JUST A SONG AT TWILIGHT

‘Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low;
And the flickering shadows softly come and go.
Tho’ the heart be weary, sad the day and long,
Still to us at twilight comes love’s old, sweet song,
Comes love’s old, sweet song.’

From ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’ – by James L. Molloy and J. Clifton Bingham

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Part Eleven

Somewhere, music was playing, bittersweet and oddly familiar. The words of the song echoed round in her head like a gramophone needle stuck in a groove. Marguerite was lying curled-up on her side, arms crossed in the foetal position. Gradually, as her head began to stop swimming, she wondered why she felt so numb. There was an indistinct feeling of terror and anxiety, a fear so great, it threatened their destruction. Marguerite couldn’t for the life of her remember . . . at least not until her head refrained from spinning.

There was a strong scent of dried grass beneath her. She was lying on a woven rush mat on the floor of the tree house, a shaft of morning sunlight on her face . . .

And then she remembered.

She sat up with a jerk, her heart hammering, searching wildly around her until she found the reassurance that she sought.

‘Thank God,’ Marguerite swallowed hard as her eyes rested on the familiar room. She had never been so glad to see the odd combination of Victorian furniture and jungle vines, rattan screens and lush vegetation, nature’s infra-structure of wooden branches and scaffolding which supported their humble abode. For a moment, she shuddered; she had half expected to awaken in the squalid little room, forlorn with faded roses on the walls.

Netley was lying in front of the fire, an arm thrown up over his face. Marguerite scrambled drunkenly to her feet, determinedly ignoring the pounding in her head as she reached for the discarded gun. She needn’t have bothered. It was only once she retrieved the weapon that she looked at the coachman properly.

Her stomach heaved uncontrollably as she stared in horror at his face. Or rather, what was left of it. If his scars had been grotesque before, they were nothing to what she saw now. There was an empty pit where his remaining eye had been – it had been gouged completely out of its socket. Netley’s mouth was slashed across the lower half of his jaw to resemble a circus clown’s, the ghastly, reddened parody of a painted rictus grin. His nose had been split into two neat halves and spread open like a peeled fruit. Marguerite had only ever seen anything so deliberately inflicted once before in her life; in the much-publicised, newspaper pictures which had depicted Mary Jane Kelly’s vicious mutilation at the hands of Jack the Ripper.*

The rest of Netley’s body was a cicatrix of wounds, a sickening welter of deep cuts and slashes which bit down as far as the bone. The mat he lay on was soaked with blood, both venous and scarlet arterial. Marguerite gagged on a mouthful of bile and fought for control of her retching. Even as she watched, a large blow-fly circled the coachman’s head, pitching in the empty socket where Netley’s eye had been. Already, the tree house was tainted by the sickly-sweet miasma of death. It was a smell Marguerite knew only too well, one which would linger in her mind forever following her wartime experiences in the corpse-laden battlefields of Belgium and France.

The murder weapon lay open at her feet, the blade sticky and rusted with blood. Roxton’s cut-throat razor, the bone handle no longer white. It was then Marguerite became aware of her own condition. She was literally drenched in blood but none of it seemed to be her own. Blood on her hands, down her arms, in her hair . . . staining the front of her blouse and skirt with patches of darkening brown. She remembered the final moments before mercifully losing consciousness, the flash of the blade as she’d raised her arm, drowning in a sea of scarlet.

“Oh, God!”

The memories were insistent. A worm of icy certainty in her head. Marguerite knew what she had done, or rather, what Mary Kelly’s vengeful apparition had forced her to do when it possessed her. Something only a corporeal body was capable of doing. Her eyes flew involuntarily up to the mirror, drawn against their will to the glass. Mercifully, the only face reflected was her own, taut with anxiety and white with strain as she gazed into the quiet room beyond her. The ghost of Mary Kelly was gone now. This time, Marguerite knew it was forever. The Ripper’s last London victim had got what she’d come for – savage revenge and retribution. And in a strange way, she’d saved all their lives.

Marguerite looked quickly away, the truth of it was hard to stomach. Although she’d been subverted against her will, it was hard to come to terms with what she’d done. Taking a life in self-defence was an unpleasant reality on the Plateau, there was no room here for being squeamish, that way you’d only end up dead. But what had been done to Netley was by far and away another matter. A brutal mutilation carried out for pleasure and power, a killing perpetrated for the sheer enjoyment of death. The kind of vicious, violent death the ‘Ripper’ had dealt out to ‘his’ victims. The Whitechapel murders may have started out as a clandestine case of royal assassination but they had ended up somewhat differently - as pure, unadulterated evil.

“It wasn’t me,” she murmured, shaking her head in denial. “It wasn’t really me, it was her. Mary Kelly, she forced me to do it!” Marguerite knew with a cold sense of certainty that however many times she repeated the words, it would be hard to convince herself of them.

She shivered suddenly. Doctor Gull, the eviscerator, had been disembowelled by a raptor. Anderson, the sexual predator, killed by his intended prey. And in the end, Netley, the woman-hating butcher had been mutilated and slashed to death at the hands of a woman. After several years on the Plateau, Marguerite no longer believed in random events, but this particular series of coincidences left her feeling extremely uneasy. It was as though they were helpless in a great spider’s web with strands of fate weaving deftly about them, taking control of all semblance of free will and independently determining the pattern of their lives.

Unable to bear the accusatory sight of Netley’s disfigured face any longer, Marguerite staggered across to the couch and pulled off one of the blankets. It was a relief to throw it over the coachman’s already stiffening body - to temporarily cover the evidence of what she and Mary Kelly had done. The outstretched arm flung up over his face still clutched hold of the rosary beads, but something was clearly missing. The silver crucifix had gone.

Marguerite knew, without a shadow of a doubt, it was no longer to be found in the tree house. Netley’s macabre keepsake had been returned to its rightful owner. Mary Kelly had taken it with her, back beyond space and time. It was the final, fitting epitaph to the story.

‘Still to us at twilight comes love’s old, sweet song,
Comes love’s old, sweet song.’

The cycle of music came to an end as the verse of the old song ended, the stylus jumping back in the groove as it prepared to start all over again. Marguerite gave a muttered curse and ran across the room to the gramophone. She knocked the needle arm aside and snatched the 78’ from the turntable, dashing it against the edge of the table with every ounce of strength she possessed. The brittle shellac shattered into dozens of uneven pieces, but just to make absolutely sure of things, Marguerite ground some of them to powder with her boot-heel. She never wanted to hear that bloody song ever again!

A cool hand caught her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin. It was Challenger, still slightly shaky and looking decidedly green about the gills.

“Mary Kelly?” he gestured at Netley’s body.

Marguerite nodded her head. “She finally got what she came for. I don’t think she’ll be back. The story which began back in London has come to an end here on the Plateau.”

“Not quite.” Challenger grasped hold of her arm and pulled her over to Roxton. He placed his fingers on the side of Roxton’s neck and let out a sigh of relief. “There’s a pulse. He’s still breathing. I was afraid the chloroform I intended for Netley would be too much for his weakened lungs to handle.”

Marguerite sat down with a bump, the strength draining suddenly from her legs. It was strange, but however much she welcomed Challenger’s confirmation, she’d known without being told that Roxton was no longer in danger. The blackmailing hold Mary Kelly had maintained on his weakened spirit had finally dissipated and gone. There was a sensation of dark wings unfurling as the hovering threat began to disperse. The morning sunlight was golden and clear as the storm clouds melted away.

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She dreamed she was a child again, walking through the fields of England with Old Annis. The summer grasses were tall and filled with flowers as high as her childish waist. Every now and then, the old woman would stop and point to a particular plant. Marguerite would help her to gather it carefully and place it into a sack, knowing it was either medicinal or perhaps even magical in nature.

The meadows and chalk downs of Wiltshire were abundant with wild herbs, the feathered stalks of chamomile and the fragrant, evergreen thyme. Meadow clary and milkwort, agrimony and rambling eglantine. There was an element about this part of the countryside which was somehow trapped in time. It was as though the man-made boundaries of days, months and the passage of years had no power over the land.

It wasn’t just the presence of the long-barrows and prehistoric rings of standing stones, or the linear, white chalk horses, carved with reverence and veneration by ancient hands into the hillsides. To the young Marguerite, it was much more than that. It was the feeling she had come home.

Ridiculous, of course. Orphaned and unwanted, pushed around from pillar to post. Far too different even, to fit in with the village children. She preferred to spend time with Annis, helping the old woman out with her tattered menagerie of three-legged foxes and frightened, flightless birds. Just as though she herself were one of the wise-woman’s abandoned strays, rather like the words of the music hall song, another ‘bird with a broken wing.’

In her dream they had reached the edge of the trees and before them was a long grass ride,* the wide path cut through the ancient woodlands and was fringed with a border of willowherb. Marguerite had looked out at it curiously, eyes drawn down past the gate at the end to wide expanse of mown lawn beyond.

There was a building there, the time-weathered walls of a manor house, mellow and golden in the sunshine, daylight glinting off the mullioned windows which looked out across the parkland behind it. The house seemed to be beckoning towards her, the warm stone welcoming her inside. White roses gleamed around the casements and a silver fountain played on the lawn. It was like something out of a wonderful dream, like a glimpse through the keyhole into fairyland. An exquisite, enchanted castle lost within a glade. To add to the air of magic, she heard the calling of a lost soul, the cry of a jewelled peacock from the gardens surrounding the house. Marguerite left the safety of the woodland fringe and stepped out into the middle of the ride, bewitched by the warmth and lure of the building which stood out of reach beyond the wooden gate.

“Pretty, isn’t it, dearie?” Old Annis had chuckled beside her.

“It isn’t pretty, it’s beautiful.” Marguerite had sighed. “Who lives there?”

The woman had looked at her sharply, fingers tightening around her arm as she began to drag her back towards the cool shadiness of the woods. “Not now, not now, the time isn’t right. I should never have brought you out here!”

“Wait!” Marguerite pulled against her, strangely reluctant to leave. “Can’t we get a little closer and take a peep within?”

“It belongs to the lords of the manor. They won’t want to find the likes of us on their land. Come away, child, you shouldn’t be here. It doesn’t do to mess with time.”

They had barely reached the concealing trees before Marguerite heard the sound of hoof-beats on the ride. Old Annis continued to tow her away, but she looked back over her shoulder and just managed to catch the briefest of glimpses of a young man on a large bay hunter.

The boy’s hair was dark and his face was sunburned, split wide by a flashing grin. An air of recklessness surrounded him as he galloped hell for leather towards the house and Marguerite was reminded of a dashing, young cavalier. There was another rider following after him, lagging more cautiously some ways behind by at least a good ten yards.

“Come on, Will,” the boy flung back at him. “Let him have his head at the gate. You’re never going to beat me at this rate if you’re too scared to let him run!”

The second rider scowled at the first boy’s back and dug his heels in harder as both horsemen flew past their hiding place with a pounding of flying hooves. Marguerite knew with certainty that the reckless boy would win. There was something more determined about him, an aura of victory and strength.

They were back in the cool green depths of the wood and the beautiful house was lost to her. Marguerite had felt oddly bereft as Old Annis led her away.

“Who were those boys?” she kept looking behind her as if they might miraculously appear. But the only sound around them was the quiet murmuring of wind in the trees.

Annis had stopped abruptly and stared right into her face. There was something knowing in the currant-like eyes which sent an icy shiver down Marguerite’s spine. For a sudden, uneasy moment, she remembered the rumours she’d heard in the village that the old woman was a witch. It wasn’t hard to believe such gossip at peculiar times such as this.

“Two brothers . . . lords of the manor.” Annis muttered in a far away voice, as if she had gone into a trance. “One will die and one will fly but he’ll never escape from his past.”

Marguerite felt frozen, remembering the careless smile on the first boy’s handsome face. She had found herself hoping with all her heart he would not be the one to die.

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Marguerite awoke with a sudden start as the bizarre dream came to an end. It was strange, but until now, she’d forgotten the incident entirely. She must have buried it deep inside her subconscious along with a plethora of other painful childhood memories from that time. She knew without a question of doubt the boy in the dream was Roxton. The magical house at the end of the ride must have been Avebury Manor.

The feeling that life was spinning out of control came back to haunt her again. Everywhere she turned there were coincidences and happenstance, twisted little quirks of fate. She felt swept along by the undertow, at the mercy of events beyond her influence.

She got up and walked across the room to Roxton’s bedroom window - it was evening on the Plateau, yet another day had come to an end. The last two weeks had flown by like a series of nightmares, but it had been one of the longest times in her life. The light was fading with a rosy glow and the customary warmth had returned. If she wasn’t aware of everything that had happened, it was as though it had never been. She still felt tired and drained of energy, the chloroform hadn’t helped, but at least she had slept off the last of the headache the anaesthetic drug had caused.

It had been a good idea of Challenger’s in theory. The scientist had planned to use one of the vials to render Netley unconscious. Quite what they would have done with the murdering bastard then was another matter entirely. As it was, fate had determined otherwise. Fate and the vengeful ghost of Mary Kelly.

Marguerite turned away from Roxton’s window. She and Challenger had spent a very unpleasant couple of hours earlier this afternoon disposing of Netley’s body. They had not wasted time with niceties, taking it down in the tree house lift and wheeling it on a trolley a few hundred yards into the jungle beyond the electric fence. They had left it out in the open, unwrapped and still covered in drying blood. Sure enough, less than an hour later, they had heard the keening roar of feeding raptors. It was a fitting end to the saga and although neither she nor Challenger had voiced the thought out loud, each believed Netley to be unworthy of more dignity.

It was finished. Anderson, Gull and Netley were gone, and with them the map and the knife. Whether or not the knife had possessed all three men was something they’d never know. It was swallowed up in the lava beds forever. The evil devourer, devoured. Challenger was of the firm opinion the blade itself might have been cursed, selecting human vessels to carryout its will by fastening on to their potential for evil. As for the map, Marguerite sighed, perhaps it was all for the best it had burned. Keeping its whereabouts to herself would have weighed heavily on her conscience, always niggling in the back of her mind like the dirty little secret it was.

It was harder to contemplate leaving with every day that passed. The reason she’d journeyed to the Plateau was becoming less important all the time. Not the thirst to know who she was – that was one desire which nothing would never change, but the reality of obtaining hold of that knowledge was becoming tempered with fear.

What if she wasn’t good enough?

Ever since she was a little girl, Marguerite had worn the mystery surrounding her birth like a suit of defensive armour. She was the daughter of an English nobleman, the missing offspring of a Russian tsar . . . switched in her cradle by a jealous midwife, or kidnapped by a wicked uncle . . .

The stories she’d conjured inside her head had protected her from facing up to harsh reality. And later, when she was older, she had reinvented herself at will; on occasion by marriage and her liaisons with men, but often just by using her intelligence. She had relied on cunning, the gullibility of others, and her proficiency at telling convincing lies. It was a skill which had stood her in good stead during the war years, one of the many reasons she had been so successful as a spy. The ability to talk her way out of many a tricky situation had been fostered during her childhood. In the realms of her myriad fantasy worlds and as the result of an over-fertile imagination. Marguerite had lost count of all the times her life had been saved by a lie.

“Marguerite?”

She summonsed a smile for the man on the bed, glad he had finally awoken. Roxton, of course, was the reason she was suddenly so scared of the truth. The ‘Young Lord of Avebury Manor,’ laying here all grown-up before her. How would it affect their relationship when she finally discovered who she was?

She knew Roxton well enough by now to be sure his feelings would not change. The man would stand by her through thick and thin, he had proven it time and time again. His loyalty was never in question but at what potential cost to himself? Her past could be embarrassing, even dangerous, and Marguerite would not countenance the thought of Roxton being harmed either physically or by dint of reputation because of her.

Not now, not ever again. In a way, it was ironic and truly frightening how being on the Plateau had changed her. The old Marguerite always put herself first, always made her own needs a priority. She had used people blithely to get what she wanted, but then again, back in those days, the old Marguerite had not cared so much for the people around her as the new Marguerite did now.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Roxton was quizzical, his voice low and husky with strain. “I take it, as we’re still alive, I must have missed out on all the action?”

Marguerite shrugged a trifle bitterly and tried to push her troubled reflections away. “I doubt if my thoughts are worth as much as that.” She sat down in the chair beside him and changed the subject quickly, giving him a watered down version of events since he’d passed out at the top of the lab stairs.

Roxton listened intently without interruption and Marguerite was grateful for small mercies. She didn’t want to repeat the graphic details of Netley’s death all over again. As it was, she was slightly surprised by his quiet acceptance and unusual lack of questions, but he was still looking under the weather, pale and distinctly worn-out.

“So, that’s that.” Roxton said, pensively. “The Ripper is well and truly dead.”

“Yes.” Marguerite thought of Netley’s body and the triumph on Mary Kelly’s face. “It’s over.”

“If we were back in London, think what a sensation we could cause.”

“Quite - sensation doesn’t begin to describe it.” Marguerite made a face at him. “Scandal in the monarchy, political intrigue, freemasons working secretly for the Crown . . . and then there’s the legion of royal assassins we’d have trying to hunt us down. Definitely a sensation, all right!”

“Hmm . . . that might cause one or two problems.” Roxton agreed wryly, before being silenced for several minutes by a rasping bout of coughing. The Ripper saga was over but its legacy would linger for a while.

“And besides, if we were back in London,” Marguerite sought to distract him, a teasing smile on her face. “There’s the question of a certain solicitor’s letter which entitles me to some rather attractive rights.”

Roxton looked up at her quickly and fought to catch his breath. There was a slight sheen of fever upon his brow but no hint of delirium in his eyes. “About the letter, Marguerite . . .”

“Hush, John,” she soothed him hurriedly, placing her finger across his lips. “It’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me, but you don’t have to worry, it’s still there. However, if we ever do find a way to leave this Godforsaken wilderness . . .” she paused and pursed her lips, wickedly. “If I were you, I’d check the bottom of your trunk!”

END OF PART ELEVEN

Lisa Paris - 2006

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Part Twelve

Two Days Later . . .

Marguerite reached the last page of her book and smiled rather wistfully at the conclusion. She already knew how it ended of course, she had first read it many years before. The villain vanquished, the lovers reunited, the hero’s title restored. If only things could happen in real life like they happened in the pages of books. The expectation of a happy ending was something she had learned not to hope for. Life was not popular fiction but somewhat harder and more down-to-earth.

She tipped back her head and closed her eyes, enjoying the sun on her face. The air had been fresher since the end of the storm and it was a pleasure to sit outside on the balcony. It was the first time she’d been happy to leave Roxton, other than to attend to her own personal needs. The evening following Netley’s death, he’d developed another low-grade fever. She’d taken it in turns with Challenger to nurse him through it again.

Thankfully, he was sleeping now and Challenger was completely optimistic. There was far less congestion on Roxton’s damaged lung and the exudate continued to deplete. It would take a while for him to regain his former strength, but the corner had been turned and he was healing at last. They all were, to some extent.

“Hello up there!”

Marguerite opened her eyes at once, relief and joy flooding through her. She peered over the balcony railing at Ned and Veronica down below.

“Well, hello yourself, strangers!”

“Typical,” Malone’s voice floated up to her. “Sleeping like a cat in the sunshine, while we’ve been marooned by the storm to end all storms.”

Marguerite shook her head wryly but refrained from making any comment. Malone would know the truth soon enough – or at least the majority of it. She got up from the comfortable couch and went through to meet them from the lift. Since Netley had trashed the tree house, there’d been no time to repair all of the damage.

“What happened?” Veronica looked around sharply and frowned, her hand moving down to her knife. “And where have all the mats gone?”

“Shush, keep your voices down,” Marguerite didn’t want them waking Roxton. “It’s a long story. You’d better come in and take a seat, a lot’s happened since you’ve been gone”

Malone regarded her closely, observing the lines of strain. She was pale and noticeably thinner, her eyes ringed with shadows of fatigue. In his limited experience of Marguerite, that could only mean one thing.

“What’s wrong?” his tone was urgent. “Are Roxton and Challenger okay?”

She gave him a wan smile. “Challenger’s fine and Roxton will be, but it’s been rather touch and go. You picked a perfect time to go away, we had another visitor whilst you were gone . . . well actually, we had two of them. And I suppose the word visitor doesn’t quite do either of them justice, I would describe them more as unwelcome tenants.”

“Netley!” Suddenly, Malone went as white as a ghost and clutched hold of his head. “My dreams . . . of course, I should have known. The third man - he was alive all along. He came here in search of the knife!”

“Ned,” Veronica helped him across to a chair. “Here, you’d better sit down.” She looked up at Marguerite, her voice tight and accusatory with worry. “He still hasn’t recovered from the visions.”

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Malone stared up at Marguerite. “My God, I should have realised . . . I should have paid more attention.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Malone,” Roxton rasped from the doorway. “Psychic visions or no psychic visions, you couldn’t have anticipated what happened here.”

Challenger stepped forward and took his arm with a rueful glance at Marguerite. “I’m sorry, he insisted on getting up when he heard Malone and Veronica had returned.”

Marguerite looked sternly at both of them but she was not all that surprised. Once he was on the mend again, Roxton was a terrible patient. She knew he’d be chaffing to get out of bed at the earliest possible excuse. Forgetting about the others for a moment, she crossed the room to his side. He was dressed in his trousers and an open shirt and she gave him a fleeting smile.

“I see you managed by yourself this time,” she gestured down at his belt buckle.

“Barely,” his eyes gleamed in appreciation. “It was easier when I had you to help me.”

“As opposed to harder,” she murmured for his ears only, her face a picture of innocence.

Roxton chuckled under his breath. “I wouldn’t quite say that.”

“Eh-hem,” Challenger cleared his throat. “May I suggest we all sit down and pour ourselves a drink? I have a feeling swapping stories is going to take quite a while.”

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It was late afternoon by the time they finished and the light had started to change. Challenger had not exaggerated when he’d said explanations would take them a while. Malone and Veronica had told their story first.

They’d reached the Zanga village just in time to escape the worst of the storm, taking refuge with Jarl and Assai whilst they were forced to wait it out. Once the deluge finally passed, it had left such a trail of destruction in its path that the village was devastated. Uprooting parts of the Zanga stockade which protected them so effectively from their enemies, destroying huts and flattening the crops which provided the tribe with much of their food. In return for the hospitality Assai had so generously offered, Veronica had insisted on staying longer to help repair some of the damage.

Reading between the lines, Marguerite got the impression that all was not well with Ned and Veronica. The enforced stay in the Zanga village had hardly been the break they had hoped for. The time spent away from the tree house had been too fraught with work and worry to heal any long-term scars. Malone was still haggard and jumpy with a distant look in his eyes. He seemed slightly uncomfortable around them, as though he felt out of place.

Marguerite stayed close to a drowsy Roxton, who by rights should have gone back to bed, happy for the most part to sit back in silence and let Challenger narrate the main bulk of their story. It suited her purpose better to have the scientist relate his version of events, but even so, there were some parts only she could recount and she did so as briefly as possible. That way she didn’t have to lie, except of course, if one was being picky, by exclusion and judicious omission.

“– and so . . .” Challenger concluded with a slight flourish, “thanks to the diuretic I produced, Roxton, as you can see, is on the mend. And as for Netley,” his voice became grim. “We let the Plateau dispose of his body.”

“What about Mary Jane Kelly?” Veronica looked over her shoulder at the mirror with a slight shiver. “I hope she’s not coming back?”

“No.” Marguerite spoke up with certainty. “Her reason for returning is done.”

“It’s my fault,” Malone repeated. “I should have known Netley wasn’t dead. When we were stranded in the Zanga village I kept on dreaming about him. Once I’d held the knife in my hand I could almost hear it calling to me.” He looked across distractedly at Roxton. “I wanted the visions to end so badly that I didn’t pay attention to their warnings. I was too wrapped up in my own pain. My God, you could have died!”

“You’re being a little hard on yourself.” Challenger’s voice was kind. “John Netley was a very cunning man. Don’t forget he covered-up his footsteps so well that even Anderson and Scotland Yard believed he drowned in the Thames.”

“And besides,” Roxton croaked with agreement. “I should have found some sign of him when I dissolved their camp. I’m an experienced, bloody tracker for heaven’s sake, but I didn’t spot any trace of him.”

“Well, this is fun,” said Marguerite, chattily. “Why don’t we all blame each other? Of course it had nothing to do with the Plateau or events outside our control. Malone ignored all the warning signs and Roxton deliberately became ill. Challenger was too absorbed in his work and I - I should have guessed immediately what Mary Kelly was trying to tell me.”

“Much as it pains me to say it, what Marguerite says is true.” Veronica touched the back of Malone’s hand. “There was nothing any of us could have done and it turned out all right in the end.”

Although Malone didn’t answer her, he squeezed her fingers gratefully. Marguerite spotted the gesture of comfort and felt slightly more reassured.

“It’s strange Mary Kelly preferred to appear in that particular mirror.” Veronica was thoughtful. “There’s a manufacturer’s stamp on the back of the frame, you’ll never guess what the date is?”

“It wouldn’t be 1888?” Roxton’s tone was dry.

For answer, Veronica got to her feet and lifted the heavy mirror off its hook. She placed it carefully onto the table, reflective side face-down. Sure enough, there was a maker’s date and location stamped into the side of the gilt frame – Whitechapel Glassworks, London – 1888.

Marguerite’s hair prickled suddenly and she felt her blood turn to ice. The mirror had been made in the Whitechapel district in the year of the Ripper murders and Mary Kelly’s brutal death. If you were a student of happenstance, this in itself was odd enough. But the date had another eerie significance; it was also the year she had been born.*

A coincidence – it was surely a coincidence. Just as their initials, MK were the same. The only reason Mary Kelly had targeted her was to warn her about John Netley. Anything else was merely a fluke, simply a weird twist of fate. Another one of the strange little games the Plateau insisted on playing.

“Well, this is indeed most serendipitous.” Challenger looked curiously at the writing. “You know, there are a lot of folk legends surrounding the use of mirrors. The most well known one of course, is the fairy tale Snow White. The idea of the soul projecting out of the body and into the looking glass underlies the most widely held superstition that breaking a mirror can cause seven years bad luck. Nonsense, of course . . .” He paused for a moment and pondered the question some more. “Although in some parts of Eastern Europe, they still cover their mirrors up at night in case the soul should wander off in dreams and become trapped behind the glass.”

“Don’t forget the bit about vampires,” said Roxton a trifle uncomfortably. “A vampire has no reflection in the mirror because he’s lost his soul.”

“Quite.” Challenger cleared his throat awkwardly before continuing, their own and particularly Roxton’s encounter with the undead uncomfortably fresh in his mind.* “A body of legend as sizeable as this must have some actual basis in reality. It would be interesting to do some research into the matter to find out if there’s some sort of dimensional shift . . .”

Much to Marguerite’s mixed relief, Roxton brought the subject to an abrupt halt by an especially unpleasant bout of coughing. Although she hated to see him in discomfort, the disturbance interrupted Challenger’s train of thought and gave her the welcome excuse she needed to bring any further conjecture to an end. She’d had more than her fill of the Ripper saga and the strange coincidences surrounding it. Challenger had described things as ‘serendipitous’ but Marguerite preferred to use the word chilling.

“Come on,” she leaned across to rub Roxton’s back and waited as he struggled for breath. “Fascinating as all this undoubtedly is, you’ve been up for far too long. It’s time to be a good boy and take your medicine and then I’ll help you get back into bed.”

She got to her feet and lit a couple of the lanterns although there was still some natural light left in the room. It would take a while and a fair amount of time to chase all the shadows away. And some of them would never leave her, Marguerite accepted that. The Ripper incident had provided her with more un-answered questions about her own, mysterious past.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In-spite of his protestations to the contrary, Roxton was still comparatively weak. By the time they reached the door to his quarters, he leant heavily on Marguerite’s arm. She led him across to the bed without comment and waited while he undressed. For once, she was too preoccupied to take even the smallest furtive peek in his direction. Veronica’s revelation about the date on the mirror had unsettled her quite badly.

“Do you believe in reincarnation?” her question was abrupt.

Roxton looked up at her compassionately but without too much surprise. “I wondered if you might ask me this.”

She shrugged, immediately uncomfortable. “Forget it, it isn’t important.”

“Marguerite,” he grasped hold of her wrist before she could get away. “Anything capable of hurting you is important as far as I’m concerned. Don’t you dare shut me out now, not after everything we’ve been through together during the last few weeks.”

For a second she resisted him, the instinct to run paramount, but the kindness in his voice seemed to gentle her and after a moment she relaxed. “The date on the back of the mirror, the dreams I had about her life . . . they were so real, more like memories. As though I was a part of it – part of Mary Kelly’s way of life.”

“Coincidence.” Roxton’s voice was firm. “Don’t forget I had dreams too. She was trying to give us a message, manipulating both of us.”

Marguerite regarded him doubtfully, wanting to believe his words. “But, my initials . . .”

“Purely chance.” His face crinkled into a smile. “And don’t try to tell me they’re the only initials you’ve ever gone by, Marguerite, which rather rules that argument out.”

She was unable to refute his statement. It was true that over the years, she had used various different names. Aliases, code-names, a range of titles, some of which she had assumed by marriage. Roxton didn’t know the half of it, but his words had given her some comfort. There was no point worrying over something she had no ability to change.

“You’re right,” she said, resolutely, as much to convince herself. “I should forget the whole, bloody thing. We survived and it’s over and done with. Time to get on with our lives.” She pulled her wrist gently out of his grasp and waited whilst he climbed into bed. “But you never did answer my question; do you believe there’s any truth in the rumour we might get born again?”

She regretted pursuing it immediately as his eyes became shadowed with pain. Roxton the protector, Roxton the strong one. It was sometimes easy to forget he had his own ghosts to contend with.

“After William died,” his voice was low. “I spent some time in Tibet. I lived in a Buddhist monastery, seeking answers to unanswerable questions.”

“John . . .”

“No, it’s all right,” he looked at her gravely. “I don’t mind discussing it with you. The monks believed in reincarnation - that the human soul is reborn over and over again until it achieves enlightenment. All our experiences, everything we do, they’re just stepping stones on the way. Each lifetime is a lesson, a chance to learn from previous mistakes.”

“Do you believe it?” Marguerite sounded troubled.

Roxton picked up her hand again and seemed to draw comfort from her touch. “At the time, I wasn’t ready to believe in anything. I thought I’d never believe again. And, as for my soul,” he shrugged his shoulders. “I thought, like a vampire, I’d lost it for good. It took a long time for me to rediscover it, albeit a trifle battered around the edges.”

She looked at him wordlessly and shook her head. That he, of all people should doubt his integrity. He was her beacon of light in the darkness. Noble and shining and bright.

“I don’t know about reincarnation,” he lifted her knuckles to his lips. “But ever since the meeting at the Royal Society, I do believe in pre-destination. When I saw you walk down the aisle that evening, I think some part of me accepted I might have just met my fate.”

“Soul mates?” She leant in a little closer and he drew her down onto the bed alongside him.

“Don’t you feel it?” His eyes seemed to caress her. “That somewhere, someplace, in some other time, we’ve met each other and fought each other and loved one another before?”

“Perhaps I remind you of someone?” she was deliberately teasing him now.

“Impossible,” his mouth moved to her earlobe. “You, Marguerite, are an original. Absolutely and indisputably unique.”

She shivered as his lips roved lower, tracing the line of her neck, pushing aside the weight of her hair to the hollow above her collarbone. It was true, she did feel it. The certainty that John Roxton was the other half of her soul. The thought of spending her life without him, of fulfilling her part of Shanghai Xan’s bargain and leaving him behind on the Plateau . . . it was more than she could bear to even contemplate.

“There’s one thing I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Roxton interrupted her train of thought. “Netley said something curious, something that’s been preying on my mind. About not really knowing the person we love . . .”

Marguerite stiffened and sat up abruptly. In the wake of all the anguish they’d suffered, trust Roxton to remember those particular words. “The man rambled on about a lot of things, he was clearly raving by then.”

“Was he?” Roxton tilted her face around gently, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “Although Netley was psychotic, I thought at the time, he might have touched a nerve?”

“He was playing games with us, John,” she dissembled, hurriedly, silently cursing the dead coachman. Marguerite tried diverting Roxton from the topic by running her hand through his hair, desperate to change the subject again by distracting him with her touch. “All he really cared about was getting his hands back on the knife.”

“I suppose so,” Roxton nodded, the doubt fading slightly from his voice. “He couldn’t possibly have known much about either one of us – he must have been out to cause trouble by throwing a spanner in the works.”

“Divide and conquer,” Marguerite agreed, snuggling-up closer to him again. “And besides, it would be boring for you to know everything about me . . . a girl’s entitled to keep some secrets,” she brushed the subject lightly aside and drew him towards her for a kiss.

Roxton responded willingly enough and to her relief, Netley’s words seemed forgotten in their mutual enjoyment of one another. Marguerite was reprieved for now, but she knew the stay of execution was only temporary. The time was coming when she would have to choose, Roxton deserved the truth. The alternative was to vanish from the Plateau and deliver the ouroborous to Xan, abandoning the fragile hope she cherished of committing herself totally to Roxton.

To disappear from his life as though she’d never existed, breaking both their hearts in the process.

END OF PART TWELVE

Lisa Paris - 2006

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EPILOGUE

Four weeks later . . .

Marguerite swore under her breath and stared in annoyance at the tray of burnt offerings on the table in front of her. They had started out life as honey cakes but now resembled shapeless lumps of charcoal. She had begun with the best of intentions, but cooking was not her forte. It wasn’t her fault the sun was shining and the sofa was so temptingly soft . . . and she’d only had the one glass of wine, barely a taste at that. She’d merely meant to rest her eyes for a minute – she shouldn’t have fallen asleep!

She gingerly picked up one of the cakes and took an experimental bite from the corner. “Urgh!” She spat the morsel out quickly, the charred crumbs were truly revolting.

Well, so much for good intentions. Marguerite took the tray to the compost bin and tipped the contents inside. Challenger could use them to fuel his latest energy-producing invention, a revolting methane gas boiler which ran on household waste. At least the bloody things would be good for something if they provided the hot water for her bath.

She looked at the clock on the mantle-piece and realised it was later than she’d thought. The sun was settling down on the horizon and turning the hazy light to buttermilk. Marguerite pushed aside the treacherous anxiety which still hovered behind every thought, a lingering legacy of the Ripper affair which threatened to endure for quite some time. It was reasonable under the circumstances and something she thought she’d eventually conquered in the year following Summerlee’s disappearance . . . but it haunted her just as persistently as Mary Kelly’s ghost. The terror of losing the man she loved, the fear that Roxton would be taken from her.

Marguerite sighed, restlessly. She had to put a stop to this right now. So what if the man was a little late – the others had gone out with him. And it might be the first time he’d left the tree house since his illness, but he’d recovered very well and he was strong.

‘Dear God,’ she shook herself with exasperation. It was a good thing Roxton couldn’t see her like this, fretting over his welfare like an old mother hen whose chick had strayed out of the farmyard. And she’d never be stupid enough to show him, of course. That would be all too mortifying.

Roxton had made an almost miraculous recovery from the aftermath of his drowning. The pneumonia Marguerite had feared so much had cleared-up faster than they’d hoped for. His Lordship was thinner and still paler than normal, but that was to be expected. The only other evidence he’d been ill at all, was an obstinate cough he couldn’t shake. He’d been up and about for a week now and had insisted on accompanying the others on a hunting expedition this afternoon, heartily fed-up with the vegetarian diet enforced on them since he’d fallen ill.

Logic told her that he would be fine. Roxton was a skilled and expert hunter. He had proved his proficiency time and again without her there to hold his hand. Marguerite found herself sighing again. It was just that . . . it was just that things were different now. She did not want to lose him.

She dragged her eyes away from the clock and forced herself to look into the mirror. It was something she had studiously avoided since the end of the Ripper affair. The face which stared back at her was more angular than usual with some new lines caused by anxiety. Marguerite grimaced and stuck out her tongue, John Roxton had a lot to answer for; all the time she spent worrying about the bloody man wasn’t proving any good for her complexion. What wouldn’t she give to get her hands on a jar of decent cold-cream? But the chance of obtaining such a luxury did not look very likely for the foreseeable future. In-fact, it was not looking likely at all!

Something creaked behind her and Marguerite stiffened immediately, but it was only the floorboards settling down as the heat of the day declined. She deliberately glared into the mirror with a slightly hysterical laugh. There was nothing in the glass but her own reflection and the tree house interior behind it.

This was nonsense, it had to stop. Like hell, she was going to spend the rest of her days too scared to look into the bloody mirror!

Mary Kelly was gone for good. The persistent haunting was over. The date and location on the back of the mirror-frame was simply another odd coincidence. After all this time on the Plateau, she should be getting used to them by now.

“Marguerite?”

It was the most welcome sound of Roxton’s voice, calling up to the balcony. Marguerite felt a glow of warmth and relief as she heard his robust tones. Once again, he had returned to her safely and the fates were still on their side. The time they had together was so precious. For now, it was more than enough.

She turned back to the mirror for one last look and a hasty pat of her hair, an involuntary smile curving her lips at the thought of welcoming home her hunter.

Something flickered in the corner of her vision, the merest glimmer of light. For a moment, time stood frozen and Marguerite’s heart went cold. It wasn’t . . . it couldn’t be the misty impression of a woman’s face in the glass . . .

It was over and done with in the whisper of a second before she could even blink an eye. When she looked again, there was nothing there. Only a reflection of herself . . .

‘Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low;
And the flickering shadows softly come and go.
Tho’ the heart be weary, sad the day and long,
Still to us at twilight comes love’s old, sweet song,
Comes love’s old, sweet song.’

THE END

Lisa Paris - 2006

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Notes

1. Mary Jane Kelly’s facial injuries - The actual, gruesome picture of Mary Jane Kelly is available on many of the numerous Jack the Ripper sites out there on the Web (just to warn you that it’s not for the faint-hearted.) Taken at the time by a Scotland Yard photographer, it captures the sheer horror and madness of the Ripper murders. Kelly’s face was mutilated in a similar way to my description of the hapless Netley’s injuries.

2. A grass ride – a wide grass path usually cut through a wood especially for horseback riding. Often found in the wooded areas surrounding British country estates and manor houses.

3. Marguerite’s year of birth – I made full use of Rann’s excellent time-line for this. Her estimation of the year of Marguerite’s birth tied in so nicely to my story and gave it a little added strangeness. 1888 of course, being the year of the Ripper murders. Thank you, Rann.

4. The Season One episode – ‘Blood Lust’ - in which Roxton is bitten by a vampire and nearly turned into a creature of the night.

A BIG thank you for reading this story – I hope that you enjoyed it and were scared in all the right places. ‘The Knife’ is one of my favourite episodes (apart from the excruciating accents) and I always toyed with the idea of writing a sort of ‘What happened next.’ As for Marguerite’s connection to Mary Jane Kelly, it could just be a coincidence, make of it what you will. But as already noted, the main premise espoused by the Gull Conspiracy Theory, claims that Prince Eddy actually had an illegitimate daughter by the unfortunate Annie Crook. So could Marguerite actually have been Queen Victoria’s great-granddaughter? I guess that sadly, we’ll never know . . .

Lisa Paris – 2006 – lisaparis25@hotmail.co.uk

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