The Beast at the Door

by Althea Blue

  It reminded her of a story she’d once heard from the Americas about something called Bigfoot, but that was just a tale told by silly people. Its eyes were bright and its head moved smoothly in her direction. Patience realized that it was looking at her and she froze, too scared to run. She berated herself for ever coming back to this house and she waited for the thing to come at her, but it didn’t. It turned away and continued pacing and roaring.

  Patience backed out of the room slowly, trying to keep silent. Why hadn’t it come after her? Was it blind? Shouldn’t it have been able to smell her at least? Her brother’s biology tutor had been very definite that animals had a much greater sense of smell than humans, and often used that sense to hunt out prey. Maybe it didn’t consider a girl prey. Maybe it didn’t like the taste. Patience shuddered with the thought that it might have enough intelligence to realize what species she was and that she wasn’t food. Then she berated herself again for jumping to conclusions. She had no idea why it hadn’t come after her, she should simply be grateful that it hadn’t.

  Passing the room she’d emerged from she took another glance out the window. It was still open and she walked toward it, meaning to exit the house and return to the woods. She heard the rain lashing down and realized she was still shivering badly. If she left the vague safety of the house she’d be likely to end up sick, and there was no one to take care of her. She closed the window nearly all the way and went out to the corridor again. She listened but could hear nothing more than the beast’s occasional roar. Did no one else inhabit the home? From what she could make out in the darkness it looked clean. There was no smell of mold, rot or even dust, so either people had been here recently, or the creature had taken up housework.

  Patience almost laughed aloud at the thought of the huge beast with a broom in one hand and a mop in the other.

  She came to a flight of stairs and climbed carefully up, keeping to the sides of the steps where they were less likely to creak under her weight. On the first floor there was a steady, pale light glowing in the hallway; enough to illuminate a row of doors on both sides. Most of the doors were closed tightly, but a few stood ajar. As she passed, Patience peered into each room. She saw a music room, with a piano in the center and a harp to one side. There was a sort of parlour, with several sofas and chairs around the large space. A few rooms had sheets draped over whatever lay inside, probably unused bedrooms. Finally, at the very end she came to a beautifully-stocked library.

  There were more lights in that room, though the fireplace was cold. Forgetting herself, Patience entered and stood in the center, slowly spinning around and letting her eyes take in the rows and rows of leather-bound books that sat neatly on shelves, piled on tables, stacked wherever there was room.

  Patience had never seen so many books. Her parents did not believe that girls should spend their time reading. “It spoils the eyes and the disposition,” Patience heard in her mother’s voice, a phrase that had been oft repeated in her childhood whenever she was caught with her brother’s books. Mason had a fairly decent collection, and although he wasn’t terribly interested in fiction, he'd pretended a love for the adventure stories that Patience craved to encourage their father to purchase them.

  Patience would read hidden in closets, under her bed, wherever her sisters wouldn’t find her and carry the transgression back to their mother. Mason let her hide in his room quite often, he’d even created a hinged side panel in his wardrobe that could be propped open to let in light. He was very clever with his hands, although their father discouraged that skill for his only son and heir. “Gentlemen do not get their hands dirty,” was the only phrase in the household that may have been used more frequently than the one about girls not reading. Neither of the children was willing to be kept from activities they loved, no matter how many times they were punished for them.

  Patience couldn’t help herself. She floated to the nearest bookshelf and let her fingers run over the spines, reading the titles one by one. There were more books than she could ever read, maybe more books than she could even touch but she would do almost anything to be given the chance to try.

  She pulled out a single volume, David Copperfield. It was a book she had loved as a child. Forgetting where she was and who else might share the house, Patience held the book, feeling a sense of loss. Her childhood, unpleasant as parts of it had been, was now definitely over and she longed to recapture just a modicum of the safety she had felt when she was too young for the worst of the fights over being a ‘young lady’ to have started. The craving to lose herself in a story and live with the characters, forgetting everything else for a time was too compelling.

  Patience had the presence of mind not to curl up in one of the big leather chairs, as she might have done at home, but made herself a space on the floor behind one of them and opened the book. The pages had been neatly cut, so someone had probably read this before her and she spared a moment to wonder who it had been, before letting her eyes caress the first words. Immediately she was transported out of the library, away from her soaked and ruined clothes and into the life of the young protagonist. So far into the story she fell that when her eyes closed between one page turn and the next, she dreamt of David and knew herself no more.

  Chapter Six

  Something feels wrong. Her fuzzy brain was not quite sure what it was. She felt a hard surface under her, nothing like a bed. Why was she sleeping on the floor? She was also colder than she could remember being, possibly ever. The thought started her shivering again. She slowly opened her eyes and saw that she was indeed lying on a floor, and not one she recognized. Blinking repeatedly she tried to focus her eyes and remember where she was. Her head hurt and she couldn’t seem to think how she'd come to be there. She felt a book in her hand, and that was familiar at least. She’d often fallen asleep reading before, but somehow this still didn’t seem right. Rolling her neck, which popped alarmingly, she raised her gaze from the wooden floor and found a girl staring at her.

  The girl wore a simple gown, loose and narrow with no evidence of corset or proper petticoats. Why was she looking at Patience? She managed to look both surprised and cross. Patience tried to identify her and failed; as far as she knew she’d never seen the girl before. Patience’s shivering increased and she realized that her dress was damp. Suddenly it all came back to her. The storm, the roaring creature, the library and David Copperfield, still in her hands. She jerked to a sitting position, suddenly wide awake and terrified. The girl didn’t look threatening, but Patience had lost a lot of trust in people over the last few days.

  “Who are you?” Patience asked, tentatively.

  The girl blinked in surprise. “I’m Ada. What are you doing here? You can’t be here, you have to go!” The words ran over each other as if Ada was trying to rush through them without thinking.

  Patience examined Ada’s dress again and decided she must be a servant, though what kind of creature needed a servant she had no idea. Maybe she was the servant of the beast’s owner. While she was processing that thought, Ada spoke again, even more quickly but with more force. “You can’t be here. It’s not safe. Please go away.”

  Patience thought about it. “I have nowhere to go. That is why I breached your hospitality. The rain was too heavy.”

  The girl, Ada, shook her head quickly. “It’s not safe for you to be here,” she repeated.

  “Because of the creature?” Patience asked.

  Ada blanched. “Yes. Because of the creature. He has a terrible temper. He hates people being here and he always kills them to eat.”

  Patience noted the pronoun. “He has not eaten you,” she pointed out.

  “I’m not… He won’t hurt me. But other people are different. He doesn’t like to be bothered. Please just go.”

  Patience felt at a disadvantage with Ada standing over her, so she stood too. She swayed a little on reaching her feet but bit the inside of her cheek and stayed upright. Automatically her hands moved to smooth her skirt into tidin
ess, but she knew it was a lost cause. She tried to ignore her bedraggled state and stood with a straight back, feet planted firmly. “I wish to seek employment, then. Please direct me to your employer. I can be a lady’s maid, or even a general housemaid.” Patience had no idea how to manage either position, but she figured she’d pick it up as she went.

  Ada blinked at her. “My… employer?” she asked. The girl seemed a little slow.

  “The person for whom you work? I am seeking employment as a servant.” Patience’s voice was firm, yet gentle. Really, there was no need to tax the girl’s mind. If she was the only servant in a house this size, and Patience had seen no sign of anyone else, then there would certainly be work for her. As long as they didn’t look too closely at her dress. “As you can see, I was caught in the storm but if you can lend me a needle and thread, I can certainly put my dress to right before I see the owner of the house.” She looked hopefully at Ada, waiting for her to agree. She had learned that tone of voice from her mother, and no one ever questioned her mother when she used it.

  The girl looked taken aback, although by what Patience wasn’t sure. “Oh yes, my employers. Well, they aren’t home right now, but they are definitely not looking for another servant so if you will just follow me to the door, I will show you out. The rain has mostly stopped now and you will be fine on the remainder of your journey.”

  Patience felt all the fire drain out of her, along with what little hope she’d had for finding somewhere to stay. Every part of her hurt, her head was pounding and her vision was starting to swim again. It took everything she had to remain standing. “Please,” she whispered. “I have nowhere else to go and it is so c-cold.”

  Ada examined her more closely. “But the creature…” she made one more attempt at protest.

  “Please. He knows I’m here already. He saw me but did not injure me. So it is fine. I promise I will not blame you if I get eaten. Just for a while. Until I get warm.” Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes and she pushed them away with the heels of her hands. Crying never solved anything and she never cried in front of a servant. Even if she was to be one herself.

  Ada nodded decisively. “You can stay until morning. Then we will see. Follow me.”

  The girl did not have the manner of a servant, Patience thought. Where she had grown up servants didn’t argue with their betters, nor did they order them around. But then Patience didn’t look like the wealthy daughter of an investor anymore. She didn’t even look like a servant.

  Not having seen a mirror for several days, she suspected she looked more like a beggar woman. There was nothing she could do about her dress or her hair at the moment, but she could definitely affect her manner. She drew up until her back was ramrod straight and pushed her shoulders back, remembering the hated lessons in deportment she had been subjected to as a child. That was one tutor her parents hadn’t argued over hiring for her. At the time she’d wished desperately to learn anything else, but now the training on presenting a good face no matter the situation was very helpful.

  She tried as hard as she could to stop shivering and ignored the black spots that floated around the edges of her vision. She focused her gaze on Ada’s back and followed her into the corridor, down the stairs, and into a warm kitchen. It wasn’t until she was seated at a scarred wooden table that Patience realized she was still clutching the copy of David Copperfield from the library. Carefully she placed it on the table and pushed it away, so Ada would know she didn’t mean to steal it. Then she turned toward the fireplace and thrust her hands out as if to clutch at the faint warmth.

  “You should take your chair closer to the fire,” Ada suggested, “so you’ll warm up faster.”

  Patience lost no time moving herself so close to the fire that, were her skirts less damp, they would likely be scorched. The fierce heat felt wonderful on her face and hands, and she could see steam rising from her clothes as they started to dry.

  Ada observed the steam. “That’s not going to work very well, one moment.” She ducked out of the room and came back with a heavy wool cloak. “You’d better take everything off so it can dry properly. You can wear this and we will hang the rest on the racks so they dry faster.” She handed the cloak to Patience and turned her back, fussing with moving a rack in front of the fire.

  Patience was quite shocked. Undressing in a kitchen seemed indecent, especially as she didn’t know who else inhabited the house. Ada’s presence didn’t bother her, but what if a man came in while she was wearing nothing but a cloak? Impossible.

  As if Ada sensed what she was thinking she spoke again. “There’s no one else here. Just us. And the creature, of course,” she added as an afterthought. “But he won’t come in here, I promise.”

  Thinking longingly of being actually warm and having dry clothes to cover her, Patience pushed her objections to the side and quickly removed her dress and underthings, stepping out of them and fastening the cloak at her throat. She held it together with one hand as she gathered her clothes with the other and lay them anywhere they seemed likely to dry. Then she sank back in the hard chair and let the fire toast her face and bare feet. Her boots were still missing, but she decided not to think about them for the time being and just focus on getting warm.

  Even with the fire built up under Ada’s sure hands, Patience was still shivering fiercely. When Ada thrust a mug full of what looked like soup into her hands they closed around it but she had to focus carefully so as not to spill as she brought it to her mouth. The hot soup burned her throat as she swallowed without waiting for it to cool, but despite the pain, the first taste reminded her stomach of how little she'd had to eat since she left home. She barely took the time to breathe as she finished the soup in unladylike gulps. Ada watched incredulously as she emptied the cup in mere moments, but didn’t comment as she retrieved the mug and filled it a second time.

  When that cup was gone too, Patience suddenly remembered her manners. Speaking through teeth that still wanted to chatter, despite the warm food and the fire, she raised her eyes to meet Ada’s. “Thank you,” she said, truly grateful for the girl’s help. “It’s very good.”

  “Do you want more?” Ada asked, still looking at Patience.

  She blushed. No lady ever accepted second helpings much less third, but her stomach was still growling and her hands still shook. “If it would not be too much trouble,” she responded weakly.

  A third cup of soup was offered to her, as well as a large hunk of brown bread. As Patience ate, Ada’s gaze never left her face. She looked worried, though Patience wasn’t sure if she was worried about her or only about her master catching her serving food to a strange girl.

  “You can stay for tonight only. I’ll prepare a bath and make up a bed for you, and find you nightclothes, since it doesn’t look like your dress will be dry very soon. In the morning I’ll make breakfast and you can be on your way.”

  Patience nodded agreement. At that point she would have agreed to anything in order to stay in the nice warm house for a little longer. She still had no intention of leaving in the morning, but it would give her longer to work on Ada and convince her that Patience could help.

  Ada retrieved a large metal tub from a side room, as Patience finished her bread. She went to a strange contraption in the corner, attached a tube to one of three metal pipes and placed the other end of it in the tub. Then she began to turn a handle. For a minute nothing happened, but then water started flowing from the tube into the tub. Patience stared in amazement at the system. It didn’t look like any hand pump she had seen before, the flow of water was steady and Ada didn’t seem to have to strain as she turned the crank. Amazement turned to astonishment as Patience noticed the steam rising from the water. The water was coming out hot! How was that possible? In only a few minutes the water was nearing the top of the tub and Ada stopped cranking to stick a finger in and test the temperature. She frowned slightly, moved the tube to a different pipe and added more water. Testing it again, she smiled. It was the fir
st time Patience had seen the girl smile and she suddenly realized that she was beautiful.

  Her entirely-plain dress, lack of ornamentation, and messily-braided dark curls had masked it before, but now that Patience really looked at her, she was astounded. She far outshone the china dolls of Patience’s acquaintance, all of them fading in comparison to this simple servant. Her cheekbones were well defined, her eyes tilted just slightly, enough to give her a faintly exotic look. Her skin was perfectly smooth, though tanned deeper than any girl Patience had ever known, and her figure, from what Patience could see under the loose gown, was perfect. She might have been a year or two Patience's senior, though she was much smaller than Patience herself. Suddenly feeling plainer that she ever had before, and realizing that she’d been staring at the girl, Patience looked down at the floor.

  Ada hadn’t seemed to notice. “You’d better climb in while the water is hot. It will stop the shivering, at least.” She placed a piece of soap within easy reach of the tub. “I’m going to find you something better to wear.”

  She left the room and Patience barely hesitated before draping the cloak over a chair and stepping into the tub. She had never felt anything more wonderful in her life as she sat down, realizing that the tub was large enough that she could sit and be fully immersed in water up to her neck, while barely having to bend her knees. The tubs they had at home weren’t nearly as roomy or comfortable, but still had to be carried by one of the manservants. Ada had managed this huge thing by herself, she must be very strong. Patience’s mind wandered as she felt her body relax into the warmth. She considered the process of putting water into the tub and realized how much effort it would save people. In Patience’s house, servants had to heat the water in a cauldron in the kitchen and bring it upstairs two bucketfuls at a time. By the time it reached the tub it had often cooled enough that Patience didn’t wish to linger, but in this tub the water was almost too hot, and seemed to stay warm much longer than she was used to.