Shadow of the Serpent im-1

by David Ashton

  ‘I was indeed, God rest her soul.’

  Eileen had a deep almost mannish voice and, unlike many women of McLevy’s acquaintance, a stillness of carriage not induced by whalebone.

  ‘When did you last see her?’ he asked.

  ‘Dead or alive?’ she answered.

  A hint of graveyard humour in the hazel eyes.

  McLevy half-smiled in response, this might make up for the hellish tea which had left a taste in his mouth like chimney soot. The Chinese have much to answer for.

  ‘Alive, if you please, ma’am.’

  He noticed that her hands, placed peacefully in her lap, were big-jointed and strong. No wedding ring. Like himself. Still in the stream.

  ‘I nursed her till she was cured and then she later withdrew to a convent in the Isle of Wight and thence to Germany, where, after many years, she died,’ Eileen replied somewhat carefully.

  ‘Cured? Of what ailment?’

  His eyebrows rose in what was almost a parody of the inquiring investigator. From Joanna Lightfoot he had a very good idea what particular ailment, but play daft and maybe you’ll get in for nothing.

  ‘An addiction to laudanum, indeed any drug which promoted oblivion,’ was the unruffled response.

  ‘Laudanum? That’s the very devil, is it not?’

  His remark hit a nerve and, for a moment, there was a flash of anger in her eyes.

  ‘The doctors dole it out to women who are troubled, restless, unable to hold their … place in society. It helps them … accept the unacceptable.’

  ‘And incidentally often renders them addicted?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And that in turn supplies more work for the doctors, curing the sick they themselves have created. I’m in the wrong profession!’

  McLevy let out a bray of laughter. Mulholland winced at the lack of sensitivity but Eileen didn’t even blink.

  ‘Helen Gladstone was not cured by medical means but by the knucklebone of a female saint.’

  Now it was McLevy’s turn not to blink. He sat as if turned to a wax representation of himself while the hairs on Mulholland’s Protestant neck were beginning to prickle.

  ‘Monsignor Wiseman, who was the agent of Helen’s conversion to Catholicism, arrived at the house after Mr Gladstone had finally returned to London. The Monsignor brought with him a holy relic.’

  ‘The said knucklebone?’

  Another nod. Eileen continued.

  ‘Her jaw was locked, the whole body in paralysis. He performed a truncated service, touched the relic to her jaw and effected what can only be described as a miraculous transformation.’

  Mulholland spluttered as if something had got stuck in his throat but McLevy’s face was unreadable.

  ‘God works in mysterious ways,’ he opined. ‘But I wouldnae think William Gladstone was any too pleased at the source of this … miracle.’

  Eileen smiled thinly. ‘I think Mr Gladstone was grateful to have his sister recovered. Back in the fold of the family.’

  There was a deal of black irony in these last words that McLevy registered with some relish. Things were hotting up. Just the way he liked them.

  ‘Do you believe in such things?’ he enquired.

  ‘I am a Protestant,’ was the composed response. ‘But I saw what I saw.’

  ‘A miracle of sorts?’

  ‘Of sorts.’

  Their eyes met. McLevy scratched his nose, absent-mindedly, like an old man on a park bench.

  ‘What did Helen do, back in the fold?’ he asked mildly.

  ‘She looked after their father, Sir John, until the old man died in December of the following year. I was her companion more than her nurse. By that time.’

  The last three words hung in the air. Eileen seemed to have withdrawn into herself. McLevy sensed many conflicting emotions behind that calm exterior.

  She was a stern, handsome woman but her face had softened, the lower lip extended … just a touch.

  He put his finger to his own lips, part in thought, part signalling a fidgety Mulholland to a continued, still, silence. They waited. The silence grew.

  The door to the sitting room creaked open as if a ghost had been summoned and an elderly, rather fat labrador dog waddled in, plumped itself at Eileen’s feet and, catching McLevy’s jaundiced gaze, growled softly. Eileen reached down and scratched the beast.

  ‘Albert’s getting old,’ she said. ‘Like myself.’

  But you don’t smell as bad, McLevy thought unkindly, as a whiff of doggy emanation smoked his nostrils.

  ‘What was she like?’ he asked. ‘Helen? The little sister. Helen … Gladstone,’ he pronounced the name quietly, like an incantation. ‘What was she like?’

  ‘She … found peace in Germany. In a convent. We … corresponded. Until she died.’

  Mulholland noted that the woman had never yet answered the inspector’s questions directly. It was as if she was responding to other enquiries that she alone heard. Then he abruptly chided himself for that flicker of interest. None of this was of any consequence. Out of their parish.

  The dog whined. Eileen had stopped scratching. It wanted more. So did the inspector.

  Her replies were cautious, considered, judicious. McLevy therefore, like a pig after truffles, suspected treasure to be found in the digging.

  ‘Between Helen and her brother, what transpired? At the time of Jessy Gladstone’s death. What … transpired?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr McLevy.’

  ‘I think you just might, Miss Marshall.’

  He smiled. His face open, like a child’s.

  Mulholland had seen the technique before but it never ceased to impress; this was not the monster who had stared down at Frank Brennan.

  ‘What was told to me was told in madness. In delirium. Once she was cured, Helen never spoke of it again. We never spoke of it again.’

  ‘That’s the terrible thing about getting the cure. You’re never the same person,’ said McLevy.

  He smiled again. She did not respond.

  ‘But she did speak of something, did she not?’

  Eileen Marshall shook her head as if denying the words she had recently uttered. McLevy pressed further. Gently does it though. Firm but merciful, that’s the ticket.

  ‘I am engaged upon an investigation, Miss Marshall. My authority has been granted from the most high office.’

  Mulholland gulped at the bare-faced lie. The inspector, as usual, was hanging from the window with the backside out of his trousers.

  ‘Anything you confide will remain completely … at my discretion.’

  Which meant if McLevy thought the conviction warranted such, he would haul the poor woman, dog and all, up before the judge like a tub of guts.

  ‘I am asking for your help. Without it, I cannot proceed.’ McLevy bowed his head, a forlorn figure.

  That much was true and who is to say that Eileen Marshall had not been waiting to tell her story for all these years?

  Even those without Romanish tendencies long for the face behind the grille to which they may unburden their soul in blessed relief. The only drawback with James McLevy in such function was that a hand might come through the holy orifice and arrest you where you genuflect.

  No trace of that ruthless impulse on the inspector’s face now, however, a kindly receptacle only.

  The dog had fallen asleep, bubbles of saliva gathering at its mouth.

  Eileen Marshall made her decision, took a deep breath and began. The underlying harsh tones of her voice softened slightly, with memory.

  ‘The day after wee Jessy Gladstone had been buried at Fasque, Helen and I were alone in her bedroom. Her father was asleep upstairs, as was her brother, William. He had returned from Edinburgh that evening and spent some hours with Helen before retiring.

  ‘It was past three in the morning but she could not rest despite a strong sleeping draught. I thought her dark suffering was because of withdrawal from the drug, weaning from laudanum is an agon
ising business.

  ‘But the cause of her pain was more than that. I feared her mind would crack. The demons had her. They were dancing on the grave. Dancing with delight.’

  20

  This ae nighte, this ae nighte,

  Every nighte and alle,

  Fire and fleet and candel-lighte,

  And Christe receive thy saule.

  TRADITIONAL BALLAD,

  Lyke-Wake Dirg

  Fasque, Mearns, 15 April 1850

  The two women lay in bed together, Helen Gladstone mewling like a small animal, her face pressed into the starched white bosom of the other. This was not according to medical textbook but to hell with it, Eileen was at her wit’s end.

  Dr Purdie had gone home to his, no doubt, adoring wife and family, the other two Gladstones were upstairs deep in conventional slumber, and she had been left atween pit and pendulum.

  Above was the portrait of a male of the line. He had the Gladstone features, some great-uncle no doubt, looking down his bulbous nose, eyes deep in sockets, mouth pursed at the goings-on.

  Below, Helen burrowed frantically as if trying to conceal herself under the nurse’s body. She seemed terrified, her breath coming in short gasps. then all at once she raised her head. The pupils of her eyes were perfectly round, the irises a black purple.

  ‘He has washed his hands,’ she said. ‘In blood he has washed them. He told me so.’

  ‘You should try to rest, Miss Gladstone,’ murmured Eileen, suddenly and acutely conscious of the impropriety of their situation. Thank God the household was asleep. If someone had entered and found her splayed out on the sheets with arms around a patient, all hell would have broken loose. All hell.

  But it was her own thoughts and feelings that were causing the commotion. Helen was drenched in sweat yet the nurse found it a sweet smell, a fertile fragrance, and Eileen ached curiously, disturbed by a tenderness which seemed to flood her very being.

  William Gladstone, on his evening return from Edinburgh, had demanded that Dr Purdie administer a strong sedative to his sister and then closeted himself with Helen in the bedroom.

  He had announced to all and sundry that he wished to impart to his sister the details of the funeral she had not been strong enough to attend the day before, conveniently forgetting that he himself had expressly forbidden her to do so. The tension in him was almost palpable, his manner peremptory. But, given that he had yesterday buried his own daughter in the nearby family vault, it was an excusable state of mind.

  Nevertheless Eileen had felt uneasy, for no reason she could put her finger on. There was a wildness in his eyes and she noted that he had changed his mourning attire for a light waistcoat and brougham trousers beneath the still sober frock-coat. Catching her gaze, he folded his arms protectively over the differing garments and dismissed them all, his face white against the dark sideboards which framed it down to the clenched line of his jaw.

  The doctor had left, post-sedative. William Gladstone had at last emerged after a period of near two hours’ seclusion with Helen and retired upstairs without another word to join his father who was already abed and asleep.

  Sir John had been a strong and driven man all of his life but now, in his eighty-fifth year, the worm of frailty was busy in the flesh.

  Age withers us all, strength or no. The worm must eat.

  William was forty-one. He had nothing to fear yet. But the worm is patient. An opening will present itself.

  Eileen had come back to the room to sit in the chair by the bed and snatch what sleep she could, when suddenly Helen had shot bolt upright, eyes staring, as if a fever inside would not let her rest, as if she dreaded what the darkness might bring. She began to speak in tongues, a mad whirling storm of guttural words that made no sense.

  That had been many hours ago and now Eileen herself was tired almost beyond endurance. Her attempts to manage the circumstance had fallen short, and the only action which had quieted the woman was when the nurse had, rather rigidly it must be admitted, yielded to Helen’s entreaties, and stretched out beside her on the bed.

  Silence in the room. The thick curtains gobbled up the small scratching noises of the wind outside.

  Helen had fallen back, her head just under Eileen’s chin, the damp curls tickling at her neck. They lay in quietness together. Somewhere in the house, a grandfather clock struck four. The witching hour.

  When Helen began to speak, the voice was so small and disembodied that it seemed to come from somewhere else, as if a child had crept under the bed and was playing a trick upon the two of them.

  ‘Jessy and I, our souls are as one. She has gone to heaven. It is God’s judgement that her father may go to hell.’

  Outside, a small animal shrieked as a predator struck home. Even through the drapes, it was a sound to freeze the blood.

  ‘She was punished for his sins. He told me so. He told me many things. He thought I was asleep. He always thinks I am asleep. Always. And then … he feels free.’

  Helen giggled. A sly treacherous smile on her face.

  ‘About wickedness. And lust. And pictures in his mind. And how the world was full of blood, dripping from the walls of Babylon.’

  She suddenly turned on to her back and raised both palms into the air like a saint about to give a blessing. Eileen was transfixed.

  ‘He thought I was asleep. And wept. And told me of his sins. And women of the street who came to him in darkness and touched his flesh. And how he scourged away the sin. With blood. Silly man.’

  For a moment, gazing at the hands above her, Helen laughed again, then she cried out in fear and once more whimpered her way back into the nurse’s side.

  The nape of Eileen’s neck was ice cold. Helen reached up and laid an unerring hot little hand upon it.

  ‘I have prayed to Mother Mary,’ she said brokenly.

  Her forehead was against the other’s throat and she began to cry, scalding tears, warm in the cold night, which trickled down inside the collar of Eileen’s uniform and on to her bare skin. She could feel the rivulets spreading over the collar-bone, the clavicle, that was the medical term, best to keep medicine in mind.

  Despite her small frame, Helen had surprisingly heavy breasts, a pocket Venus. They pressed against Eileen’s arm, one on each side, in the Spanish style. Even though she was sheathed in a nightgown of thick flannel, Helen’s nipples were visible, erectile tissue is so hard to contain, and her haunches, the material stuck to them like a second skin, rounded and curved in a way which would have delighted the Ancient Greeks. Or even Romans.

  Romans, Greeks and clavicles, thoughts that were not proper to this situation, were filing in an increasingly disorderly fashion through Eileen’s mind. Hallucination. Delirium. What was she catching from her charge?

  ‘I have prayed to Mother Mary,’ said Helen, ‘that he may be forgiven. Though I would wish him first to suffer great pain. Like Christ on the cross. Who died for all of us. And gave His blood.’

  Her hand still rested on the nape of Eileen’s neck. She could feel each fingertip.

  Eileen shivered, the contagion of madness, or desire, shook her to the bone.

  A floorboard above creaked and she listened tensely for the sound of footsteps descending the staircase. Or footsteps anywhere. She had a feeling of being watched constantly – the various servants of the house seemed sly, observing, recording all that passed.

  But mercifully nothing. Helen snuggled into her and laid one leg across so that extrication was … forestalled.

  The patient comes first. A dictum Eileen had always observed. On an impulse she removed her nurse’s cap and the rich brown tresses cascaded down around her shoulders.

  She closed her eyes, the better not to see.

  21

  Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle:

  She died young.

  JOHN WEBSTER, The Duchess of Malfi

  Eileen Marshall had told some of this, but not all, to her visitors. Enough to intrigue the inspector, and alarm Mulho
lland.

  She had stuck to a bare recital of facts, the nuances of feeling remained her own business. McLevy could sense such, but that was not his interest.

  ‘You’re saying that when William Gladstone returned from Edinburgh he had changed his clothes?’

  ‘He had.’

  ‘That’s not unusual,’ Mulholland butted in. ‘Travel stained.’

  ‘Stained indeed,’ said the inspector. ‘But what might be a wee bit unusual is the other stuff that Helen told you, about scourging out sin with blood.’

  ‘But that was said in madness!’ cried Mulholland.

  ‘I have known many things said in madness,’ replied McLevy. ‘Things to scar the soul. But the truth is like that sometimes.’

  ‘And sometimes not. True or false, who knows? It was all so long ago,’ said Eileen. ‘I myself may play you false, inspector. Memory shifts.’

  ‘Aye, it does. Like a dog with fleas.’ McLevy grinned but his eyes were hard as pebbles. ‘Have ye spoken tae another about this?’

  ‘Not since that time.’

  McLevy’s head was spinning. Why had Joanna Lightfoot pointed him here? Why had she not come herself? Was she afraid of what she might find, was she using him as an instrument to find the truth, or just a blunt instrument?

  And how would she have suspicion of what happened thirty years ago?

  The dog groaned in its sleep.

  Mulholland had sunk back into his chair. He knew exactly how it felt.

  ‘Ye said that the house felt full of spies, eyes everywhere?’ McLevy would grind this down to powder.

  ‘Yes. The servants. As if we were watched. Observed.’

  But where would these observations go? And how would they survive the passage of time? McLevy shook his head.

  On the next meeting with Joanna Lightfoot – and there would be one, of that he had no doubt – he would have a few questions that might set her Italian boots a-tapping.

  He roused himself. A remark Eileen made had lodged like that fishbone. Time to dig it out.

  ‘And dead?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I asked when you last saw Helen Gladstone. Dead or alive? ye said. Ye’ve covered the live part.’