SciFi and Fantasy Stories: A Window by the Sea

A Window by the Sea

Alarm was wide spread when a strange malady struck the lady of the house. The whispering of servants rose above the usual decibel level as the servants, from the housekeeper to the scrawny scullery maid, gossiped and muttered amongst themselves, heads bowed and low. Upon returning from a short vacation, the lady fell ill and kept to her bed from then on. Mrs. Rochester, the house keeper confided in the eager cook that though the lady's appetite had increased threefold, she often heaved it back up within a few hours time. Sleeping and eating and vomiting were now the three things that took up the lady's agenda. When she wasn't following it, she spent the time by the window, her hot and sweating head against the glass and her large, round eyes bright, watching the ocean from her husband's manor.

She waited, as the entire household waited, for the master of the house to return from his trip to Greece. A doctor was not called, for the master was a hard man. Demanding and proud, he held onto the power over the manor as solely his own; woe to the man or woman who took a day off or (heaven forbid) resigned or even rearranged the furniture without his consent. They dared not to call in a doctor and yet were sure that they would be punished for having not. Such a dreadful fix it was that the entire mood of the house changed. All were waiting, watching, tight and shifty, as they carried about their work, and the lady of the house sensed their fear - smelt it as if it was a smell upon the air - and smiled.

The history of Madame Leardings was ... classified. It was upon one raging night, long ago, that the master came home with the young Mrs. Leardings in his arms, triumphant, tall standing, and wet. Leardings, who was ever immaculate and supremely kempt, had apparently gone for a night swim in the sea. No one knew her place of birth, nothing of her life or family, even. But it was easy (or "aizai" by Mrs. Rochester) to see that she was well bred, if not high born. Her manners were quiet and gentle, and she could be comely if she so desired. Upon her body she carried no mark - not a burn or scratch - and her genteel speech was perfect and pretty and, oh, everything a high lady ought to be. But one thing separated her mostly dreadfully from others of her rank: never, for any reason, for any party, social event, for anybody - not even her difficult husband - would she bind her hair or wear it up. It stayed at all times, lustrously brown and thick, swinging behind her back and brushing her calves.

Within the next two weeks the vomiting worsened and her appetite waned. Soon Madame Leardings was pronounced to have procured a fever. Mrs. Rochester broke the sacred rules, took time off for the Missus, dancing far too close to the wire. She was there in the sour-smelling room lifting every spoonful of gruel, wiping any bead of sweat, sitting through the long hours of the lady's sleep - for it would be just as bad for Mrs. Rochester if the Madame grew worse - or died.

"Rochester, Rochester, "the housekeeper became used to hear her pretty voice ululate, "When shall I get better?"

"Just a' soon as the flu's over, deary."

As if in correspondence with Mrs. Learings suffering, the weather over those two weeks grew rough and spiteful; the winds picked up and would not stop; the sea frothed and sprayed fountains of salt water had that suddenly became a malevolent grey; and heavy, rain came pelting down like sharp pebbles so the world was waterlogged and immobile. Worried servants brought in and tethered the livestock, battened down the hatches, and waited for the storm to pass - but the untimely menace just didn't want to. So the gears of the Great House began to wind down and the trapped innocents could do nothing but wait for the weather to change.

On through the second week, Betsy, the sulkiest and scrawniest scullery maid was watching water trickle down the window (there was not much to do) when she suddenly squinted and released a shriek.

"Oh, Mrs. Rochester! The carriage! I can see Joseph!" You couldn't have done better if you poked a sleeping tiger in the eye something fierce.

All was flurry of feet and skirts as the Great House was regenerated. Shouts carried through the air, calls, commands and scoldings from Cook. The people hurried about the house as fast as the wind to make everything shipshape for the master.

A long tarp top was taken out into the rain; the men's boots sunk into the bog like mud as they walked across the lawn; and planks were set into the ground as the ~rain of horses came around the U-bend. The driver, Joseph, hopped from his perch smartly - mud flew absolutely everywhere - and opened the black carriage door. Out stepped Mr. Bernard Thomas Maximus Leardings the third of the Leardings Manor. His eyebrows were raised as he tugged at his left sleeve to straighten a wrinkle. The two men holding the tarp top over him had their eyes only partially opened as water ran down their faces.

"Good afternoon, Benjamin. Godfrey." And that was all.

•••

"Mrs. Rochester, you will stop that pacing," said Master Leardings from his armchair and behind his papers. Cleared was the old study room in which the housekeeper and Leardings now sat. A hearty fire was set into the fireplace and the master was in his morning robes and slippers, reading while waiting. The housekeeper, having no papers to read, paced - and, in her high heels, too, whose continuous clicks made the master's brow furrow.

"I cannot possibly concentrate on my morning papers with that horrible racket."

The clicking heels stopped at once; already two weeks' credit had been taken off of her wages (when she admitted to neglecting her duties to look after the missus).

"Oh, Mrs. Rochester, tell the accountant, Mr. Moore to send over the hotel bills for Mrs. Leardings' trip."

"Yes, sir," she answered meekly.

She could not sit, nor, it seemed, could she pace, so, deciding on the quietest state of being, she stood by the door and picked her nose. An occasional crack came from the fireplace, and the rustling of newspapers was audible from time to time; rain made their percussive music again the window pains in pinks and tinks, and the howling noise of the wind tore around and around the house; Rochester, silent, listened to it all, waiting for a ­different sound.

The sound came a quarter to eleven as the door was opened: the latch clicked as the doctor came through the door. In an instant, the still housekeeper became fidgety. Leardings nodded in the doctor's general direction (perhaps sensing Rochester's eagerness) meaning for her to sort it all out with the good doctor. The old study was about the size of a small acre field so it took some time for her to cross the room. Leardings went back to morning paper, not exactly reading anymore for the purpose of filling up the time wherein he would be otherwise merely waiting, he was more just merely waiting. His sharp eyes ran across the paper parallel to the black lines and his eagle nose went back and forth as his head turned from left to right and then left again, but he was no longer really reading. With his back to the only other two self conscious beings in the room, he had no trouble concealing his mouth which was slightly opened and wet from his tongue that was running itself across his lower lip constantly.

A cry and Rochester took the liberty to run across the carpet floor to her master. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks flushed. Tears sprang from its almond-shaped prisons, liberated and joyous.

"Oh, sir, oh, congratulations, sir! It's so queer, the doctor said, that the symptoms should be so violent, but the missus'll be all right doctor Jennyings says. I should think it's very queer myself - she made me think she had a bout of the old flu - but it'll get better soon."

Of course none of this made the master very pleased. He folded his crisp morning paper and slapped it against his knee. Mouth pursed and brows set he snapped, "Mrs. Rochester! Would you please tell me, ifit isn't a case of some rare and dangerous flu that has got Mrs. Leardings, what has?"

Then came Rochester' s sprightly voice, unperturbed in the least, "Lord love you, sir, there's to be a child."

•••

Doctor Jennings had given her something for the nausea; now she was once again by the view of the window. She had been moved from her quarters to the sick room with high windows and high windowsill. When the sun showed through, it slanted its yellow way down or else the first part of the room that was lighted was the ceiling. Humans were rarely seen in the sickroom: the only consistent visitors were Sunlight and the Quiet that filled the room with its being. Now (though Madame Leardings also occupied the room) there was so much quiet that she was hardly there at all.

Brown cabinets, metal shelves, thin beds and tables, all dusty and aged, stood below Madame with their clear bottles and bulging books, populating the stale spaces. She cared not for the air they expelled from their dry innards, the air that she smelled every hour of each long day. And glad was she that the drugs were dutiful to their purpose insomuch that, after dismissing Rochester, the lady could finally resume her window viewing (with a clear head) by climbing the bookshelves. Wrapped in a blanket, Madame watched the storm and beyond that, the wild sea. She was ignored all else but the window, a cocoon within herself. Sometimes she would murmur something and lay her lips against .the window - as she sat eight and ten feet from the floor.

Something drew her from the window just then, and she turned her head to greet the opening door. Smiling, she turned her back to the newcomer. It was her husband. She knew without looking that he was standing in his morning slippers, stiff and confused ­not being able to see her. He is pale, she thought to herself, and his left hand is trembling. Taking a step from the doorway, he turned his head slowly, casting about, making sure that he missed nothing. Just as he began to walk back out, (her shadow on the floorboards must have caught his eye) he looked down. Jerking his head to the high windows, he barked,

"Come down at once!"

But she heeded him not· and was silent for a while. What did he matter now? What could he do - now? He slammed his foot down like a child demanding attention. The stomp echoed through the hollow room.

"Now!"

Still not turning, she answered (in a way), "I was not always yours, Bernard, you know."

Her voice, like the sunlight, came down to him from the windows, as one would imagine how the voice of God came down to Jesus upon his lowly cross - from the heavens. Eight and ten feet seems far higher from the ground looking up than from the windowsill. She was so high and unreachable, like a stone angel in a cathedral. To be sure - she was above him, as he .was sure she meant to tell him.

"What do you mean by this?" he demanded. He shut the door with a crack and then a clack as he locked it. Boots struck the hollow floor.

"What have you done?" cried the master of the house. She looked upon his face for the first time for three months, the first time since he left for Greece, and saw that his face, framed by black curls, was indeed pale. Glaring, left hand trembling, he waited.

"I want back my skin."

His footing faltered and Leardings fell onto a bed. She turned away and was again the cold stone statue. Oh, it was a blow that no Leardings had ever felt before. Then gone was Bernard Leardings of Lear dings Manor, of the man came from a long line of lord, ­men who were always in control. And it came so suddenly, unseen and unforeseen, from the shadows that he now knew he should have better explored.

But wait: Leardings was Man, and Man (especially men) does not find it easy to relinquish his hold on things. Leardings was wounded but not dead; caught off guard but now stood back up. For a man is hard to kill, in spirit and as a mass; for within this mass runs a thread, placed there from the beginning. Such a thread, albeit at times weak, is what saw to it that Alexander did not forsake the conquering of the known world; Harold of England, that he fought on even to death - even when his men were weary and too few -; and now Bernard, that he stand back up, though the thread would have done better if it had broken.

Growing red, his face sought her figure, perched with the ease of a great bird, and he saw her chestnut hair flung back so it tumbled down, almost brushing the shelves. His eyes hardened and - regaining the pieces of himself - he stood again. His breathing quickened. The more he looked at her, at her back that shut him out, the whiter his knuckles became. The lady sensed it behind her, then the coldness of the thick glass in front of her, and said nothing but doubted suddenly.

"What of it if it died?" he asked coldly, "It would be all too common a thing if it didn't make pass the birth."

Leardings was not - was never - a man to be manipulated. In Leardings Manor, isolated from the mainland, Leardings was bred a lord. And his grasp was firm. Like a child whose finest collection of marbles were threatened to be taken from him, he was loath to give up any of his chattels. Even that which claimed not to be his, he would keep.

"You lie, Bernard." It was not an accusing or frightened voice; the Lady was genuinely puzzled.

 Her brow wrinkled. "Didn't make it? What do you really mean?"

"Do you not understand, Unwen? Don’t your kind-" 'your kind' was stressed ever so slightly, "- dispose of what isn't wanted? Oh, but I forget, it is different with your people. Well, amongst men it is commonly done. It isn't mine; I don't want it."

Leardings smiled. Her lips pressed together, automatically. Bernard was always the one smiling. She let out a small sigh. Then, slowly, a change came over her face; a ripple ran through her expression. She blinked a great many times, shaking her head in the restless motion of a caged cat. Then the gears fell into place.

"You will not! Bernard!" she cried, facing him suddenly. Her eyes were wild with understanding and she grabbed the frame to steady herself Was it so? even as her mind was beginning to understand, her heart had thought it. Oh, never, never, could she have conceived of this. Man kills children, she thought, still with horror, they kill. It was by ill fortune she was in their world; she knew too little of it. Her heart could not accept this piece of truth.

"Stay your hand, Bernard!" she cried down to him as if the knife was already in his hand. He was always the master, had forever the upper hand in all things. She had never asked for this. Yes, you did, she told herself then, you should have never gone dancing that night midsummer's eve. Father told you but - how ready was she to see her husband gone!

How many nights had she lain awake, staring at the dark overhanging, in her own room, images of how she would get rid of him appearing by her bedside? She had even imagined his death, by some freakish, disgusting way. But her heart was never strong enough for it. At night, when Quiet walked beside her, she traveled the shadowed halls, looking out the windows. How merry, free, and right was the life before Bernard.

"Why, pray, Unwen? How natural! How easy!"

This life - this life of wearing silks that suffocated your body; of having to eat sickly, thin food; of having to sew and sit and sleep and sit again would never be correct.

There was a sound suddenly that startled Leardings badly. His hand flew to his throat before he knew what it was. It was sharp and clear, like a glass bell neatly struck. It was not loud as it rang, but piercing, like a sudden beam from the blinding sun, and it kept on and on until he could not tell when it would stop. Clutching at his neck, he cast about for the sound frantically. His arms went before him, sweeping through the air, for the invisible source. He wanted to switch it off - when it came quickly to a halt. The instant it stopped, Leardings gasped, looked up and glared at his wife. The manner in which the sound ended had given it away. A bell could not have ended so quickly.

"It would not do, Bernard," she called after finishing up her strange laughter. She bestowed the smile one gives to an angry child upon him, and indeed, Leardings was fuming. Teeth gritted, he cursed her inwardly. I was not warned, he brooded, she never prepared me for her sound. He had never heard her laugh.

She turned to him fully, swept her hair back with calmness as if he wasn't there, and stared at him. She couldn't make her expression reproachful so she cocked her head.

"And don't think I'm slow. You always think we're slow," she told him, face to face, scrutinizing him carefully, "Take care! I've just remembered."

That stopped the retort about to leap from Leardings' lips. His head drew back, eyes suspicious. But he maintained his poise.

"Who said you were slow?"

"I went on a trip to the mainland, Bernard."

She drew herself up and her words quickened.

"And I gave a certain man a letter."

"Your pardon?" and he gave her his usual sharp look; the look to say she'd displeased

him. Leardings had last used it when they were at the Saint Francis Day ball - she had worn a violet corsage instead of the planned roses. He had not given her permission to contact any man!

"Who was the man, Unwen?"

"I stayed there for a week."

"Which town, Unwen?"

"It's addressed," she said bravely, "to the constable. It's a letter from a stolen lady who is currently been held, against her will, in the Great House at Leardings Manor."

"Was it Bantry, did you go to Bantry, Unwen?"

"If that man -"

"What is his name?"

"- if he doesn't hear from me in a week's time-"

''Unwell, I am your lawful husband; I have the right-" he said, pointing a long finger at her.

"- the letter shall be sent, bringing the police."

Leardings had started saying something about social conduct for women, but stopped.

A ringing silence took over.

There his most prized decoration was, looking down at him, looking ready to jump down C\~ rip him into gory pieces. She made a sound that was not very human.

"I. Want. Back. My. Skin. Bernard!" Nostrils flaring, her eyes were wet with salt water. The master's lips came together and parted, his teeth rubbed against each other. Throwing his shoulders out, he cried,

“Y-you’re mad!" He began wringing his hands, checked himself and began a jerky pacing.

"You're mad," he repeated slowly, "Come down from there, U-Unwen. You've been sick with the - the- th -" His face turned to a sickly color at the unspoken word. Like a jug being filled with milk, so his face gradually became pale. Slowly, his shaking hands climbed up his starched and pressed collar tie, pausing in between to crumple it in a fist. Ebony curls hanging limp, they sagged around his wilted expression and were bold against his white complexion. One hand grabbing his collar tie; the other ran itself over his handsome features, trying in vain to wipe, wipe, wipe, the dilemma away.

Unwen called down to him softly, tears making a quick flight down her cheeks. But she was not in lamentation. She lifted her chin up, letting a bead of water fall, stem. The lady got to her feet, a weak sunlight outlining her body, and for a moment she stood, a stone angel once more; cold yet gentle, alive but still, in an abandoned and mighty place of worship. He could not bring himself to look at her as he felt her eyes upon him. With one last touch of the window, she moved to bend down and curl her fingers around the window sill edge and began to make her descent down the bookcases.

Leardings had let go of his collar tie, his hands lay palms upwards in his lap. A life of lordly training had not allowed him to slump, at least, and his back remained straight as a flag pole. Sometimes his left hand would twitch spasmodically, like the leg of a dying insect, but his smooth, clipped other hand was relaxed, useless. His mouth opened, as if he might start another argument and his blinking became irregular. At times his gaze wandering to the walls around him, but always it came back to his feet. His tongue wetted his lower lip, and she walked towards the door without a word. She stopped at the door, her fingers resting on the golden latch.

"Unwen," he began, "will the seal folk-" He blinked several more times and finally stared upward. She did not turn the latch. She did not move. What sunlight there was left by the storms to shine through the windows played feebly about the ceiling. Rain made blotchy, running shadows.

"R-Rochester. Her winter closet."

She left running.

•••

"Sir, Mr. Leardings," called Mr. Moore's high pitched voice. He came running down the carpeted hall, finally catching up. Candle light reflected off of his nez-pince which Moore

pushed back up the bridge of his nose. The panting young accountant smiled good naturedly.

"Mrs. Rochester said you wanted to see Mrs. Leardings' bill, sir."

Leardings turned slowly.

Moore continued, "And, sir, there - there never were any hotel bills. Apparently, there never was a trip to the mainland," Moore took out a piece of paper from his coat pocket, "Just thought you'd want to know. There's just the boat fee," whereupon he handed the paper to his master.

Leardings took it limply and read it.

Watching him, Moore went on, "Apparently, Mrs. Leardings just went to the summer island, sir, you remember? It's just south of Inishbofin. So there never were hotel bills, sir. "

In a quiet voice, Leardings asked, "Who told you, Moore?"

He blinked. "Why, I asked one of maids. Betsy, I think it was; I'm not quite sure. She said, that is, she told me, she went with Mrs. Leardings."

There was a pause.

Then with a scream, Leardings flung the bill at his accountant. His face red and eyes wide

with fire, he stomped the floor.

"Curse her! Curse the liar!"

Cursing and grunting, Leardings burst through the side door and ran down to the path that led to the sea. Feet flying and arms pumping at his sides, he could see everything clearly in the sickly moonlight: the tree-stripped land, the far off jetty, and, directly in front of him, the ocean. The storm had died off somewhat and he ran, unhindered by whipping winds or painful rain. With reckless abandon he hurried down the dirt path that was cut into the cliff, sending mud flying.

The master of Leardings Manor dashed onto the cove's sandy beach; tie undone, hair ruffled from its usual slickness, and mud on his trousers. Like ghostly bodies strewn across the beach, lay the many layers of her clothes, from her cloak to her underclothing, unmoving in the wind. As he ran, he tripped on the thick hem of a silken gown. Falling into the sand, he struggled for a moment to get back up. He lifted his head and gave a great cry.

Bathed in white moonlight, a fair league or two out to sea, floated a large seal. It bobbed in the water, its liquid eyes calm and serene, watching Leardings with its soft eyes. As it

watched him, proud and quiet, Leardings thought it had an expression rather like a stone angel. Then, as Leardings staggered to a stand, it slapped the water - the sound carried like a rifle shot - and slid into the dark ocean.

Holding onto a wet boulder nearby, Leardings cursed and wept, at the lost of his most precious decoration. For this lord was a hard man and he held onto his power and his possessions as solely his own. Never again would he walk into a room and find her sitting by a window, watching the ocean.

After a while, when he returned, he ordered a great number of black cloths to cover all the manor windows - the ones that faced the sea.