The Serpent's Eye

by Brand, Thomas H.

  The second was the look of pure terror on Edgar's face. Her speech stumbled here, as if the recollection were still too fresh. She began to describe it, but seemed unable to bring herself to do so. I imagine that in the state her mind must have been in at the time, seeing her husband in death must have been too much for her constitution. I cannot say I blame her.

  Now we had come to the end of Maria's story. She told how those few possessions of value she still held were all taken to provide for the debts Edgar had accrued. In his madness it had been long since he had sent for money from England, and quickly she found herself and her son with nothing but a few items of clothing remaining them. She and the Earl had retained few friends in the city, and there was no good favour to her name. Maria had been left with little choice but to return to her family and beg for their charity. This they had given, with the frosty and rigid redemption of Catholics.

  Now I had heard this tale, her mother's reception to me, an agent of the Earl's family, became clear. Having managed to pull her disgraced daughter back from damnation, she wished to keep her from all harbingers of temptation that might appear to drag back from the brink of redemption.

  It was, by this time, well into the afternoon and I was eager for this uncomfortable conversation to come to a close. I thanked Maria and stood to take my leave. Before we left, Arthur asked her about the sheets of writing she had mentioned which had been found in the late Earl's apartments. I am grateful for his presence, for shaken as I felt I had not even thought to enquire. These artefacts from the final days of the Earl's life would have to be recovered, if only to demonstrate the state of the Earl's mind. That some wasting disease took his sanity I am now absolutely certain, and a sample of these ravings in his hand would be the proof required to show it.

  Maria told us they, along with a few other items of an equal dearth of value, were returned to her once creditors had stripped her of what possessions still remained; mostly papers and documents that had survived the Earl's madness and decline. Upon our urging, she told us she had never read them but had yet to rid herself of them either. They remained still in her family home, packed away in remembrance.

  Seeing the need to recover the Earl's last thoughts, whatever madness they may show, and to do some little charity for this poor woman, I offered payment for the recovery of the notes. Still she regarded me blankly, but I thought perhaps I saw some glimmer of emotion in her eyes as she agreed to accept my naked offer of aid; some deep acknowledgement of my pity, and a thankfulness for it. Or perhaps I simply saw what I wished to see; some sign of humanity in this fallen woman. Some indication that even one who had sinned so fully and absolutely could find redemption. In either case she agreed to bring the documents with her tomorrow when she came to pray. It would be impossible for her to do so today without her mother enquiring into her purpose.

  With that, we thanked her and gratefully took our leave. The air, still so humid and close, had taken on a sickly edge. How could such a wretched creature bear such a fragile beauty? Arthur and I spoke little on the walk back to my lodgings. My mind was filled with horror and fascination at the life to which the late Earl had sunk. All the rumours I had collected were now confirmed by his widow and companion in debauchery. I did, and still do, feel truly shaken at that which I learned today.

  Saturday, 20th April 1816

  I slept badly last night. The weather has become even closer. Twice it forced me from my bed to stand at the open window, vainly seeking some slight breeze to alleviate the heat. My shirt clings to my frame. The air outside is as still as death and I can find no relief from the humidity.

  Arthur arrived this morning, as we had arranged, but I begged off accompanying him. I put the payment I intended for the widow in his hands and asked that he might make the visit alone, for lack of sleep and the oppressive atmosphere have robbed me of my vitality and I felt in no mood to travel far.

  Cartwright, good fellow that he is, readily agreed. Indeed, he commented on my complexion and asked if I required anything that might aid my constitution. I assured him I simply needed the rest that was denied me last night, along with some respite from this infernal weather.

  Having passed on the task, I will attempt now to regain some sleep. Maybe then I shall have the strength to travel to the coffee shop and take in some air.

  Sunday, 21st April 1816

  He haunts me. While I am awake, the walls seem to close in upon me. Even in sleep I am granted no respite from the torments on my mind. The tunnel. I see the tunnel that goes on, and the endless darkness that waits beyond. I feel I have entered that darkness before, yet I have no memory of the place. The eyes. Following. Watching each and every step along this predestined and chaotic roadway. I am scared. Terrified of what I found within. I have no recollection of this place, yet I am no stranger to it. For all I have never been here before, in this life or any other, I know it. I know it too well. What did I find within? Are these truly my memories? Someone watches me. I know them, yet I do not know them. I cannot escape it.

  Friday, 27th April 1816

  I have no memory of making that last entry.

  This last week I have been struck down by a local malady, one I have been told often passes through the town in the late days of summer. The fever broke only yesterday, and I am assured I am now past the worst danger. By Señor Mercallo's account it is a common thing in these parts and none but the most infirm have any real fear from it. I cannot say I am convinced by this, for it has drained me of all strength and vigour. I can think and I can write, but any pursuits that require more than the slightest physical application are beyond me. Today the simple act of dressing myself has left me weak and breathless.

  My salvation and saviour has been the redoubtable Arthur Cartwright. When he returned last Saturday afternoon with the documents he had retrieved from the widow Maria I was not, as we had arranged, waiting at Señor Certona's coffee house. Coming to my apartments, he could get no answer from knocking upon my door. He left then, assuming I was detained upon some errand. Yet when he returned the following morning to find I was still unreachable, and knowing how I had wished to acquire those papers with all haste, he became worried. Seeking out my landlord he entreated Señor Mercallo to unbar my door with his own key. There I was found, laid out upon the floor.

  I was quickly brought down to the Mercallo's own rooms, where the family have nursed me through the illness. For this kindness, and Cartwright's diligence, I am eternally grateful. I have no others in this city I might have fallen upon in such a time, and they bore no obligation to watch over me as they have.

  As weak as I am, I am assured that now the fever has broken I am in no lasting danger, but must simply rebuild my strength. The indomitable Señora Mercallo has set it upon herself to see to my convalescence. While she has finally judged me recovered enough to return to my own room, I am still fetched down for each meal of the day. These consist of plates piled high with food, to be taken under her domineering gaze. The strict matron seems willing to force feed me if I do not eat at the required speed. I am grateful to her for her kindness, but her style of nursing is most akin to making me aware she will simply not permit me to become sick again.

  I wonder, are all women of this country so strong willed and domineering? I believe I am yet to meet one I could readily describe as demure or unassuming. Is it the climate, or possibly the breeding that makes them so different from an English lady? While those women of my own family are no wilting flowers when it comes to expressing an opinion, none have the same aggressive force of personality I have encountered here.

  Today was the first time I have felt the strength or inclination to open this journal, and am shocked to discover the previous entry; dated Sunday the twenty-first. I have no memory of writing it. Though there can be no doubt the words are written in my hand, I would readily swear that I had never seen those words before today. I can only imagine that I scribed them whilst in some nightmare; a delirium brought about by my sickness. While
I have no recollection of such a dream, or anything of that day, reading the words back now does strike some chord within me. Some echo of memory convinces me it was I who wrote the words. Reading them over leave me with an unsavoury sense of unease. I am glad I cannot recall whatever nightmare inspired them.

  I am despondent my work is now delayed by this illness, but I thank providence that it was not so much worse. As weak as it has left me, I cannot yet hope to begin again with my tasks. Even should I try, I am sure Señora Mercallo would not allow such exertion. The notes Arthur brought sit unread upon my desk. Hopefully by the beginning of the week I will have regained enough of my strength to resume my business.

  Monday, 29th April 1816

  My condition has improved much over the weekend. Señora Mercallo's stringent nursing has aided the recovery of my strength to the point where I feel almost my old self, though my clothing hangs loose on a frame that is notably slimmer than it once was.

  The humidity is still yet to break. Sleep remains uncomfortable and troubled, though not so much as before my illness. Yet this morning I awoke refreshed enough to venture once more out into the world.

  My first undertaking was to travel to the home of Arthur Cartwright to thank him most profoundly for his assistance. Not only has he been an invaluable aid to me in my business about the city, but without him I cannot say whether I would even be alive. In my weakened state, I may well have remained undiscovered until the illness had fully taken me. That this redoubtable Welshman took it upon himself, those years ago, to settle here in Argentina is something for which I shall forever be thankful. I insisted upon taking him out to lunch, and feted him with the best dining rooms I could entice him to name. We dined well. My convalescence has given me appetite far greater than usual, and through this his own was encouraged to greater excess.

  This afternoon, merry from our meal and in good spirits all round, I retired to the coffee shop of Señor Certona. Earl Edgar's notes still await me in my rooms, but I feel too well with the world to begin sifting through the final words of a sinful madman. I have managed to acquire an English newspaper from one of the latest ships to arrive in port, and for a time I am content to read of my own England. Later I shall search out a gift of some kind for Señora Mercallo, in grateful thanks for her nursing.

  Tomorrow I shall begin my work. For now, I shall enjoy my health.

  Tuesday, 30th April 1816

  My mind is troubled.

  Today I sat down to the task of sorting through the notes that were reclaimed from Lady Maria. I had expected a few sheets, nothing more. The folder Mr. Cartwright purchased from Maria, which she in turn inherited from her late husband's meagre estate, contains perhaps up to seventy pages of scrawled ramblings. With no clear order that I can discern, the ink-stained and crumpled pages that now stare up at me from the floor of my room seem to provide nothing but riddles.

  At first I had hoped that once I began I might come across some clear pattern or narrative thrust on which to order the pages. In this I was disappointed. There appears to be little enough connection between each line. At least none I can ascertain. Often a sheet will have several different amendments, seemingly added at different times. Some are crumpled, as if discarded then retrieved and reused. Some of the ink has been smudged at the time of writing, and to a greater extent than one might expect from simply careless penmanship. It is almost as if the author did not wish to see his own words. Many of the pages are burned; either with intent or perhaps the Earl was simply careless of the damage. There is a great variety in severity, with some pages badly charred and missing sections while others are merely singed. The widow did mention the remains of a fire in his rooms. I wonder whether there were many more pages that did not survive that might have garnered greater enlightenment to the rest?

  My best guess is that with the wasting disease taking his mind, Edgar was perhaps attempting to make sense of his disjointed thoughts. To stare down at this outpouring from a dying mind fills me with unease. It seems almost enough to send one to bedlam itself. It is like I am witness to his last days, his final thoughts. His collapse into mania and death.

  Perhaps I am putting too much thought into this. Is my desire to seek out meaning in a madman's words leading me to search for that which does not exist? Yet if I could finalise and resolve this before my return I can only believe that Misters Caine and Dennings would greater see my suitability for advancement within the firm. I fully admit that while many sensible men would discard these pages, my ambition drives me to do more.

  Upon discovering the random nature of the notes, I made some attempt at cataloguing what I read so I might discover some system or cypher that could aid me. I was soon forced to abandon this plan. The topics chop and change with no apparent pattern or structure. From some I can ascertain a vague meaning while others offer only chaotic gibberish.

  Some things do perhaps shed a little light on heretofore unlit points in the narrative I seek. On one page can clearly be read the words "Into the sea she went, unable to face that which would come. Poor Margaret. She never wished it, but still it comes to us. Perhaps she was more in the right than I, that in foolishness I stood to fight it still. Perhaps I am stronger, or perhaps I was the coward. I know her in the dark. The tunnel, she is there. Oh..." The rest of the line is lost where a hand has clearly smudged the words to illegibility.

  I feel there can be no doubt this paragraph refers to Lady Margaret, the Earl's first wife. "Into the sea" can clearly be interpreted as indication that she died on their voyages. The more sinister reading might infer than she in fact took her own life. Is it possible? That she shared her husband's reputation as much as the Lady Maria later did is well known. I cannot deny the possibility that, beset by a sudden remorse for her sinful life, she might undertake such an act. But what is this that he refers to as "that which would come"? Perhaps he refers to the final illness that took his own mind. Mayhap the pair knew of their contagion, and Lady Margaret could not endure the knowledge of the suffering and madness that awaited them? Or perhaps it took her far sooner than he?

  This page is one of the few to focus only on one topic. Where the ink has not been wiped and smeared, the surviving letters contain a number of other references to his late wife. "Margaret Maria. Margaret. Maria. It will not be distracted. So alike, yet the focus lies upon me" is one, and "Over her shoulder he lurks. He has Margaret, I know it, but he shall have me! Have me! Us! Me!"

  Perhaps, in his last days, the Earl's mind began to find difficulty differentiating between his two wives. At times their two names seem interchanged, at other points they are clearly seen as separate people. Another, regrettably undamaged, page seems to consist of nothing but accounts of lurid acts of sexual congress with both women. Written in a tiny, cramped hand across both sides of the sheet, the lines merge and run over each other as if written in some sort of frenzy. What incited him to write such things is beyond me. Other pages also make mention of these acts, but I shall not repeat them here.

  There is one page that refers unquestionably to Edgar's father, the Earl Andrew who died with The Endeavour. It first drew my eye as it seems to be one of the longest uninterrupted phrases in this entire macabre collection. I shall recreate it here now:

  So little did father know. Oh Andrew, Earl Andrew and foolish mother. All alone and the son so far away. No idea could he have had what all at once lay within Endeavour. So evil, so dark. Nor did I, did I know who what it was. No indeed. I should not have searched it, no. Ptalantohtep did not wish it, and now I am followed. Foolish. Foolish. Cursed cargo such things forgotten for so long. Why me why her? Others maybe. How many?

  Here at the end there looks to have once been more, but the lower portion of the page is burned away, and this is all that remains upon the unburned fragment that can be deciphered. It clearly demonstrates that Edgar had some knowledge about his parent's final voyage. I know little of the trip myself, aside from the fact they had been sailing from their estates in Ireland to Po
rtsmouth and that the ship was taken in a storm. The name Ptalantohtep is a mystery to me, if indeed it is a name. So untidy and rushed is the writing, it is hard enough to read that I might well be mistaken. What I record here is the closest facsimile I can ascertain.

  As I write the word a strange feeling comes over me. Indeed it seems to have been growing as I have continued to read these pages. I have no doubt the final words of a madman could have this effect on any man. Thoughts and questions fill my head. I must rest, lest this mood overtake me. I am simply weak from the illness. Such immersion must be overcoming me. I shall continue tomorrow.

  Wednesday, 1st May 1816

  Last night I found only a fitful slumber. I spent the preceding evening in a local tavern. I sat alone, seeking some respite from the oppressive heat. I was unable to drag my mind away from those macabre pages. Images of crazed and haphazard writing floated before my eyes. When I returned to my apartment, sleep alluded me.

  Today I continued my research on Edgar's notes. Discarding the majority of the more illegible pages, I took a sample to the coffee shop and sat poring over them once more, attempting to find some pattern or theme. My mind keeps returning to that one passage regarding Edgar's father. Of all the obscene, mysterious ramblings, this one page haunts me most. I wish I knew more about the late Earl Andrew's final voyage, but there is little I can do to discover more here. All I can imagine is Earl Edgar discovered some piece of information regarding that fateful trip that had heretofore gone undiscovered. I cannot help but wonder on this evil he mentions. Once I return home I might be able to discover more. For now, as much as I tell myself such speculation is less than idle, I cannot dismiss it.