by Louis Bayard
Another hydraulic surge with my left arm, and Colin’s feet at last find their foundation. Trembling, he lets go my hand and throws himself against the stone wall as though it were a nursing breast.
Below us, the match-flame flutters out, then starts back into life—hovers now directly below us. We stifle our panting, we flatten ourselves against the wall…and we wait, in an agony of suspense.
A full minute passes before we hear Rebbeck’s flat, hard voice, calling:
—Fetch me a lantern.
Which is to say, we have not escaped; we have only purchased time. Time enough, anyway, to examine our options, which, on closer scrutiny, dissolve into one. We must follow this ledge away from the portico entrance…plunge into the mist in the hope that we can take ourselves out of the range of Rebbeck’s search party.
From the direction of the portico comes the next wave of light, larger and more assertive and moving more rapidly than before. A prod to our own feet, which take longer, quicker steps and carry us with relative ease along the stone ledge, even as the light bears down on us.
I can’t say how exactly the equilibrium shifts, but at some indefinable moment, we look down and realise, with a salutary shock, that the light is falling further behind, dropping lower and lower as the search party descends the steps towards the lawn.
Before much longer, the light has come to a complete halt, and now only a single conclusion is possible: they have reached the bottom of the stairs. Some five minutes pass before the light streams back up the stone stairs to the portico entrance, where Rebbeck and his two minions, to all appearances, take up their old vigil.
Liberated for the moment, we unclench our bodies and move along the front of the building in an easier rhythm, until we have attained something approaching relaxation. A little too close to relaxation, as I discover when my leading foot, expecting more ledge, finds nothing but wobbling air, and my torso, weighed down by the knapsack, makes ready to follow. It is Colin’s turn to grab me.
—Bleedin’ corners, he whispers.—Get you every time.
Fortunately, the ledge, like the building, makes a ninety-degree turn to the west, and we follow it round, resuming our single-file pilgrimage. Ten feet along, we are slowed by something new: an amber vent in the fog, diffusing and then disappearing entirely, only to resolve again as a plain double-hung window, smouldering with refracted light.
Here, before we even expected it, a vantage point on the house’s interior, and yet whatever germ of excitement opens inside me is at once smothered by the instinct for caution. Signalling to Colin to wait, I sidle over and tip my head into the outermost part of the window frame.
The room inside is dark and uninhabited, a sealed box, with the exception of a door that has been thrown open to admit the light from a larger room. It is this farther sanctum to which my eye unavoidably turns. Convex walls festooned with looking-glasses and torchères and ancestral portraits of varying sizes, all of them dreary with soot. Unless my internal compass deceives me, this is Lord Griffyn’s front hall.
There is precious little time for confirmation, for even now, tonight’s guests are strolling across the patterned marble. The sight of them, not twenty feet away—presenting, in their limpid definition, such a contradiction to the murk in which I crouch—makes me start back from the window.
I go on watching nevertheless, as they pace back and forth across my aperture of light, extravagantly bearded men in their forties and fifties, with the same agonised rehearsals of gesture that one associates with court presentations. But they are not dressed for court, any more than they are dressed for evening: black trousers have given way to white and pale grey; cravats are turquoise and crimson. Only one accessory binds all the gentlemen in their separate agitations: a red geranium, inserted with unnerving regularity in the buttonhole of each waistcoat. And this, too: in the midst of their pacing and pivoting, they each give evidence of some larger purpose, larger than all of them, and preparing to breach.
A breath in my ear, a touch on my elbow. Colin has stolen up behind me.
Do you see her? he mouths.
No. Not yet.
Just then, the gentlemen, operating on some unheard command, begin to fall against the wall in a crooked line, standing with tight shoulders and downcast eyes, like schoolboys about to be arraigned before the headmaster. In fact, no headmaster in the land would be a match for the personage who next appears: Miss Charlotte Binny, her missionary raiment exchanged for a lace bonnet and a black mantilla, her pious attitude traded for a far more redoubtable mien. Scowling, she claps her hands and calls over her shoulder, and though I cannot hear them, her clipped words might be wired straight into my ear.
—Come along, now. No dawdling. You there! Pick up the heel.
Give Miss Binny a regiment, and she will have it storming the enemy garrison within two hours. Tonight, however, smaller wonders are asked of her. The company over which she presides is a squadron of gawky girls—all between eight and twelve, I would reckon, and whipped into strict formation, staring straight ahead with a rigidity that would put dragoons to shame, and wearing uniforms that no cavalry officer would dare sport.
Bridal dresses. They are all, to a girl, wrapped in bridal dresses.
Miniature replicas, at least, of the most striking kind: white satin, lace, and silk with matching shoes and long, translucent veils. Garlands of white narcissi in their hair and bouquets of white pansies and snapdragons in their gloved hands. Everything so gleaming in its newness that I half expect to see the seamstresses and their apprentices still at work, their bent figures scurrying amongst the brides, adjusting bodices and trimming veils and pinning back stray hems.
But aside from Miss Binny, the girls stand all to themselves and betray no sign of the strangeness of their condition—or even the irregularity of an evening wedding. Indeed, they look as though every nerve had been scourged out of them. Their arms swing with no purpose; their heads loll so markedly to one side that Miss Binny must step in now and again to knock them back into position, as one might realign a set of ninepins.
How to describe the effect of this masquerade? How to limn the contrast between the men, in their jittery wallflower formations, and the girls, half the size of ordinary brides, but with a lifetime of obedience already drummed into every fibre? One might almost confuse them with actual women were it not for the occasional telltale gesture: a crossing of the ankles, an uncensored case of the fidgets—random unsocialized motions. That young girl halfway down the line, for instance. Mark how her hands fuss inside their white gloves, how they insistently bend into a shape I recognise quite well: the shape of a bird’s talons.
Is Miss Binny speaking now? Has a trumpet sounded? Something it is that snaps the gentlemen to attention and reassembles them, according to prearranged order, in a line parallel to that of the girl-brides. With a long, froggy smile, Miss Binny extends a beckoning finger to the first gentleman, a jowly, snow-haired man playing ostentatiously with a buttonhook.
How pleased he is to make the first girl’s acquaintance! With what deep gravity he bows to her, presses her hand to his lips. How he trembles with the momentousness of his own act as he tickles his fingers beneath the girl’s veil and draws it up and away. There is a moment of arrested reckoning. And then, reassured by what he finds, the gentleman breaks into a half grin and casts a relieved look round the room.
His reaction is nothing, though, compared with the hard, frozen look on the young girl’s face. She has anticipated this moment, I think, so intensely that the actual experience of it is redundant. She is forearmed against it, she is helpless against it. So that when the gentleman offers her his arm, she takes it with the absent-mindedness of a woman reaching for a fan, and when he leads her away, she lets slip her bouquet without a backwards look or a tremor of regret.
The expression on that face is virtually duplicated in the next girl, and the one after that. So alike are they, once their veils are lifted, that I find myself doing all within
my power to commit their features to memory, so as to claim some distinction amongst them. A dark brow, a high, knobby forehead: I seize on every idiosyncrasy I can, but each one disappears into the nullity of that collective gaze.
They go, these girls, without a thought or pang, without any hope of reprieve. Only one, a moonfaced redhead with a mole on her chin, she alone hesitates in taking her groomsman’s arm, hesitates for the briefest interval. And then Miss Binny makes a move towards her, and all hesitation disappears.
It is quick work, as you might imagine. Ten girls are paired off in half as many minutes. Only one remains—a shrouded white island in the middle of the parquet floor, waiting to be claimed. But no one steps forward. The gentlemen who were standing against the wall have marched off with their prizes, and as the seconds pass, I begin to wonder if perhaps the formidable Miss Binny has miscalculated and left one of the brides without a groom.
And then, as if to stifle my doubts at their very inception, Miss Binny steps up and derogates to herself the privilege that has previously fallen to the grooms. She lifts the bride’s veil. Lifts it to reveal the stone-cold features of Philomela.
It is no surprise. It is, to some degree, everything I expected. And yet the sight of her, marooned in the middle of that checkered floor, is akin to a steel beam in the stomach. I deceive myself, perhaps, in thinking that some particle of her has survived the trials of the past twenty-four hours. But who is to say?
By my watch, it is precisely forty-two minutes past the midnight hour when the door frame is suddenly filled by a tall, curly-haired man in a blue frock coat and lilac waistcoat. Bowing to Philomela, he extends his left arm in a smooth, sweeping gesture, the kind of unhurried munificence that comes easily to Lord Frederick Griffyn.
Other girls, perhaps, might be overwhelmed by such a gesture, but she is as fixed as the portico of Griffyn Hall, and even when the good lord offers her his right arm, she refuses to acknowledge its existence. That elegantly attired arm simply hovers there until it becomes, to my eyes, incontrovertible proof of the very thing I was seeking: Philomela’s will, beating quick inside her.
It is with the utmost reluctance that her hand at last breaks the plane of its isolation. It is with unconcealed revulsion that her small white fingers rest on Griffyn’s arm.
None of these small signs of rebellion, however, disturbs the self-possession of her host. With a seigneurial nod, he clamps his hand over hers and leads her, in long, dreamlike steps, down the checkered floor. And as they pass from view, the riddle I posed to Gully’s departed spirit cracks open, and I understand at last, I understand why Philomela has been spared. Tonight, she is the intended bride of Lord Frederick Griffyn.
Chapter 20
—WE’VE NO TIME.
No point in whispering any more; I use the flat, declarative tone the situation seems to demand. Colin, though, insists on whispering back.
—Where’ve they taken her?
I have only my intuition to guide me—that and a scatter of images. The expressions on the brides’ faces. The way the grooms shifted against the wall, like boys at a ball, screwing up their courage. And above all else, the cast of Griffyn’s face, that look of virtual consummation. Everything draws me on to the same conclusion: the ceremony is over. The wedding night has begun.
—She’s in Lord Griffyn’s bedchamber.
Acting on a common impulse, Colin and I drop our heads back and gaze up the face of the building. If Griffyn Hall follows the customary plan, the master’s bedroom is almost certainly located on the upper storey. And if that’s the case, then an immediate change of altitude is in store for us.
This one, I can already see, will be harder-won than the last. The architecture has, like the fog, turned against us. No gargoyles, buttresses, or casements, not a single Gothic excrescence to fasten on to. Just these time-sanded Palladian walls, rising into the blankness.
And then Colin whispers:
—The window.
Strangely enough, my eyes are already converging on the same point: a protruding stone lip, perhaps six feet over our heads. What else but the sill of an upper-storey window?
Without another word, Colin drags the length of rope ladder from the knapsack and fastens it to the butcher’s meathook with such deftness I am left to wonder if loitering by the Hungerford Stairs might not be a more educational experience than I had reckoned on.
Gathering the ladder in his arms, Colin flings the hook towards the windowsill. It takes him several tries before the hook catches, and several more before it holds. Moments later, he gives the ladder three harsh tugs and pronounces it fit for climbing. And indeed it is: we ascend to the upper window with a near-magical haste, as though some giant’s finger were hauling us up in its crook.
Here, though, another obstacle. The upper storey provides not a single ledge to lead us round the building, and so we are forced to hook the ladder round the balustrade above us and make straight for the roof. The sky rushes towards us, and for a few moments, I lose Colin entirely in a bank of fog that sweeps round him. Then, through a slot in the murk, his hand materialises, already hauling me in. A scrape of stone against my shins, and all at once, I am standing atop Griffyn Hall.
Not so impregnable as it once seemed, but not yet ready to give up its secrets. No enchanted doors open before us, and as far as I can see, there remains but one way to reach those upper-storey windows: we must climb down to each one in turn, repositioning our ladder each time, until we have found Philomela’s bower. Arduous labour, to be sure, and bound to consume more time than we have to spare.
—Colin.
—Yes?
—Please tell me if you are desperately afraid of heights.
Only after he has assured me several times to the contrary do I tell him what I have in mind.
—By the feet, Mr. Timothy?
—Yes.
—And then what?
—Well, then I’ll lower you to each window in turn. You’ll look inside, give me some sign—yea or nay—and I’ll raise you up again. And then we’ll move on to the next window. Until…until we find her.
Colin’s eyes are still widening to admit all the implications.
—And it’s…you mean to say headfirst, like?
—If you’re up to it.
He peers over the balustrade—sounding the depths of the grey sea into which he will be submerged. Then he clears his throat and gives his chest three quick taps.
—Colin’s your uncle.
—You needn’t fear, I shan’t let go.
—I ain’t feared.
Nevertheless, as we position ourselves over the first window, we are subsumed in an awkward idleness. It breaks, finally, when Colin claps his hands together and perches himself on the edge of the balustrade.
—Heigh-ho and off we go.
—We needn’t, Colin, if you’re—
—No, I’m for it. Truly.
Once I have my hands round his ankles, it is a fairly simple matter to let gravity take him earthwards. And as he passes down the face of the building, he finds ways to anchor himself—tiny niches that give him at least the illusion of control. But what an eerie spectacle he must present! A little peacoated bat, crawling blind down the weathered brick, resting his feelers on the stone lintel and then, with a panting ardour, lowering his head into the frame of the double-hung window. A moment of silent inspection, a hitch of his little bat-thumb, and up he comes again.
—Sorry, Mr. Timothy. Nothin’ but dark.
The next descent likewise ends in disappointment, and as we edge round to the back of the manor, my mind teems with doubts. Have they repaired to some other bower? Departed through the back? But the next foray yields more reassuring results.
—Live ones, Mr. Timothy. I could see ’em, coupla monkeys by the door, lookin’ into the hallway.
—Guards, do you think?
—Dunno. But there’s got to be a reason for ’em, eh? Couldn’t be just dawdlers, now, could they? Not tonight.
Hauling with all my might, I drag him back to the roof, where I lay him flat out and wrap my hands round his face, ready to slap him into consciousness, to breathe the life back into him.
But his eyes are still blinking, and the only change in his face is its absence of colour.
—Philomela? I ask.
He shakes his head, covers his eyes.
—Someone else, Colin?
A long pause, and then the smallest of nods.
—One of the other girls?
—He were…he were right on top, Mr. Timothy. He had his…his arm all crammed, like…in her mouth. So she couldn’t…she couldn’t…
Colin looks up at me, wonderingly.
—An’ there were blood. I could see it. She couldn’t move, not a hair, and she were bleedin’. On the sheets.
Of course, I think. There must be blood. Lord Griffyn’s patrons must be assured of the quality—the purity—of their merchandise.
—I’m sorry, Colin, I should have warned you.
—I wish…
—Yes?
—I wish we could take ’em all with us. I wish there were more on us, and we could take ’em all.
—Yes. Yes, I wish that, too.
It doesn’t pass, exactly, this period of mourning, but it dissipates enough that before another minute has passed, Colin is back on his feet and, if anything, more eager than ever to make the next descent. The only difference I note this time round is a slight flinching of his head as it passes into the window frame—a gesture superseded, within half a minute, by a violent upwards jerking of his thumb. By the time I haul him up again, he is bursting with the news.
