Lawless and the House of Electricity

by William Sutton

  “Then she was gone, and the sister fell poorly—”

  Skirtle scowled at his interrupting, then light dawned, as she remembered their sham. “Oh, the sister!”

  “Skirtle.” I looked from one to the other. “Birtle. Please. There is no sister, is there?”

  “No, Moll.” Skirtle reached over and patted Birtle’s arm tenderly. She saw that he had grown melancholy in the telling, and took it upon herself to ease his. “Her ladyship was took terrible poorly. When the boy was taken. Proper poorly. Body and mind.” Skirtle blinked, and I saw how utterly devoted she was to the unlucky couple; she maintained her decorum long enough to give me this account, pointing emphatically at Birtle’s secret door. “And there she is, in her tower, still today, and cannot be cured.”

  I sat silent, my lips working soundlessly, but unable to reply. What I wouldn’t have given to be there, just a few years ago, to see the glorious summer of the marriage, before this blight ended it so precipitously. I confess, after Birtle’s tale of romance and its expectations of happiness, I felt these losses—the death, and her illness—as if they were my friends and not phantasmal memories. I felt I did know her ladyship: I knew her gardens, her roses; I knew her husband’s gentle manner, and her children who were no doubt like her, the girls with their plump cheeks and wicked smiles.

  What need for Birtle’s pretending? A tale to tell inquisitive servants, I suppose. Bad enough that she should be incurable; but to have people prying and judging and giving advice, worse. If the earl had decided, rather than suffer the world’s sympathy, he would pretend she is dead, then let him.

  But I had divined the sadder truth. “Is she very ill?”

  “Terribly ill,” said Skirtle.

  Birtle sighed. “Not so ill.”

  “Bedridden, mostly.”

  He glared. “Not at death’s door.”

  “And Patience Tarn,” I said, “is employed to tend her.”

  “She is.” Skirtle nodded. “And discreet. Though our time gets taken up, when we should be keeping the house. Patience has to buzz for help, for my lady has fits.” She put her hands on her hips. “If you’ve been thinking us negligenting our duties.”

  “I haven’t. Not for a moment.” Exactly what you had noticed, Miss Ruth, and now it was explained. “Can she walk? Do you never take her out? Why shut her away from the world?”

  “Molly,” said Skirtle, her eyes soft. She seemed relieved their confession was made. “She lies abed, mostly, as if sleeping, but deeper than sleep. Patience has the devil of a time to get her to take water. She washes her. Rubs her limbs, to keep them strong. But every so often, she does awake, or seem to. She wakes, and straightaway takes a kind of a fit. That’s when we have to be ready, lest we should lose her.”

  “And the doctors—”

  “Oh, pet, you should have seen the doctors the earl tried. After the frauds and quacksalvers we’d had to get her pregnant. That’s why we manage without them. I was sick of them. The earl was sick of them, and blaming hisself, poor man. As if it were his fault.”

  “But the fits?”

  “We can stop them, though.” Skirtle looked glum. “You’ll see. She comes around, finally.”

  “But she won’t speak. Won’t move.” Birtle bit his lip. “Not of her own volition.”

  “Until you take her to the window.” Skirtle beamed. “When she looks down over the roses and the trees and the Walled Garden, sometimes she is calmed.” She glanced at Birtle. “Sometimes calmed, sometimes driven wild.”

  He looked at me. “Then Patience feeds her. You can imagine, she is wasting away.”

  “Can she never be cured? Must you tend her forever? Shouldn’t you send her away?”

  “Oh, look at you, dear girl.” Skirtle ruffled my hair, which I hated. “Full of concern for folk you know nothing of.”

  “I live with their shadow.” I recalled the guest book, in which Ruth had noted so many medics and scientists. I had read, in the Lady’s Library, prescriptions and doctors’ reports, analyses and diagnoses. Even the earl’s experiments—were they part of her treatment? A search for new treatments? All Roxbury’s riches could not save his little child, nor cure his wife. “And the child’s grave is hereabouts, I suppose?”

  Skirtle nodded. “The Walled Garden.”

  Birtle gave her a stare.

  Though I’d found my way in when fleeing from Wilfred, I had resolved not to trespass upon the family griefs. Now I threw out that resolution, and resolved instead that I ought to, out of respect to the dead, much as I hate graveyards.

  LIES AND EXAGGERATIONS, PART THE FOURTH [LAWLESS]

  Why didn’t Molly explore the Walled Garden sooner?

  Molly never liked cemeteries. Many folk willingly stroll through graveyards. Not Moll. She never had relatives to visit, neither grandparents, nor parents. Too many of her friends ended up there. She has lived through London’s worst cholera years. Through the fifties and sixties, 30,000 died of it. She was determined not to be one of them.

  She did go, in the end, with Ruth, and find just the one grave.

  * * *

  Why didn’t Molly unearth the sad story of the dead child sooner, and of the wife?

  Molly had no interest in history, outside of Shakespeare plays. I’d given her no direction to concern herself with delving into family history. Puzzled enough by the present, she was unconcerned with the past. Roxbury’s household personnel were either sworn to secrecy or newly employed.

  Yet she did hint of it, in despatches, and I did not notice, amid the mountain of information. The family’s personal secrets didn’t seem relevant to me. Molly kept quietly at her researches, until Ruth visited and told me how much she had learnt.

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  SKITTLES IN PARIS [LAWLESS]

  “Louis has some odd notions.” Skittles’ eyes widened at the recollection.

  I called in to Bertie’s pad, Marlborough House, to hear her report.

  She seemed to think it the most natural thing to pass on information about the French. Her report of the emperor was worth more than any diplomat’s: she not only knew more powerful men, but they had no reason to lie to her. “Many odd notions, true, but he’s not a fruitcake. He loves old Blighty as much as you and I. More than you, you Scots interloper.”

  Good deeds come back to haunt you. On her first arrival in London, some five years ago, I helped young Catherine Walters, before she gained fame as Skittles, or Anonyma, viz popular publications Anonyma: or, Fair but Frail, The Pretty Horsebreakers, and Skittles in Paris. Her meteoric rise, bar a few hiccoughs, had seen her bed dukes, ministers and royalty, allegedly.

  As thanks for my introducing her to the Prince of Wales, back when he was young and wayward, she had given evidence in my last case
. She risked disgrace and recriminations to clinch those convictions; and I loved her for her wild passions and honest scorn.

  “You see?” Bertie looked up from the card table. It was he had introduced her to Louis Napoleon III of France. “Louis loves Blighty.”

  “You keep out of this,” said I. “You’re contaminating the evidence.”

  “Calling me contaminated, Sergeant?” Skittles raised an eyebrow. “Some girls would take that amiss.”

  “Come off it, Skittles.” I shook my head. “Leave the prince to his gaming. Tell me more on a stroll through the gardens.”

  Skittles, freed from Bertie’s earwigging, talked more of Paris. “They’ve noted the English outrage at these explosions. They feel righteous, as we have long sneered at continental volatility. Oh, their assassinations! Oh, their Orsini bombs! Maybe this will make us hold our tongues.”

  “And are these outrages not perpetrated by the French?”

  She turned to me wrinkling her nose. Really, she grew more handsome with each passing year. If her time in Paris had taught her anything, it was a gorgeous restraint: her make-up, her crimson jacket, the rose delicately woven into the hair. “Louis is rather put out that we impute such underhand tricks to him.” She imitated his outraged squeak. “‘And against our friends— England? Against Austria, maybe. But against the house of dear old Bertie? No, no, no.’ He also said we must think him a bloody moron.” She smiled. “Would he alert us to the plan by exploding every dockyard, if he was planning an invasion?”

  “Invasion? Did he mention that?”

  “No invasions, silly. Though Louis said he wouldn’t put it past Le Mouchard of the Sûreté to suggest they are plotting, simply to waste English time and money.”

  I stopped dead. What if the whole Portsmouth Plan was an elaborate charade, to ignite panic in our heads? Skittles was not an agent, not officially, not unofficially, but her chitchat with powerful men was more reliable than any spy’s. “Skittles, you are a wonder.”

  “What do you want now? You only compliment me when you want something, Watchman.”

  I laughed. We were back at Skittles’ pad in Kensington. “Your pillow talk is worth a hundred spies. This Le Mouchard you speak of: any chance of information straight from the horse’s mouth?”

  “Horse’s mouth is right, if you’ve seen him.” She made a face. “For queen and country, I may be able to help. Thought you’d want to know more. I’ve already pencilled him in for next week.”

  * * *

  TRUNK OF LOST DREAMS [MOLLY]

  Dear Miss V,

  Last night I slept ill. The wildness of the woods ventures up to the house. I retraced my time here, moments when Birtle and Skirtle absented themselves or were called away. I thought of meals prepared on trays for I knew not whom. I had ascribed it to the scientists; no better place to hide one secret than among many.

  I crept from my bed. As I stood gazing, a light stirred in the turret of the east wing.

  A shape. A figure at the window. She worried at her hair, swaying. Someone reached around to draw the curtain closed. Lit from behind, her face could not be seen. And then—what?—was she pulling at the window? To open it?

  The person behind was trying to restrain her, but they were not quick enough. She had it unhasped; she reached outside. Oh, what a yearning was in that reach. If the window were wide enough, if she had the strength to squeeze through and fly down, she would. But where? What lies down there, amid the wild rockery?

  She was calmed, and pulled back inside. Patience Tarn, always vigilant. I saw no more.

  In the Lady’s Library, a small notebook in the earl’s handwriting, tucked in among the memorabilia hidden inside this trunk of lost dreams.

  I thumbed through the assessments and diagnoses, doctor’s reports, their prescriptions and proscriptions:

  Extract of nutmeg root, taken four times daily in the week before the menstrual courses, shall ensure the implantation of the fertilised egg. Supplement, if you will, with applications of witch-hazel gel, unadulterated by soaps or lathers of any kind.

  And a price list. It was not all such nonsense. There were appraisals from bona fide medics too, but their tenor was much bleaker. I could understand why the hapless couple looked for encouragement elsewhere.

  I have stolen away as often as I can to the Lady’s Library behind the chapel. The door Birtle had gone through remained blocked, but I still harboured hopes of finding my way through into the forbidden east wing.

  I did not wish to be derelict of my duties. Watchman requires that Roxbury Industries remain hale and patriotic. My job was to discover how the earl was faring now.

  I had the explanation for the earl’s despondency. He could not let go. I could make a case, aside from general nosiness, for delving into the papers hidden here. Birtle’s evasions concealed a sadder truth. Why keep Lady Elodie hidden? It was a continual reminder of their loss: his double loss. Why not send her for treatment elsewhere?

  How I longed to discover something to redeem them. I could not find her diaries, though I learned that she did keep one. For I have found his, and I have taken his own words as permission to read them. You will see, from the sections I’ve transcribed, that the earl was seeking a confidante.

  DIARIES [ROXBURY]

  Dare I read it? [wrote the earl, soon after her illness began]

  Her diary. Pages upon pages upon pages of Elodie’s notes unread, of her dreams and fears and plans.

  Dare I read even one page? Dangers await: where none before has read, there can be no security. She may have said she hates me, or wishes we had never married. I would not believe it, not really, yet she may have written anything, in a moment of spite.

  She may have written nonsense to make me doubt her sanity. She was always strange. Those last torturous weeks twisted our souls.

  What if she writes of lives I never knew, of other loves, in the distant past? Will these slings fell me, unsteady as I am? The servants think I am unhinged already; the estate count me unfeeling; my family think me restless and indolent. But I am frayed; and tugging on the loose threads will unravel me.

  I shall ask someone else to read—the children? Not fair. Nor Birtle, nor Skirtle, nor Lodestar. It must be someone discreet, but less tied to our world. Someone to trust with all our secret sorrows, who cannot be slain by them.

  * * *

  My own diary is an assemblage of fripperies:

  What must I do today?

  Payments to chase?

  Whom to chastise? Whom to congratulate, on the estate, or in the business?

  Engagements planned? Can they be cancelled? How will I get through to evening? This was not my style of old, but only since I lost my darling. My darling, Elodie.

  These, her diaries, are so full of heart-wrung thoughts. Have I ever written thus? Not even as a student, when we all wished to be Byron, a wastrel, or Keats, consumptive, or Shelley, brilliant and doomed. My verses were full of posture concerning the barmaid at the Wheatsheaf; a feigned obsession, for in fact I dreamed of my tutor’s wife. My own true thoughts I never write.

  Yet here are Elodie’s. I shall not read them now, while grief is sharp. There glimmers through these dungeon bars a ray of light: that I may spend the weary hours of my life reading her thoughts, and I will feel her still with me, feel her absence less keenly.

  DARING TO READ [MOLLY]

  “Dare I read a page?” he wrote. Who should he ask? Someone discreet, to trust with their sorrows. Thus wrote the earl.

  I took it as an invitation. I searched for Elodie’s diary. It was not in the trunk of lost dreams. There were toys for the child, little shoes, muslins, and the aroma of years gone by. But for now, I could not find it.

  I escaped back through the secret chapel. There was no time. The visitors were upon us. I, for my part in persuading the earl to receive them, must play my role in entertaining them and making sure the days went smooth and brightly.

  I will spend the weekend in an agony of wait
ing to get back to the trunk of lost dreams.

  BOOK VI

  SHINING HOURS

  THREE SOURCES OF ENERGY [ROXBURY]

  From a speech delivered to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne:

  We have first the direct heating of the sun’s rays, which we have not yet succeeded in applying to motive purposes. Secondly, we have water power, wind power, and tidal power, depending upon influences lying outside of our planet. And, thirdly, we have chemical attraction or affinity, in the preserved sunbeams stored up under our feet as coal. Beyond these, there is nothing worth naming.

  EXEAT PARTY [RUTH]

  Dearest Campbell,

  P IS FOR PARROT

  WHO ALWAYS TALKS BACK.

  Mr Lear sketched the bird, as he extemporised a rhyming alphabet for Kitty at the breakfast table. He spotted Skirtle hovering near, and looked in horror beneath his drawing.

  “Mrs Skirtle, my dear, have I marked your lovely tablecloth? Alack! I shall take it down to the river and scrub it, and do penance working in the fields while it dries, before ironing it flat and replacing it in time for dinner. Will you thus forgive me?”

  Skirtle blushed and flapped her hands before her cheeks in rebuttal of his stupidities. She used to read poems from his Book of Nonsense to Kitty at bedtime. The two of them were in awe of having a poet here at Roxbury House— albeit a nonsensical poet.

  Kitty giggled. She poked him to go on to Q.

  Q is for Quigley

  A duck who says Quack.

  Roxbury absently dabbed his mouth with his handkerchief. He had welcomed us warmly the evening before, but his mind was on something else. “Feed the body,” he said, as if checking off a list to himself. “Now feed the mind.” With that, he disappeared down to the glasshouses, and we saw nothing of him till dinner.

  I engaged Dodgson in conversation, but he was watching Lear and Kitty with an envious fascination. Molly and I were cast on to each other’s company. On my earlier visit, we dissembled that we were not so well acquainted. Now we gave vent to our frivolous side. I quipped about her work ethic, breaking her fast so late.