A Parish Darker: A Victorian Suspense Novella (8 page)

A knot entwined my throbbing heart and troubled stomach. “A man is dead here, Baron. You—” I caught myself. “We—were involved. It is our duty to report what has happened. His trespassing and our self-defense are evident! This man may have a family out there; people who will look for him. If we do not report this—”

My host feigned no interest in my plea, replacing the rat that favored him so dearly back into its cage and saying only, “Should someone come seeking him, it is to our greatest benefit that he never be found.”

His large hand rested on my shoulder from behind, squeezing my collar with gentle yet convincing grip. “Edwin, there are things that you cannot trust to the hearts of men. They are feeble creatures, you see, ones that do not know the difference between what should be done and what should not.”

The pool of blood beneath us began pouring outward toward our feet. “What do we—” I stammered, unable to find the phrasing that would articulate the conflict swelling in my mind.

“ ‘
Do’?” the Baron asked, completing my thought. “We are to do nothing. Nothing more than is necessary, of course. This is not a complicated matter. A man intruded upon my home and nearly killed my guest! I say we owe him nothing, not even a burial. The only crime here is that his blood,” he paused, using his boot to move the man’s outstretched arm closer to his body, “has stained the floor of my study. That will not do. It will take considerable work to clean this.”

Baron von Savanberg began humming an unfamiliar tune as he pranced about the study to make his way to the liquor cabinet. On his way, he stepped over the dead body as if it were a mere lump in the rug. “You look as if you could use a drink,” said he, preparing a concoction and pouring a glass without seeking my approval.

After filling a glass for himself with a heavier brand, he passed my glass and insisted I drink. “Baron, this is—” The words escaped me with an exasperated message all their own.

“Tell me something,” said he, downing the considerable contents of his glass in only one swig, “what is it you think is the difference between the right and the wrong? Both just words—words with history and perceived meanings, but words all the same. These words vary in their severity and applicability, no? Can we make such sweeping determinations of one’s actions with the precious little information we have in a given moment? I would say not. What say you?”

The glass in my hand, while full, felt empty all the same. I had no thirst or appetite of any kind. The Baron guided the glass to my mouth, leaving me little choice but to drink.

“Baron,” I said with a light air as I finished drinking, “I have to ask you something.”

With cheer in his demeanor, the Baron replied in turn, saying, “Yes, my friend? What is it?”

I looked down to the body, resolved to the inevitability of both my question and its answer.

The Baron smiled.

My confused state lingered as I was unable to reconcile my previous impression of the Baron with this reality. My host had no qualms of any kind, and the further distanced we were from the event itself, the more at peace he seemed.

My head began to ache with remorse, confusion, and a litany of related sensations I cannot put to words even now. Something terrible was happening and I was powerless to act without a better understanding of what had brought us to this point.

Balance became secondary to merely keeping my eyes open. The details now are inexact in my memory, just as they were then, but I recall my weight wobbling beneath me and the Baron placing his hand on my back. He did so with absolute firmness and expectation. I knew in that moment that he had waited by me with that purpose in mind.

I turned and clutched at his shoulder, placing all my weight upon him.

“Come now, Edwin,” said he in comfort. “Rest yourself and leave this in my care.”

Between these spurts of consciousness, I know not what occurred inside of Castle Savanberg. Something of unimaginable proportions persists in my imagination to this day, but I dared not speculate on the Baron’s movements then or now. In many ways, the exact means with which he carried out his business was and is best left unknown, only to the mind’s eye and little else.

The scented fog of the gas lamps left no mystery as to my whereabouts, even before my eyes opened. With a bleary disposition, each of my senses began to return one at a time. The vaulted ceiling, bright lighting, and large gallery window overlooking the garden left no doubt I had awoken in the estate’s vast library.

My accommodations at the time were modest but comfortable. The couch my back rested against was firm, though the pillow under which my head had settled was remarkably more welcoming. A dull ache began to settle in my head, one that made me feel weary and unstable.

“You will forgive me,” said a voice behind me as a glass was placed atop the tea table to my side. “You were in such an agitated state that I felt compelled to calm your nerves in whatever manner I could. Surely the rest has done you some good?”

I turned as much as I could from my lax position on the sofa. There stood Baron Lechner von Savanberg, his demeanor as calm and collected as it had been for much of my stay. To the outside observer, he would have appeared little worse for wear than when the night began. His dining jacket had been neatly pressed and left atop one of the spare chairs nearby. His buttoned vest, dark in color, and outer sleeves of his white dress shirt showed few signs of what had transpired. Apart from some splatters of blood and bodily fluids on his pant leg, it was as if the night had, in reality, been uneventful.

After removing his antique pocket watch and taking note of the time of just past one o’clock in the morning, he returned it and began to sort through the keys in his pocket. The ring was sizable, enough to house more than a dozen keys, and it was not long before I realized nearly all of them were used for only one purpose.

“The night is indeed still young yet,” mused my host. “We have just over one hour to relax. Time is ours now—moments to ensure that we know where we stand, and where we will when this is all over.”

It was then that he seated himself across from me, crossed his legs, and placed his interlaced fingers upon his knee. Our eyes would be focused on one another for the breadth of the lengthy and all-too-revealing conversation that ensued.

“Baron, what is it that’s happened?” My hand rested on my forehead as I asked many questions of the “what”, “who”, and “why” variety. I asked all that had been troubling me to that point, sometimes in incoherent form. This rambling came to an end when the Baron laughed and kicked his foot outward in a display of gleeful emotion.

 “
What is it you think of me?” asked my host whose royal candor was on exhibition even then. “Do you see me as good? Evil? Please speak freely. We have time on our side, for now.”

I straightened my posture, sitting up onto the couch with a bend in my back, saying wearily, “What should I think?”

“Well, dear boy, that depends on what you think of my impetuses. Do you feel you are being kept here against your will?”

“Kept here, by either circumstance or your will,” I replied. “I don’t know which is true.”

“The weather is not under my control, as convenient an idea as that is,” said the Baron, smiling as he uttered the last of those words. “Control can be both good and it can be bad, no? If I were controlling your actions with your safety in mind, and your very survival at that, would it be bad? Whereas if I were doing so purely for my own benefit, you would say it was bad, would you not?”

“Which is it?” I asked, sensing his words to be a confession of sorts.

“It is perhaps both, or neither. Maybe it is one or maybe it is the other. That is regretfully not for me to say. Tonight, in these moments that remain between us, I wish to hear more from you than myself. There are sanctions and confirmations we must address, you see.”

The Baron, in all his elegance, showed no concern for my dirtied clothing soiling the upholstery of his no doubt expensive chair there in the library.  I leaned forward, unable to free myself from his gaze that held me captive. Just as I did so, so, too, did my host.

“You spoke earlier of your future with Miss Robertson, did you not?” he asked, smiling. “For someone who has captivated you so, I am sure you do not leave home without a picture by your side.”

Though he spoke in a casual and considerate fashion, it was then that I confirmed the Baron was not as upfront with me as I had been him. I could not bring myself to reply, not with any immediacy.

“Perhaps there, in your pocket watch? There, the one with gold trimming and the embossed face.” As he spoke, he motioned toward my pocket where the watch was being kept. To my recollection, I had not removed the watch in his presence to that point. His only opportunity to have seen it would have been in my room at some point in my stay. When, I was not sure, but it soon was evident it mattered little.

With reluctance, I removed the watch but kept firm hold of it, extending my arm and it toward the Baron. “I will share the watch with you, but only on one condition that you must meet, to my satisfaction.”

He held out his own hand over the table between us. “Oh! Anything! What is it you need of me?”

“I need to know one thing,” I said, opening the watch and placing it facing him on the tabletop. “Not about the watch, and not about its make or color or its character.”

“Then?” the Baron asked. “What is it, my friend?”

I scanned my recollections to be certain and proceeded with confidence. “How did you know her name?”

He smiled and soon laughed while clapping his hands. “Oh, your dear Emilia? You mentioned her at dinner. Your fainting spell must have done more to your memory than you know.”

“I did,” I confirmed, my hands covering my lower face as my incisors pressed against the tip of my thumb, “but I also didn’t.” Even if he had somehow seen the letter in my room that had been safely stored away, there was still one detail he had availed himself that he should not have otherwise been privy. “Baron, you must tell me how you knew her family’s name. I am certain I never mentioned it in your presence and it is on no document or piece of paper I would have brought with me. There is no reason you should know it.”

My host took to tapping together the top and bottom canines of his well-kept teeth, soon adding his forefinger onto the arm of the chair to the mix, its nail producing a unifying sound amongst them. His teeth meeting in such a way showed a thoughtful look, one that I had not yet seen.

“You are perceptive, Edwin,” said he, rolling his sleeves to his forearms and straightening his pant leg. “You are thoughtful all your own. Never let anyone insinuate otherwise. I did not expect all to be so easy, but such is how it should be. Life will always be surprising and, in these few choice matters, a little challenging. Before we embark for that avenue of conversation, there is another that I feel will enflame your knowledge a little more—something substantial, for the two of us, to share that we may both remember even as age catches up to us. Will you come on this journey with me, just for a moment?”

I nodded, observing the Baron’s static eyes over the bridge of my interlaced fingers.

“There are those out there, thinkers and some in the sciences, who believe that we are not responsible for deciding what becomes of us. They say it is not of our accord. Some believe these lives of ours to be the machinations of overly-concerned deities, but I have always roundly dismissed such a notion,” said the Baron, waving his hand in demonstration. “There are only two things, two moments, in one’s life that are actually of any great consequence or meaning. Do you follow?”