Elizabeth Pinkney Chronicles

The tale continues...

Charles, Vienna 1841

“Sit there, Bert. Put your feet on the grate... no wives to scold us here! That’s better...time for a small whiskey and a long talk. What a night!” I dragged another wing chair over for myself and settled into it. Good to take a load off these old legs.

My friend and colleague Albert has travelled with me to Vienna this week. There is a gathering here of scientific men...such interesting ideas. Young men; a lot of them... good to see. Handing over the baton, that’s what old Bertie and I are doing. It’s time for that young blood to take charge. Hmm...know what I’m saying? I’m still interested in my own research, mind you. The brain might move a bit slower these days; might be a bit less limber, but it still works, thank the lord. Be a terrible thing to lose that clear thought... can’t imagine. It is summer here – still crisp – these northern summers are never particularly hot. Pleasant enough though. Many of the gatherings are being held in an open plaza – nice place, good acoustics and good for me - I can hover a comfortable distance away and listen. Can’t abide a tight-packed crowd...never could.

Tonight, Bert and I sit in the cosy drawing room of our little pensionnat; our abode for the week. Hmm...simple little place; quite good enough for a pair of old fellows like us. After several days of mild weather, the clouds have closed in overhead and a nasty wind has sprung up. We sit with our drinks and a modest cigar each, and that wind shrieks in the crooked chimney. Like someone screaming. Unnerves me, I’ll just tell you quietly. Every so often, sparks explode upwards in the grate – whoosh!

Unsettling – what? Yes, all rather unsettling.

I don’t often travel to these assemblies and home is on my mind tonight.

“How is that little wife of yours?” enquires Bert, perhaps sensing my preoccupation. I smile into my moustaches. Lily is fifty-six, God keep her, a shrewd and sturdy matron, but to me she will ever suggest the winsome slip of a girl that I married... little wife indeed. A sip of whiskey warms me. “Bert,” I respond, still smiling, “she is...extraordinary.” Bert’s considerable jowls momentarily bunch upwards in an affectionate grin. He has always liked Lily. “You know,” I continue “I realised something while Caulfield was giving us his lecture today...”

“The botanist from South London? Those bright red whiskers?”

“That’s the one. He was taking that line about the narrow divide between the therapeutic and the poisonous – do you remember?” Bert switched his cigar to the other cheek. “Oh yes! He had quite the litany of deadly stems and blossoms, that one.” (Bert is a naturalist; his interests are piqued by the animal world. I fear he finds the world of plant life a trifle dull.) “Well,” I pressed on, as the fire made a particularly lively display, “it recalled to me those two unfortunates who were murdered, back home in Middlesborough – must be eight years ago now. Did you ever hear of the cases?”

“Oh yes - I did – Quite the scandal for such a quiet village. Did one of them not have all sorts of odd afflictions in the months before he was killed?”

“Yes! They both did. Rashes of boils, blood-filled eyes, odd episodes of behaviour... like flights of madness... a...a...blackening of the extremities... a kind of rotting - very nasty.” There is a brief pause while we both sip whiskey and imagine the unpleasant implications of rotting extremities. The screaming wind adds a visceral discomfort to my thoughts. “Yes...” I continue, gravely “They suffered all right. All manner of horrible afflictions. In the end, I think most of the locals – the peasants you understand; the working men - considered them to be possessed by demons! The poor wretches were at my house many times. They were old employees of Lily’s father... did you know that?”

“No! How extraordinary... I had assumed from accounts that they must have been doddering ancients.”

“Well, no – the elder – the first to be murdered, he was only fifty-three when it happened. His younger brother followed him a couple of years later – he must have been about the same age by then. So – not young, but until they were felled by persons unknown, they were hale. Oh yes, in animal good health. Owned a few paddocks at the back of the Redfern farm...quartered horses there, did a few odd jobs. Still quite upright and strong, you understand...Hmmm?” I took a meditative puff. Those old murders had never been solved. They were grisly and the strangeness that had attended them had left our quiet little ville with a real stain of tragedy.

What do you think?

I have been wracking my brains for the direction to take in a little Victorian novella that I have been toying with.

I think I have it... a rather sturdy, prosperous, apparently contented middle aged couple hide secrets. She most of all.

There have been some disturbances in their quiet little village. the husband is full of admiration for his wife's steadiness through these alarming happenings. He is a good man, and loves his wife and daughters dearly. There are things he doesn't know...things that no-one could be expected to know.

here is the introduction. Please tell me what you think.

Prelude

My name is Wrath.

I am a poison of the spirit, peculiarly female. I am a dark smoke that rises in the heart of the woman ill used. Not a child, mind you; I speak not here of the abused child, for those unformed minds have not the shadowy imagination to spawn me. I am a bitter hunger for bloody revenge and I rise, inexorably, in many lives. Lives of violence, of humiliation... Betrayal of trust...these lives are like tinder awaiting the spark.

For many, I am confined. My choking tendrils touch only their creator. Long, long lives are lived while a woman holds close my sinister power. Most die with me creaking in their heart... a bleak, unwanted lodger.

But some...some – oh! The sinew, the bared snarl of those few! When my spark ignites those lives and I can burst through; implacable, black – the beast unleashed. Bloody murder I wreak, with a fearsome scream of hard anguish. Not often... no – not very often... What has the power to strip back the heavy cloak of passivity, of gentle forbearance?

I tell you this – all those who would use their position – their long tradition of power to saturate a woman’s life with grief. Let me give you a warning.

Remember, that I am wrath – I am the one, the smoke, the hunger.

Harm not her child.