Suzerain: a ghost story

by Adrian John Smith

  Despite the urgency of his ardour, he has requested her presence not for this night, but for the night following. This is latitude. He has given himself time to come to his senses. Time to send a note of cancellation. But this he does not do.

  You'd better open that second bottle sweetie, Moira says. We're a long way from done.

  No cook, no maids, no servants. Just Blackwood in this big empty house. He paces. He smokes his pipe. He sits at the piano in the drawing room and practices a little - some scales, a favourite melody or two. Then he paces again. He has asked her to come at eight. It grows dark. The hour passes. He's received no word - has assumed her acquiescence without a reply. Will she come? Has he been presumptuous? Perhaps he should have requested a day-time liaison. Is it possible that the girl is more sensitive to accusations of impropriety than he himself? It is he, after all, and not Martha, who is seized with passion. Perhaps she is offended by his insistence that she come alone.

  But shortly before nine there is a knock at the door. It is Martha. There is a light rain falling now and Martha is wrapped in a cape and hood against the weather and Blackwood says not a word until she has drawn back the hood because, in the low light of the oil lamp - which he has kept lit above the door - he cannot be sure that it is her until she has done so.

  She draws back the hood and looks into his face and he is lost. He trembles - tries to speak. He does speak. "So," he says, "you came."

  "Aye Sir," she says. "Did you expect otherwise?"

  "I don't … Come in. Forgive me. Yes, come in out of the rain."

  "Let me remove my boots Sir," she says, and Blackwood sees that her boots are muddy.

  "You came by way of the woods?" he says.

  "No matter Sir. I often walk at night. I'm gifted with a good eye-sight. It's a long way round by road Sir, and a long row for the boatman by way of the river. It is easier and quicker by way of the ferry and then the woods. Besides Sir, this way, 'tis only you and I who know about our meeting? Is that not how you desired it to be Sir?"

  "Yes," Blackwood admits. "That is exactly how I desired it to be."

  They play a song. Two songs. They play with a largo feel. Blackwood fumbles the keys but her voice carries the momentum of the song, coils around his brain until he begins to play well - begins to play in ecstasy.

  Which is too much for him. Breathlessly, half-way through 'The Border Widow's Lament' he stops playing. "I can play no more tonight," he tells her.

  "But 'tis early yet Sir," she says. "What else should we do?"

  What else indeed?

  He bites. He licks. He sucks. A fit of derangement almost. Never has he given such free rein to his passions.

  In the night, afterward, he is sick. He returns to Martha in the bedroom. "You must leave," he tells her. "The servants must not find you here."

  "’Tis still early Sir," she says. "Wouldn't you like to play some more?"

  "You must leave damn-it," he says, and, passion spent, sets her on the road like a whore.

  Now comes a fresh purgatory. Guilt and shame. He weeps before a daguerreotype of Alicia. He writes her a letter of devotion, then burns it in the hearth as an epistle written by an unworthy hand. When the servants arrive from Almpton village he is sitting by the cold hearth still. He doesn't go to the boat-yard but takes to his bed. His wife's bed, where the smell of his congress with Martha still hangs in the air, still lingers in the bed linen.

  That evening he rids the house of servants before the usual hour and he drinks until he is sick again. Two days pass, and then he is once more walking the quays. Once more seeking a messenger. Once more parting with a guinea.

  When she comes again there is no pretence at playing music. He rains kisses down on her before she is barely in the door. He strips her on the stairs, carries her to the bed, kissing her in his arms. This time there are more delights awaiting him than he could possibly have imagined. But again, before the cock crows, she is set out on the road like a whore. This time, however, Blackwood is not sick. He turns Alicia's daguerreotype toward the wall. And so it goes on.

  He surrenders his will to hers. It is Martha now who names the day and the hour. It is Martha who insists that they fuck (her word) in every room in the house, as if she is intent, floor by floor, wall by wall, on laying claim to it. Sometimes, exhausted by sex, Blackwood sleeps, and when he awakes Martha is absent from the bed. When he searches for her he finds her in one part of the house or another - once, naked, pacing the middle landing - pensive, trance-like, yet at the same time alert to something, trailing her fingers along the banister rail. Another time in the drawing room, again naked, again in a kind of trance, again trailing her fingers - this time across the polished teak of the piano. Then again looking out through the dining room window at the twinkling lamp lights of the town. The house is hers. In the hours of darkness, the house has become hers. She has claimed it. The only matter in which Blackwood remains master of his own house, master of his own will, is that he continues to set her out on the road like a whore before dawn breaks.

  I have to go away on business her tells her. To Plymouth. Which is the truth. What little work he's done, what little attention he's been able to pay to business, has left him feeling dissatisfied with his caulking supplier. Rather than deal with the merchant who ferries it along the coast - who, after all, can only carry what he's given - Blackwood intends to remonstrate with the tar merchant directly. He will either elicit a promise of improvement, or else secure a more reliable supplier.

  Martha says that this is good, that he should pay attention to business - otherwise how will he be able to maintain such a fine house?

  And Blackwood, in an increasingly rare assertion of mastery, says: "I was not seeking your permission."

  Earlier she had laughed. She had said to him: "I can play you like a tune. Like a song." Which of course, had struck a chord.

  He need stay only one night in Plymouth. Because he sets out early - shortly after setting Martha on the road - and because he elects to eschew the coach and take his good, fast horse, (which means a speedier journey and less impediment should the roads be muddy) he is in Plymouth by nightfall.

  He lodges at an inn. He drinks porter with his meal, then brandy afterwards. There is a struggle, an agon scattering his thoughts, giving pain in his breast. He wants Martha. He burns for Martha. Yet, released from her company, his thoughts also, pendulum-like, swing towards the subject of his wife, of his standing in the community, of his future prosperity, of his plans for children. The last, of course, is complicated greatly by Alicia's lack of appetite for carnality. Martha, his infatuated mind tells him - a counter-swing of the pendulum - is ripe, just ripe for conception. He feels in her a fecundity as deep as a well. A cistern. An overflow. An excess of it so that it pours from her lips, beams from her eyes, flushes the colour into her face…. He is briefly startled by the thought that she may already have conceived. He is no longer able to withdraw in time - the pleasure has become too intense for that and in any case, she pulls him so tightly into her that to do so would require action something akin to combat, allied to a self-control he no longer possesses. But she has bled recently, he knows that - and the one time he mentioned the matter Martha assured him that she is in perfect harmony with the moon, which she knows how to read. Not by accident Sir, she adds. So Blackwood is calmed somewhat - and again his thoughts turn to the act, rather than the consequence.

  And so it is that he wanders abroad in the streets that night and secures some French pornography and indulges in another act of onanism in the room at the inn - listening all the while for the landlord's tread on the stair. It helps. And he is able to sleep.

  In the morning he is about his business early. Dealing with the tar merchant he regains a mastery, a command of himself, of the situation, which he has not felt in some time. Politely, but firmly, he extracts both apology and pledges of improvement from the tar merchant, and the issue is closed over a courteous and gentlemanly breakfast at the tar mercha
nt's expense.

  All of this leaves Blackwood feeling much more his old self, and his thoughts turn naturally to his dear, sweet, nervous and frigid wife, Alicia.

  He buys her a locket - silver, heart-shaped, with intricate filigree laced around the flanks - an expensive item, a gift with which to ameliorate his own suffering - his guilt-racked soul. A salve for his own conscience.

  It should be said here that Blackwood carries in his pocket, for good luck, a fragment of brick from the house - chipped, in fact, from the last brick laid - contained in a small leather pouch. It is, obviously enough, symbolic, and it gives him great comfort, both consciously and unconsciously, to finger the pouch in his pocket, to remind himself of his wealth and success. His fine house. He fingered it all the while in his negotiation with the tar supplier and who knows how much this contributed to his success in resolving the matter - confidence being essential in such dealings? Now, almost as an afterthought, he has this piece of brick, this symbol, set inside the locket, sealed in amber.

  When he arrives home the following day, he finds his cook waiting for him. But, though tired, though hungry, he dismisses her. And, as saddle-sore, as wet and cold as he is (it rained steadily the final two hours of the journey) there is a fire burning inside him and can you guess what that is?

  Martha? Melanie ventures.

  Martha, Moira confirms.

  He has instructed - this is how he chooses to see it - Martha to come late, knowing that he himself would be arriving late from Plymouth. While he waits he takes out the locket from his wet coat and lays it on the mantle-piece to dry. Then he eats a plate of cold meats while he warms himself in front of the fire.

  Martha arrives as planned. She too is wet from her walk in the woods and she takes off her cape to stand by the fire. She combs out her hair. She is beautiful in the firelight. She spies the locket and when Blackwood leaves the room to fetch some fresh tobacco - his pouch having become saturated in the rain - she inspects it. She runs the silver chain through her fingers and she presses the locket to her cheek, almost as if she knows what it means, even before unclasping it to inspect its contents.

  Blackwood returns as she snaps it closed. There is a flash of temper.

  "Put that down damn you," he says.

  "'Tis not intended for me then, Sir?" she says, with mischief.

  Blackwood explains that indeed it is not; that it is intended as a gift for Alicia.

  "But it is such a pretty thing," Martha says. "I would like to wear such a pretty thing. What's this inside?"

  Blackwood explains, not knowing how much more Martha begins to covet the locket for knowing its significance. Then he attempts to snatch the locket from her, but she pulls it tightly to her breast and giggles.

  Blackwood is softened by the tease. He tries again, but, turning the situation into a childish game, she again defies the attempt.

  But Blackwood quickly tires of the game. "Martha," he says with some measure of assertiveness, "please give me the locket."

  "May I just wear it once Sir?" she says. "Just to know how it feels to wear such a pretty thing?"

  "Ah," Blackwood says, finally realising something - or at least believing it to be the case - "I see now. Yes, of course; you expect gifts. Give me the locket Martha. I will buy you any number of lockets, any number of trinkets and baubles. Finery at any price the very next time I go to town. Is that what you would like?"

  "Oh no Sir," Martha says. "I want much more than that."

  When they make love that night, Martha wears the locket. And in the throes of passion, Martha calls him "husband". And in the next breath, the next thrust, Blackwood calls her "wife".

  Alicia returns home. There is a whispering amongst the servants. Blackwood has been careful of course - for a man possessed by such passion he has in fact been very careful indeed. But the night is no barrier to the activities of country people. How many nights has Martha crossed the river to walk up through the woods to the grand new house on the hill? There is the ferry-man of course and, in addition, who is to say that on any one of those nights she wasn't seen by a poacher? By a fisherman setting out his lines, his nets, his traps? And who is to say that a tongue loosened by drink in the village inn will not sooner or later issue observations or speculation which respect for superior folk would usually still?

  Alicia is tired after the coach journey from Bristol, but beneath this temporary and almost superficial fatigue there is a fresh vitality to her. But now it is Blackwood who is plagued by bad nerves. He cares for Alicia of course, but with all that has passed in her absence, he cannot help compare her to Martha, and, to his eye, she is found severely wanting.

  Blackwood's skill in the bedroom has of course been much improved meanwhile. Yet this very fact makes things so much worse between husband and wife. He has no desire for Alicia; he wants only Martha. Yet for all that he has a sense of duty. And he is her husband and she is his wife. What should husband and wife do but procreate? This is their duty.

  He applies to Alicia the techniques learned from Martha. She is shocked. Scandalised. She calls him a beast, banishes him from the bedroom.

  Belatedly, Blackwood remembers the locket which he had so much trouble prising from Martha. Days pass. When there is once again communication between them Blackwood makes her a gift of the locket. She puts it on. The sight of it against her breast evokes in Blackwood conflicting passions. Of course it brings Martha to mind. The memory of that exchange - he the "husband" and she the "wife" - brings such a shock of shame that he gasps aloud and is forced to sit.

  Alicia fetches him brandy. Again he sees the locket and this time his ardour is enflamed. She is no Martha, no. Even so, he wants her. No, he doesn't want her, but he must have somebody. He takes her to bed. He slaps her. Calls her a whore. A trinket-loving whore. On this night, in this house, the marriage almost comes to an end.

  From now on, Alicia will communicate with him with resigned cordiality in front of the servants, in front of the occasional visitor and dinner guest. Should they find themselves alone together, there is only silence between them.

  So what is Blackwood to do? You cannot so easily douse a fire which has burned so fiercely. Which means, of course, that he must see Martha. He takes a risk, arranges a meeting at an inn in town. A noisy, boisterous place frequented by fisherman and sailors. Though no high society - such as it is in this town - is likely to be encountered in such a place, he has reason to fear a sighting by someone in his employ. Nevertheless, he must see Martha. And what else are they to do - walk the quays in the dark? In the wind and the rain?

  Martha of course is known here. This does not shame him as much as it might - perhaps as much as it ought - given their disparity of background, of breeding and class. In fact, Blackwood finds himself glowing with an illicit pride. There is not, after all, a single man in the room who would not wish to lie with Martha.

  There is a quiet booth into which he takes her.

  "Well Sir," she says, persisting with, toying with, this formality despite all that has passed between them, "this is an unexpected turn. I'd feared you'd forgotten me."

  Blackwood blurts out some emphatic exclamation of denial. Then they drink, they talk, they drink again.

  Blackwood, drunk now, confesses that he cannot go another day without her. More than this, he confesses his fears - which by now have the hallmark of certainty - that he and Alicia will never conceive a child. And what use the work, the endeavour - what use the house - without an heir?

  That, Martha says, is not something which need trouble him should she - Martha - be his wife.

  Blackwood is pulled up short. Hedged around by his social status, his norms, his privilege - it had yet to occur to him that this might be a possibility. (The word "divorce" rings like the toll of doom in Blackwood's social strata.) She tells him that she would fill his house with fine children. With love and laughter. She says - she tells him straight - that she would do this gladly and willingly to live in such a fine house. Blac
kwood, drunk, pays little attention to her claim on his property. His mind is reeling, not just from strong ale, but also with possibility. And because he's drunk, because he's eager, because of Martha's face in the candlelight, and because he hasn't made love recently and so is fit to burst like over-ripe fruit - to spill his seed - he gives indication that this indeed may be the road ahead; that she can bear his children.

  And now, with such talk in the air, he wants her more than ever. Which he tells her. But, she reminds him, your wife is at the house. The inn is full. What should we do Sir? To which, he says, My office.

  They take a boat across the river. Blackwood pays the ferryman handsomely - a wordless bid for his silence. A bribe.

  At the threshold to the office Martha extracts a promise. A sign of good faith, she says. Anything, Blackwood says. Oh, anything at all.

  "The locket," she says. "Husband. I want the locket."

  Blackwood is drunk. Let's not forget that Blackwood is drunk. He'd almost fallen from the boat on the crossing more than once. Nevertheless, a shaft of sobriety illuminates his brain. "You would have me steal from my own wife?" he says, almost forgetting that they had just plotted to deprive Alicia of much more than the locket.

  "Ah," Martha says. "But I'm your wife now. And a man can only keep faith with one wife. So which is it to be?"

  "You." he says. "It will always be you."

  Then they fuck like dogs on the office floor.

  But yet again, hung-over and sick, Blackwood, in the hour of dawn, sends her on her way like a whore. She sets off along the path through the woods. The wind had dropped in the night, and as Blackwood washes his face in the little water closet in back of the office, he hears Martha ring the boatman's bell, clear and utterly real in the chilly early light.