JMJ
TWO
His face held a downright sulk as he slumped deep in his armchair with fingers digging into the arms, and he glowered into the fire like a person at least half his age put on a time out, and he was supposed to be twenty years of age. He hardly acted so. The little dog, Biscuit, sniffing at his feet and laying down upon them did little to comfort Adam as his mind brooded over the last evening.
First the girl and her parents had showed up uninvited. Then her father had the audacity to call his behavior unwarranted. Then taking his wife and his daughter the count left forthwith declaring never to return.
Adam was the master of the castle! He had every right to decide who entered and who did not. On the day of the Christmas party of all days to be derided and to have his hospitality questioned.
The other guests had said very little on the subject once the St. Gervais family was escorted out the door. However they got in was another matter altogether which slipped Adam's mind even still. All that mattered to him was that they had come, and that they had ruined the party, for half the guests had begged to be excused not half way through the party so that some had left even before the dinner. The ones that remained all night had left quite early in the morning too. The planned luncheon had gone to waste. Not a one had a remained.
The outdoor events would have been worthless anyway for the wind and the snow had been coming down hard and furious since just after the guests had left.
He blamed the whole thing on Monique.
Calling for a servant to stoke up the fire now, he took a drink from his half filled wine glass and grumbled half formed insults about the girl and her family and anyone else who had besmirched him in the past. He recalled Mademoiselle Laurette who had been so disgusted with him that she had left the castle without a word of parting. There had been his cousin Princess Adrienne who had slapped him for his treatment toward her friend from Scotland, the Lady Rose. And it was not only girls who got in on it. There was the Spanish Diego who demanded a dual between himself and Adam for his treatment to his sister the Señorita Esperanza (Adam's servants just barely managed to keep their Master from killing himself by fighting against such an excellent swordsman). A man from the French settlements in the Americas called him plenty of crude names behind his back, and of course who could forget the disaster with Monsieur DuPont who made fun of Adam in front of his guests not but a few months ago at that summer garden party. Even the king had snubbed him more than once; though for the most part just fell to ignoring his nephew as though he did not know who he was at all.
The fire having been stoked, the servant withdrew, but just as he left the room another servant stepped in.
"Pardon me, Master," said Lumiere bowing as he stopped just inside the doorway.
Without looking up, the Master muttered, "What?" He closed his eyes allowing the steam above his head to better steep.
"There is someone at the door for you."
"Right now?" the Master demanded throwing his head around toward him, which caused Lumiere the slightest jump. "What time is it anyway? Why didn't you just tell them to come back later?"
"Because she's requesting a place to stay, Master," said Lumiere. "It's the coldest it's been this winter. The wind's been howling and the snow has been absolutely ferocious. The village is almost ten miles away, and for an elderly woman that would be—Master?"
Without a word the Master brushed past the servant and went straight for the front door. The little dog trotted faithfully after him, wagging his tail.
#
"Ruin. Absolute ruin. It's not bad enough that the Master has already been for the most part rejected by his own extended family since his father's death, including might I add, the king of France himself, but this? I've never seen such a display in all my life."
It was a lament rather than a rant or even a complaint. The head of the household mourned the loss of reputation for which they tried so desperately to keep in the absence of Adam's father.
Mrs. Potts shook her head sadly as Cogsworth continued.
"Since the age of five he's seen no form of parental devotion of any sort. The closest things he's had since are perhaps the governesses and a few masters of expertise and study who could not abide him; all came and went, and now, well, maybe you and your devotion Mrs. Potts might serve for some sort of motherly affection, but still. If only Prince Robert and the Princess Estelle were still here. None of this would have happened. Alas! What are we the household when it comes to that temper of the Master's? We might as well be part of the décor for how much he heeds our councils. And now … I knew this would happen one day."
"Going on about it, won't help," Mrs. Potts said quietly.
Cogsworth was near to banging his head against the window out through which the snowstorm raged with a white fury.
"He shall be banished from France!"
"I doubt it will go that far, Mr. Cogsworth," said Mrs. Potts.
"Well, unable to show his face in public again then as far as the court of the Russian tsar," Cogsworth closed his eyes and drummed his fingers upon the small table just to the side of the window. "He shall be forced to suffer the hardships of the Americas and lose the meaning of his noble title to escape his shame."
Mrs. Potts was not looking at him during the conversation but was finished putting empty dishes onto a tray. As she spoke she sounded as if at least part of her mind lay elsewhere.
"No one has died," she pointed out with a calm sensibility, "despite the embarrassments."
"If only someone had died rather than this," moaned Cogsworth. "Or at least that someone got something stuck in his throat at the dinner table and we had to call for the doctor."
"You don't mean that," said Mrs. Potts.
"No, I suppose not," Cogsworth muttered with a heavy sigh. "But what are we to do, Mrs. Potts?"
He turned surprised to see her pushing the cart away.
"I—" he started to say after her.
"Nothing for now," Mrs. Potts said back to him and stopped, turning to him. "Nothing has come of it yet, Mr. Cogsworth. Don't fret about something that hasn't happened yet. My advice to you right now is to relax. Have you had much rest since the night before the party? Go to your quarters. Have a nice hot cup of chamomile with a generous dab of honey, and set yourself for going to bed early. There will be nothing more you'll need to do tonight. Nights after events are always the slowest. I'll keep things in order until the Master's in bed."
"How very practical of you," muttered Cogsworth in defeat. "And most good of you, Mrs. Potts."
"Yes, well, you're good for very little in the state you're in right now, you know," said Mrs. Potts in a kind tease, and she smiled as she started the cart up again heading toward the kitchen.
Watching her go a moment, he saw the door open and the light of the kitchen form a sharp-cut shadow of her form with the cart stretched out on the floor.
"Chip," he heard her say to her youngest child of ten. "What are you doing up this late?"
His true name was Frèdéric, but most everyone called him now by the nickname of Chip, which though had nothing to do with his true name was a shortened from "Chipper one" or just "Chipper", which his parents had begun calling him before the age of two. It had now since been shortened. His true name had nearly been forgotten by some.
The little boy now eight could be heard bounded on echoing footsteps giving his excuses in his innocent manner for not being at least in the servants' quarters down stairs: something about the Master's dog getting downstairs somehow and how Chip the noble hero had to set this all right. The dog was now nowhere in sight; though he had taken to barking somewhere not long before Cogsworth's lament.
Mrs. Potts closed the door behind her, and the voices became muffled into words indiscernible.
Cogsworth turned back to the window, and this time did bang his head against the glass as no one happened to be around anymore, at least near enough to see. He could still hear the footsteps of other servants finishing up evening chores besides Mrs. Potts. All in the keeping of the castle spotless and in proper order as it should be. If the Master lost his reputation as an irascible host he could at least never lose his reputation for a good ordered house as long as Cogsworth was in command of domestic affairs.
Straightening himself into a more proper position, and checking his watch to see just how early it happened to be, he took it upon himself to take Mrs. Potts' advice for now. He resolved that tomorrow he would resume his position to full strength once again. Thus with this optimism that he would not allow Lumiere he set off to his quarters feeling a little more himself; his lightness of step regained somewhat.
She is right, after all, he thought. Nothing has happened yet, and we shall write as many apologies as can be mustered. Perhaps we may even be able to convince the Master to apologize in person … well, maybe not, but it could still be worked out.
The Master was still young yet. He still had a chance to learn, right? Thirty was the age of full growth. He still had at least a decade before that. Perhaps by then he will have found someone that would be able to withstand his hot temper, and then he could settle down into a normal state of family life. That often tamed people well enough for outward appearances. Yes, that was it. Perhaps Lumiere was right about that.
Yes, yes, just stay positive, Cogsworth told himself. Just stay positive. Not overly optimistic, of course, but a little positivity never did anyone any harm.
RRWWWWAARRRRRRR!
Except to deflate one's hopes, he thought in dismay as he swiveled toward that horrible sound.
"What was that?" he asked out loud.
It sounded like the Master, and yet some other sound too like a great bear had been released into the castle. What in all the world could have happened, Cogsworth did not know, but he hurried toward the main entrance from where the sound had come, half tripping over himself at the corners in the corridors.
"What's going on?" a servant girl managed to ask before he passed her by.
"I don't know!" Cogsworth called back. "Just call for help. I think an animal has gotten into the castle."
And indeed he was stopped suddenly by another horrible roar coming from the staircase. He turned sharply to the maid.
"Go get help!" he ordered, thrusting a finger in the opposite direction he was going. "At once!"
The maid nodded and flew away.
Cogsworth made it to the staircase; though a tad uncertain now of whether or not he should go on. He heard something of the Master again and the roar to go with it as if the Master right now was in some epic battle with the Minotaur in the center of the maze.
"Master!" he called.
Less determined but not too slower in pace Cogsworth raced up the stairs, but he hardly reached the first landing when something else happened from behind, and he found himself turning round to the great wave of change below him.
First he noticed the wind as though the front doors had been left wide open, and all of winter came blasting into the castle, but it was more than winter. A dark light swept up like a dam had burst and flooded with a roar through the hallways and corridors leaving behind it a trail of nightmarish horror.
Dumbstruck at this ethereal sight the head of the household stumbled back onto the landing, for even then the wave came barreling up the stairs towards him, barreling towards him as it was everyone else in the entire castle from the cooks to the valets, from the strong stable master still out in the stables, to the smallest babe in the maidservant's quarters, to the horses, to the lapdog, to the hounds, to the cat, the birds, and every living thing. Even the mice below the basement were not safe, not a leaf in the indoor garden. And as that blackness thrashed against them all swallowing them whole, all they had known changed forever.
The doors of the castle clamped shut and sealed all with a terrible bang that echoed like thunder through the halls before one last deafening roar from the Master's chambers above.
#
"Get help at once …" Cogsworth muttered with a moan.
He must have tripped and hit his head for he felt at once that he was on the floor and not in bed or on a sofa.
Maybe that was where that strange dream had come from. The monster and the wave of blackness and all that. Absurd sort of thing. The sort of thing that proved yet again that Mrs. Potts was right about stress getting to him.
The next thing he noticed, though he could not recall when last he had been conscious, was that he must have tripped next to one of the clock tower stands that stood at the corners of some of the corridors. He was still having trouble recovering from his fall and his near delirious dream that it felt near as though the ticks and the tocks were right inside his head. He could feel the vibrations of it through his entire body.
Oh, he must have hit his head hard, and yet he did not have as strong of a headache as one would expect with such effects. There was a strange feeling in the back of his head, but otherwise he felt nothing too painful. Perhaps when he stood up the ache would simply pound upon him, yet he had no desire to lie on the floor in what he assumed to be the middle of the night, for at first it seemed to him that all was as dark as a tomb and as silent as a graveyard aside from the loud echoes of the ticking clock.
Maybe it was one of those pre-waking dreams, and he had not yet fully awakened. Had he gone down to his quarters with a cup of tea and got into bed? He could not recall.
Then slowly the sense of hearing grew past the small perimeter around him, and he heard what he thought sounded like someone sobbing. No, more than one person sobbing; though it proved difficult to tell how many with the way the corridors echoed so in the middle of the night.
Opening his eyes now, Cogsworth was quite surprised to see that he rested on the landing as he had been in his dream before he woke. This at once disturbed him, and he tried to get to his feet and brush away any cobwebs of dream and reclaim full consciousness and sense of mind. He did not receive his desired wish. In fact all seemed less certain than before when he found to his dismay that he had great difficulty in getting to his feet and that the ticking did not seem to come from anywhere as there were no clocks anywhere near the landing or the staircase at all. And speaking of the stairs they seemed to have grown quite large.
It was one of those pre-waking dreams, after all! One of those dreams where one wishes to wake but is not allowed.
The sobs below turned more wretched than before, and a shudder went through him in the darkness by himself, and that shudder caused a strange rattling that made him stop immediately. He gave up temporarily in his pursuit to get into an upright position, and he stared helpless at the black ceiling far, far above.
The blackness that had turned the beautiful castle with its white halls, its indoor flowers, its statues, stain glass and paintings of angels, fine horses, beautiful ladies and handsome knights into a Transylvanian nightmare of gothic gargoyles, grotesques and halls like a mausoleum to the forsaken. It still had not left. All still remained as it had after the wave of darkness had washed over all in his dream, except now it felt more real.
He covered his face with his hands, and then, well, he noticed his hands.
"WAH!"
But he did not dwell on those for too long, for as far as looking down at himself, he found the rest of his body to be in a far worse state than his hands. And it quite explained where the ticking had come from. Back and forth the pendulum swayed with the rhythm as steady as a heart's beat, and it could be seen right through him through a single, thin piece of glass and nothing more. The pendulum swung inside his otherwise empty body or what was left of it.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed, grabbing the sides of his head, which slammed rather painfully into the landing again.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
"It's just a dream! Just a dream!" he told himself. "Nothing to worry about!" And he laughed. It was all too ridiculous for him to do much else. The most ridiculous dream he had ever had in fact! "Just a dream! You'll wake up soon. Just a ridiculous, cruel dream that could only mean that your nerves are more on edge than you thought. Yes, yes, of course. Troubled nerves." Again he laughed in a manner that sounded just a little crazy. "Just wake up and have a hot cup of tea and honey or better yet a strong sip of brandy with …"
Then he heard something from up the stairs, and as Cogsworth opened his eyes they nearly popped out of their sockets. With a shriek he squeezed his eyes shut again and cringed as a great and terrible beast leapt right over him and down the stairs. At the bottom of the steps the monster roared.
"SHUT UP!"
Silence. Instant silence.
The Master then like a lion ravaged up the stairs. Oh, to Cogsworth's dismay, he knew it was the Master, and the Master again leapt past him as if he did not see Cogsworth there, but then why should he have noticed him; he was smaller than the Master's dog. The Master stormed to his chambers slamming the door behind him, and he growled all the way like some rabid creature.
With a heavy sigh, Cogsworth relaxed into a sort of wretched defeat, and he lay there not caring to move. If this was a dream he would wake eventually, and if not …
He gulped.
"If not" was too frightening to enter right now.
