The Book of Cthulhu 2

The Hour of the Tortoise

Molly Tanzer

4 April 1887, early morning. Traveling.

I sat alone in my train-carriage watching the beech-copses and white sheep and mist-wreathed fields flashing by. I am sure this countryside could be anywhere in England, but these were the trees and fields of Devon, my home county! And I had not seen them from the time I was sent away to learn what I could at Miss Coote’s Academy for Young Women of Breeding and Promise.

More than a decade has passed, but the native beauty of this place remains ever-first in my heart. How could it not be but so? My happiest days were spent in Devonshire, when I was but a lass running hither and yon, and always by the side of my cousin Laurent. Two years my junior, he had been my constant childhood companion—but what of now? What sort of man has he grown into?

’Twas a kiss that separated us, a kiss seen by his mother, Lady Fanchone. That woman, whom some would call great, mistook our embrace for the blossoming of love rather than the affection shared by near-siblings, and would brook no explanations. Laurent became but a memory, and Devon, too—until now! For I am coming home…

* * *

Yes, that should do nicely, I think, for the introduction. A heroine at the end of her pupal stage, all grown up and ready to break through childhood’s chrysalis.

Christ above, save me from choking upon my own vomit.

I must find a way to add some spice directly lest I bore myself into an early grave, to say nothing of losing us the whole of our readership. Perhaps she (need name, floral in nature: Violet? Camilla? Camilla is nice) shall lose her maidenhead on the train. But to whom: the conductor? A handsome fellow-traveler? I must think on it.

No, I should delay the jimmying open of Love’s crimson gate slightly longer. She could be introduced to the art of prick-sucking by a gallant stranger…but then he leaves her unsatisfied?

Better, better, and yet while it’s true my editrix has never once given me poor counsel regarding my pornographies, I find Gothic fiction so very tiresome. I really cannot account for its popularity, but I am sure that is the reason Susan is so beside herself with excitement over this project. “Dearest Chelone, you shall write me Jane Eyre—but with lots and lots of fucking! It shall be our new serial and make us ever so much money!” Not exactly the response I anticipated when I told her I must take an extended leave of absence from Milady’s Ruby Vase so I might journey into the dreariest parish in Devon to sit by the side of my former guardian while he lies gasping out his last upon his deathbed.

To stay once again under the gabled roof of Calipash Manor, after being so unceremoniously chucked out a decade ago…I have mixed feelings about this journey, to say the least. I am certain Susan believes I am going to encounter a country house full of secret passages, drafty towers, mysterious mysteries, and handsome cousins. Well, that will happen in the pornography, of course, and to be fair, Calipash Manor does have a tower. And, I suppose, its share of silly rumors about the family. But the reality is far more boring: An old man in his tidy house, wasting away with few to comfort him, having alienated himself during his life from those who might have loved him unto death.

I suppose there is something rather Wuthering Heights about that, but not like any of the better parts, like when So-and-So threatens to cut off the boy’s ears or whatever it is that happens.

Later—Funny, how I had thought to include a handsome stranger-cum-deflowerer in my story; I just met a rather natty fellow that will do nicely as a model! I should liked to have had some sport with him myself, except, it was so queer. He apologized for approaching me without a proper introduction, but asked if I was by chance related to the Calipash family. I told him I wasn’t—which isn’t strictly true, of course, but we illegitimate children of the noblesse are trained to be discreet—but he would not let the matter go. He shook his head and apologized, with the excuse that he was a native of Ivybridge, so knew “the Calipash look,” and said I had a serious case of it.

“The Calipash look!” I exclaimed, delighted. “Surely you must be referring to the Calipash Curse?”

“I suppose I am,” said he. I was surprised by how alarmed he seemed by my amusement. “You know of the curse, miss?”

“Of course I do, but I have not heard anybody mention it for nigh ten years!”

“You may smile,” he said, furrowing his brow at me as if his very life depended on it, “but we Ivybridge folk know nothing connected with that family is a laughing matter. Bad blood, they have—diabolists, deviants, and necromancers all!”

“I am acquainted with the Lord Calipash, and a better man I have rarely met.” Well, it was true enough statement. I let this cove take it as he would.

“He’s a good sort, true enough, but they go bad easy. I’d be on the lookout, miss. You surely look like a Calipash, perhaps you were…well, I won’t curse you by suggesting you have a twin lurking somewhere—but best to stay out of the ponds, just the same!”

I told him I had every intention of staying out of ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, sloughs, and for that matter, lagoons. He seemed relieved, but the way such a dapper young man took notice of piffling country legends, well, it gave me pause.

Of course when I used to go into the village as a girl I heard tell of the Calipash family curse—when twins are born, the devil is their father, and something about taking to the sea, or to ponds, and something about frog people maybe, of all the outlandish claims! I may not be remembering it all correctly; as a girl once I came home enquiring about it, but Lizzie, the housekeeper, reprimanded me for repeating such twaddle and I never again mentioned it. I am glad I was taught at a young age to be skeptical of supernatural nonsense.

Really, what family that lives in a manor-house rather than a cottage doesn’t have some sort of rumor or another hanging over them like the sword of Damocles?

Rum analogy to use when going to see a dying man, perhaps.

Ooh—but we are slowing, and there is the whistle! I must ready myself.

Evening. In my old room—The dolls I left behind are still here, and the white bedstead still has its rose-sprigged coverlet and pink frilly canopy. It is only how yellowed and worn everything appears that keeps me from thinking I have stepped back into another time. I feel fourteen years old in this room.

Ah well, why bother changing the décor? I was always made to maintain the illusion of juvenescence to please my guardian, so why not keep my chambers in a state of static girlishness, too?

But I should not speak ill of Lord Calipash, or rather, he who was Lord Calipash until his death—his death that I fear I may have caused not an hour ago! And already there is a new lord under the manor-roof tonight…

Things are far stranger here at Calipash Manor than I anticipated. Perhaps there is something to the idea of a family curse—no! Stop that, Chelone. You are simply tired from your journey, and overwrought.

Here is what happened, the facts, I mean: I arrived at the Ivybridge station on time, but no one was waiting for me, to my distress. The skies promised rain, and it was miles to walk to Calipash Manor.

After waiting at the station for some time, I begged the use of a little wheeled cart for my trunk and went into Ivybridge proper, thinking I would visit the post office. It was from thence I had received the letter from my guardian summoning me hither. I thought perhaps I could, rather than sending a message by courier, ride with said courier (if the horse would bear us both) and come back later for my luggage.

The town looked the same, snug stone houses and muddy streets, the occasional chicken scurrying across the main thoroughfare. The post office was in the same dilapidated cottage, I was happy to discover, with what could have been the same geraniums as when I was a girl blooming in the window-box. I went inside and explained my situation.

“Quite a lot of traffic to and from the manor-house of late,” remarked the woman at the window, not answering my query of how I might get myself to Calipash Manor. “Telegraph yesterday, and was barely a week ago the prodigal son come in to send a letter. Queer fellow.”

“Mr. Vincent has come home, then?”

“Aye, for his father is soon for the grave, they say.”

“How is he queer?” I was madly curious about Orlando Vincent, the cousin I had never seen. I should remember later to ask him about Rotterdam, where he was educated. Might be able to write something for the Vase about Dutch schoolboys or something…

“Didn’t say nothing when he came in.” The woman’s frown would have shamed the devil himself. “Grunted his yeses and noes as if he had no human power of speech in him. Gave me a turn, he did. At first I thought he was the Ghast o’the Hills, come to take my soul. Mr. Vincent is very like the apparition, though of course his clothing is different.”

Her words made me laugh, which I could tell displeased her. As a child I heard tell of the ‘Ghast o’the Hills,’ some sort of spirit in a frock-coat that is said to haunt the parish of Ivybridge. Once I even thought I saw it…a childish fancy, of course. I am lucky that education—and, of course, living in London—has disabused me of such country superstitions.

“So you’ve seen the Ghast?” I asked, amused.

“You may laugh, miss, but around here, there’s precious few who haven’t seen the Ghast! He’s as real as you or I, and wanders at night moanin and groanin. It’s said he seeks a wife to keep him company.”

“And Mr. Vincent looks like him?”

“Well, he’s thin, tall, with that Calipash face. All thems what come from the Manor have a look, don’t they? In fact, you have it too, my girl. Are you related?”

I didn’t want to get into that. “I didn’t realize the Ghast was part of the Calipash Curse?”

“Well, that family’s queer, of course, so if this town had some sort of malign spirit, it’d come from thems what—”

“You hush your foolish old mouth, Hazel Smith! Telling ghost stories like a heathen. You ought to be ashamed!”

I turned ’round, surprised, and was pleased to see Old Bill, the groundskeeper and jack-of-all for Calipash Manor, standing behind me.

“Bill!” I cried, and embraced him. “How are you? Oh, just look at you!”

“Let us be gone, Miss Burchell,” he said gruffly. “Waited for you at the station, but they said you’d traipsed hither for your own purposes. Hold your tongue, we can talk on the drive. Lord Calipash is not long for this world and I have no wish to follow him into the grave if this weather turns wet.”

At first I attributed his poor spirits to his age, for he must be closer to seventy than sixty these days, white-haired and gaunt as a skeleton. But he got my trunk onto his skinny back and into the cart quickly enough; indeed, by the time he had scrambled onto the seat, ready to leave, I had hardly finished saying hello and asking after my guardian.

“Things are quite dire,” was his reply. “’Tis good you’ve come now, though you might’ve sent more notice of your arriving. Lizzie is beside herself getting your old room ready, not to mention the cooking for an extra person.”

“I telegraphed yesterday,” I replied, rather taken aback by this admonition. “And really, Lord Calipash himself invited me—bid me come with all possible haste!”

“As you say,” said Bill, looking at me askance as he chucked the reins.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Master’s not been able to lift a quill in some time,” he said with a shrug. “Before his son come home, I was writing all his letters for him.”

“You, Bill!”

“Aye. I went to the village school as a youth and learned to read, write, and cipher—no need to look so surprised, Miss! I do tolerable justice to my lord’s handwriting, he himself asked me to learn the trick of it when he was struck with arthritis. But now him that’s to be the next Lord Calipash has taken over the duty, so he says, but unless he posts the letters himself, nothing’s gone out in some time. Hasn’t asked me to go into the village since his arrival anyways.”

“But that woman said Mr. Vincent delivered the letter himself!”

“Did she now?”

“Yes…perhaps Mr. Vincent was the one who wrote to me. But, then, why disguise his writing? I should have come if he had extended the invitation to me, of course.”

“Couldn’t say, Miss. He’s a strange creature, full of notions and temper. Perhaps he thinks you are like him. I had to write to him in the Lord Calipash’s own hand, begging for his return, to get him to come! Ignored all the letters I wrote as myself.”

“Rotterdam is a very far distance to travel on short notice …”

“Aye, and the road to hell is a short and easy path! Honor thy father says the Bible.”

“Oh, Bill. I’ve missed you,” said I, shocked to find it was the truth, as I had always remembered him as the bane of my childhood. Somehow he knew when I was up to mischief and would foil my plans if he could, with a Bible verse ready to shame me for my willfulness.

I opened my mouth to ask him another question, one about Mr. Vincent, but my power of speech left me entirely at that moment. We’d crested a hill, and Calipash Manor had come into view.

I looked upon the ivy-wreathed front doors and the ancient moldering stone of the house, pale in the weird light of the coming storm, and felt a strange flutter inside my chest. I could not help thinking that the manor looked as if it had weathered a good deal more than ten years during my decade-long absence. The tower, where I had once held tea-parties with my dolls, or played at being Rapunzel, now looked so rickety it would not support a dove’s nest; the plentiful windows, upon which I had painted frost-pictures in the winter and opened to feel the breeze during the mild country summers, looked smaller, and dark with the kind of soot and filth one sees in London but few other places.

“I have been away a very long time,” I whispered hoarsely. “Drive ’round, Bill, so I may get inside and see the place.”

“Go through the front doors, Miss Burchell,” urged Bill.

This drew a laugh to my lips, and I wiped my eyes. “I am no lady, and certainly not the lady of the house. Drive ’round, the servants’ door was always good enough for me.”

“No, Miss. You’re here as our guest now, after all.”

I knew that tone, and it meant no arguing, so I thanked Bill and hopped down from the haywain. I was seized with a girlish fancy to take the steps two at a time as I had always used to do, but I only managed a few such leaps before my corset prevented further exertion. Thus I was sweaty-faced and breathing hard when I threw open the door—and saw the foyer for the first time in ten years.

The floorboards groaned under my shoes as I entered, and the high ceilings amplified the echoes of both footfall and wood-creak. The first thing I noticed was the watery light spilling in from the door was hazy with little swirling motes of dust. My hasty entrance had stirred the air more than it had been in some time. Indeed, filth and grime lay thick on every surface, and I was overwhelmed by the smell of mold. When I looked up, I saw the chandelier was missing more than one pendalogue, and the candle-cups did not look like they had held tapers in recent memory.

I could not move for astonishment. I remembered this room as a bright and welcoming space; recalled the sound of my guardian’s laughter as he would chase me, shrieking, through the hallways, much to the displeasure of the housekeeper, Lizzie, who said I should grow up wild.

Shouting and stomping startled me out of my reverie. It was a man’s voice I heard coming from the interior of the house—and all of a sudden there was a tall, thin fellow with messy black hair and bulging eyes at the top of the front staircase, then galloping down it! He was too busy howling at the top of his lungs to notice me.

“Bill! Lizzie! Anyone! The old bastard is in need of something, but I cannot understand his infernal mumblings!”

It was such an excellent entrance that upon recollection, I cannot help but now contemplate how I will translate it into my narrative of Camilla’s coming-of-age:

I have no words to express my surprise when I saw that Laurent was all grown up! Pale of skin and darkly handsome, his face held a haughty, cruel expression that checked my first impulse to rush into his arms and demand a longed-for kiss from my oldest, dearest friend in the world. How serious he looked! His black coat and trousers would have been better suited for a funeral in London than his ancestral country home. Still, I blushed to see him—and felt a blush where not three hours ago I had been brought to the golden threshold of love by the gamahuching of Mr. Reeves. I never thought I would see my cousin in such a light—and yet…

But of course, my Camilla has her memories of Laurent to contrast with the man she meets upon arriving at The Beeches, as I think I shall call her former home. (“A Camilla Among The Beeches” sounds like an excellent title to me—we shall see what Susan thinks.) I, however, had never before laid eyes upon Orlando Vincent. My first impression was of a flustered wretch of about my own age, clad in a wrinkled suit, and waving his arms about and carrying on in a dreadful manner. I could see how someone might mistake him for the Ghast o’the Hills—if one were inclined to see ghosts and spirits everywhere, that is.

“Why Mr. Vincent, I declare!” cried Lizzie, stepping into the dusty foyer, drying her hands with a dingy rag. How old must she be now, I wondered? Always slender and tall, she was now made all of angles, and her impressive mane of dark hair was now a lustrous gray—handsome, to be sure, but no longer youthful. “And here’s our Chelone! Why, just look at you, grown! I’m surprised at you, Mr. Vincent. Let the young lady come in and rest herself before alarming her with your profuse ejaculations!”

I am aware those not in my profession use that word without heed for its alternative definition, but I confess I giggled—which caused Mr. Vincent to blush very pink indeed, and sneer at me down his long narrow nose.

“It is good to meet you at last,” said I, to cover the awkwardness I had caused. “I used to read your letters to the Lord Calipash. How was your journey from Rotterdam?”

“Spare me this nonsense,” he snapped. “You must come, Lizzie—now—he gurgles and sweats out his very life, I think. You can understand him better than I, come and discover what it is he wants!”

Lizzie looked appalled. “Mr. Vincent, you must not—”

“I shall make love to the chit later if it please you—only come now and see to my father! Are you so silly that the health of your lord does not take precedence over your sense of decorum?”

“Excuse me, Chelone,” said Lizzie. “I shall get you settled directly, but if you like, please go now to your old room. I know you know the way.”

“Let me come with you,” I suggested. I had no wish to be left alone in this dreary, unremembered house! “Perhaps I can be of some help.”

“You’ll be the most help if you shut your mouth and stop distracting us all! Why you have come now, at the eleventh hour, is a mystery to me!” Mr. Vincent turned on his heel and fairly ran away from us, taking the steps two at a time.

I was, of course, concerned that he who had posted, and I had supposed, written the letter to me also had no notion of my coming, but I had no time to muse on this—Lizzie had followed after him, saying over her shoulder:

“Come along, then. You always had a certain rapport with the Lord Calipash, perhaps the unexpected sight of you will restore him.”

“I cannot account for this,” I said, as I followed her. “Why did he not tell anyone of his invitation to me, I wonder? And how did he get the letter into the post?” I laughed. “Perhaps it really was the Ghast!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, nothing—just, the woman at the post office said Mr. Vincent was very like the Ghast o’the Hills, you know, the ghost that—”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” interrupted Lizzie. “Let us see what the Lord Calipash requires, yes?”

During our trip upstairs to my guardian’s chambers I had noticed the same disrepair and neglect throughout Calipash Manor as had been evident in the foyer. The banisters were unpolished and slick with moisture; the carpet felt damp beneath my feet. Even the portrait-frames looked strangely aged. The gold leaf had flaked away and, curiously, the people in the pictures appeared older than I remembered them. The Calipash family has always been an attractive one, though just as the gentleman on the train mentioned, bizarrely alike in aspect, and with frequent incidences of twins. Long did I study their thin, aristocratic faces as a girl, making up silly stories about their lives—but today, instead of looking like an ancient and noble line, all seemed to carry in their eyes a hateful and sinister expression I had never before noticed. It made me shiver.

Yet the dilapidation of the house was most evident when Lizzie turned the brass knob of the door into my lord’s chambers and pushed through the decaying portal into the interior. The horrible smell of warm putrefaction hit me first, and then, through the gloom—for the thick window-dressings blocked most of the already-dim light—I could see more of the awful dust that coated every surface. Soiled garments were piled upon the floor, and his desk was messy with papers and spilled candle-wax.

This place had always been so fastidiously-kept when I was a child! Nauseated, shocked, I looked to my left and saw my guardian in his bed, the curtains of which were stained and the linens unclean. And then there was my lord himself…I remembered him as a vigorous older man, with thick white hair swept back from his temples and a ruddy, narrow, pleasant face, but the person I saw gave me no hint as to his former appearance. He was swollen, bloated even; his hair was thinner, and his face drooped horribly on the left side from the palsy that struck him some weeks back. His skin was as brown as a walnut, and had a patchy, unwholesome appearance.

I was glad Bill had prepared me for the sight, I do not know if I could have kept from crying out had I gone to see him unaware.

Lizzie bustled into the room saying, “Well, well, my lord, what may I fetch you?”

The series of sounds that came from my guardian’s mouth could not be called speech, yet Lizzie seemed to understand them well enough.

“Such a fuss and for what? Only the want of a cup of Darjeeling!” she exclaimed.

“My God, is that all?” cried Mr. Vincent, giving me quite a fright—I had not noticed him lurking like a spider on the other side of my lord’s bed.

“I’ll have it for you before you can say Jack Robinson,” said Lizzie, “but while you wait, here’s something for you, my lord—your guest is here!”

More wet grunting and smacking. Lizzie’s face fell.

“Well, surely you will be pleased when you see who it is—come closer, my dear, don’t hang in the doorway like some sort of apparition!”

With not a little trepidation I took a few faltering steps toward the bed. He really looked as miserable as the house itself; indeed, the only thing bright or beautiful about him was a curious jade pendant he wore on a chain upon his breast, just visible where his nightshirt was unbuttoned. Carved in the shape of a winged tortoise, it had a face more lupine than reptilian, and great clawed monkey-paw hands that gave the impression that the ornament was clinging to his skin. The craftsmanship looked almost Egyptian, and it glowed faintly in the gloaming. I thought I recognized the image…but I know not where, for surely he never wore it while I lived in this house.

Something about it captivated me, made me long to look upon it further, to hold it in my hand and run my fingertips over the smoothness of the stone.

“What a lovely necklace,” I blurted, unable to help myself.

A grunt that sounded like agreement came from him—and then his bleary eyes focused on my face.

“Whooo?” he said, like a tubercular owl.

“Your letter bid me come,” said I, remembering myself at last. I took his hand in mine, but almost dropped it in surprise. It felt leathery and chitinous at once; I could not feel the bones beneath the skin. “It is I, Chelone Burchell, your ward. I had not expected to see you again. I am so glad—”

There was more I was going to say, but, unexpectedly, my greeting induced a sort of apoplexy in the Lord Calipash. He began to cry out and wheeze and make such a ruckus I let go his hand immediately.

“Never!” I managed to understand through it all, and also, “Begone!”

This cut me to the quick. It was not as though I had forgotten what was supposed to be my permanent banishment when I received his missive! How could I fail to recall the day I was turned out of the house and sent alone in a coach to attend Miss Redcombe’s School for Girls of Quality? I was not even allowed to pack, my things were sent after me. All I had were the clothes on my back, a few shillings in my pocket, and a letter of explanation in my hand that stated, among other things, that payment would soon arrive to cover my education until I came of age; that I should stay at the school for all holidays unless invited to a friend’s house, and that every effort must be taken to keep me away from young men!

And yet I had always hoped we would be reconciled, despite his returning every letter I ever sent him, unopened; that he would come to regret punishing me so severely for such a trifling youthful indiscretion …

“I’m—sorry, the letter, it must have, I don’t know,” I stammered, backing away from the bed. The old man had begun to twitch and froth at the mouth, looking wildly back and forth between myself and Mr. Vincent.

“Begone!” he cried again, and then he fell back on the pillows—stone dead!

Lizzie, Mr. Vincent, and I stood still for some minutes, all shocked by what had transpired.

I was the first to speak.

“I brought the letter,” I heard myself saying, protesting this awful scene and my part in it. “You can see it for yourselves!”

Mr. Vincent—or rather, Lord Calipash, as I should start to call him, checked for the old man’s pulse.

“Well,” he sighed. “That’s that. There is nothing to be done but prepare ourselves for the funeral and legal expenses. A damned nuisance, I’ll warrant, but it shall be soon done with.”

“My lord,” said Lizzie, in her how shameful voice that I knew too well. “How can you say such things? And at a time like this?”

“I barely knew the man,” said the new Lord Calipash with a dismissive wave of his pale hand. “He sent me away to live with strangers as soon as I could walk, and called me home only so he could instruct me as to the management of this estate. He cared nothing for me, nor I for him. Now get thee to the kitchen to make my supper, and have Bill dress the body and put it in the crypt to keep it cool until the official burial. Oh—and have him go into the village to send a telegram to our lawyer in London, too.”

And he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

I jumped—and then jumped again. The skies had made good on the storm promised since I arrived at the station; thunder crashed, a sudden spatter of thick raindrops hit the glass window. The room lit up with lightning, then fell dark again.

“For goodness’ sake, it’s only rain,” said Lizzie, reprimanding me for my jumpiness. I detected a note of bitterness in her voice. “You’d better go settle in. You will not want to try to return to London tonight.”

“Of course,” I heard myself say. “I—I am sorry…”

“And what good does that do anybody?” she said, not looking at me. She looked wracked, grief-stricken, bereft even. “You’ve ruined so much this day, girl.”

Then she said what I had been feeling since my arrival:

“You should never have come back to this house, Chelone Burchell. Not for love or money.”

Night. In my room—I thought I should not to go down to supper, but hunger drove me from my chambers. Out of respect I dressed in my most somber gown—but I found the new Lord Calipash tipsy as a lord in his father’s chair at the head of the table, cravat untied, his meal unfinished before him. A cold collation awaited me on the dirty sideboard; apparently Lizzie was too occupied to cook something hot. At least the platters looked clean.

“My lord,” I said, entering the shabby dining room. “You must allow me to apologize—I had no notion my presence would so upset your late father. If I had known—”

“If I had known, I should have invited you myself, and weeks ago,” he slurred, looking at me half-lidded. “Have some wine, cousin? And some salad, and meat? The cold boiled is particularly good.”

I was surprised to hear him address me as cousin, for while that is certainly true, I was taught from a young age that my illegitimate origins prevented me from claiming such a connection with the Calipash family.

I could not bring myself to be so informal with him.

“Thank you, my lord. I am thirsty,” I said, and he poured me a large glass out of the crystal decanter by his elbow. The claret was blood-red, and sparkled as it flowed. I knew just by looking at it that it was of a better vintage than I had ever before tasted.

“Allow me to apologize for the rude hello I gave you earlier,” he said. “I was flustered and not myself.”

“It has already been forgotten,” I said, accepting the glass he handed me. I took nothing else, I found I did not wish to eat just then, during our first real encounter. “I understand. Meeting each other—now! It is a queer thing.”

“What, that a strumpet’s whelp should have lived here, in this house, while the son of the lord was exiled? Yes, that is a queer thing,” he said. His eyes finally focused on me. “A queer thing indeed.”

I knew not what to make of his mood, so I said nothing. I do not enjoy verbal fencing with mercurial gentlemen, that is for sharp-tongued spinsters with many cats and well-thumbed copies of Emma.

“Well, let bygones be bygones,” he said at last. “’Twas not your fault, my situation, and it would make me unreasonable to blame you. Tell me about yourself, Miss Burchell. What do you do?”

“I am—a writer,” I said. “I live in London, where I work for a ladies’ periodical.”

“Which?”

“You would not have heard of it,” I said demurely. Experience has taught me not to reveal my status as pornographer too readily, I have found it is better to let people form an opinion of me before revealing how disreputable I am.

“You might be surprised,” he said. “I read all sorts of things.”

“Indeed?”

“Things that would make you blush, I’ll warrant.”

I thought this a sorry attempt at rakishness. “My lord?”

“I should show you my collection sometime…even though you are but a distant, and to be truthful, unwanted relation, you have Calipash blood in you, and thus should appreciate certain genres considered outré by the masses. It is really too bad the Private Library was burned to ashes—”

A clap of thunder from outside, where the storm still raged, silenced him, but I did not mind. I needed a moment to recover myself: He had mentioned the Private Library! That was what had been written on each bookplate: This Book Belongs to the Private Library of the Calipash Family.

“Perhaps you are referring to the collection of infamous volumes that used to be housed on the leftmost bookcase of the library? The one that required spinning about to find what it really housed?”

It was my turn to surprise him! He sat up in his chair and looked at me keenly. I began to doubt he had drunk as much wine as I had first thought.

“Yes—yes I do! Ach, how can it be that such a lowly urchin has sampled the legendary delights of the Calipash Private Library, and yet I have never done so?”

“I could not say, my lord.”

“Perhaps—do you then know why it was burned? I could not understand what my father said regarding the matter. His speech was too far gone when I asked.”

I was happy to have something to hold over him, so instead of answering him directly, I stood and began to fill a plate from the contents of the sideboard—salmon salad, cold chicken, succulent orange-slices, tongue in aspic. I avoided the cold boiled.

As I selected the last elements of my repast, over my shoulder I said, “Your father did not share your opinions, my lord.”

“Oh? How so?”

“He burned the collection after finding me perusing an illustrated copy of Fanny Hill—or, at least, what I know now was a…let us say variant edition of that classic pornography, rewritten to emphasize deviant black magicks than matters carnal. He was so very horrified that he whipped me out the door and into his coach, to be taken directly to school, never permitted to return.”

I did not add that he had discovered me with my hand under my own skirts, frigging myself furiously whilst looking at the naughty pictures, strange though some surely were.

It had been a humid summer day, and I had just that year discovered the delights of that revolving bookcase. Actually, I do not believe my guardian knew of the Private Library before that day, as when the old Lord Calipash walked in on me, he snatched the book away, and, eyes wide, had demanded to know where I found such a thing; after seeing what else the collection held he had shouted that he would burn the lot of it, that such titles could do nothing but induce evil in women and men alike.

Though I have never had any reason to doubt my lord’s having followed through on the threat, it made me sad to hear he had really done so. It was, after all, an impressive collection of very rare, decadent, and often shockingly corrupt tomes. Those on the subject of fornication were my favorite, of course, but those were fewer and farther between than I liked. Far more of the collection was made up of rather mouldy books on performing dark sorceries and profane rituals to honor a pack of heathen gods who sounded rather rum compared to Zeus or Thor. There was one I recall that had loads of filthy pictures—a translation of some sort of foreign sex and murder manual, it seemed to me. I can’t recall the title but I know an Englishman named Dee saw fit to have the book available in our tongue, but I question his decision there. It was a far cry from Burton’s Kama Sutra; I can’t imagine anyone would find those positions or actions pleasurable, but there’s no accounting for taste, I suppose. But that wasn’t all: there were books on horrid-sounding cannibal cults of the ancient world—Nameless Cults, I think the title was—and I recall there was even a treatise on the delights of necromancy by a young woman of the family, Rosemary Vincent, whose portrait still hangs in the gallery! Though a stilted homage—or, funny, it must have been a precursor, for she lived during the eighteenth century—to Shelley’s Frankenstein, my ancestor’s manual, Resurrecting the Dead for Work and Pleasure was entertaining reading at the very least, as it detailed how one might create some sort of composite creature from dead bodies using common household items and magic spells, many drawn from some of the other books in the Private Library. I had even cross-referenced a few, bored creature that I was…I wonder if Shelley had a copy of her work? It seems the sort of thing Byron would have had lying about.

It occurs to me as I write this that it was in that strange sex-manual where I had once before seen the chimerical tortoise-image my guardian had been wearing. There had been two creatures hand-drawn upon the page, one very like my guardian’s pendant, and another in the same style, of a winged, hound-faced sphinx. I saw the same image in a few books, come to think of it, though those had Latin titles and were indecipherable to me.

“Well well well, Fanny Hill,” said Orlando Vincent, interrupting my thoughts as he poured himself another tipple from the decanter. “Variant or not, it seems the adage is true—what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh. The slut’s pup is a slut herself!”

“Then you must be as illegitimate as I, for you are no gentleman!” I said hotly.

“Mind that temper, cousin,” he said, and slurped his wine at me lewdly.

“And you mind your manners!” said I. “I shall not be calumniated by a messy-haired stripling, drunk on his father’s wine. Good night, sir!” Thus I rose, and took my leave of him.

I wasn’t really that offended, I just wanted to make it clear to him that he could not speak to me like that. But upon reaching my rooms I regretted my decision; I was not yet tired. The strange day had enlivened me rather than the reverse.

Remembering that when I was a girl and wakeful in the night I used to sit at my window and brush my hair until I was sleepy, I changed into my night-clothes and blew out the candle. Yet while I thought the ritual would settle my mind, when I saw how ill-tended the storm-lit grounds of Calipash Manor were, instead of relaxing me, looking upon them brought back my earlier feelings of gloom, horror, and ruination.

Especially when I saw that the woods were not so overgrown as to prevent me from seeing the Calipash family crypt through the pine-boughs!

I felt a shock when I saw the crumbling Doric structure, quite as if I had been struck by a bolt of the lightning still occasionally illuminating the night sky—how had I forgotten the nightmarish sepulcher until that very moment? Not that there was anything actually frightening about the place, of course. I had merely scared myself nearly out of my wits in there as a child.

What it is about graveyards that so captivate children I know not, but I would venture there often as a girl. It was far from the house proper, which made it exciting, and overgrown, which put me in mind of fairy-circles or some such nonsense. The day I found enough bravery in myself to push open the door—and found it unlocked—I made my one and only exploration of its interior. There I had fancied I saw a ghost, or perhaps it was the Ghast, a puerile notion I know…though I confess, looking out upon that temple in miniature again, the little hairs on the back of my neck rose quivering.

A sudden movement tore my eyes away from the loathsome mausoleum. A lone figure ran across the grounds. It was, of all people, Orlando Vincent! Pell-mell he pelted over the grass and through the dregs of the rainstorm, and he was headed toward the graveyard, curiously enough. I wondered on what errand he went; it must be something so urgent it could not wait until morning, so I watched him dash to the crypt and duck inside its carven doorway.

It could not have been five minutes later that he emerged, though with quite a different air about him. Instead of seeming like a man possessed of a desperate mission, he had the lackadaisical aspect of a gentleman very much at his leisure. He stood casually under the overhang of the crypt-entrance for a moment, hands in his pockets—and then he looked up at me!

How he knew I was at my casement I could not say, but I am sure he knew, and I felt another strange shock when his shadowed eyes met mine. I raised my hand in greeting, not knowing if he could see the gesture, but he mirrored it. When a final flash of lightning illuminated the grounds I saw he was smiling at me.

I felt a flush of passion worthy of my heroine Camilla and rose from my seat, alarmed at myself. It was then that I re-lit the candle and sat down here—to write—to try to settle my mind. I am not sure if it has worked…

I was too disturbed by my newfound carnal thoughts about my cousin to sleep, so I crept from my room to the tower stairs, thinking I should like to see how altered was the place we had used to play together as children. Up and up I climbed, my candle casting strange shadows on walls of the staircase, until I reached the door. Upon pushing it open, I found the room unchanged by time. There was even still a sheet strung from wall to wall, the roof of our play-castle in which we had pretended to be lords and ladies. I took a faltering step and my foot hit something—looking down, I saw it was the play-sword that Laurent once used to carve dragons and monsters to pieces. That sword was the only thing that had gotten me to come up to the tower, for the first time we braved the stairs, I had believed it haunted!

A sudden movement made me scream—perhaps there really was a ghost that haunted this room! But then my cousin emerged from the shadows, grinning at me.

“Why Camilla! Venturing up here—and in the dark!”

“Oh, Laurent! You gave me such a fright!” I cried. My legs were trembling beneath my night-dress; perceiving this, he offered me his arm and led me to a dusty sofa.

“Will you allow me to make it up to you?” said he. “I know a treatment that is said to cure nervousness in women, it is called fucking.”

“Oh, I know all about fucking,” I laughed weakly. “I have never done it, but nearly everything but. The girls at school said I could lick a quim better than anybody, and a gentleman on the train said my cock-sucking was first rate!”

“Let us see about that,” he said, putting my hand on his stiffening prick. It was quite a large affair, larger than anything I had yet encountered. “If you are as good as you say, then I shall introduce you to the very best pleasure of all!”

5 April 1887, Morning. In my room—Oh, what a good night’s sleep can do to improve one’s spirits! Or at the very least, a good night’s something. Susan was right, my visit home has yielded quite a lot of inspiration for my serial!

Not a quarter of an hour after I blew out my candle for the second time I heard a soft knock at my door. Somehow I knew who was outside—the new Lord Calipash—but unsure if I wanted to see him, I did not answer. He had been unpleasant, yes, but he was also rather attractive, at least in a squirrely sort of way, and I have enjoyed my share of casual romps with far more irksome men. Many and manifest are the advantages of having no inclination to marry and an excellent understanding of abortifacients.

A second knock, then the handle turned. Without lifting my head from my pillow I saw in the doorway the outline of Orlando, whom I think I may now safely call by his Christian name!

He stole into my chamber, closing the door softly behind him, and then shed his coat, throwing it upon the chair in which I had earlier sat scribbling on my latest story, which, if I do say so myself, is coming along nicely. After kicking off his shoes, to my surprise, he slid wordlessly into bed beside me.

“My God,” I whispered, for he stank of death from his trip into the family crypt. “What is it you want so badly that you could not bathe before coming to me, I wonder?”

He said nothing—merely groaned in the most fetching, desperate manner, and put his hand on where my right breast swelled beneath my nightgown. I turned over, and his lips found mine.

I drew back, appalled by his stench. It emanated from every pore in his body; his mouth was foul with the reek of the grave.

“Go and wash,” I said. I love an unexpected frolick, but the unclean human body is disgusting to me.

He groaned again, urgently, but due to his odor I was no longer inclined to engage in any amorous endeavors. I pushed him away, but he grabbed my wrist, and held up something in his other hand. It swung to and fro in the moonlight, for the fading storm had parted her clouds to reveal the last sliver of that waning sphere, and I could just see what he held out to me.

It was the jade tortoise I had earlier seen hanging ’round my guardian’s neck!

“For me?” I asked him, surprised. He grunted his assent, and then fastened the clasp around my neck.

When I felt the weight of the cold stone on my skin (I am ashamed to write this, for I cannot account for it—not even to myself, here in my private diary) I was possessed of a passion stronger than any I have ever felt before. I was ever so desperate to be fucked, more than when I finally managed to sneak Lord Crim-Con away from his wife for a quick one in a servant’s bed at their tenth anniversary party, more even than the time on the occasion of my twenty-third birthday when Susan surprised me by taking me on holiday to Winsor, and snuck me into her brother’s dormitory so I could have some sport with five handsome youths of that year’s senior class.

“Why, Lord Calipash,” said I, snaking my hand down his chest and under the lip of his trousers. “You have inflamed—bewitched me! I simply must have you! Do let us make love!”

He kissed his answer upon my neck, and then lower, lower. I know I am in the habit of describing my encounters in detail here, for my personal enjoyment when I am in my dotage, but we sported for so long, and in so many ways, I fear I shall miss breakfast if I record everything. Suffice it to say, a more tender, compassionate lover I could never want, and he made full use of every place of pleasure I possess. It is sadly rare to find a man as able with bottom-hole as with cunt, but Orlando knew the unique needs, challenges, and delights to be had behind as well as in front. He also had no reservations allowing me to do what I would with him, even going so far as to allow me to work my favorite dildoe (I always take it with me) up into his fundament to induce the truly copious spending which is nigh impossible for men to produce any other way.

Good Lord, but I am hungry! It’s only natural after taking so much exercise in the night, I suppose.

Later—Orlando was not at breakfast. Lizzie says he will not come out of his room.

Later still—Feeling rather lonely, for neither Lizzie nor Bill seem to want much to do with me (they are holed up in the kitchen, apparently “doing what must be done” regarding the Lord Calipash’s death, though I swear I saw Bill sweep away a trick of bezique when I came into the room…but I must have imagined it, for the sanctimonious old ferret never trucks with any games at all, and certainly not cards!) I went for a walk after my meal.

The grounds are still very lovely here, I think their being so overgrown actually adds to their savage charm. And yet…one would think such a wilderness would attract more wild creatures, but I saw no life within the twilit deeps except for a tiny, but bright red bird of a type I had never seen before. It landed on a tree and peered at me silently. I know it will sound strange, but I swear that once it was sure it held my attention, it fluttered to a close-by tree and did not move until I stepped toward it. Then it did the same thing again, and again, until it led me—by chance, surely—to the Calipash family crypt. There it landed on the pediment—and after a moment, flew inside the crypt itself. The door was ajar from Orlando’s midnight sojourn.

The charnel smell that had clung to Orlando’s flesh last night whilst we frolicked emanated from the black interior; I found it nauseating but strangely compelling, and reached out my hand to push open the door and further investigate what lay inside the sepulcher. In I went, and once again braved the stone steps down into the crypt proper.

It is a horrid place, the crypt, a burial-place worthy of the strange legends concocted by the locals. Grinning carven demons watch over the bodies of former Calipash lords, and from their mouths emanate awful orange and purple light, very like sunlight through filtered glass, but they shine even at night! My steps echoed on the granite floor as I peered about, revisiting that dead place where the dead dwell, thinking of the strange ghost I had thought I had seen as a child—but then I am ashamed to say my courage failed me. I fancied I heard the ghost groaning at me; looking up, I saw a shadow of a man, tall and thin—and screamed!

“It is surely the Ghast!” I cried, and fled, nearly falling back down the moisture-slick stairs several times in my haste, but by the time the handle of the garden-door of Calipash Manor was in my hand I was laughing at myself for being such a noodle. The wind often moans when it passes over stone, does it not, and I had left the door ajar—and why, I wondered, had it not occurred to me that Orlando could have walked in front of the crypt-door? That would have cast a shadow very like the “ghost” I saw.

If there is any real danger here at Calipash Manor, it is too much sunshine. I must be more careful of my skin—my complexion will be ruined if I continue taking morning walks. My skin is browner already, I am sure of it.

Afternoon—Orlando did not come down to dinner. I fear I must have done him a mischief. Perhaps attempting to induce a fourth occasion took more out of him than I anticipated?

I had a solitary, silent meal in the dining room; again, Lizzie and Bill would not allow me to dine with them. They were really rather stern with me about it.

“We would have notions of rank preserved in this house, Chelone,” said Lizzie. “Anarchy results elseways.”

“Yes indeed, a woman of your breeding mustn’t break bread with those such as us,” said Bill—which in anyone else I would think to be a crack about my lack of proper parentage, but not from Bill!

Ah well. I have eaten lonelier meals.

I wonder, though, if I didn’t work myself into rather an agitated state, too—I could stomach only the vegetable courses.

Late Afternoon—Something strange is going on, I am sure of it. Orlando must be ill. Before going down to tea I knocked on the door of his room, and heard nothing. I raised my voice and told him it was tea-time, and I heard a faint moan from within. Who declines tea? Even invalids must have their refreshing cuppa and hot buttered toast, surely.

After Tea—I went to consult with Lizzie about Orlando, though I hated to disturb her again after her earlier sternness with me. It is funny, as I approached the kitchen-door, I am sure I misheard her, but before I knocked, I heard her conversing with Bill. He said, “that he will not stir is a good sign,” and I thought I overheard her say, “Soon will come the hour of the tortoise,” which made Bill laugh, a harsh sound. Then I knocked; they fell silent as I entered.

“I fear the Lord Calipash may be ill,” said I.

“As I said, he was up late last night,” said Lizzie. “When I retired he had called Bill to bring him another bottle of wine. Have you never had a hangover?”

“Even if he was up late—”

“Likely he’s a cold upon him,” said Bill. He had obviously been doing something that required his high boots (come to think of it, he could have been the source of the shadow, as he is tall and thin, too). Mud plastered his feet and calves nearly to the knee, but he had not shed his footwear before coming to sit at the table. Lizzie, I was surprised to note, did not chide him for this; indeed, she seemed hardly to notice his mess. This was quite a change from the attitude she used to take when I came in from outside without a care!

“A cold!” I exclaimed.

“He went outside last night, in the storm,” said Bill, and shrugged at me as he put his boots up on one of the kitchen chairs, fouling it horribly. “I tried to speak reason to him, but he would not listen. Said he wished to keep vigil by the side of his dead father. Heathen notion—perhaps it is as you say, and the Lord has punished him with an ailment.”

“Then he must be in need of at least a cup of tea,” I said, exasperated. “Let me bring it to him, you needn’t trouble yourselves.”

“Oh, go on then,” said Lizzie, pouring some liquid the color of wash-water into a chipped cup. “Take him this, if you must be meddlesome.”

It was in low spirits indeed that I went up to Orlando’s room, tea in hand. I have rarely felt so depressed. This slapdash housekeeping and surly language would be understandable, of course, if Bill and Lizzie seemed distraught over my guardian’s death, but neither seem to care tuppence about it—they have not even mentioned it to me! And come to think of it, the house was topsy-turvy when I arrived. From what I saw, taking care of the former Lord Calipash would not have occupied the whole of their waking hours, so how can they account for how decrepit Calipash Manor has become? It pains me to write this, but I feel as though the two of them have no emotion whatsoever as regards their former master; I get the strange feeling if no one would notice the irregularity of it, they would not even attend to the funereal arrangements. When I was a girl neither one of them seemed the sort of servant who would take a “when the cat’s away” attitude toward their duties, but perhaps I was not a perceptive child?

Well, regardless, I went up to Orlando’s room and entered without knocking, only to find him prostrate on the bed, sheets wound around him like a shroud. The curtains were drawn and I could barely see my way over to him.

“Lord Calipash?” I whispered. “It is I—Chelone, your cousin, come to see if you need anything?”

He groaned and stirred, and I took this as a good sign. Setting the cup of tea down beside him, I took the liberty of seating myself on his bed and patting his shoulder.

“It is after tea-time, please—won’t you take a bite or sip of anything?”

“My head,” he groaned. “Oh, Chelone—I was beastly to you last night, was I not?”

“Never mind that,” I said. “I believe you have already apologized enough.”

“Did I?” He flopped over onto his side and looked at me. “I must have had more wine than I thought.”

“Not all apologies must be spoken,” I said, and touched where my new lovely necklace hung below my blouse. Stroking the pendant, even through the fabric, gave me the most visceral shock! Plenty of times I have received trinkets from lovers, but this—it comforted me to have it about my neck, as if it were a warm extension of my very flesh.

“True enough, I suppose! Draw back the curtains, cousin, and hand me that tea—ahh,” he said, sipping it. “Better. I should not have lingered in bed so long, but ach—my head! How it aches!”

“Well, you had a long night,” I said over my shoulder.

“Indeed I did. Ventured out to that tomb—well, you must know that already. Dreadfully wet, and I fell—or hit my head—or something. Must have slipped.” He took another long slurp of tea and fell back upon the pillows of his bed. “Well, no lasting harm done. Still feel miserable, though.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I wonder …” He looked at me. “You seem in a maternal sort of mood, eh? Would you be so kind—no.”

“Ask anything and it shall be yours, if it is within my power to give it.”

“Just sit with me, talk to me. Keep me company. I never had a relative to look after me before.”

Poor dear! “Let me read to you, then—and perhaps you will doze until supper-time.”

“Smashing idea, Chelone. What would you like to read?”

“You claimed to have a collection that would make me blush,” I suggested, having retained no small curiosity regarding his literary tastes. “Even if you no longer think me so easily shocked, I should like to see what you have.”

Even in the dim light—for though I had drawn back the drapes, the hour was late, and the sunlight waning—I saw him blush pinker than a rose! I had no expectation of his showing any shyness after the events of last night, and felt such a rush of tenderness for the dear boy that I kissed him on the forehead.

“N—no,” he stammered. “I was, ah, drinking last night, you see, and loose-tongued; I was not myself, and should not have mentioned such things about—about my family, myself, and …”

Such an endearing display! Charmed, I put my finger to his lips and shook my head. I was not to be dissuaded.

“Let me read something—I shall pick it. Just nod where you have stowed them. Coyness will only make me all the more eager!”

He looked miserable as a wet cat, but pointed with a trembling finger towards a valise not yet unpacked. Opening the top, I discovered to my delight that it was entirely full of pornography! He had a lovely old edition of Juliette, several volumes of The Pearl and The Oyster (I cannot fault him; though Lazenby has always been a competitor, his work is very fine), a chapbook of Swinburne’s “Reginald’s Flogging,” The Sins of the Cities of the Plain, which perhaps would explain his ability with arses—and, I was happy to see, quite a few editions of Milady’s Ruby Vase!

“I see you are quite an avid reader,” said I, which caused him to choke on the dregs of his tea. “Here, I have selected something. Let me read to you—ah, yes! Here is a good-sounding yarn, ‘What My Brother Learned in India’ by a Rosa Birchbottom.”

“Not that one,” he said with such trepidation I felt rather wounded.

“Why ever not?”

“I…please, Chelone. She is my very favorite author, and I fear I should—embarrass myself.”

“Rosa Birchbottom is your favorite author?” How could I not laugh! “Let me read this story, then. I trust your taste, cousin.”

“I—”

“My brother studied a great many things whilst in India, and upon his return he was good enough to teach me some of what he learned about the voluptuous peculiarities of the human body,” I read, or rather, recited half from memory. “Given that I am soon to die of a wasting sickness that has claimed my beauty, rendering me unfit to engage in any amorous sport, I have decided to spend my remaining days writing down some of the most exotic techniques he taught me, techniques to induce to sensual erotic pleasure in man or woman…Orlando!”

He had begun to weep, and I set aside the volume, feeling rather rotten indeed.

“Whatever is the matter?” I asked him.

“I am a disgusting creature,” said he, “to own such wicked books—and to ask a young lady to read them! Here I have you debasing yourself before me, and—”

“None of that,” I said sternly. “It is no debasement to read these words, pornography is not a wicked art! Oh, Orlando, I apologize. I was only so very amused. You see, I am Rosa Birchbottom. It tickled me last night when you implied I should read pornography—I write it for my living!”

“You?” he sat up straight and looked at me with fresh, adoring eyes. “You wouldn’t tease me, cousin?”

“Never, I assure you. I told you I worked for a periodical, did I not? I authored ‘What My Brother Learned in India,’ ‘The Personal Papers of Lady Strokinpoke,’ ‘A Penny Spent,’ and ‘A Sporting Attitude Indeed.’ I had to take a nom de plume or risk all sort of unpleasantness if our publication is ever shut down on obscenity charges. It is a bad pun, I know, but my very first story was a Mrs. Lechworthy tale, you see.”

“I have it in my collection,” said he, placing his hand upon my knee in an endearingly familiar manner. “I really think ‘Le Vice Anglese’ is one of the very best stories ever written.”

“Flatterer,” I said.

“Not at all—but …” He blushed again.

“What?”

“I am sorry, I was about to trouble you with an impertinence …”

“What could be impertinent between us, cousin?”

“Do you…ever…do you write from experience? Or is it all…imagination?”

The dear young man! “I know why you ask, Orlando, but fear not. Though I have in the past used my experiences to inform my writings, I never do so directly. And I never name names.”

“I see…so you are not, oh, how did you put it so delightfully in ‘A Penny Spent’? Burdened by an exasperating virginity?”

I laughed. “Is that a question you needed to ask me? Could you not tell?”

Orlando’s lip twitched and then his face lit up in the most handsome smile I had ever seen on a man’s face. “Oh, Chelone, I am feeling ever so much better now, you have raised my spirits to the point I think I could manage a bit of supper! Would you like to dress and come down with me?”

“Very much so, my dear Orlando,” said I.

“I am ever so glad you came to Calipash Manor,” he said. “Why—I feel as though I’ve known you my whole life. It is funny, before you arrived my father was speaking of twins, twins born into this family—do you not think we could be siblings? Look in the mirror, there—are not our faces quite alike?”

“I hope we are not twins,” said I, though it gave me quite a start to see how alike we were. “Are not Calipash twins always supposed to be cursed? Evil?”

“That was what my father told me, at least. Well, well, it seems an unlikely coincidence, does it not? But we shall talk more about it over dinner, eh, cousin?”

And thus I must hurry—he will be awaiting me! Oh, I am ever so glad I came home again. It is rare, when one writes under a false name, to meet one’s public in person! Very enjoyable, as is Orlando himself. I do think I shall have another go with him after our meal, if he is willing and able…

The dress I wore that night was not expensive, and though it had been turned once, I thought it looked well enough when I gazed at my reflection in the glass. My only regret was how high the neckline, for though I wore his gift none could see it. Still, its warm weight was a secret comfort to me, for he had given this present to me as a token of affection, and feeling it ’round my neck reminded me that I needed not fear disgracing myself in front of my nobler relation with my ignorant manners and common conversation.

When I heard the knock at my door I very nearly turned my ankle in my dash to answer the summons. It was Laurent, looking very dashing indeed, and he even took my hand and kissed it when he saw me!

“Dearest Camilla, how beautiful you look,” he said, lasciviously licking his lips with his red tongue. “Why, my cock is half-standing just looking at you, remembering the rapturous sensation of Mr. John Thomas battering his way up inside of you, taking for my own your troublesome maidenhead! Careful, or I might make a mistake—and eat you instead of my supper.”

“I am glad you have not had your fill of me. I have heard it said in town that you are indeed a rake and libertine.”

“It is all in the past,” he assured me. “I have never thought to marry, but you, my cousin, have won my heart, body, and soul.”

Alas, for I was a fool to believe such words! I assure you, as I write this, locked up for crimes I did not commit, that no woman has ever suffered more than I on account of love!

We lingered over supper, which consisted of every food known to inspire amorous devotion: caviar, asparagus, oysters, champagne, artichokes in white wine, and finally, a tiny cup of potent chocolate. By the end of it I was swooning with passion and anxious to retire, but it was not to be. As a final course, Laurent’s housekeeper surprised us by coming in with two chilled glasses of a French anisette liqueur as a digestif—but when I reached to take mine off the silver tray, the silver-filigreed cameo Laurent had given me spilled out from the neckline of my gown.

“Thief!” cried his housekeeper. “Why, it is Lady Fanchone’s favorite ornament, long thought to be missing! How did it come to be concealed on your person, I wonder?”

“Laurent gave it to me last night,” said I, shocked by her implication.

“How could he, when it has been gone these ten years? As I recall it, Lady Fanchone wished to bequeath it to her only son and heir—and could not, for it had vanished!”

I thought Laurent would come to my defense, but when I raised my tear-filled eyes to meet his, I saw only cruelty there.

“Indeed, it had long been my desire to have that ornament turned into a cravat-pin—and here you are, possessed of it! My, my…Camilla! I never thought you would be the sort of girl around whom I should have to count the silver! To discover the woman I thought to make my bride is actually a low thief—and a thief so bold as to wear her ill-gotten possessions around those who might miss them!”

I know it does not speak to my honesty to confess here that I bolted from the table then, thinking to leave The Beeches on foot. But I ask you, dearest reader, what hope I had of protesting my innocence when Laurent—he whom I had thought devoted to me—was speaking such dreadful falsehoods? You, my friend, know that I am innocent, that I would never steal, but I was apprehended by the handyman before I had taken ten steps out the front door. I screamed and beat his breast with my fists, demanding he release me, but he was far stronger than I, and restrained me easily. Then a policeman was called, and the matter seemed more and more hopeless. My character is no longer known in these parts, after all, and so it was the easiest thing to conclude I was a thief!

To keep me from fleeing before my trial, I was locked into the tower with only a meager supply of candles to keep me from the grim darkness at night.

It seems a century past, but it was less than a fortnight ago that I was found guilty of the crime of stealing the cameo necklace, and tomorrow I shall be hanged for it. The town being so small I was locked back into the tower at The Beeches for safekeeping; they bring me my meals fairly regularly, but already my dress hangs off my body, so hungry, cold, and lonely am I. Woe is me! I asked my jailers for paper and pencil so I could write my story; this, as it is my last request, they have given me. Thus I have recorded all that transpired during my fateful journey to my home county, where, instead of love, I have found only death. My only conclusion is that Laurent always intended to cast me aside, and gave me the necklace to have a good reason to do so.

I have no regrets but one as to my actions in life, the things I have enjoyed and done—but trusting such a knave as Laurent and his hateful staff was a greater mistake than any of my amorous encounters. Would that I had taken Mr. Milliner up on his offer to elope with him! I am sure I should be happier than here, alone, in the darkness, awaiting my death.

That should do; I shall copy it out now.

Date unknown, time of day uncertain, languishing in the crypt—My plan has not worked, all hope has left me. I must conclude that either my dear editrix Susan did not perceive the cipher I painstakingly included in the handwritten conclusion I composed for “A Camilla Among the Beeches,” or it has not been sent to her was promised. I suspect the latter; given the extent of the treachery I have experienced, I cannot believe in human kindness any longer.

Here I shall record what actually befell me more than a fortnight ago, if my sense of time has not been too much disturbed by living as I have been, in the Calipash family crypt. (I have counted meals, but they have been thrown down to me at strange intervals with no difference between breakfast and dinner, as I can no longer stomach much.) It pains me to write about my misfortunes, for this honors a hideous request, but at the very least I know this document will live on in the Private Library—which I have found out was never burnt, and exists today, and now one book richer. I suppose it is every writer’s wish to compose something that others might enjoy, and though future Calipash heirs may take pleasure in the real account which inspired ‘A Camilla Among the Beeches’ more for my suffering than any greatness of prose, such is life.

I went down to dinner in my most modest gown, for when I was dressing for dinner I saw how brown and mottled my skin had become. I thought then it was from too much sun during my earlier walk; I know better now. Regardless, Orlando, sweet boy, remarked upon my dress favorably, and we enjoyed our meal.

But when Lizzie came in with our dessert, I reached for the decanter of wine upon the table—and the jade tortoise pendant fell from my décolletage. Then all was confusion!

“My God, it is my father’s necklace!” cried Orlando, pointing at the glowing object dangling before my bosom. “How has it come into your possession, Chelone?”

“It is the potent thing itself!” cried Lizzie, dropping the tray of blancmange. “Bill!” she screeched at the top of her lungs. “Brother! Come! I have discovered it! It is not lost!”

“What?” said I, backing away quickly from the table. “Orlando! Tell them you gave it to me late last night!”

“I did not give it to you, nor did I see you after you left this room!” he exclaimed. “I drank and drank, then went down into the crypt after Bill came to me and told me he had forgotten to strip the pendant from my father’s body. I went to get it—and there was my father’s corpse, cold on the marble slab where Bill had put him, but the necklace was gone! And then there was a strange sound…and I startled away from the body—and hit my head—and woke up in my own bed!”

“Indeed,” said Bill, coming into the room, “I think I have an explanation for that, dearest Lizzie. I’ve just had a visit with Rosemary’s golem.”

“The golem!” exclaimed Lizzie. “Well, I never!”

“Explain yourselves,” demanded Orlando. He was standing between myself and Lizzie and Bill. “Tell me what is happening here!”

At this, Bill backhanded Orlando across the mouth, and the young Lord fell to the carpet, howling and clutching his mouth.

“Silence, churl,” said Bill, and spat on his master. “You speak unto your rightful lord! I am William Fitzroy, Lord Calipash, and you are nothing but a lesser man’s son, thou shameful usurper!”

It was such a strange scene—and my confusion so great—that I made to run away from the room; indeed, I wished to quit the house entirely, but Lizzie stuck out her foot and tripped me. After I fell to the ground with a cry, I tried to claw my way to the door with my hands, but she lifted up her skirts and sat upon my chest to hold me hostage. When I cried out she punched me in the side so hard I wept for the pain.

“Dearest William,” said she, “why is it you suspect the golem?”

“He told me—or rather, I had him write it all down for me,” said Bill. “When I saw how fit and healthy Orlando looked when he came down to dinner, I knew his earlier indisposition must be from some other source than the necklace’s transformative properties. Looking upon Chelone, how dreadful her skin appears now, I suspected some trickery, and went to the crypt for insight. And look at this!”

He held up a scrap of paper before Lizzie’s eyes, and I caught a glimpse of it—the note was in my guardian’s own handwriting!

“It wrote to her,” said Bill. “It apparently saw her as a girl and took a fancy to her, and in the confusion over our brother’s decline it thought it could safely invite her back and have some sport with her. It’s smarter than I ever realized, and it does look rather like Orlando—if one doesn’t peer too closely. Thus it was able to sneak down to the village and send her the note that called her hither! It wants a bride, dear sister. Just like the legends about it! Imagine that—the peasants knew something we didn’t!”

“It seems from this note that they had quite a wedding night,” said Lizzie, looking up from the parchment to leer at me.

I could barely breathe for her sitting on me, and choked on my tears. What, I wondered, was a golem, to live in a crypt, and send false letters?

“Careful, sister, or you’ll give her fits,” said Bill. “We can’t have another one die on us, after the failure with our brother.”

“I shan’t let her suffocate. If we keep her and allow her to pupate into the Guardian, then all we’ll have to worry about is that,” here she pointed to where Orlando whimpered on the ground, “We can’t have him destroying the illusion that we are a happy family…”

“Indeed,” said Bill. “We can use him for all sorts of things, actually. I believe he’s a virgin, which could prove…useful.”

“What is happening,” I wept. “Oh, do get up, do let me go, please!”

“It’s too late for you, stupid girl,” said Lizzie, and kicked me in the side with her boot-heel. “Though it may please you to know you alone have been the agent of your undoing. Rather amusing! If you hadn’t surprised the former Lord into death, then he would have completed his transmutation, and you should have gotten away from here safely.”

“Sister, do think—if she had not been discovered perusing the Private Library, inducing the anger that made our loathsome brother wish to destroy it, then we never would have thought to create a Guardian to protect our family legacy from future well-meaning fools! Ha! It is very funny, how a young girl’s curiosity can result in such tragedy.” He smiled thinly. “Rather Gothic, really. Isn’t the bitch some sort of petty writer? Too bad she’ll never put it all into a story.”

“Perhaps we should have her chronicle her transformation!” sniggered Lizzie. “It might be of great scientific interest one day.”

“So it is you who are the twins of whom my father spoke,” mumbled Orlando, his hand raised to where his cheek still bled. “I thought he had become completely insensible when he began to rant about how he had siblings—twins, yes, but not terrible he thought, though he said to be on the lookout for you, lest you show some sign of treachery! Alas—I have realized it too late!”

I know it sounds incredible, that in this modern time such things as curses are real, but as I languish in the crypt, surrounded by my mummified ancestors and these strange stone gargoyles that emit the weird light by which I can see to write this, gradually changing into the creature whose jade likeness I so unwittingly wore upon my breast, I have been forced to admit I should have heeded the warning given to me during my train-ride home to Ivybridge. Lizzie and Bill, two people whom I should never have suspected of evil, have been proven to be nothing but. Long did they plot their revenge on my former guardian for his decision to destroy the Private Library; long have they cursed fortune for having made he who I knew as the Lord Calipash the legitimate heir, and them the servitors of an estate they could claim no right to manage.

The worst part is, Bill was not being hyperbolic when he accused me of authoring my own undoing—indeed, it is the case, in so very many ways. When the former Lord Calipash found me so entranced by that strange, deviant copy of Fanny Hill, he resolved to burn the collection. Bill told me that, horrified by the idea of his family’s Private Library destroyed, he offered to do it for his master and half-brother—but instead he stoked the bonfire with other books, all the while secreting the foul tomes of the Private Library in the family crypt, where I will now dwell until the end of my life, which I think will not be for decades, if not centuries, if what I have been told is true.

It seems the very day I was sent away to school, Lizzie and Bill resolved to create for the Calipash family’s possessions a Guardian, immortal and terrible, who would protect the satanic heirlooms of this degenerate family if again they were threatened. Such will be my fate. The golem—he with whom I am miserably and all-too-closely acquainted—would not do for the office, being constructed by his mistress, as I understand it, out of dead Calipash males for pleasure-purposes, and thus is more lover than fighter.

But the twins, like me, had gazed upon the fell contents of that strange, leather-bound book wherein I first saw the image of the winged tortoise, only they knew how to decipher its malignant text. Discovering that the pendant would transform its owner into rabid protectors of mortal treasure, long did they search for the idol that has changed me, and when they at last found it, they gave it unto my guardian—but I surprised him into death before he could fully transmute! Thus I was many times over my own executioner, and I use that word for I sense I shall be Miss Chelone Burchell for not too much more of my life. I can tell by the thickening of my skin and the swelling of my belly; the seizing of my hands into clawed monkey’s paws, the growing of two strange protuberances upon my already insensate back.

The twins had wanted the old Lord Calipash for a guardian, to punish him for his attempt to destroy the Private Library; my heinous half-aunt and half-uncle, evil though they surely are, held no ill-will towards me, and to their credit have expressed some regret over the unfortunate circumstances that have led me to this very particular doom. Their next victim was to have been Orlando; indeed, Bill himself had sent my cousin out to the crypt that night, to suffer the transformation himself. Now they are holding him for purposes of their own, I know not what—and likely never shall. They have told me only that Bill, shaven, is very like the old Lord Calipash, and so plans on impersonating his old master until the end of his days, claiming to have had a miraculous recovery from the illness that, unexpectedly, claimed his own groundskeeper!

At least I shall not be lonely. There is the voiceless golem who tries in his way to comfort me, poor creature, and the massive Private Library to read, and demoniac treasures I have found, and spend many hours contemplating. Oh, but none of it is any comfort to me; how I wish I had never come home! Calipash Manor is a blasphemous, unthinkable place, and to visit here is to face not death, but the vast terror of selfish, unfathomable evil. So ends my tale—my hands stiffen, my eyes dull—and the world shall never know what became of me. Beware those who would seek to rob my family: Soon it shall come the hour of the tortoise!

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