by P. N. Elrod
She looked ready to throw another seedcake at me, but they’d all been eaten.
“Jericho, is there a maid handy who can help her get ready for bed?”
“I can get ready myself, thank you very much,” she said. “Though I would like some hot washing water. And soap. And a drying cloth.”
Jericho stood. “I can see to that, miss. There’s a likely wench downstairs who’s supposed to help the ladies staying here. I’ll send her up straightaway.”
Faced with two men determined to see to her comfort, Elizabeth offered no more protest as I escorted her across the hall to her room. She did not say good night, but did throw her arms around me in a brief, fierce embrace. I returned it, told her that all was well again and to take as much rest as she needed. She snuffled a little when she closed the door, but I knew the worst was over for her. Sometimes tears are the best way to ease a sorely tried soul; hers was well on the mend. She’d be fine by the time the hot water arrived.
I felt in want of a good wash as well, and Jericho troubled himself to provide for me, unasked. He moved more slowly than usual because of the brandy, but his hand was as steady as ever while scraping my chin clean with the razor.
“Your beard did not grow much during the voyage,” he said, wiping soap and bristles on the towel draped over his free arm. “I only had to shave you but once in two weeks. Even then it hardly looked like half a day’s growth.”
“Good heavens, really?” My chin and cheeks were capable of producing a vigorous crop in a short span, and during exceptionally demanding social seasons Jericho insisted I shave every night.
“It must have been a very deep sleep to do that,” he added.
“Deep, indeed. But never again. Too frightening.”
He quietly agreed.
Hardly before I knew it, he’d finished my toilet and assisted my dressing for the evening. More than half the night remained to me, and I’d expressed a desperate need for fresh air despite the perils of the streets. Perhaps in my own mind I’d been at sea for only two nights, but that was still too many. Over solid ground at last, I sorely desired to feel it under my feet again.
“But this is my heavy cloak,” I said as he dropped it over my shoulders.
“It’s cold now, Mr. Jonathan, nearly December. The people here say they’ve had some snow and there’s always a chance for more.”
“Oh.”
He put my hat in place and handed me my sword cane. It was so like the last time on the ship that I had a mad thought that the voyage had never happened, and we were in some harbor town close to Long Island. Or that I’d dreamed the whole thing. It seemed more likely than the truth. How perfectly absurd it was to make a two-month crossing in but two days. It was most unnatural.
“Please be mindful of the time,” he said. “You’ve an hour more of darkness now, but there’s no reason to take risks.”
True. If I got caught out at sunrise, a near-stranger again in this huge and hasty city . . . . I gave him my solemn promise to take all care, then exacted one from him to get some rest and not wait up.
Then I was downstairs and crossing the muddy courtyard of the inn, my stride long and free after the confines of the ship. The hour was early enough, at least for London, not more than eleven of the clock. Being used to the quiet of the country now nearly half a world away, I found the continued noise and bustle of the dark streets hard to take in. My memories of previous visits had to do with the daytime, though; at night it was as though another, more wretched city emerged from a hidden concavity of the earth to do its business with a luckless world.
That business was of the shadowy sort, as might be expected. I kept a tight hand on my cane and my head up, alert to everything around me lest some pickpocket try making a profit at my expense. They were bad enough, but almost genteel compared to their wilder cousins, the footpads. Lacking the skill for subtle thievery, such rascals found it easier to simply murder their victims in order to prevent outcry and pursuit. I should have pressed my case more firmly to Elizabeth and Jericho about the violence here.
My pace brisk and eyes wide, I was well aware of the half-human debris skulking in the black shadows between the buildings. I avoided these by walking close to the street, though that put me to the risk of getting spattered by mud and worse from passing carriages and riders. Most of the thoroughfares were marked out by hundreds of white posts that separated the traffic from the pedestrians. No vehicle would dare cross that barrier, so at least I was safe from getting run over.
I could have made myself invisible, soared high and easily floated over these perils, but that would have meant forsaking this glimpse of the city. Dangers aside, I’d missed London and wanted to get reacquainted with every square inch of it.
With some exceptions, of course. No man who was not drunk or insane would venture into certain streets, but there were myriad others of a more wholesome nature to draw one’s interest. As I traveled from one to the next, I marveled anew at the lines of glass-fronted shops with their best wares displayed in an effort to tempt people inside. All were closed now, except for the taverns and coffee shops, but I had no need for what they had to sell.
Nor was I particularly eager to sample the goods offered by the hundreds of whores I encountered along the way. Most were my age or much younger, some of these desperately proclaiming their virginal state was mine to have if I but paid for it. A few were pretty or had put on enough paint and powder to make themselves so, but I had no desire to stop and bargain for their services. By doing so I’d make myself vulnerable to robbery should they be working with a gang of footpads. I brushed past, ignoring them in favor of the more pressing errand I had in mind.
I briskly crossed through one neighborhood after another, some fashionable, some so rank as to be a lost cause and others so elegant that they seemed to have been birthed in another land altogether. It was to a particular one in this latter category that I eagerly headed.
Though she had moved to Cambridge to live near me while I pursued my studies, Nora Jones often returned to London to enjoy its pleasures. I just as often followed her whenever possible, for those pleasures were doubled, she said, by my company. We’d take her carriage across London Bridge to Vauxhall Gardens and stroll there, listening to the “fairy music” played by an orchestra located underground. Their sweet melodies magically emerged from the foliage by means of an ingenious system of pipes. Sometimes I would take supper in an alcove of the Chinese Pavilion, and later we would content ourselves with a tour of the Grand Walk. She never tired in her admiration of the innumerable glass lamps that made the whole place as bright as day. Other outings might mean taking a box at the theater or opera or going to Vauxhall’s more formal rival, Ranelagh, but always would we return to her own beautiful house and in sweet privacy partake of more carnal forms of diversion.
To this house I now sped, holding a faint spark of hope in my heart that she might now be there.
Since my change I’d written Oliver many times asking him to find her, and he assured me he stopped by almost weekly to see if anyone answered the bell. None had, but his last missive to me on his most recent lack of success was months old. There was every chance that she could have returned in the meantime.
Memory and anticipation are a tormenting combination. The familiarity of the streets brought Nora’s face and form back to me with the keenness of a new-sharpened knife. I found myself speaking her name under my breath as though it were a prayer, as though she could somehow hear and be there when I arrived. Gone was any shred of anger I’d harbored against her for the manner of our parting. It had been a cruel thing to try to make me forget our love, crueler still to leave me with no warning or knowledge about the legacy of her blood, but I had no care for that anymore; all I cared about was seeing her again.
My heart sank as soon as I rounded the last corner and clapped eager eyes on the structure.
Nora w
as careful to keep her homes in good order, and this one, though not at all fallen to ruin, yet exuded an unmistakable air of non-occupation. Leaves and mud cluttered the dingy steps to the front door; its paint was in need of renewal. The brass knob and knocker were tarnished. The windows were fast shuttered and undoubtedly locked from within.
I could hardly have felt worse if the entire building had been a gutted wreckage.
Slowly completing the last few paces to the door, I knocked, knowing it to be a futile gesture, but needing to do something. No one came, nor did I hear the least sound from within. I looked ’round the street. It was empty for the moment.
Then the whole of it melted away in gray mist and vanished.
I pressed hard against the door, aware of its solidity, but well able to seep past it like fog through a curtain. Grayness again, then shapes and shadows, then muted colors and patterns. I was standing in her foyer, and it was dark.
Only a few glimmers of illumination from the diffuse winter sky got past the shutters, not enough to really see anything. Opening a window would not be an especially good idea; I saw no advantage announcing my presence to her neighbors. They might come over to investigate the intrusion, and then I’d have to answer questions. . . . I could also ask some, perhaps obtaining a clue to her whereabouts, but Oliver had already done that, I remembered.
This much I could see: The furnishings were either gone or draped in dust sheets. No pictures adorned the walls, no books remained, no candles, either, I discovered. Not until I bumped my way to the kitchen in the back of the house did I find one, a discarded stump no more than an inch long. Making use of my tinderbox, I got it lighted, but had no stick or dish to place it on. I made do by fixing it to the box with a drop of melted wax.
The kitchen was not as deserted as the rest of the house. Though clean enough, there were probably still crumbs to be had for the rats and mice. I could hear them scuttling unseen inside and along the walls. Leaving them to their foraging, I went back to the central hall and hurried through the door to her bedroom.
Emptiness, both in the room and in my heart. The walls were stripped, the curtains gone, even the bed where with much joy I’d lost my virginity was taken. The dust coating the floor was such as to indicate things had been in this deserted state for a long time.
The other chambers were echoes of this one. Everything that was important to her, everything that was her, was missing, taken to God knows where. Oliver said she’d left for the Continent, but he’d not mentioned just how thoroughly she had removed herself.
Feeling ten times worse than before, I came down again, this time to investigate one last room. Its door was just off the foyer and locked. Untroubled by this barrier, I passed through it; the candle in my hand flickered once, then resumed a steady flame. The tiny light revealed long unused steps leading down into overwhelming darkness.
More scuttlings from rats and dank air filled with the kind of oppression that’s born from morbid imaginings—I’d no desire to be here, but also no choice. I had to see one last thing for myself, and not give in to childish trepidations about lurking ghosts. This was a dark cellar and nothing more. The place would be no different if I had along a company of soldiers armed to the teeth. On the other hand, perhaps it would be. Not so quiet. More light. And noise. Perhaps if I whistled . . . oh . . . never mind.
No key or bolt on this side of the door, so I couldn’t open it and provide myself with an easy escape. Considering my ability to disappear at the least provocation, I was being foolish. I forced myself step-by-step down to the landing.
Nothing more threatening awaited here than old boxes and broken furniture. I threaded a path through them, holding the candle high, squinting ineffectually against the gloom until I found what seemed to be the opposite wall. Seemed. I knew it to be false.
It had been built out from the actual wall as a carefully constructed duplicate, even down to the coloring of the stones and mortar. There was no opening of any kind; she’d not found one necessary. To enter, she had but to vanish and pass through, as I did now.
Within was a silence so complete that I had to fight to retain solidity. I wanted myself away from this place. My mind instantly cast itself back to the hideous moments when I’d first awakened to this life and realized I was in a coffin and buried. There was even a strong smell of damp earth here the same as there had been then. They’d put me in my best Sunday clothes, drawn the shroud up past my head and tied it off, then nailed me into a box and lowered it into the weeping ground.
A sudden hard sob rose up, choking me.
I’d missed the service, the hymns, the prayers, the tears, the hollow impact as the first clods shoveled into the grave banged against my coffin. Asleep. I’d been oblivious in the sleep of the dead until the sun was gone and consciousness returned.
There had been nothing to hear at that waking.
Nothing but my own screams.
My body began to shake in remembrance of that damnable terror.
I’d wanted out, I’d had to get out.
Nothing to see. Absolute blackness. I’d have sold my soul for even this tiny trembling flame.
Which was now beginning to fade, to diminish.
No. . ..
Getting smaller . . . dying.
If it went out now I might never return later, not with this fresh fear close atop the old ones.
I made myself watch the little drop of fire in my hand as though I could will it back to strength again.
And most remarkably, it did grow brighter.
Only then did I comprehend it was not the candle but myself that had faded, trying to escape from a memory, from a shadow alive only in my mind. A fool’s occupation, I impatiently thought.
Not a fool. Only a frightened man, with a perfectly reasonable fear.
So face it, laddie. I could almost hear Father’s comforting voice in my head, gentle and at the same time practical and firm.
Would that the laugh I conjured up from within had some of his tone, but I settled for the thin noise that did come out. It struck flat against the close walls of this chamber, but the fear holding me frozen retreated somewhat. Not far, but far enough.
Able to look around, I was aware that no one else other than Nora had been here since the workmen sealed up the cracks. My shoes scraped over dust that had last been disturbed by her passage. There lay the marks of her own slippers and long swirls where her skirts had brushed.
They led to a sizable rectangular shape rising from the floor; like the remaining furnishings above, it was also protected by a dust sheet. I flipped back a portion of it, revealing a plain oaken construction some two feet high and wide and long enough to serve as a bed.
Lifting the lid, I found that the interior of the box was filled right to the top with what appeared to be small pillows made of thick canvas. They were actually bags hauntingly like those I’d had made, and like mine, were heavy with a quantity of earth. Her home earth. This was where she rested during the day. Not inside, of course, as there was no room, but above on the closed lid, thus sparing her clothing from the sifting from the bags. As for the chill air of this cellarage, that was nothing to us; during the day we are indifferent to such discomforts.
Now I released a sigh, thanking heaven for this happy discovery. As precious and necessary as it was to my daytime rest, I could expect her need for this portion of the grave to be identical to mine. Certainly she would have taken some with her to wherever she now lived, but if she never intended to return to this house, she’d have removed this cache along with the rest of her things. Sooner or later she must come back.
Unless something had happened to her.
Her goods could have been carried off and sold and this box left behind because no one knew about it. Or if anyone did, they’d placed no value on it, not bothering to knock down the wall to . . . .
Stop it. Nora was all
right. Until and unless I heard anything different, she was all right.
God, but she was the most cautious soul I’d ever met, well able to look after herself. Had she not been able to safely juggle the attentions of a dozen or more of her courtiers, taking care that none of them should harm her or each other? There had been the one exception with Tony Warburton, but she’d survived his madness. With my own rough experiences as an example, I knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, for her to come to permanent physical harm. Sunlight was our only enemy and, of course, fire, but this chamber was ample proof of the measures she’d taken to ensure her safety should such a calamity occur. With its stone walls and a strong roof made of slate, this sanctuary was as fireproof as a tomb.
Better not to dwell on that point, Johnny-boy, I thought with a shiver.
I replaced the lid and pulled the dust sheet back. A note, then, was necessary. I’d prepared one against this possibility and could leave it here where she was sure to find it. . . . No, perhaps not. Better she directly learn from me the results of our liaison than to infer it by my invasion of her most private chamber. I’d leave it upstairs. If she did not come here herself, then a servant would pass it along.
Please, God, let it be soon.
* * *
The outside air, for its stench of coal smoke and night soil, seemed sweet and fresh after my exploration of Nora’s empty house. The wind whipped my cloak around at street corners. It had a wet bite, promising rain, but not cold enough to sleet. The sky was clouded over, but bright to my eyes, for the most part casting a diffuse and shadowless illumination over the city. Those areas still held fast by the darkness I avoided, having already had a glut of it.
Though I’d gotten past my adverse reaction to the sealed room, I was yet a little shaken. The strength of it surprised me, but what else might I have expected? Perhaps this was a fear I needed to face down the same as I’d done at the Captain’s Kettle; however, there was absolutely no desire lurking in me to attend to it. For the moment I had other things to think about, with finding Nora being the most pressing.
