Angel of Ruin (13 page)

She pushed the guilt aside. She was braver than her sisters, and they all knew it. Brave enough to deal with Lazodeus directly.

“Forget about the furnishings,” she said. “I only wished for a nicer setting in which to entertain you.”

“You are entertaining me?” he asked, smiling. “Am I not supposed to be entertaining you? I am your servant, at your command.”

“I want you to be our friend, not our servant,” she said. “In fact, I command it.”

“Your sister Deborah would be appalled to hear such a thing.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, Deborah is such a baby, really. She may be Father’s favourite for being clever, but it does not equate with being wise.”

“A very wise thing to say,” he said, and Mary felt herself blush with pleasure.

“What would we speak of?” Lazodeus continued. “What would we do, now we are friends, rather than servant and mistress.”

“We could speak of intimate things,” she said boldly. “We could undress each other.” This very offer
had worked so many times for her, that she was stupefied to see him shake his head.

“No, Mary. That is not for us to do.”

Disappointment sank down inside her. Fool, for thinking that an angel would be so easy to seduce. “But why not?”

“Because you want such intimacy for the wrong reasons.”

“I want to please you.”

“And what of your pleasure?”

“It would please me to lie with you.”

“The pleasure you take from your lovers is cruel. It is about defeating them, not about loving them.”

“Love is a word fatigued through use. Besides, I can command you to do it.” She warmed to the idea.

He leaned very close, his nose almost touching hers, the warmth of his body seeking out her skin. She felt vaguely frightened but was unsure why. “You can no longer command me, Mary Milton. For you told me not five minutes past that you would now have me for friend rather than servant.”

“But I meant …” She had meant exactly that. Her heart picked up a quick rhythm. “So I can no longer tell you what to do?”

He shook his head. “Nor your sisters for you did say ‘our friend’? From now on I may listen and help you, because of the love I bear you all, but I may say no whenever I please.” His fingers brushed her shoulder. “Mary, there is a delight in skin touching skin which you do not yet know,” he said. “Are you not curious?”

Nothing was going to plan. She had imagined their exchange so differently. He would be like all the others she had known — the offer to use her body would be quickly accepted, clothes would be removed, some childish grunting would follow and then she
would be the new queen of his angelic body, the object to which his thoughts always returned, the constant topic of his conversation, the sole aim of his labours. Instead, he was no longer her servant and she felt threatened, as though she teetered on the brink of a chasm.

“I …”

He leaned away suddenly. “When I think you are ready to know the true pleasures of the flesh, I shall call upon you again. Until then goodbye,
friend.”

“Go then,” she said, turning her face away. “I don’t care if you go for I —” She stopped abruptly as she looked around and saw he had gone.

The empty room suddenly felt very cold.

The next morning, Mary took a brass candlestick across to her secret room as though that one small object could counter the dingy appearance of the place. As she climbed in the window, she gasped with astonishment.

The room was full of velvet cushions, thick fur rugs, rich curtains, ornate lamps and candlesticks, gold-threaded tapestries, paintings, pottery and statues. She stood in the middle of it for a moment, taking it all in. Then she began to laugh.

This kind of luxury was the least a girl who had once commanded angels could expect.

“Mrs Milton, may I speak with you?”

Betty glanced up from her embroidering. She sat in a weak sunbeam in the whitewashed withdrawing room. Liza stood in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot like an anxious dog. “Of course, Liza, what is it?”

Liza looked furtively behind her then approached Betty. “I have been waiting for an opportunity to speak privately, while nobody else is nearby.”

“What’s all this about? What secrets are we sharing?” Betty asked, putting her embroidery ring aside. Secrets made her nervous.

“I want to show you something, but I … that is … you aren’t to be cross with me for not showing you earlier.”

“What is it?”

“Here.” Liza suddenly dropped to her knees and folded back one of the mats.

“You want me to join you on the floor?”

Liza made a motion for her to be quiet and beckoned her over. Betty’s curiosity was piqued. She knelt on the floor next to Liza. “What am I looking at?” she whispered.

“See …” She indicated a knot in the floorboard. “I realised a few months ago that I could do this.” She pushed her smallest finger under the knot and it popped out, leaving a perfect hole about an inch across. Liza pointed down and mouthed the words, “Look you.”

Betty leaned over and peered through the hole. She could see directly into John’s study. He sat in his chair listening to Deborah reading to him. Betty flinched and drew back, indicating that Liza should reseal the hole. When the mat was returned to its place, Betty grabbed Liza by the arm. “What is all this about? Have you been spying on my husband and me?” She felt unsafe and exposed.

“No, no, I swear I …” Liza hung her head. “Sometimes I look to see … when he’s on his own … to see if he keeps his eyes open or closes them.”

“What an abominable display of disrespect!” Betty exclaimed, pinching the maidservant by her ear. Memories of all the things she may have done in full view of Liza rushed into her mind. Had Liza seen her take the books to sell? Or witnessed the lifeless
conjugal relations between her and John? Or noted every undignified movement she had ever made when certain that nobody was watching her?

“Wait, ma’am, wait! I need to tell you what I saw.”

Betty released Liza’s ear, and looked at her suspiciously. “What did you see?”

“On New Year’s Eve. When you and Mr Milton were away.”

Betty suddenly became excited. “The girls? The girls did something?” Something heinous, something awful which Liza would attest to. Then John would have to send them away.

“Yes, the girls. They were entertaining a gentleman.”

“A gentleman! I knew it! How long did he stay?”

Liza suddenly dropped her head again. “Ma’am, I … ’Tis impossible …”

“What? What’s impossible? They are capable of anything, those minxes.”

Liza took a deep breath and met Betty’s eyes. “Ma’am, he disappeared into nothing. I swear, one instant he was there and the next gone. Like … magic.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper, and Betty realised the young woman was terrified. Her face had drawn chalk white.

Betty felt a sudden chill glide over her body. “Rubbish, Liza,” she said without conviction. “Men don’t disappear suddenly, they use doors.” Christmas Eve: she had heard a man’s voice, without doubt, but when she went in only the three girls were in the room.

“Ma’am, I saw it with my own eyes. I swear, ’Tis the Lord’s truth. And I heard some of the things they were saying, things about angels and devils and Lucifer himself.”

“Lucifer?” Betty said. Her voice didn’t sound like her own. A strange, excited fear had taken hold of her.
But she had to remain calm and take her time, for if she made a hasty accusation, John would think badly only of her and refuse to hear any more on the issue.

“Ma’am, ’Tis true.”

Betty brushed her hands on her skirt. “Liza, you were right to tell me. I want you to keep an eye out for any more appearances of this man.”

“If the girls catch me spying, they’ll beat me. Especially that Mary.”

“For every beating you get from them, you’ll receive a threepence from me.”

Liza sighed. “Yes, Mrs Milton.”

“You may go now. Thank you.”

Liza backed out of the room. Betty returned to the couch and caught up her embroidery ring, picked idly at the stitching. Were the girls really involved in something so very dangerous as sorcery? If that were the case, would John throw them out, have them charged, disown them? What would he do to them?

She shivered as another thought occurred to her. If she told their father, what might they do to her?

Betty fell sick with a winter chill in the second week of January, throwing the whole household into chaos. A sudden icy-cold snap had gripped London, laying the streets with thick snow. Betty moaned from morning until night about the cold. Deborah had never known someone make such a fuss of such an insignificant illness; her demands were endless. Mary wisely stayed out of the house all day, preferring to take refuge in her secret room. Because she wouldn’t take Max with her — “it would frighten him too much carrying him across the ledge” — he was bored and restless and under foot. Liza ran back and forth, her cheerless eyes fixing on Deborah and Anne as she told them tonelessly that Father had ordered them to help chop
and net vegetables for cooking, or wash the bed covers, or fetch coal, or find Betty’s favourite nightcap, which it was implied one of them had stolen.

On a visit to the study to find a book to read to Betty, Deborah was surprised to see Father pacing the room. He knew precisely where each item of furniture was, and walked as confidently as a man who could see the obstacles around them.

“Father? Is everything well with you?”

He turned and took a moment to find her with his sightless eyes. “Why? Do I look unwell?”

“You seem … impatient.” He was always impatient, and Deborah had to stop herself from adding, “More so than usual.”

“Betty has been ill for three days and I have not been walking,” he said petulantly, almost as though he suspected Betty had fallen sick on purpose.

“Father, ’Tis freezing outside. I nearly turned to ice going out to fetch the coal.”

“Nevertheless,
solvitur ambulando.”

Deborah smiled.
It is solved by walking.
She wondered what problem he wished to solve. He hadn’t dictated to her for nearly a week; clearly he had reached an impasse with his great epic.

“I can walk with you, Father,” she offered.

“I think that is for the best. Ask Liza to show you where my winter mantle is.”

Deborah felt a wonderful sense of freedom as she ran upstairs to tell Liza that she and Father were going out. Out of the house, which was too warm because Betty insisted every fire in every grate should be roaring to compensate for the chill which had taken hold of her chest. Out with father —
solvitur ambulando.
She returned downstairs to find him waiting by the door, patiently, like a small child.

“Here,” she said, handing him his gloves.

He tried the left one on his right hand, but just as she reached to help him, he pulled it off with a look of self-disgust. Would that she were blind to that expression. Gloves fitted to the correct hands, he held his arms out for his mantle and hat. Deborah pulled on her own heavy winter cloak and hat. She couldn’t use a muff for Father would need to hold her hand, so she found a pair of mittens and opened the door.

The first blast of icy air sent Father back two steps. “Just a short walk, eh, Deborah?”

“Yes, Father. Just a short one.”

The stuffy house behind them, they linked hands and walked down the hill. At the main street, he said what he always said, “Be my eyes, Deborah.”

“The sky is perfect grey, it is barely daylight. I see lanterns burning in windows, diamond patterns of light on the snow.”

“The snow is deep,” Father said, lifting his feet high. “Hold my hand tightly for I do not wish to trip.”

“I shan’t let you go, Father. Here, walk this way, for someone has shovelled the snow into a pile on that corner.” She led him across the street. “The trees are paler than the sky. The branches are bare and damp and seem to shiver in the wind.”

“I can hear them. Is there anyone else around?”

“Not for yards. I see a woman with a basket. I think she is selling potatoes, but she is dressed very poorly for this weather. She must be cold. Do you want to go to the cemetery?”

He shook his head. With his free hand he wrapped his scarf high up over his chin. “Just around the block. ’Tis very cold, though I find the fresh air invigorating.”

“Me too, Father.”

“Let us practise our languages. Describe the world to me in Italian.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Italian, Father? It is my worst language.”

“It should be your best for it is my favourite. What use are these languages to you beyond conversing with me?”

Deborah felt a wave of pity for him. He possessed so much knowledge, was so fluent in so many languages, but had hardly anybody with whom to share his mind. The King’s return to London had signalled Father’s withdrawal from the public world and, now in retirement, blind and submerged in the tedium of domestic life, he had few avenues for his great intellect. She was vastly disappointed with herself for not making Italian her chief area of study simply because it did not appeal to her as much as the strange secret sounds of Hebrew, or the sweet complexities of Greek.

“Go on, then, what do you see?”

What do you see?
Deborah looked around desperately. Houses.
Case.
Trees.
Alberi.
He had taken her by surprise and she found herself straining for the most basic of sentence constructions.
Vedo … Vedo …

“Well?”

“Forgive me, Father. I am used to reading and translating the language, but to compose in it is more difficult. A moment, please.”

“Disregard my request,” Father said abruptly. “I should not have even bothered teaching you, for one tongue is enough in any woman’s head.”

“No, Father, I will try. I am simply not as confident as you.”

“I said to disregard it. I wish to return home.” He did not speak angrily. In fact, his voice was devoid of any emotion. This emptiness cut her to the quick, made her feel desperate and wretched.

“Father, be not angry with me. I do try. I’m weak, I’m stupid.”

He remained silent, and she knew that no matter what she said between now and home, what questions she asked, he would not say another word. It was his way of dealing with those he considered to be vastly beneath him.