of it to prevent entry.
“Why have you barred our door?” Mary asked standing. “And what do you have in your hands?”
“Nothing,” Liza said stupidly. It was plain that she held some of their possessions.
“You are stealing!” Mary strode over and snatched the items from her. An old bronze mirror which Uncle William had once given her in an attempt to seduce her. Two of Deborah’s books: a Hebrew grammar and a book of anatomy.
“No, I am not stealing,” Liza protested, her skinny arms clutching anxiously around her own waist.
“Then explain why you have these things. This mirror was deep in my drawer. You have meddled with my private belongings. And these books of Deborah’s, what do you want with them if not to sell them for money?”
“Where did you come from?” Liza asked again, and Mary finally deduced that Liza was frightened about her appearing from nowhere. She didn’t know about the ledge and the secret room.
“Never you mind,” Mary said, playing on her fear. “Explain yourself at once, or I’ll give you a beating and tell Father to put you out on the street. And nobody will hire you for I shall tell all of London that you are a thief.”
“Mrs Milton told me to!” she blurted, giving Mary pause.
“What? Betty put you up to this?”
Liza nodded.
“What did she tell you to do?”
“To look for a magic mirror or a magic book.”
Mary looked down at the objects in her hands and could barely contain her laughter. “Magic mirror? Magic book? You clodpoll. This is an old mirror bought cheap at Forest Hill. And these …” She held up the books. “If you could read you would see that one is a guide to Hebrew and one is a text on anatomy. These aren’t magical symbols, fool.”
“I didn’t know!” Liza cried, now more concerned about being thought a fool than being caught stealing.
“Why did Betty want to know if we had magic books?” This was new. Betty had been impatient with them about many things, but never magic. Did she suspect? And if so, why?
Liza shrugged, and wouldn’t answer.
“You are a dunderhead,” Mary said, reaching out to clip her around the ears. “Take these objects to Betty then, and tell her they are proof of our dealings with necromancy. She will probably give you a beating for your stupidity.” She held out the books, but Liza wouldn’t touch them. She kept glancing towards the door.
“I suppose you will tell Betty that I appeared from nowhere as proof of my magic?” Mary said.
Liza remained silent. Mary shoved her violently. “Idiot. Tell her whatever you want. But remember, if we are magic, then we may put a spell on you.”
The servant’s face blanched. Mary marched to the door and moved the dresser. “Go,” she said. “Go tell Betty that it may be dangerous to spy on us.”
Liza scurried out. Mary felt her heart beating rapidly, and the heat of rage burning under her skin. How dare she! Betty had gone too far this time, and she desperately wanted to punish her. Mary closed the door and paced the room. She longed to push her stepmother down the stairs, or break a clay jug over her head, or kick her in the stomach until she spat blood. But she could do none of those things, for laws and magistrates and prisons and gallows existed as deterrents. Besides, attacking Betty with fists and feet was beneath her. Far, far beneath her. For she had an angel who could perhaps vex Betty in undreamed-of ways.
Deborah reluctantly took up the pen and ink as Father waited, a stern frown pulling at his lips. She had been nearly out the door to attend her weekly meeting with Amelia when he had ordered her to return for dictation.
“Can’t Mary do it?” she had protested.
“Mary has been luckier than you in escaping the house this morning,” Father said. “Liza can’t find her anywhere.”
Damn Mary and her secret room.
“So, Father, where are we to begin today?” Deborah said. She could feel the twitch of each moment pulling on her attention. By now, Amelia would be wondering where she was.
“Find the lines where Raphael speaks to Adam … he says, ‘How shall I relate to human sense …’”
“Yes, yes, ‘th’ invisible exploits of warring spirits.’ Would you like me to keep reading?”
“No. No, destroy it all, destroy that entire section.”
Deborah was amazed. “Destroy, Father?”
“Yes, yes, throw it on the fire, it is all wrong.”
“Are you certain you would not like me to read it to you first?”
“No, destroy it. It is wrong.”
Deborah carefully scored through each of the pages he referred to, and put them aside. “I have cancelled them through, Father, and will feed them to the flames later.”
“Good, good. Now, we shall begin this section again.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I have had the most incredible dream, Deborah, while dozing in my chair just this morning.”
“Of what did you dream?”
“Of all the faults in my poem, of scenes heretofore unwritten, of the true majesty of my villain.”
“Satan?”
“Yes, for I have represented him as weak and vain. But he was an angel, Deborah. An angel first, and therefore I must restore to him his pride and dignity.”
Deborah felt an uneasy sensation of dread swirling into her stomach. “Father, Satan is our adversary.”
Father straightened his back. “I need no lesson in theology from you, Deborah. Yes, he is our adversary, but can he not be a worthy one?”
Deborah dipped her pen. “Go on,” she said.
Over the next hours, Amelia forgotten, Deborah scribbled as quickly as she could, as Father related to her perfectly Lazodeus’s story of the war in Heaven. Father’s version was of course more persuasive and compelling than the angel’s, wrought as it was in beautiful la
nguage and meter. But it was Lazodeus’s story with barely a deviation. When he had finished, he sat back with a satisfied grin on his face.
“What do you think, Deborah? Are they not some of the grandest lines I have ever composed?”
“Why, yes, Father,” Deborah said, glancing over what she had written with an uncomfortable sense of helplessness. What was she to do? Did it matter that Father had repeated Lazodeus’s story with all its biased loyalties? How dare Lazodeus invade her father’s dreams?
“You sound unsure. What is the problem?”
“I … Father, it reads as though you are aligned with the fallen angels, rather than the ones who remained true to God.”
“Does it?” A moment’s concern crossed his face. “But I wrote it as I dreamed it. Why would I dream such allegiances?”
“I don’t think you have, Father,” Deborah said quickly. “Only, your generous and fair nature, your ability to see both sides of any dispute, has led you to be overly charitable. And Father, it is no surprise that a man such as yourself should feel sympathy with rebels. For were you not one yourself, in your youth? The earliest distress of my life was your removal to prison for sedition.”
“Hmm.” He stroked his chin gently. All was silent for a few moments. “I shall think upon it, Deborah. Leave it as it is for now. When I return from Cambridge I will reconsider.”
“Yes, Father.”
“You may go. You were in a hurry to be somewhere not long past.”
Deborah put aside her writing tray. “Thank you, Father.”
“And thank you, Deborah,” he said gruffly, turning his chair away. She took the small compliment of his affection carefully. Lately, she had had to guard her heart against the passionate loyalties which Father aroused in her. She wouldn’t be hurt by him again. Pulling on her cap and gloves, she headed for Amelia’s.
The sweat ran in trickles under Betty’s clothes as she and Liza stuffed a fish by the cooking fire. It was too hot to be in the kitchen, but the work had to be done. Pike was John’s favourite and, as he occasionally reminded her, if she couldn’t cook his favourite dish at least once a week, what was the point of him calling her his wife? She could never be certain whether or not he was jesting when he said such a thing.
She glanced up at Liza. The maidservant sported a purplish bruise on her right cheek which Betty had administered. The idiot had confessed to Mary that Betty had sent her spying for proof of magic. Despite lack of material evidence, she was in no doubt about their guilt. Liza had said that Mary appeared from nowhere, and Father Bailey had sent word that the book and mirror had disappeared from a locked trunk in his home. The situation had become dangerous now. With the girls dabbling in necromancy, what was to stop them turning it against her? Once the animosity she had felt for her stepdaughters was simply jealousy. Now it was fear.
Betty sprinkled flour on the fish and rubbed it in. Sweat tickled where her thighs touched. She wriggled her legs together to ease it. Summer was fully upon them. In a few days, she and John were travelling up to Cambridge to stay with an old friend of his there. The girls had been invited but all had refused. John had secretly confessed his relief: even Deborah was becoming unpredictable.
“Ma’am, how much sugar shall I put in the rice pudding?”
Betty pushed her hair off her face with the back of her wrist. “Why do you never remember a single thing I tell you?” The tickling between her legs had inched higher and was becoming unbearable. This heat would drive her insane if Liza’s incompetence didn’t first.
“I always get it mixed up with the sugar cakes.”
Betty strode over to Liza’s side of the large table, measured out the sugar and dumped it into the mixing bowl. She wanted more than anything to be able to scratch herself down below, but her hands were covered in flour.
“Thank you ma’am.”
“There’s an easy way to remember and that’s —” Betty gasped. Suddenly the tickling had become a scratching and she squeezed her legs together tight to relieve it.
“Ma’am?”
Betty reached for a nearby cloth and wiped her hands vigorously. “I have to go upstairs for a moment,” she said. As she dropped the cloth she noticed a spider crawling on the floor by the table. “And squash that ere it makes its way into the pudding,” she called over her shoulder as she rushed out of the kitchen.
“Squash what, ma’am?” Liza called after her. But Betty barely heard her. She scratched herself vigorously through her skirt, but still the tickling, prickling sensation pestered her. Her private parts and thighs were awash with the feeling. Once within the privacy of her bedroom, she pulled the pot out from under the bed and squatted over it, yanking up her skirts.
Spiders.
The intensity of her scream surprised her, and was still echoing in her ears as her frantic hands moved between her legs. Spiders, dozens and dozens of spiders, crawling around in her pale pubic hair. She brushed at them desperately, but the itch, the awful itch of them, was inside her and she knew it. She shrieked and shrieked as she tried to squeeze them out. A little urine escaped her body and some of the spiders landed in the pot. She plunged her fingers inside herself and roughly scraped her insides. They were on her fingers, crawling up her hands, softly dropping on the edge of the pot and the floor around it.
The commotion outside the bedroom could barely distract her.
“Betty? Betty, are you sick?” This was John, and it occurred to her that her scream must have terrified him if it had brought him up the rickety stairs.
“Ma’am, ma’am!” This was Liza rushing in, pushing through the curtains. “Whatever’s the matter?”
“Spiders! Spiders! Look, they’re everywhere!” In her shock and distress, she didn’t give a thought for her dignity, but stood with her skirts hoisted, showing her naked quim to the maidservant.
“Ma’am, I can see no spiders. Calm down. There are no spiders.”
“But they’re everywhere!” She scooped up the pot and proffered it to Liza; even as she did, she realised that the itching had stopped, that she could not see a single spider on the edge of the pot.
Liza inspected the pot closely. “No, ma’am, no spiders.” She took Betty gently and smoothed down her skirts, led her to the bed. “I think you must be ill.”
Betty allowed herself to be led, her mind still aswarm with the hot horror.
“Liza? Is everything well?” This was John, just outside the bedroom curtain.
“Yes, sir. Mrs Milton’s taken a nasty turn is all. You’re not to worry.”
Voices just outside, conferring. One of the girls. Then Deborah spoke: “Betty? Liza? Can I come in?”
Betty was too shocked to answer. Deborah tentatively parted the curtain. “Are you unwell, Betty?”
“She said she saw spiders in her pot,” Liza replied.
Betty shook her head. “I know they were there. I felt them.”
“It is very hot. Perhaps you are feeling dizzy?”
Betty met Deborah’s gaze for the first time, and suddenly a connection snapped into place. The girls were involved in magic, and now they knew that Betty was watching them. This was her punishment.
“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out, witch!”
Deborah’s shocked reaction made Betty think twice before saying anything else. “Betty, I … certainly, I shall go. I shall help Father down the stairs.” In a moment she was gone, leaving Betty staring at the curtain.
“Ma’am, we’d best get you into bed,” Liza said, turning down the covers. “You’ll need to rest if you’re to be well enough to travel to Cambridge on Friday.”
The thought of going to Cambridge provided a moment’s relief: away from the girls and their magic, safely out of the house. But then she thought about Father Bailey, about how John would never let an exorcist into the house. And she knew she could not go.
“I am most unwell,” she said. “Tell Mr Milton to prepare to travel by himself.”
14
Discord
, First Daughter of Sin
Betty could not remember having been more anxious in her life. John had left, sour and resentful, at first light, urging her until the last moment to travel even though she was ill. The fact that her illness was feigned only served to heighten her guilt. What kind of wife was she, sending a blind man on a long journey alone? Yet, the coachman had been given an extra shilling to keep an eye on him, and she told herself he would be safe. The reasons she had stayed behind were far more urgent than John’s brief discomfort.
Some time during the full sun of the afternoon, she had managed to get the girls out of the house, too. Liza had been charged with that responsibility and for once hadn’t disappointed. The maidservant herself had reluctantly taken the afternoon off at Betty’s insistence. Finally alone, Betty paced back and forth, from the kitchen to the front door, wondering when Father Bailey would arrive. He was already late, and she wanted him finished and gone well before the girls arrived home. The last thing she needed was for them to discover her plans.
She stopped and peered through the window. Footsteps on the street outside caught her attention, but it was only a couple walking past on their way to the main road. She perspired lightly. John was known to so many people. What if somebody saw the Catholic priest arriving at their house? If it were one of John’s supporters that would be bad enough. But one of John’s detractors with that information could be dangerous.
But what was she to do? There were devils in the house. The girls were witches. And she never wanted to suffer under one of their hideous spells again.
Finally, finally, she could see him advancing up the hill. Her eyes darted about, searching for witnesses. Thankfully, the street was empty. She threw open the door and called out hello.
“Good evening, Mrs Milton,” he called in return. He was dressed in a long white robe, and carried a cloth bag.
Betty breathed again only when he was safely inside, away from the eyes of the public. She closed the door behind him.
“Good, then. Where shall we start?” he said, smiling his rotten-tooth smile. “Where are your stepdaughters?”