Descent into Dust

by Jacqueline Lepore

  I said nothing at first, then, “Is that the question? Then the answer is yes, perhaps it has a little.”

  “No,” he murmured with a chuckle, “that was not the question. What I wished to know was…well, I was some distance away, but it seemed to me by the way you reacted that you may have seen something at that hawthorn tree…Did you, Mrs. Andrews?”

  I am no good at lying. I said, “A trick of the light.”

  “Or the dark,” he said, almost to himself, as he turned away. “May I offer something, a suggestion, Mrs. Andrews?”

  My nerves, worn raw by now, made me unintentionally snappish. “And pray, what is that?”

  “A book. Let me see.” He drifted along the shelves, paused, then selected a slim volume. “Here we are. Have you read Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’?”

  “Yes, of course.” I was familiar with the poem to which he referred, but it was not one of my favorites. I had found “Christabel” a sinister, uncomfortable story with haunting images of witchcraft and hints of twisted sexuality. I had liked it not at all.

  Mr. Fox closed his hand over mine as he handed me the volume. The action was exceedingly improper, and yet I did not balk. There seemed to be electric current in his touch, made skin to skin, for neither of us was gloved, and I blush to admit it was rather stirring.

  “Read it again,” he said with gentle urgency. And then he left me.

  I wanted to flaunt his suggestion, but the hope that Mr. Fox had some insight into my troubles had me secreted in the conservatory, devouring the lines of Coleridge’s work within a half hour. Sebastian found me a while later, sweeping into the room with a frown as he looked me up and down.

  “That is an unbecoming color on you,” he said, collapsing onto a wrought-iron chair. His hand waved dismissively toward the embroidered silk gown I wore, cream-colored with sprigs of pale yellow and green stitched upon it. “It washes out your complexion and renders you pasty. You want to look your best for our Mr. Fox, don’t you? What do you have there?”

  He was not dissuaded by my impatient look. He peered at the page and read aloud: “The night is chill, the cloud is gray: ’Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.”

  Recoiling, he exclaimed, “Good God, Emma, can you not find something more cheerful? This is why I object to the influence of literature. Too bloody dreary!”

  “I had a disturbing thing happen this afternoon,” I said after a moment’s pause. “Hen and I went out for a bit of a walk. I know she isn’t allowed, but I thought there could be no harm in taking her into the meadow since it was a familiar path for me. She wandered off and wound up near that tree. Did I tell you about the tree she draws? She calls it Marius’s tree, and was just sitting by it, staring up as if she were speaking to someone. She said she was talking to Marius.”

  “Oh. Did he ask for me?”

  “It is not a joke, Sebastian. And what has happened to Victoria, by the by? That doll used to be with Henrietta everywhere she went, and now I never see her at all.”

  He shrugged. “Good riddance, I say. She was always so judgmental.”

  I sighed, for once not at all amused at his silliness, and he realized my frustration. “Forgive me, Emma.” He sounded truly contrite. Leaning forward solicitously, he grabbed my hand. “What is it?”

  I could say nothing more than “Marius.”

  He lifted his brow.

  “Mr. Fox saw us out on the meadow. We…we had a fright. He brought us home, actually.”

  His eyes lit up. “Really? How romantic. Did he make you ride pillion, with his strong body pressed up against yours?”

  “Certainly not,” I protested.

  “Ah, pity. I tell you, Emma, I am absolutely rabid for a scandal of some sort. How dreadfully thoughtless of you not to provide one. Oh, well, perhaps I can stir some mischief at dinner. Which is being served promptly, so we should go.”

  He gallantly offered me his arm. “Sebastian,” I asked softly as we were exiting the room. “I beg you to tell me the truth. Did you teach Henrietta to play chess?”

  He was perfectly serious when he shook his head.

  After the meal, I sat with Alyssa and Mary while the men lit cigars and lingered over port.

  “I think the custom of taking tobacco is barbaric,” Alyssa pronounced.

  I smiled. “You are put out because it is an aspect of men that excludes women.”

  “Well, it is a smelly habit, and I do not see at all how it is pleasurable. And all they wish to talk of is politics—how boring. I do not know how a lady such as Queen Victoria stands it.”

  Mary waved a hand at her, smiling indulgently. “Men must make their power games and play them out. I, for one, am glad they are out of earshot.”

  “Does anyone have an indication of Mr. Fox’s politics?” Alyssa pouted. “Is that how Roger knows him? I know your husband is devoted to the Reform movement. Something is not right with Mr. Fox. He did not speak to me once!”

  Mary shrugged, ignoring my sister’s petulance. “I am sure I do not know. Roger has not told me much about him, but I do believe he is very well connected. We were pleased to offer an invitation when his correspondence arrived saying he’d be in the neighborhood. Roger admires him.”

  To this praise I said nothing but I’m afraid my curled lip betrayed me, for Alyssa looked at me strangely. “You are not down with the headache again, are you?”

  “No…” The headache had been gone since the incident on the meadow, when I had seen the vision of the figure (dare I think of it as Marius’s shadow?) that afternoon. But I remained much distracted by the entire matter, and all that had gone on before. I was terribly concerned for Henrietta besides. I felt there was something wrong, something happening that I must put an end to. “I am merely a bit tired,” I said at last.

  “Oh, please do not fall ill again, or Roger will be overset.” Mary appeared annoyed. “He is always going on about illness, as if the poor were not inherently prone to all manner of unfortunate contagion.”

  “Perhaps that is why he is so dedicated to Reform,” I suggested carefully. It was a bad idea to make my social views known, but I simply could not help myself.

  She seemed startled. “Well, of course, we all pity the poor, but, Lord, one cannot make them a cause.”

  “Please,” Alyssa wailed, “not politics!”

  In deference to her condition, we changed the subject. I slipped away at my first opportunity before the men joined us—I was in no mood for Mr. Fox’s enigmatic presence—and went upstairs to check on Henrietta. I found Miss Harris in her nightdress, reading in the sitting room. Behind her, Henrietta’s door was slightly ajar.

  “She’s sleeping,” the woman said, putting her book aside and standing, as if to block my path. “Poor dear was quite exhausted.”

  “I should not have taken her out of doors,” I admitted, feeling quite overset with myself. “I understand she has been troubled by nightmares.”

  The nurse smiled a bit patronizingly at me. “Children go through these things.”

  “I noticed she has been missing Victoria. Perhaps she will sleep better when she finds her. Do you have any idea where she is?”

  “I shall look for it tomorrow.”

  “I promised her I would help—”

  “I will take care of it,” Miss Harris said crisply. She turned and went into her room. I stared after her, wrestling with my temper at her rudeness. I decided I very well would have a look for the doll.

  In the shadows of the schoolroom, the light cast from my lamp was merely a tepid yellow, too weak to do much against the night gathered densely in the large room. I crept quietly, suffering a stubbed toe and a banged shin without a sound. However, in the end, my determination won out. I spied a lock of shining blond hair behind a pile of books and toys stacked against one wall, and Victoria was found.

  I rearranged the doll’s tousled curls, happy with the thought of Hen’s pleasure when she saw her again. “Henrietta has b
een missing you,” I whispered.

  A light, sharp staccato sound came from the direction of the window. I tensed, turning slowly to see it was only a branch stirring in the wind, brushing against the glass. Henrietta’s tap ping. I sighed and laughed at myself. My nerves were overwrought. I would do well to put myself to bed.

  I was almost at the door when Henrietta suddenly cried out in her sleep. The tapping stopped.

  I doused my lamp and placed it on the floor, moving slowly toward the window. Tentatively, the summoning noise started again. I peered out into the night, but I could see nothing. In her bed, Henrietta called out again. I heard her say, “No.”

  I clutched Victoria to me as I strained to see what might be out there. A sensation of heat against my breast made me look down. The doll’s blank eyes gave nothing away, but the moonlight caught the cross hanging about her neck in a curious manner, giving it the strange and unnerving aspect of casting it aglow. I touched it. It felt warm.

  Just then, a gust of wind kicked up outside. I heard the high-pitched wail of a screech owl, so close it might have been seated on the very branch scratching at the window. It sounded unnervingly like something in pain. There was a great, sudden sound of air rushing past the glass, then all was still.

  My legs shook. What was happening? Was this a fancy, too? Did I dare believe the evidence of my senses?

  I went into Henrietta’s room and stood for a long time, smoothing the hair gently from her forehead. Then I placed Victoria next to her, tucking the doll gently under her arm.

  “He doesn’t like that, does he?” I whispered. I leaned over and kissed Henrietta’s forehead, careful not to wake her. She stirred, clutching the doll closer.

  I retreated to my room, thinking of the cross growing hot, of the shadow I’d seen by the tree, of everything collecting around this house, this child. And I thought of Mr. Fox. I believed he knew something. He’d given me the Coleridge poem.

  I lit a candle by my bedside and read it through, absorbing its brooding images, the chill sense of danger. The long poem was rife with dark phrases. “Each matin bell, the Baron saith, knells us back to a world of death.” His words were haunting as he described a mysterious midnight visitor, Geraldine, and how she seduced the innocent Christabel, thus bringing about the slow demise of her world and all she loved. She was clearly some kind of demon or ghoul. What was Mr. Fox getting at in suggesting I read this?

  One particular passage caught my attention.

  A snake’s small eye blinks dull and shy,

  And the lady’s eyes they shrunk in her head,

  Each shrunk up to a serpent’s eye,

  And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread,

  At Christabel she look’d askance!

  It struck me as curious and brought on a vague sense of disturbance. The image of a serpent seemed to be a common thing of late: the Great Stone Serpent of The Sanctuary and the figure I’d seen in the storm clouds. Had that been a serpent? Or perhaps the shape of a dragon? And a dragon was really a serpent with wings, I reasoned, so it was too similar to be ignored. Was this why Mr. Fox had recommended the poem?

  When I was finished, I read it again, and with the day’s events in mind, ruminated far into the morning hours, and in the end, my credulity was primed to consider the extraordinary possibility that perhaps my mother’s madness was not at work here.

  But if not madness…then what?

  Chapter Seven

  I sought Mr. Fox the following day as soon as I could sneak away from my sister and cousin, who were excitedly planning the new baby’s layette and I am sure did not miss me. I found him standing in the middle of the second-floor hallway, his brow furrowed in concentration as he stared at the archway over the music room. Upon his spying my approach, his smile of greeting seemed rueful. Waving his pencil, he pointed to an inscription. “I’m writing them all down. Fascinating, do you not agree?” Squinting at the words, he intoned out loud, “Exitus acta probat.” He paused to scribble in his notebook. “I shall translate it later.”

  “The result validates the deed.”

  He gazed at me, surprised. “You know Latin?”

  “I do,” I replied coolly. But my ennui was a farce; I was unforgivably flattered that I’d impressed him.

  “Hmm.” He regarded me with those glittering onyx eyes, then strode away, caught up in his thoughts.

  I followed. “Why are you interested in these inscriptions?”

  He placed the notebook under his arm and the pencil in the pocket of his pants. “I believe, Mrs. Andrews, these are clues.”

  “Clues? To what?” I was being disingenuous and he knew it. His eyelids lowered to half-mast. He smiled patiently at me, as if in silent remonstrance that I should know better. He moved along and I fell in step with him.

  “Mr. Fox, I read the Coleridge poem last night. Twice, in fact. Please explain why you suggested such a thoroughly inappropriate selection.”

  He frowned. “But what did you think the poem was about?”

  “Christabel meets a stranger and invites her into her home, although the nature of Geraldine’s wickedness was not clear. There seem to be more hints of disaster than any real description.”

  “Did you realize, Mrs. Andrews, that Geraldine is a revenant?”

  “A ghost!” I exclaimed. I meant to be mocking, but the sound of my voice was too high-pitched.

  “More precisely, a being that is, for lack of a better explanation, undead.”

  I could barely breathe. “And again I ask you, sir, what relevance do you feel this has on any situation at present?” I feared I knew the answer.

  “That, Mrs. Andrews,” he said with crisp accents, “is exactly what I intend to find out.”

  I stepped in his path. “Please do me the favor of explaining yourself.”

  He hesitated before responding. “Mrs. Andrews,” he began, his tone conciliatory, “might I inquire after the child. Little Henrietta.”

  Fear stopped me dead in the space of a heartbeat, cooled my heat. “Why do you wish to know about Henrietta?”

  “You are close to her. Surely, you would notice any changes in her behavior of late. Unexplained fatigue, a pallor that seems untoward.”

  Suspicion crowded my thoughts. “Are you referring to the affliction in the village?” I asked.

  He inclined his head.

  The cold fear that had doused my annoyance now chilled me. “Mr. Fox, again I implore you to tell me what it is you know. Or, at least, suspect.”

  His eyes flashed, a brief glimpse of anger, and then I saw his emotion shift into something bleak and…And if I did not know better, I might have thought I saw real regret there. His response was simple. “No, Mrs. Andrews. For your own good, no.”

  My vision blurred and I fought for my self-control. “Mr. Fox, we both of us know something very wrong is in Wiltshire. If Henrietta is at any risk, you must tell me what it is. You must trust me with your thoughts.”

  He drew in a slow, thoughtful breath. “And do you trust me?” he queried gently.

  The soft-spoken question was like a slap. Would I trust him—indeed not! What would I sound like, speaking of talking shadows and clouds and tapping at the window? Yet I wanted to tell him. Holding all of this inside me was becoming unbearable.

  “So we are at an impasse,” he murmured somberly.

  I pushed past him, rubbing the palm of my right hand against my skirts to minister to the itch there, so great was my desire to strike him. If I had thought violence would have served any purpose, I would have. And I would have enjoyed it.

  When I was a child, I would sneak into the spare bedroom to which my stepmother, Judith, had banished my mother’s portrait. I’d lie on the bed for hours and stare, trying to capture one small recollection of Laura’s face, her scent. One memory.

  As I studied her painted likeness, I had asked myself what would her laugh be like? Perhaps she might look down at me fondly, brush my hair with the palm of her hand, or lean in to whi
sper something secret into my ear, something for just us alone. I had no real memories, for I was only three when she died, and no one spoke of her. The only knowledge I had of her was the furtive gossip of the servants. That was how I learned of her madness—and I learned, too, that they all expected me to follow suit one day.

  In my room, where I was attempting to read in the middle of another dreary afternoon, I thought of the flash I’d gotten, the memory of my mother’s weeping. One precious memory at long last, but it was disturbing, not the kind of vision I’d longed for as a child. I wanted to know more. I deserved to know more of what had happened to her.

  The only other person who had known Laura then was leagues away. Uncle Peter, my father’s dear friend and my godfather, had known my mother; he’d visited frequently in my childhood and through my youth. He was a magical influence on me when I was a child, for he exuded old-world culture and a quiet air of wisdom. His accent and exaggerated manners—both a result of his Romanian birth—made him exotic and romantic. He had been my idol and my first infatuation, a dashing foreign-born man with heavy mustaches lying luxuriously over a smiling mouth, the crinkles in the corner of his eye sparkling with delight in me, for I had been his favorite.

  Had he been here, I would have laid my burdens on his capable shoulders and sighed with relief. I had his direction in London, where a letter would find him even if he were out of the country. As a member of Romania’s diplomatic delegation, he was meticulous about forwarding his correspondence.

  I put aside my book and took pen in hand. It was only a letter, but it provided catharsis, and my head felt clearer after writing that I was thinking of my mother of late and felt, as she had been particularly on my mind, that I should know more of her illness, and what had happened to her.

  It was a bold thing, but I was glad I did it. I instantly felt better. While I had my ink pot out, I attended to some other correspondence to old friends which I’d neglected, sealed the letters, and put them on the table to be taken to post. It was good medicine; for a moment I felt almost normal.

  It did not last. That evening, after dinner, Mary and Roger were summoned to the nurseries, for little Henrietta was inconsolable. It seemed that after a too-brief reunion, Victoria had gone missing again.