The Storyteller's Muse

by Traci Harding

  ‘My sister never held any malice against you for your deception. And would certainly not wish you to waste your life with her tormentor. So you are free to leave him if you wish. Your sacrifice serves no one; Emeline can take care of herself.’

  Margret wiped her face on her shirt sleeves and finished dressing. ‘If you are in contact with your sister, tell her that I will prove my love, and she will know that I loved her truly.’

  ‘Don’t bother.’ Emanuel grabbed her by the arm and escorted her to the front door. ‘I cannot tell you how much my sister and I detest drama.’

  He opened the door and deposited her in the foyer. ‘And if you ever tell anyone who Em Jewel really is, I surely will have your throat cut.’ He returned inside and slammed the door closed.

  The Hotel Royal, where the Lady Pettigrew was staying as a guest, was abuzz the following morning with news of her death. Henry came downstairs for breakfast in the dining room, to find crowds had gathered to watch medics carry a covered body on a stretcher out of the hotel. Police were urging people to go about their business, except for Lord Pettigrew — who had finally made an appearance — he was being waylaid from check-in for questioning.

  ‘I just got here! And she’s not my wife,’ he was telling the officer. ‘Which part of I’m not married do you not understand? I’ve had trouble with this girl before, posing as my spouse and living off my credit.’ Pettigrew spotted Henry, who immediately headed into the dining room.

  It wasn’t too long before Pettigrew came to seek him out.

  ‘I thought I recognised you.’ He approached seeming friendly. ‘It’s been a long time, Mr Chesterfield.’

  Henry frowned as if trying to place him. ‘Oh yes, I remember now, you’re the fellow who was so fond of my Lady Fairchild that she moved continents to escape you. You seem to be in a spot of bother with the police this morning?’

  ‘A trifle, really.’ Pettigrew took a seat at the table. ‘Some whore I gave the time of day to once persists in going around posing as my wife and extorting money out of me,’ he explained. ‘Oh, that’s right, you knew her. She worked for your Ladyship for a time.’

  ‘Alice Roy?’ Henry was horrified, having only seen her yesterday. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Her real name is Maggie something-or-other. For some unexplainable reason, she decided to hire a room under the guise of being my wife, only to off herself.’

  ‘Off herself? You mean she —’

  ‘Indeed.’ Pettigrew passed a finger across his throat to concur. ‘She left a note, saying I have been holding her captive for years, and then cut her tongue out and suffocated on her own blood.’

  Henry’s stomach turned, and he covered his mouth as he near brought up his breakfast. ‘Oh my God —’ What was she even doing here, when he’d left her with Emanuel?

  ‘I know!’ Pettigrew emphasised how insane he thought the situation. ‘I wasn’t even in town, so how could I have been holding the woman captive? Seriously. Rather coincidentally, I’ve actually been in the country looking at an estate that was erected where your Ladyship’s family home once stood.’

  ‘My Lord, I seem to have lost my appetite,’ Henry moved to excuse himself.

  ‘But I haven’t told you the most interesting part,’ Pettigrew waylaid Henry’s departure. ‘The developers had to relocate the Fairchild family cemetery before they built on the site. But when they did, they found one corpse too many. The police believe it to be the body of the housekeeper who vanished the same day that your Ladyship died birthing her . . . twins.’

  Inside Henry’s panic began rising. ‘Mrs Beech.’ He had often wondered when she was going to come back to haunt him.

  ‘Naturally I was very curious to learn that the midwife who attended the birth was still alive. So I went to pay her a visit. She retired very comfortably for a woman of little means, something the police obviously didn’t think to question.’ He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. ‘I must say Sister Cole’s faculties proved very acute when she spoke to me of that day.’

  ‘I would rather not reminisce.’ Henry stood, not to be toyed with.

  ‘You must have appreciated Sister Cole’s assistance during the birth very much, to have been paying her a retainer every month since.’ Pettigrew smiled confidently. ‘Anyway, you can take her off the payroll now, she died the very day I visited.’

  Was Pettigrew implying he’d done away with her? And what else might she have told him under extreme duress? ‘Death seems to follow you everywhere you go.’

  ‘Then perhaps it is best that you depart.’ The Lord seemed content to let him leave. ‘But don’t forget to sign for your breakfast.’ He motioned to the bill folder seated on the table.

  Henry retrieved the item, deciding to sign at the counter and give the bill directly to the cashier, rather than leave his room details at the table with Pettigrew.

  ‘If you want my advice, Mr Chesterfield, I’d be getting out of town rather quickly, if I were you.’

  ‘Sir, I feel that your talent for telling tales is wasted on me.’ Henry kept his cool, although he was fuming on the inside.

  ‘Who is Em Jewel, I wonder?’ Pettigrew posed smugly. ‘And why did your artist paint a picture of my lady stalker and the mysteriously vanished Lady Fairchild in a painting? I will find out.’

  Henry forced a smile. ‘It seems you do have an imagination, after all.’

  When Henry made it back to his room his heart was beating like he’d just run ten laps of the building. If Pettigrew had told the police about his payments to Sister Cole it wouldn’t be long before they would suspect that he’d been paying the midwife to keep quiet about the murder, and Henry couldn’t reveal the true reason for his patronage. No one would believe the nurse had done the killing, and even if they did, Henry was an accessory after the fact. He couldn’t protect Emanuel if he was in prison, and that would suit Pettigrew’s designs perfectly.

  ‘God damn that man!’ Henry poured himself a brandy and drank it down, hoping to recover his wits.

  He had to assume Pettigrew would be keeping an eye on his movements — or paying someone else to do it — in the hope that Henry would lead him back to his charge.

  ‘Margret was telling the truth,’ he realised in retrospect. Had she killed herself to prevent telling Pettigrew anything? What if Pettigrew had killed Margret after he’d found out where Emanuel was and then staged his late arrival?

  The thought struck the fear of God into Henry; as dangerous as it was he had to get word to Emanuel.

  Emanuel had utterly refused to have a telephone installed in the warehouse as he considered it a useless, noisy distraction. Thus Henry pulled some paper from a drawer and began to scribble a note, but was overwhelmed by the thought of writing a full account of their woes. He’d never told his charges anything about their birth beyond the death of their mother, and it was not something to be conveyed in haste. Then he realised he’d already written a full account.

  ‘My journal.’ Henry kept it locked and with him at all times, but if he was arrested it must not be found on his person. He had to wonder now what had possessed him to write a full account of that day?

  After the shock of it all, he’d needed to purge himself of the experience and for lack of a confessor, he’d poured the event out on paper. Perhaps the journalist in him secretly wanted some compelling reading in his memoir? Any sensible person would have torn out the pages and burnt them by now, or burnt the whole diary for that matter! Yet something had stayed his hand, be it ego or intuition. If he hadn’t refrained and kept the journal, he would have found himself with a far more daunting task in this moment. The risk was about to prove extremely fortuitous or utterly fatal.

  Henry made one last entry in the journal and placed a ribbon marker on that page, and another ribbon marker on his account of the day the twins were born, then closed the journal and locked it. Once the item and its key were wrapped in paper and bound with string, he rang down to the hotel switchboard to request a
delivery boy.

  When the lad arrived, Henry checked the hallway to ensure no one saw him enter, and paid him handsomely to cut a route to his destination that was difficult to follow. He instructed him to take the parcel to the top floor of the building, knock and leave.

  ‘Then you must forget you ever delivered it,’ Henry instructed.

  ‘For this amount of money I’d forget my own mother,’ the young man assured him.

  Henry stuck his head out the door to ensure the coast was clear and no one saw the lad leave.

  When the delivery boy had gone, Henry poured himself another drink. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but then he wasn’t easily unnerved. ‘I should have listened to Emanuel . . . coming out into the open was a mistake.’

  He’d always believed that only death itself would separate him from his charge, but he was too old to go to prison. He couldn’t kill Pettigrew, but he couldn’t give his nemesis what he wanted either, so this was a stalemate. Emanuel had to flee, but with Em Jewel’s first exhibition today, he was not going to like to be cheated out of his comfortable escape into obscurity, just hours before its realisation.

  Miss Manning had already sold several of the paintings in pre-opening private viewings, and expected the rest to sell just as quickly.

  It angered Henry that the promising careers of both his charges — and only God knew how many others — had been destroyed by one man, whose only ability was to find fault in the creativity of others. Pettigrew was a serial killer as surely as if he’d taken a knife and slit their throats; he took livelihoods away with one fell swoop of the pen. Envy was surely the ugliest of all the deadly sins.

  The smell of the roast beef wafting through the house was driving Peter’s empty stomach into a frenzy. He glanced at the time, and only having half an hour before Fred and Spooky would be on his doorstep, he decided to knock off. He had no hope of getting the next scene out anyway, so best to wait for tomorrow. It would be interesting to see what his dreams would disclose this evening, for he had but one scene left and still no conclusion.

  ‘It smells amazing in here.’ Peter inhaled deeply as he entered the kitchen to find Mrs Eddington transferring roast vegetables into a serving dish, around the edge of a Beef Wellington. ‘You have excelled yourself!’

  ‘Just wait until you taste it.’ She placed a large lid over the server and popped the lot back in the oven.

  ‘All ready to go. The gravy is here.’ She pointed to a ladle and dish covered with foil before closing the oven. ‘The dining room is set. Dessert is in the fridge.’

  Peter had to take a peek and found a large cheesecake topped with passionfruit. He was beyond grateful. ‘Fred will never leave. Thanks so much for all of this.’

  ‘You want to make a good impression.’ Her wink assured him it was no bother.

  ‘Bar is stocked.’ Mr Eddington joined them in the kitchen. ‘Plenty of whisky.’

  ‘Excellent, that’s Spooky taken care of.’ Peter could not have been happier.

  ‘Shall we wait for your guests to arrive?’ Mr Eddington kindly offered to stay and attend them.

  ‘No, I think it shall be a fairly informal affair,’ Peter said. ‘You go and enjoy your dinner, for we certainly shall.’

  The wait for his guests to arrive was driving him nuts and he’d only been alone for ten minutes.

  He’d checked the dinner, stoked up the fires in the lounge and dining room, and then browsed his messages to ensure his esteemed guests hadn’t cancelled. They had not, and his excitement soared, or was it nerves? There was such a very fine line between these two emotions. A year ago Peter wouldn’t have known that, as nothing much ever inspired him. Being constantly happy and motivated was a whole new experience! Every day brought some new and exciting adventure for him to challenge himself with. If he’d known following his passion was going to be like this he would have never allowed himself to get side-tracked. Easy to say when all the risk had been taken out of the equation by Penelope’s generosity. But Peter liked to think he would have quit nursing to pursue writing anyway. He was beginning to understand that his writing comfort may not have been why Penelope had left him her house. Without the clues Penelope had collected he wouldn’t have a story period. She must have been deeply conflicted about whether to hand over the tale; on one hand she wanted to aid her muse of many years, but on the other hand, there was a darker element at play within this particular tale that Penelope perhaps didn’t have the resources to deal with. That was quite possibly why she had wanted Peter to steer clear of Em’s story. Penelope was no stranger to esoteric doctrine and phenomenon, her library was testament to that. If she didn’t have the resources to deal with this, was Peter being arrogant to think that he did?

  The buzz from the front gate security com startled Peter back to the present and he headed to the control panel located by the phone to let them in. When he got to the gate monitor, Spooky could be seen filling the screen.

  ‘Hello? Somebody called muse-busters?’ the horror writer asked in his broad Scottish accent as Peter pressed the button that opened the gate.

  ‘Come on down, gentlemen.’

  Peter stood in the open doorway as the cab drove up — it was rather surreal watching two of his favourite authors ascending the stairs towards him.

  ‘I brought whisky!’ Spooky held up his offering.

  ‘As did I,’ Peter assured him.

  ‘Good lad,’ he awarded. ‘You have a fine future in my friend circle.’

  ‘Thank you both for coming. I really wasn’t expecting you to run to my aid.’

  ‘Not at all, I’m getting rather curious about this muse of yours.’ Fred paused to take a good look at the front of the manor. ‘I must say, this is not what I expected from a struggling writer.’ Fred looked to Peter. ‘Are we to discover that you are really Batman?’

  Peter found his assessment very amusing, and standing aside he motioned them inside ahead of him. ‘I inherited this house, its stories and muses from Penelope Whitman.’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Fred, as he entered and looked about with heightened curiosity. ‘In that case I am greatly honoured, I’m a huge fan!’

  ‘I’ve never been here either.’ Spooky was also curious. ‘I met Penelope a few times, but she’d long since stopped giving wild parties by the time we were moving in the same circles.’

  ‘Yes, quite,’ Fred concurred, and with a deep inhale his smile broadened. ‘Smells fabulous!’

  A unanimous decision was reached to forgo the tour until after dinner, so they settled straight down in the dining room. As Peter served up the roast, he explained his dreams, particularly last night’s, in more detail; omitting the part about Gabrielle being choked or her dead grandmother showing up in his dream the night previous.

  ‘Are you planning on attempting lucid dreaming tonight?’ Fred queried as he watched Peter place a large piece of Beef Wellington on his own plate.

  ‘I’d like to try.’

  ‘Then you might want to keep the red meat and alcohol to a minimum,’ Fred advised. ‘Neither will really aid your cause. In fact, the less you eat the better.’

  ‘Oh.’ Peter gazed at his dinner mournfully. ‘Looks like veggies and water for me then.’

  ‘That’s a bit bloody rough,’ Spooky objected. ‘I think Books is just making sure he gets a second helping.’

  ‘Not true. Just voicing my own observation,’ Fred defended.

  ‘I can’t imagine you ever forgoing food, period! How the hell did you make this discovery?’ Spooky challenged.

  ‘This tip was pointed out to me when I was first having difficulty lucid dreaming, and abstaining did make a difference.’ Fred poured gravy all over his serving. ‘I’d just stuff myself afterwards.’

  ‘I don’t mind, really,’ Peter interjected in the dispute. ‘Mrs Eddington will make me Beef Wellington any time I choose, but as I don’t want to see her efforts go to waste, anyone is welcome to my share.’

  ‘So there.’ Fred was happy to
be vindicated as he tucked into his dinner, and groaned with delight at the taste.

  ‘You really know how to make friends and influence people,’ Spooky awarded Peter his due.

  Peter shrugged, happy to oblige. ‘But do leave room for dessert.’

  ‘Ha-ha.’ Fred was ecstatic. ‘I’m never leaving.’

  ‘So back to your muse dilemma.’ Spooky cut into his food. ‘The dreams were fairly unthreatening until the last few nights . . . what caused the shift, do you think?’

  Peter didn’t want to say too much on that subject, in case the walls had ears. ‘I feel my tale is heading into territory that perhaps one of the characters doesn’t want revealed.’

  ‘That’s a given in any story,’ Fred warranted, ‘or otherwise there would be no tale.’

  ‘What if your muse was a ghost and your tale turned out to be non-fiction?’ Peter looked from Fred to Spooky, who were both grinning with intrigue.

  ‘Then I’d say you,’ Spooky motioned with his knife-tip towards Peter, ‘might be in a spot of bother.’

  ‘Will it be enough to be able to become conscious inside my dream world?’ Peter postulated, only now realising his plan might fall short of the mark. ‘Can I seize control if I am not the only wilful participant in that world?’

  Spooky raised his brows and looked to Fred to refer the query to him.

  ‘Well, it may be that what you are experiencing is more than just a dream state, it could be a paranormal episode,’ Fred advised. ‘But with any battle, in any world, science tells us that a lesser force will always give way to a greater power. And I’m not just speaking about physical strength. Mental, moral and emotional fortitude are essential for channelling willpower and energy. Intention and imagination are the great orchestrators of reality, in every realm of existence.’

  ‘So the only way I’m going to know if my will is stronger than my opponent’s, is to give it a go and find out.’ Peter was resolved.

  ‘Pretty much.’ Spooky paused for a sip of whisky.

  If what Fred claimed was the case then this little experiment was a true test of Peter’s own creative ability. Even as a fledgling writer, he liked to think that he could out-imagine a man who, by all accounts, was devoid of artistic ability.