The Legacy - Part VIII
"Education is not the filling of a pot but the lighting of a fire." Yeats
Previously in Part VII
“it’s not fair,” Steven spat the words into his pillow.
Bring them to me. I have a lesson for all who deserve to know the meaning of justice. My scales tip towards the righteous…
Part VIII
In the rectory, Mother opens the curtains of Steven’s room. The November sun wakes the day; washes distant hills to graduated bands of watercolour greys and greens as it rises from behind the horizon and fires the rusting leaves that still cling to their frost-silvered branches. Low in the sky, it’s brightness closes Mother’s eyes and she turns from it to find the bed is empty. She runs from the room to search about the house, but Steven is nowhere to be found.
The night before….
Mother had left it late to tap on his door hoping that he had calmed enough to wish for comfort and a bedtime story. He was awake, but would not turn to face her as she perched on the side of his bed.
“I’m sorry Mummy and Daddy read your diary, my darling.”
His back tightened but he did not speak.
“It was wrong of us, but…but we were worried about you.”
He shifted slightly under his covers.
“Ever since the horrible slugs, you’ve seemed so angry and we don’t know what’s wrong.”
He stiffened to absolute stillness.
She reached out a hand to rest it on his shoulder. “Mummy and Daddy love you, and Harry does too, even if he is silly and mean sometimes. That’s just big brothers for you. Uncle Jack was just the same to me when we were young, you know.”
Steven held his breath, willing her to leave.
“You have just not seemed like our happy boy, Steven, darling. And we want you to be happy.”
Steven turned towards her, but his face was still obscured by the duvet. “Why did you take my private secret things then?” he mumbled, more accusation than question.
Mother didn’t know what to say; didn’t know how to explain her fears, but she knew she must say something.
“Well darling, I just happened to see what you were writing, I wasn’t trying to pry. And do you know, Mummy doesn’t know how to read Latin – you’re such a clever boy – I had to look it up. And I was worried because it was little bit scary for Mummy and so I was worried that you were scared. Mummies always worry about their boys, and…”
“I’m not a baby anymore, Mother.” Steven interrupted and emerged from the duvet to fix her with a stare. She smiled back, trying but failing to win a smile from him.
“Steven…how do you know how to write Latin?”
“It’s a see-cret…” – a whisper comes to his ear.
“Steven…I asked your teachers, but none of them know Latin. So how did you learn it?”
“There’s a book. In the church.”
“Did you copy out of a book?”
“Oh no, mummy. The man taught me… with the book.”
Mother’s throat was wrung shut in sudden dryness. Desperate not to let her fear show, but failing, she croaked “What man, darling?”
“The Underground Man.”
Her mouth hung useless and open; tears started from her eyes.
“I’m tired now mummy,” Steven said, turning his back to her again, away from the light shining in from the hallway which hid in shadow the terror in his mother’s face. He hugged his bear close to him.
“Steven, you wouldn’t tell lies to mummy, would you?”
“Of course not mummy. Night night.”
“Night night, darling.” She managed to whisper, eventually, staring at his back with her face screaming to understand what was happening. She laboured from the room and kept her tears silent, the effort of it leaving her barely strength to walk to the door.
“We must take him to see someone, Marcus. Promise me we will take him tomorrow!” she sobbed into Father’s shoulder downstairs.
What did he mean? The Underground Man?
Upstairs Steven was tucked up and hugging Bear, but he was not asleep. His face was set, determined.
“Mummy doesn’t believe me, Bear. She doesn’t believe in the Underground Man. But we can make her.”
He waited until the house was quiet, listened for the sounds that he’d come to know; the sound of a house fast asleep. Dressed in warm clothes, he stole into the kitchen with Bear to find biscuits and Father’s big rubber torch. Then he crept out into the night, Bear tucked under one arm for company. Even with the world revealed to him as now it was, he was a little boy and the darkness still held fears; only fewer than once it did. In the fruit bowl, where Mother will find it in the morning, there is left a note:-
To Mummy and Daddy. SECRET!
In the graveyard of St. Cornelius, something like the wind followed the path that Steven has well trod through the wilting autumnal undergrowth towards the ruined church.
Harry is awakened by Mother’s screams and her panicked footfall on the stairs. She is shrieking about Steven, about calling the police and about the Underground Man?When he enters the kitchen in his dressing gown, he sits at the table, but it’s clear that he will have to get breakfast himself. Mother and Father are too busy shouting about his weird, pathetic brother to have got anything ready.
Bloody Steven!
Swearing has become quite thing for him amongst his school friends. He sighs and fetches the breakfast cereal himself. Steven has gone missing, it seems.
Who bloody cares. I hope he never comes back.
Harry pours milk into his bowl and sees the note that Steven has left. He snatches it up, eager to read the secret left for his parents. Mother has wrestled the telephone from Father’s hands and is about to call the police when Harry shouts “He’s in the bloody church. Look. He left you a stupid map.” He takes some delight in getting away with the swearing, as the parents grab the paper from him, oblivious to anything else.
“He’s always going in the church, didn’t you know?”
They ignore him and rush outside. Left to his own devices, Harry thinks about whether he will miss school or not now, which would be a shame because today is double games, which is his favourite. Harry is good at games. Not the cowardly, creeping about games that Steven likes; physical games that Harry wins because he is fast and strong. Games that Steven is going to lose, because he is small and weak. And stupid. And pathetic.
He's just doing it for attention, the bloody bugger.
He chases the last bit of cereal around his bowl chanting “Bloody bugger.” over and over as he plots painful revenges for Steven. Harry doesn’t care that Steven is only eight; he just cares that Steven won the last game but will not win the next one. The gloves are off.
Father has to help Mother to climb into the churchyard over the wall, because the gate is chained and rusted tight. They stumble in their inappropriate footwear and Mother almost falls over Speighthart’s tombstone in her haste. Neither notice the name engraved up on it as they push through the low sweeping branches of the yew, out from the shadows of Mephistopheles’s skirt and into the churchyard, calling Steven’s name.
Dew soaks them but they push on through spider-traced nettles and briars, following a path of sorts towards the squat hulk of the church. Ivy covers it, like a primal spirit hauling itself from the earth and up the tower to crawl in through the belfry windows.
They approach the great door and both sense something, like a pressure in the air before them. It slows them imperceptibly as they push through the spectral emanation that washes around the building. It swirls, just beyond the visible spectrum, but not beyond the power of all senses to detect. The heavy door is boarded and bolted shut: Steven cannot have entered there. They begin to shout his name more loudly, insistently, then circle the church looking for another way in. Ivy covers all the windows, He cannot have gone in that way - there must be another door, perhaps to the vestry at the rear? As they circle the building, their passage sends ripples through the aether.
Ahhhh… cometh they now the Unworthies! What manner of parents be these whose coddling of the elder brother and denigrations of the younger have been such to bring him hither, our most dear nephew. Destitute of recognition and void of appreciation, driven out from his home, crying into the night to seek my succour and patronage. Am I more comfort to the boy than this pitiful pair; and I but a phantom uncle, long ripped from the mortal realm? Such disgrace upon our name that this be so! Woe be to them! And what of the father, whose footsteps fall within my manor? His descendancy marks him out for the curse. It matters not that he bears the name Speighthart, for upon it he has heaped yet further shame.
Mother and Father bang upon the door church door, yelling for Steven, but he does not hear them from deep within. Mother goes left and Father goes right, to circle the Church, seeking another way in. Their paths meet by a set of stone steps beneath a lichen crusted portico. The iron grating of its door has perished and thick flakes of rust fall as they push it open and stare down into a gloom that devours the steps with darkness. They hesitate, then mother looks at the scribbled paper in her hand…it is a crude drawing of the church. In front of it are two stick figures – a small one and a tall, thin one with a stick and a hat. The tall one is labelled “Underground Man” and an arrow points to the Church. She rushes down the steps, calling her son’s name over and over.
The crypt of the church is dark but all the same it does not take them long to find Steven. Flickering candle light draws them to where they discover him, lying on the floor within an ante chamber. It appears to have once been an office, lined with shelves, crammed with drawers and a desk, laden with dusty books and paraphernalia. Steven is alone, but their relief at finding him so is brief.
“Steven! Steven are you alright!” Mother falls to her knees beside him.
He sits upright “Of course mummy. I knew you would come. I wanted you to come.”
“What are you doing here, Steven, son? We’ve been worried sick!”
Steven turns and picks up a figurine from the floor, fashioned from sticks, scraps of cloth, string and wire. He holds it up to Father. “This is Jack Slatnapper, Daddy. He had to have his hand chopped off.”
The parents are bemused, but then they notice amongst the candles, line upon line of the crudely fashioned dolls. Steven picks another one up and holds it out to them. “This one is Crump, the rat catcher. He poisoned everyone! And this one’s Phillipa Flux, she died in the poorhouse, a disgraced harlot. This one’s Minchin, he came to steal the lead and rats ate his eyeballs.”
“Steven, what…what are you saying? What are all these…these things?”
“This is Elspeth Rudgesparrow – a gravestone fell on her head and then she went mad.” Steven looked from one to the other at their incredulous faces. “These are all the bad people that died, Daddy,” he says, sweeping his arm over the dozens of effigies around him. “The Underground Man told me all about them. He tells me everything. In my head.”
Steven smiles up at them, smug with the secrets he’s sharing, but they still don’t seem to understand. “Can’t you hear him? He’s talking now.” Steven cocks his head to one side.
Mother claps a hand to her mouth. Father stoops to grab hold of him beneath his arms and lift him up in the brisk, no-nonsense way that fathers have.
“Enough of this now, Steven. Time to go home.”
“The Underground Man says “A curse be upon you!” Daddy.”
“ENOUGH, Steven! Enough!”
Steven says nothing more. The look he gives Father says everything.
To be continued…in Part IX
Oh my, oh my, oh my... and to think, you once intended this to be a Christmas story!
So insanely good