Dark Shadows (14 page)

Mercy’s eyes were closing. Continuous coughing interrupted her breathing. She gulped more smoke into her lungs and then suddenly looked at the door. She had just remembered.

“Julia!” she screamed.
My God, where is Julia?
She couldn’t leave her alone to die in this place! She crawled to the door and turned the poker-hot door handle. Skin from her palm stuck to it and left her with a burned open wound. The pain brought tears. She coughed again and slithered out of the room on all fours.

Opening the door brought smoke into the hallway with her. Sparks followed and flew into the air, setting ablaze the ornamental curtains which were frilled across the ceiling, pulled back, and bordering the long hallway’s walls. She had to get to her feet. She felt herself clinging to the wall. Her breath was laboured, but she rose slowly, using one hand at a time, until she was fully upright. Her face was bloodied. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. She dismissed the pain in her palm. She saw hazy golden candlelight on the same silver candlesticks in brackets all along the hallway. She reached one and threw it at some more ornate curtains, draped across the hall’s breadth like curtains on a stage. They lit up the hallway. She reached another candle and did the same to curtains farther down the hall. Death would have to wait, she decided. She was going to burn the entire bloody house down.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jacob’s enthusiasm for the night ahead had waned. The emerald-eyed woman had gone but had left him with his desire for her intact and, if anything, growing stronger. He cursed his foolishness. Had he approached her the minute he’d seen her, he would have laid claim. Instead, he’d spent too much time staring at her and in his enthusiasm had left the salon in order to find Madame du Pont, forgetting that Parker was still there working in Madame du Pont’s absence.

He was as virile as a young bull, and the little vixen had left him cursed with unreleased tension that was now paining his cock. Yet he wanted no one else. Should he take some other woman for the sake of sexual release, it would be like partaking in a corked bottle of wine: disappointing and bitter tasting, instead of a vintage reserve of which one savoured every delicious sip. He was not
that
desperate, just cursed with a mysterious emptiness. He had not only desired her; he had wanted to hear her speak. He’d also wanted to ask the reason for her transparent misery, which had seemingly gone unnoticed by the man who had taken her. She was a misfit and no more belonged here than he did in England. The way she had continually pulled up the front of her bodice, albeit unconsciously, had not gone unnoticed by him either. It was troubling. Was she an innocent or a very good actress?

He casually cast his eyes around the salon, thinned out by the absence of women and men who had climbed the stairs already. His companions were nowhere in sight. He smiled. They deserved a good time. God knew they all did after the long weeks at sea. Even conversation tended to diminish towards the end of the voyage.

He brought his thoughts back to the room and the present. The women who sprawled seductively on the vacant couches were surrounded by men who had no doubt reserved them and who were now forced to respect the house rules. There was no touching, kissing, or engaging in any type of lewd conversation, at least in public. Under the watchful eyes of Madame du Pont and Parker, such behaviour was known to lead to an immediate termination of membership. Many a man had been chastised by Madame du Pont’s tongue, followed by a shredded membership and all future invitations rescinded. “I supply class; therefore, I expect class” was clearly written on each membership document.

He had often wondered at the gall of the woman. She, with her dictatorial rules, managed to manipulate every man who came here into boyish subservience. Jacob found the polite conversations, the delicate manners of men – whom he suspected were chomping at the bit to tear a woman’s clothes off – and the virginal pretence of some of the women amusing. Everyone knew that the virgins and younger women were taken first whilst the experienced women sank steadily to the bottom of the pile and eventually disappeared altogether.

He was not bored yet, but neither was he particularly interested in the goings-on around him anymore. Of course, he could approach Madame du Pont right now and reserve the emerald-eyed beauty for later, but the thought of following the old man galled him and filled him with uncharacteristic jealousy. He was a hypocrite. He knew that to be true, for on occasion he had taken a woman upstairs late in the night, well aware that someone else had used her earlier.

Madame du Pont’s and Parker’s watchful eyes were on the girls still present and on the clock. The women were paid for on an hourly basis, never half hourly. The little notebooks pinned and chained to Madame du Pont’s and Parker’s skirts listed who was with which girl and how long he had paid for. Madame du Pont, Jacob knew, was quite capable of banging on bedroom doors if a man went over the agreed time limit. Time meant money to her. She was not the generous type when it came to that particular flexibility.

Jacob seated himself close to the pianist. He enjoyed listening to the music. It soothed him, along with the half-filled brandy glass in his hand. Madame du Pont was going to approach him any minute, he deduced. She was staring openly at him, probably wondering why he had not picked out a woman yet when she had seen to his three companions, who were already settled upstairs. He looked at his pocket watch. The night was still young, and it was too early for poker. The card games rarely began until after the first round of sexual activities had finished.

He closed his eyes and sank his body into the luxurious soft cushions. With his eyes closed, he’d keep Madame du Pont away. He detested small talk with her, even though she was the hostess who had introduced him to a couple of good business contacts in the past. He smiled to himself. A cotton factory owner once told him that fucking Madame du Pont was like riding a bucking bull. She was, in his opinion, the most unfeminine yet exciting woman he’d ever had. He’d also added that in her younger days, she was not at all bad-looking. She had taken every customer in her stride as many times a night as she could until she realised it was more profitable being downstairs supervising than upstairs fucking.

Jacob did not think any man would pay her for sex nowadays. A man would have to have a strong stomach to want to fuck her. She would more than likely have to pay the man for the pleasure.

Jacob’s eyes shot open, and the pianist suddenly stopped playing as screams and shouts of “Fire, fire!” resonated from upstairs, outside in the hallway, and finally in the salon itself.

Jacob, along with Madame du Pont and everyone else in the salon, sprang to his feet and ran out. Now, not only were there verbal warnings, but an undeniable smell and taste of smoke descending the staircase to crawl into nostrils and throats.

In the hallway, mayhem met Jacob’s eyes. It took him a moment to separate the chaos from what was actually happening. Girls half dressed, some naked with only sheets covering them, ran towards the main front doors, only to be roughly manhandled back into the salon by the doormen. The customers, on the other hand, were asked to leave the salon in an orderly fashion to seek water buckets from an outhouse behind the kitchens. It was becoming apparent that this was a quickly escalating fire that could only be contained if all men present attempted to stop the flames from spreading.

Men were buttoning up their trousers as they ran from the building. Jacob heard shouts and orders being issued outside and then the sound of whinnying frightened horses pulling carriages, arriving outside the main entrance.

Customers who had left their trousers upstairs were comically running around in their long johns. Jacob took in the picture and pushed himself against the flow of traffic, towards the staircase, which was now a smoke-filled invisible hill. His earlier thought – that the men would get water buckets and assist in putting the fire out – disappeared when it became blatantly obvious that there was no such plan afoot in the minds of those men still remaining. The customers were leaving Madame du Pont’s mansion to burn to the ground.

Jacob stood by the stairs. Jack, James, and Isaac had not appeared. He waited and then saw Jack, cursing because he’d left his jacket upstairs. Isaac followed, and a few minutes later, James appeared, holding a woman’s hand, telling her to leave.

The four men stumbled outside. Jacob looked up at the building’s facade and saw that some of the first-floor windows had blown out. The flames were licking the outside walls.

Jack coughed whilst buttoning up his shirt. He said in a panicked voice, “I was on the second floor. The smoke had reached just about every bedroom I passed. I heard window glass smashing and ran for my life.”

Isaac said, “It’s a mess up there. I’ve never seen a fire spread this fast.”

“What can we do?” James shouted to Jacob above the noise of breaking glass and sparking timbers.

“We need water!” Jacob shouted back. “Someone get some damn water! There are still people up there!”

“To hell with water! I’m getting out of here. If I were you, I’d do the same!” a stranger shouted back at him.

No one cared, Jacob realised. The entire household of customers and servants alike were thinking about saving their own skins. Even the servants in crisp black-and-white uniforms ran outside and across the lawns until they were out of sight. There were no allegiances to the madam or her home. At some point, the firemen from the firehouse and the Liverpool coppers would arrive, but they would be far too late to halt the inferno.

Jacob stood with his three companions. Even if they wanted to, they could not supply enough water between them to halt the flames licking the three-storey building.

Jacob suddenly thought about the woman who had captivated him earlier. She was nowhere to be seen. He had not seen her run down the stairs or outside, and he concluded that she was probably still upstairs.

Jacob knew exactly what he had to do. His friends were safe, and he was determined to make sure the young woman and anyone else upstairs also got out of this alive. He issued orders: “Jack, James, go get the horses and carriage. Bring them here to the entrance and stay with them. Guard them with your lives. I wouldn’t put it past these people to jump on the back of the first horse they see. I’m going inside. There’s something I have to do. Isaac, will you come with me?”

“Well, I aint gonna let you go in there alone, am I?” Isaac shouted above the noise.

Jacob ran up the stairs to the main double doors and into the hallway. Men and women were still appearing from behind a curtain of smoke. Jacob pushed past them, going in the opposite direction, and took to the stairs two at a time. With every step he took, the heat became more intense. Smoke was already filling his nose, mouth, and throat, and he shielded his face with his forearm.

Isaac followed closely behind Jacob. When they reached the first floor landing, they stopped. “Should we go to the top floor first?” Isaac shouted.

“No, we’ll search this floor. This fire’s spreading too fast. If we go up one more floor, we won’t make it back down. The stairs are not going to hold much longer. You heard Jack. I reckon we have just about enough time to search one floor. Those damn cowards have run away. We can’t search three floors on our own. We just have to hope that those upstairs made a run for it after they smelled the smoke.

“Isaac, I’m looking for one woman in particular. She was wearing a green gown and had long black hair. I need to find her.” Jacob coughed and wiped his watery eyes.

Isaac nodded. “I’ll search as many rooms as I can.”

There were three long and dark corridors. Jacob took the east corridor, where the flames were highest and more intense, whilst Isaac took the west wing. They would tackle the south corridor after they had searched these particular rooms, but only if it was safe to do so.

“A quick look in every room, as far as we can go, right?” Jacob shouted.

Isaac nodded again.

Each covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief: scant and pitiful protection, but all they had. They set off in opposite directions.

Flames licked the walls and lath-and-plaster ceilings, which were beginning to crumble. Jacob, blinded by smoke, felt his way hesitantly, feeling for doors and doorknobs. He dodged a falling chandelier, which just missed him as it came crashing to the floor. He looked into a smoke-filled room and shouted above the noise, “Is anyone in here?” When there was no answer, he moved on, holding the corridor’s wall. At one point, the heat from the wall was so intense that he had to let go and stumble blindly on.

All the bedrooms were smoke filled, but Jacob had chosen the worst corridor. It was becoming clear that this part of the house was most definitely where the fire had started. Flames and sparks shot upwards and outwards like a firework display. Everything in the fire’s path had ignited, from flowers to decadent fabrics. The flames were rising now along the long hallways, due to soft velvet materials covering the walls. All the glass chandeliers were exploding with the heat, and even the wooden floor in places was smoking, cracking, and about to burst into flames.

“Is there anyone here? Is anyone hiding in here? Come out quickly! Don’t be afraid!” Jacob shouted out in every room he stepped into.

He came to a bedroom halfway down that particular corridor. Its door had crumbled. It was impossible to see anything inside at first. The flames were thicker, higher, and the heat more unbearable than in any other room he had seen so far. The fire started here, he deduced by the extent of the damage. The entire room was alight. He was just about to turn on his heel when he saw the remains of a body on top of the bed.

He got a little closer.
Poor bastard,
he thought. It was not even what could be described as a body. It was a black burned-out shell. There was absolutely no way to tell if the remains were male or female. His heart suddenly felt heavy. What if it was her? What if she’d been left here to die?

Just then, Isaac ran down the length of the hallway. He was shouting Jacob’s name, yet under the noise of the flames, his voice sounded as quiet as a whisper. “Dear God, it’s completely unrecognisable,” Isaac said when he saw the remains on the bed. “I don’t even know what gender the corpse is. The fire definitely started here. Come with me. I’ve found something – I think it’s what you’re looking for.”

Jacob ran behind Isaac, asking no questions. Time was of the essence.

Isaac suddenly stopped, making Jacob stumble backwards. “There are two women in here!” Isaac shouted. “I can’t get them out. Quickly! We don’t have much time.”

Jacob panicked. His heart was thumping and the smoke had made him feel drowsy, but his thoughts were still on the woman.