Deliver us from Evil (65 page)

Lord Rochester laughed,
it
is as
I
have said, then. We would all of us be cowards, if only we had the courage.'

Lovelace shrugged. 'Maybe. And yet it was not cowardice alone which made me cling to my life.'

'How do you mean?'

Lovelace narrowed his eyes,
I
cannot be certain,' he murmured at length. 'And yet
I
can recall, at that very moment when my own whipping began, how
I
gazed out at the waves being lashed by the storm, and thought how lost, if
I
plunged beneath them,
I
might be . . . Why search for a wilderness of mountains and trees,
I
thought, when there was a wilderness before me more terrible by far? And yet then, even as
I
resolved that
I
would leap into the sea,
I
was struck by an unbidden memory of the face
I
had seen in my nightmares in Prague, which had seemed formed of mountain rock, and yet had turned to stare at me and meet my own eye. And now
I
imagined it was doing so again; and
I
knew, at that same moment, as
I
saw it through the gale, that
I
would not seek to join with the ocean after all.'

'Why?' frowned Lord Rochester,
I
do not understand.'

I
felt
..
.' Lovelace paused; his stare grew distant and strange. 'A sense of. . . Providence, it may be - of an order of things - spun very fine with invisible threads
...
so that
I
longed suddenly to see where such threads might not lead.'

'Yet how could you know it was not Providence's wish, that you follow them into the ocean depths?'

I
could not, my Lord; and indeed,
I
came to fear that such a fate might still be mine. For as the weeks passed, so Mr Sheldon's humours began to worsen, growing violent and icy like the winter storms, and almost, it appeared, as perilous as well. For the lashings, which it had been my pleasure to sample first, were now becoming ever more frequent and severe; and it was Mr Sheldon who would often choose to wield the whip himself. It became his especial determination to root out all adulterous thoughts; and it needed only a sinful glance to have been observed, or a flush of colour brought to the cheeks, for the sentence of guilt to be duly pronounced. And then one day, when we had been at sea for more than nine weeks, and the coast of New England was daily expected, a man and a woman were discovered in the act of adultery; and Mr Sheldon's wrath was a terror to behold. He seemed possessed by some fever; for his eyes were glittering, and his whole body began to shake. In the frenzy of his outrage, he ordered even the adulteress to be publicly lashed, and he applied the whip himself with a strong and godly arm. He dealt with the adulterer in the same manner; then ordered him bound, and lowered into the waves. "Let us see," Mr Sheldon cried, "if such a baptism will not cool the lechery which burns within his loins!" And indeed, it would surely have served to freeze the very fiercest of heats; for it was now the depths of winter and, even as we stood upon the deck, snow and hail were blinding our eyes. We heard the guilty man scream as he was plunged into the waves; and then, it appeared, he began to thrash; and those who were holding him slipped and suddenly fell. They were swept away, and plunged into the waves; and they and the adulterer, although we searched for them, were lost.

'There was no one else taken in adultery after that; and it was fortunate for me that the women were all so plain. And yet it seemed, despite my sobriety, that
I
might still be drowned,
I
and the ship with me, for in the following days the storms grew worse, and yet worse, and it began to seem beyond hope that we would ever make the shore. But then one day, the winds began to fall; and almost at once the cries went up that we were come to Massachusetts Bay.
I
staggered to the deck and saw that it was true, we were drawing near to land. Yet
I
also saw, coming from the north, clouds blacker than any
I
had ever seen before; and
I
knew it would be a race against time, if we were to make port safely. It had been the hope of the Brethren to land at Salem -where, it was said, the Elect of God were thriving; but even as we glimpsed the first faint lights of the town, we were swept off course, back into the bay and then round, as the winds began to veer towards glistening rocks, so that our doom now seemed certain. And then suddenly we saw lights again, and houses upon the shore; and then the outlines of a harbour - and
I
knew that we were safe after all.

'We had come, so we learned, to a fishing town named Marblehead. It was clear, however, almost as soon as we had docked, that the Brethren would not be staying very long. For there was no hint of sanctity in the place: only a rugged, backward savagery, as harsh as the rocks on which the tiny houses perched, or the gales which lashed spray from the towering waves. One night in Marblehead the Brethren passed, shuddering upon their ship with the cold, and with pious horror as well, for there were taverns upon the shore and drunks upon the streets. The next day, the storm abated, and the Brethren continued on their way.
I
did not sail with them, however; for at the sight of the drunks,
I
had at once slipped ashore.

I
passed several days at Marblehead, in a room above a murky, foul-smelling tavern.
I
struggled as best
I
could to gather provisions together; yet
I
had no real plans for where to go, nor when to leave.
I
had half-hoped to wait until the spring, for the storms were growing ever worse and the snowdrifts piling deeper; and
I
doubted
I
would journey very far in such conditions. Yet my pain had been worsening again: the blood was thicker now as it oozed out from my nipples, and across my stomach itself there was a purple discolouring, as though the flesh were growing bruised from within. It was all
I
could do not to drink from the
mummia;
and yet the final bottle was already almost empty, and
I
knew
I
could not finish it - not if
I
were to have any chance at all of reaching deep into the wilderness. And so
I
remained where
I
was, curled upon my bed; and
I
started to wish
I
had been shipwrecked after all.

'And then one night, as
I
drifted asleep,
I
imagined that
I
saw the mountain face again. As they had done before, its eyes slowly opened; and at the very same moment,
I
heard a piercing scream.
I
awoke with a start.
I
could hear the muggy hum of the tavern from below me; and then, as
I
listened,
I
heard the scream again.
I
closed my eyes. The vision was gone; the screams too appeared to have been silenced.
I
rose from my bed and staggered downstairs. The mood in the tavern seemed violent and cruel, the men talking and laughing wildly amongst themselves, and gazing at an open door as it swung in the wind. There was a tall, thin man standing next to it, heavily cloaked, and with a hat pulled down so low that
I
could not make out his face. As he caught sight of me, he appeared to start; then he turned and slipped at once into the night.
I
pushed my way across the tavern floor, and followed him outside. The snow was gusting exceedingly thick, but
I
could just glimpse him weaving through the blizzard towards a hill beyond the village.
I
frowned; for there was nothing on that hill,
I
knew, save only graves. And then all of a sudden, from nowhere,
I
felt a . . . tugging - as though something were - pulling, yes - upon invisible threads
...'
Lovelace paused; then he frowned, and shook his head. 'It is hard to describe,' he murmured. 'Yet whatever it might have been, it seemed real, my Lord, very real, and strange
...
and
I
found myself turning, without truly knowing why, and running to my room.
I
gathered together my provisions, then reached for my
mummia;
I
paused a moment;
I
drained it to the dregs. Then
I
dropped the bottle and returned outside.

'The snow was still falling thickly; but
I
could see now - though very faint - that there were several tracks of footsteps to follow, all of them leading to the graveyard on the hill.
I
approached it, and started to clamber up its side; and then suddenly
I
paused, for
I
imagined
I
had heard the sound of cheers and laughter from ahead.
I
began to creep forward again, grateful that the snow which had muffled the crooked gravestones would serve also to muffle the noise of my approach.
I
could see figures ahead of me now, gathered in a ring beneath a tree; and in front of them, on a grave, a girl was being forced. It was the girl,
I
supposed, whose screams
I
had heard before; but she was silent now, her teeth clenched, her eyes closed, as she reached back with her hands to grip the sides of the headstone.
I
crept still nearer and realised, from the style of the girl's dress and the darkness of her hair, that she was surely one of the native Indians. She was very lovely and, for all the savage nature of her costume and her looks, there seemed something about her which recalled to me Milady.
I
watched as her assailant finished with her; and another man stepped forward. At the same moment,
I
thought again of Milady: of the countless leagues of ocean between us; and then of how she too had once been used, night after night, as these men were now using the Indian girl.

'Almost without thinking,
I
reached inside my bag.
I
had a duelling pistol there, preserved amidst my luggage from the voyage.
I
had been careful to prime it; and now
I
drew it out and, at the same moment, stepped forward. No one heard me or glanced round. They were all jeering the man in the centre of the ring, who still stood above the girl, shuddering violently, his fists tightly clenched. Now
I
recognised him as the same man
I
had seen before by the tavern; and suddenly, as
I
watched him,
I
knew who he was. With a strangled moan of prayer, he tossed his hat aside; then he fell upon the girl, his buttocks pumping up and down hard beneath his cloak. At the same moment,
I
aimed my pistol at his head; then stepped forward. "Let her go!"

'The man froze upon the girl, and did not look round. The other men, though, all turned to face me. "There is no harm," said one of them quickly. "You do not understand."

' "Indeed?"
I
laughed coldly. "What is there here not to understand?"

' "There are demons abroad."

'Again
I
laughed. "Are there not ever?"

' "No, sir, for as
I
said - you do not understand. There have been bodies found about here, emptied of their blood, with wounds upon them such as only the Indians will inflict."

I
started at this, and gazed at the girl with sudden interest. It struck me for a moment that she might be a blood-drinker herself; but then
I
frowned, and shook my head. "She is no demon."

' "She is a heathen, though, who worships demons and feeds their evil."

' "While you,
I
see, are good Christians all."
I
shook my head again, and cocked my pistol.
"You will let her go."

Mr Fortitude Sheldon rose slowly to his feet and turned to face me. He met my eyes; then he bowed his head, as though in prayer. At the same moment, the girl too rose up to her feet and, with such speed that no one seemed even to glimpse what she was doing, she pulled out a knife and stabbed the preacher in the back. He met my eyes again, his own staring wide; then stumbled forward, and collapsed into the snow.
I
watched him as he fell; and then the girl brushed past me and
I
began to follow her, running down the hill.
I
could hear cries of violent rage from behind me, and the soft thud of footsteps following through the snow; and
I
knew that, even armed as
I
was,
I
would surely be caught.
I
could still feel the glow of
mummia
inside me,
it
was true; but
I
wondered where, and for how much longer,
I
could run. And then suddenly, looming from the darkness ahead,
I
saw the silhouettes of horses tethered to a tree at the foot of the hill. The girl was already leaping into the saddle of one; she cut the reins with her knife, and then a second pair of reins. As
I
ran up, she gave me her hand;
I
climbed into the saddle of the second horse, and then we were both galloping hard along the road, away from Marblehead and into the dark.