Chapter 22 - Deep Things From Darkness

As they prepared for breakfast the next day, the boys promised Maggie they would explore the folly only after she had finished with her studies. The children sat alone at breakfast, the Countess absent once more.

Afterwards, as Maggie opened the study door to begin her tuition, she saw the Countess slumped in her chair, with Sexton kneeling at her side, administering a tincture of some sort. She looked pale and almost lifeless.

"I do apologise," said Maggie and turned around to leave.

As she left the room, she heard the Countess fragile voice. "No study today, Margaret. I promise, I shall be fine in a matter of hours."

After the late night the previous evening, Maggie's mind felt hazy, her body insipid - but she rushed

to seek out the boys. She searched in all the usual spots they habitually inhabited when at play, but could not find them. She searched for over an hour and had covered much of the estate in that time.

She spoke to Sarah, one of the servants, and she suggested the lake.

It was a still, bright sunny day, as she walked back towards the lake and down to the dock. There were two boats tied up. They must be somewhere on the lake, Maggie thought. She took the rope and uncoupled the knots. She positioned herself inside the boat and took the oars in both hands, knowing there was only one place they could be.

They had gone to the folly.

She grew more and more furious, the further she rowed. They had promised to wait until she was finished with her studies. She felt betrayed, especially by Tom, who she thought had now drifted away from her, and was more inclined to follow Jack's lead these days.

She lifted up her head as she rowed and on the horizon saw a black cloud glowering in the distance. A storm was coming, thought Maggie. Out on the water alone, she was reminded of the days when she would watch distant storms sneak their way up the Thames estuary and she would have to persuade Tom to leave the muddy water and head for shelter.

She continued to row across the lake, and as the looming tower came in to view, she could see them both by the door of the tower, talking, more like arguing - or so it seemed from this distance. She rowed on toward the dock near the folly. She could not see a boat. She realised they had hidden it, like they had the previous evening. Her heart beat to the rhythm of a quickening anger, as she docked the boat.

As she left the boat she saw the two traitors walking back to where they had hidden their boat.

"Thomas, why did you come here without me?" she demanded. The boys stopped, surprised at her presence.

Tom was quiet and ignored her question. He walked and sat down on a small mound of grass. She looked to Jack, he looked away and joined Tom and sat next to him on the grass.

"What's wrong with you two?" she asked. "Did you go down and look around? Why didn't you wait?"

The two boys seemed deep in thought and acted as if Maggie had not even spoken.

"Do you have candles? I'm going to look in there on my own, if you do not wish to respond to me."

"You don't want to know what's in there, Maggie," said Jack. "Believe me, I don't think I ever want to spend another second down there. That place gives me the shivers. Something strange about it. Don't go inside, you won't like it."

"I want to see inside. Either you join me or you don't. Give me one of those candles." She marched over and took a candle and the matches from Tom's hands. "Well are you coming or not?" asked Maggie.

"Believe me, Sis, you don't want to see it. It will give you nightmares," argued Tom.

"Maybe. But believe me when I tell you, I have witnessed things which would leave you sleepless for a lifetime. I have seen the worst this world can throw at me. This shall not even make me blink, I assure you," she replied with a dismissiveness forged in anger.

Reluctantly, the boys lit candles, joined Maggie and re-entered the folly.

"You need to go down this way, follow behind me and Tom," ordered Jack. "Stay close to the wall and watch your step, these stairs twist a fair bit around and will tie you in knots if you're not careful."

They began their descent down into the depths of the cellar. With great care they negotiated all the stairs, which spiralled downward until they came to another large wooden door. Jack pressed his shoulder against it and pulled it open. "Wait here a second, we shall go and make it easier by lighting the lamps, come Tom."

Maggie stood and waited, a rotten smell of damp and decay hanging in the air. She thought the odour similar to the farm animals in the stables at the Countess' small model farm. But something else hung heavy too. Something she could not readily identify. Slowly, though, as Jack lit the oil lamps, the dim, dank crypt was brought to light.

As various sections of the cellar became clearer, what looked like a dungeon appeared to take shape before her. To her left were three small cages - big enough, she thought, to occupy large dogs of some kind. Inside the cages the straw covered floors were bare but for crumpled heaps of blankets lying stuffed in the corners. As she moved closer to inspect, she also noticed wooden water buckets inside. She moved closer to examine the cages when Tom nudged her and pointed her over to the darkest corner, to where Jack was busy lighting an oil lamp.

"What do you make of this, Sis?" he asked.

As the lamp brightened, Tom took hold of a curtain and pulled it aside and revealed a small, white bath hidden behind it. Maggie moved forward, her candle and lamp showing it in all of its beauty. It was old and much more splendid than the one she used in the house. "Why would anybody go to the bother of bringing a bath down here? To this foul smelling place?" she whispered to the boys.

"Take a closer look, Maggie," insisted Tom.

She moved even closer and shone the candle down deep inside of the bath. Around the edge, she noticed red speckles and on the bottom a pink residue had formed.

"What is this used for?" asked Maggie.

Finally Jack spoke. "It looks like blood, Maggie. Something has been killed down here. Can't you smell the death here? It like the smell of them slaughtered cattle at Smithfield market."

"It is hideous down here, I agree. And stinks a fair bit too," admitted Maggie. "What do you think those cages are put to use for?"

"Take a closer look," suggested Jack.

Both of the boys ducked down and entered the cages, with Maggie following. Tom let his candle fall upon the wall at the back of the cage. On the wall, carved desperately by some sort of tool, perhaps a stone, were names. "Look," suggested Tom as he moved the candle down the wall. "This name looks like Annie, do you see?"

Maggie followed Tom and the candle's path across the walls of all the cages, and next to initials like LY and CB she could make out a number of roughly scrawled Xs too. But it was the perceivable and fully carved names that made her think: who are these people? It seemed that once, for some unknown reason, on the back walls of these cages people called Isabella, Elizabeth, William, Alice, Edward and Emily decided to scrape their names. More of the names seemed to belong to females, Maggie remarked, to break the silence.

Then she paused, raised her candle and looked more closely at one name in particular. Christabel. She gasped and ran her finger over what seemed to be freshly carved letters. That name again. That beautiful name. She had come across it before. Missing since February, she muttered to herself. She remembered the billposter on the London street asking for information about the missing girl.

Another place, another lifetime, she thought.

Later they emerged from the doorway of the folly in deep silence. By the time their eyes adjusted to the natural daylight on the island, and stepped back inside the boats, the afternoon rain was coming to an end. The grass was still wet but the black clouds had drifted to the other side the lake.

"We need to get back over to the house and clean you up," Maggie said addressing the boys. "Make sure you wash properly and don't let anybody see you in such as state," she said to Tom who was covered in dust and cobwebs. She tried to dust some of the dirt off him.

"Don't neither of you let the Countess know we've been over here. Don't let it slip neither about what we saw," demanded Jack. "Keep it to yourself about this place, at least until we is as far away as possible. I've a bad feeling from this place."

Tom and Maggie didn't reply and climbed inside the boat. Maggie took a rope and tied it to the boat she had used to row across.

"Keep this to ourselves for now. Something's rotten here," said Jack, as he began to row.

"I for one won't mention a thing," replied Maggie. "Indeed, I hope never to set foot in that dreadful place again."

***

Metropolitan Police Evidence: The Power Papers - Document 14

Unpublished Letter to The Editor of The Times, from Thomas F. Power, July 25th 1842.

Sir,

Please allow me the good grace to respond to, and indeed correct, a number of gross errors recently reported in your newspaper - which, by common agreement, is still regarded as the best journal in the whole of Europe.

Firstly, your correspondent's suspicions and flights of fantasy regarding plots and conspiracies involving unnamed others and myself are so wildly inaccurate as to be laughable. Yet what can one expect of a journalist who gave evidence to a court which was central to my conviction and sentencing? I, of course, refer to Alfred Charles Ricketts. He may not be named but I am able to smell his gross lies a mile off. Moreover, this man is not only a paid employee of your esteemed newspaper but also in the pay of a most curious individual who goes by the name of Whitmore - a man of considerable importance at the Home Office I am led to believe.

I will go further and suggest to you that Mr Ricketts committed perjury during my trial for treason, when he invented an elaborate tissue of lies - ably supported, it has to be said, by his good friend and patron, Mr Whitmore.

As to my escape, I am unaware of how it has been reported in England but, for what it is worth, I will give you my side of the story - as the only surviving member of the group of escapees.

I suppose you have no idea what it is like to be trapped at the end of the world, beaten and half-starved, do you? To be as close to hell as is humanely possible. Indeed, if there were another place as wicked and as cruel on this earth as Van Damien's Land, I would not wish my deadliest enemy to be sent there. And that includes your esteemed journalist Mr Ricketts.

It is true I was assigned to a work party on the day of the escape. I asked to be attached to this particular party after I had fallen into conversation with the convict James Crowe. He had informed me of Gilchrist's plan to make a bid for freedom. He said that he too believed in many of my political beliefs, and a man such as I should be free to organise against the tyrants back home.

Thus it was, unobserved, we slipped quietly away into the woods one morning.

Things started to go awry after a few days marching across that lonely country. It was obvious we had become lost, despite Gilchrist's claim to the contrary. Then, later the same day, as we were walking through the thickest of forest, a snake's bite almost did for Crowe. Despite Gilchrist's disapproval, I took it upon myself to carry the injured man on my shoulder across streams, over hills and through the never-ending forests.

Who knew the landscape we trekked across would be so demanding, so fruitless, so unforgiving?

Food was hard to come by and I had rapidly come to realise this was an escape bid born of desperation rather than cunning and planning.

Then one night as we sat beside a campfire, a feverish and sickly Crowe began to whisper and warn me of our companion Gilchrist's dark motives. He told me Gilchrist had suggested that for their escape bid to work, a third man would have to be taken along - purely as insurance against hunger. I thought he was merely delirious and his injury and the overwhelming loneliness of that wilderness had started conjuring strange notions within his mind.

I have since tried to explore the reasons why Gilchrist would dare to even imagine such a scheme. Previously I had witnessed him washing in the stream and saw the scars from the lashes he had taken over the years. One day he turned around and noticed that I had been observing those terrible wounds. He stared back at me with such cold, blank eyes, I realised then this brutalised man was capable of almost anything.

As Crowe's illness grew worse, I suggested taking him back to Port Arthur and turning ourselves in. Gilchrist took me aside - his language became hostile and fearful on hearing the full extent of my proposal. He suggested to me that Crowe could help us reach our destination in another way. I thought at first I may have misheard. I had never heard such a savage idea expressed so heartlessly before and I answered him saying I would rather starve than eat the flesh of another man. He replied, "So be it," and returned to where Crowe leaned against a tree, the life ebbing from him.

He left me and approached the sick man with a knife and many grave intentions. I got to him before he could slaughter the poor creature.

In the ensuing fight, I was hit by a rock across the head. I was momentarily dazed but struggled to take Crowe on my shoulder and lead him away from that savage being. But Gilchrist came upon me again with a log and struck me across the shoulder. I fell to the ground, letting Crowe slip from my grip. Meantime, I tumbled down a small furrow falling down into a stream. Uninjured, I crawled away into the thicket of the wood and hid from Gilchrist, who shouted the vilest curses to me from above.

I remained unaware of what had happened to Crowe, until much later on, when I circled around the wood and eventually caught sight of the campfire. I spied on Gilchrist from a distance as he sat by those infernal flames, eating meat I knew we did not possess. It was then I realised what had become of our poor comrade, James Crowe.

Fear gripped me and I knew Gilchrist possessed murder deep in his heart. I also felt a deep urge to give Crowe a proper burial but realised I did not have the necessary tools. I remained hidden, drifting in and out of diabolical dreams for the rest of the evening.

Next morning I crept round to the camp and saw that Gilchrist was nowhere to be seen. I came to the dead fire and saw strung up on a tree, drained of all blood - looking like a slaughtered calf - the poor man Crowe.

Then a loud scream broke the silence and from the bush Gilchrist - blade in hand, murder in his eyes - raced toward me. I picked up a half-burned log from the fire and swung it towards his skull. I caught him upon the side of the head and the knife he held fell to the ground. I dived to the floor to retrieve it and held it up for my protection. Still that madman would not back off and came at me again and again, despite my threats of the eventual outcome.

I killed Gilchrist. Yet it was merely to defend myself. He was crazed and could not be reasoned with. Later, I got our things together, the tools I would need, and left the scene, sad that I had not given either men a decent burial. I further decided I could no longer go back and hand myself in - for who would believe that I had not slaughtered both men in cold blood?

Somehow - quite how I managed still surprises me to this day - I reached Hobart Town some days later.

To protect those who helped engineer my escape from Van Diemen's Land, I shall reveal no more of this dark chapter of my life. Yet I beg of you, please be armed with a full knowledge of all the facts before you allow publication of Mr Ricketts' false words.

Thomas F. Power.

***