Suspended In Dusk

by Ramsey Campbell

  “Writers like yourself, I suppose?”

  “Indeed, writers like myself! We may use language to communicate, and narrative should be our preserve, not yours.”

  Henry snorted and returned to his work. I peered over his shoulder, examining the background as his brush flickered in and out of my field of vision. A dark stain within the shadow of the bridge caught my eye, some sort of hooded figure with its head bowed, facing toward the dead prostitute. A shiver ran down my spine.

  “Who is that?”

  Henry stopped and followed my pointing finger. He frowned as he bent closer.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Did you not paint it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t exactly remember. Perhaps I did so late one evening as my senses departed for the night. Yes, that must be it. That may be the personification of guilt, or shame, felt by the women themselves.”

  Henry nodded and, apparently satisfied by his own explanation, resumed painting once more. I raised an eyebrow, my gaze fixed upon the hooded figure.

  “Did you actually see such a thing when you were there?”

  “When I was where?”

  “Down by the river. At low tide?”

  Henry’s ears flushed red, and he refused to turn around. He bowed his head, his brush sagging in his hand.

  “You didn’t go down to the river, did you?”

  Henry shook his head. I raised my eyebrow.

  “And this is not a scene you painted as you found it, is it?”

  Henry shook his head again. The red flush crept down the back of his neck and disappeared beneath the collar of his paint-stained shirt. He’d protested so often about the veracity of art. It simply confirmed my assertions that truth is the preserve of the writer.

  “Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve never even spoken to an unfortunate. They terrify me. I’d heard the stories, and seen what the other chaps were painting, so I had the daughter of my charwoman pose for the woman.”

  I snorted. “It hardly makes this a painting of truth, does it?”

  Henry said nothing. He resumed painting, his brush slower and more lacklustre than before. He continued in this fashion for several minutes, until it became clear that conversation would be strained at best. I shook my head, and stood.

  “I can see that you are busy, so I shall leave you in peace. I assume we will all see you at Dawkins’s supper on Friday?”

  “That you will, Edward.”

  “Excellent. Until then, goodbye, my friend.”

  I closed the door behind me and descended the three flights of stairs to the front door. I exchanged pleasantries with the charwoman as she washed the front steps, and made my way into the thick fog of the London night.

  * * *

  The image of Henry’s painting remained in my thoughts as I walked, and I compared it to the works I had seen at the Academy, reminding me of a discussion with that infernal Dante Rossetti about fallen women. Snippets of prose tugged at my attention, and my senses tingled with the promise of a new story. I snorted again at Henry’s belief in the moral obligation of art. No, if anyone were to expose the public to the horrors of street life, it should be me.

  My feet took me in the direction of Southwark. My publisher’s brother-in-law had told me of a less-than-reputable club in the area, and advised that I ‘sample the wares’ if I wanted a higher standard of female company. I had no intention of doing such a thing, but the idea of a new muse loomed large in my mind. My last had left London two weeks ago to marry an industrialist in Birmingham, and we had all heard tales of Rossetti’s circle finding their muses in the most unlikely of places. Why might I not find a new one in the bowels of the Virginia Club?

  Red lamps adorned the club’s tables, and corseted waitresses served drinks to men hidden in shadow. I took up a seat near the door, reluctant to venture too far inside lest I find it difficult to find my way back out, and ordered a glass of sherry. Within moments, a blond beauty appeared at my side.

  “Is this seat taken?” She gestured to the empty seat.

  “Not at all.” She sat down and I admired her graceful poise. A pile of golden curls sat on her head, although several ringlets had escaped their pins, and lay against the girl’s pale neck. I tried to picture her standing alone on Blackfriars Bridge, contemplating her fate as she stared into the churning black water below. Yes, she would do.

  “I’m Ellen,” she said.

  “Edward Bonneville. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  She smiled and leaned forward. I tried to guess her age, which I placed at between seventeen and twenty-three. God alone knew what she’d done for employment at this establishment.

  “I shall be honest with you, Ellen, I am not looking for the sort of companionship one might find in a place such as this.”

  “Oh.” Ellen’s smile evaporated and her gaze began to wander the room.

  “No, I seek a muse, and I suspect you may be exactly what I’m looking for.”

  The smile returned, as did her attention. I suppressed a smirk—Ellen had no doubt heard tales of women elevated from the lower classes through their association with artists and writers, and sought a similar advancement for herself. Henry’s painting again came to mind and my inner smirk faltered. Perhaps I could prevent another tragedy.

  “What do you want a muse for?”

  I explained my position as a writer, though disappointment rankled me that Ellen had not heard of my work. I told her about Henry’s lofty ambitions, and my desire to tell the truth that he could not, and in the course of my narrative, I described his painting.

  “It’s common enough. Girls get too old or sick and men don’t want to know. They can’t make any money, so…” Ellen allowed her words to hang in the air but the unhappy conclusion was plain enough to infer.

  “It’s very sad, but I feel literature could do so much more than art.”

  Ellen nodded, as if she knew what I meant. I remembered the hooded figure.

  “However, there was something a little unsettling about Henry’s painting, and I don’t just mean what it was about. No, there was a hooded figure in it that Henry didn’t remember painting.”

  The colour drained from Ellen’s face and her fingers curled around the edge of the table. Her knuckles turned white and a muscle worked in her jaw.

  “The girls fear something worse than the loss of their virtue, sir.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh nothing!” Ellen pasted a false smile on her face. She stood to leave, her hands trembling as she knotted her fingers together.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Ellen disappeared into the gloom of the club. I rose to follow her, but the shadows swallowed her, leaving me with only darkness for company. Two men near the door cast suspicious looks in my direction, and I hurried out of the club and into the cold London night before questions could be asked.

  Once outside, I thought again of the peculiar conclusion to our conversation. Ellen spoke of fear, yet refused to divulge the contents of her thoughts. She evidently believed I could offer no aid in the face of some nearby danger, yet I could only speculate as to the nature of this threat. Perhaps one of the local men was to blame, growing fat on the profits of the female bodies he sold, and keen to threaten them if they chose to leave.

  I wandered the streets for around half an hour, where I passed furtive men on their way to the Virginia Club, and gentlemen heading home after late-night visits to friends. The hook of a story nagged in my mind, and I found that I turned in the direction of Blackfriars Bridge. As I walked, I turned the topic over in my mind. I wanted to give the fallen women a voice, but I could only do that by speaking to them myself and hearing their stories with my own ears. I needed affirmation of my suspicions about a shadowy underworld figure, intent upon ruling the unfortunate women with a rod of iron.

  I approached the bridge in search of another muse, but I spotted blond curls farther up the street. I
peered closer and realised they belonged to Ellen. She hurried towards the bridge, her hair loose around her shoulders. She darted glances in all directions as she walked, her arms drawn tightly across her chest. Her boots beat an irregular rhythm in the quiet street as she varied her pace. She was clearly terrified of something. Maybe if I took her somewhere warm and gave her a drink, she might speak. Indeed, I was shocked to see her alone in such a place so late at night, and after her sudden fright at the club, I was concerned as much as I was curious.

  “Ellen!”

  Ellen stopped and turned. Recognition sparked on her face, but her expression was unreadable. Before I reached her, someone stepped out of the darkness of the alley to Ellen’s left. Ellen turned and threw her arms up in a defensive gesture, but a pale hand shot out of a dark cloak and covered Ellen’s mouth, cutting off her scream. I broke into a run but Ellen was dragged into the alley.

  I reached the narrow lane. I expected to see her skirts bunched around her waist, or the flashing blade of a knife in the gloom. Instead, a hooded figure bent over Ellen’s prone body, obscuring her face. Wet, sordid chewing sounds filled the air, and my stomach churned to hear them.

  “Hi there, stop!” I found my voice, but it bore a waver that betrayed me. I tried to move into the alley, but my feet refused to obey. They held fast, rooted to the spot, while my knees quivered from the exertion of my run. My heart pounded, and my ribs vibrated within my chest, though from terror or exercise I could not say.

  The stranger stood. Blood clotted in the bite marks around Ellen’s mouth. The figure leaned down and held its hand—a horrible skeletal hand of bleached bone, over the wound. It tore upwards in one savage motion. For a moment, a white mist, the same shape and form as Ellen, hung from the figure’s grasp.

  “You there!”

  The creature, for it was no human, ignored me, and folded the white mist into a neat square, which it tucked into the folds of its cloak. The figure bent down and caught hold of Ellen by the shoulders. It dragged her out of the alley, and up the quiet street. Shock gripped me, yet somehow it did not surprise me in the least. I did not question this peculiarity, consumed as I was by my desire to help Ellen. I struggled to move in order to follow their progress, but my feet refused to obey my commands. I pummelled my thigh with my fists, helpless and frustrated. My mouth kept moving, my vocal chords straining to cry out, but no noise would come forth. It was as though I were trapped in that terrible sort of dream in which you can see the world moving around you, but you are powerless to intervene.

  As the apparition reached the approach to Blackfriars Bridge, my feet broke their bonds. The sudden movement impelled me to stumble forward, hurrying along the pavement towards the unholy pair. Revulsion at the sight raged inside me and I no longer thought of the story that I had originally sought to tell. I sought only to better understand what was happening. I ran towards the bridge, where the monster reached the mid-point. It hoisted Ellen up onto the stone balustrade, and her body tumbled into the freezing waters below. I cried out in despair.

  The hooded figure wiped its hand on its cloak, and free of its burden, it drifted towards me. I stared, straining my ears for the sound of footsteps, but there were none. I shouted something nonsensical, I know not what, and while I saw no eyes, I was aware of the weight of its gaze. The malice that this figure bore for me was as apparent as the sensation of winter in December. This was no normal man, ruling and punishing the unfortunates of London. This was something else entirely. The apparition, belonging to some awful class of spectre previously unknown to me, continued down the bridge and turned onto Southwark Street.

  I stood in the street, my feet pointed towards the bridge but my body twisted in the direction of the creature’s exit. I wanted to recover Ellen’s body, but I would surely perish in the cold waters, and that would simply add an extra tally to the creature’s card. I had a notion to call for help, but only a priest could help poor Ellen now, and there was naught the constabulary, such as they were, could do. Part of me wanted to turn tail and flee, to run back to my rooms and avoid late night excursions into London’s bizarre streets. Yet despite the animosity that the figure clearly displayed towards me, another impulse wanted to follow it, to make sense of what I’d seen, and to quiet the rising voice inside me that sought answers. As I struggled to decide upon a course of action, another voice added its tones to the clamour, raging about what a fine story this would make.

  I could not turn myself away once my feet began walking. I kept the infernal creature in sight, and hurried along Southwark Street. My quarry sped on, although I did not think it knew I was following—unless it knew that I was on its trail, and did not care. Indeed, having seen its manner of murder, I scarcely believed that it would consider me to be a threat of any kind. I wondered if I had perhaps seen a wraith of some kind. Indeed, I remembered the novel of Dr Polidori, The Vampyre, and speculated that perhaps this was the manner of their feeding.

  The creature darted down another street, and I paid no attention to where I was. I kept thinking of Ellen, the beautiful, tragic blonde dumped into the Thames with cruel abandon. Even if she became nothing else, she could have been my muse. Now she would be another sentence or two in the newspaper, a mere footnote to the country’s mistreatment of unfortunate women.

  I followed the figure along Redcross Street. It reached a pair of iron gates, and drifted between the bars. I approached the gates some moments after, and found them fastened with a large padlock. I grasped the bars, pulling on them with all of my strength to determine the means by which the creature gained access. There must have been some way through to which I was not privy, although I suspect my desire to discover a rational explanation was my mind’s defence against the fantastical events to which I had borne witness. I peered between the bars into a simple yard, moonlight falling across its uneven cobbles. The monster made its way toward the centre.

  “Hi there, you! Yes, I see you!”

  I shouted through the gates. The creature paused at the centre of the yard and turned its head in my direction. An angry hiss filled the yard as it lay down on the bare ground, and melted into the cold night air.

  I stared between the gates but there was nothing to be seen. It had simply disappeared. I continued to stare as though it may yet reveal itself, as though the trick might be explained through rational means. I could not allow myself to believe that a being capable of lifting a young woman over a bridge could pass through iron bars and vanish into the cold night air as though it did not exist. An idea flitted through my mind that I had dreamed the entire thing. Perhaps lack of sleep, or a morsel of undigested dinner, had played tricks upon my eyes.

  “‘Ey up, what are you doin’ here?” A gruff voice interrupted my thoughts.

  I turned around to see an elderly man grasping a staff in one hand and an ancient lantern in the other. A moth-eaten watch cap perched on his balding head, and a tattered cloak did its best to keep out the chill of the night.

  “I was just looking for someone. At least, I thought I was.”

  “You won’t find no one in there, sir,” replied the night watchman.

  “I thought I saw someone go in.”

  The watchman frowned. He peered between the bars, and looked down at the padlock. He raised his gaze to meet mine.

  “No way to get in, sir.”

  “I saw someone, I am sure that I did.” I peered into the yard, and turned my gaze back to the night watchman. A chill ran down my spine, and I shoved my hands into my pockets.

  “Tell me what ‘appened, sir?”

  I told the watchman about my quest to find a muse, and my need to tell the story of the fallen women. I explained about meeting Ellen, and about what I saw in the alley. I realised the folly of my actions, but the tale poured out in a jumbled rush, and I trailed off into silence when the watchman started nodding.

  “I know who you saw.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know ‘er name, but I know ‘er lives in
there,” said the watchman, pointing into the yard. “This weren’t always a yard. Many years back, this was a burial ground, yes it were. Only it weren’t fer no usual folk. This was fer the geese of Winchester.”

  “The what?”

  “The street women what was put to work by the Bishop of Winchester. They was called his geese. The one what you saw… she’s the grand old mother, ain’t she? When you saw her bendin’ over that girl, she was takin’ her soul. She dumps ‘em in the Thames so the running water can wash away their sins.”

  “She does what?” If the watchman had told me such a tale yesterday, I would have called for a policeman and recommended he be taken to Bedlam, but after the events of the evening, I found I was incredulous although not entirely disbelieving.

  The night watchman repeated his words. I stared at him, eyes wide and unblinking.

  “You expect me to believe that a former prostitute, dead for centuries, is taking the souls of fallen women, and dumping the bodies in the river? I thought they were committing suicide.”

  “No, sir. It’s the Mother Goose. She takes ‘em. Frees ‘em from a bad life. You know ‘er cloak? It’s the cloak of all ‘er sin when she were alive. She’s been quiet for a while, dunno what’s prompted her to take it up again.”

  “I see.”

  “I reckon yer would be best off goin’ home, sir.”

  I nodded and moved away from the gate, casting a last look into the yard before I walked away down the street. The night watchman waved as I turned the corner. I believed it to be only my imagination when I saw the faint outlines of the street through him.

  * * *

  The following morning, I browsed the newspaper over breakfast, immersing myself in society gossip and business news until the events of the previous evening seemed naught but a bad dream.

  A knock at the door disrupted my reading. I glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece—only eight o’clock, yet I expected no visitors at such an hour.