Aeonian: Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Four
“Feeling overawed by the gift my charge had offered me that morning, I helped her dress for church. Although I had received gifts before, even slight ones of books of devotions or the odd piece of cloth or clothing from my father, I had never before received a gift of such thoughtfulness, of such beauty as the one I now had from Anna.
The child had a talent, I marvelled, for her pictures of the landscapes of the moors or the seas were easily good enough to be displayed to the public, and now, with the portrait of my own self in my possession I could see another vein to her many talents in the scope of artistic endeavour. Whilst I wondered on the natural skill of the girl, I began to wonder also if I might approach my cousins on behalf of Anna so she could display her works about the house, or at some shared and modest public display. Perhaps my cousins might agree to take Anna’s works and introduce them to the neighbourhood, along with perhaps a recital of music from the elder Miss Grose, and maybe there was something of the talents of Elizabeth Grose which might too be displayed. Although the two Miss Groses were older by some years than my charge, it would be good for Anna to enjoy more companionship with young women of the neighbourhood, and I liked the idea of her meeting with the younger Miss Grose, for I had found her a bright, sensible young woman. With such pleasant dreams of what might come, both for my own charge and for the daughters of the reverend, I came down the stairs on light feet, in fine spirits, bringing Anna with me as we gathered outside of the house to take to the carriages and ride to church.
The wind was cold and fresh. I could smell the sharp, iron scent of snow on the breeze. Small flakes were already fluttering from the clouds. As Brown brought the carriages clattering to the front of the house I looked up and back at the great white house with its black window frames and porch, the heavy shutters dark against the sparkling clarity of the white visage. I thought of all that had occurred here, all the thoughts and feelings and events which had beset me, and although I still knew not where I stood with the master of this house, the man to whom my heart seemed drawn no matter his flaws, I could not help but feel a stab of affection enter my soul. This place had become home to me, as no other place had ever been before.
And for all that had happened, good and bad, one thing was sure in my mind. I never had felt so alive as I did here.
Nancy came outside, and smiled, pressing a little package into my hands and whispering, “Merry Christmas,” to me. She thanked me for my gift as the carriages trundled to the front of the house. I smiled into her friendly face and opened the small package, thanking her warmly for the little present of a measure of dark green cloth which she gave me. It would do amply well for trimming a gown, and I knew it was likely as much as the good woman could afford on her wages. Her generosity touched me.
Nancy and Bess would not be attending church with us that morning, since there was so much to prepare with the dinner and entertainments planned for the neighbourhood afterwards. They had gone to the late service last night, to pay their devotions to the God they all believed in. For my own part, I had to attend the service upon the orders of the family, and of course for my own reputation, and although Christmas brought with it some sense within me of happiness, perhaps even sanctity, there was little left within my heart that truly believed that a higher being was watching over us. I did not believe, perhaps could not believe in the presence of a deity, and certainly not in one who was benign and caring. Perhaps I had seen too much of the iniquity of man to believe that there was a higher power that could guide and shape us. Perhaps I was, as Bartholomew would have said so readily, too much the practical governess to look up into the clouds above me and believe in some presence watching over me.
But however little I believed in such things, I did not begrudge beliefs in others. We all find our ways to understand the world. We all have our ways to describe it. The word for God on the lips of many was but another word for Good, and if I did not believe in an almighty power, I believed in the existence and possibility of goodness. I had seen as much evidence for that as I had for the existence of evil. I understood that just as the Bible teaches us man was given free will by God, therefore his actions are his own, each creature upon this planet with a mind and rational thought is responsible for choosing to follow the path of good over that of evil, no matter how hard that path might be to walk, or how many challenges are waiting along the way.
Perhaps these thoughts were also why I felt I could smile and bow my head to the handsome figure of Bartholomew as he came strolling from the house that morning. I had been honest enough, as much as I was able in my position, with my feelings, and I had refused to enter into any temptations which I felt were against my principles. I had stood strong against his advances. I knew not in reality if this would truly protect me, that would have to wait to be seen, but I had remained true to myself.
If I believed in Good rather than God, I had remained honest to my own soul. There is satisfaction in understanding the true nature of one’s own self and not giving in to the tactics of others who try to wear them down. As much as I admired, as much as I loved the man who was my master, I too recognised within him the spirit of a man who believed he could intimidate others to gain his own desires. The spirit of one who would seek to crush those weaker than themselves, and yet, there were other things lurking in the complex spirit of my cousin: he had ridden out each day to try to find the missing girls lured into the wilds of the moors; when not cajoling me into physical trysts he had treated me as an equal, and listened to my opinions, a rare enough thing for a woman of my station. Yes, there was much good and bad in the man. Perhaps one day, he would choose to only act on the goodness within him, rather than the teasing fingers tugging him into wickedness. No matter if one believes in God, or if one does not, there is still always a sense of hope about the day of Christmas. I had hope within me that morning, for me, for Anna and her future, and for the man I loved.
I took the little parcel from Nancy, and kissed her on the cheek, wishing her a merry Christmas. As I stepped forward with Anna, Brown offered a hand to her, his face almost shy as he helped the girl into the carriage. Bartholomew and Beatrice were already within the carriage, Gray was nowhere to be seen, and as I stepped forward to take my place at Anna’s side, Brown stopped me by pressing something small and hard into my hands.
“A merry Christmas to you, Miss Mallory,” he muttered, his face a little red and shy as he strove not to meet my eyes. He pressed the small object into my hands. “May God keep you safe, miss.”
I looked at him with a little astonishment and went to look at the small object in my hands, but he pressed my fingers over it. “Put it in your pocket,” he whispered, glancing with fearful eyes at the dark exterior of the carriage. “Look later, and keep it with you, always.”
I stared at him, wondering at the fearful way he glanced at the carriage, and his manner of such secrecy. But I did as he bid and slipped the small object into the deep pocket of my gown. He nodded at me and grinned, flicking a finger to the new embroidered handkerchief which now graced the top pocket of his old ill-fitting suit. I smiled to see my gift, which I had left for him, folded neatly and proudly set there. “A merry Christmas to you too, Brown,” I smiled.
“Are we to wait all day for you, Miss Mallory?” came the impatient voice of Bartholomew, startling both me and Brown. I swiftly took the offered hand of Brown and almost leapt into the carriage, taking my place next to Anna.
There was little said on the journey to the church in the village. We trundled along icy lanes of blue and silver, passing groups of people out to walk on the fine morning, no doubt building an appetite for whatever their tables had to offer that afternoon and evening. The skies were a dark grey blue, threatening a fall of snow to come, which pleased me in some indefinable way. Christmas always feels more like Christmas when there is glittering snow on the ground.
Beatrice was staring from the carriage window with a look on her face that I could only describe as one of anticipation. Her eyes sparkled as fields and forests flew by, and as we drove into the town and the sight of the nearby moors filled the horizon, her eyes seemed to gleam, as if she saw something that none of the rest of us could. Perhaps she is thinking of the party, I thought, perhaps my beautiful cousin even had some beau who might attend this evening. But Beatrice’s eyes seemed drawn to the moors, the ragged and half-barren landscape which drifted beyond miners’ and farmers’ cottages which lined the edge of the town. She seemed lost in their stark beauty.
It was as we neared the church that a strange noise, which seemed as yet a little removed from us, started to assail my ears. A wailing, like some banshee in a story of Scottish ghosts. It was high-pitched, strange, unearthly and uncanny. The sound seemed to dip inside my bones and rush upwards, a knife in the spine. I shivered and looked at Bartholomew and Beatrice as the sound grew louder and louder. Bartholomew scowled at me as if he could hear nothing, but Beatrice glanced sharply at her brother, and smiled at me as though to reassure me. Anna shivered at my side.
“What is that noise, Miss Mallory?” she asked quietly, her hand stealing into mine. Her little hand was cold, and I knew it was not the sharp chill of the outside air which made her skin cool. In her was the same fear of this unearthly noise which spread through my veins.
Bartholomew frowned and pushed forwards to look through the window at the church as we pulled to stop outside of it. Even as the carriage stopped, he jumped from the door and disappeared into a crowd of people who seemed to be standing with no purpose outside of the wall which surrounded the church and the graveyard. The noise was growing now. There was the muttering of the crowd, that was plain, but the other noise was louder. It plunged to the earthy depths of a man’s throat and rose to a shriek; it was the voice of a woman, that I knew. As the carriage stopped properly, I climbed down and stared at the back of many heads all clamouring and milling before the church. There were noises of great fear coming from the crowds, and shouts of, “Move back,” and, “Don’t let the women come forth,” and, “Dear God in Heaven!”
A fear flowed through me like no other, a desperate need to see what was at the head of the crowds. I looked behind me and shook my head at Anna. “Stay within the carriage,” I warned her and before Beatrice could open her mouth to call me back, I pushed through the crowds, following the dark figure of Bartholomew as he raced to the front.
“Move back! Move back, damn you! Get out of the way!” he shouted as he pushed muttering and crying people out of his path. I followed in his wake, as though he was a great wave in the ocean, and I a drop of water which rode his power.
At the front of the crowds the noise was almost unbearable. The crowds themselves were muttering, shrieking and crying. There was a constant hum of noise punctuated by the shouts of those with stronger voices crying over the top. As I pushed forwards, a woman stumbled backwards from the front and fell, her face ashen and white, in a faint into the arms of an older man. Looking at her lying there, her face drained of all blood, I felt my heart race with alarm. Something within me was telling me with all its strength to go backwards, urging me not to look at what horror awaited me, yet something even more powerful pushed me on, sending me reeling to the front of the crowd.
I burst to the head of the masses, my hands clutched at the grey stone wall, feeling lichen and crumbling stone rustle under my fingertips. I stared out at the church and its graveyard. Before me was something I could never have imagined.
The graveyard stretched from the church gate to its door, and around the church, in the way most church grounds are arranged, as though the bodies and graves of the dead become as a defence, a moat, about a castle of God. There was a path which ran, neat and manicured, through the grass and to the mouth of the church. Next to the gate, on the first few feet of the path, standing as though he himself had become a ghost, was the Reverend Grose.
He stood almost without moving, his hands by his side; a Bible that he had evidently been holding had fallen, dropped to his feet. Its pages moved in the breeze as though being read by some spirit unseen. His back was to me, so I could not see his face, but his body swayed, as though he was a person sleepwalking, or a ghost frozen in place and time. Ahead of him was his elder daughter, staggering through the lines of graves apparently without purpose, and continually looking back at the path, her face a mask of pure horror. Her skin was grey, and her hands, which roamed from her drawn face to her bedraggled hair, shook. Her bonnet lay on the ground, and she pulled at her hair and raked her nails down her face, wailing and shrieking. She was the banshee I had heard, the voice which is the emissary of Death.
In the middle of them, splayed out on the path, lying down with her face against the dark path, was a figure. A white nightgown covered most of the body. Her hands were stretched out ahead of her, reaching for the door of the church, as if reaching that place might have protected her. Her fingers were locked deep into the earth like claws and all her fingers were red with blood. Down the back of the nightgown were rent ten deep gashes of dark red. Beneath the body was a red-brown darkness which something in my numbed and horrified mind told me was blood, much of it, perhaps as much as one body could carry. Her hair was loose, matted and stuck to her head with the dark stain of yet more blood. There were fragments of her skull strewn here and there, hanging white in the bloody tresses. I blanched and bent over as though I might be sick. Hands tried to pull me back, away, but I pushed them off and turned to stare once more at the bloody body laid out in the churchyard before me, my sweaty hands gripping at the crumbling stone of the wall.
“It’s Miss Elizabeth Grose,” whispered a voice behind me, and I turned to stare at the voice, but could not see where it came from. The milling pale faces behind me all wore expressions such as I was sure was upon my face, shock, pallid, grey skin and eyes wide with horror. No one could stop staring.
Miss Jane Grose let out another shriek, pushing her hands to her face and tearing through her delicate skin with the nails on her fingers. She looked as if she had taken leave of her senses. Bartholomew seemed to come from nowhere and grab hold of her. She struggled against him, crying out as though she knew not who he was, screaming and wailing, pointing at the body of her dead sister splayed out on the ground. With the intervention of Bartholomew, something seemed to break in the crowd, allowing people to move, and many women rushed forwards, throwing a shawl about Jane and pulling her away. Men came forwards, trying to pull the reverend away from staring at the dead, tortured body of his youngest daughter.
“She was not in her room this morning,” he muttered as they took hold of him, trying to lead him away from the scene of horror. “I thought that she had gone to take care of the greenery for the church. She is always the one who takes care of the greenery for the church. She is a good girl, my Emily.”
The man was muttering, staring at those who came forwards with eyes that seemed to have lost their wits entirely. He turned as they tried to lead him away, and as he turned, I saw his face. Gone was that sycophantic smile and that surface charm. He looked like a ghost of himself, like a lost little boy who understood nothing of the world.
Others rushed forwards with blankets to cover the torn, bloodied body on the ground. Suddenly it seemed as though an ocean of noise broke over the top of me, and I was lost in the swell and sway of the seas. Everything was too bright; the sun shone through the chill air and stung my eyes. I staggered on my feet, swallowing hard as I gripped the wall to prevent myself from falling, and then hands at my side grabbed at me. I turned my head, thinking it was Bartholomew, but it was Brown that I saw, grabbing me, putting my arm about his neck and pulling me back to the carriage.
“I’ve got you, miss,” he muttered. “Don’t you worry, I’ve got you.”
As we turned, as Brown started to lead me to the carriage where Beatrice stood with a strange expression of disapproval on her face, I saw Bartholomew standing in the graveyard staring at me, and for a moment, just a moment, I thought I saw a smile on his face. The clouds moved and shadows altered in the skies, and the smile seemed to fade. Bartholomew turned to organise the men to care for the body of Elizabeth Grose, and to organise a hunt through the village and surrounding area for whatever person had evidently slain both this poor, bright young girl, and Brune, and perhaps taken all the other girls on the moor.
One thing was evident. There was a killer in our midst, and they were no longer worried about doing their task in secret.
I staggered back to the coach, and Beatrice hoisted me up into the carriage with Anna, who stared wide-eyed and fearful at me as I fell at her side. “Go, Brown!” shouted Beatrice, banging her hand on the roof of the carriage.
“What about Bartholomew?” I asked, almost in a whisper. My throat was dry as desert sand.
She shook her head. “He will be busy here for some time, if what I have been told is true,” she said, her voice harsh. “We should not be here.”
She turned her head to the side and muttered something. I was barely listening at the time, but afterwards, as the panic and shock of the experience subsided and rational thought came once more to my mind, I believed that she had said, “let him clean up his own mess.”