by Marvin Kaye
Though not wholly surprised, I may well have looked alarmed at this strategy. If I were to act as a bodyguard, wasn’t the principle to be a visible deterrent? If, however, due to an exaggerated faith in me, I’m expected to function as a sort of Trojan Horse (or the secreted contents of a poison ring), I had no wish to be revealed to the enemy whilst crouched on a microscopic stool in a cupboard, caught with both my side and my back flush against the wall.
Maddy looked at me, the stool, then did a terribly female thing. She rushed to the divan, snatched a fat fringed oval cushion, and set it atop the stool. “Et voilà!” she cried. “A throne fit for a king and a hero!”
Before I could stop laughing and enumerate my objections, a dog outside began barking and Jane called downstairs to us, “Maddy, you’d best be ready before he is here!”
Of Maddy I enquired, “She knows I am present?”
“Oh, she knew when I asked her for the curtain. It’s Randall that she means.”
“Randall is coming here now?”
She nodded. This was a problem. The young earl wasn’t a man one would wish his daughters alone with. Or his cousins.
“Where’s your uncle?” I asked, for I hadn’t seen anyone about the house, or heard any movement’s but Jane’s.
“He’s on a business errand. It’s important, truly.”
“Servants?”
She shook her head.
“Housekeeper?”
“We’ve been doing for ourselves since—”
A loud rap resounded on the door.
“Well, then, let me answer the door. You can be sure I know how to tell a man his presence is not required.”
“Please.” She looked at me with those pale eyes. “We’ve invited him. In secret. He’s agreed to forgive part of a debt if we’d meet like this. Jane thinks—”
Another rap at the door. Then another.
Jane called, “I’m going to the door now!”
I said, “I can’t say I like this, Madeline.”
“No,” she said, motioning me into the closet. “But I need you now, please, I’m scared!”
I wedged myself into the closet and sat down sideways, the only way I fit. “I said I’d do this and I will,” I told her.
Social voices approached us.
“Don’t forget your promise!” she implored.
I certainly recalled what she’d made me vow in the hansom: to stay put no matter what in the world occurred, even death. I was to listen, to watch if I could, but under no circumstance must I leave or call attention to my hiding place—not unless Madeline or Jane cried out the very words “John Watson!”
Plainly, nothing good could come of this.
I heard Jane’s footsteps, and heavier ones beside her. Madeline dropped the curtain over my face.
Darkness.
Utter darkness.
Something was being said, in a man’s low voice. It might have been, “Good day, Madeline,” but I wasn’t sure. A murmur came in reply.
Not only could I not see my hand before my face, I could not hear what transpired beyond the curtain. My luck worsened by the second, no doubt spoiling theirs. This tiny closet was no vantage point. Perhaps I should stand? Was that possible with this accursed stool in with me? Could I stand astride or atop it? And if so, could this be done soundlessly, or would the motion bring on discovery and discovery bring on attack? My heart pounded. Swiftly I commenced to experience a rather panicky sort of regret, the basic identifying emotion of Man in a Trap.
Yet, unless Randall, animal that I was told he was, could smell misery, I remained for the moment a less than public exhibit.
Then, like the dawn, I could see! Not well, but I could. My eyes drank in and adjusted to what illumination there was. I saw my knobbly hands resting on my dark trousers, and a definite pattern of light coming through the textured curtain. At the same time, I could hear even Maddy’s soft, soft footsteps, and then the three arranging themselves on the divan facing the fire, facing me. Now that Maddy no longer stood before my cupboard with her back to it, matters had changed indeed.
“Well, Randall,” said Jane, playing the proper hostess. “So good of you to come.”
“Not so very good of me,” Randall replied waggishly. “But here I am.”
I leaned forward. Where the curtain ended, I could peer out and see the three of them on a worn divan long ago upholstered in crimson velvet. Jane, a dark-haired beauty, sat bolt upright in the middle, feigning to work on her stitchery, and in essence acting as the largest possible wall betwixt Madeline and Randall. I found that aspect agreeable.
The young Earl of Norris was the sort of man women liked and I didn’t.
Although seated, Randall looked tall and proud. I saw at once he enjoyed to be looked at. He was clean-shaven, and meticulously combed, with the fair dimpled face and pursed rosy lips of a spoiled girl-child.
It was not simply his height, though, but his strapping girth which concerned me. While my complexion sallowed and my body dwindled from endless indoor study to someday save a life, Randall plainly spent mornings out in the fresh air, riding horseback in the shade of the forest, using an old musket against fox, beaver, pheasant and rabbit. Though larger than his typical prey, even altogether we three cousins made a poor match for his vigour.
“Yes, yes,” Jane murmured, smiling. “Here you are; we’re agreed on that.” She performed a single stitch. “And you’ve arranged the favour we discussed?”
“You’d be surprised, my dear!”
“Do tell, Randall,” Jane prompted. “How does this work?”
Randall made a show of examining his gold pocket watch. “When a half an hour has passed, Jane, your father will be shown into my office, outside which he waits even now. My trusted man Laurence will tell him I cannot see him today to take his mortgage payment, but will present him with a sealed envelope marked in my own hand with his Christian name.
“Within, he will find a receipt for today’s payment, though no moneys will be accepted. For this I get two things, do I not?” He eyed the two women like a snake looking at a mouse.
“Two? I think not.” Jane faced her cousin. “Maddy, give Randall the medicament we promised.”
Madeline opened a paisley drawstring purse and brought to light a small cobalt glass bottle, ridged to denote poison.
Of a sudden, bright light fell on my face. For a split-second I feared I’d been discovered, but saw only an enormous scar-faced torn, switching its striped tail back and forth along the curtain, revealing me at intervals.
I leaned back and moved the curtain around the animal, which promptly jumped onto my lap. That torn weighed four stone if he weighed a feather.
Fortunately Randall was still transfixed by the poison bottle and snatched it from Madeline’s hands. Ignoring the young lady’s apparent shock, he demanded, “What is it? Will it work fast?”
Jane said, “I shouldn’t expect you to ask if it’s cruel or safe.”
Randall waited.
“Although,” Jane allowed, “any drug secretly administered which snuffs out an infant in the womb would be cruel.”
Good God, I thought, what toxin are they providing him? Strychnine? Something more hideous? My questioning thoughts were drowned out by Randall’s.
“But will it work? What is it? How long will it take? By what method is it given?”
Jane shook her head. “Our young physician friend said only to get this into her soon as can be. Injection is the most dependable method but—”
“That’s well enough. I’ve a syringe on order from the apothecary.”
Lady Jane interrupted. But as I was saying this is safest if given by spoon. Call it a digestive elixir if you like. If you care for Vittoria’s—for the woman’s—health—you won’t allow her to exercise after, but let her rest for several . . .”
“Oh, she’s strong enough—too strong, really—daughter of a filthy charwoman I don’t doubt, or a hag who gathers fuel serenaded by Saint Clement’s bells.
An embarrassment now is all. The shop clerks say, ‘Her smile is like the Mona Lisa.’ A bad front tooth is all. I’ll not allow her a fine FitzRandall for her travelling horse, freak and pickpocket show! Vittoria can overmaster a stallion fifteen hand high! Oh, how I worry after her precious health. All I do care to know is, why did this doctor not include a syringe for the injection? I mean, who is this doctor anyway, your cousin?”
“Something like that,” said Jane, nodding. I came to the awful realization they meant me. I’d provided poison to no one!
“As for his name . . .” Jane smiled. I held my breath. Was she about to call me to her service, or was this just talk? “As for his name, you may learn it very shortly. For he is due here this very day, but if you leave now,” she said, rising to her feet so that he must, too, “you’ll miss him, and he’ll never guess the medicine wasn’t a purge for Madeline or myself.”
He was standing now, sideways to me, wearing a false but handsome look of hurt. “But Jane, I thought you and I were friends! Why if you were half as plentifully endowed with money and moveables as you are with womanly charms, I should marry you myself. That is, in that case my uncle would permit me.”
“Yes, Father told me of ‘your uncle’s’ objection. Insufficient advantage, eh?”
Randall shrugged. “That is the other thing I gain in coming here, not having to again refuse your pathetic father’s offer of a rather tempting arrangement, when in fact, being a man of normal appetites, I should certainly enjoy—”
Provoked by the threat of implications unsuited to mixed company, Jane smoothly interrupted. “I know that you imagine you fancy me, Randall . . .”
He gazed frankly at her. “More than imagining.”
“Perhaps.” Surprisingly, Jane smiled at the rogue, then blushed.
“No perhaps. In fact I intend to prove it!”
Jane must have meant to say “How?” when Randall made a grab at her skirts; the sound came out strangely. Jane fell back onto the seating, straightening her clothes, and said firmly, “Randall, you’ve told me you are busy of late, but coincidentally we are expecting guests; still it grieves us that you must depart so soon. Perhaps next time we can spend—”
He laughed. “Ah, no, I thank you both for your gracious hospitality, but I rather think it’s best I stay.” I was furious, and I knew the girls were thinking of using me. But would they? My heart beat loudly.
“However,” he said, fingering his dear watch again, “if I leave now I just have time to meet your father and see his face as he tells me he cannot keep the house.”
Appraisingly, he looked about the room and chuckled. “This is a grand old place. Not that I’d live here. Why should I? I’ll just sell it to someone else.” He leered at the girls. “Break the old bear’s heart, it would, knowing he’s not even man enough to give you two a home . . .”
Randall paused to let this sink in. “But I’ll go . . . go to my meeting. Unless, my lovely Jane, you’d care to distract and delay me with some age-old satisfaction?”
She did her best to remain ladylike. “But what satisfaction canst thou have tonight?” With this, Juliet’s balcony-scene question to Romeo, Jane meant to lighten matters, but Randall’s response, being more physical than Romeo’s, resulted in another skirmish. Jane shoved him off her, crying, “No! I can’t! I can’t!” and tugging down her skirts. “I—I have female troubles,” she declared, “I cannot be of any use to you, sir!”
Beneath the huge cat my blood raced, I felt mobilized to fight, but the fight was ended.
“Really?” Randall said in patent disbelief. “Here I’d imagined your petty virginity was the obstacle to coming to your family’s aid.” Jane’s face coloured, but she said nothing. “I’m going, then.” Randall chuckled. “And still in time!” He took up his hat.
For the first time, Madeline spoke. “Wait, sir!”
“I told you, don’t talk to him,” Jane said.
“What’s this, then?” Randall beamed with delight.
“Stay to tea,” Maddy said.
“Tea!” Randall was outright laughing. “Marvellous!” he roared. “I thought my ears deceived me. The drab one has a voice!” Just when I thought he’d angered me to the limit, he said, “But I don’t want tea. Just give me a few minutes, my dear.”
“Out!” Jane said to Randall. Then she started, I could swear, to say my name. “Joh—”
But Maddy replied, “It’s my home, too.” Her voice resounded against the masonry, clear and brave. Jane was furious, but said nothing. The same could be said of me.
There followed one of the strangest, most terrible scenes to which I’ve ever borne witness. I’d like to say I can’t recall precisely what transpired, but truth is I cannot forget.
All right, Holmes, all right, I’ll bloody tell it. I scarcely imagine any other person could believe so depraved a story, much less willingly consort with any person living or dead who had been in that room then, including myself. Yet I have little fear you will harbour ill-will against me for those events, though I myself do.
So, yes, I have feelings enough, but they’re all a-jumble and herky-jerky. I will continue to outline for you (or is it me?) more of the facts.
He pulled Madeline’s skirts up, right as she sat on the divan. No, that happened after—yes—Jane asked Maddy, “Are you sure?” and Maddy answered somehow by saying nothing. The room was so quiet I was sure they heard my heart beat. But who listened for mine? At once, Randall lifted Madeline’s blue skirt, along with the white eyelet lace-edged ones that lined it. Then he lifted it more.
Above the plain well-worn and mended black wool stockings which were ribbon-tied just above the knees, her thighs looked rather brown against the bleached muslin of frilled long open-front pantaloon-type drawers. Maddy’s skin glowed like rosy pearls.
As if he’d some right, Randall parted her legs, stood between them. Her hair there, surely not meant to be seen like this, was tawny like clover honey.
He reached down, touched her in this citadel.
Her face contorted and she screeched in pain.
Then followed a moment of panic. I stood, with the obese mouser now digging its claws into my lap, and me holding onto him, biting my lip and remaining somehow silent . . .
Maddy meanwhile had contracted her knees toward her chest to kick at Randall, who reached out and caught her ankles and seemed quite amused with, nay, inflamed by, the show. I don’t wish to make an indecent remark, so I’ll just say that in addition to his interest in events, made evident by his own déshabillé, Randall’s grin was monstrous. He moved in for the kill.
“Wait!” Jane had found her voice.
“But I don’t want to wait.” One wondered whether Randall knew how.
Jane’s left leg shot out, and she pressed the shiny patent pointed toe of her black kid lace-up boot hard against Randall’s belly, preventing him from finishing the job.
“A well-turned ankle,” Randall rejoined.
(Holmes, you did tell me it is physically impossible for a pig to look up into the sky.)
Jane ignored the bait. Her foot remained in place.
“I’m not leaving now.” Randall was pouting.
“We shall see,” Jane said coldly. “Maddy?”
Randall’s hips pushed forward. Jane shoved the boot-point deeper into his belly, obscuring the patent leather toe-tip.
“Oof!”
“Wait,” Jane repeated, then, “Maddy?” She petted the girl’s neck. “My sweet dove, are you all right?”
“Bosh!” Randall expostulated. “She adores it!”
“Maddy??”
Madeline stared into the air somewhere, her hands over her lap. “I’m here,” the girl said at last. She sounded smaller. “I’m sorry, Janie. I do mean to help . . . But must it hurt?”
“No, Maddy, no,” Jane whispered . . .
Feeling weak and futile, I sat and felt my blood rising to fill the feline-inflicted wounds on my legs, even as the lead-footed animal leisurel
y readjusted itself on my lap. Which stung, but not as much as what happened later.
Jane stroked her cousin’s mousy hair, pausing to swat Randall’s hands away. “No, I won’t let anything hurt you.” So saying, Jane reached to her trembling cousin, into the girl’s lap. With one hand she boldly took hold of both Madeline’s wrists. Mind you, she kept her foot right where it had been. Firmly, Jane pulled Maddy’s arms over the girl’s head.
Maddy’s eyes widened. Was it fear? alarm? For surely this was just how Maddy’s father had grabbed her . . . I’d seen his fury, and doubtless Jane had, too, for she said quite clearly, “Hold still, child, will you? Stop making work!”
In recognition and terror, Maddy looked into her cousin’s eyes. Jane stared back, not with malice but something else altogether. Clasping Maddy’s wrist now to her own heart, Jane kissed the girl nearly imperceptibly on the cheek, whispering, “You’ve ever pleased me, ever!”
From where I stood in shadow, I saw Jane stroking Maddy’s neck, throat and shoulders. Jane loosened and unbuttoned Madeline’s shirt and corset-cover, and began kissing her cousin’s shoulders and chest, whispering, “Such a good girl, so pretty, so dear . . .” and such. Then as first her mind and then slowly her heart understood what her cousin was trying to do, I saw Maddy throw her weight toward Jane, I heard Maddy gasp, a strange strangulated sound as if an ancient ghost were escaping the girl’s soul through her throat.
Next came tears—from hope and gratitude—coursing from palest eyes down her be-kissed face, into her astonished mouth.
Jane continued her work, occasionally looking up to kick the fascinated Randall backward as needed, or slap his clumsily nearing hand and bark, “Wait!” close into his transfixed gaze.
But mostly she petted and kissed and undressed and in sum loved the girl in one enormous yet slow-shrinking spiral, effortlessly as if by implication alone conquering the untouched wilderness between. How to describe this steady, knowing approach? Holmes, fain to say it reminds me now only of that Japanese game of war you showed me—the one played with flat round black stones versus white shell disks on the cross points of a square wooden grid, owning whatever one’s colour completely encircles. Here directness is of the lowest value, the least advantage. Over and over, while Randall meant to plant a flag at territory’s centre, and failed, Jane instead surveyed each border with intimate precision. Like the mountain to Mouhamet, the girl, the Madeline, came now to the Prophet. New-awakened flesh rose to Jane as simply as night-tides yearn up, up toward the heavens—then waves peak, tumble or relax, unfolding themselves for the soft, brilliant moon.
