Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

ridiculous attempt to figure them out. I’ll make this bargain with you: if you come up the stairs with me before the passage of another minute and forget that you have been down here, I won’t tell Papa of your trespass.’ “‘But I should like to ask him a great deal about this room when he returns.’

“‘I would not do that were I you. He gave me stern warning never to come down here. You have interloped and will not be better treated.’ “‘Now how on earth could I have interloped, Cecilia, when I was never issued like-injunction?’

“The question was never answered, for at that very moment a shadow made itself manifest next to my sister. The adumbration bore the outline of my father and its presence, ominous and forbidding, frightened me to my very soul. Papa didn’t speak. He came down the stairs in a sweep of fury, and taking me roughly by the wrist, wrested me up and out of the room. With an angry shove, he restored the cupboard to its previous situation against the wall, the opening to the stairs now closed tight. Loose cups flew off their pegs from the force of his free hand, sailed across the room, and shattered into hundreds of shards upon impact with the hard slate floor.

“The suddenness and precipitance of this action terrified me, and I let out a startled half-scream, which was immediately aborted by the clap of Papa’s hand over my mouth. For one horrible second I felt as if he were bent not only upon silencing my voice, but also upon preventing my taking in all future breath. But I quickly checked myself; it was surely the scream — my thoughtless, reactive scream — that had propelled the brutal assault of his large hand upon my mouth. He will pull away, thought I, and then apologise for taking such a drastic and violent action.

“And he did pull away. Scarcely a moment later.” Hannah lowered her eyes. “He did not, however, offer an apology.”

With mention of the stifling hand, Mrs. Lumbey had let out a startled peep of her own. I held myself in check but could not stop shaking my head in disbelief. With the succeeding revelation, Hannah’s female auditor heaved a long, commiserating sigh. Obviously, the right thing to do had not been done, but when had Montague Pupker ever done that which was generally expected of every good burgher or father?

“‘You’re never to go down there again,’ said he. ‘And you will forget everything you’ve seen there.’ I couldn’t withhold the question that crouched so brazenly upon my tongue; I asked my father without reservation what they were — all those things that I could scarcely identify — a veritable storeroom of inexplicable merchandise. ‘They are nothing that you should know about,’ was his gruff reply. ‘Nothing at all. Expunge what you’ve seen from your mind. Go upstairs now and wait on Mrs. Gallanbile. The old crone has reached the state of impatient nuisance. Go along! Take yourself away from here!’

“And that was the last that was said of the room by anyone. Even Cecilia, who at first would not answer any of my subsequent private enquiries, took later to responding with a convenient, albeit mendacious ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. There’s no such room. You’re daft.’”

“Upon my very soul!” exclaimed Mrs. Lumbey.

“I’ve heretofore kept my promise to my father, and in addition, I plan never again to raise this futile matter with my sister who foils and frustrates no matter what one asks of her. I’ve kept my side of the bargain. Yet now Papa knows that I know and he cannot stop himself from looking at me in either a suspicious or apprehensive manner. It is quite discomfiting. I’m now convinced that it is his aim to have me declared insane either to silence me or to create doubt about the veracity of any account I should in future make as to what I saw in that nether room. Such an account can come only from the mouth of a madwoman, he will say, and people will heed him, as they always do, and I shall be in a hard spot, no matter how one looks at it.” With this, Hannah Pupker sank back into her chair and exhaled deeply, as if she could not possibly have relaxed herself until every bit of her story was related in confessional fashion.

“And now you have told us ,” I said in as comforting a tone to Hannah as I could offer. I noted that her hand was trembling, her brow beaded with the perspiration of worry. “And whilst it was quite commendable that you

should unburden yourself, it nonetheless keeps unanswered the important question of what exactly is in that lower cellar. Also why should revelation of the room’s contents inject such fear into the heart of your father?”

“And my mother as well. She also treats me differently. Both of them regard me now as if I’m a stranger in their midst.”

“Can you even guess at what those things were, which you saw within the room?” I asked.

Hannah shook her head slowly and reflectively. “I have pondered it at length. They resemble nothing with which I’m familiar. I must confide something to you both. I am mortified to say it, but I will say it: I wonder if those boxes have come to us from some distant world.”

“Surely you can’t mean that!” declared Mrs. Lumbey. “Some other world?”

“Yes. I cannot help thinking this. I cannot help thinking that the room is filled with merchandise received not from earthly Outlanders, but from Outland purveyors of a most un -earthly origin. This is my only explanation.”

“You shouldn’t apologise for making such a conjecture,” I said. I had hoped that my voice carried with it the soothing tone that characterised the earliest moments of our exchange, and yet, my blood was up and my curiosity whetted and there was much that I was now champing at the bit to discover for myself.“The sheriff and I must go down there ourselves, and as soon as possible,” I resolved aloud. “What we find there cannot help but exonerate you, Hannah. Your father will be forced to explain everything.” Suddenly, Hannah’s face became blanched of all colour. “But you mustn’t!” she cried out in fear. “You simply cannot !”

“But otherwise, dear girl, you will be made the fool or worse.” It was Mrs. Lumbey’s turn now to bring young Hannah Pupker to the point of reason. “Without proof of what you’ve seen, your parents will deny everything that you say.” Mrs. Lumbey had seated herself next to her guest. She twined her own plump fingers through Hannah’s slender digits to settle and calm her, but the gesture seemed to do little good. Hannah shifted her delicate frame uneasily in her chair and finally uprose, whilst retrieving her hand so that it could be employed in such agitated, fitful wringing as to tug upon all but the most hardened heart.

“But I don’t plan to say another word. I don’t intend to breathe even a single syllable to another soul. We must, all of us, put this into the tomb of silence and walk quickly away. I cannot even conceive of the consequences,

should we pursue it!”

“Yet last week you didn’t quail,”I countered.“Your curiosity transported you boldly down the stairs of that nether cellar and into the darkness without hesitation. You made your cursory inspection without thought or care as to potential consequences.”

“This is true. But now my mettle has weakened. I shrink most terribly when I think of what my family wishes to do to me because of my trespass.”

“But that is the point, my dear,” said Mrs. Lumbey. “That they now seek to have you placed in Bedlam whether you speak or do not speak. It matters not what you do, for you are become a danger to them by your

very liberty. And by the bye, your mother and father and sister can no longer be regarded by you as family. They consider you to be a stranger and so you must consider them as likewise alien to your blood and to your