by Michael Cox
Perhaps youre right, sir, I say, thinking of my secret feelings for his brother. The difficulty would be finding such a person. My social circle is a rather restricted one.
Quite so, quite so, he says, returning my smile. But you concede the principle?
Yes, I reply, with a laugh, I concede the principle.
Just then, Mr Thripp comes trotting down the Rise, his terrier skittering about beside him, on his way to keep his appointment with Lady Tansor. A few words are exchanged as he passes over the bridge, and Mr Randolph and I then proceed on our way, talking inconsequentially once more, before parting at the Entrance Court gates.
II
The Day of Days
THE EVENING OF the dinner to mark Mr Randolph Duports twentieth birthday finally arrived. My Lady had taken great delight in tricking me out in one of her unwanted gowns from last season, telling me that I looked very well indeed, and really quite handsome, adding in a sly, woman-to-woman way that she would not be at all surprised if I did not break one or two hearts that evening.
At the dinner, I found myself placed at the lower end of the long table in the Crimson-and-Gold Dining-Room, next to Miss Arabella Pentelow, a whey-faced maiden of about my own age, with a put-upon look and very little to say for herself. As the heiress to a stupendous fortune, Miss Pentelow was one of several young ladies there present with their quietly combative mammas whom my Lady had marked out for consideration as possible matches for Mr Randolph, having a strong desire to see him married and off her hands (as she once said in my hearing) as soon as he attained his majority.
On my other side was seated of all people the ridiculous Mr Maurice FitzMaurice, who spent the whole of the dinner responding monosyllabically to all my attempts at conversation, in the many intervals of which he threw yearning glances at my Lady, seated in splendour between her two sons.
With two such neighbours, I was thankful that my Lady kept me pretty busy, throughout the dinner and when we ladies withdrew. A stream of requests was issued via Barrington, who appeared silently at my back at regular intervals to whisper them into my ear. Her Ladyship was feeling a draught off I was despatched to fetch a shawl. Her Ladyship was a little warm off I went to remove the shawl to an adjacent room and bring her favourite Japanese fan. Her Ladyship was concerned that the Bishop had been placed too close to the fire off I tripped to ask his Lordship, on her behalf, whether he was quite comfortable (he was). Still they came, these ingeniously conceived commands, all designed I had no doubt to remind me that I was present as her maid and general agent, not as her guest.
There were several toasts to the health of Mr Randolph, after which a neighbouring magnate, Lord Tingdene, a plump, fish-faced gentleman, gave a speech almost rivalling one of Mr Thripps sermons in its tedious prolixity in which he sycophantically extolled the unrivalled virtues and achievements of the Duport family since the days of the 1st Baron, while consigning to eternal perdition all those of the present day who strove against the proven perfection of inherited privilege.
Mr Randolph received all the salutations and congratulations with every appearance of satisfaction. His brother, who had led the toasts, wore his usual imperturbable expression, modified by an occasional weary smile, whilst my Lady shone, and smiled, and was graciously hospitable, although perhaps I alone perceived the little signs of strain and fatigue around her eyes.
The evening finally drew to a close. My hopeful dreams had come to nothing. Mr Perseus had appeared distracted, and we barely exchanged a word. Soon after the ladies and gentlemen reassembled in the Chinese Salon, he had been carried off to the Billiards-Room by a company of young gentlemen, noticeably unsteady on their legs, and I did not see him again. I continued to wait on my mistress until the carriages were called at one oclock; yet even when the last guests had departed, I had still to undress her and see her to bed, although by then I could hardly keep my eyes open.
You did well tonight, Alice, she said as I was about to leave. Everyone admired you, as I knew they would. Now off you go. I shall need you at the usual time tomorrow, you know, so no excuses.
It was a little before two oclock when I closed the door to my Ladys sitting-room and stepped out into the gallery. As I did so, a figure emerged out of the shadows at the head of the stairs.
Mr Pocock informs me that the dinner was a great success, says Mrs Battersby.
I believe so, I answer.
I am glad, for Mr Randolphs sake.
We stand for a moment, eyes locked.
Well, good-night, Miss Gorst, she says at length. I still have a deal to do before I retire, but your duties are done, I think. And so I wish you pleasant dreams.
With these words, she turns, and is gone as suddenly as she had appeared.
MR RANDOLPH HAD left Evenwood soon after his birthday, intending to spend several weeks in Wales with his friend, Mr Rhys Paget, who had been unable to attend the dinner because of some family business. To my disappointment, Mr Perseus had also been absent, in London; and so the days went by in weary succession, as I waited for his return to brighten my dull life of service with new dreams.
To compound matters, I had nothing to report to Madame. Mr Armitage Vyse had made no further visits to Evenwood; and, despite determined efforts, I had found no incriminating or suspicious documents of any kind in my Ladys apartments, and nothing to connect her directly with the murder of Mrs Kraus, except my transcription of the note I had found under her pillow in Grosvenor Square. And still I waited for Madames third letter. I had no choice, it seemed, but to continue mending, and washing, and cleaning, and dressing my Lady in her finery, until that long-awaited day came, when I would know at last the purpose of the Great Task.
December came on, and with it the anniversary of Phoebus Daunts death, observed annually by my Lady, as Mr Randolph had told me, by a visit to his tomb in the Duport Mausoleum.
On the morning of the 11th, after I had dressed her, my mistress informed me, in a subdued, strained voice, that she would not need me until two oclock that afternoon, when she wished me to read to her for an hour or so.
Do you know what today is, Alice? she asked.
Yes, my Lady, I replied, without hesitation.
Of course you do, she said, fingering the locket containing her dead lovers hair.
I left her; but I did not return to my room, for I had determined on a bold plan.
THE DUPORT MAUSOLEUM a strange, domed structure, in the style of an Egyptian temple stands in dismal isolation on the south-eastern edge of the Park, in the midst of a clearing bordered by tall, densely planted trees, and smaller clumps of yew and elder. The path leading up to the great metal doors, curiously decorated with inverted torches, was muddy, and thickly carpeted with pine needles and slippery, decomposing leaves blown into the clearing from the tree-lined approach road. The doors guarded on either side by two stern-looking, sword-bearing stone angels, pitted and lichen-covered I found to be locked fast; and so I withdrew a little way, concealing myself beneath a dripping tree to await the arrival of my Lady.
I passed a most uncomfortable time, reading through my note-book to relieve the tedium, until at last I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.
A minute later, my Lady had descended from the carriage, a large key in one hand, and had begun walking slowly up the leaf-strewn path; the carriage then departed, leaving us alone in this melancholy spot.
As she entered the Mausoleum, I quit my hiding-place and ran towards the double doors, one of which she had left ajar, allowing sufficient light into the building for me to make out the general character of the interior a rectangular entrance hall, beyond which three wings led off a large central space containing several imposing tombs.
I watched my Lady walk, with solemn deliberation, to the wing directly opposite the entrance. As she disappeared from sight, I stepped into the gloom.
&n
bsp; The main chamber was dimly illuminated by a dirtied-over lantern at the apex of the dome, by the feeble light of which I stole as quietly as I could towards the arched entrance through which Lady Tansor had just passed. There I halted.
In the walls of the vaulted, semi-circular space that I now saw before me could be made out a number of gated wall-tombs. Before one of these, my Lady was now standing, statue-still. Only the sound of a few desiccated leaves being blown about the floor by a sudden draught of air broke the heavy silence.
For the first time since entering the Mausoleum, I began to be sensible of the danger I was in. Discovery would surely bring catastrophe. Even if my presence remained undetected, I must contrive to make my way out before my Lady, to avoid being locked in this ghastly place. Yet my curiosity was now so great that I foolishly ignored my fears, and tip-toed forwards.
My Lady was no more than five or six feet from me, as I stood in the deep shadows of the arch, hardly daring to breathe. Then she sank slowly to her knees before one of the wall-tombs, and pressed her cheek against the padlocked gates.
With an anguished moan, she reached up and, with sudden ferocity, grasped the gates with both hands. For a moment or two she remained thus; then she began to pull at the iron bars with all her might harder, then harder still, in a desperate, but pitifully futile attempt, as it seemed, to wrench them out by main force, and so join her lover in his eternal bed-chamber.
Shaking her head from side to side, she now began to sob such a baleful, inconsolable sound as I had never before heard. Was there any comfort, in heaven or on earth, that could ever assuage such pangs? It was a sight indeed to see my proud mistress humbled so, brought low by what even she, the 26th Baroness Tansor, could never remedy. Death had taken Phoebus Daunt from her, and would never give him back.
How we strive to hide what we really are! In spite of all she could do, the shadow of Time was daily creeping over the once-radiant Miss Emily Carteret, as it creeps over us all, leaving behind the indelible marks of its progress. She would have wished no living person to see her in this condition of utter subjection, just as she would wish no one to see her without her morning mask of subtly applied lotions and powder, with which puny weapons she daily sought to defy the years. But I had seen what she tried to hide, as I was now witnessing her powerlessness to break free from the enslaving past.
In the fallen world, beyond this house of death and decay, she was a person of the greatest consequence envied, still desired, unassailable; but not here. Who would know proud Lady Tansor now, raw-eyed and helpless? She was strong in wealth, mighty in inherited rank and authority; but she was weak and defenceless in this perpetual servitude to the memory of Phoebus Daunt.
The sight of this poor lost creature, on her knees, weeping uncontrollably before the tomb of her long-dead love, is pitiable indeed, and moves me greatly; but I can offer her no succour and comfort, soul to human soul, as I would have done for any other person. I turn away, tears in my eyes.
Minutes pass, and still my Lady remains kneeling before the tomb, pulling at the iron gates in a most frantic and pathetic manner. Then, on a sudden, she rises to her feet, turns, and begins walking towards the archway in whose shadows I am hiding.
III
I Contemplate Mortality
I HAVE HESITATED fatally, and now it is impossible for me to leave without being observed. Heart beating wildly, and as noiselessly as I can, I withdraw a few steps into the central chamber and crouch down behind the nearest tomb. I have barely had time to conceal myself when my Lady re-enters the chamber and passes by on the other side of the tomb, the train of her dress dragging through the scatterings of dried leaves with a thin crackling sound. She continues in her slow, ghost-like progress until she reaches the entrance hall.
Panic now grips me. I must leave but how can I do so without revealing my presence?
As though in a dream, I watch my Ladys tall, rigid figure proceed across the entrance hall and into the misty outer light. She then turns to pull the metal door shut with a reverberating clang. A moment later, I hear the sound of the key turning in the lock.
I run, heart thumping, to the doors and place my eye to the key-hole.
She is standing, her back towards me, at the head of the path, just beyond the pillared portico. Somewhere in the distance, the mist-muffled bells of St Michael and All Angels are faintly tolling out the hour of eleven. Almost on the last stroke I hear the sound of the returning carriage.
Through the key-hole I watch the coachman assist Lady Tansor into the carriage. There is only one course for me to take.
I begin hammering on the door and shouting out for help; but when I stop, there is only silence. I put my eye to the key-hole once more.
The carriage has gone.
I SINK TO the cold floor, my back against the doors, in numb contemplation of my fate. I cannot stop myself from wondering what it will be like to die as it seems I must minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. At first I am sure that I shall be missed, and have no doubt that a party will shortly be sent out to find me; but as the minutes pass, my confident hopes begin to ebb away. Even if a search is made, will anyone think of looking for me here? And if no one comes, until it is too late, what will they find? Nothing but a grinning, shrunken thing, wrapped in a worsted cloak, sucked dry of life by thirsty Death.
In a futile attempt to keep such horrid thoughts at bay, I decide to try to make some notes as best I can in the dim light on my surroundings.
I note down, first, the occupants of the various free-standing tombs in the central chamber, coming at last to that of Julius Verney Duport, the 25th Baron, my Ladys cousin, from whom she had inherited her title and property a man of almost unrivalled wealth and political power, now reduced to bone and withered flesh, as I must soon be if no one comes to my aid.
I then move away into the adjoining chamber, stopping first before the tomb of Phoebus Daunt to transcribe the inscription thereon:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
PHOEBUS RAINSFORD DAUNT
POET AND AUTHOR
BELOVED ONLY SON OF THE REVEREND
ACHILLES B. DAUNT
RECTOR OF EVENWOOD
BORN 1820
CRUELLY CUT DOWN 11TH DECEMBER 1854
IN HIS 35TH YEAR
For Death is the meaning of night;
The eternal shadow
Into which all lives must fall,
All hopes expire.
P.R.D.
By contrast, the neighbouring tomb carried the briefest of inscriptions, but it instantly held my attention:
LAURA ROSE DUPORT
17961824
SURSUM CORDA
Here, then, lay the mortal remains of Lord Tansors beautiful first wife, whose portrait in the vestibule had so entranced me on first seeing it, and which had continued to exert a powerful fascination over me. Standing before it, I would sometimes feel as if I were looking upon myself in some former life; at others, I would be moved to a strange certainty that I had known her actually known her, in the flesh, although the remembrance had the indistinctness of something seen from a great distance. Of course this was impossible, for she had been laid here thirty years and more before my birth; yet whenever I looked upon her lovely face, I would always experience a powerful sense of affinity that I simply could not explain, and which drew me back to the portrait time and time again. Now she, too, like her husband, was nothing but dust and bone.
It was no use. I could not hold back the morbid thoughts that naturally arise when contemplating such monuments to mortality. Shutting up my note-book, I returned to the entrance hall and slumped to the floor, overcome once more by the horror of my situation. Here I remained, unable to stem my tears, until at last I could weep no more.
How long had it been since my Lady had returned to the great house? An hour? Perhaps more. Soon I would be late attending her; then another hour would pass, and then another. Darkness would begin to fall, and what
little light there was in the Mausoleum would be extinguished. Then, for sure, the terrors would come.
I MUST HAVE fallen asleep, although for how long I cannot say; but I am awoken with a start by a sound, just a few inches above my head.
At first, I think that I have been dreaming; but then the sound comes again. It is the key turning in the lock.
Jumping to my feet, I turn to face the door; but it does not open. I hesitate for a moment, thinking perhaps that it might be my Lady returning. I consider rapidly whether I should conceal myself in the far shadows of the entrance hall, and then attempt to make my escape without being observed. But still no one enters.
I reach forward and open the door.
There is no one there. The clearing is deserted, and there is no sign of anyone on the road.
Startled by my sudden appearance, a wood-pigeon, perching on the head of one of the stone angels, flaps noisily away into the murk; but all else is silence. I step outside, and then turn to look back at the doors.
The key has gone, and with it my unknown liberator.
14
A Gift from Mr Thornhaugh
II
Receive an Apology
DOWN THE muddy track skirting the Park wall I ran, heart beating furiously, afire with blessed relief that I had been released from a most terrible fate, but anxious that it was now long past the hour when my Lady had instructed me to attend her.