Unless I wake
by Bill West © 2007

Edmund Jericho had already retired to his canopied bed when he remembered. He straightened his nightcap, re-lit the candle with a spill from the fireplace, and made his way back downstairs. It was a task he undertook each evening before retiring--the source of his considerable wealth, but the cause of perpetual resentment.

His satin slippers slapped the polished staircase as he descended its elegant curve. He patted the banister with one thin hand as if counting each of the fifty-three steps. In his other hand he held the candlestick; the flame glittered on the half-moons of his pince-nez and sent his shadow jagging up the walls and round the gilded cornices and pediments.

The Emperor clock’s tick-tock filled the hallway with measured assurance.

Edmund crouched to reach the brass catch and opened the cupboard beneath the stairs. The air filled with the smell of lavender and something else, a hint of the gas-works, or perhaps of bitumen poured by navvies in the street.

He placed the candle holder on the hat-table and with both hands he pulled at the long lever that dominated the cupboard. He imagined that railway signal-boxes had similar levers, though not as elegant as this one, with its brass fittings. There was a sharp click. A section of rosewood panel swung back and a small cart rumbled out from the shadow towards him.

The mummified remains of Mrs. Eustice Cornice wobbled and rocked against the leather straps that bound her to the gold lacquered chair that was bolted onto the cart.

“Still dead, dear lady?”

God, but he hated her. He picked up the candlestick and waved the candle close to the face. The glass eyes reflected bright candle-flame. One of her cheeks had melted a little and sagged as if from a palsy. Hardly surprising as the face was a mask of wax moulded onto the heiress's pickled skull. The wax had been painted to give the appearance of life and vigour, the effect spoiled by the thin crescent of eye socket which poked through the wax, melted a little at each pass of Edmund’s candle.

His memories of Mrs. Cornice differed from this gaudy mannequin, with its rouged cheeks and black dress beaded with jet. He remembered her claw like hands tugging at his sleeve, the grey curls of hair poking from beneath her white bonnet, the way her hooded eyes locked onto his.

“All my money, you can have it all!”

“Calm yourself, dear lady, God willing you will outlive me!” He had tried to remove her hand from his sleeve, struggling to conceal his distaste, but she clung with intent.

“What if I were to wake and find myself in the ground, taken for dead?" she said. "It wouldn’t suit me you know, really it wouldn’t. I suppose I could have a casket with a chain to ring a bell on my gravestone, but what if no-one came? Mrs. Nautilus had a periscope fitted to her casket so that the sexton could check on her. He had terrible skin. I wouldn’t want any Tom, Dick or Harry gawping at me. No, I’ll have you, an educated gentleman. You will check on me, write daily journal entries, that I am truly dead. Then you can have my money, every penny. Unless I wake.”

And so he, Edmund Jericho, attorney at law, had written a water-tight contract and signed it, condemned by his own hand to this thankless task for life, or lose his inheritance. Each night he would make his observations and enter them into a large leather-bound journal; the date, the time with verifiable details of the weather and the current phase of the moon. The journal would be audited every Christmas by Father O’Connor, a florid Irishman with bad breath and a fondness for brandy.

He smiled to himself. She’d never queried the details, how he would make these nightly observations. “Don’t trouble your head with technical issues dear lady. No need to upset yourself.”

Why would he waste so much of “his” money building the marble mausoleum she’d dreamed of, or nightly trudge through windswept lanes, beneath the shadow of the spire, between the angels and broken columns of the graveyard to check she was truly dead? He’d made sure the contract was water-tight.

Every night he watched the wax of her painted face melt a little at each sweep of his candle, and inwardly he mocked the way her sawdust-filled head waggled as he wound her back into her closet, the door clicking shut, his obligation fulfilled.