The House on Blackstone Moor (The Blackstone Vampires)

by Carole Gill

  At last, Grace reappeared. She looked hot and tired. “Well, no more now until breakfast.”

  I told her I was pleased but I was terribly curious about Mrs. Darton so I asked her about her.

  “Well, like I said, she’s a patron. She and her husband give money and they sometimes find work for some girls.”

  That sounded hopeful.

  “Do they, that’s interesting.”

  “Yes,” Grace said. “I suppose it is.”

  We chatted some more until it was time for us to go to our respective wards. I kept thinking about the clothes Mrs. Darton said she’d bring in and I hoped I might have a dress out of it. After all, I didn’t wish to wear a shift for the rest of my life.

  I was entitled to a life. At least, that was what I hoped.

  *

  Ah, my life! You know much already, but I haven’t brought you fully up to date for there is more.

  Strangely, during the past two years things had seemed a little better. My father was away more than he was home and we were all grateful and hoped he would stay away forever, but invariably he’d return, drunk and darkly silent. He was staying in an attic room, to my mother’s great relief.

  We’d hear him sometimes stomping around and we had come to think of him as an evil spirit inhabiting a space between the eaves. Of course he was flesh and blood and his torment was that much more effective.

  A case in point: I had obtained a position as a trainee teacher at a girls’ school when I turned seventeen. I was liked and quite enjoyed working there. My mother felt it would be a suitable position for me at the end of the training.

  But then my father showed up one day and caused a terrible scene.

  “Really, we are sorry to ask you to leave, Miss Baines but we have no choice.”

  They didn’t. He had been abusive and threatening.

  I complained to my friend, John. John thought himself a suitor, at least those were his expressed intentions.

  He was a nice young man who was working his way through medical school. He had the most positive attitude of anyone I had ever known, and although he didn’t know the worst of my father’s way, he did know what I told him. “Don’t worry about what you can’t change, Rose.”

  I had known him for a few months, and I was concerned about how my father would react. But then he met him and surprisingly, father had seemed to like him.

  I didn’t know that he was planning something diabolical.

  Mother liked John, too, as did my sisters and brother.

  He had spoken of marriage. He mentioned it when I said I had been advertising myself for another position.

  I had told him I was sacked but didn’t share that my father was the cause of it.“Oh, Rose! You needn’t work,” he said. “You shall be my wife, what do you think of that? I have plans for myself and for you, too.”

  It wasn’t the most practical of things to say for John still had studies to complete, but I was thrilled, if only for a moment. How could I leave my family, I thought? I couldn’t go off and leave them with Father.

  I didn’t have to worry about it long though because father saw to that. I have no idea how he found out about our discussion, but he did.

  “If he comes here again, I will l kill him. Mind, I’m serious now. Rose. It’s his life.”

  Truly, I knew it was.

  “John, I cannot see you, it is Father…”

  John didn’t understand and because, fool that I was, I was too ashamed to explain the whys and wherefores, I think he assumed there was someone else and he stopping calling around.

  I was devastated. I had no job and no chance for love now—what hope was there for me?

  I didn’t have to worry long, for within a few months my father had killed himself and my family.

  “Make yourself a cloak out of it Rose. It would suit you.”

  I did actually, and it was quite lovely.

  As for my job, I enjoyed working in the shop. It was quiet and peaceful and Mrs. Dean was pleasant, though we didn’t speak much. But then again, sometimes there is more significance in silence.

  My sessions continued with Dr. Bannion and so did my occasional talks with Grace.

  I was getting used to things. I did find I learned more about the place, too. Grace showed me around. We were permitted some freedom. After all, we weren’t in the violent ward.

  I asked her about that and she told me. “They are an accursed lot, poor buggers. There’s some that just escaped the gallows by a hair’s breath. Some mighty bad ‘uns they are, but insane too. They ain’t chained up, but they are tied down.”

  “Have you seen any of them?”

  She told me then of a horrific incident when one of the most dangerous of them did manage to break out.

  “He killed two attendants. I saw it with my own eyes, I did! Split their heads wide open Rose. I saw their brains!”

  I was sorry I asked her. I wanted her to stop, but she went on. “Yes, proper bad’uns they are, wife killers and child killers too. They won’t get to lie in consecrated ground when they die either, ‘course.” She pointed toward that sad cemetery. “No one really gets a dignified burial. Just slapped in the ground with a number instead of a tombstone.”

  I thought of my family and I almost cried.

  “Sorry, lass. I am upsetting you more than educating you.”

  “No, it’s alright, Grace. I need to have a sense of where I am.”

  She nodded for she said she understood that. “The world is full of sadness and tragedy. It’s an important lesson to learn. Some people are lucky though, some never need to learn it or to even know it exists.”

  “No,” I said. “And some might not even care.”

  *

  The one thing I liked doing was walking to the gates, where I would gaze out between the bars at the road that bespoke freedom to me.

  Generally I went alone but occasionally Grace accompanied me. “You’ll be going through those gates, lass. Just you wait.”

  “I want to but I’m afraid also. I’m afraid of not being able to cope.”

  “No, you’ll be fine. I know. I can tell.”

  I asked her how she could tell.

  “It’s in the eyes, see. Those who won’t ever get out, I can see it.” She gestured toward her own eye. “Take mine, for instance. Mine’s typical of the lost, those who remain forever. I know my end. I shall lie buried and forgotten in that stubbly ground as though I never lived.”

  I hugged her and wept.

  “No need to feel sorry. It’s good to know things are as they are so’s no one can hurt you or fool you. That’s awful, to be fooled or to have false hopes piled up inside you. I’d hate that.”

  The chapel clock began to toll then and Grace started to rush. “Best get to the kitchens, Rose. I shall have to make soup. Come walk with me.”

  We walked then, no longer talking, but reconsidering all that we had said, for we had said so much.

  *

  Something very sad did occur a few days later. It happened when I was at my job.

  Grace told me that one of the inmates had managed to get up onto the roof. “And she just yelled and spread her arms. But she was smiling. I’m getting out of here, I am and none of you can do nothing about it, she cried and then she just let herself go, like she was jumping into water. She looked happy, too. But here’s the thing that really bothers me. I am sorry for the woman, but a crowd of people ran to the spot, thems the depressing ones. They wanted a glimpse of the poor woman’s broken body, imagine that? Why are people like that, that’s what I’d like to know?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, as I remembered watching people running toward a train wreck in Southwark once. “I think it must be the pack instinct.”

  “Right clever you are, Rose. I admire that. Right clever you are, just you wait. You ain’t done yet. I know I can tell.”

  Whether I was or not remained to be seen.

  *

  It pleased me greatly that Mrs. Dean ha
d put away my royal blue cloak, the one I would wear when I walked through the gates. “I shall save this for you, Rose, for when you leave!”

  Hope.

  Chapter 6

  March turned into April, and life went on for me.

  I continued my sessions with Dr. Bannion, who seemed to be increasingly more certain of my health. He said I had made excellent progress and should be thinking about the future.

  That floored me, for if I longed to leave Marsh I did so without thinking beyond that happy escape. I didn’t think about it practically—like how I would support myself, and so on.

  “Of course, you will have to find work.”

  “But sir, I…”

  Dr. Bannion smiled. “Yes, Rose, the time has come to consider such things. I should like to ask you what your plans might be. Where you would go, have you any family?”

  If I was feeling better, this last question reversed that as it brought back to me the realization that I had no family at all.

  Dr. Bannion’s voice cut into my hopeless thoughts. “I know how difficult this is for you.”

  Difficult? I never felt so utterly lost in my life.

  He let me cry for some moments. At last he continued: “Rose, there may be a solution, a place of employment, a post with lodgings and a wage. You see, you’d live in.”

  “A post?”

  “Yes, Rose, the lady you met in the sewing shop, Mrs. Darton. What do you think of her?”

  “I think she is quite nice, sir…”

  “Well, let me say she was mightily impressed with you, young lady, and she has made an offer!”

  “An offer of a position?”

  “Don’t look so shocked, Rose. Yes!”

  I couldn’t for the life of me think what kind of position it would have been. “But I’m an inmate and—”

  “And she knows why. I told her of your recent tragedy and she understands everything, truly she does. She and her husband have a business you see, and there are always openings for quality staff. Would you consider such a thing? I mean it’s not the mightiest of positions but it would be a place for you. An income and lodgings would be perfect. It is a domestic position, Rose—in a concern they run, a kind of a theater.”

  “A theater?!”

  Dr. Bannion smiled. “A kind of one.”

  I was so excited that I was unable to reply. At last, Dr. Bannion spoke again. “So will you consider it?”

  “But sir, I don’t think I am ready--!”

  “Yes, I thought of that and I discussed it with Mrs. Darton. It was decided that you shall stay at my home. It’s perfectly respectable. I have a housekeeper who lives in so it would not endanger your reputation in any way. Now, what do you say to that, would you consider it?”

  His enthusiasm was infectious, for I felt it too. “Yes, Dr. Bannion, I would be delighted!”

  “Well,” he said. “It might be in the next day or so.”

  *

  “The next day or so, that’s a bit quick, ain’t it?”

  “Yes, but Grace! I want to go!”

  “But what kind of position is it and where is it?”

  Suddenly, I felt foolish for not having asked for more detail. I shrugged. “They have this theater. I mean, Grace, I’d have lodgings and pay, too. What other alternative have I got?” I had the distinct feeling that Grace was horrified at my news. “Please, what is it? Why are you acting this way?”

  Grace shook her head. “I don’t know, Rose. I suppose I should have mentioned this before. I just get a queer feeling about the Doctor sometimes. And besides—”

  “Besides what?”

  “No I can’t.”

  “Grace,” I said. “Please! Don’t stop now. What do you mean?”

  She took a long time to answer but she finally did. “Some girls have also gone with Dr. Bannion to work for patrons and no one ever heard from them after it.”

  “Perhaps they just didn’t get in touch again. I mean…”

  Grace nodded. “This is the kind of place they’d want to forget. I thought of that, but… I don’t know. It strikes me as odd it does.”

  I disagreed rather vehemently. I think actually I was frightened by what she said and didn’t wish to consider it, for what would be the alternative?

  She finally said goodnight but not before wishing me well. “Rose, please don’t let the words of the likes of me turn you against something that could be good. I am sorry.”

  “Don’t be silly, Grace,” I said, wondering if perhaps she was more correct than I cared to think.

  I wouldn’t sleep well that night in the madhouse, for in all honesty I felt in my heart she was probably right. Instinct told me that there might be danger ahead.

  Of course, I could never have understood the extent or just what kind of danger awaited me.

  *

  In truth, I couldn’t help but think of Grace’s warning. It wasn’t as easy to dismiss as I first thought. Young women had been discharged and gone to find work through Dr. Bannion and hadn’t come back.

  As the night drew on I was finding it less easy to rationalize.

  Perhaps they got married…

  Maybe they left and went somewhere else.

  They didn’t want to come back

  Surely, those were logical explanations for not returning or sending word, but then I wasn’t so sure. It seemed to me that Dr. Bannion would have been happy for other inmates to know that some of their numbers, if not all, were living successfully on the outside. That’s when it really began to bother me, this little voice in my head.

  Now don’t think me mad—it’s the inner voice I think all of us have, the higher intelligence that sits like a judge within us and mediates life in general.

  But you want to leave here, Rose.

  Perhaps our inner voices are not wise, after all. Yes, I did want to leave. I knew I’d die if I stayed, or I’d want to die.

  I watched the sun come up through the iron bars—and that made my mind up once and for all.

  Wherever life was taking me, I would go. Whatever happened would happen. If my life changed the moment my father expunged my family and himself, that was when it had changed.

  So be it.

  I was to see Dr. Bannion before breakfast. My heart nearly burst from my chest for I knew it had to be very important news he was giving me.

  “Yes sir, what is it?”

  He looked pleased. “We can leave today, Rose, after breakfast. I just received word that your new employers are in town and will be able to see you this afternoon.”

  I just stood there staring, unable to speak.

  Dr. Bannion smiled. “Well, go and have your breakfast and I shall see you later. Oh, and one more thing, Rose. About that outrage upon your person, I have reported it and will keep you briefed of course.”

  I was sorry he had mentioned it as I wanted this dream to continue as it was—full of happy expectation.

  Grace looked worried when I told her. “Now, today you mean? And you will stay and not come back later?”

  I nodded, for I was ashamed to say that I didn’t know for certain. “Please try and be happy for me, Grace.”

  She smiled then and hugged me. “Of course I shall, you deserve to be happy.”

  She was kind to me that final time I saw her. “Here is an egg Rose, hard cooked. Go on, it’ll hold you, lass.”

  I hadn’t known her long, her with her clumsy but well-meaning ways, but she had quite grown in my heart. “Grace—”

  She shook her head. “No. You will go and be fine. I am a poor mad woman and I have no right to frighten you with nonsense and such, forgive me, Rose?”

  I swore that I did, for I did, although I would recall her warning now and in the future.

  *

  Dr. Bannion had some additional news for me. “I’ve just received a letter from your neighbor. She has boxed your clothes for you Rose, we can send for them...”

  “No!” I shouted. “I don’t want anything from that house. Than
k her but ask her to please dispose of them as she sees fit and anything else that is there.”

  He said he would.

  It did occur to me that I hadn’t any clothes but the dress I had arrived in, a dress provided by Bethlehem Hospital. Not a horrid dress, but a dress I would always associate with that hospital and that night. I asked Dr. Bannion about it.

  He nodded and smiled. “Yes I know, Rose. You shall have what you require. Mrs. Darton is always able to supply whatever is needed. Besides, I have this dress for you to wear. It was donated by Mrs. Darton herself.” He held it up. “I think it quite nice, don’t you?”

  Nice? It was nice in the extreme. It was a lovely day dress, blue in color. “It will go with the cloak I have made!” I cried.

  I felt like a Queen walking out with him, passing the stern faces of staff and the miserable faces of the inmates. I wanted to shout, “You see I am leaving! I am getting out! You can’t make me cry anymore!”

  Oh, yes. I was leaving this place, leaving it forever.

  At last he spoke to me. We had nearly reached the stables. “You are pleased to go, not frightened?

  I smiled and looked up at him. “I am as pleased as ever I should be about anything.”

  “That is excellent. You are a brave young woman, Rose. I have no doubt you will make your way in the world.”

  He helped me into the carriage and as it passed through the iron gates, I smiled for I was already tasting freedom.

  We were soon bound for Manchester. “It is a great city, Rose. Not as big or busy perhaps as London but it is quite something, nevertheless.”

  He didn’t speak much after explaining he had some notes to catch up on. Although how he wrote in that jostling carriage I have no idea.

  I did want to talk to him during that ride, but felt I should not interrupt him. So I remained quietly gazing out at the wondrous things I saw, farms and villages and towns, as well as church steeples and one or two castles, too.

  “We will be there shortly,” he announced after poking his head out the window. “Yes, won’t be long now.”

  *

  Manchester was indeed a large city and quite impressive. There were magnificent buildings in every direction, churches and handsome colonnaded government buildings, even statues, omnibuses and masses of people.