by Molly Tanzer
Inside, beyond the French doors closed against the chill, I heard masculine voices talking and laughing. It seemed a merry gathering, but I could not make out anything about what they discussed. Settling myself as comfortably as I could, I finally determined to think about what on earth I would say to my cousin once I had him alone.
I wanted to know… everything, really. Who my father had been, and what had made him give me up. What had happened between Hallux and myself.
And I wanted to know who I had been; how I knew how to do what I did with my pocket watch. What his opinion was regarding my sensations of knowing without remembering.
I was out there about an hour before the men departed, Hallux with them. I hoped he was just seeing them to the door, but even if he had gone with them to some other location, I resolved to wait for him. That said, I was going to wait inside—it was getting colder by the moment, and my limbs were stiffening up. I stood, unfolding like a spider, and after stretching and cracking my back in several places, I oiled the hinges of the doors, and picked the lock.
As I was turning the handle to let myself in, Hallux returned, closing the door behind him. What can I say about my state of mind? My heart was pounding, my palms were sweating. I had been in more dangerous situations than this, many times, but the stakes had never seemed higher.
While his back was to me I silently pushed open the door and stepped inside. My cousin’s study was full of strange objects, mirrors on stands, lamps with colored shades, paper and glass constructions that looked as though they would twirl or spin. Momentarily overwhelmed by the curiousness of it all, as well as the sudden rush of warmth, I did not announce myself immediately.
The draft, however, did. Hallux turned from where he was messing with some books on a shelf, and spied me.
“Don’t say a word,” I cautioned the plump man in rumpled clothes and artfully mussed hair. “Don’t scream, or ring, or do anything except lock us in here, and sit down.”
“Who the devil are you, to tell me what to do?” He had a high, nasal voice that did not lend him much authority.
“I’m the one with the pistol,” I said, withdrawing it from inside my coat, and leveling it at him.
“Fair enough,” he allowed. “Well, what do you want? Money?”
“No. Nothing like that. I just want to talk to you.”
“All right. Let’s… talk.”
I motioned with the pistol to the door, which he locked. I motioned again, for him to return to his chair. He sat down, gentle as a lamb. He was smarter than Tom had given him credit for.
I drew up another chair, keeping the pistol trained on him the whole time. I said nothing—I just looked at him. All my ideas of how to introduce myself had flown from my mind. I didn’t know what to say or do. With a start, I realized I was afraid. I looked him over—in spite of his size, I didn’t see him as a threat. I would be nimbler than he, and faster. He didn’t look trained to fight, whereas I had been.
It was his hands. His soft, pink, rather fat hands. I was afraid of them. Or rather, I knew I should be afraid of them, but I didn’t know why.
I had to say something. “You’re Hallux Dryden,” I managed. Best to confirm it, just in case.
“I am.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“No. But you bear an uncanny resemblance to my second cousin,” he said. “Are you the impostor Tiercel hired to impersonate Callow?” When I nodded my assent, he looked confused again. “But…”
“But what?”
“If you don’t want money, why are you here?”
“You’re a perceptive man. Cannot you guess why I’m such a good impostor?”
“No…”
“Family resemblance.” I smiled. “Do you not recognize me, cousin?”
The man went white as a sheet. I thought for a moment he might faint. I wasn’t worried, I had smelling salts on my person, but I was glad when he recovered. I didn’t want to touch him. I didn’t want to get near his hands.
“Alula,” he gasped.
“You may call me Miss Rasa. That is my name now.”
“But this is impossible!”
“Why? You, better than anyone—save for my father, perhaps—know the story about my dying of a fever was a lie.”
He recovered his color, and sat forward. He stared at me in a way I didn’t like at all. His hands, his awful hands—they twitched, and I began to sweat.
“Do you… remember?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I was told. But I know it’s true. Don’t ask me how, but I know.”
“And you want to know more,” he said shrewdly. “Everything. The whole story, about how you lost your memory, and the girl you were.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“And if I tell you…”
“You’ll never see me again. I want no part of this life, and I never shall. Just tell me what I want to know, and I’ll leave you alone until the end of your days. I’ll never come near you, never look in your window or darken your door. I’m certain I won’t want to… even if I don’t yet know why.”
It was a hasty promise, one I regretted—but one that I kept.
It was his turn to nod. “I believe you. It would not be in your best interests to do so, given what I know of… certain matters.” I must have looked confused, for he clarified: “I don’t believe you were ever to approach Mr. Bewit ever again, that was part of your contract, was it not? Well, I am not he, but I’m certain I could get a good enough lawyer to claim in court that the protection extended to his family. Even if I lost, what an awful scandal for your Mr. Blythe! He’d never work again.”
“You needn’t threaten me.”
“Says the girl with the pistol! Put that down, and listen to me… Miss Rasa.” The way he said it, I heard my former name behind it. It made me shudder. “I have a story to tell you.”
You wouldn’t remember—even without the unfortunate, ah, lapse in your memory, you would have been too young to recall this, is what I mean—but I had several unhappy love affairs as a young man. I learned the hard way that women’s nature is to bewitch and deceive; that your sex serves only one master: Lord Vanitas. And, as a jealous master, he allows for no other idols before him.
You may smile, but on three separate occasions before my twenty-first birthday I thought I had fallen in love—and was loved in return—only to be rejected upon the request of a more formal commitment. A romantic commitment, I should say, for while all three refused to have me as a lover, they all assured me of their desire that we remain friends. Friends! I had indeed been a friend to these women, the best of friends. Too late I learned the harsh lesson that women do not pick their lovers from their friends; that my willingness to listen to their silly problems, my buying them gifts and paying them little compliments would lower me in their estimation, rather than make me more appealing. But women are not rational creatures, and are inevitably attracted to villains and rakes, rather than the patient and brave young man who is there for them when they’re jilted by such.
But even when said rake has come and gone, what do they say to the one waiting in the wings when he puts himself forward as the better option? Oh, but we’re such good friends! Why ruin it? Foolish creatures!
But all that is beside my point. The rejection of my advances by these petty females turned out to be a good thing—it worked out for the best, for me I mean. I have come to realize that none of them would have suited me, not really. All were too absorbed in their own persons, in adorning their figures with the latest fashions and their conversations with the latest scandals. Silly, conceited, narcissistic creatures! I see now, as an older, wiser man, how miserable they would have made me, every one of them. They tempted me with their bodies and charms, and as whores, perhaps they would have been acceptable companions for an evening. But as wives? They would have been disagreeable and disobedient, which I could never have tolerated. A female must know her place; be subservient to the male of the species.
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��t think me too absorbed in this tale to notice your reaction, Miss Rasa. You are obviously one of those women who sets herself above Nature. Just look at how you are dressed—and at what you have chosen to do for a living! I applaud your choice to adopt another name. You are a disgrace to yourself, your sex, and most importantly, to this family.
And yet, before your bloom revealed itself to be that of a mere weed, rather than some more cultivated blossom, there was promise in your bud. Yes, indeed there was…
After the third of my romantic failures I decided to give up on women entirely, and devote myself instead to intellectual and moral pursuits. After reading Rousseau’s brilliant treatise, Émile, I became fascinated with education. It seemed to me that all the faults I saw so clearly in my fellow men could largely be chalked up to deficiencies in their upbringing. Due to our English notions, promising girls become frivolous and wanton women. Boys become irresponsible men. And these undereducated citizens, together, make for an undereducated society, one where people are rewarded not for intellectual distinction or social graces, but for the mere accident of their birth and the status it affords them.
Though I was young, I saw it all so clearly, and thus I began to study education out of a sense of philanthropy towards mankind. At first, I thought to become a tutor, and mold minds that way… but quickly I realized that the brains of children were already too fossilized. After a few disastrous experiences, I abandoned this pursuit.
But my failure, again, was a good thing, for it caused me to reassess my methodology (and Rousseau’s, for that matter). Children were not the blank slates he alleged, to be written upon by helpful teachers. Their minds were as inflexible as any adult’s—it is my belief that indeed, all minds are, on the conscious level at least.
You see, I recalled something I had read once, about the Asclepeion—the temple to Asclepius—at Pergamon, in what is now the Ottoman Empire. Asclepius was a god of healing in the Classical world, and at his temple, the sick slept in a sacred chamber, where they would dream their own cures. It was believed that Asclepius himself came to the devout to tell them what should be done; the dreamers would then report their dreams to healers, who would interpret and carry out the will of the god.
All that is of course nonsensical, unworthy of modern man’s modern mindset, and the writer who described the scenario was a modern man with a modern mind. He believed that the little holes all along the walls of the chamber had been put in not for ventilation, but rather for priests to wander past, and whisper suggestions to their patients. These suggestions would become dreams, the dreamer would then believe in the power of the god, which would make them amenable to the cure… and most importantly, they would donate lots of money to the temple when they departed.
It was a brilliant interpretation, and, I believed, one that could be applied to education. I don’t mean I believed an educator could suggest a language, or maths, or anything like that. But what of behavior? Could I persuade someone to act in a certain way, by suggesting the correct course?
If it could but be done, the good it would do would be, frankly, staggering. Children persuaded to behave and learn their lessons! Grown men persuaded to abandon ideas harmful to the greater good! Women persuaded to give up their self-absorbed and selfish ways, and see with unclouded eyes the virtues of men deserving of their adoration! It was a tremendously attractive notion to me.
As I contemplated how best to test my hypotheses, I received a letter from a lawyer, informing me that I must go to London. I had been left a substantial sum of money—an inheritance that would not only make me independent, but also save my struggling family. Though unhappy to leave my studies I went, and the change of pace was good for me.
Whilst away, I realized that I had everything I needed to begin my researches at home. I had already decided that procuring a youth—not a child, but a young adult—would be essential, if I were to begin applying my researches. A young person would not require a nurse, meaning I could be their sole caregiver, and they would be of an age where they could be reasoned with. I would need one who could come and live with me, for I would need access to them at night. At that stage, I believed to reap the benefits of my instruction my subjects would really need to be asleep, rather than in a dream-state, but I shall come to this later.
I did not wish to waste my efforts on some stupid peasant’s surly child. I wanted someone with breeding, someone who would truly benefit from this new sort of moral instruction.
That is how I came to settle on… you.
I had known you from a girl, Miss Rasa, and watched you grow from, frankly, a hideous and muddy troglodyte with no breeding or manners into a pretty, if saucy, maid. Watching you teetering on the cusp of womanhood… well, it was fascinating, especially to an impartial educator like myself. You would be the vessel into which I poured myself—by which I mean my knowledge. It was a grand gift, but as I knew you would not appreciate it, some deceit would need to be utilized.
Having discussed my theories with your father, I knew he would not give you up easily. He found the whole business distasteful in the extreme, believing that the horsewhip and the Bath bun, applied liberally and in equal measure, would produce children more or less satisfactory for the purposes of the Realm. But now that I had money—now that I could save the family—I had leverage, and indeed, we were able to come to an agreement.
For saving the family, your father would manage my money, allowing me to devote myself to my researches. He would also allow me to take you away to the north of England, while telling you and everyone else I was taking you abroad. There, in the north, in a rented cottage, I would experiment upon your mind. Perhaps it sounds cruel, but I assure you, that is not at all the case. Yes, you would be isolated, separated from your family save for me… but the advantages, were I successful, would be enormous.
There were pitfalls to be overcome, of course—for example, your father was concerned for your marriageability if it ever got out that you had lived alone with me. He wanted me to bring along a governess, but I had to refuse—though I generously agreed that I would one day wed you, if we proved sufficiently compatible. After that, he finally consented.
Thus began one of the happiest periods of my life. Miss Rasa, though I can see you are displeased by some—or all?—of what I have related, I tell you truly, I enjoyed our time together. Eventually, at least…
At first you rebelled, as I expected you would. You were a spoiled brat, a motherless beast ruined by an overly indulgent father. You were accustomed to getting your own way in everything, along with being vain and silly like all your sex. But as I began my experiments—after I began whispering to you for hours every night after lacing your food with mild soporifics, you began to… change. You became pliant, more tractable to my will. Your spirit became softer. You smiled less, true, but you also cried less. You became truly… womanly. I began to enjoy your company, and my promise to your father to marry seemed not only possible, but exciting.
It was an imperfect method, this whispering. It was time-consuming, for one thing, and I was suffering from lack of sleep. I knew I needed to refine the process, make it quicker, more efficient. I ruminated on how I might make your treatments daily activities instead of nightly.
A periodical from the Royal Society provided the key to my eventual solution. A report from Vienna regarding a young doctor’s work with magnets implied a course I had never before considered—inducing sleep rather than waiting for the natural state to occur, and utilizing that for the purposes of suggestion. I shan’t bore you with the details, but in your newly-agreeable state you allowed me to test magnets, the slow dripping of water, and other techniques. You were curious, of course, as these new experiments required you to be awake for at least part of the time, and your intelligence, unlike your waywardness, never diminished with my treatments. Therefore, I finally explained to you that I was trying to develop a system for moral instruction. You became intrigued, and agreed to help me, demonstrating again that yo
u were becoming the helpmeet I had always longed for.
It was a happy day when we hit on the solution: that technique I have named onarprotrepsis, which means dream-guiding. You look skeptical, but I tell you, Miss Rasa, it proved most efficacious. Of course, my technique is proprietary, I shan’t tell you how I managed it, but it worked, as did rousing you with a suggested command—usually, clapping twice. The very first suggestion I gave you was to embrace me upon waking… which you did! Best of all, when I told you that you had voluntarily obeyed a command given to you in a dream-state, you were overjoyed, for us both.
Sadly, our mutual happiness did not last long. We ate a fine dinner that night, and I even uncorked a bottle of wine. Being unused to such luxuries after so long in our cottage I misjudged the amount I drank, and became garrulous. It was then that I told you I had long been suggesting changes to your behavior while you slept, and was so pleased with the results that I intended to make you my bride upon our return to London.
You did not seem as pleased as I had expected to hear this. No; you turned sober where you had been gay, and not long after, you pleaded exhaustion and went to bed.
I slept ill that night. My uneasiness over your reaction to my happy plan, plus the wine, had me tossing and turning. That was why I heard you stirring in the wee hours. I thought perhaps you were only getting up to use the outhouse when I heard the back door creak, but when you did not return after an appropriate duration, I got up too.
In the dewy grass I saw your footsteps, leading away from the cottage and over the moors. I discerned in an instant that you had abandoned me, and I chased after you as fast as I could pelt. I ran and ran—who knew what would befall you in unfamiliar country? I had never allowed you to leave our humble farm, and you did not know the way to town.