by Various
"I won't need that," Cassilda protested. Camilla had presented her with a boned corset of white and sky broche.
"Nonsense, my dear," Mrs Castaigne directed, coming around the dressing screen to oversee. "You may think of me as old-fashioned, but I insist that you not ruin your figure."
Cassilda submitted, suddenly wondering why she had thought anything out of the ordinary about it. She hooked the straight busk together in front, while Camilla gathered the laces at the back. The maid tugged sharply at the laces, squeezing out her breath. Cassilda bent forward and steadied herself against the back of the chair, as Camilla braced a knee against the small of her back, pulling the laces as tight as possible before tying them. Once her corset was secured, she drew over it a camisole of white cotton lace and trimmed with ribbon, matching her petticoat. Somewhat dizzy, Cassilda sat stiffly before the dressing table, while the maid brushed out her long black hair and gathered it in a loose knot atop her head, pinning it in place with tortoise-shell combs. Opening the wardrobe, Camilla found her a pair of shoes, with high heels that mushroomed outward at the bottom, which fit her easily.
"How lovely, Cassilda!" Mrs Castaigne approved. "One would scarcely recognize you as the poor drowned thing that came out of the night!"
Cassilda stood up and examined herself in the full-length dressing mirror. It was as if she looked upon a stranger, and yet she knew she looked upon herself. The corset constricted her waist and forced her slight figure into an "S" curve—hips back, bust forward—imparting an unexpected opulence, further enhanced by the gauzy profusion of lace and silk. Her face, dark-eyed and finely boned, returned her gaze watchfully from beneath a lustrous pile of black hair. She touched herself, almost in wonder, almost believing that the reflection in the mirror was a photograph of someone else.
Camilla selected for her a long-sleeved linen shirtwaist, buttoned at the cuffs and all the way to her throat, then helped her into a skirt of some darker material that fell away from her cinched waist to her ankles. Cassilda studied herself in the mirror, while the maid fussed about her.
I look like someone in an old illustration—a Gibson girl, she thought, then puzzled at her thought.
Through the open window she could hear the vague noises of the city, and for the first time she realized that intermingled with these familiar sounds was the clatter of horses' hooves upon the brick pavement.
*****
"You simply must not say anything more about leaving us, Cassilda," Mrs Castaigne insisted, laying a hand upon the girl's knee as she leaned toward her confidentially.
Beside her on the settee, Cassilda felt the pressure of her touch through the rustling layers of petticoat. It haunted her, this flowing whisper of sound that came with her every movement, for it seemed at once strange and again familiar—a shivery sigh of silk against silk, like the whisk of dry snow sliding across stone. She smiled, holding her teacup with automatic poise, and wondered that such little, common-place sensations should seem at all out of the ordinary to her. Even the rigid embrace of her corset seemed quite familiar to her now, so that she sat gracefully at ease, listening to her benefactress, while a part of her thoughts stirred in uneasy wonder.
"You have said yourself that you have no immediate prospects," Mrs Castaigne continued. "I shouldn't have to remind you of the dangers the city holds for unattached young women. You were extremely fortunate in your escape from those white slavers who had abducted you. Without family or friends to question your disappearance—well, I shan't suggest what horrible fate awaited you."
Cassilda shivered at the memory of her escape—a memory as formless and uncertain, beyond her need to escape, as that of her life prior to her abduction. She had made only vague replies to Mrs Castaigne's gentle questioning, nor was she at all certain which fragments of her story were half-truths or lies.
Of one thing she was certain beyond all doubt: the danger from which she had fled awaited her beyond the shelter of this house.
"It has been so lonely here since Constance went away," Mrs Castaigne was saying. "Camilla is a great comfort to me, but nonetheless she has her household duties to occupy her, and I have often considered engaging a companion. I should be only too happy if you would consent to remain with us in this position—at least for the present time."
"You're much too kind! Of course I'll stay."
"I promise you that your duties shall be no more onerous than to provide amusements for a rather old-fashioned lady of retiring disposition. I hope it won't prove too dull for you, my dear."
"It suits my own temperament perfectly," Cassilda assured her. "I am thoroughly content to follow quiet pursuits within doors."
"Wonderful!" Mrs Castaigne took her hands. "Then it's settled. I know Camilla will be delighted to have another young spirit about the place. And you may relieve her of some of her tasks."
"What shall I do?" Cassilda begged her, overjoyed at her good fortune.
"Would you read to me, please, my dear? I find it so relaxing to the body and so stimulating to the mind. I've taken up far too much of Camilla's time from her chores, having her read to me for hours on end."
"Of course." Cassilda returned Camilla's smile as she entered the sitting room to collect the tea things. From her delight, it was evident that the maid had been listening from the hallway. "What would you like for me to read to you?"
"That book over there beneath the lamp." Mrs Castaigne indicated a volume bound in yellow cloth. "It is a recent drama—and a most curious work, as you shall quickly see. Camilla was reading it to me on the night you came to us."
Taking up the book, Cassilda again experienced a strange sense of unaccountable deja vu, and she wondered where she might previously have read The King in Yellow, if indeed she ever had.
"I believe we are ready to begin the second act," Mrs Castaigne told her.
*****
Cassilda was reading in bed when Camilla knocked tentatively at her door. She set aside her book with an almost furtive movement. "Entrez vous."
"I was afraid you might already be asleep," the maid explained, "but then I saw light beneath your door. I'd forgotten to bring you your tonic before retiring."
Camilla, en deshabille, carried in the medicine glass on a silver tray. Her fluttering lace and pastels seemed a pretty contrast to the black maid's uniform she ordinarily wore.
"I wasn't able to go to sleep just yet," Cassilda confessed, sitting up in bed. "I was reading."
Camilla handed her the tonic. "Let me see. Ah, yes. What a thoroughly wicked book to be reading in bed!"
"Have you read The King in Yellow?"
"I have read it through aloud to madame, and more than once. It is a favorite of hers."
"It is sinful and more than sinful to imbue such decadence with so compelling a fascination. I cannot imagine that anyone could have allowed it to be published. The author must have been mad to pen such thoughts."
"And yet, you read it."
Cassilda made a place for her on the edge of the bed. "Its fascination is too great a temptation to resist. I wanted to read further after Mrs Castaigne bade me good night."
"It was Constance's book." Camilla huddled close beside her against the pillows. "Perhaps that is why madame cherishes it so."
Cassilda opened the yellow-bound volume to the page she had been reading. Camilla craned her blonde head over her shoulder to read with her. She had removed her corset, and her ample figure swelled against her beribboned chemise. Cassilda in her nightdress felt almost scrawny as she compared her own small bosom to the other girl's.
"Is it not strange?" she remarked. "Here in this decadent drama we read of Cassilda and Camilla."
"I wonder if we two are very much like them," Camilla laughed.
"They are such very dear friends."
"And so are we, are we not?"
"I do so want us to be."
"But you haven't read beyond the second act, dear Cassilda. How can you know what may their fate be?"
"Oh
, Camilla!" Cassilda leaned her face back against Camilla's perfumed breasts. "Don't tease me so!"
The blonde girl hugged her fiercely, stroking her back. "Poor, lost Cassilda."
Cassilda nestled against her, listening to the heartbeat beneath her cheek. She was feeling warm and sleepy, for all that the book had disturbed her. The tonic always carried her to dreamy oblivion, and it was pleasant to drift to sleep in Camilla's soft embrace.
"Were you and Constance friends?" she wondered.
"We were the very dearest of friends."
"You must miss her very much."
"No longer."
*****
Cassilda sat at the escritoire in her room, writing in the journal she had found there. Her petticoats crowded against the legs of the writing table as she leaned forward to reach the inkwell. From time to time she paused to stare pensively past the open curtains of her window, upon the deepening blue of the evening sky as it met the angled rooftops of the buildings along the waterfront below.
"I think I should feel content here," she wrote. "Mrs Castaigne is strict in her demands, but I am certain she takes a sincere interest in my own well-being, and that she has only the kindliest regard for me. My duties during the day are of the lightest nature and consist primarily of reading to Mrs Castaigne or of singing at the piano while she occupies herself with her needlework, and in all other ways making myself companionable to her in our simple amusements.
"I have offered to assist Camilla at her chores, but Mrs Castaigne will not have it that I perform other than the lightest household tasks. Camilla is a very dear friend to me, and her sweet attentions easily distract me from what might otherwise become a tedium of sitting about the house day to day. Nonetheless, I have no desire to leave my situation here, nor to adventure into the streets outside the house. We are not in an especially attractive section of the city here, being at some remove from the shops and in a district given over to waterfront warehouses and commercial establishments. We receive no visitors, other than the tradesmen who supply our needs, nor is Mrs Castaigne of a disposition to wish to seek out the society of others.
"Withal, my instincts suggest that Mrs Castaigne has sought the existence of a recluse out of some very great emotional distress which has robbed life of its interests for her. It is evident from the attention and instruction she has bestowed upon me that she sees in me a reflection of her daughter, and I am convinced that it is in the loss of Constance where lies the dark secret of her self-imposed withdrawal from the world. I am sensible of the pain Mrs Castaigne harbors within her breast, for the subject of her daughter's absence is never brought into our conversations, and for this reason I have felt loath to question her, although I am certain that this is the key to the mystery that holds us in this house."
Cassilda concluded her entry with the date: June 7th, 189—
She frowned in an instant's consternation. What was the date? How silly. She referred to a previous day's entry, then completed the date. For a moment she turned idly back through her journal, smiling faintly at the many pages of entries that filled the diary, each progressively dated, each penned in the same neat hand as the entry she had just completed.
*****
Cassilda sat at her dressing table in her room. It was night, and she had removed her outer clothing preparatory to retiring. She gazed at her reflection—the gauzy paleness of her chemise, stockings, and knickers was framed against Camilla's black maid's uniform, as the blonde girl stood behind her, brushing out her dark hair.
Upon the dressing table she had spread out the contents of a tin box she had found in one of the drawers, and she and Camilla had been looking over them as she prepared for bed. There were paper dolls, valentines, and greeting cards, illustrations clipped from magazines, a lovely cut-out of a swan. She also found a crystal ball that rested upon an ebony cradle. Within the crystal sphere was a tiny house, covered with snow, with trees and a frozen lake and a young girl playing. When Cassilda picked it up, the snow stirred faintly in the transparent fluid that filled the globe. She turned the crystal sphere upside down for a moment, then quickly righted it, and a snowstorm drifted down about the tiny house.
"How wonderful it would be to dwell forever in a crystal fairyland just like the people in this little house," Cassilda remarked, peering into the crystal ball.
Something else seemed to stir within the swirling snow-flakes, she thought; but when the snow had settled once more, the tableau was unchanged. No: there was a small mound, there beside the child at play, that she was certain she had not seen before. Cassilda overturned the crystal globe once again, and peered more closely. There it was. Another tiny figure spinning amidst the snowflakes. A second girl. She must have broken loose from the tableau. The tiny figure drifted to rest upon the frozen lake, and the snowflakes once more covered her from view.
"Where is Constance Castaigne?" Cassilda asked.
"Constance... became quite ill," Camilla told her carefully. "She was always subject to nervous attacks. One night she suffered one of her fits, and she . . ."
"Camilla!" Mrs Castaigne's voice from the doorway was stern. "You know how I despise gossip—especially idle gossip concerning another's misfortunes."
The maid's face was downcast. "I'm very sorry, madame. I meant no mischief."
The older woman scowled as she crossed the room. Cassilda wondered if she meant to strike the maid. "Being sorry does not pardon the offense of a wagging tongue. Perhaps a lesson in behaviour will improve your manners in the future. Go at once to your room."
"Please, madame..."
"Your insolence begins to annoy me, Camilla."
"Please, don't be harsh with her!" Cassilda begged, as the maid hurried from the room. "She was only answering my question."
Standing behind the seated girl, Mrs Castaigne placed her hands upon her shoulders and smiled down at her. "An innocent question, my dear. However, the subject is extremely painful to me, and Camilla well knows the distress it causes me to hear it brought up. I shall tell you this now, and that shall end the matter. My daughter suffered a severe attack of brain fever. She is confined in a mental sanatorium."
Cassilda crossed her arms over her breasts to place her hands upon the older woman's wrists. "I'm terribly sorry."
"I'm certain you can appreciate how sorely this subject distresses me." Mrs Castaigne smiled, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
"I shan't mention it again."
"Of course not. And now, my dear, you must hurry and make yourself ready for bed. Too much exertion so soon after your illness will certainly bring about a relapse. Hurry along now, while I fetch your tonic."
"I'm sure I don't need any more medicine. Sometimes I think it must bring on evil dreams."
"Now don't argue, Cassilda dear." The fingers on her shoulders tightened their grip. "You must do as you're told. You can't very well perform your duties as companion if you lie about ill all day, now can you? And you do want to stay."
"Certainly!" Cassilda thought this last had not been voiced as a question. "I want to do whatever you ask."
"I know you do, Cassilda. And I only want to make you into a perfect young lady. Now let me help you into your night things."
Cassilda opened her eyes into complete darkness that swirled about her in an invisible current. She sat upright in her bed, fighting back the vertigo that she had decided must come from the tonic they gave her nightly. Something had wakened her. Another bad dream? She knew she often suffered them, even though the next morning she was unable to recall them. Was she about to be sick? She was certain that the tonic made her feel drugged.
Her wide eyes stared sleeplessly at the darkness. She knew sleep would not return easily, for she feared to lapse again into the wicked dreams that disturbed her rest and left her lethargic throughout the next day. She could not even be certain that this now might not be another of those dreams.
In the absolute silence of the house, she could hear her heart pulse, her breath stir anxiousl
y.
There was another sound, more distant, and of almost the same monotonous regularity. She thought she heard a woman's muffled sobbing.
Mrs Castaigne, she thought. The talk of her daughter had upset her terribly. Underscoring the sobbing came a sharp, rhythmic crack, as if a rocker sounded against a loose board.
Cassilda felt upon the nightstand beside her bed. Her fingers found matches. Striking one, she lit the candle that was there—her actions entirely automatic. Stepping down out of her bed, she caught up the candlestick and moved cautiously out of her room.
In the hallway, she listened for the direction of the sound. Her candle forced a small nimbus of light against the enveloping darkness of the old house. Cassilda shivered and drew her nightdress closer about her throat; its gauzy lace and ribbons were no barrier to the cold darkness that swirled about her island of candlelight.
The sobbing seemed no louder as she crept down the hallway toward Mrs Castaigne's bedroom. There, the bedroom door was open, and within was only silent darkness.
"Mrs Castaigne?" Cassilda called softly, without answer.
The sound of muffled sobbing continued, and now seemed to come from overhead. Cassilda followed its sound to the end of the hallway, where a flight of stairs led to the maid's quarters in the attic. Cassilda paused fearfully at the foot of the stairway, thrusting her candle without effect against the darkness above. She could still hear the sobbing, but the other sharp sound had ceased. Her head seemed to float in the darkness as she listened, but despite her dreamlike lethargy, she knew her thoughts raced too wildly now for sleep. Catching up the hem of her nightdress, Cassilda cautiously ascended the stairs.