The Revenant of Thraxton Hall

CHAPTER 24 A TERRIBLE SACRIFICE

Opening the secret door had loosened decades of dust, which sifted down upon the shoulders of Wilde’s black velvet jacket. Gingerly, he attempted to brush the dust from his shoulders without getting any on his trousers, but he was certain his entire ensemble was ruined. He stepped forward to the cheval dressing mirror and peered in. The mirror’s silvering was disintegrating, but Wilde could see enough in the tattered reflection to spring an expression of despair to his face. He resembled a mummy disinterred from a dusty alcove of the British Museum. His large eyebrows were giant caterpillars limned with gray fuzz; his rich chestnut curls were matted with clingy cobwebs. The black velvet suit — now fuzzy as a giant lint ball — would have to be burned. Wilde would have to soak in a hot tub filled with his best bath salts to freshen his skin and scour away the grime of eons.

He glanced around the room. Conan Doyle was obviously not there, and the room held nothing of note except for a collection of the most inordinately ugly mirrors he had ever seen gathered into one place. He paused again to check his reflection in the mirror, brushing dust from his eyebrows as he leaned close.

Then, quite remarkably, he received a strong mental image of Conan Doyle interred in a coffin. The effect was shockingly disconcerting, and he drew back from the mirror. Suddenly from behind he heard a cry and the crack of a whip. He abandoned the mirror and moved to the window. When he looked out, he was just in time to see the black hearse draw away, the two ruffians he had spied in the kitchen, sitting at the reins. A sudden flash of inspiration struck him and he fled from the room as fast as he could.

Colors swam in his eyes, and Conan Doyle knew it was a sign that his brain, starved of oxygen, was dying. He sucked in a labored breath, but the air in the coffin was used up. He realized the end was near and focused his mind, determined that his final thought would be of the ones he loved. He thought of his wife, Louise, on their wedding day, her face still young and flushed with youth. He thought of cradling his son, a babe in arms, and singing him to sleep. He tried to think of his daughters, the sweetness of their faces as they fed the ducks at the village pond, but the darkness was starting to leak into his mind. Their images dissolved as his mind drowned in shadow.

To the great surprise of Mister Greaves and one of the maids, Oscar Wilde, dusted gray as a ghost, rushed past them in the hallway, galloped into the entrance hall, then flung open the front door and leaped down the steps. As he ran onto the gravel drive, Wilde looked to see the hearse trundling away in the distance. Toby, the gardener, was just leading an immense brown stallion and looked up in surprise as the large houseguest accosted him. “The horse!” Wilde shouted breathlessly, snatching the reins. “I must have it!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Toby said. “But you can’t ride this ’orse.”

“Emergency!” Wilde shouted. “Need the horse.”

“But you can’t ride him.”

“No time to argue. Time is crucial. Give me a leg up.”

Reluctantly, Toby cupped his hands; Wilde stepped into them and clambered on the back of the horse. It was a huge brown shire horse, bred for plowing and hauling. Wilde considered himself a passable horseman, but the mount lacked a saddle. Still, he just had to catch the hearse. He dug the heels of his two-guinea shoes into the horse’s flanks. The beast whinnied, tossed its huge head, and plunged forward. The horse galloped a dozen strides, then slid to a halt and dropped its head, catapulting Wilde over the top. He performed an arm-flailing somersault and landed flat on his back with a spleen-rupturing “OOF!”—the wind knocked out of him.

The Irishman looked up to see Toby standing over him.

“Told you ya couldn’t ride him, sir. There’s only me what can ride Fury.”

Toby assisted Wilde as he staggered, wincing, to his feet. When the playwright could finally draw breath, he said in a tight voice, “Then you must carry me pillion.”

Moments later, Fury thundered off with Toby at the reins and Wilde bouncing wildly behind, oofing with every lunge. They cantered out of the courtyard, down the stony lane, and galloped through the gates of the grounds.

Finally the road descended to where the hearse was pulling clear of the ford, water dripping from its wheels.

“Stop! Stop!” Wilde called out. The driver of the hearse, the short man Wilde had seen in the kitchen, shared a look with the large man at his side. For a moment, it looked as if they would ignore his cries and carry on, but then the hearse pulled up just a few yards clear of the ford.

Toby drew Fury up and Wilde slid off the back of the horse, walking stiff-legged.

“Thank you,” he said breathlessly, and then added, “It is a fortunate thing I already have two strapping children. After that ride, I believe my days of fatherhood are forever behind me.” After he caught his breath, he turned his attention to the hearse and its two drivers on the far side of the ford. “You there,” he shouted, “fetch that hearse back over here.”

The small man wiped a runny nose on his sleeve and shouted back. “We can’t, sir. There ain’t no room to turn the hearse about.”

Wilde threw a questioning glance at Toby atop the horse. “He’s right,” the gardener agreed. “You’ll have to wade across.”

Wilde looked down at his two-guinea shoes, now scuffed at the toes and gray with dust. He looked back at the two ruffians. He was convinced that Conan Doyle lay in a coffin in the back of the hearse. Every second he delayed could be critical. He took a deep breath in through his nose, pulled his shoulders back, and waded into the ford. With the first step, frigid water flooded his shoes, snatching the breath from his lungs. The bottom of the ford was covered in river-rounded rocks, slippery with moss and green slime. Midway across, the press of water was strong. One foot shot out from under him. He stumbled, splashing water, arms windmilling, and nearly fell, but managed to catch himself and wobble upright. Finally he splashed from the water onto muddy ground, his silk socks squelching with each step. He marched up to the hearse, summoning every ounce of gravitas he possessed. “The coffin,” he said in his most imperious tone. “I demand to see inside it.”

The two men looked at one another uncertainly. Wilde was tall and broad, but the redheaded ruffian was the size of a draught ox — and almost as intelligent. He scratched his fiery muttonchops with a sandpaper sound. When he answered, his tone spoke of clenched fists and broken noses. “Wot you wanna look in the box for?”

Wilde cleared his throat, feigning impatience. “I believe you have a friend of mine in there.” He turned to shout over his shoulder to Toby. “If these ruffians refuse to comply, you are to ride to Slattenmere and fetch the appropriate authorities.”

Toby’s face registered puzzlement. It was clear he had no idea who the “authorities” might be, or why their compliance was necessary. Still, Wilde’s bluff worked. A look of fear flashed between the two men. Slowly, reluctantly, the small man opened the double doors. Inside the hearse was a coffin and several leather trunks.

“The lid,” Wilde commanded, nodding at the coffin. “Open it.”

With a final reluctant grunt, the two men set about unfastening the coffin screws, which were in the shape of silver doves. He watched as they undid the final screw.

“Stand aside.” Wilde slid his fingertips under the coffin lid and snatched it open, fully expecting to see Conan Doyle, blinking but grateful to be rescued.

“Oh gawd!” Wilde lamented, recoiling from the scene. “Not again.” Inside the coffin, her eyes wide open and the bandage holding her mouth shut fallen away from the jostling ride, was the corpse of Madame Zhozhovsky. Wilde shut tight his eyes, fumbling in his jacket pocket for a scented handkerchief, and clamped it over his nose and mouth before opening them again.

“What was you looking for, sir?” Toby asked a downcast Wilde after he slogged back across the ford. The Irishman stared down at his ruined shoes, his lower lip thrust out petulantly.

“I thought I had received a telepathic message from a friend who was in dire straits. I now realize that all this exposure to psychic mumbo jumbo is serving to turn my brains to mush. I have no doubt that I will return to the hall to find Conan Doyle taking his ease in a comfy armchair, smoking a fine cigar and mulling a snifter of brandy.”

By now it was stifling hot inside the coffin, and Conan Doyle drifted in and out of oxygen-starved delirium. Distantly, he heard something… a squealing… and knew what it was: voracious rats chewing into the coffin, hungry for fresh meat. But the squealing went on, and dimly he recognized it as the sound of coffin screws being unscrewed.

A glimmering crack formed in the darkness, and then split wide as the coffin lid was flung open. Fresh, cool air swept his body. He squinted up into the light, where a luminous angel hovered over him. The angel floated closer. Cool hands cupped his face and raised his head. The angel had a face lifted from the stained-glass window of a Renaissance cathedral: a being lit from within — short, Joan of Arc hair, a graceful swan neck, features noble, and androgynously beautiful.

I am dead, he thought. And this is the body’s resurrection.

The angel placed a loving hand upon his cheek and bent low over him. His lips met the angel’s in a kiss as it breathed life back into him. As his lungs filled once again with air, a terrific pressure roared into his head. The sutures of his skull creaked as the pressure built and built. Hammer blows pounded against the back of his eyeballs as his brain, a balloon blown past bursting, exploded in a shower of fiery sparks.