Household

by Stevenson, Florence

  “I do thank God for that,” he said feelingly.

  “But not where Great-grandfather or Mark can hear you,” she cautioned. “Or Colin or Juliet.”

  “I know. Such names cannot be uttered in the presence of the damned without inflicting severe physical pain upon them.”

  “Oh, you are so understanding, love.” She rose on tiptoe to graze his chin with her lips and was caught in his ardent embrace.

  “Lucy,” he murmured passionately, “you are my life.”

  “And you are mine, my beloved.”

  Reluctantly they drew apart, and Lucy, leaning on her husband’s arm, came to take her seat at the table in the curtained and shadowy front parlor.

  She was surprised by the varied ages of the group, which she had expected to be mainly in the fifties. Instead, those present ranged in age from Eliza’s 25 to a possible 70 which might approximate the years of Samuel Gillette. He was a crusty-looking man with jutting eyebrows over pale blue eyes set in a hawklike countenance. His expression was fierce and intolerant, reminding her of a predator on the prowl for prey—herself, she decided as she met his suspicious and challenging glare. Riner, a thin, dark intense individual, also seemed to impale her with his own piercing stare. He, she decided, was in his mid-thirties, while James Mitchell and Origen Hoyt were both in their forties, calm and grave of demeanor. She judged them to be very conservative in dress and thought, waiting to be shown the validity of her mediumship, neither believing nor disbelieving. Ward Beauchamp, in dark clothes and a reversed white collar, did not remind her of the conventional minister. He was short, fair and with a pixyish face. His eyes, a bright hazel, were agleam with humor as if he found the sitting a huge joke. Stephen Hawley, the reporter, was young and not yet out of his twenties. He, too, was small but fiery-eyed and obviously a skeptic. She could actually feel his belligerence. Arthur Seymour, on the other hand, was fair, handsome, gentle and hopeful. She liked him immediately. She did not like Thornton Brace, the scientist, a tall, spare, dignified man of 50 with a shock of iron grey hair and narrow, intolerant grey eyes. She thought he looked at her resentfully, as if she were a specimen on a laboratory slide. Between Hawley, Brace, Gillette, Riner and possibly Beauchamp, there would be a great deal of negative energy, she feared.

  Eliza appeared to be a trifle apprehensive. Lucy smiled at her. She was a beautiful woman with lustrous bronze hair and huge green eyes which radiated innocence and sweetness. It was a wonder that Swithin had not been attracted to her. Probably they had known each other too well—at least on his side. Mrs. Tate was a pretty little woman with dark hair and sparkling hazel eyes. Mrs. Osbourne was tall, imposing and in her late fifties. She was very much the grande dame, radiating dignity and self-importance as becomes one who headed committees to reform and rehabilitate fallen women and to abolish the consumption of alcohol and the use of tobacco. She was a charter member of the League of Decency and the most conservatively dressed among the ladies, wearing a neat grey silk gown over a small crinoline. Dolly Tate’s crinoline was huge, her gown much frilled and beribboned as was that of Eliza. Lucy had the feeling that Mrs. Osbourne disapproved of them, but not, she decided, as much as she disapproved of herself. She was receiving withering stares from Mrs. Osbourne’s cold grey eyes. Obviously the lady was of much the same opinion as Gillette and the other skeptics. It would be a pleasure to close her eyes and shut them out, of her field of vision. She was frankly glad that the Old Lord would soon be taking over for her.

  . After acknowledging the last of the introductions, Lucy leaned back in her chair and in that moment experienced a strong feeling of apprehension. She felt a pressing need to warn... whom? Much to her surprise, she also felt herself growing sleepy. That did not usually happen so quickly, and at this moment she did not want it to happen at all. Her alarm was increasing, and instinctively she knew it was important to remain awake. She tried to wing such a message to the Old Lord, but inexorably her eyelids were growing heavy. She could not hold them up. It was with an unanticipated, unusual fear that she felt the drumming in the middle of her forehead. She waged a losing battle against unconsciousness and finally with a little frightened moan, she went into darkness and oblivion.

  Swithin had read the panic in Lucy’s eyes. He stepped forward, wanting to awaken her, but in that same moment, laughter trilled forth from her throat, light, mocking and at the same time menacing.

  He listened incredulously. In the last months he had been present at many séances. They rarely began so quickly, and the entities that came were generally solemn to the point of being pedantic, those who were not numbered among the so-called “dear departed,” he amended mentally. These latter were often distressingly lachrymose, but those brought from distant planes by the Old Lord—and who were expected to be present today—talked of the new order and world harmony. In the case of Napoleon, a frequent visitant, he berated Tallyrand and Wellington, or in one poignant memory, he had shivered through the charred buildings and icy streets of Moscow. Julius Caesar in difficult Latin jeered at the blue-painted Briton, and a shade, identifying herself as Queen Elizabeth, bemoaned the bed manners of Sir Francis Bacon, thus adding an interesting sidelight to British history. None, however, had laughed so airily; it was a strangely beguiling sound, that continuing laughter.

  “Who is present?” Gillette demanded, as leader of the group.

  Silence answered him. The laughter ceased abruptly. “Miss Veringer must have been laughing at us,” Mrs. Osbourne stated icily, staring at the somnolent Lucy as if she had been one of her erring prostitutes, Swithin thought indignantly.

  “I repeat,” Gillette said loudly, “Who is present?”

  “You are assuming a great deal if you imagine anyone is present,” Thornton Brace said caustically.

  “Please,” Swithin protested gently, “we did not want any negative vibrations.”

  “I’m surprised at you, Mr. Blake,” Stephen Hawley snapped. “I had the impression that you were a reputable lawyer but...”

  “Hush,” Gillette commanded. “We are not here to argue but to conduct a scientific investigation into the nature of the phenomena produced by this medium.”

  “Who is known to be remarkable,” Seymour agreed. “Indeed, she is,” Eliza said staunchly.

  Swithin listened with a mixture of gratitude and concern. The reference to his profession had shaken him. He had not really given much thought to the impression he must be making by acting as coordinator. Undoubtedly he would be mentioned in the newspaper but, he reasoned defensively, he was in good company. The people assembled here were prominent and respected and were lending themselves to this inquiry, except that they and Hawley, as well, were observers rather than a participant. He could imagine himself pilloried in one of the reporter’s waspish articles, but he stifled a sigh, knowing it was too late to repine. It would not be the first time he had been involved in controversy, and undoubtedly it would not be the last, not with a famed medium for a wife.

  “Who is present?” Gillette bent his fierce gaze on Lucy’s unconscious form.

  A bell rang, a little tinkle such as Swithin had heard when the host was lifted in the Catholic church he visited in Rome. But something told him that this particular sound had nothing to do with churches. It was playing a merry tune. What did that signify? Mediums sometimes produced musical notes from horns and tamborines, but Lucy had never introduced them into her sittings. In fact he had heard her dub them “irresponsible fakery.”

  Another bell rang, drowning out the tune. Its tone was deep and booming, followed by another and another until the room reverberated to the sound of bells. Startled, even frightened, Swithin pressed his hands against his ears, but even as he did so, the clamor ceased. There was a dead silence, broken only by the gasps of those at the table.

  “Trickery!” Hawley said predictably but in a shaken voice.

  “Indeed, I... m-must agree,” Mrs. Osbourne said, sounding similarly discomforted.

  “The spirits are out
to confound us,” Dolly Tate commented lightly.

  Swithin was about to launch another protest when the voice in Lucy laughed again. “My name is Bell!” it announced.

  Suddenly the table moved, up and down, up and down. The chandelier swayed, and the curtains at the windows fluttered as if in a high wind. An ornament of some kind crashed to the floor.

  “A poltergeist,” Arthur Seymour exclaimed.

  “An evil spirit,” Ward Beauchamp commented. “Interesting but spurious.”

  “Quite!” snapped Thornton Brace.

  “Richard, poor, poor Richard,” mocked the voice.

  “Poor Richard? Has Benjamin Franklin invaded these hallowed precincts?” Dolly Tate inquired.

  “Hush!” exclaimed Riner.

  “I command you to go away, woman,” boomed a deep hollow voice.

  “Command away, Richard, but you are no longer a proud landowner with minions to serve you, to use their mallets and their sledgehammers to knock a poor woman’s house to the ground and spill the elixir that she bartered her soul to concoct,” railed the voice. “Did you imagine, Richard, that you could escape my vengeance by fleeing across the seas? Did you and yours hope to settle for a dynasty of Boston Veringers or Blakes, as the case might be? Not yet, my poor love. As ’twas for me, the byways of the world still beckon, and none shall give you nor those who bear even a drop of your blood in their veins a haven here. Yes, even the babe that grows in this womb will share my suffering!”

  “You’re dead and can do nothing!” cried the hollow voice in tones that resounded through the room but seemed to come from nowhere.

  “You’re dead, dead, dead, Richard, and can do less!”

  A man rose from the table and stalked toward the curtained windows. It was Thornton Brace.

  “Sit down, sir,” Swithin ordered. “You are breaking the contact.”

  “Contact, indeed. Arrant fakery!” Brace retorted contemptuously.

  “Sit down, man,” rasped Samuel Gillette.

  “Let him sit or stand,” laughed the voice that issued from Lucy’s throat. “Erlina Bell does not need him. Erlina Bell does not need you, Richard, to bring her here. She had been waiting and watching, biding her time until it should be ripe, which now it is. Her hatred’s not so easily appeased. You have been brought low, Richard, you and the rest of your wretched tribe, but I am not satisfied.”

  “Who the hell is Erlina Bell?” muttered Stephen Hawley.

  Erlina Bell. Swithin had heard the name, but he could not place it.

  “It does not matter who she is,” Arthur Seymour said eagerly. “She is an entity and possibly evil.”

  “Possibly evil, possibly evil?” chanted the voice. “Entirely evil, entirely evil, Mr. Seymour, and you know about evil, do you not?”

  Swithin saw him blanch. “I... I do not understand you,” Seymour said nervously.

  “You understand, Mr. Principal,” tittered the voice. “Who last came to be caned in your office? Was it Howard or Johnny?”

  “What are you saying, you lying witch?” he demanded furiously.

  “Hush!” Gillette ordered.

  Who was Erlina Bell? Swithin racked his brains and still came up with no answers. He was feeling very odd and more than a little dizzy. There was, he suddenly noticed, a strange smell in the room—of incense. Again he was reminded of a Roman church and wondered whether or not he was imagining it. No one had burned incense in this room during a séance, not since he had attended them, but the odor in his nostrils was heady, even beguiling, like some strange exotic perfume.

  A dancer in a Parisian café on the Left Bank had been steeped in such a scent. He flushed at the memory of her golden body, naked in his arms. Why was he remembering that wild night, he, a staid married man of three months standing? Something deep within him chuckled and gave him the lie. His senses were stirred, and there were other odd images in his mind—he and that golden dancer, writhing together in her incense-filled room. In his ears was sound, music, another merry tune.

  “Come and dance with me, dance with me, dance with me. All of you come and dance with Erlina Bell,” trilled the voice. Lucy rose from table and whirled across the room.

  Swithin leaped to his feet, full of trepidation, but Lucy came to a stop near the windows and stood beckoning with both little hands, a beguiling smile on her lips, provocative and wicked. He started toward her only to have his attention deflected by a movement at the table. Turning, he saw Mrs. Osbourne rise and step forward. She, too, was smiling. He wanted to order her to sit down, but he could not seem to frame the words. He could only stare as very deliberately she began to whirl around the room, and as she whirled, she tittered madly.

  Stopping suddenly, she plucked furiously at her garments, jerking at hooks, ripping and tearing them when they would not yield. In an amazingly short time, her gown lay on the floor and she stood in camisole and crinoline over several petticoats, which she stripped off in rapid succession, still tittering. Her knickers and camisole followed. In a few more moments, she was naked as the proverbial jaybird and still tittering madly.

  Swithin rose to stop her, but as he went toward her, he found he did not want to stop her, even though naked she was a pitiable sight with her withered breasts hanging down like the teats of a worn-out sow. She seemed completely unaware of the image she presented as licking her lips, she cried, “Come and dance with me, all of you! Come, come, come and dance with Satan upon this lovely heath!” Raising her thin legs she leaped and cavorted about the room, interspersing her movements with incredibly obscene gestures, her grey hair loosed from its pins and falling in thin locks over her bony shoulders.

  Incredibly, Samuel Gillette brushed past Swithin, and he, too, was naked, his body even uglier than that of Mrs. Osbourne, being thin, bony and pallid with huge freckles on his back. Swithin’s ears were attuned a great pushing away of chairs and looking back at the table, he saw that all the men were on their feet, their hands busy with buttons and braces as they endeavored to disrobe as fast as possible.

  Music. He had heard the music before and now he heard it again, only louder. Coupled with it was low laughter, and what manner of tune could it be? It seemed to be produced by drums and violins. The drums were louder than the violins, a rhythmic beat that made him eager to move in time to it. His body was invaded by the rhythm, and he forgot his confusion and surprise, everything save the need to join in the dance. He was warm and growing warmer; his cravat was too tight, choking him. He ripped it off. His clothes seemed to be weighing his body down. He did not need them. If he were to dance, he must be free of all these restraints. He shrugged off his jacket and fumbled at the fastenings of his trousers, laughing as they slid to the floor. He stepped out of them, unlaced his boots and finally was naked, too.

  He looked around him and saw that the group was forming a circle. Something inside of him told him he must stop them, but he did not want to stop them, could not stop them because there was a whisper in his ear, commanding him to obey the prompting of his senses. Someone tugged at his hand, and turning he found Eliza, beautiful in her nakedness, her bronze hair falling to her waist and a look in her green eyes he had never seen before.

  “Come and dance, Swithin,” she crooned. “Come and dance, my dearest love.”

  But he was not her love. His eyes fell on her breasts, and though he knew he was not her love, he wanted to... He was whirled around and around, and he found that Stephen Hawley was on his other side. He was growing dizzy as he continued to whirl and stamp and hop to the pounding of the drums and the shriek of the violins. It seemed to him that he had danced this way before, only it had been in the fields before a small stone house. He had danced and danced, and then, seizing the woman who danced beside him, he had thrown her to the earth and copulated with her, as had all of them, finding partners and raising the energy they needed to summon winds and sink ships, to raise demons and thwart the godly—to serve Satan!

  The imagery fled, and he saw that the circle
had broken up and some of the group were embracing. There was Arthur Seymour, his hair wet with sweat and plastered against his head. His calm dignity was gone. He was chanting loudly, each word from his lips an obscenity. Catching Swithin’s eyes upon him, he smiled provocatively and moved nearer but was pulled away by Herman Riner, who kissed him full on his smiling lips. A second later Swithin saw them, still locked in an embrace, sink to the floor. He laughed and moved away from them. His loins throbbed. He wanted his dancer, his golden dancer. Her memory was large in his mind, but Eliza was beside him again, clutching him, her hands slippery with sweat, fastening about his thighs, sliding knowingly around them to caress him. They fell to the floor, and she was golden. He lay atop her, breathing heavily, thrusting himself against her, while she pressed open-mouthed kisses upon his chest. But this was madness! Lucy, Lucy! He pulled away from Eliza. Her frustrated screams followed him, as he stumbled blindly forward and fell. He rose, only to be pulled down by Mrs. Osbourne, who in turn was clutched by Samuel Gillette. She howled with frustration as Swithin wrenched himself away from them and saw that Eliza now lay with Stephen Hawley, who was eagerly finishing the invasion he had begun.

  He heard a scream and recognized Lucy’s voice. Staring in that direction, he saw only a mass of writhing bodies. No, there she was, fighting James Mitchell who was endeavoring to mount her.

  He flung himself on the man and pulled him away, kicking him savagely in the ribs. Then Lucy was against him, naked, a wanton smile on her lips, caressing him, and in that voice that was not her voice whispering words that both thrilled and titillated him, while he knew somewhere in his befogged mind that it could not be Lucy who was inciting him to caress her in ways that would have been totally foreign to her. The wild music was loud in his ears but no louder than the beating of his heart as he possessed her. Finally, when he raised his eyes from his wife’s beautiful little body, he saw Dolly Tate, fleeing from Origen Hoyt but laughing as he caught her, only to be pulled away from him by Ward Beauchamp, who pinioned her against the wall. At his command, she knelt, open-mouthed to service him. Origen Hoyt threw himself against the minister, who thrust a fist in his eye. Yelling, he stumbled back, while Beauchamp, pulling Dolly Tate down, began to caress her. She laughed loudly as Hoyt stumbled toward Lucy. Swithin knocked him down, only to be attacked by Thornton Brace, who also clawed at Lucy. Mrs. Osbourne suddenly joined them, clutching Brace, who thrust her back with a sharp elbow to her stomach. With a howl, she fell writhing to the floor. Hoyt, recovering, once more grabbed at Lucy. Brace stumbled toward Dolly Tate and tried to kick Beauchamp away, but the agile young minister grabbed at his feet and sent him crashing down, where Mrs. Osbourne, shrieking obscenities, clawed at Brace’s bare chest. In Swithin’s arms, Lucy laughed low and in her throat as James Mitchell tried to pull her away from her husband. Swithin, thrusting at him, was caught and pinioned by Hoyt. He tried to get away, but Hoyt proved to be stronger than he looked. Meanwhile Brace, freed from Mrs. Osbourne, joined Mitchell in capturing a giggling Lucy. Swithin writhed in his captor’s grasp trying to reach her.