by Mae Ronan
Hardly ever did I choose to spend two nights in the same place. But there was something very particular, and very compelling, that drew me back to the house where I found Mikey. So, just as night touched its chilly fingers down round my shoulders, I returned to the great, dark house, and entered again with my sharp little tool through the door I had fastened in the morning. I had not wanted anyone coming in, you see, and spoiling my place.
For I had decided, upon quitting Mikey (and witnessing the distinctive and inexplicable grin which he bestowed upon me), that it would be my place – for a little while, at least.
Again I went to sleep on the day bed by the window. Though I wished for Mikey to come and join me, he stayed away. I thought of searching for him in the upper rooms; but just as I planned to get up, and give the search a go, I fell asleep.
When my eyes opened, I thought it was morning. Still, however, the parlour was filled with darkness and shadows. The narrow interstices between the curtains were black. So again I tried to doze. But after a little there came a sound of shuffling, and rustling; and I worked just as quickly as I could to get my lamp lit.
And there sat Mikey, beside me on the bare floor. I moved a little aside, so that he might climb up on the bed. This he did gratefully. He snuggled, then, up under my chin, and rested his head upon a corner of the musty blanket.
***
I came awake to a dim and flickering light that intruded upon my slumber. I sat up, and looked round for Mikey, but could see nothing of him. I patted the side of the bed where he had lain; and it was turned cold.
I thought, at first, that perhaps I had left my lantern alight. But I saw straightaway that its flame was doused. The glow came, rather, from a candlestick lit upon the little table, just beside the lantern. I glanced warily about, but saw no one.
I thought to run; but I feared what might lay just outside the small circle of light, waiting within the wide expanse of shadow that filled half of the great parlour, and extended quite all the way down the connecting hall.
“Hello?” I said softly.
“Hello,” a voice replied.
I started nearly out of my skin. “Who’s there?” I demanded.
A little white figure stepped forth into the light. She stood for a long while, perhaps some seven or eight yards from me, examining me – just as I examined her. Obviously I cannot offer whatever impression she collected; but certainly I can tell you what I saw.
She was wretchedly thin. She was not very tall; and was, in fact, rather a compact figure. Yet she was older, I think, than her small stature betrayed. Her skin was pale and white, her hair long golden flax. She was clad in a ruffled white nightgown, with lace sewed all round the neck and cuffs. Her face was pretty, and sad. Very sad, I thought.
“Who are you?” I asked.
She smiled mysteriously; and after some long moments of silence, answered, “You’ve called me Mikey.”
“What?”
“Mikey,” she repeated. “That’s what you called me.”
“That’s very funny,” I replied, with a shaking voice. “Very amusing. I suppose you were hiding somewhere, watching me?” I engaged myself again in the task of turning my head all about, in pursuit of a glimpse of my great yellow dog. “Where is he?” I asked of the girl.
“It was no he,” said the girl. She sounded rather irritated, now; and I thought I could detect a slight flare of her nostrils, as she looked upon me. “It was a she; for it was me. You called me Mikey. I did not dislike it.”
Quite understandably, I could think of nothing to say. I only stared at the girl, my eyes lingering for long seconds upon the features I had already memorised. I sought for something there, something other than shape and colour; but her countenance was shrouded with shadows. They were no shadows of the night, these shadows – for the candlelight illumined her physiognomy with perfect clarity, revealing all its lovely fineness. But there were questions in the eyes. There were riddles without answers, in the small lines round the mouth, what must have been made on account of a girl who once laughed very often.
“Will you not speak to me?” she asked.
“I don’t believe you,” I said simply.
“Believe what?”
“Anything you say.”
“Believe what you will,” she said lightly, sweeping gracefully to set herself down in an armchair. She drew her legs up under her, and smoothed her white gown over her knees.
“Who are you?” I repeated.
“My name is Hannah.” She smiled. “What’s your name?”
“Becky.”
“What are you doing here, Becky?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Of course it is. This is my house.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen. How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
She clapped her hands together. “Wouldn’t you know it!” she exclaimed.
Naturally I did not believe. Presently I got to my feet, and went all round the room, looking in corners and calling for Mikey. Then I went down the hallway. Still he did not come.
I stopped below the staircase, and hollered his name into its thick darkness, over and over again. “Mikey!” I cried. “Mikey! Where are you?”
I desisted with head hung low, and a sigh perched at the top of my throat. I returned to the parlour; but it was empty. There was nothing but the candle upon the table, casting its solitary radiance into a void of blackness.
***
Weary and frightened, I lay down upon my little bed, and fell into an uneasy sleep. I dreamt away whatever hours were left of the night, and woke to a room full of soft sunlight. A pool of wax had hardened over the tarnished candleholder.
There was no dog, and no girl. I put a trembling hand to my face, and sat silent for a long while, sobbing just a little as I thought. But my attention was diverted by a flash of white. I looked up, wiping my eyes hastily, and saw Hannah. She stood very straight, and seemed to glow with a pride that well became her diminutiveness. Her hair shone like burnished gold in the newly arrived sunshine.
“Good morning,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“What’s it to you?” I growled, leaning my back against the wall. I folded my arms, and looked obstinately towards the opposite end of the room. I did not want to look at Hannah – if indeed Hannah was there at all.
“Have it whatever way you want it,” she replied. “But if we can’t manage to get along, then I don’t think you’ll be able to stay in my house.”
“This isn’t your house.”
“Who is to say?”
“Where are your parents?”
“They’re dead.”
“Why do you live here alone?”
“I always have.”
“Since when?”
“Since I died.”
My vision began to swirl. I lowered my face into my hands, and made an attempt at breathing deeply. But I could only gasp.
“You’re a liar,” I said.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
I looked up at her. “Then how did you die?”
She sighed, and looked down at her hands. She picked absently at her fingernails, for a goodly number of seconds before she answered, “My mother killed me.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes. And then Father killed her.” Again, she sighed. “And then he killed himself.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She was insane.”
“Then why did you stay with her?”
“My father loved her.”
“Did you?”
“In my own way.”
“Do you hate her now?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Another sigh. “It’s much harder to hate, when you’re dead. Things just don’t seem as important as they did before.”
I scooted forward on the bed, the better to see her
face. Inlaid above the chalky cheeks was a pair of beautiful big brown eyes.
“How did you die?” I asked.
“Hatchet.”
I looked away in horror; but it was when I looked back, that I was truly shocked. Hannah stood, just as still and calm as before – but now her white gown was soaked through with red. There was a spot or two of cleanliness, above the cuffs, and near the hem. But she loosed a low groan, as the redness spread to cover this little white that remained.
I hid my face.
I don’t know how long I sat, scared and bewildered. But after a little I felt a cold hand upon my own. I lifted my face, and saw Hannah, standing over me with a solemn smile. “It wasn’t so bad,” she said softly.
So she sat down beside me, and we began to talk. There was nothing more about death, or sadness – but only an assortment of rather brighter and sunnier exchanges, which left us both smiling, in the end.
“I’m sorry for you, Hannah,” I said.
“Not Hannah,” she said. “I like the name you gave me.”
“Mikey?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then, Mikey. That’s what I will call you.”
Her smile was thinner, and sadder than ever. “You’ll not need to anymore,” she said. “You must go home, you know. Your mother worries for you.”
“How do you know that?”
“Only believe me.”
She leaned over, and kissed my cheek. I closed my eyes for a moment; and when they opened, she was gone.
“Goodbye, Mikey,” I said, as I gathered up my lantern from the table. I put it on my belt, and went with a heavy step from the house.
In the street, I turned round once more, and surveyed the visage of the great house. A small white face appeared in a corner window.
I smiled.
And that was ten years ago. Now I am all grown up, for the most part. But since then there have been, and doubtless there will be till I die, two dead children named Mikey, who lie cold in my heart.
The Hopeless Case of Toby Markus
(1846)
I.
Now, as anyone with even a basic understanding of the English language can tell you – even before having opened to the very first page – this story will feature a character named Toby Markus; and his situation will be quite a dismal one.
As one can most certainly infer, even before anyone else has gone so far as to make the point clear: the main characters of this story will be the principal actors in the play of Mr Markus’ doom. We might perhaps even do you one better, and assure you that they will be quite aware of their acting; and assure you, likewise, that Mr Markus will not be.
Our first stage is located on old Bering Street, in the year of our Lord 1846. Its neighbourhood was not the premier locale of London, to be sure – but neither was it so terrible as ever to engender sincere considerations in its inhabitants of leaping off the highest point of the Sully Street Bridge, merely for want of a change of space. It was a place where young people ran to and fro on their parents’ errands; where young ladies had no choice but to spoil their hands in baking and washing, but also enjoyed the occasional piano lesson; and where young men engaged in any and all methods of money-making, which in fact change very little from setting to setting. Bering Street was generally clean, on account of the valiant diligence of each old woman’s sweeping and scrubbing. Children running without caution through the great clouds of their rising dust had been known to fall down choking on the cobbles; but were, instead of being looked upon with concern, only batted about the head with the bristles of the women’s brooms.
It was on old Bering Street that the Eaves family dwelt. Father Christopher Eaves worked down in the magistrate’s office, typing all the day long; and many a time the sort of typing that would turn a less courageous man pale. Robbery, murder, rape and fraud: Christopher Eaves had seen it all. (Or, rather – he had seen it all, from the safety of his comfortable old leather chair, upon the innocent face of a sheet of paper.)
Mother Martha Eaves was the famed baker of Bering Street (and all those streets about, for perhaps a five-mile radius). Her kitchen was equipped with a hearth the size of which you certainly could not see, in any other house near about. She made breads, cakes, pastries and the like, and had little children knocking on her door from morning till night, sent by their mothers for “a special little something from good Mrs Eaves.”
Mrs Eaves had a young apprentice named Jane Olly, who was thirteen years old, and who suffered from the near constant malady of general unpleasantness. She knew not how to smile, but only how to scowl, and glower as if she considered you the very greatest idiot she had ever met. Her skin was sallow, and her hair was stringy; and she was, all in all, the very most disliked person on all the long length of Bering Street.
So why did good Mrs Eaves keep her about? Well, because she was the daughter of her very own sister, the beneficent Mrs Millicent Olly. She and her husband, the respected Mr Evan Olly, were both quite dead, and therefore had been very small help in the rearing of little Jane.
But now Jane was nearly a young woman; and indeed, if any one good thing could be said for her, it was that she could fire a hot oatcake with the best of them.
Aside from Jane, there lived two other young people in the Eaves’ little apartment (which was identical to each and every other apartment on Bering Street, and which was accessed by a narrow wooden door in a wall of brick, separated from the doors on either side by about fifteen feet). The first was Christopher Junior, nine years old, and hateful of both school and baths. He was a relatively quiet boy, but liked to sing (though he was not very good at it). The idea of his favourite day began with removing from bed at ten o’clock, and eating bacon and eggs for breakfast; playing outside till tea-time, and then napping in a mud puddle till supper. If not watched very carefully, he had a tendency to become quite a smelly addition to the apartment.
His sister, Miss Gwendolyn Eaves, was actually not very young at all; but was in fact a full twenty years of age. She had tried her hand in it, but discovered even as a small child that she had no knack for cooking of any kind.
She had an exceptionally strong personality. She was the sort of person whom you either love or hate; and there was usually no resting-place in between. She was extremely pretty, and had a tendency (always unwittingly, of course) to win the love of the unhappy men of Bering Street, while gaining exactly the adverse emotion from their wives. Perhaps the thing that made her most fascinating, was the habit she had of ignoring even those people who stood directly before her. She appeared never to want either conversation or company; and her own thoughts seemed always her most well-liked companions. It is a common fact, that most people will display a much greater desire to possess those things which are out of their reach, than those things to which they are unquestionably entitled. Hence, all husbands evinced a sharp pining for Gwendolyn Eaves; and all wives only wished they could take their best frying pan to the back of her golden head.
But you begin to ask yourself: who is Toby Markus? What in the world does he have to do with anything?
I assure you, we shall get to it. But first – let us introduce Mr Jonah Korbes. He is an old friend, you see, of the elder Christopher Eaves, from the days of either man’s youth and service in the British Army. But we don’t mean to talk about that, either.
Yet we do mean to talk of a particular evening in early September, when Mr Korbes arrived at Bering Street, with a shilling for a nice big cake from Mrs Eaves.
He knocked on the door, and was ushered in warmly by Mr Eaves. He then proceeded directly to the kitchen table, where the day’s leftovers were arranged neatly. He examined them all; then turned to Mrs Eaves, and asked:
“What can I get for a bob, Martha?”
Mrs Eaves wiped her hands on her apron, and pointed to several large and pretty pastries. Each was enough in itself for ten people’s tea.
“Any of those,” she said.
“Ah!” said Korbe
s. He put a finger to his lips, and tapped his foot. “I’ll have that one with the chocolate icing, I think. Box it up for me, will you, Martha?”
“Of course, Jonah.”
Jane Olly cast a dark glance at Korbes, as he laid the shilling down on the table. He tried to smile at her; but was met only with a look that made him shiver. So he turned round to face Mr Eaves. The man had already made himself comfortable in the tiny parlour, and was perusing the newspaper.
“Anything worth knowing, old boy?” asked Korbes, as he settled into an armchair across from his friend.
“Not much,” answered Eaves; though he did not raise his eyes from the paper. “Only a few lines about the Careys’ baby – though I knew about that already. Ran it through at the office just this morning.”
“Stan Carey?” asked Korbes.
Eaves nodded. “His and Berniece’s baby drowned last night. Everyone seems to think Berniece did it – intentionally.”
Korbes shook his head. “No!”
“I’m afraid so.”
Korbes slapped his hands against the arms of the chair, and leaned back. “Well!” he said. “I suppose you never really know people – never mind how well you think you do.”
“I suppose not,” said Eaves seriously. He laid his paper aside.
Now, it is not to be believed that Jonah Korbes was come to Bering Street that night, merely for an hour or so’s company and a scrumptious cake. No. The truth was that he had quite a grand ulterior motive; but he was presently awaiting just the right moment to showcase it.
His ears pricked up, at the sound of footsteps in the short hall off the kitchen. But he was disappointed by the appearance of little Christopher, who swept out across the scoured floor singing to the tune (but not necessarily the proper words) of “James Hatley.”
“Mother,” he said, hopping up and down beside the table; “might I have just a little cake?”
“I gave you a cake just after you ate, Christopher,” said Mrs Eaves.
