When Maxwell was six, his father, Maximillian Maxwell
Senior, had given him some advice, which, given that it was the only time he
could remember his father being sober whilst talking to him, had stuck with the
reverend through many of the trials and tribulations of his life. He could remember
the occasion clearly, even now. His father, also a vicar, and his mother, the
housekeeper, had been having another of their intermittent arguments about the
older Maxwell’s womanising behaviour, which had culminated in Maxwell senior
having to be treated for third degree genital burns from a skilfully wielded
kettle. As the doctor administered to him, he had looked over at his son, a
thin, pale youth already well on his way to developing his own list of social
and behavioural problems.
Maxwell still remembered the look in his father’s brown
eyes, that strange mix of melancholy and mischief that he had not seen before
or since. He remembered leaning in close to hear his father’s words.
“Son, don’t worry about all this. We’ll make up, don’t you
fret. It’s like I always say, you should always try and make the best out of a
bad situation.”
His mother had left the next day, never to return, but
Maxwell had never forgotten the optimism in his father’s tone, despite the
leeches the doctor was administering to his most delicate area, and had at that
moment decided to live his life by this one and only counsel he’d ever managed
to wrest from his parent. He saw no particular reason not to apply it to his
current situation; after all, it was certainly a bad one.
He turned his head towards Lydia and said “Well, worse
things have happened at sea.”
If Maxwell’s father had been more concerned with him and
less concerned with the contents of the next bottle and pair of knickers, he
might have given him some more advice. When a woman looks at you in the way
Lydia was now looking at Maxwell, like a lion with a thorn in its paw and quite
ready to devour the next poor fool who comes along and tries to pull it out, it
is time to stop talking and remove yourself from the vicinity post-haste. The
old adage, “let sleeping bears lie”, indeed, might have been sufficient, and
would certainly not have hurt. Unfortunately, as has been mentioned, Maxwell’s
father had not been concerned with Maxwell (indeed his only legacy apart from
this one sage piece of counsel was the small silver cross that Maxwell still
wore around his neck); this explains why, instead of letting Lydia lie on the
floor and keep her thoughts to herself, he kept on blithely trying to make
small talk, an act akin to prodding a hornet’s nest with one’s unprotected
genitalia.
“I mean, this isn’t so bad, really, is it? Quite a nice
place, by all accounts. And people have been in much worse spots before,
don’t-cha-know. Rather a quaint old hole, really, all things considered. I must
say, I’m actually feeling quite chipper about the whole-“
Finally, far, far too late, he noticed the look in Lydia’s
eye, and shut up. Far, far too late.
She stood up, sweeping her dark hair from her eyes, and
looked down at him with contempt radiating from every feature.
“Chipper? Well, sir, I am glad you are feeling so happy
about the situation! From where I am standing, it hardly looks so – quaint, was
it? No, sir, it hardly seems quaint to me; this, sir, seems like an utter
hell-hole!”
Maxwell’s feeble protestations about blaspheming in a house
of the Lord had absolutely no effect in dampening down the flames of her fury.
“I shall damn well say what I damn well want to say, sir! My
mother has just been brutally slain, slain by fiends that I can only assume
have been sent by Satan himself-“ she brushed aside his meagre whimper at the
Prince of Darkness’ name- “and are now outside the very door you lean against,
sir, clamouring to get in and administer the same treatment to both of us! Pray
tell me, Mr Reverend, what worse situations have there been than this?”
Try as he might, Maxwell could not call one to mind just at
this moment, as he lay wilting like a delicate flower under Lydia’s blowtorch
of a tirade. In any case, he did not have a chance to answer; Lydia ploughed on,
seemingly without drawing breath.
“And as for this room, sir-it is the worst room we could
have selected! From hundreds of perfectly well-furnished possibilities, you
have selected this foul-smelling, dusty cave! Yes, sir, cave! For that is all
it is apt to be described as! A dark, dingy cave!”
“It has a strong door,” Maxwell blurted out. Lydia, red in
the face and with her foot starting to stridently tap on the stone floor,
seemed almost taken aback for a second, but she was made of stern stuff, and
reacted to this unexpected riposte like a skilled fencer.
“A strong door! And if the door does, by some miracle, hold,
sir, what then? What are we to do for food? For water?”
Maxwell glanced over towards the font at the back of the room.
With a shrill, almost manic laugh, Lydia walked over to the appliance in
question, and knocked off the wooden lid which lay atop it. Even at the other
end of the room, Maxwell could smell the foul, decayed stench of long-stagnant
water.
“I am no expert, sir, but I hardly think we can drink that.
Though you are welcome to try.” She stepped away from the font, her heel
sending one of the many dusty and discarded bottles which lay on the floor
flying off into the corner. Her lip curled slightly. “Perhaps you could use one
of these.” She bent down, picking up another of the bottles and, turning it
around, brushed some of the dust off with her sleeve so she could read the
label. “Bordeaux, 1634. A fine vintage. How very civilised.”
Maxwell had to make a kind of awkward sitting leap to avoid
the bottle as it flew at his head. Shards of broken glass rained down on his by
now very dirty cassock. Lydia stood trembling with emotions she was trying to
suppress as he finally stood to face her.
As several of those at Louisa Tunnicliffe’s ill-fated tea
party had privately noticed, Maxwell was something of a wet blanket, an
observance not only directed at his perpetually sweat-soaked clothing. Years of
neglect by his father, and being browbeaten by his mother and the band of
gossipy old women she used to invite to their home, had indeed turned Maxwell
into a man who was rather too polite and, to slip into vulgarity for a moment,
drippy to ever truly impress anyone of his acquaintance; to be polite, he had
before been described by a man he had known for several years as having “a
backbone made of jelly, and a brain to match”. Yet as he watched Lydia standing
there, red-faced and shaking, accusing him of leading her to her death as
though he had not just saved her life, something snapped within Maxwell.
Thoughts he had never allowed to reach the surface of his brain erupted,
thoughts he had forced into the deepest recesses of his mind revealing
themselves with a sudden surge of hitherto unexperienced anger. Sometimes, the heat
of a situation can dry out the wettest of garments.
As Lydia looked on, he turned his face to the floor, eyes
closed, and took three long, deep breaths. Then his head rose once more, and
his eyes snapped open. He took a step forward towards her, and spoke. His voice
was soft after the shrillness of Lydia’s, but there was a conviction behind it
that made every word carry to her scarlet ears.
“Miss Tunnicliffe, you have neither the cause nor the right
to assault me, verbally or otherwise. I acted only in the best interests of us
both, only to keep you safe from those hellish creatures outside. Despite the
fact that I have been treated with only disdain since I first arrived here,
looked at as a figure of fun for you to flirt with and ridicule, I helped you
away from those monsters and have done my utmost to keep you, and myself, safe
from their demonic grasp. And, if you will excuse me, I have better things to
do than to bandy words with such a spoilt, capricious creature as yourself.”
He strode past her, taking hold of the wooden lectern which
stood opposite the font and taking it back to the door, where he propped it up
against the jamb in an attempt to strengthen their only line of defence. As he
did this, he did not direct so much as a single glance at her. He once again
sat up against the door, pushing his weight back against it as it shuddered and
shook, and put his head on his chest, keeping his eyes cast down away from the
youngest of the Tunnicliffe sisters. For a few minutes were the thumping beats
on the door produced by the monsters outside.
Lydia had not moved at all since Maxwell had said his piece.
Not a muscle had twitched on her face, not a finger had flexed on her hands.
But now, in a much lower voice than she had been using before, she spoke again.
“You think I like having to act like that?” Maxwell looked
up at her, now. Her face had lost its expression of poised contempt, had lost
the cruel sharpness it had possessed for all the time he had known her. Now, it
seemed softer, more open, more scared and alone than he had ever seen a face
look before. Maxwell realised he was seeing Lydia without her social mask, and
with a jolt realised his anger had given way to compassion.
“You think I like having to constantly scrutinise everyone I
meet for faults so that I can comment on them for my mother’s approval? To have
to keep up with every single one of the latest fashions so that my sister will
still talk to me? To have to constantly belittle my fellows, to always be cold
and aloof, to be, as you put it, spoilt and capricious? Always, always spoilt
and capricious, because it is what is expected of me!”
Tears were streaming down her face as she spoke, and Maxwell
realised they were flooding out of his own eyes too as her words made her pain
manifest. “All I ever wanted, from when I was small, was to be able to be
myself, to make my own way, to be liked and loved by those around me. But I was
never allowed to, no, no care for Lydia, only training in decorum and praise
given for sharp wit and not soft-hearted concern. Taught not to care, but to
disdain, not to enjoy but to criticise, not to love, but to hate. Taught so
much that it became second nature, that it became part of who I am and stopped
anyone from seeing anything else, so that I could never love or be loved, but
even in crowds I am always alone.” She walked over to one of the pews and sat
down heavily, her head in her hands. Muffled by her tears, Maxwell could hear her
repeating “spoilt and capricious” over and over in little more than a whisper
which cut to his core.
A few seconds passed as she sat sobbing. The Maxwell stood
up and walked over to her. He sat on the pew beside her and put his arm around
her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. She leant into his chest, shoulders
shaking, and he put his other arm around her as tears flooded down both their
faces.
There they sat, clasped together in their own private moment
of intimacy while the monsters of the world outside howled and banged on the
chapel door.
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