Deliver us from Evil (37 page)

Dead th
ings, in the vaulted darkness all about him. Soft, white, writhing things, feeding on a carpet of human flesh. At once, the pounding of the darkness was gone; and with it, as well, the desire for revelation. Robert felt nothing in his stomach now but a freezing, heavy sickness, which seemed to stir and twist
as the dead creatures moved, as
though all of them were ruled by a single mind; and then he shuddered, for he knew that they were. The Marquise was still chanting. 'No!' Robert screamed. 'No!'; but just as he had ignored Milady before, so now the Marquise was deaf to him. The darkness beyond her was growing ever thicker; and Robert turned at once and plunged amidst the dead things, for he dreaded to think how little time there might be. Yet it was all he could do to continue with his search, for he would sooner have waded through a flood of eager worms; and he felt ready to faint at the thought of being chained for years in such a place.
'Emily!' he cried out. 'Emily!'
before the syllables stung his eyes and were silenced in his throat.

He found her at last. She lay beneath two bloated, pink-touched things, which Robert knocked off from her as though they were ticks. He could not see her face through his tears; could not see, only feel, how thin her body was. He clasped her in his arms. She stank of the silver filth which caked her; yet to Robert, kissing her tangled hair, she smelt more lovely than the perfumes of the Indies. He tried to sever her bonds. He could not grip his knife's handle, nor see the blade through his tears. Suddenly, he felt it being taken from him; the bonds were cut. 'Bring her,' Milady ordered, 'and with all your speed.' She pointed; and Robert wiped at his eyes. He saw, all around them, how the dead things were stirring and rising to their feet. 'The lantern!' Milady cried. She ripped a strip of cloth from her cloak, then lit it; she flourished it in the face of the nearest creature. But the flames did not catch; they hissed, then died; and still the creatures rose and, as they massed, drew in close.

Robert gathered Emily in his arms. As he rose to his feet, the dead things seemed to freeze, then to squeak and moan. He took a step forward; the ranks before him seemed to ripple and sway. Three or four had gathered by the archway which led out to the steps; Robert took a second pace towards them; as the others had done, they shuffled and moved back.

'Madame!' Milady screamed. 'Madame, come quickly!'

Robert glanced behind him. The Marquise was on her knees. The darkness beyond her was flickering now, as though it were a tempest of fire; dimly, in its very heart, a form could be seen: a figure rising from the blackest flames.

'Madame!'

The Marquise screamed suddenly. The darkness was rolling fr
om the figure in the flames. Rob
ert stared into its face. Its lips parted, they formed a smile.

The Marquise shrieked again. She raised an arm across her eyes and twisted backwards, staggering blindly into Milady's arms. Her flesh seemed hideously withered to the bone; and, staring at her hair, Robert saw that it was white. 'Quick!' he screamed,
in
the name of God, run!' He stumbled through the archway, then paused to wait for Milady and the Marquise to pass by. As they did so, he glanced back. The darkness in the far cellar was as it had been before; no face, no form could be made out now. The dead things, however, still crouched, burning-eyed; and their teeth were bared in cruel, mocking smiles. What their amusement portended, Robert did not pause to think; he knew only, as he climbed with Emily up the steps, that whatever it was, it seemed to have been the cause of their escape.

'Thou art my way;
I
wander if thou fly;

Thou art my light; if hid, how blind am
I
.

Thou art my Life; if thou withdraw'st,
I
die.'

The Earl of Rochester, Poem

T
hey were not pursued; and the pu
zzle of their escape, once they
had left Woodton far behind them and reached the comfort of a tavern in Salisbury, continued to trouble Robert. Yet he had Emily; not only in his arms but filling all his thoughts, so that his forebodings were banished to the margins of his mind. He clasped her tightly to him, carried her up to her room. She seemed lost in troubled dreams; yet soon, Robert prayed, she would emerge from them forever - if only she might be well
...
if only all might turn out well. . .

He stood by the bed; laid Emily gently down, still wrapped in the cloak with which he had covered her before. 'So soft a resting place,' he murmured, kneeling by her side, 'you should have had these past two years.' How frail she seemed, how pinched and white; and yet for all that, touched with her old loveliness which her health would surely restore to fullest bloom. Robert laid his ear upon her breast, to listen to the beating of her heart; he stroked back her hair; then kissed her, very gently, as he had last done five years before.

'What a pretty vision! Yet it might seem more poetic still, if only you would wash away her stink.'

Robert stared up. Milady was watching him from the far shadows of the room. She had unpinned her hair and cast off her riding habit, so

that through her thin shirt he could make out the swell of her breasts. 'You are right,' he said. 'Send for hot water.'

Milady plucked at an imaginary skirt. 'Yes, sir,' she sneered, 'of course, sir, at once.'

'Please,' said Robert. 'Let us not quarrel.'

'Then do not command me as though
I
were a chambermaid.'

'
I
am sorry.' Robert gestured with helpless frustration at Emily. '
I
am much distracted.'

Milady paused, then took a step towards the bed. 'How is she faring?'

Robert shrugged helplessly again. 'How can any of us know?' He watched Milady, to see if she might contradict him, might offer him a cure; but she only nodded slowly and turned away again.

'Please.' Robert rounded the bed. Milady seemed almost to flinch as he took her by the arm. 'Please,' he begged again,
I
could not endure it, after these five years apart, if she were now to die and be snatched away a second time.'

'Five years!' exclaimed Milady with a flat-toned contempt. 'You think that a long time to be alone?'

'Will you not help me?'

'
I
am surprised you should think
I
could. Have not your years of lovelorn anguish taught you this, that
I
am a creature who gives not life, but only death?'

'Not true. For what was it, if not life, you gave to me?'

'
I
gave you what
I
could, Lovelace.' She paused, and glanced down at Emily. 'Nothing more.' She turned again, and crossed to the doorway. '
I
am sorry.'

Robert followed her out. 'The Marquise, then.' He hurried after Milady along the passage. 'She is rich in knowledge. It may be she can help?'

Milady glanced round, and smiled mockingly. 'She is not yet recovered, then?'

Milady opened a door, and gestured at Robert to pass inside. 'See her for yourself.'

Robert crossed to the bed in the centre of the room.
It
had been veiled; he parted one of the curtains, and stared down. The Marquise lay motionless save for the twitching of the fingers on one of her hands, snatching endlessly at the edge of her sheet. Her flesh was hideously withered and lined; her hair white, and thin across her scalp; her whole body shrunken, so that she sat hunched in her bed like an ancient monkey. Even her eyes seemed muddied and dull, the window on to unutterable fears, and Robert could barely endure to meet their gaze. 'What did she see,' he whispered, 'in that blackness she conjured, to fill her with such horror?'

'What indeed? Only think -
la grande Marquise -
reduced to such a state.'

Robert glanced round at her startled, for Milady's voice had seemed suddenly much sharper, much more common - as it had seemed once before, when she and the Marquise had quarrelled upon his first visit to Mortlake. But Milady herself appeared unaware that her accent might have slipped; and Robert was careful to veil his surprise. He turned back to the Marquise. 'Will she emerge from her sickness soon, do you think?'

'Who am
I
to say?' Milady shrugged daintily, it is the Marquise herself who is best qualified to answer such a question.'

'All the more regrettable, then, that she is unable to.' Robert knelt down by her side. He tried to calm the ceaseless twitching of her fingers at the sheet, but they would not be stilled; and although he forced himself to meet her stare, the Marquise continued to gaze as though into a terrible desolation. 'What might she not tell us?' Robert whispered. 'There is so much she has chosen to conceal. How little we know - and how far we have to go.' He sighed, and rose to his feet. 'Pray she recovers - and recovers very soon.'

Yet it was Emily who emerged from her sickness the faster. For long days after their arrival in London, Robert would sit by her side and tend to her, as her fever began to burn away and her strength to return. Once or twice she would open her eyes, and seem to recognise him; and then one day at last, she whispered his name. 'Robert.' She smiled weakly. 'So you remembered your vow.' 'Vow?'

'Yes.' She stared at him as her smile began to fade, and her eyes to grow glazed. 'That we would never be parted,' she murmured at last. 'You promised me .
..'
She swallowed. 'That day when my mother was killed - you promised
..."
She turned away and laid her cheek upon the pillow; Robert thought she was falling back into sleep. But as he rose to his feet, she gazed up at him again and reached for his hand. She squeezed it with all the strength she could muster,
I
never forgot,' she whispered. 'All that time .
..'
She sank back upon her pillow. 'Never forgot
..’

She closed her eyes, and said no more. But her sleep did not seem feverish that night; and the following morning, when she woke, she was able to sit up in her bed and to talk more fully. The next day she was able to stand; and the next to be dressed and to leave her room. Robert led her to a balcony. She stood there a long while, gazing at the Park, and the spires and towers beyond. Robert remembered how, all those years before, he had longed for her to share his first wonder at the vision of London; and now she was sharing her first wonder with him. 'So many people,' she whispered, 'so free, all so alive.' Then she turned; and as Robert walked through the mansion by her side, still she gazed about her with undisguised awe. 'What a wondrous place!' she exclaimed at last. 'And yet this is your home? This is where you live?' 'And you as well,
I
trust.'

'How is it possible, Robert, that you have come into such a place?'

'
I
share it with a lady and a gentleman. The lady - you wear her dress - she is a kind and generous friend.'

Emily stared down at the satin of her skirts, and the froths of lace across her arms. 'She must be generous indeed,' she nodded, 'to have given me such clothes.'

'Then come,' said Robert. He took her by the hand. 'Let me take you to meet her. For there is no one
I
love in all this world but you and Milady.'

He found her at table with Lightborn, and Robert began to approach her; yet at the sight of Milady, Emily suddenly flinched, and Robert had to pull her forward as though she were a bashful child. He saw how Lightborn grinned; and how Milady herself sat perfectly frozen, then looked away. Robert glanced back at Emily: her lips were parted in horror, her eyes staring wide. 'Please,' Robert whispered despairingly. 'Do not be afraid. For she has been like a second mother to me.'

'A mother!' exclaimed Lightborn, overhearing him. 'Did you catch that, Milady?'

Milady turned round slowly, but did not reply. Her stare was even more icy than it had been before. Lightborn's grin broadened. 'Both the ladies seem passing shy,' he said. 'Yet who can be surprised? For it is always an awkward occasion, is it not, when a son introduces a beloved to his mother?'

He raised his glass in a mocking toast. No one joined him. 'Wine?' he asked Robert, offering him a bottle of the deepest red. 'Thank you,' said Robert, 'but
I
would prefer the white.' He reached for the bottle and poured out a glass. No one else spoke. Neither Lightborn nor Milady were eating; and though the banquet was sumptuous, Emily only picked at her food. Robert was glad when Milady made her excuses, and when Lightborn followed her and left them alone. Still Emily did not speak, save to ask if she might not leave the house and have her first walk through the London streets. Robert agreed with all readiness. 'For here, dearest Emily, lest you forget, you are no prisoner, but may do as you wish.' Emily stared at him strangely, but still kept quiet. Only when they had left the house behind, and passed some distance along the Mall, did she turn to him at last.

She held him by his cheeks, and stared a long while into his eyes. At last, her face lightened,
I
prayed it was not possible,' she whispered, 'that you had become one of them.'