The Deception of Consequences

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “Welcome,” Alba said, “to a house of luxury, my dear. Our host is generous.”

  “We have wine. We have roast pork. Sit down, Pippa, and don’t drip over me. I’m wearing my very best blue damask and rain water marks so.”

  She dripped over Jemima instead, hugging her and kissing her ear. “You were just a little girl when I saw you last, my little dove. You cried when I left. I cried too, but I wouldn’t let Edward see that. Of course I’ve forgiven him. You cannot blame a dead man.”

  “Yes you can,” said Ysabel with her mouth full of pork crackling. “They are. They’re blaming him for piracy, impropriety and cold cruel murder.”

  “Shit on them then,” exclaimed the newcomer, flouncing to a spare edge on the bench. “Shove up, Ruth. I recognise you since it was you pinched Edward from me, but you shan’t pinch all that roast meat and wine.”

  Ruth nodded to the serving boy who was already hurrying to pour another cup of wine. “Make it a large cup,” Ruth said. “Pippa needs to drown her sorrows.”

  Their host had once again removed himself, and, without excuse, apology or message of any kind, had not joined them for supper. “No doubt,” Jemima said, “he thinks himself above us, and so eats alone.”

  “Tell me about him,” Philippa said. “Is he a grand and beautiful prick or a shitty arsehole? They call him a bastard. Is he one?”

  “Maybe too pompous. Perhaps he thinks us all women of loose morals, and won’t risk our sins rubbing off on him.”

  Philippa snorted. “Or presumes we eat our meals like pigs at the trough.”

  “You’re so vulgar,” complained Alba. “Every word a curse or an insult. We are trying to make a good impression here. This man is wildly wealthy, highly respected, and may be the saint who exonerates dearest Edward.”

  “You were right the first time,” muttered Jemima. “He’s a shit.”

  One by one after supper, the women prepared to leave. Richard Wolfdon had made no further appearance when the steward announced that the litter was waiting to transport each guest back to her own home. Jemima and Katherine stood at the front doorway, the huge double doors flung wide, saying goodbye. “But you’ll come again?”

  “If invited, which would seem inevitable,” Alba said, kissing Jemima’s cheek and pulling her own cloak tight to her chin. The rain had continued and pelted hard onto the doorstep, bouncing from the awning of the waiting litter, and splashing through the foliage around them. The pathway was turning to slush.

  “I don’t want to be left alone with this man.” Jemima leaned forwards, grabbing Alba’s hand. “You trust him. I don’t.”

  “We have only begun to discuss the situation,” Alba assured her. “We have explained only barely who we are and how we lived in his home. Your home. The house of these three little victims. Surely if Richard Wolfdon wishes a serious investigation, he will insist on seeing us often. So, little dove, I shall be with you again soon.”

  “I,” Ysabel said, leaning heavily against the door frame, “am staying anyway. My poor apartment is a long way distant. I should be asleep before reaching it.”

  “She’s pissed,” Ruth called back, taking the hand of the ostler.

  “She’s always pissed.”

  Ysabel giggled, which finished on a hiccup. “Only very, very slightly pissed, my darlings. But it’s an excellent excuse for sleeping in a comfy bed for once.”

  “You can sleep with me,” Jemima said. “My bed’s big enough for four.”

  “And I’ll protect you, sweetie, if the sneaky Master Wolfdon tries to climb on top of you in the middle of the night.”

  “You’d not even notice,” sniffed Katherine from the shadows of the entrance hall. “You’ll be snoring. I shall protect my dearest Jemima, and need no help from you.”

  “Oh dear,” sighed Jemima, moving back. “It’s all so unexpected.”

  Katherine took her arm, “Time for bed, my girl.”

  The leaving was a swirl of coloured silks, linens, embroidery and lace, five women, some grandly dressed but Elisabeth’s clothes hinted at poverty. Each crowded into the litter, escaping the rain and shaking the drops from their headdresses, giggling and pushing to find space amongst the cushions. The horse belched, the two grooms slumped on the front bench and took up the reins, and Jemima waved frantically goodbye.

  Although not yet late, there seemed little else to do except retire to bed. Katherine helped Jemima undress while Ysabel undressed herself and climbed onto the huge mattress, sinking cheerfully into the soft warm comfort, pulling the eiderdown to her nose. “I shall,” she said, muffled by bedcovers, “sleep well, and see you – well – no doubt tomorrow.” And fell asleep with a faint hiccup and a grunt of blissful satisfaction.

  “She didn’t even finish her wine.”

  “She will in the morning.”

  It was surely dark. The stars crept out late on mild autumn evenings, but the previous hustle, excitement and bustle had now slowed to a shuffle of tired inactivity and Jemima could only guess at what the time truly was. She climbed into bed. The bed was wonderfully welcoming but the body beside her, sweaty and noisy with snores and snuffless, was an unaccustomed disturbance. Jemima could not sleep. Another snore eventually echoed from Katherine’s truckle bed. Jemima sat up.

  The thousand words of the day floated, nudged and echoed in her mind. So much had been said. Seeing again after so long the women who had once been such an intense part of her life, seemed fantastical. Almost unbelievable. But she had originally known them one at a time and now meeting them all together, arguing and laughing as they chattered and intertwined, spreading their skirts in pools of a hundred colours, Jemima was bemused and knew that the cuddles and kisses, warm hands and kind words that she had appreciated as a child, had not truly revealed the women they were beneath. The bobbing of lace flounces and twisting of curls. The dimples, glossed lips and fluttering lashes. All the memories of her childhood sweeping back into the moment. And with memories sadly reshaped, realising that the astonishing beauty she had cherished seeing as a little girl, was now, in the glare of a more adult vision, seen as less glorious and less fresh. Cheeks were rouged and skin was blotched. Coal had been used on those fluttering lashes, and lead powder to cover the wrinkles. Yet the persistent and more important memories of kindness and care remained unaltered. These were all women who had loved her father, and adored her as her father’s motherless and only daughter.

  The house, however, billowing with sweet memories, warm corners and her own little bed, was no longer hers. She now enjoyed a grander bedchamber and a softer bed, but the host was a stranger with contempt in his voice, no manners whatsoever, and a threat of hidden motives. She distrusted the generosity of his hospitality. She distrusted the beauty of his eyes and the elegance of his bearing.

  She wondered, for the hundredth time, what she was doing in this horrid man’s grand home, and what would be gained – and lost – during her stay. It was, after all, virtually an imprisonment. Leaving unaided would surely involve an extremely long and exhausting trudge back to the city along a path unfamiliar to her. She would inevitably be lost or overtaken – long before arriving home in safety. At least she had Katherine. But Katherine, having come to grandeur from poverty, was impressed and content. Jemima wished, quite desperately, that she could run home to her father.

  She crawled very quietly out of bed. She found her old bedrobe, pulled it on, and slipped out of the chamber to the corridor beyond. The click as she shut the door behind her did not seem to wake her two exhausted companions, so she discovered the staircase and began to climb down it, feeling with bare toes for the edge of each step. There was no light of any kind, and a great many steps.

  At the bottom of the stairs she had no memory of which direction to turn. Her eventual choice led her to a rambling darkness and finding her way outside was not immediate, nor easy. Finally Jemima discovered more stairs, narrow and steep, which she could not remember having descended before. But she continued dow
n, and down, accepting that surely she would find herself on the ground level where a door to fresh air and the world outside would be clearly seen.

  Having reached the final steps, Jemima followed the only corridor, avoided stumbling, banging elbows or stubbing toes in the utter darkness, and now walking on pebbles instead of polished boards, peered ahead through the unrelenting shadows and stopped. In front of her was a tall and narrow door, just slightly ajar. The draught whistled through and a spangle of stars from above. Ivy and a tree branch slapped against the door as she pushed it open and tiptoed outside. The wind blew straight into her eyes and made them water. She had not expected such cold but she swallowed, wrapped her thin bedrobe tighter, regretted the sudden chill on her bare feet, and continued into the dark unknown outdoors. It had stopped raining.

  There was a voice.

  She had not expected that either. A man’s voice, just a faint suggestion from some distance away, seemed ludicrous, alone in the dark in the middle of the night and saying, as far as she could tell, a good deal of nonsense. She avoided any possibility of being discovered, and walked away from the muffled echo.

  “He would not,” murmured the voice, “have needed such an uncompromising diversion, I think.”

  Jemima, intrigued, stood still. Something answered the voice but she understood no words. She waited, unsure in which direction to walk. The squelch of mud between her toes was uncomfortable. The rain had left its echoes too.

  “A man who swives frequently and at will,” continued the voice eventually, “should not need to kill. Unless,” a pause, then, “it is the desire to kill, perhaps gradually, becomes the ultimate pleasure.”

  Another answer, like a whisper of the wind.

  “And if so,” the voice was just slightly raised, “he would be a man of cruel and unnatural tastes. Though what is natural is not always a judgement of morality, but simply of common practise.” The faint sucking sound of boots in mud interrupted the words. There was a pause, as if waiting for the wind to whisper its reply. Then the man continued, the voice a murmur no louder than before. “Is it natural,” he wondered, “for instance, to speak to the birds of the night? Certainly not, my friend. But it does no harm and would be counted unnatural simply because the ignorant masses prefer to speak to each other instead. Yet they understand as little, and achieve less satisfaction for themselves when their companions reply with argument, with incomprehension, or with problems of their own.”

  Jemima stood very still, frozen toes not even daring to wriggle as she held her breath.

  This time the answer was a little more pronounced. Somebody, or something, said, “Whoo – oo.” And then the sound faded.

  “I’m sure you are right,” said the man’s voice.

  Chapter Six

  Jemima turned, hurrying back towards the door through which she had left the house, which still stood a little open. She could see, though not much, for as the rainclouds had cleared, the night was vividly starlit with a blaze of creamy glitter splashed across the vast high black. She was no longer silent as she scurried back into the house, but hoped she would not be followed. Trying to scrape mud from her toes, Jemima leaned back hard on the wall, and caught her breath. She closed the outside door as quietly as she could, and began to explore, attempting to remember the way she had come.

  But missed the turning. The steep and narrow back staircase she had followed downwards just moments before, appeared to have disappeared. She discovered another corridor.

  Then the same voice she had heard outside, although at a far greater proximity, said out of the shadows, “Do you walk in your sleep, madam? Or are you awake and restless? Do you search for food, drink, the privy, spare silver, or, perhaps, escape?”

  “Oh – merciful heavens,” said Jemima on a gulp.

  “That I cannot help you with, mistress,” said Richard Wolfdon. “It is something for which many of us search, but it does not exist on my premises.”

  She stared at him through the gloom. “What do you mean, silver? You think I want to steal?”

  He shook his head. “I would not know, nor judge. You wander my home at night. But clearly I would not have asked your motive had I already guessed it.” He wore no hat and the same black velvet bedrobe fell in heavy folds to his feet, almost like some dark bishop’s robes.

  She was conscious of her own bedrobe being flimsy and threadbare. Its pink ruffles were paltry and probably hid less of her body than she sincerely hoped. Self-conscious and blushing, she swallowed back the irritation.

  “I suppose you don’t mean to be rude. You were talking to yourself,” she said at last, moving back into the greater obscurity of shadow.

  “Not at all. I was talking to a tawny owl.” He did not smile.

  She clasped and unclasped her fingers, then crossed her arms, endeavouring to hide whatever part of her body might be gleaming through the thin fabric. Several answers occurred to her but eventually she said, “Well, I wasn’t looking for you. Or the privy or anything to eat. And certainly not the silver to steal.” She stared down at the mud congealing between her toes, which was now staining her host’s floorboards. “I couldn’t sleep. I want to get away from the grunts and the groans of the – my friends – sharing my bedchamber. I’m more used to sleeping alone, you see. I felt – miserable. So I wanted fresh air and a feeling of freedom. I’m sorry if I interrupted you. And the owl.”

  “The owl,” replied Richard Wolfdon, “will not be particularly concerned. I, on the other hand, find your attempted escape to freedom of some interest.” He seemed to be staring at her through the deep shadows and she blushed again. But he said softly, “Would you care for a cup of wine, taken outside where a garden bench is shaded by willows, where no snores will disrupt our conversation and not even Socrates will overhear us?”

  “Socrates is the owl?’

  “Naturally,” he said, and turned without waiting for a reply, leading her to a small antechamber further off the corridor. Here stood a table where a jug of wine, several cups, undoubtedly of silver, and some candles had been set. He poured the wine and handed her a cup. “But I will attempt no personal introductions,” Richard continued. “Socrates is no more sociable by choice than I am. I also assume he has flown and is now on the hunt. His hunt is for food. My own – since we have much in common – is for the diversion of information. Also food, perhaps, but for the mind.”

  Jemima took the cup. “I’m not anxious to meet your friend, sir,” she said. “Although I admit another friend might be welcome.” She didn’t add that she had little more idea of what to say to her host. He nodded, as though taking her remark seriously, and she followed him to the garden and the long wooden bench deep in the fluttering shadows. Jemima dutifully sat and drank. The wine calmed her. “I suppose the owl doesn’t answer back. People tend not to be so obliging.”

  “I also find some relief in the solitary sting of night air,” he replied. “My own bedchamber is a vibration of pages, hounds, manservants and my personal dresser. Some snore. Others mutter of uncertain dreams. I might throw the hoards to the wolves, but it would be tedious to recall them later when I need them. Therefore I also seek freedom. As does Socrates.”

  She smiled, and realised it was the very first time she had felt any faint trust or friendship for the man. “Thank you. It’s most – hospitable.”

  “I doubt I am the perfect host,” he replied briefly.

  “And I don’t suppose I’m the perfect guest,” she conceded. “I miss my father. I suppose you miss yours too.”

  “Not in the slightest,” he said. “He died many years gone and we had only a brief relationship which lacked any element of intimacy. We were not much enamoured of each other while he was alive.” He drank, leaning back beneath the floating tapestry of leaves where the wall was ivy clad, seemingly black in the night. Between the tree branches the swirl of stars seemed brilliantly alive. After a pause, Richard said, “I am not a man much bothered by the opinions of others. What others think
makes not one jot of difference to my life. I find most of what interests others, to be utterly tedious. But I discovered some curiosity in the story of your hidden corpses. Whether or not my father is culpable, is also of some curiosity.”

  Jemima looked up. “Only curiosity?” But she was conscious of the fact that this usually unrelenting gentleman was admitting his own weaknesses. “Is being – terribly rich – very boring, then?”

  A tiny twitch of smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Immensely so. But I’ve no intention of transferring my wealth to the crown in order to experience the greater delights of poverty. I simply seek other interests to pass the time.”

  “Poverty is even more dull,” she assured him. “When Papa was alive we weren’t rich, but it was a comfortable house and I could at least read and dance and go to the markets. Papa wasn’t respectable, of course, so the people in the big houses next to us wouldn’t speak to me. But I got accustomed to that and I still smiled at them when they rode by, and imagined what it must be like to be fabulously wealthy with important friends. Now being really very poor stops everything except the desperate monotony of sleep.”

  He regarded her a moment, then said softly, “The world of dreams can be interesting at times, though troublesome at others. But there are more captivating methods of diversion.”

  “Like talking to owls?”

  “Only one owl. Socrates,” he told her, “has been resident on my property for some years and inhabits the cavernous hole of an oak tree. We know each other comparatively well. I find him a soothing listener and his advice is always useful.”

  “I hope I prove to be a soothing listener from now on, sir.” Jemima chuckled. “But I would never dare offer advice.”

  “For fear of life and limb, perhaps?”

  “You would look down your nose at me,” she said, daring to laugh, “and retain an arrogant silence.”

  He paused, gazing back at her without smiling. The stare penetrated, as though he regarded every curve of her body through the cheap faded bedrobe, and approved. “Your assumption is doubtless accurate,” he said softly, and nodded. “And I should be unlikely to take it. But,” and he drained his cup, “I will not be offended should you wish to offer it.”