Dangerous Letters

Chapter Thirty-Two

Letter LVII

Mar 22, 17--

It seems that when one comes to the end, they can only think of the beginning. I have never given much thought to Fate or Chance, having given myself over to Providence from my earliest years, and yet I see now some special augury, some fatal act in the browning of a leaf, the collapse of a sparrow, the fall of a governess. If it must be done, as done it must, then it would be well if it were done quickly; if my inevitable demise could trammel up the consequence, and catch, with my surcease, success; that but this blow might the be-all and end-all here, upon this bank and shoal of time, to jump the life to come.

In short, if there is any hope that my fate can bring some end to the tyranny that lurks here, if my letters can bear witness even after I cannot, if there is some greater purpose to this misery then I could resign myself that, if it be now, yet it will come and my readiness is all. I have been, I think, ready since I was returned here.

The Marquis murdered T—. I keep seeing flashes of the fight – the crack of the gun – the swish of the rapier – the Marquis' bruised fists – the rivulets of blood. It was as if he had a demon long caged within the Master came out roaring. I believe that I have witnessed moral insensibility, experienced an insensate readiness to evil myself, but I have never seen such rage as the action rose, and the stir deepened, and how wildly he shook with a passion of the Pit! It wrote HELL on his straight, haughty brow. Writhed his regal face to a demonic mask. Hate and murder and lunacy incarnate he stood.

I once thought the supernatural that haunts – not this room, but I myself – was a product of my fevered imagination. Now I see that much madness is divinest Sense to a discerning eye; all morning I have felt a funeral in my brain, with mourners coming to and fro, treading – treading – till it seems that clarity would come. And when they were all seated at the service, issuing forth like the beat-beat-beat of a drum, and my mind numbed, I could have sworn they lifted the box with my soul and all the heavens were a bell that began to toll.

There is blood on my hands that I can't wash off. I have scrubbed and scrubbed until the flesh is raw and pinkened, but those little spots persist, speckles of death and guilt that shall surely be scorched into the meat of my palm forever. T—'s only crime was trying to save someone he mistook as an innocent. It sounds like nothing to read to how hellish the act. I cannot transmute the horror to paper, nor should I wish to, for what ink is dark enough to convey unadulterated sin? I declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been guilty of that crime upon T---'s provocation, he had already been disarmed, he posed no further threat. Any claim by the Master of this house should be found untrue. He enjoyed it, I saw that all too clearly; he acted not as a noble but as some sort of incontrollable child that, in a tantrum, breaks a plaything.

It's almost a cleaving of the mind. To know such tragedy. I would have happily married T— once. For a time, it was my dearest wish. We are bound now in another way; he must have loved me beyond the juvenile to attempt such a rescue, to forfeit his life. It is another way that I am wholly unworthy; my only love is now my only hate; too early seen unknown and known too late! That prodigious birth of love for a loathed enemy. But I believe I was T—'s first, and last, and now even in the grave. If only there were some means of redemption, some small possibility of repayment - I would gladly seize upon it. The Master threatened to expunge his existence from all record, to erase him entirely. I am uncertain as to whether that is truly in his remit, or if it is bluster designed to wound me further, but my only hope is that this letter – and the ones before it – stand as a testament for historical confirmation that Sir. T—D------- was a far greater man than the one who killed him.

He arrived at midnight to my room in stealth. I had not seen him for what felt like an age; how precious were those bright blue eyes, how winning that yellow curling hair – made golden by the candlelight, how beautiful those full lips that I had seen often smiling with joy qualified by a heart sensitive and lively to excess in its affections. It had been difficult to reconcile this image of him, a reflection of the cherubic boy I had once dreamed of, with what had passed between us when he ended our engagement.

Yet that no longer mattered. At that moment, he was salvation.

I had not realised how unaccustomed to hope I had become these last few days. He carried a flintlock in one hand, and a light in the other. I fell upon him silently weeping. It had been so long since I had felt any measure of safety. I could scarcely believe that he had truly come for me. We had no time for more than that hasty embrace; he took my hand, pressed a finger to his lips and we crept down the stairs. Our progress was swift and soundless as that of a spider, which at the same instant ran down the banister. He led me a different way than I usually travel, through the carré, a large square hall between the dwelling-house and the pensionnat, and out towards the left wing of the house. The Master's bedroom was somewhere about, and, with troubling foresight, I had already envisioned him sliding from that doorway and creeping towards us in the gloom.

I don't know whether, in actuality, he was truly lying in wait or if he was somehow alerted by T---'s sudden sneeze. To think that an unlucky sternutation might have lost us everything! Aghast, we saw a shade appear at the end of the wide corridor, obstructing our exit. The usual dread of this horrible place overpowered me; that fear—awful fear—there was no escape. The figure stepped forward from the spell of shadows – the Marquis. I cried out at the sight of him. T--- pushed me behind him. He raised his weapon and fired. There was the sound of a pistol-shot, the gun jerked in his hand. The glass of the window shattered as the bullet, ricocheting from the top of the embrasure, struck the far wall of the room. I shrieked, T--- tried to aim again, but before he could the Marquis struck. At the sight of the blade descending, horror overcame me, and I swooned into unconsciousness.

I revived to find them grappling. The weapons lost in the struggle; they were at each other's throats. Gouts of blood everywhere, my dress marred by some errant slash, one of the gashes on T---'s chest that cried for help. Then the Marquis had him pinned, both hands wrapped around his throat as he squeezed the life from his body. For shame! O, bitter shame. I should have stayed. Helped. Instead, I ran.

The road is ragged at the back of the estate, but I flew over it with furious haste towards the swelling hills, green and brown during the day but now the endless perspective of jagged rocks and pointed crags were thrown into a deep blue and purple. I hardly felt the cold, though the air was chilled, as it nipped at my exposed arms and legs. My feet were a bloodied mess from the exertion of passing bare indiscriminately over pavement, stone or grass but I hardly noticed that either. I ran until I reached where the night seemed to merge, into one dark mistiness, the gloom of trees, oak, birch and pine that would continue down through the valley that ran deep beneath the yonder hills. I felt marginally safer once I had crossed beneath the branches – looking back the road behind was still empty. There was no sound of galloping hooves, no pounding footsteps; only my own desperate breathing.

I continued to run until I reached the high-back walls and espied the chapel's rising presence. I had come around to the side of it I had never seen before – from here it appeared even more dilapidated. It seemed as if the darkness was closing down upon me, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, producing a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies already engendered in me. I halted panting wildly, with the sudden terrible lucidity that there was only one real avenue of escape still available.

Before that thought could solidify any further, someone else appeared in the hedgerow that lined this part of the chapel's graveyard. Too small to be the Master, the tiny white figure glided into view, a bright spot beneath the drab ghost-like clouds above. I was sobbing again – or perhaps I hadn't stopped since T---- arrived. I opened my mouth to say something – say what? Some expression of apology? Cry of dudgeon and rebuke? Acknowledgment of shock? Of dread? I was shaking violently, my bones chattering.

My eyes rolled back to the sky and, for the second time, my legs gave way. When my eyes opened once more, it was at a silvered looking glass that had been produced to see if my breath would mist or stain the stone. I could see the pallor of my face, whitened by terror. If I died here, I realised, and my body was laid to rest in these grounds – then surely, I would also rise in spirit? What then of my immortal soul? The wielder of the mirror lowered it and Madam L--- skeletal features twisted in customary admonishment as she tsk-ed.

Behind her, my Mademoiselle – nay, no more mine – drew closer. She down stared impassively at my broken person, those delicate bow-lips tugging into a frown that mirrored the housekeeper's disapproval. "My, my," she said in the same high-ringing tone she had when alive, "haven't you been naughty?"