The English Descendants

35

1887- Entry 1

I am twenty. We are starving and always cold. There is nothing left in our coffers, the house has begun to collapse in upon itself. There is a hole in the roof and it rains inside when it rains out. The land here yields little and I have never grown vegetables before this year. I correct myself- I did not grow very many of them very well this year, either, so saying that I grew them is perhaps incorrect. I watched most of the plants wither and die and my efforts proved rather worthless, but they did bear a few fruits. Mostly greens. But neither did it fill our stomachs nor provide us with any comfort on the long nights when they ached from emptiness.

Lucille brings me often to her bed. I can no longer stand this, the look in her eyes dreadful when she delights in this...this...

It is not what others do, and she is insistent that she is the only love that I can ever have. I dream of bigger things and a world beyond, a world I tasted only the tiniest sliver of during my studies. But I dream of London. Of Paris. Of anywhere but these forsaken grey fields.

When we were children, Lucille would tell me that there was no heaven, no hell, greater than what man alone could create. That we lived in hell and were made into demons from our time in this Hall. We could never escape it, no matter how often we tried to seek heaven. I did not believe her once I saw that there was life outside of ours. Where people celebrated Christmas and saw me worthy of simple gifts and kindness. Where birthdays were for celebration, not scorn. In time, I thought that heaven would be within my reach.

After she returned, everything was different about her beliefs. The black moths did not come for Mother because the souls of the damned are dragged straight to hell if they do not repent on their deathbeds. There are few righteous enough to be admitted to heaven. The rest wander the earth or are left in purgatory for all time, a sort of perpetual torment in that it is ever-waiting for a possibility of redemption that will never come. If Mother was wicked, so, she has reasoned, must we be, for we are the product of two evil people and the sin of the father is passed to his children. We are hopeless creatures, and even our repentance would only lead us to purgatory or wandering the earth, but never to heaven. We cannot join the saints.

Whomever at the asylum taught her this did so thoroughly, for she has preached it to me as she took me to her bed, telling me that if we are damned souls, we ought to act our natures, succumbing to lust and depravity.

I dread nights. This is no longer repayment for years of protective love. This is cruel. But I still cannot bring myself to leave her.

Perhaps if we starve to death, she will leave me alone after.

1887- Entry 2

Lucille has come up with a plan so that we may live a bit longer in this decrepit hall. She says that I cut a handsome figure and there will be other women who believe the same, that it should not be hard to ensnare a young woman of means, to return here to Allerdale Hall, and to kill her before I must consummate the marriage. She says this is critical, that I must not have sex with anyone else, for if I do, I will certainly leave her for the other woman.

By god, I want to. I should have never agreed to return home, and were she to kill herself, I would at least be free of this...but I did not. I cared too much, as always, and I am here, and she is my master. Dear god, let there be a miracle...

Lucille's obsession with sex, or the lack of it outside of us, must be the result of our father's insistence that all women are whores and she was destined to it as well. Whores did all sorts of things Lucille wanted to do. They spoke up. They questioned. They were inquisitive. They wore gowns that showed off skin, painted their faces, looked men in the eyes. Whores did not know their place. And all these things were hurled first at our mother and then at my sister. It is no wonder she believes strange things about sex.

I cannot fathom how living here will not end in a noose for both of us. She assures me it will not. That no one will know about the women who disappear. She will make sure of it. It still feels so horribly wrong. But if it is our only way to survive...is it?

Yes, it must be. It would be better that we die instead of stealing someone else from this world.

My mining machine is nearly ready. I need money for parts, to construct it, to test it beyond this toy I have cobbled together from pieces of pipe, of clockworks, of bits forged over a hot stove from bits of tin. She says we will travel to London to seek financing and, while there, we will find a bride. I do not like this. I do not wish to kill anyone. But she says I will not have to, and she will make it clean, so that it appears the woman has died a natural death on these brutal fields.

1887- Entry 3

Lucille has chosen my wife. Her name is Pamela Upton and she is a delightful young woman. A bit flighty, but bright, beautiful, and a marvellous pianist. She has no family and is enthralled by the mystique of living in England's more wild places. I regret ever meeting her.

1887- Entry 4

Pamela and I were married on Thursday and returned to Allerdale Hall after a brief honeymoon to the south of France. Winter is setting in. There are no others out this far, the fields windswept and barren. Lucille makes tea and warns me not to drink it, but still to take it and to mock that I do. Lucille will not allow me to keep my bed with my wife. After she is asleep, I am to come to her room so my sister can have me until morning. There are always excuses, and the tea makes dear Pamela tired.

She was right when she was younger- there is no hell like the one we create. I dread every evening, and the days grow darker both in the season and in my heart as I watch this beautiful girl deteriorate, her lungs weakening from that infernal tea. I wish I had the courage to tell her what is happening, but I fear Lucille enough to stay silent.

1887- Entry 5

It will not be long before Pamela dies. Lucille has asked that I help her dispose of the body after. But I do not want to think that far ahead. I have never seen a person die. I have seen them dead, for certain, but the process? That is frightening. I do not want her to die. I do not want to believe that I have killed her, but I have.

1887- Entry 6

She is gone.

I did not love her, no, but still...there is something deeply terrifying about watching another person die. She asked for me, for my hand. For a final kiss, which I gave, my heart breaking for her, love or no. And I cannot look in the mirror without calling myself wicked.

She faded so slowly. Her lungs tried, poor, ragged things, to keep working, but there was so much blood every time she coughed. After her last kiss, she gave up turning back over and just lay face-down on the pillow when she could not stop, resting her head sideways in her own blood when she did so she could look at me. It was matted in her hair, the clots smudging her cheek... I will never forget the fear on her face as she struggled for a few final moments and then was gone.

I hope she is at rest. I am haunted enough by my life; I do not need the dead to take part as well.

1887- Entry 7

The glee with which Lucille took me to her bed that night deeply disturbs me. I am grieving. She is celebrating. She asks that I join her happiness, that I worship her as my queen beneath the sheets, and yet, while I act the part, I cannot help feel as though a little of my own soul has died and she is killing a little more of it.

I pray the money does not run out quickly.