The Pierced Heart: A Novel Read online

  And all at once he was changed. It was as if the passing of his own threshold possessed some supernatural power, for his demeanour became at once gentle and gracious, even conciliatory. He sat me by the fire in his great dim echoing hall, and had servants bring me tea and hot apfelstrudel. My throat tightened then, not just at this kindness unlooked-for, but at these reminders of my childhood, for my mother used to make apfelstrudel, even though she was an Englishwoman, and I remember my father’s assistants saying that no-one made such light sweet pastry as she did, not even their own grandmamas. He watched me as I ate, then rose and took a seat closer to mine.

  “I know that these last weeks have been a trial to you. That you have thought my conduct harsh, even cruel, and condemned me for heartlessness. But there has been a reason behind every action I have taken. The hours you have spent in darkness, the food and drink you thought was poisoning you”—I started at this, but he continued as if he had not perceived it—“all these things are come now to readiness, for tomorrow, tomorrow we will at last begin our great work.”

  There was a flush in his hollow cheeks as he said this, such as I had never seen before, and a light of fervour in his pale eyes, but before I could ask him what he meant he had risen from his chair and was gone.

  A man then appeared who introduced himself as a Herr Bremmer, and gestured me to follow him. He was a small man with small eyes made yet smaller by the thick glass of his spectacles. We went up a flight of stone steps, and then another and another, until I was breathless, clutching my side. He halted and waited respectfully until I was able to continue, and we made the final slow climb to the room he said was to be my own—a room shaped as an octagon, and lined with books, with no windows, and the lamp turned low. There was another chamber leading from it, with a carved four-poster bed, and heavy iron shutters closed and bolted. The man bowed and retired, and I dragged myself in relief to the bed, where I fell at once into undreaming sleep, without staying even to remove my clothes.

  When I woke I saw that a meal had been laid in the little sitting-room, and the air was filled with the smell of new bread. I ate hungrily, wondering if it was breakfast or supper I was consuming, since I had no way of knowing what time it was. I was just finishing the last of the hot sweet coffee when there was a knock at the door and I received my summons. Herr Bremmer conducted me down to the gallery, and thence to a small door, set centrally on one side. This he opened and gestured that I should go up the steps. I looked at him, suddenly apprehensive, but he did nothing but repeat the same gesture, and so, my heart beating hard, I complied.

  The stairs circled up and up and I found myself at last in a vast space, wide and tall. But I sensed that, rather than saw it, for the room was entirely dark—so dark not the slightest glimmer reached the eye. If there were doors they were curtained close, and indeed the air felt close and smothered, as if all the walls and windows were muffled. But such places were no longer strange to me. It was just as it had been in the apartment in England, and as my senses sharpened I perceived I was not alone. There was no movement—no step—but I knew he was there. I could smell his body; I could hear his breathing.

  “There is nothing to fear.”

  I turned back, towards the voice, and then I felt him come up behind me and take each of my wrists in his hands. Perhaps he felt the hard throb of the pulse, for he said again, “There is nothing to fear. This is where our work begins. Our great and marvellous work.”

  And then he led me forwards, three steps, four, five, before lowering me slowly into a chair. I found there was a table before me now, covered in some heavy, deadening cloth that had the soft touch of baize. I heard a movement, as of a long curtain drawing to, and then the table began to rotate beneath my hands. I started back, and I heard him say, “Do not be alarmed. All I require you to do is place your hands on the objects that will appear before you. Place your hands upon each one and tell me what you feel—what you see.”

  “But—”

  “Trust me, Lucy. Do as I say.”

  There was the sound of a little silver bell then, and the table came to a halt. I put out my hands, and felt the touch of metal. Smoothly polished and cool, no doubt, to the skin, though not to mine, for a prickling warmth spread at once from my fingertips and I saw my hands reflected in a sudden flaring glow.

  “I’ve seen it before—this colour—”

  “What colour?” he replied quickly.

  “Red, a dull red.”

  “And how does it appear?”

  “There are flames—slow, coiling flames. As I saw before, at the phantasmagoria.”

  And as I saw, though I did not say so, at my poor Dora’s grave.

  “I do not understand—I have told you all this already, when we were at Whitby—”

  But then the little bell rang once again and the table turned. Some type of boulder, this time, heavy and rounded but not of stone. It was almost oily to the touch, and the cold flames that rose from it were a pale milky white. And so it went on, the sharp points of a raw crystal, glowing cool blue, then the pitted surface of some raw ore that burned hot and greenish and yellow, and then a rock of the same rough texture but which flickered with the most beautiful soft violet I had ever seen. Each time it was the same—the ringing of the bell and the turning of the table, and each time the same questions, as he catechised me to and fro on what I saw, and what I felt. I do not know how many there were or how long it went on—I only knew that at the end of it I was so drained and depleted that he summoned one of the servants to carry me back to my room, where I lay on the bed, staring blindly at the ceiling, and wondering where, in all of this, was the Lucy I had once been.

  And the day that followed it was the same. Only when the bell rang for the first time what came to my fingers was a square block of some dense, gritty metal. A magnet, I knew that at once, and I gasped as I placed my fingers upon it and saw the bar blossom at once in a rush of fire radiance, the flames circling and spiralling in brilliant rainbow colours, from crimson-gold and orange at one end to a deep bluish indigo at the other.

  “It pains you?” he said quickly.

  “No, no!” I said, feeling my body flood as if with cool dawn air. “It is so beautiful—so beautiful!”

  “Turn the bar about, and place your hands upon it again.”

  I hesitated, loath to lose the loveliness of it, even for a moment, but I did as he asked, and my fingers had barely skimmed the iron when I felt them close involuntarily in a spasm of pain and the same rush of heat, the same agonizing agitation of mind, that had afflicted me in Vienna, when first I touched the Influence Machine. I cried out in pain and tore my hands away, and I heard the curtain slide back and a moment later he was standing by me.

  “I am sorry,” he said. That was all, “I am sorry.”

  It was the first time he had ever apologised to me—after all these weeks, after so much pain, so much loneliness and fear, it was his kindness, now, that brought me to weeping.

  “We have made a great advance, today,” he said at last, when I had composed myself. “I said once, in Whitby, that you had a wondrous talent, and you do, Lucy, you do. Together, we will astonish the world.”

  “But I don’t understand—”

  “You are not required to understand. You are required only to obey.”

  He placed his hand under my chin then, and lifted my face, moving one finger against my skin like a caress, touching me as he had not touched me since that night he spoke of, when I saw the ghost lights at Dora’s grave, and he talked to me in soft words of my rare and precious gift. And then he bent his head to my neck and put his mouth to my skin.

  I lie here now, thinking again of that caress, and abhorring my own body that it should respond to him still. Even now, after all that has passed between us. Even now, after—

  I walked again last night—walked or dreamed—but night it was, for the moon was full and heavy, lifting slowly into the sky from red to bronze to pewter milk. I stood in the chill air,
high above the castle, looking down where the river ran, and the black trees rustled in the darkness. I could see the stone causeway leading to the gate, and a little chapel where a tiny light burned, and the ancient gravestones woven about with mist. But there was one that was not ancient, where there were flowers not yet wilted, and as I gazed there came the same slow flicker of light I had seen rising at my Dora’s grave, and I saw that there was a figure standing before it, a man in a long dark coat, and I thought it was him and I did not know whether to cry out or cower away. And then he was gone and I turned, and saw that all about me suddenly there was light—mirrors of polished silver about my feet like so many shining basins, each one looking towards the sky and curved to cup the glory of the moon into spheres of dazzling radiance. There was a dark smell of sulphur, or of phosphorus, and the humming I could hear was not, this time, in my own mind, but in hundreds of little golden wires that circled each mirror globe in a thick braid of serpent coils that led away towards the tower and out of my sight. And then a bank of dense black cloud closed over the moon and I could see no more.

  When I awoke, there was a dimness in the room as of dawn, and I found there was breakfast set out for me in the little octagonal room. I sat there, as I ate, looking about me, and wondering for the first time, at all the books on the shelves about me and whether, if he would not speak to me of his work, there might be some answer I could find here. There were so many volumes, though, that I scarce knew where to begin, until my eye alighted on one that had not been pushed fully back, and when I pulled it out towards me I saw that it was in English, and that a page was marked with a slip of paper—a paper but recently left, with notes upon it also in English, written crossways in a large and confident hand. I touched the paper then, following the words with the tip of my finger. I do not know what drew me to it, but I was curious suddenly, and I turned to the page that the writer had marked, and I began to read. And thus it was that when I was summoned, again, to that darkened room above, I went with a heart that was full of foreboding, because I understood at last what he wanted with me, and what the true nature of his great purpose had always been.

  The moment I stood on the threshold I knew that something had changed. What had been empty, was now occupied. In the centre of the floor there was a bed—the same one that I had seen through the keyhole in his apartment, with the holes in the leather, and the tightening straps. I was afraid then, afraid of that bed and what I could see now hung suspended from the roof-beams high above it. And then I remembered my dream and I knew what it was, and where it had come from, but some force yet drew me to it—something irresistible, overwhelming, but I did not know if that compulsion was pleasure, or fear.

  “Come closer, Lucy. Lie down upon the bed.”

  He was somewhere beyond, in the shadows on the far side of the room. I hesitated, then moved forwards a little, my breathing coming fast and shallow, as I advanced towards the bed and laid myself down upon it, my limbs trembling, looking up into the dark. And then I heard the clank of some metal mechanism and what was hanging above my head began slowly to descend, and as it drew nearer I saw a faint phosphorescent glow and it began to throb with its own pale light, but I could not move, could not do anything but watch it approach, and as it came down towards me I felt that radiance grow in my own flesh, that energy surge in my own veins. I heard the machinery cranking still, but I had eyes only for that light, a desire only to be inside that light, to touch that light, and as the coil of wires came at last within reach and I yearned out towards it, I saw an explosion of brilliant white fire burst at once upwards and outwards from my hands, and as my body convulsed in a cold glare of shivering ecstasy I heard his voice cry out, somewhere far away,

  “My God, I see it! The light—the light!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AND WHAT OF CHARLES, all this time? He arrived as expected, tired, hungry, and dirty, at the Gare du Nord soon after midnight, to find there was no message for him at the telegraph office. So far, so predictable perhaps, but then he found, to his fury, that the best and quickest way to Vienna was to retrace the journey he had just taken all the way back to Amiens and travel thence via Dusseldorf, Leipzig, and Dresden. If losing so much time were not frustrating enough, the bureaucrat at the ticket office seemed to be doing his level best to thwart him, and it was a good long time before Charles was finally convinced that there was no faster way, and that there was, moreover, no train to Amiens until eleven o’clock in the morning. It gave him a few hours’ sleep, though, and (more important) time for a brief visit to one of the city’s most venerable institutions. Whatever that was, and whatever he found there, the consequences are writ across his face as he walks back through the damp Parisian streets to the Gare du Nord, and it may likewise account for the fact that he stops at a small and low-ceilinged shop on the Rue de Ponthieu, where he makes the purchase of a flintlock pistol.

  It’s almost impossible for Charles to contemplate his journey with any degree of patience now, but even the weather appears to be against him, as one delay compounds another, culminating in a sudden landslip between Gotha and Weimar that leaves the train standing for nine hours in the teeming rain. And so it is that when he arrives at last at Vienna to find the poste restante office closed he decides he cannot linger—if there are letters there from his uncle they will have to wait—and by the time his hired carriage is approaching the outskirts of the Von Reisenberg estates, he calculates dourly that the owner of those estates could easily have been returned here as much as three full days.

  He has the driver let him down at the edge of the forest, some half a mile from the foot of the causeway, and watches as it disappears from sight into the trees. It is twilight, and the moon is rising, waning gibbous. And again there is that strange sense of doubling—of light reflecting up from the castle roof as if the moon were twinned between the earth and sky. But Charles knows now that this is no anomaly of nature, and his face sets grimmer and darker as he climbs the last yards to the castle door.

  He has had many hours to contemplate what he will do now, hours of sleeplessness on cold rattling trains, in narrow uncomfortable seats, but even so, when he comes to a halt before the Baron’s tall stone archway and hauls on the bell-chain, he has no idea at all what he is going to say. And when the door opens to reveal the bespectacled man he saw here once before, he realises that all this time he has assumed that it would be the Baron himself who would confront him, and having readied himself for that confrontation he is forced instead to an impotent patience, as a message is taken indoors, and the minutes pass, and then finally the man reappears and permits him inside. The two ascend the steps to the Baron’s gallery of specimens, where the man shows him in, bows, and closes the door quietly behind him.

  Charles stands there, his eyes adjusting. There is only one candle burning in an iron sconce at the far end of the room.

  “Mr Maddox, you take me somewhat by surprise. I was not aware that the Curators believed it necessary for you to make another visit. Indeed I have already received a most courteous letter from them, accepting my gift.”

  Von Reisenberg comes towards him out of the shadows, a large book open in his hands and what passes for a smile on his long bony face. But Charles is not smiling.

  “You know very well why I’m here.”

  The Baron snaps the book shut. “I am afraid I do not. But what I do know is that you were not invited. And are not welcome.”

  “I have come for Miss Causton. Her father sent me to bring her home. To ensure that she is safe.”

  “In that case you may consider your duty discharged. Miss Causton is perfectly safe. She is my guest, and while she is under my roof she is under my protection. I can assure you—and her father—that she came here, and stays here, most willingly.”

  “You actually expect me to believe that?” Charles’s eyes are blue ice.

  The Baron smiles. “But of course. I am what you English delight in terming a gentleman, and you—” He hesitates a mo
ment, “—no doubt consider yourself the same. You are honour-bound to believe me, are you not?”

  “An English gentleman would bring her here, and let me speak to her myself.”

  “That is not possible. She is resting, and cannot be disturbed.”

  “I have her father’s authority, and I am therefore in a position to insist.”

  “You are in no such position. You are in my house, on my private property. I have any number of servants at my call. And you should know by now, that I am not a man who makes idle threats.”

  There is a pause. A pause of lengthening and deepening hostility.

  Then suddenly Charles turns and begins to walk up the room, slowly, deliberately, between the glass cases and the scientific instruments, noticing as he did before, but with new knowledge this time, that one brass microscope still bears a slide of some thick red residue. And noticing, also, that a number of the mineralogical samples are missing from their allotted places. On an impulse he reaches into one of the cases and seizes a chunk of some dark uncut ore which is gravelly and scratchy to the touch. He is aware of the Baron behind him, unmoving, watching, and he lets the moment prolong almost to impossibility before turning to face him, tossing the piece of rock from one hand to the other, one hand to the other, one hand to the other.

  “Before I left London,” he begins, “I was convinced that you were some sort of fiend. A monster who took a depraved pleasure in murder and mutilation—”

  “That is an outrageous and slanderous accusation.”

  “—but when I received a wire from my uncle, at Folkestone, I was forced to think again. To admit that I might have been wrong about you, all along.”