Author's Note: First, my continued appreciate to Cheetahlee. Chapter 46 is very out of character for George, and I did my very best to explain why throughout. There is to be a lot of background information, plus loads of forewarnings getting thrown about in the next few chapters - so if something doesn't make sense when you read it, it will later. With that being said...
My Darling Love
Chapter 46 – Devil in the Flesh
"We must remember that Satan has his miracles too."
-John Calvin
George went up to the bathroom and washed his hands, cleansing them thoroughly of his wife's blood. He proceeded to his bedroom without a second thought; he removed his clothes, dressed himself in clean pajamas, and rested comfortably in bed, asleep in only a minute. Mary lay on the floor unmoving, while the devil sat on the sofa and laughed. Crimson red seeped from her mouth and as she tried to open her eyes she found them already swollen shut. Best to keep them closed, since the light in the room made them ache when she peered though the slits she forced open.
Mary pulled herself over to the chair nearest her and tried to stand, holding one arm on her side and using the other to lift herself back on her feet. Her ears were ringing, and she could not hear her own weeping or her wails of anguish when she bent at the waist to rise. She fell back to the floor and remained there for the rest of the night. She called for her husband's aid several times, but heard no response, not even the sound of the door to their room opening.
The first light of dawn crept into the windows, and Mary had been awake through the hours of darkness. Without the strength or the will to make herself move farther than the chair or the floor, she wet herself and continued to bleed from her mouth. She noticed blood also drained from one of her ears, not by seeing it, for her face was so swollen, it was unrecognizable. She felt the moisture in her hair and touched a finger to it, without her vision, she lifted it to her lips and tasted it. Blood indeed.
The children were awake, she could hear their footsteps above and her love for them and them alone, made her drag herself as far as she could out of sight. She took cover in the hall closet and lay in the back behind the coats. She closed the door, just as Uncle Harry came in the front door with his hands full of groceries. If he noticed anything out of the ordinary, he made no mention of it to George, who came down the stairs to greet him. Mary listened to their muffled voices in terror of the embarrassment of being discovered in her current state. "Out for the evening Harry?" George began, "Yes, spent the night at the tavern and fell asleep at the poker table..." Harry replied with a hearty laugh.
George and Harry spoke in the front foyer, and then moved to the parlor. From there they walked down the hall past the closet door and into the kitchen. Only one set of footsteps came down the hall, and up the stairs. Soon and all at once, all three children ran down with heavy steps behind them down the stairs and out the front door. Footsteps walked down the hall from the kitchen to the front door that was slammed shut and locked. And then there was nothing but silence.
Penny was dead and buried, as was Mary's father, Grandpa Joe. Her son Michael and her Aunt Millicent lay in the same cemetery a few headstones away. John was most likely working, and God Himself was the only one who knew where Wendy was, and He was already at that very moment looking for her. There was no one home or anywhere else in the world that could valiantly defend the Queen. Surely she would wave the white flag and surrender, and Mary would, if she could raise her arm -- or better yet, remove it from her side that was now totally numb with pain.
She remained in the closet when the maid arrived and gave a startled, "Oh goodness! Jesus, Mary and Joseph what happened here?" Taking notice of the mess Mary had left on the living room floor. Mary listened, as there was nothing else left to do, as the maid rolled up the rug and dragged it down the hall into the kitchen where she did something to clean the fluids from it, while praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Saints in heaven for Mrs. Darling. The rug made its way with the maid back to the parlor and there she spent the rest of the morning cleaning, scrubbing and praying. Mary remained in seclusion, in the darkness and dust, scrunched up in a mass of bruises all afternoon and into the evening.
The Darling family came home sometime later; the children were already asleep as she overheard Harry telling his brother, "Never thought they would wear out today." Mary counted the footsteps coming in, three heavy pairs of feet, George, Harry and John, she hoped. Two sets walked up the stairs, one set paced around the house. Odd it was that no one called out for her whereabouts, unless they already knew where she was. Two sets of feet came down, and all entered into the kitchen and began to converse back and forth. The kitchen was just far enough away that, from the closet, Mary could not make out the specifics. Randomly when one would speak over the others and she would pick something up that made no sense to her. "In the...already...who knows...for long...without...far..."
Soon the will to stay awake wavered under the pressure of exhaustion, and Mary closed her eyes. She was jolted awake when something was slammed against the closet door. Whatever it was, it was large and crashed to the floor. Children's voices were heard explaining whatever it was they had done while away, and the scampering of little feet into the kitchen by order of George's voice came next with a strange clomps of small paws.
"A puppy," Mary managed in her mind, unspoken. Pitter-patter of tiny toes without the noise of paws but a chirping bark made their way past her in the hall and the soles of shoes followed after them. Two sets, Mary counted to herself. Out the front door into the sunshine that poured in under the door jam to her confinement. A broom swept the hardwood floor, and then a dustpan was used to gather the remnants of the broken item up. The steps to the kitchen trash and back to the door, made Mary nervous so she backed up as best she could and pulled all the coats hanging around her in front to shield her. The door opened and George, unmindful of his wife's hiding place, brushed the broom quickly in and out, gathering the dust and glass that had fallen inside to the dustpan outside in the hall. He bent down and gathered it up and then quickly glanced in though the coats. He grinned; pleased with himself that he tidied up a disarray such as this, and shut the door on her in her misery.
"He smiled," Mary whispered to herself, seeing his lack of concern for her condition in his face.
In truth, George was very proud of the way he handled the situation. Giving his wife free rein of her own life caused much more trouble than it was worth, and now she knew what would no longer be tolerated in his house. Harry was sick with worry over Mary's unknown whereabouts, while George was thrilled to be free of her for a few days.
Constantly, Harry would pester his brother, "Why are you not looking for her, George?" George scoffed his brother, actually alarming Harry enough to back away and flee from the house to search for Mary himself with, "Because I can't thrash her in a public place for running away, I will have to do it in my castle. And you best believe I'm going to give her a few good smacks for the mess she left in my parlor."
Mary knew without him having to reiterate vocally, and so now he was different and forever changed to her. No longer would he be the man she loved and adored, and could forgive endlessly and without measure. George was someone to be feared and apprehensive about. In her closet hideaway, Mary began to review Aunt Millicent's lessons from her youth in her head.
"Always to be a proper lady and only speak when spoken to. Do not ramble on; you must learn to answer questions simply and with as few words as possible... Never give your opinion on anything, even if the matter concerns you and only you, even if it is requested. Just agree with your husband and let him decide for you. He may be a wrong as a man can be, but never question him ... Children are to be seen and not heard. With that being said, a proper woman of polite society is not only speechless but unseen as well. You must blend into the room like a piece of furniture, for in your husband's house that is what you are ... Don't laugh, only offer a pleasant smile, and a silent one at that ... Mary Elizabeth, once you marry a rich man, the only life you have will be the one he gives you. You must never ask him for anything, if he feels you deserve something he will give it to you. If you are a good, loyal and dutiful wife, he will give you anything you want anyway ... I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, dear, but at times it will only be your heart beating inside your chest that reminds you that you are in fact still alive."
George returned to the kitchen, the chair scraping as it was pulled from the table was the only thing heard for quite some time. Mary believed it was still unsafe to move, but she could not hold her urine any longer, so she yanked one of her coats down peed on it, and then discarded it at her feet. The teakettle singing on the stove was the next sound and George rummaging through the cabinets came after that. George couldn't find where Mary, "hid the rotten sugar bowl, lousy thief probably stole it when she left!" So Mary braced herself in her solitude for another round of kicking and punching.
Silence fell once more, and Mary closed her eyes, or were they already closed, she couldn't tell. The blood that leaked from her mouth had stopped, but not the flow from her ear or her womanhood as she discovered when she checked what has soaking her dress from underneath. Something was definitely damaged inside of her body for the simple act of shifting to attempt a more comforting position made her bite down on her tongue to keep from screaming. And so the bleeding in her mouth began again.
The pangs of hunger and thirst, not to mention the medical care she was in desperate need of, stopped time for her. Soon she could not keep a conscious thought of anything, and her ability to count footsteps and differentiate between voices ceased. The puppy George purchased for his children kept his paws scraping on the door of the closet she held herself in constantly. "GET AWAY FROM THERE, PATCHES!" the children would continually call and drag him back to where they were, no one even paying any mind to Mary within.
Not that it mattered; she could not hear them now anyway. One voice she would swear on whatever life she had left that played out constantly in her mind was that of Wendy. But not from the other side of the door, off in the distance, calling out to her from wherever she was, as if her mother was lost and she was the only one dispatched to look for her.
Something thumped against the door or maybe it was the wall and continued to thump, something was trying to break into the sanctuary Mary had there. Then it stopped, someone on the other side, a man was speaking. But not George, a stronger force in the universe and he was surely talking to her, for he addressed her with a correct title, "Madam, there is almost no time left for you, please go back now..."
It was her only words said to be heard; "There is no place in this world for me to go."
"Something smells very foul in here, Meredith, maybe you should take out the trash."
"I just took out the trash, I'm telling you they must have rats or something in the basement. You know one of them scampers up through the walls and gets stuck. Then it dies and there is that odor until it rots away."
"Well, Meredith, have they heard anything more about Mrs. Darling?"
"No, I haven't seen hide or hair of her, and she's always home. I asked Mr. Darling and he made up some harebrained story that she was visiting a relative or some such nonsense. He even got those children a silly little pup to make up for her being gone. You ask me she isn't coming back."
"So what are you saying? She just left her husband and her children and ran away. I find that hard to believe."
"You ask me, she probably didn't run very far. I cleaned that rug in the parlor. Seems to me she took quite a beating. I wouldn't be surprised if that body they found in that alley downtown turns out to be her."
"Mr. Darling beating his wife, HA! And to death at that! I'd have to see it to believe it."
The maid and her friend left after giving the house its normal once over, although it took a little longer than normal. Apparently George had left direction to clean his bedroom in Mrs. Darling absence. Mary gathered her strength and her courage and pulled herself up. When the closet stopped moving around her, and her vision cleared enough to stop seeing everything doubled, she opened the closet door. She limped, as her leg was either injured from her violent fall or numb from lying upon it for the day or so in the confinement. She slowly made her way up the stairs to the washroom and ran herself a hot bath. Disrobing in front of the mirror, she saw all that her husband, the devil in the flesh, had done to her.
For lack of a better description, it appeared her entire face was broken. Mary's lips were split, her perfectly full mocking mouth now ruined. Her eyes were no longer swollen shut, and very large dark bruises were apparent, as well as the red that seemed to remain within the white of her right eye. The bruises did not end at her eyes, they continued down to her cheeks and stretched further in horrid steaks to the bottom round of her chin to her neck and shoulders. Mary was also correct in her assumption that her insides were harmed, although without surgery to investigate the precise cause of her bleeding, she couldn't tell what harm had been done.
"Best you stay off your feet as much as possible until the bleeding stops completely, most things like that mend on their own," Harry told her when he found her crying in her room after returning from an afternoon walk with the new family pet.
"The children named him Patches." Harry smiled lifting the dog to give Mary better sight of him. He was a small collie with black and white fur all jumbled up together. "They love him so already, but have missed you." His words had no effect on Mary as she dressed and ignored the tiny animal that jumped and down in her room wanting to play.
Mary knew better now than to stay off her feet or play with the children's new puppy, she knew what George expected from his wife, and she would now be forced, after all their years together to, not only give it to him unquestioned, but give in to him as well. "You remind me of my own mother when my father used to do that to her. I never thought I would ever see another women in this way, not at the hands of my baby brother," Harry told her as he helped her dress and ready herself for the children's reaction. "Tell them you walked into a door or fell down the attic stairs, they will believe it if it comes from you, we always believed our mother and until we knew better. Well, it's just best they think it that way."
Mary made her own way into the kitchen and with great hardship began to cook supper. "Mary, please try not to be defiant with George, if he's anything like his father was, he will strike you again. I will do what I can to help, Mary, I promise." That was God talking, but using the body of Harry to get his point across, which was received with a nod and dismal frown of acceptance from Mary. Patches followed Mary into the kitchen, and then around for the rest of day, tagging on alongside of her wherever she went, even when the children returned home and wanted to give him the attention he was in missing from their mommy.
"To think all that time she was in the closet, and you said you checked in there when the children broke the vase," Harry said, scratching his head as both he and George quietly sat in the parlor after dinner. Mary was slowly cleaning the plates away while the children played in the nursery. "Must have looked right past her then, probably huddled up hiding like a child fleeing from a spanking. Mother was never that inventive. She always wanted father to see what he had done to her. Mary was so embarrassed, I felt so sorry for her...She looks really bad, and she can't even stand. I had to help her. You really should let her take some rest already. A woman in her condition--"
That was all Harry could manage before his brother interrupted flipping his paper open, "A woman in her condition deserves to be in her condition and just suffer."
"George, look at her. It hurts to even lift her arm any higher then her waist. She is your wife, George, look at her." Harry's words did not affect George the way he had wanted or anticipated. Instead, his brother glanced back to his crushed wife, who worked in the kitchen, and demanded she serve him and Harry tea "right now, for I am tired of waiting!"
George would not save Mary, so Harry did. He went into the kitchen and helped Mary make the tea and served George himself, purposely spitting in the teacup as he walked back to the parlor.
The first time George laid eyes on his wife that afternoon when he returned from running his errands he gave no outward reaction of shock or sadness at her appearance. In fact, he shook his head, curling his lip, displeased she had returned so soon. He would have kept his word and punched her right in the mouth had Harry not intervened on her behalf. "Alright, George, she spoiled the rug, so take it out of her allowance."
Not only did George take it out of her allowance, he went and purchased a new rug for the parlor, which Mary was forbidden to walk upon. George left for the emporium, and Harry helped Mary complete the chores that her husband, Satan himself, had written out for her. "If they are not completed by the time I return, Mary, my hand will not be the only thing I use to discipline you with." To make sure his point was clearly received, George showed Mary how easy it was to free his belt from his waist, quickly whipping the back of the chair for an unnecessary effect that made her shiver to the bone.
Mary was broken in more than body, but in spirit as well, and Lucifer himself knew that. Mary was never again to be the same woman George married, now she would be a copy of her mother, more than her husband's who, even after years of torture from Mrs. Frederick Darling the Fourth, still had a tenacious attitude of insolence. Grandpa Joe predicted and now it had come to pass, all the happiness, joy, life and love she felt within her would forever be replaced with fear and absolute obedience and the evil that George always held within in his heart pushed out the good, making him a carbon copy of his father. Thus, the worst injury Mary sustained was to her heart, and no medicine or doctor could repair it or make better. Mary was terrified of her George, a man she had spent the better part of her life loving.
"You finally succeeded, George, Mary is in her place and mother would be so proud. That alone would surely make you her favorite," Harry sneered as Mary, without the clearest mind due to her injuries, sliced her hand on a broken glass in the sink. Harry mended her wounds as she sat at the kitchen table, whimpering over the sting of alcohol he used to sterilize the cut.
"Are you crying, Mary?" George called out. Both Harry and Mary raised their heads hopeful he had come to his senses, only to lower them again when he shouted, "Shut up, woman! All that whining is giving me a headache!"
Mary assumed he would want her to sleep in another room of the house away from him, but he was quite adamant that she always sleep in bed with him. "I had better not find you absent from my side if I awake in the middle of the night, Mary. You will go to bed when I tell you and you will rise when I tell you." His presence beside her as she rested in bed made it impossible for her to relax, and most nights she lay there unmoving, wide awake on her back, with her hands folded over her chest as if already in her coffin. The one night he demanded she service him was worse.
"Take off your nightgown before I rip it off of your body, and spread your legs ... roll over ... no, you stupid twit, the other way! ... you like it like this, don't you ... don't nod your head at me, tell me ... shut up, did I tell you to speak ... now raise your leg ... NO ... the other leg ... God help me, you are the worst lay ... get on your back ... come on, come on ... faster ... now suck me off."
Time passed slowly and Satan's victory was surely to be one of his finest when fully attained. Mary took to vomiting uncontrollably when George was due home from being out for the day. She never asked him where he was going or what he had planned, only accepting his, "I'm going out and will be back later," as explanation. The one time she did ask, he raised his hand, but did not strike her, only warning, "Never ask me ANYTHING ever again Mary, or you will receive a worse beating than you can imagine possible!"
The grown ups of the house maintained the façade that Mary herself wove, that she fell down the attic stairs after tripping on a pair of shoes. The Darling Triplets thought that their mama was incapable of lying, so they believed her that account as the truth, and questioned her no further. Especially after their father concurred her story with, "That is why we must always put away our shoes where they belong when not being worn."
George made not even a halfhearted apology to his wife. Instead while she gazed up to their bedroom ceiling, he vowed on his life and stacks of Bibles and anything else in the world that was sacred and holy that Mary would only find herself again in this condition if she disobeyed him or was deceitful. He finished by ordering his wife to forgive him with no if, ands, or buts. Mary nodded, and prayed silently that he would leave and give her relief of his company. But all for naught, he just sat and repeated the plain truth that he was not that sorry, nor did he really feel any guilt over his actions for as he put it "you asked for it." Those words fell on deaf ears, as Mary had already transformed herself into a rotted corpse buried beneath the ground.
The devil, or George if you prefer, had rules for everything, and each ended with the same admonition: "Break my rules, Mary, and I will break you."
From the moment she rose in the morning until well after night fell, while Satan ruled the roost, Mary had not one shred of mercy cast upon her. It was as if Lucifer had a personal score with her he wanted settled. Therefore, his punishment to a loving wife and devoted mother, who raised not only her own children, but her children's children, not to mention loved countless others unconditionally, was relentless. And always she lived in fear that the monster her husband now was, would not to be pushed into rage by just her own actions, but the actions of others.
Mary's normal disposition around the children never returned, not even when she was alone with them in the nursery. She was different, no more endless hugs and kisses, no more rolling around on the ground and laughing and carrying on like she once had. The moment she heard George call for her, she abandoned them without reason and went running toward the sound of his voice. They noticed the change in her and it bothered them tremendously. God saw the change in her with regard to her own children, and He got down off his thrown and began pacing the halls of heaven. The devil seeing this, laughed all the more.
Following their mother's lead, thinking maybe there was something lurking about the house that needed to be feared, the children too fell silent. "Uncle Harry is always telling us, children should be seen and not heard, and so that is what we must do. He said we must do it for mother and we shall." They only played in the nursery and nowhere throughout the rest of the house would children giggling and artless play be heard. They dressed as they were told and went to school where they listened and did their school work. Homework was done in silence at the kitchen table, and then and only then were they excused to their fantasy worlds of happier times and fun.
All the children constantly asked their mother if their was a boogie monster of some kind that had invaded the basement and took up residence there, but she only quieted them before bed, giving them no reassurances because she herself was unsure. It was Uncle Harry who reaffirmed and gave the promise of safety more solemn than he had before in his life with, "Not one soul in this entire world will ever harm any children living in this house. I'd see them dead first." He said it to the children as they were tucked into bed in the nursery, but it was meant for another's ears that listened by the door, Lucifer.
Even poor Patches was affected, he would lay in his bed in the nursery when the children were away, and never venture any further into the house than Jane's room. The children were forced to carry the terrified pooch from the house to walk him. If anyone in the outside world looking into the once happy Darling home needed any further proof that the devil had moved in after killing George, it came when Patches gathered enough courage to bark in a loud tone at the family's invader. Always a loyal and valiant defender of the children and the mommy who fed and washed him, the only person the dog gave hostile voice to was George. He would growl, snarl and at times be as so bold to snap with his mouth full of sharp teeth at George if he came too close to one of his wards or raised his voice in anger to Mary.
In a short matter of time, that too was resolved, for John took Patches in with him to the flat after George threatened to drown the dog. At the very least, it gave the children an excuse to weekly leave the house, relieving the constant pressures they felt at home. At one time or another, while Satan sat where George once had at the head of the table, each one of the Darling Triplets took cover under their bed, fleeing from a spanking after being bad. "That's silly, I would never spank you. Whatever gave you that idea?" George would tell them as he helped them out of their hiding spot under Uncle Harry's watchful eye. Call it a child's intuition; they still were scared of the boogie monster.
There is only one good thing about the devil, when having the most fun wreaking havoc and bringing hardships, he has an awful habit of getting lazy and not covering all his bases. He always has a unquenchable desire for greatness, not to mention, the devil is quite greedy and always wants all instead of simply settling for some, which, in George's case, would have given him a never-ending reign over the Darling household. But alas, he wanted more, and was growing eager to see Mary a broken bloody and maybe even dead mess on the parlor rug which George specifically told her she was not to set foot on. So, being wicked, the Devil made his first mistake. God was watching, and at the moment the universal rule of free will was broken, He, almighty in his power, stepped forward in a most obvious manner.
George, or Satan, sat on his favorite chair in the parlor, his brother Harry sitting across from him on the sofa. Mary was in the kitchen scrubbing the floor, because as George had just told her, "You will not sleep again or eat until it shines, Mary!" George watched his wife and then his brother. Harry gazed at his sister-in-law on her hands and knees scouring the tiles so hard that her knuckles were bleeding, with the saddest and most distraught expression of grief. George remembered the sigh of disappointment his brother gave the day he was lucky enough to marry Mary, and concocted a rather ingenious plan to conquer all the goodness left inside the once happy home.
Harry paid no mind to George, he only shook his head, "I'm going to bed..." he mumbled, and went up the stairs.
Unfair play indeed, God waited with bated breath on the edge of His seat, wanting to jump down from heaven to earth to save the day Himself. George entered the kitchen with his hands on his hips, and demanded his wife go to the bathroom and bathe her body this very instant. She did as she was told, and dressed in a silk nightgown her husband had laid out for her, complete with a fancy French perfume he sprayed on her himself. With her pretty as a picture, complete with curled hair and plenty of make up to hide the last of the bruises that had not yet faded from her face, George gave a simple, stern command. "Go to my brother's room and service him."
Mary waited for God to save her, she pleaded in her mind over and over again for salvation only to be on the receiving end of a brutal grasp of the arm from George who threw her out of their bedroom into the hall. "You will lay down for my brother, Mary, this very instant!" For the first time since Satan moved in, God smiled.