WHEN I WAS A LADDY
An AMNESIA: A MACHINE FOR PIGS Fanfic by Vyrazhi, ©2014
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the third, final installment of my AMNESIA: A MACHINE FOR PIGS trilogy. The "Old Sallie" poem is actually a journal page of Oswald Mandus', found in the game. The italicized verses at the beginning of certain sections are from "When I Was a Laddy", the end credits song of my favorite PC adventure in 2013. All the rest of the dialogue and content is mine. Bon appetit!)
~ September 15, 1862, 12:15 PM ~
"When I was a laddy, a laddy at school,
With a head full of letters, a belly of gruel,
No training to speak of - spit out a fool,
Thought life was for working, cheap and quite cruel…"
"Come on, then. Come on! Let's have it, before Master Birch comes over here and breaks up our game."
"It's not a game, silly. Neither is your future. Where's Oswald? It wouldn't be fair to start without him."
When I hear the voice of my only real friend, Harry Redding, in the schoolyard, it spurs me into a run. Let those other eight-year-old dolts around him wait, but I won't waste his time. Out of all of us, I'm the only one who truly believes. The rest are circus-goers, wanting to have a good laugh at our expense. I know and fear them all: Charles Cavendish, Merton Bollard (whom I call Merton Bollocks under my breath), Tim Grantham, Sidney Bowman, Max Parker, and Leland Holmes. To everyone else, we've been the best of chums for years, but among ourselves we're a pack of hounds. We fight to be the top dog, and Harry is on his current run. Even though I'm not in his place, I'm still glad about this. He protects me from the others.
"There you are! Now we'll begin. These are magic marbles, attuned to the psychic frequency of whoever handles them. Each has a distinct color, but only I know what it means in terms of the one who holds it. You might think I have just eight marbles here in this bag, but it contains my whole collection. No two are exactly alike. Moreover, they have the power to reveal your destiny - especially the transparent ones."
"Harry, you're full of it," Sidney Bowman says with a smirk. "Miniature crystal balls? I'll eat my knickers."
"You'll soil them if you get an unlucky one." Merton Bollard jabs Sidney in the ribs with his elbow, but Leland Holmes glowers. None of us can manage to get more than ten words out of him, but his glares kill.
"Why don't you go first, Sid?" asks Harry. Sidney's eyes get big, but then he steps forward and picks a marble. It's bluish-purple, like a smear of periwinkle paint on an artist's palette, instead of the morning sky.
"You're more melancholic than usual about something," my best pal says gently, "especially at night. That's why the marble's so dark. It's opaque, too, which means that you're trying to hide a secret."
"Bowman wets his bed!" The normally-quiet Tim Grantham whoops with laughter. From the ferocious way Sidney chucks the glass sphere into the far distance, all of us can guess that this is probably true.
"Hey, spoil-sport, you go and get that." Our spines freeze, because Lethal Holmes has spoken. "Now."
"Never mind; I've got tons more," Harry blurts out in order to cut the tension. "Bollard? You give it a try." When Muddle-head Merton (another of my favorite nicknames for him, one I can say out loud) takes out a marble, Harry frowns. "Opaque black. Bad luck. The worst! You're going to fail the arithmetic test today."
"I will not."
"Twenty-five times forty."
"One hundred!" The rest of us start laughing: Harry said forty, not four. Once again, his prediction's right.
"Now for Master Cavendish. Is he brave enough to reach into this mysterious bag, after two ill fortunes?"
"You bet. Give me those." Charles nearly snatches the drawstring pouch from Harry once he rushes at him, but my friend yanks it away and hands it back out. Defeated, the sullen lad removes a marble.
"Opaque blue and slightly speckled. By any chance, is there a fallen robin's nest in your yard?"
"Aye! I've been attempting to save the eggs and keep them warm - for experimental purposes. Science, you know." He squares his shoulders, trying to look tough, but we know Cavendish wouldn't hurt a fly. He'd surely hurt one of us, though, and he has, but only if someone else - like Bollard - takes the lead.
After clapping his hands roughly, our group's clairvoyant clears his throat: "Enough of this sissy stuff. Holmes? You're up next." I'm sure I'm not the only one out of eight of us holding his breath. "Blood-red and transparent." My stomach hardens into rock, unable to digest my meager lunch. "You'll either solve the foulest murders, or commit them." I feel sick. Why can't Harry tell him he'll become a clown, or whatnot? "Time's a-wasting. Parker? Let's see if you can draw the sunshine-colored one for good cheer."
"I, ahem, have to use the privy." Without another word, Max disappears. None of us blame him.
"Oz? Your turn." I feel the familiar lurch of acid churning in my belly, but hold it down. I'd rather die than act like a coward in front of my classmates, so I reach deep into Harry's burlap bag and pull out one of its largest treasures. The marble is clear all the way through, except for a swirling rainbow embryo in the middle. I hear a few of the others murmur in wonder and jealousy, and it makes me proud. What Harry says next makes me even prouder: "That one represents not only your fortune, but your entire life. A spectrum is made up of pure light, refracted, and your days shall contain all its colors: red for anger, orange for fear, yellow for happiness, green for envy, blue for deep thinking, indigo for profound sorrow, and violet for mystery. Not even I can tell what you'll grow up to be, but rest assured, you shall become greater than the rest of us combined." He takes a deep breath. "I mean it, Oswald. You're the best of all."
Muddle-head Merton doesn't believe so: "That's a pretty glass one for you, Amanda, don't you think?"
All of the joy that I feel about drawing the magnificent marble disappears. It's replaced by fear and blind rage. My body whirls around, independently of my brain, and my feet drive me headlong toward his meaty bulk. Running into Bollard is like running into a brick wall, so I stagger backward a bit. My fists flail wildly against his face, ravenous for blood, although I'm too puny to draw any. I hear the others shouting and calling out for me to either hit him or stop trying to, but their voices are a blur. I don't know what's going on, or even where I am at the moment, until our schoolmaster Birch yanks me off of the cursing Merton.
He sends me home early, with my hands and bottom raw, after confiscating my miniature crystal ball.
~ September 15, 1862, 4:30 PM ~
"The masters would tussle and argue and fight.
[We] boys? We were property, currency, blight.
God forbid anyone show us the light.
Avast with the caning to set us to rights…"
Our house is haunted, but not in the usual way. Are there ghosts? Probably not. Are there evil spirits? Yes.
In every corner of the mansion we inhabit, a towering gift from Grandfather, lurks the specter of his hatred. Even though I never knew him, I've heard all about him from Mother (and for some reason, Father won't say anything to contradict her). Poor Mother says that even from the earliest days of her courtship with Father, Grandfather despised her. "Even the most beautiful lilies can grow in foul pond water," she's said that he said, "so don't let your blossom wilt." I guess this means he told her not to grow old and ugly, but don't all people do that someday? There's a large portrait of Grandfather in our upstairs hall. Even though he looks quite grand in his black suit and top hat, he's not handsome. His long, wrinkled face and ghastly white hair make me shudder, because they look so real. It's as if the man could step out of the painting at any moment and beat me with his long black cane. He's wearing gloves, too, so his hands wouldn't get dirty even if he spanked my bare behind. On the bottom of the portrait's frame sits the bronze plaque that bears his name: IVOR CEPHAS MANDUS. I feel like scratching it out with a pen-knife and engraving dirty curses above it - words that I won't even call Muddle-head when no one's listening. It's his fault that we live in this drafty coffin of a house, and have to spend a fortune to keep it up. It's his fault the housemaids yell at me for coming too close to his precious vases and antiques. It's his fault that even though we're rich, I feel dirt-poor as soon as I walk past any of Grandfather's possessions, prized or not. Most of all, it's his fault that Father gazes at Mother like a hawk, every day, for any sign of her possibly "wilting".
Do you recall the story of the Trojan Horse? The fools of Troy believed themselves victorious, not knowing that their war trophy would be the instrument of their downfall. To many folks here in London, our house looks like the greatest blessing since the Garden of Eden, but I know it's a curse. Every inch of it, with all its inherited finery, is sponge-like. It sucks the life out of you, drop by drop, and its biggest pore is Father's office. Just like the rest of this place, it was once Grandfather's, and I believe he still possesses it. Father becomes a different person in that room, and if you're ever summoned to it - like I have been - woe to you!
I'm waiting out in the downstairs corridor, and my knees are knocking together like pebbles. Can Father hear them? I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did. There's something I do in order not to feel pain during what's coming next, but if I don't do it at the right moment, I'll be lost. Father will shout because I'm not listening to him, but that's not the half of it. When my mind and body "separate", I'm not even there.
The door creaks open, revealing eerie green light within. In my view, it isn't Father who turned the knob.
It's IVOR CEPHAS MANDUS, the true master of the house, whom everyone believes is in Heaven now.
I know where he really is, and it's not among the angels. Even Hell won't take him, so he's stuck here.
"Come here, Mandus." When I'm in bad trouble, the presence in the office doesn't address me as Oswald or "Oz", my favorite nickname. It's always "Mandus," as Master Birch calls me, his sacrificial student. "Sit." I do so, although I have to hiss and grit my teeth to keep from crying out. "It seems we've had a visitor."
I know better than to try and guess who it is, so I bow my head and shut my big mouth. I also listen very intently, and watch Father with the concentration of a rabbit trying to avoid a crouching fox. You'd be surprised how closely you can look at someone, even with lowered eyes. Just look up, and fix your stare.
Not yet. He hasn't gotten started, so brace yourself, but keep paying attention.
"One Jonathan Everett Birch, the headmaster of a certain local educational facility, claims that you came to blows over a game of marbles with one of your companions. Is this true or not?" I stay silent. "Well?"
Stay still. Listen. Not yet.
"Yes, sir, it's true. Merton Bollard and I had it out today in the schoolyard. Most everybody saw it."
Father says nothing for a good, long while. Then: "Show your hands." Even though they're already sore from the fight, they fall open, palms-up, of their own accord. "How many times were you paddled?"
"Ten, sir, a hard ten." Should I close my eyes now, or in a bit? I want to see how thick the ruler is, at least.
"I'll double that." With a voice as flat as the surface of his mahogany desk, Father opens the middle drawer and takes out his biggest ruler. I squint my eyes closed as hard as I can, and the ruler whooshes.
NOW!
The lashes start, but I feel nothing. As soon as I tell myself NOW!, my soul takes one step backwards, and out of my body. I'm watching my hands be whipped with the ruler, but they might as well be straw hands - scarecrow hands. I can't explain what it is that causes me to become two separate beings instead of one at times like this, but it feels good. While my palms are receiving ferocious blows, my spirit watches, relieved. In church I'm told that this only happens to people when they die, but I know better. I know more.
"Can you clench your hands into fists?" Father asks when he's done, and I remember to inhabit my body again. Pain overwhelms me, and I bite down on my lower lip hard enough to draw a trickle of blood.
"No, sir." There's a hard lump, exactly the size of the marble I drew, in my throat.
"Good. Then you can't fight." Just when I believe he's done with me, he motions for me to sit down again. "There is one particular way in which a prodigal daughter brings shame upon her family, but for a son, the methods are manifold. Why is it that you haven't learned this lesson yet? You're eight years old, and other boys your age are far more mature than you. I'm coming to believe that what you need is the discipline of a soldier, which can only be cultivated at a military boarding school. I'm giving you one last opportunity to redeem yourself, and a new governess shall help you. Miss West, as you know, has been in ill health and wishes to retire. Thus Mademoiselle Renault shall arrive in a week's time, straight from Rheims."
Mademoiselle? Oh, no. Is she going to try and make me learn French? I can't even count past ten in it!
"Her first name is Cerise, rhyming with fleece, but if you ever call her that, there'll be more of the same." He nods with a meaningful glance toward my hands. "I certainly hope she'll refine you, and quickly. Finish your schoolwork in your room, and then it's straight to bed with you. No dinner." He glares. "Dismissed." Father has sacked me, just like one of his employees in the abattoir our family owns. No surprise there. It's just that even when they've been fired, they're far better off than I. They're not beaten for poor work.
Speaking of which, I decide to do my studies in the morning. Lord knows that now, I won't be able to write.
As I trudge upstairs, it's a good thing that I don't have to hold on to the banister. My hands are ablaze, and I'm going to have to put bandages on them. This is the last straw. I'm going to run off and live at Harry's. He's nowhere near as wealthy as we are, but at least all the injuries he gets come from the schoolyard.
~ September 16, 1862, 2:00 AM ~
I'm wide awake. My heart has suddenly seized up, as Grandfather's did, and I know that I'm going to die. My breathing is fast and labored, loud as thunder even though no one else seems to hear it. No one sees the one-ton weight balanced carefully upon my chest, either. Through a haze of tears, I watch it sink lower.
I've already had a couple of visits with our physician about the weight, because I keep seeing it. Dr. Lowell has a term for this: hallucination. The thing is, I'm not feverish, and I haven't taken any drugs. Maybe I'm going insane, because that's what such people do. If so, I'd prefer the asylum rather than this madhouse.
For now, he says I need more food and more sleep, but how can I get the latter in the midst of my terror?
~ November 3, 1862, 9:00 AM ~
"And then we were men to the factory bound:
A penny a week and a face pushed to the ground.
No matter if you lose a finger or hand -
Owners and workers, the blight goes around…"
Life goes on, but every night the weight comes down harder and heavier. Harry is on the brink of losing his position as the leader of our little group at school, and I'm deathly afraid for him. Muddle-head Merton has made Tim Grantham and Lethal Holmes into his new toadies. Once they carry out a coup, we'll be "bottom dogs" for sure, and Father's beatings will seem like nothing. Right now Sidney Bowman gets the worst of them, and leaves school with a black eye every day. Sometimes it's two, and occasionally a twisted arm or sprained ankle are added. Unfortunately, I can't say I'm blameless when it comes to these kinds of things, but I only tease him by rubbing on his scalp with my knuckles and whatnot. Even though I tell Bollard and company to shove off after that, though, they don't. I never kick or punch, no matter which one of us happens to be on the bottom, so do I really deserve whatever I'll get once it's my turn? It will be, and soon.
Who's more pathetic: a poor boy who just so happens to wet his bed, or a poor girl named Amanda who just so happens to look like a boy? I've kept my marble from Harry, which cheers me up, but it hasn't helped in terms of what the rest of the boys think of me. I spin it around in my palm when I think the others aren't looking, to gaze at it and see which color I'm feeling today (mostly angry red or frightened orange), but they've seen. All but one give me grief for it, and once Harry can't protect me anymore, it'll increase.
If I had my way, or rather, if we had ours, Harry and I would be off by ourselves reciting scary poetry and searching for insects for our collections. Instead, old Birch-bark says we need to "socialize with our peers," plural, so we do. Sometimes Tim Grantham even calls us a word that rhymes with "peers", and we hate it.
I want so badly to tell Tim a new poem I wrote, called "Old Sallie", which goes like this:
O, She come a-snuffling by night round ye door,
With her pretty apron right down to the hoof,
And her ringlets are fair and her eyes china blue,
Like a half-buried hand in the wintry snow-o,
Like a hand in the wintry snow.
And she'll beg you for apples through the window ajar,
Her face be all hidden but her eyes shine aflame,
And though you'll be tempted her besom so fair,
She'll snatch you and catch you and eat out your heart-o,
She'll catch you and eat out your heart.
So look to your manners come the eve of the year,
Lest Sallie comes calling for apples my dear,
And know that some doors ne'er should open wide,
Take heed of your father and keep safe inside,
Disobedient children make Sallie her pies-o,
And warm Sallie's beastly insides.
I figure anyone that deems Harry and me more than peers, as Tim does, should be Sallie's next meal.
"Mandus? Are you paying me heed, or daydreaming again? You look awfully vacant." I snap to attention.
If being picked on by my schoolyard opponents were my only worry, or even my biggest one, I'd be glad. The true enemy is Birch, our headmaster. We're about to take our middle-of-the-term exams, and that means one thing: He's out to get all of us, but the smarter you are, the worse it is for you. Take this, for example. In English class, we're on a massive run of "sentence analysis", which means we have to tell Birch which word is the subject, which is the verb, and so on. It's very easy and very tedious, or so I think.
"I want you to analyze this sentence. I'll write it on the board so the rest of the class can do this exercise." With flawless script, he takes the chalk and issues his command: I want you to analyze this sentence.
It will be easy, or so I believe. I stride up to the chalkboard with the confidence of an Aztec warlord, about whom we've been learning in history class. Like them, I will conquer this simple little task and, at long last, make Birch proud. It seems that no matter what I do to try and satisfy him, it's never enough.
"Well, to start with, I is the subject and a proper pronoun. Want is the verb, and it's transitive because I want something. It's not a linking verb or a state-of-being intransitive verb, like was or were. It's definitely active. As for you…it's definitely a common pronoun, but why did the subject change all of a sudden?"
"Excuse me? The subject of the sentence is I. Don't second-guess yourself, laddy. Carry on."
I hear some of my classmates snickering. Taking a deep breath, I continue: "All right, then. I is the proper pronoun subject and want is the active transitive verb. You is a common pronoun. I don't know what it actually does, if it's not another subject. Is it the object? It could be, but in this sentence, I don't want you." More snickering, and it's getting louder. I look out of the corner of my eye and see several people smirk.
"I want you to do something, in this case, 'to analyze this sentence', but to analyze can't possibly be the - object? - because it's the verb. Wait a minute! Want is the verb in this sentence, not to analyze, but that can't be the object because it's a verb anyway. Bah! I want is the real sentence, and the rest is rubbish!"
This time, the entire class bursts out laughing. Birch doesn't hold up his hand to stop them for two minutes straight. Then he says: "Once again, I have believed that you could rise to any challenge I've set to you, Mandus, but once again, I've been proven wrong. You've made me look the fool. Should I be surprised? No." I feel the others' hot and vengeful stares singeing the back of my neck like hot coals. "Sit down." I do, hanging my head in shame, and Tim Grantham gives my ear a good twist once I'm back at my desk.
"Grantham? You're up next, but I have a different sentence for you: Martha plants petunias in her garden."
For some reason my whole body clenches up, not just my fists. My teeth grind against each other, and my face burns. I hate Tim Grantham, who's just received a sentence any simpleton could analyze, more than anyone in the whole world - even Muddle-head Merton, who usually gets ones like The dog runs because that's all he can do. Grantham follows Merton around like a loyal attack dog and does his bidding. It won't be long before Harry can no longer shield me, even with his spectacular card tricks and magic marbles.
At 3:00 it's a relief to run home, even in the rain. The other boys, especially Tim, can rot in perdition.
"Wait up," Harry calls, and I grin for the first time in a long while. He didn't laugh at me today in class.
~ November 3, 1862, 3:30 PM ~
"Why, young master! You're almost soaked through. Let me get you into some dry clothes immediately."
In the darkness of the afternoon, ever-more-quickly creeping toward nightfall, the light of my life shines upon me. My new governess is not only beautiful on the outside, but her soul is just as magnificent. Even though I know I'll probably go to Hell for saying this, I love her far more than Mother. As the wife of a rich industrialist, Mother is forever organizing charity balls, local bazaars, church relief missions for the poor, and so on. She wants to be like God Almighty and help everyone on Earth, but her own son can fend for himself, I suppose. That's why she and Father have left me in Mademoiselle's watchful care - not that I mind. They're simply much too busy. It may be her job to tend me, but she doesn't act like it's her job. I wish I were her son, even if I didn't have a father, and Harry could be my brother. We could live in France.
Then again, if I had to speak the language all the time, I don't think I'd like that. It still confuses me.
Even though I'm soon warm and dry, my heart remains chilled. "What's wrong?" she asks gently.
"I despise school and schoolwork."
"Quelle surprise!" Mademoiselle cries with a wink and a smile, but then she sees my sorrow. "I'll help."
All I can do is start twiddling my thumbs and staring down at them. "I'm so stupid, really," I nearly whisper. "I'm as bad as Merton Bollard, whom I call 'Muddle-head'. Headmaster Birch gave me a sentence to analyze today in class, and I couldn't do it. Everyone except for Harry Redding, my best friend, laughed at me. It was so awfullyeasy." I motion for her to sit at the kitchen table, where I study before dinner, and pull my composition book from my satchel bag. "Here it is, a total mystery: I want you to analyze this sentence. I was supposed to tell Headmaster Birch what the subject was, and the verb, et cetera. I tried, but didn't get far." A sudden image comes to mind: "It's like this sentence is a padlock, and I don't have the key."
"Or, in this case, the 'que'." Startled, I glance up at Mademoiselle. What's she talking about? "In French I would say, 'I want that you analyze this sentence': Je veux que…" She pauses for a bit. "You say that your teacher wished you to analyze this, and didn't explain it beforehand?" I shake my head. "Incroyable!" Her voice is like the crack of a whip, and I flinch. "Here. N'ai pas peur. I'll tell you everything that he didn't." She relaxes, and so do I. With careful deliberation, she teaches me about English concepts that our hard-headed headmaster has so far kept hidden from us: infinitives, subordinate clauses, and subordinating conjunctions. It even turns out that sentences have moods like people do - the indicative, factual one, and the subjunctive, the mood of doubts, wishes, hopes and "if's". The sentence that Birch gave me has two parts: I want, which is the basic phrase, and the rest is a subordinate clause which functions as a noun.
I listen, learn, and love her all the more. She doesn't talk, or teach, like old Birch-bark does - he tells me facts and expects me to memorize them, while Mademoiselle explains them, too. Birch would simply say that two and two are four, while Mademoiselle would count on her fingers in order to prove it, if need be.
"I can't believe he did that, when you're only eight years old. Not even I could analyze so well at your age."
Hmm? "That's odd. Why would Birch give me a sentence like that to do, if it was too hard? Unless…"
"Perhaps." She gives me a knowing, sympathetic look. "He may have wanted to embarrass you, but we don't know for sure. Please don't do anything rash at school tomorrow, like talk back. Be the better man."
"I want to punch him like a man, even though I know that's not what you mean." Against all of my better judgment, more angry words keep spewing out of my mouth like molten lead: "It's no wonder that my friends and I fight so much in the schoolyard. Our classroom is a giant battlefield, but we can't do anything about it except 'duke it out' when it's time for lunch and recreation! I'm so mad I could spit nails, and…"
Mademoiselle takes me into her arms and gives me a big hug. I won't cry. I won't cry. I won't cry.
"Do you want to sing our song, the one about the ten boys in line who wear silly clothes to school?"
"Mais oui!" That's my favorite, because we made it up together. It teaches colors and ordinal numbers: The first one wore a red plaid hat; the second one wore an orange striped shirt, and so on. It's funny because if anyone wore clothes like that to our school, Headmaster Birch would send them home with ten demerits and a note for their Mum and Dad. The further in line we go, the more ridiculous they get, too. By the time we get to the tenth boy, le dixième, he's wearing nothing but underwear with pink hearts on it!
I made that up. Today, however, we don't get there because I sing about le neufième and suddenly stop.
"Which one?" asks Mademoiselle, grinning from ear to ear. She raises an eyebrow, but she's not mad.
"Uh, le neufième." Wait a minute, that doesn't sound right. "Neufième, neufième, neufième." I giggle.
My governess imitates old Birch-bark: "You get an F for putting an F in that word, Monsieur Mandus!" That sends us both into hysterical laughter, so much so that one of the maids comes to see what the noise is.
In the back of my notebook, I draw a tiny heart with even tinier initials inside of it: O.M. + C.R.
I L-O-V-E her, with the V for very much, verily, and the one I should have put in neuvième.
~ November 3, 1862, 6:00 PM ~
"I married a lass, as me father before,
And set to make babies to feed to the war.
As we went to our business, a knock at the door:
The boss cried, 'Keep writhing! The factory needs more…"
"How was your day, Cordelia?"
"Quite pleasant, as a matter of fact. Yours?"
"The same."
Mother and Father finish their conversation and return to clinking their silverware. I fill my mouth with more food instead of useless blather, because children should be seen and not heard. Besides, what would I tell them if they asked me about my day? "I was totally humiliated at school, both in class and in the yard?" One question would lead to ten more, and somehow it would all be my fault, as it already is. It's one thing to know your guilt within your own heart, and another to have your two most stern judges know it as well.
"I've been trying to help my chrysanthemums grow in the backyard," Mother says, "but there's only one."
"How apropos," Father says in an odd tone of voice, causing Mother to get up and leave the table. After what seems like a year, in which the only sound in our house is the leaden tick-tock of Grandfather's dining room clock, he finally breaks the silence: "Oswald? I'd like to tell you something. A man is like a gardener, and a woman is an exquisite garden. He must prune and tend her all he can, cherishing her beauty and the buds he hopes will grow within her. Sometimes, however, both gardens and wives produce only a single plant. When that time comes, one must search for another plot of land that's more…verdant."
"Hmm?" I'm not sure I understand, but I'm not about to tell Mister Norton Know-it-all Mandus that.
"Never mind." Father gives me a sheepish sort of grin. "Finish your squash, and then we'll have dessert."
I hate squash, but I wolf it down, just like I wolf down Father's incomprehensible advice to see him smile.
~ November 4, 1862, 7:45 AM ~
I can't believe what Harry Redding just told me - specifically, what Father feels about poor Mother! I asked him what Father had meant when he spoke about gardens, and how women were like them. He smirked:
"He only said that because men can plant seeds in women, you know, and watch their 'little buds' grow."
"What do you mean?" Just like the fool I once was, up until now, I looked at Harry not having a single clue.
"You really don't know anything, do you?" Feeling dejected, I shook my head, and then he whispered in my ear. When Harry was done, I hit him just as hard as I'd tried to hit Muddle-head Merton. "It's true; it's true!" Harry cried. "Your father wants more flowers - er, not that you are one, but he's not satisfied with just you!"
"You're disgusting," I tell him once I let him go. "You're nothing but a pig, and not my best friend anymore."
"Sod it, then." He gives me a hard shove. I almost fall flat on my rear in the mud, on our way to school.
What I don't tell Harry, and what I haven't told anyone - not even my dearest love - is that he's right. I do disappoint Father a lot, with all of my fighting and supposed "deficiencies" in class, but I don't think that I'm unworthy to be his son. He either believes this already, or is slowly doing so, little by little. No wonder he craves more children. He wants some that are polite and obedient at all times, not one who just did what I did. I even think that no matter how often Muddle-head Merton calls me Amanda, Father wants a girl.
No. He wants a boy who acts like a girl, at least when it comes to doing absolutely everything he says.
As for me? I don't need Harry. I don't need anyone except Mademoiselle, who's been feeling ill lately. She says she feels worse in the mornings, but by the time I come home from my daily academic drudgery, she's all right. I do hope she feels better soon, and - wait. Something clicks into place in my mind, and I…
"Bollocks!" Harry rushes to my side as oatmeal spews forth from my mouth. "Have you got the flu?"
"Maybe. Please tell old Birch-bark that I had to go home, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I said what I did."
"Fine by me. I still want to be your best pal, and I'm sorry for what I said. Do you want me to go with you?"
"No. If I continue tossing up my breakfast, I want to do so alone. Besides, you might up and do it, too."
"Righty-o." He looks me up and down, dread written all over his pale face. Then he gags and runs away.
I loathe my father. How I feel toward boys like Merton and Grantham is nothing compared to my new heart for him. Black it is, as the void of night, yet bleeding like the swine that our lowly workmen slaughter every day. Just who does he believe we are? Nothing but a nearly-barren field, and one unruly weed within it.
And, dear God, that means my governess…if I'm right, then she's…
I'm seething for her sake and Mother's, but at least Mother has the protection of being lawfully married. Why is Father's legal "garden" barren except for me, but poor Mademoiselle is fertile and illegitimate?
I vomit again with dry heaves, and manage to walk home without falling down. I'm weak and shivering all over, and my poor governess puts me straight to bed. I sob for hours, not caring who hears me, and deep down, I believe that she knows why. With a cool, wet cloth on my forehead and a warm quilt above me, I eventually fall asleep. She sings to me in French. I yearn to reach out and stroke her belly, but dare not.
~ December 18, 1862, 4:30 PM ~
"So if you come looking for labor to spoil,
Men who don't question, men who will toil,
To your factories, they're product; to your banks they are OIL
To chew up, and spit out, and grind up for soil…"
"I'm not going back to that stinking school after the Christmas holiday, or to a military school either."
Father pushes his spectacles further down the bridge of his nose. "How do you propose to learn, then?"
"I want to learn a trade - our trade."
The presence straightens up. "Do you know what it is to butcher pigs? It is not only hard work, but one that will drown you in living filth. Make no mistake: If you choose the butcher's path instead of the scholar's, I'll have little more to do with you than a proper owner of a company does with those who work under him."
"Fine by me." Don't do it yet. He's still hoping you'll feel all the pain of what he has to say, and more.
He blinks and snorts exactly like an angry hog. "May I remind you that you are only eight years old?"
"I'll be nine, come the New Year. Other boys are beginning their apprenticeship about that age. So can I."
"Come to your senses immediately. You're only doing this to spite me, and you know it."
"So?" I envision myself as a steel wall. "You're going to get another son, or maybe a little daughter!"
NOW.
Father rushes from behind his desk, takes off his belt, and whips me through my good school suit until blood trickles down the gray flannel. He doesn't say a word, or make a sound, except for leather slicing through cloth and flesh. When he's finally done, our shining hardwood floor is like a map of England, complete with all the rivers - crimson instead of blue. I've nearly bitten my fist down to the knuckle muscle.
Do I feel it? Not until I choose to, until I rejoin my spirit and the body that I've come to hate. If I'm no more than a piglet to the rutting hog that has sired me, and Mademoiselle's baby, I want to die now rather than later. If my body gets me into trouble, my soul is what propels it. I wish both were clockwork, automatic.
"Go." He points at the door. "I'm sending Mademoiselle Renault back to Rheims within two weeks."
Tears come. I flee to my room, making my pillow more tasty than tonight's dinner would have been.
~ September 27, 1863, 6:00 PM ~
Work has let out for today, and I've finished delivering my scheduled parcels of meat from the abattoir. I've been on a "trial period", or so Father said last year, but his foremen say I work so hard that they've kept me on. However, the real reason Father relented is quite simple: he wants to break me. He thinks that once I'm introduced to the more visceral part of our family's business, I'll give in and go back to the prison Birch runs. He's dead wrong. Even if I'm drenched in blood, I'll know my purpose - not to memorize and regurgitate, like mother birds, but to turn livestock into food. Man may not live by bread alone, but his muscles are made of meat, and they need meat in order to grow. Mine are certainly growing, day by day.
By some miracle, not even our butler has collected the day's mail, and I find a letter lying on the floor. It's addressed to "Master Oswald Mandus", so I stuff it in my sweaty white shirt and dash upstairs to change. Once I'm safely in my room, with the door double-bolted, I open the letter. A photograph tumbles out:
Moi et mon fils, Rèmy, 8/04/63
Mademoiselle Renault, her eyes aglow and her smile more joyful than that of the angels in Heaven, is cradling a newborn baby in her arms. Once I read what it says on the back of the picture, I begin to weep:
I treasure both your brother and you as my beloved children. Be well, and go with God. -C.R.
In my letter back to her, I enclose nearly my whole year's wages, so far, and a marble I've kept with me.
Is Father paying Mademoiselle to keep her quiet? Probably. Will he nearly kill me if he finds out I have this letter? Probably. He has taken nearly everything from me - my pride and begrudging respect for him, so why not my life? There's only one thing I haven't lost to him yet: my love for her, and now her infant son.
"But they're mine, mine, you filthy old swine -
Get your own pigs to feed off…these 'ones' are MINE!"
~ FIN 3/1/14 ~
~ EDITED 3/2/14 with help from Anla'shok - merci beacoup! ~