by Kim Wilkins
“I expect he means if we need any financial assistance.”
“He means if I become unbearable, doesn’t he?”
“Virgil, of course not.”
“Why would he write to you in this manner? Have you shared our secrets with him?”
“Virgil, he was here when you were ill. He was once your best friend. He knows our situation.”
“But he offers no assistance to me.”
“You have made it clear you are no longer interested in his assistance.”
Henri grew tired of our strained conversation and began to cry. Virgil rocked him absently. “It seems curious to me that he should write such a letter to you.”
“Perhaps it is curious, but you appear to be punishing the recipient of the letter rather than the sender,” I said sulkily. For I knew that I had encouraged Edward’s intimacy by not discouraging it earlier.
Virgil turned and went to the window, the whole time rocking Henri who had quietened down to a sniffle. I watched his back. He appeared tense, even angry.
“What is it, Virgil?” I asked. “Why are you so upset?”
He turned. “You looked anxious when the letter arrived.”
“I…thought it might be bad news.”
“And once, when I was sick, I thought I saw Edward about to kiss you.”
“That’s nonsense.”
He came forward, all pleading eyes. “Please swear, Georgette, that you’ve never felt more than is appropriate for Edward Snowe.”
“I swear.”
He held out Henri to me. The little creature came happily to my arms. “We shall keep no secrets in our house,” he said.
But we keep the very worst secrets in our house. I am orphaned and I have not told him. He is once again drinking laudanum and he has not told me. It makes me afraid that a sickness may begin to eat away at our love if we cannot speak to each other more freely.
The trouble is that only Virgil will be hurt by bringing these matters into the open. He will be offended that I could not trust him with my grief. He will be anguished to have me witness to his opium shame. So I must go about my life, raising my child and ignoring the dark horror which lurks below the surface.
Wednesday, 10th September 1794
I have been ill these last four days and feel only a little better today. I’m sitting up in bed and Henri is sleeping peacefully next to me. An early autumn breeze is in the trees outside, and the sun still shines and the sky is still blue. It is all such a welcome contrast to the awful dreams my illness brought trailing with it; dreams in which I saw my mother again and again go to the guillotine. I had not even the comfort upon waking of knowing the dream was not real. For at some point my mother really did put her white neck upon the block, and the most unimaginably cruel violence was done to her. This is what happens to a wound not tended to; it festers and grows worse. I should share my loss with Virgil, but he has so much else to concern him. He has been an Angel the last few days, taking care of everything so that I may recover. I had a fever – not nearly as severe as the one which gripped Virgil earlier in the year, but enough to warrant a visit from Mr Edghill. Still, that is all behind me now. One must become sick every so often so that one appreciates more the times of good health.
On Monday night, when my fever was at its height, Virgil sat between my bed and Henri’s cradle, watching vigilantly over both of us. I was barely aware of my surroundings, drifting in and out of a fevered sleep, but at one point I became aware that Virgil was speaking in a low voice to Henri. I opened my eyes a crack. He had just one candle burning and was whispering so he wouldn’t disturb me. He was telling Henri a story.
“Once there was a little boy named Henri,” he said, “who was the most beautiful little boy in the land. A prince, lost on his way to Heaven. His Mama was a beautiful queen, but his Papa was but a poor man. Yes, Henri’s Papa was wicked. He didn’t want to go to work to buy food and clothes for his family, but still he went to work because he needed his magical drink…”
At this point, Virgil’s head nodded forward and came to rest on the corner of the cradle. I could not see his face, but I suspected he was crying. I was too weak to utter any words of comfort.
“Ah, Henri,” he said, “if I did not love you so much I should take myself forever from your sight. But I am selfish.” He lifted his head again and quietly muttered. “Everything is wrong. Everything…is wrong.”
He composed himself, then resumed his story. “But one day, an angel will come to Henri’s Papa, and the angel will forgive him. And because the angel can make fire, he will burn Papa’s sins and he will not be such a wicked man any more, though the fire may cripple or blind him. Because Papa has tried and failed to be a good man. So now his fate is in the hands of the angels.”
Virgil leaned over and kissed Henri’s sleeping face, then turned to me. He saw that I was awake.
“Gette? I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
I shook my head. My skin felt clammy and yet I was very cold. “I heard what you said. I know that you have been at your laudanum again.”
“I cannot stop myself, Gette. It is the only thing that makes my work bearable.”
“Then do not stop, my love. Only, can you not try to find another occupation?”
He curled up next to me on top of the covers, his head resting on my chest. I felt such tenderness towards him, like I had not felt since the child was born and stole my heart. He did not answer.
“Virgil?” I asked.
“Do not concern yourself while you are sick.”
“Surely it would be better to be a law clerk than a resurrectionist?”
“Gette, I am in too far.”
“I do not understand.”
“He has me, Gette. For now I know some of his secrets, and now I have kept them for long enough to make me complicit.”
“You will have to explain yourself better, Virgil,” I said, “for you are making little sense.”
He began to sob. I touched his hair and closed my eyes. He was right, I was too ill to deal with this. My mind tried to form the question, “What secrets does Flood have?”, but my body refused to comply. I sank back into sleep. When I awoke, Virgil sat on the end of my bed, facing neither me nor Henri, just staring into the emptiness before him.
Oh, he is an unhappy man. Such a burden of pain and of guilt and of fear rests upon him. I struggled weakly to sit up but could not. He turned his face to me and I said simply, “Virgil, I forgive you.”
At this he drooped his head and sighed, muttered something about angels and redemption, then stood and left the room. We have not spoken of it since, and to be truthful I am too weak at this point to do so. But what a weight is on my heart for my dear husband.
Thursday, 11th September 1794
This morning I was feeling so much better that I ate the sizeable breakfast which Virgil had prepared: cheese, bread, cold turkey and hot tea. My favourite luxury now we have money once again is tea made on fresh leaves. At our most desperate, we stewed the same leaves over and over again, until our tea tasted like plain water.
The conversation I had with Virgil on Monday night seemed like a febrile dream, remembered only indistinctly. Virgil was quite contented when he brought me breakfast, though it was the glazed contentment which I alone cannot excite in him. He sat with me while I ate, making jokes about how fat I am getting (it’s true that flesh is returning to my bones, but it will be many months before I can happily call myself plump once more), and playing with Henri’s little fingers. My son is still tiny, but now he smiles at us and seems to know who we both are.
After Virgil had cleared away my breakfast, he returned to see if I needed anything else. I replied that I did not, and he adopted a pained expression.
“What is wrong? Are you not pleased that I am well again?”
“Yes, yes. It’s just that I promised to drop in on Flood the instant you were better. He has work for me.”
It seemed no better time would present itself for us
to discuss what we had started to discuss on Monday night, so I said, “Virgil, sit down, for we must resolve some things.”
He sat, looking guilty.
“Can we return to London and try to find you work which is more pleasant?”
“There are many things standing in the way of that.”
“What things?”
He cleared his throat and linked and unlinked his long fingers. “I cannot return to London for I left boasting that I would return a wealthy poet. That has not happened.”
I sighed with relief. “Is that your only concern? The least of your worries should be what others think of you. Why, let them say what they like. Imagine, you could work in a law firm like your father, and perhaps with a steady income and a comfortable life, your ability to write might return to you.” And I also hoped he might be able to disavow his addiction.
He looked down at his fingers and did not answer for a long time.
“Is there something else?” I prompted him gently.
Still no answer.
“You hinted the other night that Flood has some kind of hold over you.”
“I was talking nonsense. I was tired.”
“Virgil, please don’t lie to me. What is it? Perhaps it is just a silly matter which will be of no consequence once we are safely in London.”
He took his time in responding, but finally he said, “It is not that Flood has a hold over me. It’s that I suspect something bad is happening, and I fear greatly that I am contributing to it.”
“Can you explain to me?”
“No, for it is a poisonous knowledge. Once you know, you will forever wish not to know.”
Curse Doctor Aaron Flood. Dread and secrets accrete around him until I cannot think about him without fear in my heart. Never mind that the sun was shining outside, and that I could hear children calling to each other in the street, I was as frightened as any superstitious fool upon the witching hour.
“What is it you know?” I asked slowly.
He shook his head and stood. “I may be wrong. I may have misheard him, misread something. For who on this earth can fully understand the universe’s workings? The soul’s progress?”
“Then if you are not certain that you are trapped in such an awful position, you can consider moving away from here.”
“I shall consider it.”
I knew he was not in earnest, so I said, “Please, Virgil.”
“I said I shall consider it.” He left.
Henri sleeps, dear child. He knows nothing, and for that I am grateful. He is a holy innocent, with none of this “poisonous knowledge” to disrupt his peaceful dreams. Once, I too was as innocent, but that time is far, far behind me. ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
***** too cold to leave the house. And the rain has not ceased in a week. His work must be very dirty indeed. I should fear for his physical health if I weren’t already so concerned for the health of his mind. It seems a great guilt is eating at him and causing him to dream and think obsessively about the fate of his Eternal Soul. And this is my Virgil, who proudly declared himself an atheist on our first meeting! I can scarce believe it.
Sunday, 14th December 1794
Well, Virgil has finally written something, though it is hardly a cause for celebration as it is more of the same obsessive fascination with redemption. In fact, he hid it from me, which makes me wonder if he has other poems around the house which I have not seen. It seems he thinks of little else but some awesome, imaginary burden of Guilt these days. With winter setting in, and my husband growing more and more unpredictable, I sometimes feel as though I am trapped. All through spring I thought it might be possible to get away to London, but now it is becoming clear that we are in Solgreve for some time to come yet. Henri is still so small but he lives and eats well enough, so it should not matter where we are. Only I am so sick of this place and its secrets and its graveyard and its relentless wind. I wish to look out of my window and see civilisation, rational parks and ordered hedgerows.
We are in debt with the tailor. Virgil needed a new overcoat for his old one was quite threadbare, and I could not send him out to work in it. He would catch a chill and that would be the end of him. So yesterday I ordered a new one, and while I was there I ordered some warm clothes for Henri. We are also in debt to the glass man, for the last of our old crockery was dirty and chipped beyond recognition. It is not a comfortable feeling to be in debt, and nor would we have to be if Virgil took his payment all in money and not mostly in laudanum. What a misery it is to be so in love with a man whose actions are so very detrimental to my happiness.
I should not write such things down, I know, but who will ever see this Diary? Nobody. And I shall not tremble before the judgement of Nobody.
Monday, 15th December 1794
Last night I was sleeping soundly when I was awoken by the touch of an icy hand on my cheek. My eyes flew open and I shrieked when I saw a dark shape in front of me. It was only my husband, but what a sight he was! He held a single, guttering candle in his right hand, and with that dim illumination I could see that he was filthy – clothes in disarray and splattered with mud. Even his face was streaked with dirt.
“Virgil,” I said sleepily, “why did you not bathe before returning home?”
“I have left in the middle of a dig,” he whispered. “I shall never go back and I don’t ever wish to see Doctor Flood again.”
I sat up, casting a wary eye over to Henri’s cradle to make sure he still slept soundly. “What do you mean? What has happened?” My first thought, I am ashamed to admit, was for the tailor’s bill.
“I know things…I cannot go on…” He ran a muddy hand through his hair and choked on a sob.
“Come, let us get you clean,” I said, throwing back the covers. I pulled him to his feet and took him to the parlour where I stoked the fire and bade him strip off and wait for me. Heating water would take time, and we didn’t have enough in the house for him to bathe entirely anyway. So I prepared some cold water and soap in a large bowl and grabbed some rags (which had been our clothes until two or three months ago). When I returned, he had removed his clothes and they lay on the hearth in a pile. He sat close by and his naked skin glowed in the firelight, and I felt a pull in my heart. I know not why. Perhaps because I still find him beautiful, though we have long ago ceased expressing our desire for one another. Perhaps because he seems thin and frail without clothes. Or perhaps it was because he was so obedient, waiting to be bathed like a child. I approached with my preparations and knelt in front of him.
“The water may be cold,” I warned.
He nodded. There was no question that he would take the soap and rags from me and manage this task himself. He allowed me to dip the rag, rub some soap on it, squeeze it gently and apply it to his skin. I started with his hair, and then his face. By the time I was at his shoulders, he had decided to tell me what had happened.
“Flood was giving me my directions for the evening when another caller knocked at his chamber door. He left me by his bookshelf and went to the door and was some time involved in speaking with the caller. A book lay closed on the bench in front of me. I surreptitiously opened it and flicked through some pages, until I came to one which was headed in his own hand ‘soul magic.’ He has mentioned this term to me before. It is to do with why he is so old, and why he conducts his experiments.”
I carefully washed one arm, and then the other, and he was silent, thoughtful.
“You read it, Virgil? What did it say?”
“A week of torture would not persuade me to pass that information on to you,” he said, then continued in a whisper, “for if it is true, then it is enough to drive a sane man mad with guilt.”
Though his words frightened me, I chose to be rational. “Virgil, please, you must learn to approach things more calmly. Flood may very well write these things for his own amusement. They may mean nothing.”
“Y
ou won’t understand because you are not me,” he muttered. “You have not done the things I have done, nor seen the things I have seen.”
I did not answer, moving behind him instead and rubbing his muddy neck.
“Flood turned from the door and saw me reading. I immediately flipped the book closed, but I know he saw me. He realised then, that I know what he does. But he said nothing, he merely gave me the instructions for tonight’s disinterment and sent me on my way. His lack of reaction was probably more frightening to me than if he had lost his temper.
“I went to the graveyard and began my digging. The wind was icy and my hands felt numb even in my gloves. After an hour or so, though, the activity had warmed me, and I stripped off my coat to work with more ease. I hung it over the gravestone and turned to pick up my spade again when I noticed a movement in the distance. Do you remember, Georgette, early in the year before I grew sick, that I said I had seen something sinister in the graveyard?”
“Yes,” I said, crouching once more in front of him. I, too, had seen something in the graveyard, but I would not tell him and add to his anxiety. His legs and feet were clean because they had been covered, but I bathed them anyway, keeping my eyes down.
“I know what it was now. Flood has explained, for he is the master of the Wraiths. I tried to go back to my work, but I could see a shape advancing on me from the left, and one from the right. They were certainly these phantoms of Flood’s. I grew frightened, for they are accompanied by the most appalling breathing sound – though it is not really breathing for these beings are not living.
“For a little while I kept working. I reasoned Flood may have asked them to watch me, concerned that what I had read would send me running to the authorities. He bestows his trust poorly, does Flood, then regrets it deeply. This is why he has the Wraiths to attend upon him. I wished to prove that I deserved his trust and thus kept working for a time. But the fear I felt the closer they advanced, gliding unnaturally in the misty air, unmanned me. I started to wonder if Flood meant for them to kill me, because I knew his secrets. Panic seized me. I stood and dropped my spade, climbed out of the grave trying to keep an eye on each of the creatures. Watching them so closely that I did not realise the proximity of the third. I took two steps back, and felt against my bare back the brush of rough cloth and an icy finger of bone. I turned, and there was the creature. It dropped its head before I could see properly what face gazed upon me from under the hood, but Gette, I don’t believe there was a face.”