The Gates of Sleep

she came to think about it, was there anything of the sort about Madam.

She had followed him out of the compartment at his urging as contradictions overwhelmed her and left her confused and uncertain. The touch of his hand on her elbow left her even more uncertain. There was nothing in that touch. No magic, no evil, nothing to alert her to danger. Perfectly, solidly ordinary, and no more odious than the Odious Reggie usually was, in that he took possession of her arm as if he had already taken possession of her entire person and was merely marking his claim to her.

It was so baffling it made her head ache, and she sought comfort in the familiar rituals of teapot and jam jar. Although the teapot was heavy silver, and the jam jar not a jar at all, but a dish of elegant, cut crystal, the tea tasted the same as the China Black from Aunt Margherita’s humble brown ceramic pot with the chipped spout, and the jam not quite as good as the home-made strawberry she’d put up with her own hands. Still, as she poured and one-lump-or-twoed, split scones and spread them with jam, the automatic movements gave her a point of steadiness and familiarity.

“… jolly fine deposit of kaolin clay under the North Pasture,” Reggie was saying, showing almost as much enthusiasm as he’d had for his flirtations with all those strange young women today.

“With Chipping Brook so deep and fast there, we’ve got water-power enough for grinding, mixing, anything else we’d want. Plenty of trees in the copse at the western edge for charcoal to fire the kilns—plenty of workers in the village—the road to the railroad or going up north to the sea for cheap transport— there’s nothing lacking but the works itself!”

Chipping Brook? North Pasture? My North Pasture? Her scattered thoughts suddenly collected as she realized what he’d been babbling about for the past several minutes.

Putting a pottery—another of those poisonous blots—in the North Pasture beside Oakhurst. On her land. Spewing death into her brook, her air—devouring her trees to feed the voracious kilns, turning her verdant meadow into a hideous, barren scrape in the ground.

And taking the villagers, people I know, or their children, offering them jobs and then poisoning them with lead dust and overwork.

“I think I can do without that, Reggie,” she said, attempting to sound smooth and cool, interrupting the stream of plans from her cousin. “Your potteries are astonishing, and surely must be the envy of your peers, but I haven’t the interest or the ability to run one, and I prefer the North Pasture as it is. I certainly have no desire to live next to a noisy factory, which is what I would be doing if you put a pottery in the North Pasture.”

“Well, cuz, obviously you don’t have to live next to it—there are hundreds of places you could live!” Reggie said with a fatuous laugh as the train sped past undulating hills slowly darkening as the light faded. “Why live at Oakhurst, anyway? It’s just an old country manor without gas, much less electricity, and neither are likely to reach the village in the next thirty years, much less get to the manor! A London townhouse—now there’s the ticket!”

She winced inwardly. That much was true, too true. But she wasn’t about to admit to him that she would very much have liked to have the option to modernize within her own lifetime. “Nevertheless, Oakhurst is my inheritance, to order as I choose, and I do not choose to have it turned into a factory, so you can put that notion out of your mind,” she said sharply—so sharply that he was clearly surprised and taken aback.

Oh dear. She softened her posture immediately and smiled winsomely. “Silly man! I haven’t even gotten to know the place, and already you want to change it entirely! Haven’t you come to know me well enough by now to know that given any other choice, I would still live here? I like the countryside, and Oakhurst is particularly beautiful. Surely there are cities enough where you can put another factory without ruining my peace and quiet and my views!”

Reggie regained that superior smirk. “I forgot, cuz, you’re just a little country-cousin at heart,” he said condescendingly.

“I’m afraid so,” she admitted, lowering her gaze and looking up at him through her lashes. “After my trip today, I am only more confirmed in my notions, I must admit. Exeter was exciting but—there were so many people!”

She might have despised herself for being so manipulative; might, except for all that was at stake. She could not, would not allow another diseased blight to take root here. She would fight it to the last cell of her body.

“You’ll change your mind,” he said, dismissing her and her concerns out of hand. “Especially when you’re out, when you’ve had a real London season, when you’re going to parties and balls and the theater—you’ll like cities so much you’ll wonder how you ever thought a pasture worth bothering your pretty head about. Heh—and when you start seeing how much of the ready it takes to buy all those gowns and froofahs and things you ladies are so fond of, you’ll realize just how much good a factory could do your pocket-book. Can’t be seen in the same frock twice, don’t you know. You can’t support a lively Town style on farm rents. It needs a lot of the ready to be in the mode.”

We’ll see about that, she thought grimly. If the choice was between fine feathers and the preservation of this land—she would be willing to make a regular guy of herself in London. She would do without that promised London season! No gown, no string of balls, nothing was worth despoiling Oakhurst, raping the land, poisoning the waters.

The real question was—since she had no direct control of her property, how was she to keep Reggie from plunging ahead with his plan no matter what she wanted? She had no doubt that Madam would be only too happy to give ear to this idea, and Madam was the one who was making the decisions at the moment, where Oakhurst was concerned.

“Oh, Reggie, you can’t want to make me miserable!” she pouted. “That pottery just gave me the awfullest headache, and I just know I’d have nothing but headaches with one of those things right in the next field!”

“But you wouldn’t be here, you’d be in London,” he tried to point out, but she sighed deeply and quivered her lower lip.

“Not all the time! And how can I have house parties with a factory in the next field? People don’t come to house parties to see factories, they come to see views, and to shoot—and oh, everyone around here of any consequence will just hate us, for the shooting will be quite spoilt for miles around!”

That actually seemed to get through to him, at last, and he looked startled. Encouraged, she elaborated. “Oh, we’ll be a disgrace! My season will be a disaster! No one will want to be seen with the girl who had the audacity to drive all the game out to the moor!”

“Well—not to the moor, surely—” he ventured, looking alarmed.

She turned an utterly sober gaze upon him. “I’m the country-cousin, remember? Oh, do trust me, Reggie, all it will take is for your factory to drive the red deer out of this neighborhood—or worse, the pheasants!—and we will be entirely in disgrace and everyone who is anyone will know what we’d done and who’s to blame! You just wait— wait and see how your London friends treat you when shooting they were counting on isn’t there anymore! Not everyone goes to Scotland, you know—people depend on Devon and Surrey for their sport!”

That turned the trick; he promised not to do anything about his plans until she knew she would want to live in London and not at Oakhurst, after all—and until he had made certain that there were no notable shoots anywhere around the vicinity.

“But you just wait, little cuz,” he laughed, as he escorted her back to their compartment. “Once you’ve had a taste of proper life, you won’t care if I blow the place up if it buys you more frocks and fun.”

She settled herself in the corner under one of the ingenious wall-mounted paraffin lamps that the steward had lit in their absence. He dropped onto the seat across from her beneath the other and opened his paper. She took out her poetry book and stared at it, turning the pages now and again, without reading them.

“You won’t care if I blow the place up if it buys you more frocks and fun.” Callous, unfeeling, greedy, selfish—but is that evil? Evil enough to account for that horror beneath Exeter? Or is it just plain, ordinary, piggy badness? It didn’t equate, it just didn’t—evil wasn’t bland. Evil didn’t worry about ruining its reputation by running off the game. Evil probably would be perfectly happy to ruin anything.

If not the son, what about my first thought, the mother? She’s the only parent he’s had for ever so long, so she’s had the only hand over him—he should reflect her. Madam was cold, yes. Selfish, yes. Utterly self-centered. And she’s all business and money and appearances.