Marianne, the Matchbox, and the Malachite Mouse (15 page)

‘I didn’t, didn’t,’ she gulped.

‘Oh, but my dear young woman, you didn’t mean to, I know.’

‘I told him you didn’t,’ the old woman said, peering down at her nightgown. ‘Didn’t whatever it was, though I seem to have forgotten what you didn’t do. I knew I should have changed my clothes! I told someone so!’ She pulled her shawl more firmly around herself, thankful for the thickness of the flannel gown and the solid support of the slippers on her feet.

‘Where are we?’ the large man asked, swiveling his belly before him as he examined their surroundings.

‘Who are we?’ asked the young woman.

‘Why are we here?’ concluded the old woman. ‘And how did we get here?’

They stood very closely together, looking first at themselves in the high mirrors before them, then at each other, and finally around themselves at the room they were in, an enormous, rectangular ballroom, one not used recently, for the floor was thick with dust and the crystal chandeliers above them hung like dirty icicles from a vast, vaulted ceiling painted with gloomy scenes of the hunt – a chase through immemorial forests and across vast, edgeless moors in the gloom of an autumn dusk for an illusive and dangerous prey whose painted eyes and gleaming teeth menaced them fiercely from behind painted bracken.

To one side opened a row of tall arched windows draped with begrimed dark velvet and curtained with webs of torn fabric. Opposite the windows an equal number of high, round topped doors stood, enigmatically closed except for the farthest one which moved silently to and fro as if blown by opposing breezes. The curved tops of the windows and doors were like the arches of great trunked trees; the tattered fabric of the curtains hung in the windows like dangling moss. Gilt chairs with broken legs huddled in corners and staggered along the shorter walls like visitors from a more civilized world, abandoned to die in this darkling glen. On a dais, rusty music stands huddled like skeletal victims of some long-ago hunt above a litter of musical scores, yellowed by time into a forest floor deep piled with autumn’s leaves.

On both short walls were gold-framed portraits, larger than life-size, veiled in cobwebs. Brass plates labeled these as Cattermunes, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, then sons and daughters again, for generations. All of them shared the same heavy eyelids, like the lids on a marble statue, lips slightly parted to reveal sharpened teeth; neat, small ears which lay oddly horizontal on their heads as though tilted backward; nostrils, widely distended, seeming to scent game even through the paint which bound them to their canvases.

Hypnotized by the painted stares of those dozen pairs of eyes, the three travelers drew near enough to read the labels attached to the frames. Amerie Cattermune. Grendla Cattermune. Ostrey Cattermune the Elder. Ostrey Cattermune the Younger and his mate, Sulina. Ostrey Cattermune the Third. And more.

Without exception, the Cattermunes had been painted with weapon in hand or upon shoulder or carried in some other fashion, and with one foot poised upon something dead. Even Sulina smiled around the poniard she carried between her teeth as she glanced with satisfaction at the stripe-hided hulk beneath her tiny boot.

From somewhere a breath of icy air stirred the chandeliers into shrill, tinkling complaint.

‘The door,’ breathed the man, leading the way toward the single door which stood open, swinging soundlessly in and out. They slipped through into a corridor as the breeze caught the door behind them, slamming it, caroming an assault of echoes down the length of the hallway behind and before them with the sound of a shouted word.

‘Hush,’ said the man, holding up one hand, but the word was lost in echoes. He had not needed to hush them. Neither of them had dared say anything at all.

One side of the hallway was taken up with the high arched doors into the long room they had just left. The other side was lined with niches in which lamps burned over great bronze busts, each statue festooned with cobwebs, veloured in dust, labeled in bronze. Evenyl Cattermune the Elder. Evenyl Cattermune the Younger. Starwold Cattermune. Ogfire Cattermune and his mate, Mordinor.

‘One would not doubt,’ said the old woman, ‘that this is the Cattermune’s House.’

‘But what are we doing here?’ asked the young woman. ‘It is not a place I would want to visit. Why are we here?’

The large-bellied man led them on down the corridor, stopping only briefly at each niche to confirm that yet another Cattermune was immortalized there. At the end of the corridor a passageway led to their left, slightly narrower but noticeably cleaner. They turned and followed it. The marble floor gave way to threadbare carpet and this in turn gave way to carpet in a reasonable state of repair. The corridor turned once more, this time to the right.

‘Good, merciful Moomaw,’ a voice said from a suddenly opened door. ‘What are you people doing wandering around back here? You’re half a mile from where you’re supposed to be, and late at that!’

They turned to confront an emaciated old person with flyaway white hair and shoulders so high they appeared to be roughly at ear level. ‘Come along, now. Lost, I suppose? How else end up in the west wing! No one’s used the west wing since the time of Alphia Cattermune. Nothing back there but dust, spiders, and broken furniture. You, Green, are supposed to be down in the butler’s pantry helping polish the silver for the Cattermune’s birthday fete next week, when the new Grisl Queen comes calling. Take the next right, down two flights, then two sharp lefts, got that. You women come along with me …’

The women, young one and old one, trailed after him, turning to catch a last glimpse of the man called Green, now departing down a cross corridor. The old being went on, ‘You, young woman, you’re the wet nurse, right? Mary Ann? Two flights up at this next stairway, then through the green baize door on your right and you’ll find the nurseries. Nanny hasn’t arrived yet, but the nurserymaid is up there. Fanetta, her name is. Poor thing. Yours is the room next to the night nursery.’ He turned to the old woman and gave her a piercing glance. ‘You must be the layette seamstress, Mrs Smani? Your room is right next to the wet nurse’s room. You’ll find everything you need laid out there, including several uniforms. If I may say so, it was hardly sensible of you to come to work in your night clothes.’

‘… very suddenly,’ said the old woman he had named Mrs Smani. ‘Didn’t have time to …’

‘Yes, well, that’s understandable. Blessed event, and all that. New Cattermune heir or heiress? Ah? Lord Cattermune’s young mate fooled us all, she did. Here she is, almost ready to kindle – just as you are, my dear – and no one knew until just now. And aren’t the older children fit to be tied! AND the other wives!’

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said the young woman, Mary Ann, ‘but could we ask your name?’

‘Me? Oh, I’m Groff. Old Groff. Or Groff the Pensioner. I was butler here once, long ago. Now I just make myself useful. Finding servants who show up in the wrong place. Replacing those who leave at awkward times. Giving information and advice. Speaking of which …’ He folded his hands and gave them a stern look.

‘Staff dining room is down the way I sent Green. Nursery staff won’t have their meals delivered until after the blessed event, or until your baby comes, young woman, but after that you’ll have meals in the nursery dining room. Staff meal times are six, eleven, and five, with tea and snacks laid on after the Cattermunes have finished dinner in the evenings. You must wear uniforms at all times in the house. Nursery staff shouldn’t be wandering about. When you aren’t in the staff dining room or out taking exercise in the servants’ yard, you should be in the nurseries or on your way there. When a Cattermune comes by, or a guest, you stand back at the wall with your hands at your sides and your eyes respectfully down. Other than that, do your work well and no one will bother you …’ He gestured grandly at the staircase beside them and repeated himself, ‘Two flights up, through the green baize door, and you’re in nurseryland.’

Mary Ann started up the stairs, the old woman trailing behind. ‘Seamstress,’ the old woman muttered. ‘Layette seamstress. Somehow that comes as a surprise.’

‘Wet nurse,’ mused Mary Ann. ‘Not too surprising, considering everything. Green is my brother, isn’t he?’

‘Why do you think so?’

‘He looks like me. Come to think of it, we both look like you. Are you our mother?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Smani. ‘I don’t feel like your mother. I certainly don’t feel like that man’s mother.’

‘An aunt, perhaps?’ asked Mary Ann. ‘Then he might be my cousin. It would be nice to have a cousin.’

‘He seemed quite fond of you,’ Mrs Smani opined. ‘Perhaps he’s your husband. I suppose you do have a husband.’

Mary Ann stroked her rounded belly and nodded. ‘It would be appropriate, wouldn’t it? I wonder when the Cattermune blessed event is expected.’

‘Sometime after yours, I should think, if you’re to be wet nurse. Sometime after the layette is sewn. From the looks of you, they’ve left it rather late.’

‘This must be the door.’ Mary Ann pushed her way through the green baize door and found herself in a murky hallway with a strip of blood-red carpet down the center and darkpaneled walls on either side. Iron brackets in the shapes of bats bore red lanterns. Daggers and javelins hung in groups between the doors, which stood open upon the right side. The first door opened into a flagstoned room with toy shelves ranked beneath the windows, the second into a long, low room with cribs lined against one wall, the third into a small bedroom with a rocking chair in one corner, the fourth into a sewing room with a cot. On the other side of the hall the doors were closed, but as they went by, one of them popped open an inch and a pale face peeked at them through the crack.

Mary Ann said in a gentle voice, ‘Fanetta? I’m the … I’m the wet nurse. And this is the seamstress.’

‘Oh, thank Moomaw,’ squeaked the nursery maid. ‘I’ve been up here all alone! I didn’t want the nanny to come, you know what nannies are! Especially Cattermune nannies.’

Mary Ann didn’t know, but she thought it unwise to say so. Mrs Smani was as tight-lipped as she went into the sewing room and lay down on the cot, breathing a deep, weary sigh. ‘My bones feel as though they’d been pinched,’ she said. ‘As though I’d been walking around all bent over.’

The room was lined in shelves piled with folded lengths of fabric in one mud color or another. A sewing machine sat beneath the one narrow window, the cabinet beside it stacked with spools of thread, scissors, binding tape, and buttons of various sizes.

‘Can you sew?’ Mary Ann asked.

‘I suppose so,’ replied the old woman. ‘Sometimes when you get to be my age, you forget what you’ve done. It will come back to me.’

‘I’ll help you,’ the younger woman said. ‘There’s a list here on the sewing machine. It says, “Seven sets of crib linens, including changes of linen, or as needed.” Why seven sets? I wonder.’ She went to the window, drew aside the heavy drapes, and looked outside. Beyond the walls was a dreary and unpleasant landscape of stone and contorted thorn; inside the walls another wing of Cattermune’s House loomed across a plaza where a fountain played, so lit by red lanterns that it appeared to be a fountain of blood.

Mary Ann went through the connecting door into her own room. An armoire of black wood with uniforms in a trying shade of earthy plum hung in a sparse array next to a narrow bed with a single pillow. Against one wall stood a crib like a cage, with a top which could be shut and locked. The batwinged key in the lock had a loop of thong tied through it so that it could be hung up – or put around one’s neck. Shuddering, Mary Ann left it where it was and went through the connecting door. In the night nursery was nothing at all but one straight-backed chair and the cribs, seven of them. These cradles, like the one in her own room, had tops that locked. Next door was the day nursery, with a floor as hard as iron and one small, soft rug before the great deep fireplace. The toys on the surrounding shelves were strange to her. Dolls, of course, and small, soft animals, but also model racks and guillotines and whips and lances and gibbets. From one of these, a teddy bear hung with its head awry, and Mary Ann shuddered again.

She returned to her room, closing the door behind her. She had not liked the looks of the nurseries.

Each room had a clock with a swinging pendulum; each room had its own rhythm of tic and toc, toc-toc, tac-tac, each loud enough that when the connecting doors were open the clocks spoke to one another in a tiny, percussive rustle, as though the rooms were alive with beetles. From every window, the same view presented itself: the bloody fountain and the landscape beyond. They had evidently come at evening, for the light grew dimmer, and Mary Ann turned to look for lamps.

There were no lights of any kind in her room except a candle beside her bed, and an ornate iron tinderbox in the drawer of the table. She rapped at the door to the old woman’s room and went in. Here there was a lamp beside the sewing machine where the treadle clattered and the needle replied as lengths of dirty-colored fabric moved from the old woman’s lap through the machine.

‘Seven sets,’ Mrs Smani hummed. ‘Seven sets.’

‘What time did that old person say dinner was?’

‘Five.’

‘The clocks say nine.’

‘Then we came after dinner.’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘Snacks after the Cattermunes have eaten. I wonder what time that is?’

‘Let’s find out.’ She went back into her own room and changed into one of the plum-colored dresses, a garment with buttons down the front from neck to ankle and a dark blue apron and cap. Mrs Smani’s garb was the same, except that hers buttoned in the back and had a cap with cerise ribbons on one side.