The Ruddigore Dichotomy
Chapter Eight
A tall grandfather clock near the bottom of the stairs began chiming twelve o'clock as Sir Despard, Helena, Sir John and the Professor reached the entrance to the Great Hall. Sir Despard opened the huge double doors. "Now," he whispered to Helena, "stay close to me. Do not be afraid, they will not harm you."
Helena looked at him. He looks like he's about to have a cardiac arrest, she thought, and he's telling me not to be afraid. They stepped into the Great Hall. The sound of their feet bounced back and forth, but the silence was even louder. The only light came from Sir Despard's lamp, which illuminated their faces and a little pool of floor mosaic all around them. Beyond that, shadows loomed and receded as the lamp swung to and fro. The paintings could not be seen. They waited.
After an absurdly long twenty seconds Sir John spoke. "It looks as though I was right, Prof - er, your Grace. There aren't any ghosts here - "
"Good evening." A voice from behind them cut him short. Both Helena and Sir John cried out in surprise. The colour drained from Sir Despard's face. The Professor, however, didn't seem at all perturbed; he had a wry smile on his face. The newcomer stepped forward into the pool of light.
It was Sir Roderic. Not the young Dragoon officer in the painting, but the older man they had seen earlier that day (or rather, the previous day) in his coffin. He was dressed, however, in the same kind of uniform. His helmet and breastplate reflected dully in the dim lamplight. He spoke cooly, confident that he was the master of the situation. "Despard! My dear fellow. How nice to see you again!"
Another voice from somewhere in the blackness interrupted testily. "I say, Roderic! Put a bit more into it. You're meant to frighten him, not wish him a happy birthday!"
Sir Roderic turned towards the unseen speaker and replied, "If you please, father. Just a few moments since, as it seemed to me, I was on my deathbed, gasping for breath, while everything turned black. I thought I was destined for oblivion and would never know anything more. Can't I express some measure of pleasure upon seeing a human face once more? Even if it is my pathetic excuse for a nephew, Despard?" He sniffed.
Sir Despard was somewhat unprepared for this kind of reception. "Good evening, sir," he said in a faltering voice. There was an awkward pause. "Er, how - how are you?"
"Jesus Christ, he's dead," shouted Sir John. "What d'you want to ask him that for, you great - " Helena grabbed his arm to shut him up. She didn't think the ghosts could do them any real harm; after all, the curse had nothing to do with them and they were being held prisoner there against their will. But she didn't want to take the risk of upsetting them, and Dr. Smith the scientist made a point of never assuming anything without clear evidence to back it up.
The ghost of Sir Roderic turned once more to Sir Despard. "I see you invited some guests to my funeral, that's very thoughtful of you. Will you introduce me?"
"This is Lord Hawthorne, the Earl of Malton, his daughter Helena and her fiancé, Mr. John Murgatroyd, your second cousin, Uncle. But I didn't invite them, you did."
"Balderdash, lad!" Sir Roderic retorted, his grey moustache bristling with anger. "How the Devil could I invite people to my own funeral?"
"No, I meant the fancy-dress ball you were going to have," spluttered Sir Despard in confusion.
"What are you talking about?" Sir Roderic was barking like a sergeant-major now. "I was planning no such ball. Have you taken leave of your senses?" Helena's blood ran cold. Oh, shit, she thought, we're in trouble now.
Professor Hawthorne stepped in. "Please forgive the small deception, Sir Despard. We felt we had to give some explanation for our inappropriate mode of dress upon our arrival. We were genuinely unaware of Sir Roderic's passing, and we thought it would be an amusing prank to arrive in seventeenth-century costume. Unfortunately, as we said, we lost our carriage and our other clothes on the journey. When you told us that Sir Roderic had died, we felt that our joke would have caused you offence, so we invented the story of the fancy-dress ball." Hawthorne hoped that his attempt to sound like a nineteenth-century earl was proving convincing.
Helena stared at the Professor. Why isn't he frightened? OK, this Sir Roderic isn't like anything from a horror film; if anything, he's got a sort of Sean Connery-meets-Harrison Ford middle-aged sex appeal. But this man's dead, for goodness' sake!
Sir Despard seemed to accept the Professor's explanation. At least, in his current terrified state he was in no state to argue. But Sir Roderic continued, "And why do you say this man is my second cousin? I've never heard of him before!"
Sir Despard looked pleadingly at Sir John. Sir John returned the look with a disgusted glare. What a pathetic, useless wimp, he thought. Is he really my great-great-God-knows-how-many-great-grandfather? I'll show him what a real Baronet of Ruddigore is like. These ghosts don't scare me. They can't do anything to me here, in this time... can they? "Er, well, that is, when I say I'm a cousin, I really mean I'm a... a... sort of, more distant relative, really." Sir Roderic's eyes burned into him. "I am, honestly, but you can't do anything to me," he said quickly, the note in his voice rising.
Sir Roderic continued to stare at Sir John. "You look like a Murgatroyd," he said at last. "But you have the manner of a shopkeeper more than a gentleman. Who are you sir, and where do you come from?"
Sir John looked down in panic. This ghost has got a very lethal-looking sword on his belt, he thought, and I wouldn't like to take the risk that it isn't solid... His mind raced. He wasn't a natural liar, and he couldn't think of anything to say that would sound convincing. But he was a salesman by profession, and a good one. Try to think of him as just a difficult sort of client, he told himself. He took a deep breath and said, "I was born in New York, though my father died when I was a year old. My mother brought me to England and put me in a boarding school near Manchester. I studied Mathematics at Cambridge, and now I work for a rec - I mean, a company that sells music."
Sir Roderic's moustache rose in astonishment. "A company that sells music? What kind of profession is that for a Murgatroyd? And speaking of a Murgatroyd's profession," he turned back to Sir Despard, "have you fulfilled your duty this past day?"
"Yes, Uncle," Sir Despard sobbed. "I have made these people here my prisoners."
Sir Roderic's face broke into a broad grin. "So! These good people are hostages! We can have a lot of fun with them." He laughed; it came from the bottom of his chest, with perfect diaphragm control and excellent projection. And it sounded thoroughly evil. And yet... Helena was looking straight into his eyes. He quickly dropped his gaze and continued to laugh, at a point two feet to the left of her head, eyelids half shut. She decided to go for it.
"Well if I understand it rightly, a Baronet of Ruddigore can only die by refusing to commit his daily crime, which you must have done four days ago, Sir Roderic. So you can't be as bad as you're trying to make out, and I don't know what you've got to gain by trying to frighten us." She paused, took a deep breath and went on. "And I don't know why you have to force Sir Despard to commit a crime every day. Why can't you leave him alone?" She stopped, terrified in case he and the other ghosts inflicted some kind of torture upon her. But Sir Roderic just stared at her. No woman he'd ever known had had this kind of spirit and courage. Except for dear little Nannikin, of course.
One of the other ghosts shuffled forward, to the edge of the circle of light. It was difficult to see him clearly, but as far as Helena could tell, he seemed to be - to have been - an admiral in the navy. He laughed. "Met your match, eh, Roderic? Never could refuse a pretty lady, eh?"
Sir Roderic pulled himself together. "Father!" he snapped at the other ghost. "Just because I am - I was - a bad baronet does not mean I cannot remain a gentleman. Forgive us, my dear," he said to Helena in a more friendly tone. "I - we are not free spirits, we are... controlled by the power of the curse. The longer we have lived under its effect as the reigning Baronet, the more evil we have become." His eyes adopted the same pleading expression she had seen in his painting, and earlier that evening in Sir Despard.
Helena met his gaze evenly. "We can help you," she said. "If you let us go, we can free you from the curse altogether."
Sir Roderic and Sir Despard both looked at her with a half-curious, half-disbelieving expression. "How?" asked Sir Roderic.
Helena looked at the Professor. She felt she had to tell them something to persuade them to let them go. But what should she say?
The Professor was still smiling. "Excuse me, Sir Roderic, but may I...?" He reached out to touch the ghost of the Dragoon officer. His hand met cloth, the sleeve of Sir Roderic's tunic. He reached out with his other hand. It passed straight through.
"Profes - I mean, father!" exclaimed Helena. "What are you doing?"
"I think he must look solid because our minds won't allow our eyes to see two realities at once. But he isn't a ghost, at least, not what we think of as a ghost." Hawthorne smiled at Sir Roderic.
"What?" Sir John stared at him. "You just put your hand straight through his arm!"
"And Sir Despard buried him this afternoon!" said Helena.
"Your Grace," Sir Roderic almost hissed at Hawthorne, "I died four days ago. I distinctly remember it!"
"You did and you didn't. You're not meant to find this out for another ten years, but I think we'll have to put you in the picture." He paused as he realised what he'd just said. "I don't mean your painting! I mean, the position you're in. A Baronet of Ruddigore can only die by refusing to commit his daily crime."
"Oh, bloody hell, here we go again," Sir John muttered under his breath.
"Yes I know that," replied Sir Roderic impatiently. "What of it?"
"So to refuse to commit your daily crime is to effectively attempt suicide. But attempting suicide is itself a crime, so you shouldn't have died at all."
"Then I'm practically alive!" Sir Roderic's face lit up like a child's on Christmas morning, but the Professor cut him short.
"It's more complicated than that. It then means that if you committed your daily crime, you didn't really attempt suicide by refusing to commit your daily crime, so you didn't commit your daily crime after all and you should have died."
Sir Despard started to shake, making the lamp sway and creating strange shadows on everyone's faces. "What?" he quavered.
Professor Hawthorne continued, "So you're both dead and alive at the same time. That's why you exist now as a ghost. You're the representation of two alternative realities overlapping on one another. In one reality you're alive, so we can see you and you can talk to us. In the other you're dead so we can pass right through you."
"What are you talking about?" demanded Sir Roderic.
"The man's mad," came the voice of the Admiral-ghost from somewhere outside the circle of light.
"I think I'll have to tell you who we really are and what we're here for," said the Professor. "I don't think you'll believe us, but I think it's the only way you'll let us help you." All eyes fixed upon him. "My name really is Hawthorne, Mervyn Hawthorne if you must know - "
"Pleased to hear it, sir. I am Sir Mervyn Murgatroyd," the Admiral-ghost interrupted.
"But I'm not an earl. I am a professor, the Head of the Astronomy Department of the University of North Yorkshire."
"The University of - where? There's no such place!" Sir Roderic retorted.
"Not at the present time, no," answered the Professor. "But we're not from the present time, we're from the future."
"What?" chorussed all the ghosts, with Sir Despard taking the lead tenor line.
"We're from about a hundred and eighty years in the future. We've come back in time to try and prevent the curse on your family from ever being pronounced in the first place," Helena said quietly.
Sir Roderic stared at her. This maid reminds me of little Nannikin, he thought. So pure, so gentle... She couldn't be lying. But how could it be true? "But why are you here now?" he said aloud.
"We've developed a way to travel through time but we haven't perfected it yet. We made a mistake in calculating how far to go back. We should have arrived in Sir Rupert's time, in the year 1608. That was why we were wearing those costumes, Sir Despard. Instead we arrived here. If you let us go, we can go back to 1608 and prevent the witch from cursing Sir Rupert, and you'll be free!"
For a moment everything was quiet. Helena was willing Sir Despard and the ghosts to believe her. But before anyone could say anything, there came an enormous crash from the far end of the hall. There was the sound of someone cursing, then a voice shouted, "Helena! Are you alright?"
"Robert! What happened to you? Where are you?"
"Don't worry, we'll sort out Sir Despard." Footsteps echoed down the hall, getting closer. It sounded like Robert was not alone.
As soon as he heard Robert's voice, Sir Despard, who had been kneeling on the floor, quivering like a jelly, pulled himself together. He stood up and jumped backwards, out of the light. He edged along the wall, feeling his way, until his hands came to rest on the hilt of a ceremonial dagger hanging there. Meanwhile Professor Hawthorne picked up the lamp and waved it around to try and discover where Sir Despard had gone. Robert, accompanied by four burly men carrying heavy wooden cudgels, came into the light. He was brandishing a sword inexpertly, in a rough parody of Oliver Reed in "The Three Musketeers". The others wielded their cudgels with infinitely more skill. At the same moment, Sir Despard stepped back into view, grabbed Helena and pressed the dagger to her throat. "Get back!" he screamed. "Or my crime for today will be murder!"
But Helena was not so easily cowed. Overpowering an attacker armed with a knife was second nature to a brown belt in karate. Oh well, here goes, she thought, dress or no dress... She twisted his arm around and threw him over her shoulder. He hit the floor with a bump, dropping the dagger. He cried out, more with surprise than with pain. Hawthorne scooped up the dagger quickly. Sir Despard staggered to his feet. The eldest of the four strangers swung his cudgel round in a wide arc and struck Sir Despard hard on the back of his head. He cried out again, this time for sheer agony. He dropped to the ground, out of the circle of light. Hawthorne swung the lamp round again. But Sir Despard had gone.
"Don't hurt him!" cried Helena. "He hasn't harmed us!"
"He was trying to kill you, miss," the big man replied.
At that moment a couple of male servants, carrying lamps and armed with pistols, appeared at the far end of the hall. They ran towards the little crowd. "Don't come any closer!" Robert yelled. "Or we'll..."
"Stop!" commanded a voice. Everybody froze. They had forgotten the ghosts. Up till then Robert and the four men who had come with him didn't appear to have noticed them at all. Sir Roderic strode into the light. In his Dragoon Guard uniform, he looked an impressive figure. He turned first to the two servants. "Go!" he ordered. "I shall deal with them!" They retreated into the passage leading to the stairs, shutting the double doors behind them. Then he swung round to face the smith. His eyes bore into his skull. The man gibbered and backed away, but still Sir Roderic's gaze held him.
Robert stared at Sir Roderic in confusion. "Helena! Who is this? What's going on?"
One of the blacksmith's sons answered in a terrified squeak, "It's the ghosts! The ghosts of the Lords of Ruddigore!"
"They can put a curse on us!" cried another. "We must get away from here quick!"
"Ghosts? Oh, rubbish! Look!" Robert reached out to pat Sir Roderic's solid arm. Only it wasn't solid. He stared at his hand in disbelief. Everybody jumped.
"It went straight through!" exclaimed the young man who had spoken first. "Merciful Lord, protect us!"
"Make for the door, lads!" shouted the smith. He turned and ran for it, back down the hall towards the main entrance. His sons galloped after him. "Run!" he bellowed to Helena and the others from half-way down. "Don't bother with Sir Murgatroyd, save yourselves!"
Helena, Sir John, the Professor and especially Robert stayed absolutely still. There was another loud crash as the blacksmith and his sons reached the far end of the hall, some more swearing, and what sounded like four people all trying to squeeze through a door at once. Then there was total silence.
Robert peered at his fingers in the dim glow of the oil-lamp. Sir Roderic turned to face him. He gave him the same hard stare that he had given the senior Anderson. Helena spoke up quickly. "Sir Roderic, this is my fiancé, Robert Anderson. He's the fourth member of our party, from our time. Robert, this is Sir Roderic Murgatroyd, the man who was... you know... today."
Robert swallowed hard. "You mean he's one of the..." Helena nodded. There was a pause. Then Robert said, "But where's Sir Despard gone?"
"He got away in all the confusion," replied Helena. "He must be hiding somewhere."
"But it should be easy to find him," said the Professor. "Look." He pointed to the ground. There was a trail of blood leading out of the circle of light, in the direction of the double doors they had entered by.
"We'll have to find him quick. He might have a fractured skull or something. Come on!" Helena darted off towards the doors.
"Helena!" Robert called after her. "Let's just get out of here. We might - "
She stopped and turned to face him. "But he might need help!" Robert stared at her in disbelief. "Robert!" she said in a rage. "He's not that bad! I talked to him earlier on, after he'd locked us in our rooms. He had to do something to fulfil the curse, but underneath he's OK!"
"He tried to kill you!" Robert exploded.
"He was frightened! You and those men came crashing in, you said, 'We'll sort him out', he was scared out of his wits! Wouldn't you have been in his position? Anyway, I don't think he would really have harmed me, not after what he said to me..."
"What did he say?"
"He wanted me to speak to his ancestors on his behalf, to ask them to leave him alone and let him live his life without having to commit his daily crime. That's why we were here! Didn't he tell you?"
"Of course he didn't tell me!" Robert yelled back. "He came to my room after he'd locked us in, pointed a pistol at me and told me that we would have to go with him into the Great Hall at midnight or he'd kill us one by one! Well I thought, bugger this for a game of soldiers, so I forced the window open and went off to get help."
"Oh come on, let's find him," Sir John interrupted. "If anything happens to Sir Despard, it's goodbye cruel world for me too!"
"What do you mean?" asked Sir Roderic, who was crouching on the floor, dipping his leather-gloved finger in the pool of blood Sir Despard had left behind and examining it with interest.
"I'm Sir Despard's great-great-great-however-many-it-is-grandson. If he dies, I won't be born!"
Sir Roderic started to laugh. Then he looked into Sir John's face and stopped, as he realised that Sir John was serious. Then he smiled again. "So you're the future Lord of Ruddigore, young man?" he said with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
Sir John thought, Oh God, I've let myself in for it now. But he shrugged and said, "Yes, I'm the thirtieth Baronet, Sir John Murgatroyd. But you can't do anything to me, not in this time," he added quickly.
"Let's find Sir Despard," insisted the Professor. "If he dies now - "
"He won't die," Sir Roderic interposed. "He can't. Not until he fails to commit his daily crime."
"Yes he can. He isn't the true Lord of Ruddigore, so he isn't bound by the curse."
"Not the true Lord of Ruddigore... What do you mean?"
"As I said before, you're not meant to find this out for another ten years, but Ruthven, who should have inherited the title after you, is alive and well and living under an assumed name."
"You were right, father," declared Sir Roderic, shaking his head. "He's out of his mind - "
"Oh, shut up!" snapped Helena. "Your nephew's life could be in danger! Can't you understand that? Come on!" She darted forward once more. The other time-travellers followed.
Sir Roderic stared after them for a moment, his shoulders drooped. No-one had ever spoken to him like this before, certainly not a woman. Apart from little Nannikin, of course... Travellers through time? Nonsense! Only a madman could tell a tale like that...
Suddenly he had a picture in his mind. It was as if he was looking down from his painting. He could see this man Hawthorne, the pretty young lady and one of the two younger men walking around the Great Hall. It was daylight but there was another light, a harsh light, which came from strange lamps that never flickered, fixed to the walls all round the hall. They were all dressed oddly but the maid was wearing a dress shorter than any he had ever seen worn by any gentlewoman. She was looking up at him with concern in her eyes...
All at once he sprang after them, following the little patch of light. His boots impeded him; they had been designed for riding, not for walking and certainly not for running. He cursed himself silently for having insisted on being painted wearing them, even though they were not correct uniform. He had wanted to look imposing in his picture. If he had realised that he would have to spend eternity wearing them, he would have chosen something a little more practical... He bounded up the stairs as fast as he could, determined not to lose sight of these mysterious strangers. He caught up with them just as they reached the door to Professor Hawthorne's bedroom. It was locked.
"Can you break it down, Robert?" the Professor was asking.
"These doors are solid oak, Professor," Robert replied. "You'd need a bloody great axe to get through this, and even then it'd take you the best part of an hour."
Sir Roderic stepped forward. "Leave this to me," he said. He paused, swallowed hard, shut his eyes and walked straight through the door.
"Wow!" exclaimed Robert. "There's something to be said for being a projection of two alternative realities after all."
Nothing happened for a minute or so. "What's going on in there?" asked Sir John.
"Look," Helena said, pointing at the keyhole.
The key was being pushed into the lock, on the inside of the door. Very slowly it turned; the time-travellers could hear Sir Roderic's muffled curses as he strained to turn it. As Sir John grasped the handle, Robert called out, "Careful! He had a gun before."
Sir John answered, "He didn't have one when he left the Hall, and if there was one in the Professor's room the Professor should have found it. Come on!"
The four time-travellers burst into the room. Sir Roderic was kneeling over the unconscious form of Sir Despard. He was trying to tear one of the sheets off the bed into strips to make a bandage for Sir Despard's still-bleeding head; he was finding it difficult as sometimes his fingers would slip through and the sheet would fall to the floor.
"Here, let me," said Helena. She snatched up the sheet and expertly fashioned a bandage, which she tied tightly round the cut. "It doesn't look all that bad," she commented as she finished. "He's probably concussed but I think he should be OK in a few hours or so."
Sir Roderic stood up and looked at her anxiously. He spoke urgently. "But he said that the pain was unbearable. He said he had found some medicine in a pouch in Lord Hawthorne's costume. The writing on the bottle said that the pills in the bottle would stop pains in the head, so he took them. Then he fell into a swoon. I tried to wake him but I could not. Why - "
"Give me that bottle." Professor Hawthorne grabbed the little brown plastic bottle impatiently out of Sir Roderic's hand as he held it out to him. "Good God, it's empty!"
"What are they, Professor?" asked Helena.
"My migraine pills. I had nearly a month's supply. You're only meant to take one a day. Good Lord, if he's taken the lot then he's - "
"If we don't get his stomach pumped in the next few hours he's dead!" Helena finished for him.
"Shit!" Sir John half shouted, half sobbed. Sir Roderic stared at him in horror. "We've got to get him to a doctor," he went on to Sir Roderic.
"There's a physician in Harrington," Sir Roderic said. "He lives about half an hour's ride from here."
"I very much doubt he'd be able to do anything for Sir Despard," Hawthorne answered. "He needs twentieth-century surgery. We'll have to take him back to our time!"
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