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CHAPTER XIV.

IN WHICH ANDREW AND I PLAY IN THE STABLES.

W hen Mrs Pounds finds the lecherous painter’s letters stashed in one of Drusilla’s desk drawers, her screams reverberate through several floors of oak and carpet. ‘He’s not even wealthy, you fool!’

Drusilla attempts a somewhat dignified response before Mrs Pounds turns on me. ‘And you!’ she spits. ‘Why didn’t you put a stop to this? Her reputation should be of more consequence to you than your own!’

Mother hid secret letters, too, pressed beneath her cow’s-hair mattress. The Reverend found them and ripped them to shreds only to discover them again six weeks later, clumsily mended with thread. They argued, their voices seeping through the walls – Her father is the devil, these letters are my only proof. Hush, woman, do you want to be sent to the asylum?

Being a God-fearing man, he’d smite her across the face with a Bible. The same Bible he read from in church, his eyes hovering over me in the pew every time he preached of the nature of evil.

Mrs Pounds tears the lecherous painter’s letters and forces Drusilla to watch his deviant promises burn in the hearth.

I observe Drusilla, who kneels by the fire, biting her fingernails raw as the letters curl into ashes, as the lecher painter’s advances – what he describes as his ‘eternal fiery love, springing thick and strong and throbbing from the innermost bowels of my loins’ – are licked and consumed by yellow flames.

‘Well,’ says Drusilla with a sigh. ‘That is that.’

Her hands fall into her lap. I wonder if Drusilla is with child. I wonder if Mrs Pounds will ask me to dispose of the baby, as I was once asked by a former employer, Mrs De Spère, to dispose of her daughter’s. ‘Just toss it in the fireplace,’ she ordered, ‘along with the afterbirth.’

When her daughter denounced her in court, Mrs De Spère, who had claimed that the child was stillborn, was sentenced to twenty years. Oddly, neither of them implicated me. At times I wonder if I was really there that night; a roaring fire in August, our bodies gleaming with sweat in the light of the flames . . .

The unfinished portrait of Mrs Pounds by the now-disreputable Mr Johnson is relegated to the attic, where, over time, her painted face will crack like the skulls of the mummies used to paint it.

Suddenly it is as if Andrew is his parents’ only child. Andrew, who chews his meat with his mouth open as he narrates his fabricated accomplishments while Drusilla and I stare on grimly.

Mr Pounds refuses to speak of Drusilla on our walks, praising his loud, snot-nosed, imbecilic son instead. ‘I truly do love that little fool,’ he says. ‘The apple of my eye.’

Inside me, Darkness roils.

THE DAY I lure Andrew into the stables, a gossamer veil of fog blankets the property, as thick and ghostly as the cobwebs spun between the berry brambles on the moors.

The stables – from the stalls to the floors to the walls – are constructed of a cool, light stone, as if the ash of Pompeii had blown in through the stable doors on a gust of oyster-coloured wind. The air inside is acrid with the scent of leather bridles and saddles, of musky pelts and hay and oats.

The horses’ names are inscribed over each stall in chalk. Sheba Folly Princess Captain Spartan Pilot. Andrew’s boot-heels echo on the stone as he reaches the corner stall, home to Mr Pounds’ prized stallion. He turns to me questioningly.

‘A little further, Andrew,’ I coax.

‘Over here?’

‘Further.’

The back of his head darkens under the shadows cast by the rears of two dappled mares.

‘Just a little further, Andrew.’

‘Further still ?’

‘There you are.’

Andrew reaches the last stall, home to Creole. The least favourite of Mr Pounds’ horses, his legs are swollen from overfeeding and lack of exercise. His black coat is so slick it appears to be dripping wet, taut over his heaving rib-cage, his flesh rippling. His eyes are rimmed with flies.

Andrew looks at me, his mouth thinning.

‘In you go!’ I say brightly.

Andrew looks at the stall, then back at me for confirmation. I nod. He steps in, shuffling onto the hay, twisting sideways in an attempt to squeeze between the beast and the stone wall, his vest popping a button, his necktie loosening.

The silence is punctuated by the occasional jingle of a chain, the clap of a hoof on the stone floor.

A cloud obscures the already-weak winter sun, and what little light is filtering through the stable windows dims. My pupils dilate, darkness spreading over darkness.

‘Can I come out now?’ Andrew asks, voice even higher than usual.

‘Not yet, Andrew. You must find something for me first.’

‘What?’

I am silent, and Andrew asks again: ‘What?’

‘Why, a gift for you, Andrew.’

Creole snorts and Andrew jumps, flattening against the furthest of the stall walls.

‘Don’t look him in the eyes, Andrew. He will sense your fear.’

Andrew cups a hand around his temple and stares at the floor. ‘I can’t see anything. I can’t see my gift,’ he says, his breath quickening.

‘Well, you’re going to have to look harder,’ I say from the other side of the stall.

Slowly, knees shaking, Andrew bends over, his hands outstretched. His knees give way halfway down and he falls on his behind. One of Creole’s legs twitches. Andrew runs his fingers through soiled straw.

‘My missing tin soldier!’ he cries. He jumps to his feet and runs out of the stall, upsetting Creole, who rocks his head and yanks his chain and kicks at the empty air. Andrew skips towards me, brandishing his toy. ‘I love ’ee, dear Fred!’

I kneel to receive his embrace, stuffing his towhead between my breasts, wondering for a fleeting instant if he could be smothered this way –

‘However did you find it, Miss Notty?’

‘It was in the mouth of a very angry beast.’

I stroke his thin, blond mop, which is knotted with clumps of skin and brain – I can’t remember if this is something from the past or if it is yet to come, for Andrew’s hair is now clean – and as I stand, Andrew twirls triumphantly, kissing his soldier. I see, at this very moment, that he is standing directly behind Creole.

I give a sniff, brought on by the cold. I wipe away a drip of snot with the heel of my hand.

Creole’s tail slaps against his rear, swatting at flies, inches from an oblivious Andrew who picks his nose with one hand, the other scratching at the red paint on the tin soldier. I tread closer to the animal, my head level with its great haunches, then I slowly – slowly – open my mouth.

When my canines sink into the horse’s hide, Creole lets out a penetrating scream grotesque enough to intrude upon Andrew’s nightmares for the rest of his days. The horse hops on one leg and delivers a kick with the other so fast it makes a sound as it whips the air. The hoof knocks Andrew’s shoulder – not squarely, but still hard enough to push him face-first into the ground, his teeth knocking on the stone, producing a small pool of blood that is the most beautiful, the richest, of scarlets, in stark relief against the cool grey stone.

His two front teeth will turn blackish, like they’ve been rubbed in soot. They will remain that way until his untimely death.

PICTURE ME, READER, returning to Ensor House with Andrew in my arms, his mouth so full of blood his teeth gleam from within it like rubies.

The doctor is promptly called for and he reassures an apoplectic Mrs Pounds that Andrew’s gums are merely temporarily inflamed, and that although his front teeth have been displaced slightly, they still work flawlessly.

‘This is my fault, Mrs Pounds,’ I say afterwards, when Andrew is resting and the theatrical undertones of the day have settled.

‘Are you mocking me?’

‘No.’

‘Then why are you smiling?’

I curse inwardly and adjust my expression to one of grave regret. Human expressions are like hides I’ve peeled throughout life, rolled into a ball, and slipped under my skin.

‘You are right, however,’ says Mrs Pounds, searching my face. ‘Only you carry the blame for your lack of authority.’

‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘Only I am to blame.’