Mansfield with Monsters (19 page)

The guns sounded again, and the ship rocked back a little towards upright.

“There, we may be…” Grandma began, but was cut off by the shattering of glass and the splintering of wood as something crashed through the wall of the cabin. The tip of a great tentacle swung through the room, smashing into the washbasin and then probing back and forth.

Fenella thought she heard, over the bellows of the sea monster and the cries above, her grandmother praying. She closed her eyes and held on to the door, listening to the wheezing of her grandma's rapid breathing and the groaning of the ship as the great beast tried to crush the life out of it.

“Could you pass me the umbrella, dear?” asked Grandma breathlessly.

Fenella opened one eye and saw her grandmother bracing herself against one wall of the cabin, her Kraken-bane spike in one hand, the other gripping a mighty sucker on the tentacle. As Fenella reached for the swan-necked umbrella she saw her grandma plunge the spike deep into the heart of the sucker.

The main gun sounded again, a screaming man fell through the great grey darkness beyond the tentacle, and Grandma's hand closed around the swan neck of the umbrella. As the tentacle began to withdraw Grandma leapt after it, swinging the umbrella by its tip in a great arc. Fenella saw the beak of the swan strike the base of the Kraken-bane spike, pushing it deep into the greenblack flesh. The boat shuddered again and tipped violently toward an upright position.

Fenella tumbled once again through the cabin toward her bunk. She slammed into her grandma, both of them coming to rest in a pile of broken wood and glass splinters. Fenella wanted to apologise but found she had quite lost her voice. The ship bobbed gently in the water, a quiet calm settling over it.

“There now, that wasn't so bad, was it?” asked Grandma.

Fenella shook her head, brushed glass from her leg. She was surprised to see that neither her grandma nor she herself appeared to be injured. Grandma smiled and winked at her, and shook the swan head of her umbrella. A drop of slime slipped from the tip of the swan's beak and dropped to the floor of the cabin.

“You didn't think your grandma could do that either, did you?” said she. She wrapped an arm around Fenella's shoulder and laughed.

“You'd better have a biscuit to steady yourself before you move.”

Night was over, and it was cold. Peering through the hole in the cabin wall she could see far off some rocks. Now they were scattered over with foam; now a gull flipped by; and now there came a long piece of real land.

“It's land, Grandma,” said Fenella, wonderingly, as though they had been at sea for weeks together. She hugged herself; she stood on one leg and rubbed it with the toes of the other foot; she was trembling. Oh, it had all been so sad lately. Was it going to change? But all her grandma said was, “Make haste, child. I should leave your nice banana for the stewardess as you haven't eaten it.” And Fenella put on her black clothes again and a button sprang off one of her gloves and rolled to where she couldn't reach it. They went up on deck.

But if it had been cold in the cabin, on deck it was like ice. The sun was not up yet, but the stars were dim, and the cold pale sky was the same colour as the cold pale sea. On the land a white mist rose and fell. On the deck the stewards and stewardesses tended to the injured, valiant young survivors shared their stories of battle with the great sea beast, and old sea hands watched the water with eyes of stone. The beast had subsided; it would return. Until the great hunt was successful those eyes would not soften. Fenella knew her father's eyes would grow as cold and hard on the hunt. She prayed his ship would be the one to bring in the beast.

Now they could see quite plainly dark bush. Even the shapes of the umbrella ferns showed, and those strange silvery withered trees that are like skeletons… Now they could see the landing-stage and some little houses, pale too, clustered together, like shells on the lid of a box, ringed round with great wooden spikes like toothpicks. The other passengers tramped up and down, but more slowly than they had the night before, and they looked gloomy.

And now the landing-stage came out to meet them. Slowly it swam towards the Picton boat, and a man holding a coil of rope, and a cart with a small drooping horse and another man sitting on the step, came too.

“It's Mr Penreddy, Fenella, come for us,” said grandma. She sounded pleased. Her white waxen cheeks were blue with cold, her chin trembled, and she had to keep wiping her eyes and her little pink nose.

“You've got my—”

“Yes, Grandma.” Fenella showed it to her.

The rope came flying through the air, and ‘smack' it fell on to the deck. The gangway was lowered. Again Fenella followed her grandma on to the wharf over to the little cart, and a moment later they were bowling away. The hooves of the little horse drummed over the wooden piles, then sank softly into the sandy road. Not a soul was to be seen; there was not even a feather of smoke. The mist rose and fell and the sea still sounded asleep as slowly it turned on the beach.

“I seen Mr Crane yestiddy,” said Mr Penreddy. “He looked himself then. Missus knocked him up a batch of scones last week.”

And now the little horse pulled up over a rise to a little valley filled with houses. They came to a halt before one of the houses. They got down. Fenella put her hand on the gate, and the big, trembling dew-drops soaked through her glove-tips. Up a little path of round white pebbles they went, with drenched sleeping flowers on either side. Grandma's delicate white picotees were so heavy with dew that they were fallen, but their sweet smell was part of the cold morning. The blinds were down in the little house; they mounted the steps on to the veranda. A pair of old bluchers was on one side of the door, and a large red watering-can on the other.

“Tut! tut! Your grandpa,” said Grandma. She turned the handle. Not a sound. She called, “Walter!” And immediately a deep voice that sounded half stifled called back, “Is that you, Mary?”

“Wait, dear,” said Grandma. “Go in there.” She pushed Fenella gently into a small dusky sitting-room.

On the table a white cat, that had been folded up like a camel, rose, stretched itself, yawned, and then sprang on to the tips of its toes. Fenella buried one cold little hand in the white, warm fur, and smiled timidly while she stroked and listened to Grandma's gentle voice and the rolling tones of Grandpa. The cat purred and sniffed and licked at the beak of the swan.

A door creaked. “Come in, dear.” The old woman beckoned, Fenella followed. There, lying to one side on an immense bed, lay Grandpa. Just his head with a white tuft and his rosy face and long silver beard showed over the quilt. He was like a very old wide-awake bird.

“Well, my girl!” said Grandpa. “Give us a kiss!” Fenella kissed him. “Ugh!” said Grandpa. “Her little nose is as cold as a button. What's that she's holding? Her grandma's umbrella?”

Fenella smiled again, and crooked the swan neck over the bed-rail. Above the bed there was a big text in a deep black frame:

“For every kind of beasts,

and of birds, and of serpents,

and of things in the sea,

is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind.”

“Yer grandma painted that,” said Grandpa. And he ruffled his white tuft and looked at Fenella so merrily she almost thought he winked at her.

Her First Bite

Exactly when the hunt began Leila would have found it hard to say. Perhaps her first real prey was the cab. It did not matter that she shared the cab with her new blood-kin, the Sheridan girls and their brother. She sat back in her own little corner of it, and the bolster on which her cold hand rested pulsed like the wrist of an unknown young man; and away they bowled, past waltzing lamp-posts and houses and fences and trees, the whole night alive to her new vampiric eyes.

“Have you really never been to a ball before, Leila? But, my child, how too weird—” cried the Sheridan girls.

“Our nearest neighbour was fifteen miles,” said Leila softly, gently opening and shutting her fan.

Oh dear, how hard it was to be indifferent like the others! She tried not to smile too much; to hide her fangs behind patient lips. But every single thing was so new and exciting… Meg's tuberoses, Jose's long loop of amber, Laura's little dark head, pushing above her white fur like a flower through snow. She would remember for ever. Laurie leant forward and put his hand on Laura's knee.

“Look here, darling,” he said. “Remember: stop before the heart slows and back out for the ninth dance.”

Oh, how marvellous to have kindred! In her excitement Leila felt that if there had been time, if it hadn't been impossible, she couldn't have helped crying because she had been an only child, and no brother had ever said ‘darling' to her.

But, of course, there was no time. They were at the drill hall already; there were cabs in front of them and cabs behind. The road was bright on either side with moving fan-like lights, and on the pavement gay couples seemed to float through the air; little satin shoes chased each other like birds.

“Hold on to me, Leila; you'll latch on to the first mortal you see,” said Laura.

“Come on, girls, let's make a dash for it,” said Laurie.

Leila put two fingers on Laura's pink velvet cloak, and they were somehow lifted past the big golden lantern, carried along the passage, and pushed into the little room marked ‘Ladies'. Here the crowd was so great there was hardly space to take off their things; the noise of pulsing hearts was deafening. Two benches on either side were stacked high with wraps. Two old women in white aprons ran up and down tossing fresh armfuls. And everybody else was pressing forward trying to get at the little dressing-table, of course, but kindred had no need of the mirror at the far end.

A great quivering jet of gas lighted the ladies' room. It couldn't wait; it was dancing already. When the door opened again and there came a burst of tuning from the drill hall, it leapt almost to the ceiling.

Dark girls, fair girls were patting their hair, tying ribbons again, tucking handkerchiefs down the fronts of their bodices next to their fluttering chests, smoothing marble-white gloves. And because they were all laughing, their purple veins throbbing beneath sheer skin, it seemed to Leila that they were all lovely.

“Aren't there any invisible hair-pins?” cried a voice. “How most extraordinary! I can't see a single invisible hair-pin.”

“Powder my back, there's a darling,” cried someone else.

“But I must have a needle and cotton. I've torn simply miles and miles of the frill,” wailed a third.

Then, “Pass them along, pass them along!” The straw basket of programmes was tossed from arm to arm. Darling little pink-and-silver programmes, with pink pencils and fluffy tassels. Leila's fingers shook as she took one out of the basket. She wanted to ask someone, “Am I meant to have one too?” but she had just time to read: “Waltz 3. ‘Two, Two in a Canoe'. Polka 4. ‘Making the Feathers Fly', ” when Meg cried, “Ready, Leila?” and they pressed their way through the tantalising crush in the passage towards the big double doors of the drill hall.

Dancing had not begun yet, but the band had stopped tuning, and the noise was so great it seemed that when it did begin to play it would never be heard over the thundering heartbeats and rise and fall of every breath. Leila, pressing close to Meg, looking over Meg's shoulder, felt that even the little quivering coloured flags strung across the ceiling were talking. She quite forgot to be shy. And the rush of longing for her mortal life in a forsaken up-country home, listening to the baby owls crying ‘More pork' in the moon-light, was changed to a rush of joy so sweet that it was hard to bear alone. She clutched her fan, and, gazing at the gleaming, golden floor, the azaleas, the lanterns, the stage at one end with its red carpet and gilt chairs and the band in a corner, she thought breathlessly, “How heavenly; how simply heavenly!”

All the girls stood grouped together at one side of the doors, the men at the other, and the chaperones in dark dresses, smiling rather foolishly, walked with little careful steps over the polished floor towards the stage.

“This is my little country cousin Leila. Be nice to her. Find her partners; she's under my wing,” said Meg, going up to one girl after another.

Strange faces smiled at Leila—sweetly, vaguely. Strange voices answered, “Of course, my dear.” But Leila felt the girls didn't really see her for what she was. They were looking towards the men. Why didn't the men begin? What were they waiting for? There they stood, smoothing their gloves, patting their glossy hair and smiling among themselves. Then, quite suddenly, as if they had only just made up their minds that that was what they had to do, the men came gliding over the parquet. There was a joyful flutter among the girls. A tall, fair man flew up to Meg, seized her programme, scribbled something; Meg passed him on to Leila. “May I have the pleasure?” He ducked and smiled, unaware he had signed his name for more than a dance. There came a dark man wearing an eyeglass, then cousin Laurie with a friend, and Laura with a little freckled fellow whose tie was crooked.

Then quite an old man—fat, with a big bald patch on his head—took Leila's programme and murmured, “Let me see, let me see!” And he was a long time comparing his programme, which looked black with names, with hers. “Oh, please don't bother,” she said eagerly. But instead of replying the fat man wrote something, glanced at her again. “Do I remember this bright little face?” he said softly. “Is it known to me of yore?” At that moment the band began playing; the fat man disappeared. He was tossed away on a great wave of music that came flying over the gleaming floor, breaking the groups up into couples, scattering them, sending them spinning…

Leila had learned to dance at boarding school. Every Saturday afternoon the boarders were hurried off to a little corrugated iron mission hall for ‘select' classes, back when she had been able to pass over thresholds with crosses hung above their door. But the difference between that dusty-smelling hall—with calico texts on the walls, the poor terrified little woman in a brown velvet toque with rabbit's ears thumping the cold piano, Miss Eccles poking the girls' feet with her long white wand—and this was so tremendous that Leila was sure if her prey didn't come and she had to listen to that marvellous music and to watch the others sliding, gliding over the golden floor, she would die, if her kind could die from hunger, or faint, or lift her arms and fly out of one of those dark windows that showed the stars.

“Ours, I think—” Someone bowed, smiled, and offered her his arm; she hadn't to die after all. Someone's hand pressed her waist, and she floated away like a flower that is tossed into a pool.

“Quite a good floor, isn't it?” drawled a faint voice close to her ear.

“I think it's most beautifully slippery,” said Leila. The neck above his stiff collar glistened with sweat.

“Pardon!” The faint voice sounded surprised. Leila said it again. And there was a tiny pause before the voice echoed, “Oh, quite!” and she was swung round again.

He steered so beautifully. That was the great difference between dancing with girls and men, Leila decided. Girls banged into each other, and stamped on each other's feet; the girl who was gentleman always clutched you so.

The azaleas were separate flowers no longer; they were pink and white flags streaming by.

“Were you at the Bells' last week?” the voice came again. Leila wondered whether she ought to ask him if he would like to stop, to leave and go somewhere alone.

“No, this is my first time,” said she.

Her partner gave a little gasping laugh. “Oh, I say,” he protested.

“It is really the first dance I've ever been to.” Leila was most fervent. It was such a relief to be able to tell somebody. “You see, I've lived in the country all my life up till now…”

At that moment the music stopped, and they went to sit on two chairs against the wall. Leila tucked her pink satin feet under and fanned herself.

Laura passed and gave her the faintest little wink; it made Leila wonder for a moment whether she was quite ready after all. Certainly her partner did not say very much. He coughed, tucked his handkerchief away, pulled down his waistcoat, took a minute thread off his sleeve. But it didn't matter. Almost immediately the band started and her second partner seemed to spring from the ceiling.

“Floor's not bad,” said the new voice. Did one always begin with the floor? And then, “Were you at the Neaves' on Tuesday?” And again Leila explained. Perhaps it was a little strange that her partners were not more interested. For it was thrilling. Her first ball! She was only at the beginning of everything. It seemed to her that she had never known what the night was like before. Up till now it had been dark, silent, beautiful very often—oh yes—but mournful somehow. Solemn. And now it would never be like that again—it had opened dazzling bright.

“Care for an ice?” said her partner. And they went through the swing doors, down the passage, to the supper room. Her cheeks burned, she was fearfully thirsty, but there were eyes everywhere. And when they came back to the hall there was the fat man waiting for her by the door. It gave her quite a shock again to see how old he was; he ought to have been on the stage with the fathers and mothers.

“Come along, little lady,” said the fat man. He scarcely troubled to clasp her, and they moved away so gently, it was more like walking than dancing. But he said not a word about the floor. “Your first dance, isn't it?” he murmured.

“How did you know?”

“Ah,” said the fat man, “that's what it is to be old!” He wheezed faintly as he steered her past an awkward couple. “You see, I've been doing this for the last thirty years.”

“Thirty years?” cried Leila. Twelve years before she was born!

“It hardly bears thinking about, does it?” said the fat man gloomily.

Leila looked at his bald head, and she felt quite sorry for him.

“I think it's marvellous to be still going on,” she said kindly.

“Kind little lady,” said the fat man, and he pressed her a little closer, and hummed a bar of the waltz. “Of course,” he said, “you can't hope to last anything like as long as that. No-o,” said the fat man, “and if you do, you'll end up like those up there on the stage, looking on, in your lifeless black velvet. And you'll beat time with such a different kind of fan—a black bony one.” The fat man seemed to shudder. “And your weary heart won't beat but ache, ache for the sun”—the fat man squeezed her closer still, as if he really was sorry for that poor heart—“because no one wants to kiss you now. And you'll say how unpleasant these polished floors are to walk on, how dangerous they are. Eh, Mademoiselle Twinkletoes?” said the fat man softly.

Leila gave a light little laugh, but she did not feel like laughing. Was it—could it all be true? It sounded terribly true. At that the music seemed to change; it sounded sad, sad; it rose upon a great sigh. Oh, how quickly things changed! Why didn't happiness last for ever? For ever wasn't a bit too long. Not for Leila, at least.

“I want to stop,” she said in a breathless voice. The fat man led her to the door.

When she looked through the dark windows at the stars, they had long beams like wings…

“No,” she said when he moved to hold the door for her. “I want to be alone.”

She rushed out into the embrace of the cool night, the swing doors opening and shutting behind her. She leant against the wall, pulling up her gloves and trying to smile at the scents from the silvery white lilies and dusky pink roses in the moonlit garden courtyard. But deep inside her a little girl threw her pinafore over her head and sobbed. Why had he spoilt it all?

“I say, you know,” said the fat man, a trail of music following him through the doors before dropping off to leave them in still night. “You mustn't take me seriously, little lady.”

“As if I should!” said Leila, tossing her small dark head and sucking her underlip, but she caught sight of a glint of moon-light dancing off something in his hand. She turned to face him. A pale wooden stake, clutched in his hand like a fan.

“Come now, Mademoiselle Twinkletoes, I shall be quick and merciful,” he said, stepping forward as though he were about to clasp her for another dance.

Was this first ball really to be her last ball, after all? She wondered if she ought to scream or call for Laurie or Laura or Meg but her kindred would not reach her in time. She had to act.

Leila bared her fangs and lunged at the fat man, throwing her hands around his neck. He seemed surprised by her speed and strength. She could smell fear and salt on his skin as her fangs scraped against his neck. His left hand shot up to seize her throat, his thick fingers squeezing and forcing her head back, while the other hand aimed the stake towards her breast. She dropped one of her own hands down to the pointed end of the stake before he could drive it into her heart.

“It may be years since I faced one of your kind, but I fancy I can still slay a fledging vampire who has not yet fed.” The fat man wheezed as he pushed Leila back against the garden wall.

Leila looked at the fat man's eyes, glistening like pools of pale light. His shoulder pressed against her chest as he tried to draw the stake back to strike. She smiled and let her hand fall from the stake. She tilted her face up to the moon and stars, and sighed. Grinning, the fat man thrust the stake at her chest. His smile died when the point failed to penetrate the metal shield hidden beneath her corset. She would have to thank Laura later for the gift of the protective undergarments.