Dangerous Letters

Chapter Thirty

Letter LIV

Mar 20, 17--

Hannah,

I have indulged in such tears as the gloom of the evening obscured the chamber and has almost veiled my eyes to the subject of my distress – this room, this wretched, blighted room where I have spent such days in more abject misery and torment that I could have ever conceived. Hell hath no limits, nor is it circumscribed in one place; but where we are is hell, and where hell is, there must we ever be. Why then this is hell, nor am I out of it.

Dreadful is the thought, that I, a poor, weak, friendless, unhappy creature, am too full in the Marquis' power! Permit me to beg, as I now write on my bended knees, that whilst my fate now seems all but certain, one day – one day – on remorse shall attend his dying hour and he will reflect that he has ruined many wretched creatures whose only pride was their virtue, their goodness, their innocence that blinded them to the truth until it was too late. Ah, sweet friend, read these words with patience and tremble not at what I reveal. Though my heart pants and quivers to remember that I was once a goodly sought, that I prayed diligently and took faith in the Lord above that I might one day embark to the seat of God, the throne of the blessed, the kingdom of joy –

Hush. My words overflow these pages; I am trapped in some feverish way – desperate at once, and then unerringly calm, before I lapse into frenzied sensation once more. You will most likely never read these words, beloved Hannah. I have been returned to the chateau and I fear I will never escape this place again.

There is no change to the chamber – except that it is now bolted from the outside. My few possessions are all here as I left them, they have not taken away my writing materials – though these are dwindling. I would conserve them but there seems little point in such planning. Each day I wake and think it shall be my last. Thus far I have been undisturbed since I was thrown into my room – nay, my cell where I am its unhappy prisoner. There has been no sign of my warden and Madam L---, who comes only once a day, glares angrily and refuses to utter a single word no matter what insults or inducements I use. Perhaps it is no less than I deserve.

This whole time all I have thought about, for hours on end, is the moments before my capture. I was asleep, caught up in some foolish, provoking dream where the Master who no longer a despicable figure. I remember distinctly the moment when I was torn from the fanciful state, ripped away by the violent thrashing of my own limbs as I was suddenly cognisant of something pressed forcefully against my face. I could not scream; I could not breathe. I remember the grasping of emptied lungs, the burn of my throat. I am certain that a second longer and I would have never woken again.

I am not sure how I managed to grab at the candlestick (the first thing that came under my grip), nor dashed it full against the attacker even as weakness took hold of my body. A thud as they were dislodged and loud thud on the floor. I tossed the pillow, the instrument of my attempted murder, away as far as I could. My vision swimming, I staggered back to take up the low burning candle and behold the countenance of my foe. Instead, I found Villette on the ground.

Villette!

There was no one else in the room.

What I felt then could not compare to even the discovery of the Master's betrayal. I was taken up by a paroxysm of grief so exacting I burned with the sorrow.

Yet the wicked little soul before me must have been a changeling. Those deep black eyes! That smile, and ghastly paleness! It appeared to me, not my Mademoiselle, but a goblin; and, in my terror, I let the candle bend towards the wall, and it left me in semi-darkness with only the waning moon for light.

I moved away to suppress my emotion; clasped my hands to my eyes, my voice quivered and failed me felt tears trickle fast from between my fingers; a groan burst from my heaving breast. When I turned back, Villette had stood up from the floor and was brushing herself off with terrifying indifference, careless of the frosty air that cut about her shoulders as keen as a knife.

"Why?" I heaved out the question with savage vehemence.

She cut a petite fragile figure staring up, wide-eyed, with a cool reserve. She did not speak but something in her gaze was remorseless defiant. She flew towards me, her hair flying over her shoulders, her eyes flashing, the muscles of her neck and arms standing out preternaturally. Her delirious strength almost matched my own, but if she had cold blood, mine was a fever. If her veins were ice-water, mine were boiling and the sight of such chillness made them dance.

My anger was beyond comprehension: it must have been temporary derangement. You may fancy a glimpse of the abyss where I grovelled! Try as you might, Hannah, you cannot fathom how mindless I became. I should have returned home when I could, indeed, I should have never stayed in this dreadful place and now I am committed to this room! Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? Why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I'm sure I should be myself were I once back with mama and papa. Open the window again wide: fasten it open! Stuck again. Quick, why doesn't it move?

The grasp with which I recovered Villette might have been that of catching her in a fall. I caught her, yes, I held her—it may be imagined with what a passion; but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I held. We were alone with the quiet day, and in the midst of the fit, I had no command of tongue, or brain, and only tightened my embrace to a squeeze.

The Marquis burst the door open with vociferating oaths dreadful to hear, his voice almost inarticulate with passion. He advanced direct to us, seized me by the arm, and swung me across the bed. My head knocked against the bedpost. There was blood in my mouth. On my face. I remember turning, saw the Master lean over Villette's prone form – watched him search for the thrumming of her heartbeat, for a pulse of life.

I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity the appalling alarm of her being perhaps innocent. That her reaction had been one of desperation on being separated from her beloved papa; that I had driven her to this end. It was for the instant confounding and bottomless, for if she were innocent, what then on earth was I?

Then I was back here. In this room. It is more than I deserve.

I await the next.

C.B.