Great mischief

by Pinckney, Josephine, 1895-1957

  As a group they did not appeal to Timothy. Wrinkles creased their sharp-featured faces, without make-up their moles and birthmarks showed, their hair needed washing. But their wit was nimble, racy, full of the charm of the unexpected; and some, like Sinkinda and Sidonia, were handsome and accomplished.

  They stared unblushingly at Timothy and even fingered his person in a manner that disconcerted him extremely; they asked embarrassing questions, which Sinkinda was kind enough to answer for him. She had found him refreshingly free, she added, from the bigotry and prejudice that dogged witches—indeed, he had plagued the life out of her to bring him here. The ladies seemed delighted with this account of him and only Sinkinda's proprietary snarls when they pressed too close saved him, Timothy divined, from learning more about Evil than he had quite bargained for.

  He put his lips to Sinkinda's ear. "Confound it, get me away from here before—"

  Sinkinda herself seemed to think it was about time. "Move aside, girls, and let us out; you'll have to go find your own gentlemen just as I did." And she threw back her head and made a sound like a cock crowing.

  The witches winced, they fell back, suddenly gray. "What? Morning . . . ? Already . . . ?" In the break thus made, Sinkinda rushed Timothy across the room and through the door. Back in the great entrance hall, she shouted with glee at the success of her ruse. "They are really ridiculous," she said, "ridden with superstition. Look—the dance is beginning. Let's go and join in."

  Deeply chagrined, Timothy had to confess that he had never learned to dance. Sinkinda received the news peevishly. "Oh, those puritanical sects! They are always mixing religion and manners and morals in a holy mess. Why can't they learn that they are all separate, really? Too bad, you'll have to miss the best part of the evening." Brusquely she dropped his arm and slipped away into the crowd.

  Considerably put out, Timothy decided to find his own amusements. He picked his way across the hall with difficulty, for the revelers were spinning and whirling now, entangled with the younger imps playing anagrams on the floor. Some of these got up and made a rush for an archway Timothy had noticed earlier. The sliding doors had remained closed all evening, and, prompted by sheer curiosity, he fell in behind the imps as they parted them and pushed through the opening. He had time, however, for only a glimpse of a weirdly furnished interior when the last imp turned on him and, shouting, "Devil take the hindermost!" seized the inside knobs and slammed the doors in his face.

  Timothy glanced involuntarily over his shoulder, but no Satanic personage stood by. The dancers continued their hypnotized swaying unaware of his existence. Damn those brats—he hadn't expected such childish display in this sophisticated resort; but adolescents were the same everywhere, no doubt. He scrutinized the doors; the desire to see what he wasn't meant to put heart in him; he seized the silver knobs and pulled the doors a little apart.

  He stuck his head in the crack and took a quick look around. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed, and slammed the doors again. Obscenity he could not get used to.

  A throaty chuckle beside him caught his ear. A short, obese man was sitting against the wall, his excess fat pouching over the edges of his chair. He had a sleek head shaped like a melon and he held a wand or divining rod above the floor as if searching for water or precious metals.

  "There is entertainment in this place to suit all tastes," he remarked. "I expect what you'd like to see is the lumber room where the morals are in storage. I got word to direct you there if you want to go."

  "Oh . . . why, thank you—how very kind—" Timothy took another look at the man, whose fine slanting dark eyes suggested that if a hundred pounds or so were pared off him he would bear the stamp of the royal family. He wore a robe of some gold fabric made in an antique style, and all his pudgy fingers were covered to the knuckles with rings. To be on the safe side Timothy bowed, and murmured, "I am honored indeed. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to show me where the lumber room is."

  "Up the grand staircase, turn right, third door on the left." The man got up and pushed his way imper-turbably across the hall with Timothy following in his broad wake. At the foot he paused and motioned upward. "You'll forgive me if I don't go with you ... a steep climb . . . shortness of breath ..." He sat down on the steps and, dipping his rod over the banisters, he angled lazily above what little floor space the dancers left him.

  From the first Timothy had wanted an excuse to go up these stairs, so he mounted them nimbly, enjoying the unparalleled view their heights gave him of the revelry. Making many stops to admire the prospect and the stained glass above his head, he at length reached the gallery.

  The third door on the left proved to be heavy and its lock rusty. Few of Hell's inhabitants, he supposed, bothered with what lay behind it. He shoved it open, screaming on its hinges, and let himself in. The long apartment was wan and dusty indeed after the magnificent appointments of the rest of Hell, and the air reeked with mold. Stacks and stacks of books and papers stretched away into infinity, it seemed. The light was miserable for reading, he could just make out the titles-tracts, sermons, and precepts, books of taboos, blue laws and sumptuary laws—these moralists must have produced sinners right and left, he thought in astonishment. Used as he had become to the furnace heat of Hell, this attic made his teeth chatter, or else the task of hunting for a workable moral here chilled his blood, so he went out and descended the staircase again.

  As he neared the bottom he looked over the banister and saw Sinkinda spinning in a kind of a saraband with a handsome young demon she had picked up. An unworthy jealousy nipped him; the demon had all of Satan's grace, but softened to the verge of sweetness, which gave his saturnine face a delicate impudicity. He might easily have been the result of one of Satan's indiscretions—the kind of chap, Timothy thought, built to Sinkinda's order. At that moment the dance brought them near; reprehensibly he leaned over the banisters and screamed in the fellow's face: "Devil's get!" The demon turned and made a half bow which he wove with clever improvisation into his pattern of steps; his narrow lips curled in a lazy acknowledgment of his distinguished origins. Then they wheeled again and Sinkinda faced him. Although she was close by, he might have been another spindle in the banisters. Her eyes devoured her partner, but as Timothy caught their pale flicker, his jealousy died within him; that impersonal possessiveness was nothing he cared to see bent on himself. He turned and went down the steps, his shoulders hunched up to his ears.

  The same tranced expression had come over the other faces about him; the dance was developing into an orgy.

  He edged along the wall, both relieved and disconsolate at Sinkinda's flat abandonment of him; it left him in the forlorn situation of being at a large party where he did not know anyone. His fat friend was shouldering toward the majestic portieres of an archway at the right of the stairs; he looked back and beckoned, and for want of other company Timothy shouldered after him.

  He found himself in a handsomely appointed room walled around with bookshelves. It was a dream library, for the velours hangings at the doors and windows shut out all sounds; deeply upholstered chairs stood about, and the thick fringed table covers muffled even the laying down of a book. A fire burned low in the great chimney-place before which his guide stood with his gold robe tucked up, cosily warming his plump rear. Near him a great book entitled The Damned Art lay on a table. There was a Biblical unction about it, about the stiff age-blackened binding, the small table all its own.

  As Timothy joined him at the fire the little man spoke. "Have you enjoyed your excursion here?"

  "Well, yes—in a way. Certainly there is nothing more to be desired in such an apartment as this one." Timothy looked greedily about at the gleaming books, the bronze statuary, the ubiquitous fringed hangings. "But there is so much in Hell to confuse a simple apothecary . . . you have been most courteous, sir; I wonder if I may impose on you for a little information?"

  "Knowledge is riches," said his guide, smiling; "never forget that. But ask away—I'll see what I can do
for you."

  "In particular, Mr.— May I first make so bold as to inquire your name, sir?"

  The man's fat cheeks dimpled. He said almost coyly, "My Christian name is Mammon; it's the one I like best, though I get called many names—all rich men do. Happy to see you here, sir."

  They bowed courteously to each other and Timothy went on. "In particular I've been hoping to find someone of whom I might ask a rather delicate question. Do you ever in your wanderings through Hell ... I suppose you get about a good deal . . . see a lady . . . perhaps she isn't here at all . . . but I just thought I'd ask . . ."

  "For the love of damnation, man, come to the point! We've dispensed with those pale hesitancies of speech down here. Who is this female?"

  "My sister. Miss Penelope Partridge."

  Mammon gave Timothy a cheerful leer. "Miss Penny Partridge, eh? Yes, I know her; though she seldom comes here, not having much taste for our revels. She's in a Hell of her own—with a few like-minded—next door there."

  He nodded toward the bay window at the far end of the room. The half-drawn curtains showed a narrow strip of beautiful moonlit park where Avillow trees drooped over pale statues glimmering down a vista.

  "Go and take a look."

  Timothy slogged across the thick-piled carpet. When he parted the curtains he saw that the park was only painted on a backdrop of canvas. The hollow eyes of the nearest statue shone unnaturally brilliant, like Sin-kinda's, from an external source; then he perceived that they were peepholes, lighted from beyond. He stepped hesitantly up to the naiad and applied his eyes to hers.

  The apartment into which he looked was large and of an unparalleled richness; indeed, sofas, draperies, whatnots, so cluttered it that little space remained for human occupancy. It was empty at the moment, but on a near-by chair Penelope's coat lay folded with her bonnet on top as he had often seen them at home, put aside for some immediate household task. And there beside them were the badges of her servitude—a dustpan, pail, mop, and a little pile of dust and cobwebs. Hell, Timothy could only suppose, had failed to provide an adequate staff for this fme mansion of Penelope's imagining, or, more politic punishment, she lived there in slavery to her rich possessions. Other little piles of dust dotted the carpet, and now he perceived that beside each one lay a figure, a sort of clay statue minus an arm, a leg, a head, and some were ground to dust again by a heel shod with impotent fury.

  At this moment Timothy felt himself elbowed aside. "Give me a peep," said Mammon, pushing his bold face into the naiad's. He stared for a few minutes while deep soundless laughter shook the muscles of his belly. "It must be Thursday. She spends all her evenings off trying to recreate the victims of her kindness; and actually the woman has become very adept, her likenesses grow better and better—she might have made a sculptress on earth. But"—he spun around cackling to share with Timothy the cream of the jest—"no matter how like they are, when she fills that deep bosom of hers and tries to breathe the breath of life into them, they crumble and fall back to dust. A refined chastisement that does credit to the Archfiend's imagination."

  Timothy turned away, grieving for the lost sculptress, feeling that her fate was unduly hard—but why look for mercy here? As he walked back to the fireplace with Mammon he said pensively, "I've never quite understood about Sister and Mr. Dombie. If she had learned to bring people back from the dead, how is it that she lives here as a sinner and doesn't belong to Satan's flock—or perhaps pack is a better word for it?"

  Mammon shrugged and refilled his curly-stemmed pipe. "She never took advantage of her opportunities. She was too refined and too stubborn—vices which often go in pairs, you will notice—to traffic with the Devil, so she worked out her myths and fantasies on the psychological plane. If she had come out for good, honest witchcraft, now—"

  Timothy looked for a long time into the rosy embers. He sighed sentimentally. "At least she's not below in the furnace. I suppose that's something."

  "That, Doctor, is for the cruder sorts of sinners. Under our social system: for the lower orders, the furnaces; for the higher organisms—and she did have a fine frenzy about her—the smokeless burning of the mind. Which reminds me—the fire wants mending." He turned and shouted toward the portieres, "Hoppo! Huckle! Bring more fuel directly! The way the fires are allowed to burn low in this place is a cosmic scandal."

  Two imps came in, bringing some queerly shaped lumps and bundles, and threw them on the coals. The glow sank for a few minutes, then, seizing its fresh fodder, the fire sprang up. An unpleasant smell began to creep through the apartment, Timothy did not look into the flames, because he had a nasty suspicion about the lumps. Instead he plunged headlong into conversation to choke back a slight nausea. "I must say, this is the most magnificent library. Such books! My little weakness, you know."

  Mammon nodded. "All the books of mischief ever written. Like the Bodleian Library, only better. Immensely valuable, of course; many of them with the names of famous personages on their flyleaves. I could get. . . let's see ..." His thin lips, the only straight line in his profusion of curves, narrowed as he frowned over the exact computation: ". . . about twenty-five million for them at the present rate of exchange." His little slant eyes seemed to turn red as they went over the crammed shelves, almost as if he were stripping the books to their naked silver value.

  This licentiousness shocked Timothy more than anything he had seen in Hell. "I can't think of them in terms of money," he said after a pause.

  Mammon's face relaxed. He laughed, all curves again.

  "Never fear; no use for me to sell them. Once I had the money, I'd covet the books. I just like to go over our assets—there's a lot more satisfaction in thinking about money than in spending it, if people only knew. I see you love books genuinely. You'd find this collection unique."

  "No doubt of it. I used to be a collector myself in a modest way. I had several curiosities of the literature of magic and even a few firsts."

  Suavely Mammon picked up The Damned Art from the table where it lay. "My dear Doctor, why don't you decide now to join us and come back here in a state of grace? Then you would share our privileges, which you've hardly begun to hear about. But the choice has to be made in life, you understand; no shabby deathbed repentances, such as the Adversary accepts, will be counted here. No dissipating your life in Christian virtues and then escaping the frugalities of Heaven at the end."

  Timothy said, "I could spend an eternity blissfully here, just browsing through these books." His eyes on the beckoning shelves bulged a little in a startled acceptance like the eyes of a hooked fish.

  Mammon dropped his voice; he became intimate, confidential. The fat little salesman, Timothy thought, dressed up in a gold robe. "Open this book. Doctor, and read the secret of Evil. Acquire the wisdom of Hell, and whatever you may desire will be added—gratis."

  Timothy looked at the book Mammon held out. Between its pages hung bookmarks of rich purple satin; the cabalistic ornaments in silver that dangled from their ends winked in the uneasy light. The fire-tending imps drew near and watched him with piercing curiosity.

  Did ever a man sell his soul for a plush-hung library? he wondered—for the heady pleasures of reading? But there was Lucy; he wanted to be with her, he remembered. It would be rather creditable, a fine romantic gesture, to embrace Evil in order to be with his love. And the solace it would bring his gnawing curiosity to have this matter of Good and Evil settled! For if he opened this book he would know Good also by simple elimination. He ran his tongue over his dry lips,

  "Give it to me."

  The heavy goatskin binding had a slickness, an unctuous texture, in his hands. He closed his eyes and inserted his thumbnail between the pages while he tried to conjure up against his dark lids the passage his eyes would fall on. And all at once he caught a glimpse, beyond the thick paper and the Gothic script crowding it, of the Evil recorded there, lying in blackness under all life, a water-table from which fountains rose and collected in foul pools in human bra
ins. He could smell the senseless brutality, the blood; treacheries and corrupt lusts, cowardices like wharf-rats, all that was finally unacceptable, swam in those dissolute waters. He stood so engrossed, his eyes screwed tight in his long seeker's face, that Mammon cried, "What! Lost your nerve, man?" Hoppo and Huckle slapped their thighs, they ran between Timothy's legs and nipped his calves with their sharp nails.

  Timothy opened his eyes and looked at the book with a repugnance that gushed unimpeded now. Like Gideon tearing down the altar of Baal, he stalked between the imps and threw it into the fireplace.

  An explosion shook the room, fire and black smoke belched from the chimney, they all fell back choking. Mammon began to bellow, the imps screamed like a thousand devils. The flames seized the hearth rug, the table cover, in their teeth; in a moment the near-by hangings were ablaze. With a wild backward look at the holocaust, Timothy sprang through the portieres and ran into the hall. It was empty except for some sleepy attendants, the revelers having gone on to more private enjoyments. In unashamed panic, he dashed through the great doorway and out of the building.

  The darkness outside was stunning after the incandescence indoors. Half blinded, he floundered about; he flapped his arms, but the secret of flying had escaped him; he couldn't think how to rise from the ground. Vaguely he distinguished a pale streak of driveway and ran crouching along it for a little, feeling for abysses at his feet.

  He had gone some distance when he heard a sound so familiar that it brought him immediate comfort, the sound of a horse cropping the grass beside the road. He quickly came upon it, a noble black animal, hitched to a light, black vehicle—or perhaps they merely looked dark against the pallor of the roadway. Groping and fumbling, he found the iron weight to which the tether was fastened, threw it into the gig, and sprang up after it. "Giddap!" he shouted, and slapped the reins on the horse's gleaming back.