Chapter 25 - The Bloody Countess

When Maggie entered the dining room, the Countess was sitting at her usual place. She walked with her head erect - aping the deportment the Countess had taught her during the past couple of months, and put on her best show that all was well.

The meal progressed in silence, until Maggie decided to speak up. "I am sorry for this morning, my lady, but I overslept for some reason. I did not feel at all well."

"Don't worry, my dear, I had business in town today," replied the Countess. "Your studies can continue as normal tomorrow."

"Excuse me for speaking out of turn, my lady, but I am worried about my brother and Jack. I have been all over the estate today and could not catch neither sight nor sound of either."

The Countess looked up from her food and began searching Maggie's face.

"They had been in my room last night. I must have fallen asleep, as we were all playing a foolish game. When I awoke, they must have gone back to their own rooms. Since -"

"I'm afraid you will not see either of the boys on my property again," the Countess said.

"What do you mean by this, my lady?" replied Maggie startled.

"They stole from me, Margaret. They are both thieves."

"No, not Thomas surely. Say it is not true," pleaded Maggie.

"I'm sorry, Margaret. But they have betrayed me. And they had to leave. They have been sent to the magistrate in the town. What becomes of them next, I know not, nor no longer do I care. I warned all of you - remember? I warned you all there would consequences. I spoke to them and they exonerated you of any blame. They said you were unaware of their thieving. Jack, I probably expected - deep down. He was not a surprise. But Thomas, who you have guided so well. He surprised me."

"But you don't understand. Jack has improved immeasurably from the boy I first met on the streets. You have made him a good boy. With a little education, then maybe -"

"No, Margaret. As admirable as your beliefs are, I cannot go against my principles. If you too wish to leave, then fine. I shall miss you greatly. If your brother means so much, then I understand that too. Leave if you must."

Maggie put her head down and stared at the tablecloth beneath. After a moment, she lifted her head and spoke, "I shall stay, my lady. I shall stay here with you. I have still so much to learn and so much to gain from you."

The Countess smiled for the first time that evening, "Very well. In my opinion, you have made the correct decision. You will not regret it for a second, Margaret. I assure you of that."

"I shall stay, but I shall plead for my brother. Every day I shall beg on his behalf. Oh! Please give him just one more chance, my lady. Please!"

Tears streamed down Maggie's face. She moved from her seat and walked to where the Countess was seated, dropped to her knees, and held her hands together as if praying. "Please, my lady. Please give him one more chance."

"I respect and admire that you would humble yourself to such a degree for your own flesh and blood. But my decision is final."

Maggie returned to her seat and picked at the remainder of her food. They both finished eating their meals together, breaking the silence occasionally, talking over subjects that had become dear to them during their days spent as tutor and student. Once they finished eating, the Countess explained that her long and troubling day had taken its toll, and she was ready for an early night.

Maggie followed soon after.

Once inside her room, she lit a candle and began to take off the female clothing, which she found every day - clean and ironed - awaiting her in the wardrobe. She changed into the boy's clothes she taken earlier from the Tom and Jack's room. No more propositions she whispered to herself, as her transformation from female to male, if only on the surface, was complete.

Maggie picked up the pillowcase, the one she had filled with clothing, and moved to listen at the door. When she was convinced all of the residents within the building were asleep, she unlocked the bedroom door and sneaked downstairs to the study.

Whatever the outcome, she thought to herself, this would be her last night spent in this particular house

But she had to find the key, she thought. She had promised the boys she would spend the night looking high and low. She also remembered what Whitmore had said the previous evening, when she and Jack overheard him speaking to the Countess. He would return in a couple of days. She had little time. Maybe her deadline to free the boys would be up by tomorrow. What would happen if she were unable to find the key and free Tom and Jack? Her mind did not wish to travel down that particular avenue at this moment. One thing had struck her, though, during her time in the house, and that was the Countess kept most of the things she considered important to her life in the study. If the Countess was at all involved in the abduction and caging of the boys - and her performance at dinner suggested to Maggie this to be highly likely - then the key had to be somewhere in her study.

But where? she wondered. Where could it be?

She opened the study door as quietly as possible and entered. The moon's light was not as generous as on previous evenings, as its fullness began to wane. She took a candle and lit it, giving her just enough light to begin her search.

She moved towards the desk. There were a number of drawers and she opened them all in turn and rifled through them at speed. Document, papers, books, money, jewellery - but no key. She knelt and looked across the desk. As she moved some papers and books out of her way, her attention was caught by a book, the title's golden letters glowing in the candlelight. The True Life and Crimes of Erzsébet Báthory, Volume 1. She picked it up and brought it toward the window seat and sat it down next to the candle's illumination. She lifted back cover and found herself flipping through the pages.

She suddenly stopped and returned to the front of book and began to read the introduction: There is rather too much myth and not enough fact when dealing with the woman known to the world as Erzsébet (Elizabeth) Báthory...

Maggie recognised the name and remembered the painting upon the wall, a relative of the Countess and a wronged woman to her mind. This must be the book she had written on the subject, she thought. She skimmed down the page, avoiding the names of places and people written in a foreign language - until her eye was caught by another section of the text.

Elizabeth loved to dress extravagantly, not merely to show off her dashing beauty, nor merely to flaunt her wealth, or even to reveal her exquisite taste, but chiefly to please her husband - the merciless warrior and Count known to all as the 'Black Hero' of Hungary.

Then one day, so the story goes, Elizabeth's maid saw something amiss with her head-dress, and the unfortunate girl's reward for observing such a minor defect was to receive a box upon the ears. So severe was the blow, blood surged from the wound inflicted upon the poor wretch's face - and in doing so sprayed on to her mistress's face. When Elizabeth washed off the droplets of blood from her face, her skin appeared much more beautiful - whiter, younger, and silkier than ever - especially upon those areas where spots of blood had touched.

Maggie stopped reading. She thought she heard a noise somewhere in the house. She stood up, alert, and ran to the study door, opened it, and listened for any indication of noise or movement. After a few moments, secure in her belief it had been her imagination conjuring up the sounds, she returned to the book, moved the candle closer and continued reading

As one of her accomplices at the time claimed: From that day forth Elizabeth resolved to bathe her face, and indeed her entire body, in human blood so as to enhance her beauty. 'I would catch the blood in a tub so that Elizabeth could bathe at the hour of four in the morning. After the bath she appeared more beautiful and younger than ever before.' Thus was born the myth of the Blood Countess...

Maggie felt ill. Felt as if she was going to vomit, right there on the floor.

She stood up straight, felt dizzy, and stumbled.

She struggled to breathe correctly for a minute or two. Bathe at the hour of four in the morning...

Blood Countess. She moved to the middle of the room and looked at the old grandfather clock. It was close to midnight. She thought about her brother and Jack over on the island, beneath the folly, caged up in that dungeon - helpless, dependant upon her finding that damned key. Her mind then turned to those names carved upon the cell walls. One, final defiant act? One last shout from the doomed: remember me!

Maggie now feared Tom and Jack were about to join their number.

I have to find the key, she thought. "Have to find the key," she whispered audibly in desperation. "Think! Where could it be?" It must be large and could not be hidden easily, she reasoned. But where?

She went back through the draws and pulled books from the bookshelves. There was nothing hidden behind any of the books. She cleared papers again and looked underneath rugs, inside vases. Nothing.

She thought back to the time she had fallen asleep, hidden on the sofa in this very room. The Countess and Sexton were near to the desk. There was a noise, she moved something, whispers passed between them, they were rushing to be somewhere, she remembered. But Maggie was only half-awake then. It was also close on four o'clock when she had returned to her room, she remembered with a shudder. They spoke about being late, that they had to be somewhere. Was it to the folly? And was there somebody over there back then? Somebody caged up, awaiting a dreadful fate...

If so, did they require the key? They were standing somewhere near the desk, of that she was sure.

She walked over and she sat in the Countess' chair, behind her desk, and began to see the world as she saw it. She tried to look through her eyes and imagined herself sitting on the other side of the desk, like the numerous times in the past during her schooling and the idle conversations that passed between them.

But then Maggie thought there had never really been any idle conversations between the two of them. The Countess had always been probing away all the time. She was skilled at drawing out information - chipping away all the while. The Countess had been taking the fragments of knowledge she had gained about Maggie and pieced them together, strengthening her hold over here all the while. The more Maggie spoke, the more power the Countess had over her. Even the darkest hours of her life...

She sighed to herself; how could I have been so stupid? She had written the darkest event in her life down on paper. Not only that, but she had allowed the Countess to view it. She knew all. She further thought on this matter and realised what she had written had not been returned to her. The Countess still had the journal. She was a thief, Maggie decided. She stole not only people's thoughts and memories, she was stealing away their bodies, lives...maybe even their blood. Did she imagine herself akin to the other Bloody Countess? The one she wrote about with such fascination.

She turned quickly and looked at the portrait above her. Her - the woman's whose eyes haunted this room. Her - the woman who had overhead all the conversations between herself and the Countess. Her - the subject of the Countess' book, the subject of the Countess' obsession. Her! She turned and looked Countess Elizabeth Báthory in the eye. She felt the coldness of her blank stare. A rage welled inside her. She lifted her arms and unhooked the painting from the wall. She wanted to destroy the face looking back at her...

Then a noise. A clank. Something crashed down upon the floor and disappeared into the darkness. She paused, looked around and listened for a second or two. She knelt down and let her hand rummage along the wooden floor. Then she touched it. A key. A large, iron key. It had somehow been hidden behind the portrait.

But before the relief and elation at finding the key (if it was indeed the key) had reached its climax, another noise echoed through the house. It came from upstairs. She paused and put the key inside the pillowcase she had earlier filled with clothes. Then she raced for the study door, opened it slightly, and stared at the darkness upon the landing. All of a sudden, she saw a flicker of candlelight moving slowly up above her. She closed the door and grimaced as the lock clicked shut.

She turned and ran across the room towards the large bay window. She found the catch and unlocked it. With all her strength she shoved the solid window frame upwards, until it was open wide enough for her to slip out. Before she readied herself to leave the house, she turned and looked back across the study and saw the gap on the wall above the Countess' desk, where the portrait once hung. Quickly she moved across the room to the desk again and picked up the picture of Elizabeth Báthory, the temptation to destroy it had now subsided. Instead she placed it back upon the wall, hanging it back in its pride of place as before.

She moved back to the window, placed the pillowcase to the other side and joined her belongings by sliding out of the window. Once on the other side of the window, she turned and, with the tips of her fingers, dragged the window back down to a close. She turned and ran toward the lake. Unlike Lot's wife, she avoided the temptation to look back, all the while promising herself never, ever to return to that house again.

***

The key slipped easily into the lock. Maggie turned it and opened the cage door. Jack and Tom slipped from their prison and stood up to embrace her. Pushing aside their thanks and praises, she ran back up the stairs followed by the boys until emerging outside of the folly.

"We need to move quickly, get as far away from this place as possible," whispered Maggie.

They ran to the boat, the one Maggie had docked next to the other boats she had earlier brought over from the house. If they were being pursued, then their pursuers would not be able to get across by boat to the folly. And to get to the far side of the lake, they would have to walk its full perimeter.

"I'm not sure about the new clothing, Sis," said Tom, as he readied himself to board the boat.

"They'll be on the lookout for a girl and two boys. It may give us some advantage if we are spotted. Besides, I'm tired of dresses, correct hair, the right deportment, and having to be a proper lady. I'm done with all of it," she replied handing an oar to Jack before casting off from the dock.

They docked the boat at the farthest point of the lake from the house and disappeared into the darkness of the woods. As they disappeared into the dark wood, Maggie allowed herself a glance back to the lake. At a distance and moving along the edge of the water, she was sure she saw a light flickering.

"We must keep going through the night," Maggie said. "No matter how difficult it is, we must continue; keep going through the woods - stay hidden for the present."

The boys were in no mood to argue and followed her lead.

"There is a canal somewhere to the south, I remember the Countess speaking of it," continued Maggie. "If we head there, maybe we can catch a ride away from this place."

The two boys suspected they owed their life to Maggie. Tom could no longer repress his admiration for his sister beneath his pretence of indifference. He looked upon her with pride now. Jack equalled the regard Tom felt for his sister. Indeed, at that moment Jack could not think of a life without her friendship. He thought back to the first time they had met on the dreary London streets. She was to be an aid to a criminal adventure - devised and planned by himself and Charlie. Yet here she was leading him through a thicket of wood in the dark of night, fearless. He no longer recognised the seemingly meek, young girl - and not only on account of her change of garments from female to male. She had changed in ways he could never shape into language.

Nor could Jack shape into words the guilt he also felt arising within him, as he trudged behind the only two people who he could truly call his friends.

***

Metropolitan Police Evidence: The Power Papers - Document 16

Extracts from A Day at St Jude's, London Weekly Gazette, March 1838.

The large building stands isolated in the vicinity of Kilburn Wells - north of London - far enough beyond the reach of temptation for those poor souls who may feel the pull of the meanest and most despised streets of the city...

For today we visit St Jude's Hostel for Homeless Children, a charitable concern which takes in the most ragged individuals: those children who, so robbed of hope, populate our city streets in ever greater numbers, scavenging and begging the merest of livings...

Later I meet the patron and chief raiser of funds for St Jude's. As she stands before me and greets me, she is pale, modest and dressed in black. When she speaks, I detect a slight intonation of her native French still clinging to her tongue. Not for this particular lady the limelight and glare of publicity, however. She would have none of it. Countess Jouvente feels much more at home in the shadows of anonymity.

Yet her selfless actions and charitable work spring from of a genuine and heartfelt understanding of the difficulties of destitution and homelessness. Indeed, she informs me she learned all there is to know of compassion from the days of terror in revolutionary France, from where she was forced to flee and seek refuge in England's welcoming arms.

"To give something back to this wonderful country, which took me in and gave me a home and a new life after those unimaginable days of terror, is both an honour and a privilege," she confided in me.

The Countess Jouvente confesses that due to her failing health, she is unable to spend as much time as she would wish at St Jude's. Her generosity to the poor has, nonetheless, extended as far as her own stately home. Indeed, over the years she has taken many of the most conscientious individuals from St Jude's to work at her beautiful home - Little Serrant, hidden away amongst the woods of the Buckinghamshire countryside. On my visit to Little Serrant a few days later - after a most generous invitation - I spoke to servants who claimed to have all been lifted from the most miserable of circumstances. All were truly grateful to the Countess for providing an escape from a life of poverty and want.

"I have taken them all from the greatest misery and misfortune," she told me as we strolled around the beautiful lake at the rear of her wonderful home.

"I have raised them up. Given them a chance to live again. You see I believe if you treat somebody well they mostly return that kindness and show great loyalty and obedience." A sentiment I am sure which would find a place within the hearts of most Englishmen.

I am also informed that on occasions this most distinguished of ladies has stopped to pluck ragged children from the streets herself - like the old Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, she reminds me...