Dreamlands (2 page)

However
as I dressed the opiate tide began to ebb, and I began to enjoy (or suffer) the
conscience of a rational man.  That I had briefly considered burgling the room
Jarvis had provided now seemed both disgraceful and ridiculous.  I must move on. 
To prolong my acquaintance with this man and not somehow repay his kindness
would invite a shame I could not, in my sober moments, bear.

Upon
leaving, I discovered a leather valise placed by the door where it could not be
overlooked, and with it a short note.

There
is a ticket to Arkham on the 3pm Central New England waiting for you at the State
Street Station, so that you may visit your uncle.  Take these few articles with
my blessing, and though you do not recall our friendship, trust that between us
there are no debts.

Yours,
Jarvis

Maudlin
tears stung my eyes.  Though I did not remember mentioning my uncle to my
benefactor, Boston had in the last few days grown inclement, and since it would
be churlish to turn down a paid ticket, I took up my new bag and headed for the
station.

“Arkham!” 
The conductor’s call, punctuated by a sharp rap of my head against the
windowpane, stirred me from my doze, and I watched with little interest as the
train cut away from the Miskatonic and into the warren of slouching,
gambrel-roofed houses which made up the town.

I
had arrived in witch-haunted Arkham.  This appellation had been passed down
from a history of burnings heretics and other public manias, and persisted more
recently thanks to her secret societies and unusually high incidence of missing
persons.  I do not believe in witchcraft or other forms of superstition, yet I
cannot deny there is something disquieting about the place.  Though I fondly remembered
the summers I spent as a boy roaming the family estate, it had always seemed
prudent to stay in the sunlight, close enough to call out to the nanny, and away
from the looming pines which bordered the property.  There was a sinister,
watchful quality about them, as if the gloom itself was waiting, patiently, for
a little boy to make a mistake.

I
shook the cobwebs from my head and, relinquishing the past for the dull
pragmatism of adulthood, exited to the platform.  Shabby and unremarkable, the
station was constructed of the black brick used sparingly in Arkham when warped
and peeling boards were unsuitable.  The few people waiting there quickly
boarded, leaving my case and me standing alone.  A smoke-coloured sky lowered
obligingly overhead, completing the scene.

I
listed a little in the breeze, pondering the reason for my uncle’s invitation. 
He had been a good friend to me in my youth, but my parents’ sudden death had
perfectly severed me from my boyhood, and the two of us became estranged.  My
only contact with him since starting college had been via letters begging loans
to which he had never agreed, and which I would not have repaid.

“Mr.
Sloan, is that you?” came a voice with a country Welsh lilt.  My uncle’s
housekeeper, Mrs. Caddock, shuffled ponderously towards me with a thick fellow
I did not recognize following a few steps behind.  She had gained weight in the
years since I had last visited.  Her gingham dress could have served for a tablecloth. 

“Young
Mr. Sloan, very nice to have you back, sir,” she said, proffering a few damp
fingers like a duchess.

“Mrs.
Caddock, thank you for making the trip to the station.”  She had been with my
uncle since before I was born, but my only memory of her was her sour
expression as she shooed me from one place to another, just as she was shooing
me down the platform now.

“Did
Monroe not come down with you?” I asked.  Monroe had been my uncle’s butler.  “I
was hoping to speak with him.”

“Oh,
I’m sorry, dear.  Mr. Monroe passed on winter before last, Lord keep him.  Mr.
Eamon tried to cable you in Boston, but I imagine it didn’t get through.  Rent
must be awfully dear in the city, the way you keep changing your address.”  She
sniffed in what I hoped was not a habitual way.  “Anyway, it was a heart
condition that took Mr. Monroe.  He was gone just as quick as a snuffed candle.”

I
stopped for a minute to take in this unexpected news.

“Yes,
poor Mr. Monroe,” she continued, and with real pity, “and poor Mrs. Caddock.  We
all assumed in a house the size of your uncle’s that Mr. Monroe would be
replaced.  Instead, each of us had to work a bit harder.”  She gave me a
significant look, as if the purpose of my journey might be to remedy this situation. 
“That’s been the way of it for years now.  We don’t even have our own driver, can
you believe it?  I had to hire Mr. Mills to take us up to the estate.”

In
reply to his cue, the man straightened his stoop a little and stepped forward.

“A
moment, Mr. Mills,” she interrupted him.  “I expect Mr. Sloan’s valet will want
to handle his bags.”

The
three of us paused to look around, but were disappointed when no such person
appeared.

“I’m
traveling alone, Mrs. Caddock.”

“Ha,
I should have known.  Coat could use a brush, eh?  But surely this one bag can’t
be
all
of your luggage, Mr. Sloan?”

* * *

The
driver made a clucking noise and we jostled off.  Our gig proved to be a
cramped affair, Mrs. Caddock and I sharing the one bench like old friends.  If
I had brought a trunk I would have had to walk alongside. 
To
avoid further conversation, I endeavoured to study the architecture, which was,
I hoped, unique to Arkham.  Every visible structure was out of true, as if a
giant hand had riffled the rooftops, and the buildings, once shoved askew, had
been too weary to right themselves.

Unfortunately,
the dour and silent woman I had known as a child had become dour and garrulous. 
She embarked on an extended account of the family’s, and by extension her own,
misfortunes.  In addition to Uncle Eamon’s long illness, silver had collapsed,
rental properties had flooded, and tenants disappeared.  The departure of each
of the estate’s employees was unfailingly followed by the news that said
employee would not be replaced, and the burdens of the story's heroine grew
until the entire staff consisted of herself and a part time groundskeeper.

Still,
once I had accommodated myself to sharing the narrow wooden board I was, thanks
to the uniformity of Mrs. Caddock’s droning, able to relax into
semi-consciousness for much of the journey.  I was on the cusp of real sleep
when I heard the angry shout
A woman will prattle on!
causing me to start upright in a fluster.  Luckily, the exclamation had sounded
in my mind alone.

As
it happened, my waking coincided with Mrs. Caddock improbably reaching a point
of interest in her monologue:  I would meet a female cousin currently lodging at
the estate, some unfortunate adopted into the family by Uncle Eamon.

“No
one knows quite what to make of her.  Supposedly, she lost her mother to the
influenza. 
Weak blood,” she said, pointedly.  “But do you know
what I think?  In one word, carpetbagger.  I’ll be counting the spoons every night
until she leaves.”

With
this pronouncement Mrs. Caddock was content to sit quietly.  I was careful not
to indicate any interest, lest it encourage her to speak further, but her
distaste for this mysterious houseguest was cause for optimism.  Perhaps my
visit would not be as tedious as I feared.

While
I was unconscious, the urban disfigurement of town had given way to long grass
and scrubland which had at one time been cleared for agriculture but now lay
fallow.  Soon after, my family’s holding came into view, the setting sun
softening neither the dreariness, nor the impression of ruin.  The estate’s
south wall, now a pile of mortarless stones, seemed more coincident than a
deliberate attempt at security.

Mills
levered himself down from his seat to shift the gate, choosing to walk his nag
the rest of the way up the hill.  The dilapidated three-storey Georgian loomed
into view.  Once my summer refuge from school and duty, its pleasing forest
green had faded to military drab, the façade settling into a frown of
discontent in caricature of the Sloan fortune.

We
clattered to a stop and I stepped down, bag in hand, the coachman assisting
Mrs. Caddock when it became obvious I would ignore her throat-clearing sound.  Mr.
Mills knew well enough not to expect any sort of gratuity from her, and
circumstances forced me to disappoint him as well.

“Your
old playground, eh Mr. Sloan?” the housekeeper said as the front steps brayed
their annoyance at our passage.  “Come on now, your uncle will be delighted.”

I
stopped in the parlour, momentarily confused.

“Mrs.
Caddock, I don’t know why I didn’t inquire earlier, but Uncle never did say
exactly why he was so eager to see me.”

“He’s
been very ill, Mr. Sloan.”  She stared at me, not kindly, before adding, “As I
mentioned several times already.”

* * *

“
WHAT!”

The
old man’s throaty exclamation greeted me at the door to his room.  It was all
the same as I remembered:  the hideous fleur-de-lis wallpaper, the bureau that
once towered above me, and the sea trunk so scratched and battered it might
have been the flotsam of a shipwreck.

“It’s
Isaac, Mr. Sloan, your nephew,” Mrs. Caddock said as she hauled the velour
curtains shut.  “You invited him here, for pity’s sake.”

“I
have no nephew,” he said querulously.  “No, don't let him in!”

Ignoring
his protest, she propped his withered frame into a sitting position and beat
his pillow like a chicken-thieving hound.  He sat under his own strength for
the time being, clutching the blanket in both hands, and turned to where I
stood in the doorway.  The stink of sweat and unhappiness lingered under the
carbolic, pushing back as I forced myself forward.  I did my best to hide my
shock at his decline.

“Uncle
Eamon, what are you playing at?” I said with faltering jocularity.  He was
white and wasted, lost looking on the expansive mattress of the four-poster.  “It’s
me, Isaac.  You can’t be serious that you don’t remember me.”

My
uncle sank back to his elbows, gradually laying flat again, as if impelled
against his will.

“Mrs.
Caddock, if you’ll excuse us?”  Her mouth hung open briefly as if to object to
my request, but folded instead into the scowl that long practice had engraved on
her face.

“Now
what is the matter, Uncle?  I hear you’ve been ill.”

“Ill?” 
His eyebrows arched in a semblance of humour.  “Yes, you could say I’ve been
ill. 
D
ying
would be more accurate.” 

“I
would have come sooner, but my affairs have been in total disarray.”  I wanted
to reassure him I hadn’t come asking for money, but instead added feebly, “It’s
so good to see the estate again after so many years.”

“Many
years, right.”  He cut his eyes at me suspiciously.  “You've still got the
scar, have you?”

“I
don’t imagine I’ll ever lose it, lest I lose the whole limb.”

“Let's
have a look.”

His
expression went suddenly canny as I rolled up my left sleeve to show the rippling
scar betwixt wrist and elbow on the inside of that arm.  To me it was as
significant as it was ugly, for the same fire that made it killed both my
parents.  It marked the division between the boy Isaac Sloan and the man.  All
I recalled of that night was shivering in terrific pain, crying as only a child
cries, and my father’s brother, strong and calm, holding me.

It
must have been meaningful to Eamon as well, for as the papery skin of his palm came
to rest on the scar, his face finally unclenched like a fist to an open hand.

“Welcome,
my boy,” he said, growing teary, “welcome.”

My
uncle tired quickly, and after little more conversation I lay down, still shod,
in my old room, until the smell of boiled beef and cabbage summoned me downstairs
again.  As Mrs. Caddock allowed no one at table before the meal was served, I
was fidgeting in the drawing room when a dark-haired girl appeared from the
hall, dressed in a battered linen skirt and a lime-coloured blouse almost
respectable enough for dinner.  The appearance of a houseguest like this was, in
that place, as unexpected as a songbird in a root cellar.

“Hello,”
I exclaimed.  “No one announced you.  I mean, Mrs. Caddock never said we had a
guest.  For dinner.”

“All
right, all right,” Mrs. Caddock interjected.  Bustling into the room and
immediately between us, she produced a feather duster and began to assault a
lithograph of Massachusetts countryside.  “Mr. Sloan has just this instant
arrived and you’re fluttering about him like a jackdaw.  I imagine he has
plenty to keep his mind occupied with Mr. Sloan the elder taken sick.”

Without
acknowledging her, I extended a hand to my uncle’s guest, who clasped it
warmly.

“I
am Isaac Sloan.”

“The
famous nephew, of course.  Georgine, sir.”

“My
pleasure.  I heard a rumour that we are cousins, except that Uncle doesn't have
a daughter.”

“Adopted
daughter,” she replied.  “Though I suppose he does call me that.  Daughter, I
mean.  I’m more what you’d call a ward.”  After an awkward pause, “I don’t mean
to presume, sir.”

“No,
it’s not presumptuous at all.  And you mustn’t call me ‘sir’.  Make it Isaac,
please.”

An
uncharitable
harrumph
met this comment from the creature dusting what
would become the sole clean article in that room.  I stared at Mrs. Caddock for
several seconds until she absented herself.

“Has
Mrs. Caddock made your stay here pleasant?” I asked, keeping most of the acid
from my voice.

“She’s
a bit of a grouch, but with everything that’s happened I guess she has a right
to be cranky sometimes.”  Uncomfortable silence rose up again, as relentless as
damp, and Georgine parted a gauzy curtain to look out at the grounds.  “I’ve
heard you used to come here as a boy.  How grand the estate must have been.  I’m
sorry, I seem to have a knack for finding rude things to say.”

“It’s
not so grand as it used to be,” I said, “but I see no reason why it must be so dismal. 
I’m glad you’re here, Georgine.  This house needs a bit of cheer.”