“I tell you you will not be alone.”
“And yet I shall surely feel alone, sir.”
Mr. Olderglough looked down the length of his nose. “May I admit to being disappointed in you, boy.”
“You may write a lengthy treatise on the subject, sir, and I will read it with interest. But I highly doubt there will be anything written within those pages which will alter my dissatisfaction with the scheme.”
“Well I’m sorry to have to tell you this, boy, but it must come to pass, and it will.”
“I believe it will not, sir.”
“Do you want to maintain your position here?”
“You know full well that I do.”
“Then what is there to speak of, after all?” With this, Mr. Olderglough stepped to the window to survey the world. “Now, where has that sly old sun gone to, eh?” In searching it out, he leaned too close to the window, and knocked his forehead lightly upon the pane of glass.
2
All this to say, Lucy did take to bed that night, and the door was left open, and Mr. Olderglough did hide away with a birch club gripped in his hand and a look of dogged resolve stamped upon his face. He had told Lucy they were not to speak, and so they did not. At one point Rose crept across the room to sniff and nip at Mr. Olderglough’s foot; Lucy collected her and fetched her back to his bed, rubbing her bare belly, which made her restful, and soon she slept, ignorant to the woes of her master.
Lucy’s dread was consistently urgent. Time and again he thought he heard the shuffling approach of the Baron, and yet the doorway remained vacant, and Lucy could only gaze into the bottomless darkness and wonder at what it held. An agonizing hour crept by, and then a half-hour, and now he became aware of an unfortunate fact, which was that Mr. Olderglough was sleeping standing up, this made apparent by the man’s gentle, wheezing snore. Lucy had thrown off his blanket that he might cross the room to awaken him when he saw the Baron hunched at the top of the stairwell, completely naked, bathed in grime, panting, and staring at Lucy with a puzzled derangement.
Lucy said, “Mr. Olderglough, sir.”
The Baron stepped sideways into the room.
“Mr. Olderglough.”
The Baron moved ever closer to Lucy.
“Mr. Olderglough!”
Mr. Olderglough snuffled, and the Baron, hearing this, peered over his shoulder at the door. Stepping nearer, he drew the door back, and there stood Mr. Olderglough, leaning against the wall, arms slack at his sides, mouth agape, dozing babe-like. The Baron studied him for a time, as though in distant recognition; reaching up, he laid a hand on Mr. Olderglough’s cheek. At this, Mr. Olderglough awoke, and upon seeing the Baron before him he let out a brief yet sincere shriek, raised the club high, and brought it down over the Baron’s skull. The Baron dropped where he stood and lay motionless on the floor.
Mr. Olderglough was studying the birch wood admiringly. “Do you know, I enjoyed that,” he conceded, and his face bespoke an exhilaration, for how curious life was, how unfathomably novel, and occasionally, wonderful. Mr. Olderglough moved to lay the Baron prone on his back. Taking up the man’s filthy wrists in his hands, he said to Lucy, “Get his feet, boy, will you?”
3
Shortly after he was tied to his bed the Baron came to, and upon registering the fact of his apprehension, then did he begin to flail and wail, to curse and spit, to roar from his depths, taken up with such manner of rage that he lost control of his functions; or perhaps it was that he intentionally encouraged this action as a non-verbal means of expressing his ire—either way, Lucy found it a grisly spectacle. Mr. Olderglough, conversely, took it in stride, and with something beyond patience; one would have thought he was looking after a temperamental infant rather than a raving, matter-smeared psychotic. Shy of the dawn, however, his years began to show, and he excused himself to rest and regroup. Lucy was ordered to stay and watch over the Baron, and he did this, sitting at a distance and monitoring the Baron’s ongoing tantrum, until such a time as the man exhausted himself, dropping into spent sleep; and so too did Lucy succumb to fatigue, sitting upright in his chair. They were the both of them awakened some hours later by the fact of the too-bright afternoon daylight. When the Baron spied Lucy from the corner of his eye he swiveled his head, and a calm came over his face. Perhaps it was his having rested, or possibly his mania had temporarily receded of its own accord, but he was, all at once, human again.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Lucy, sir. Hello.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I live here, sir. I’ve taken over for Mr. Broom.”
“Broom.” The Baron said this gloweringly, as if the man were antagonistic to his well-being. Suddenly there was a seriousness about his person, as if some pressing thought had come to him. “You will untie me, now,” he said.
“I mustn’t do that, sir.”
“You will untie me or you will be dismissed.”
“I’m very sorry to disagree with you, sir, but I have my orders from Mr. Olderglough, and I shall defer to him.”
“Mr. Olderglough,” said the Baron; and it was clear by his tone that he felt a fondness for the man. “And where is he now?”
“Here I am, I always am,” said Mr. Olderglough, entering the room looking greatly refreshed and carrying a steam-trailing soup bowl. “Wherever I find myself, and there I be.” He sat at the Baron’s bedside and, recognizing his present-ness, rejoiced. “Oh, welcome back, sir. It does me good to lay eyes upon you, and that’s the purest truth.”
The Baron smiled. “How have you been, Myron?”
“Up and down, sir.”
“More of the same?”
“The trials of a life.”
“What of the melancholy, may I ask?”
“Stubbornly persistent, I’m sorry to say.”
“If only modest joy were so dogged, eh?”
“You said something there, sir.”
The Baron gestured with his chin to the bowl in Mr. Olderglough’s hands. “What have you got, there? Agnes hasn’t been knocking about in the scullery again, I hope.”
“I’m afraid that she has, sir.”
“And I suppose you’ll want me to partake, is that the idea?”
“It is indeed.”
“May I ask what’s in it?”
“Better you go in blind, is my thought, sir. Just know that it’ll revitalize the spirit.” Mr. Olderglough brought a spoonful of broth to the Baron’s mouth. The Baron reluctantly received this, his face screwing up to a squint.
“Her admiration for pepper has not waned.”
“She is devout, sir.”
The Baron was peering into the bowl. “What is that floating, there?”
“One way to find out, sir. Let’s get on with it, and see what else the day has in store for us, what do you say to that?”
The Baron acquiesced, and the meal resumed. In watching this pair, Lucy wondered at the years that had passed between them. They were so perfectly comfortable with one another as to appear of a piece; it seemed the most natural thing in the world that one should be spoon-feeding the other. After the bowl had been emptied, Mr. Olderglough asked,
“Now, was that so bad?”
“You know perfectly well that it was,” the Baron answered, though he did look ever more hale. “Now,” he said, “I believe the time has come to address the fact of my being tied to my own bed, in a state of undress, and in need of several concurrent baths.”
“Yes, about that, sir,” Mr. Olderglough said. “It goes without saying I’m sorry you find yourself in such a condition as this. But at the same time, I can’t claim it wasn’t a necessity, because it was.”
“I have been—misbehaving again?” said the Baron.
“For some months now, sir, yes. Do you not recall it?”
“Somewhat I do.” Here he peered through time, and shuddered at what he found there. “It is unpleasant to consider,” he said.
“You’ll get no arg
ument from me there, sir. Possibly it’s best not to dwell.”
“Yes.”
“Let us look to the future rather than mull over the past.”
“It’s a nourishing thought, Myron, and thank you for it.” The Baron sniffed. “And will you untie me, now?”
“I will not, sir, no.”
“Do you have a time in mind when you might?”
“Quite soon, I hope.”
“You were always a fair man.”
“I like to believe it, sir.”
The Baron grimaced. “Why does my head hurt?”
“Well, sir,” said Mr. Olderglough, “you were in such a state that I was forced to club you.”
“Club me, did you say?”
“Indeed.”
“I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Nor did I. Actually, and if I may be so bold, it was somewhat thrilling.”
“Surely it must have been. You’ll have to tell me about it one day.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Has anyone else been injured?”
“You clipped my wing some time back, but I’m one hundred percent at present. And you gave young Lucy here a fright that resulted in a knock on the skull, isn’t that right, boy?”
The Baron looked across at Lucy, and a sorrowful mien came over him, as though contemplating Lucy’s porcelain countenance in the honest light of day brought his sins back to him, so that a shame took hold of him, and he turned away to bury his face in his pillows and bedding. He was for a time consumed by his sadness, his tone a high, whining wheeze; and Lucy studied the Baron as a pitiable but highly sympathetic individual. But Lucy’s empathy was short-lived, as a brief while later the Baron’s voice took on a gruff edge, and now did his rage come creeping back, and he began once more to rant and spit and curse, his alter ego having reclaimed stewardship of his spirit. Lucy found this disheartening, not to say frightening; but Mr. Olderglough was not the least surprised. He led Lucy from the Baron’s chambers. In the hall he regarded him kindly. It was to be, he assured his protégé, an undertaking.
4
Some days and nights passed. Lucy and Mr. Olderglough sat with the Baron, together and separately, feeding him and speaking with him and leading him away from his manias the way a child might be led away from a carnival. One morning Lucy entered the Baron’s chambers and found the man was no longer manacled, but sitting upright in his bathtub, and his hair had been cut, his scraggly beard shaven, revealing a handsomely angular face. He was reading the letter the Baroness had written with a look of horror.
“Are you not pleased that she’s returning, sir?” Lucy asked.
The Baron folded the letter and set it upon the side table. “All I know, boy, is that life is, on occasion, entirely too vast for my tastes.” Here he submerged himself, and afterward did a great many bubbles rise up from the depths of the bathtub, this due to the fact of the Baron screaming underwater.
5
There was a period of frantic activity at the castle. While Lucy and Mr. Olderglough had been tending to the Baron, Agnes had traveled to Listen and back; and in the coming days there followed in her wake deliveries of grain, flour, spices, candles, fowl, fish, kegs of ale, crates of wine and brandy, and all manner of culinary rarities Lucy had not heard of, much less tasted. The tailor arrived, three assistants in tow, and these four worked in earnest to prepare a new suit of clothes for the Baron, and another for Mr. Olderglough, whose outfit had devolved to something beyond shabby. The offending garment was burned, and now Mr. Olderglough moved sleekly through the halls in an ink-black morning coat, the portrait of surefooted elegance. He went about his work with a surplus of energy Lucy had not witnessed in the man; and Agnes, too, was all the more vital in her exercises. It was as though, with the re-awakening of the Baron’s senses, so did the health of his longtime subordinates likewise resume focus. Only now did Lucy understand what fond memories Mr. Olderglough and Agnes had been clinging to; only now did he appreciate the satisfaction they received in doing their work. And it was no small surprise that he found himself feeling similarly, but so it came to pass: the castle was sunlit, and all about there was the sense of hopefulness for the future.
Which is not to say Lucy had an easy time of it. Three days before the Baroness was to arrive, Mr. Olderglough ushered him into the ballroom and said, “I would like you to please tidy up the area, now.”
“Which area, sir?”
“The location as a whole.”
“Meaning this room, sir?”
“All right, yes.”
Lucy considered the size of the space. “When you say ‘tidy,’ sir.”
“Wash the windows. Wash the floors. Wash the walls. Wash the ceilings.”
“Wash the ceilings,” said Lucy.
“Air the room. Clean out the grates. Uncover the furniture. Polish the trim and accoutrements. Once you’re through here, then move on to the next room, and the next, and so on.”
Lucy said, “It sounds, sir, that you’re asking me to clean the castle from bottom to top before the Baroness returns home. Is that correct?”
“Is there a problem with that, boy?”
“In that it’s not possible to achieve I would say that there is, yes.”
Mr. Olderglough thought this an unfortunate attitude, and furthermore voiced a concern that Lucy was becoming too familiar for one in his position. But in the end he gave way, and Lucy was allotted a small allowance with which to hire help from the village. He enjoined a half-dozen of the meanest-looking women about, the same group who had teased him in regard to Klara’s cape, the idea being that they possessed the necessary fortitude to attack such an outsize endeavor. The scheme bore fruit in that the group cleaned with palpable anger, as though the accrual of dirt were an affront to their honor. This hostility was a boon for the task, but proved less advantageous in other ways. Lucy was afraid of the women, and they knew this, and exploited it by pinching and prodding and harassing him; they made crude jokes at his expense for the pleasure of seeing him blush; the stoutest of the bunch at one point pinned Lucy’s head to the wall with her behemoth breast, so that he flailed his arms and was panicked to catch a breath.
Indignities aside, Lucy’s plan was a success: the work was completed without flaw, and the castle was returned to a state befitting a Baroness. The feeling among the staff was an invigorating concoction of jubilation and acute agitation, both of these held in check, at least so much as was possible.
In the center of this bustle was the Baron, and it was days before Lucy could take his eyes off the man, this due not only to the fact of his remarkable return to civility, but because the person who had emerged from those ghastly shadows was the most alluring sort of gentleman imaginable. To watch him simply enter a room was in itself an entertainment; he was a danseur noble crossing a stage, his every movement so unhesitatingly graceful as he reached in one fluid motion for a book, an ashtray, a pitcher of water—effortless performances which led Lucy to wonder at the standards or qualities of noble blood, and whether or not one in his own modest position might will his blood to clarify, to improve itself. He thought not, ruefully.
Beyond the physical, there was ever more to admire in terms of the Baron’s temperament and personality. In the days preceding the Baroness’s arrival, he oversaw each aspect of the castle’s rehabilitation with a firm hand and meticulous eye; and yet he was never anything other than gracious to his underlings, instilling in the same sequence both sympathy and command—here were the attributes, Lucy realized, of the true leader. He was particularly admiring of how the Baron addressed Agnes’s scullery shortcomings. Sampling her stew, for example, he might act as though he were partaking of a delicacy, his abhorrence completely hidden away, afterward lavishing her in praise, which she drank up greedily. Agnes thus mollified, the Baron would then say something like, “I do wonder if the pepper isn’t dominating the dish, my dear, when your beautiful roux is clearly the leading light of the show?”
Here
Agnes’s mind would set to turning, and she would ask, “Do you think we might do with less pepper, sir?”
“Excellent idea, Agnes—and just as you say, why not try it?”
So, Agnes would re-create the stew, halve the pepper, the dish would become suddenly edible, the Baron would proclaim her a genius, and she would float about in a cloud of pride and adoration all the rest of the day.
The man was charm personified, in other words, and Lucy was unabashedly in awe of him.
6
On the evening prior to the Baroness’s arrival, Lucy watched from his window as the Baron roamed about in the field separating the castle and village. He walked for long moments with a still face, his hands behind his back, but then began murmuring to himself, then speaking, and with increased animation, gesturing this way and that, a sly smile on his face. Lucy recognized that the Baron was imagining he was with the Baroness, and practicing the things he would say to her. At one point he drew his hand to his mouth, searching for some suitably clever phrase, perhaps; upon locating it, then giving voice to it, his eyes grew bright with pleasure. Lucy found a commiserative affinity for the man growing in his heart, and was made apprehensive by this fact. For if love had so degraded a personage of the Baron’s powers, what might it do to him? Folding up his telescope, he pushed the thought from his mind. It was too unsettling to regard directly.
VIII
THE BARONESS VON AUX
1
On the appointed day and at the appointed hour, the Baron stood on the platform awaiting the return of the Baroness Von Aux. His hair was combed severely and his expression was severe, and the flowers he held in his hand were gripped with severity, fixed as he was in fevered expectation. Mr. Olderglough was somber; he stood beside the Baron, and Lucy beside Mr. Olderglough. They were each of them looking straight ahead, beyond the tracks and into the unpeopled, forested lands. It felt as though the train were late, this because it was.