A Parish Darker: A Victorian Suspense Novella

• Title Page
  
• CHAPTER I
  
• CHAPTER II
  
• CHAPTER IV
  
• CHAPTER V
  
• CHAPTER VI
  
• CHAPTER VII
  
• CHAPTER VIII
  
• CHAPTER IX
  
• CHAPTER X
  
• CHAPTER XI
  
• CHAPTER XII
  
• CHAPTER XIII
  
• EPILOGUE
  
• TITLE
  

A PARISH DARKER: A VICTORIAN SUSPENSE THRILLER

By Rhys Ermire

Smashwords Edition

Copyright (C) 2016 Rhys Ermire

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Contents

TITLE

CHAPTER
I

CHAPTER
II

CHAPTER
III

CHAPTER
IV

CHAPTER
V

CHAPTER
VI

CHAPTER
VII

CHAPTER
VIII

CHAPTER
IX

CHAPTER
X

CHAPTER
XI

CHAPTER
XII

CHAPTER
XIII

EPILOGUE

The lens through which I am to assess the world remains infinitely clouded even a score and some odd years following that incident of which I have scarcely spoken. All that I have seen and all that will be for you, me, and all else is now tainted. Questioning what is and what is not has become my most common of hobbies. Such a predominant pastime is it that it has conjured the urge to take to the drink more than would be considered remotely healthy. That therapeutic solace is what now serves as my sole motivation for finally gathering the mettle to put this pen to this paper.

This story begins with an admitted familiarity—in a model scenario that will suggest it to be a work of fiction meant to tantalize and summon feelings of unease and discontent. The circumstances may suggest itself as a familiar one but I assure you there is much more of which you are to soon learn than you can presently imagine.

It is only now, two decades on, that I feel secure in recounting with precision all that occurred that evening in 1891 at the estate of the esteemed Lechner von Savanberg, heir to much fortune and goodwill in not only Austrian but even the most prestigious European circles. For reasons that will become clear, I have long questioned whether such a tale is one for which the world is ready. After considerable deliberation, I have left it only to my memoirs, enabling those entrusted with this account to decide if my brethren are ready for what is inevitably soon to become an important and irreversible part of their history.

The series of events that introduced me to the incident I am to describe began with my choice of work. In my youth, upon returning from marine work on a fishing vessel, I took to working in resolving estates with my dear uncle Treymark. A man of great means but endless frugality, he instilled in me many traits with the chief amongst them being dedication to labor. His business carried out many deeds with relation to wills and testaments and it was through this practice that I was granted my first assignment onto the continent.

The nature of my task was executing an elderly gentleman’s last testament, an undertaking for which we were unusually well compensated and given a bundled parcel that it was ordered we deliver and not open. The gentleman, who shall go nameless for the purposes of this record, had recently passed following a bout of heart trouble and had curiously left his possessions, including substantial property stakes in the very fiscally valuable London market sector, to a benefactor outside the country. In accordance with his wishes, we attempted to make contact with the named party but to no avail. Local agents in the same line of work refused on whatever grounds to aid us in any way. I was then swiftly dispatched from my London home to the south of Austria to meet with Baron Lechner von Savanberg in order to personally inform him of all that had been left to his name following the recent passing from which he stood to inherit much.

My departure came shortly thereafter on the 23
^rd
of September, 1891, a Wednesday under a charred, moorish sky even at the peak of daylight. The travel over the channel and into France was uneventful if tiring, followed by my arrival in Paris early on the 25
^th
. There I boarded the Orient Express for the journey into the Germanic territories, passing through Strasbourg and Munich prior to my disembarking at the station in Vienna. Some long nights and respectable efforts at travel dining later, I was on the cusp of arriving at my destination.

With regard to sharing what soon came of my journey, only once did I previously dare endeavor to speak candidly of this most extraordinary encounter. The audience for the tale was Morse Cottingley, of Devonshire. Those reading with familiarity to my person will recognize the name as one with which I have often been positively associated. A long-term confidant and colleague of inscrutable discern and conviction, it was with a troubled mind that I confided in him what had ailed me going on eight months following my return from abroad. My uncharacteristic reclusion had brought him to my door on an unseasonably cold eve at the first opportunity. It was early into the recounting of my journey that he stopped me abruptly with physical concern.

“My heavens, Edwin,” he called out with one hand bracing his chair and the other my wrist, “I must urge you visit a doctor this instant! Surely you have contracted a fever of some troubling sort? What you say now are not words of any sane man. I have seen a good deal of people locked up and sent off to be studied for less than half of what I hear from you now!”

His frantic disposition after hearing only a small portion of my experience led to a prompt end of my story. The typically gentle Morse’s grip tightened on both my person and the chair holding him in place as he continued to speak with increasing worry even after I went silent. Curious as he was at the onset, so alarmed and startled by even the beginnings of the account was he that we did not see one another again for nearly three years. It was only the occasion of his daughter’s wedding that we were to again correspond, but I could not dismiss the notion that he believed me to be mad even then.

As the driver at the helm of the carriage steered down paths in all directions of beaten brush, I could sense the horses’ fatigue in our slowing pace. The road was especially coarse in spots with healthy overgrowth on all sides. It was evident to me that few had occasion to travel here, and this suspicion was soon confirmed by the driver upon a break midway.

“I was surprised at you wanting to come out here,” said he with a strong German accent but a surprising command of English. “Apart from the groundskeepers and food couriers that come every now and again, I don’t recall there being an invited guest around these parts.”

“I come from London to deliver news of much benefit to the Baron,” said I. “He has come into some fortune following the passing of a relative.”

The driver’s face grimaced as he heaved a spoiled apple from his pack into the brush. “I’ve lived here for the past twenty-eight years with my wife and now my newborn son. The Baron keeps much to himself in that old castle. Still, I mean not speak ill of the man, as he has been generous in the past.”

I knew little of the Baron save for his name. “Generous, you say? How so?”

My escort for the evening was a man of character and fortitude. Wrinkles on his sun-tested skin suggested a life full of activity and outdoor labor, but there was no weariness to be seen despite his old age and brittle, light-colored hair.

“There was an elderly man who had stumbled out onto these paths some eight months ago.” The driver removed an apple from his sack and took a bite for himself prior to feeding the remainder to one of his two horses. “He appeared to be in a disturbed state and hadn’t been nourished for days on end. Plenty of tourists lose their step out here, so it’s never been uncommon to find the odd traveler on this road. But, you see, most are still in proper condition, merely a few hours from town, generally making their way back without much event. This old gentleman, though, was at death’s door, or so it seemed to me.

“I was still some distance from home when I found him lying on the path near here. Save for the odd mumble, he said precious little. As I was deciding what to do with him, I was greeted by ruffles further down the path. To my amazement, out from the dark came none other than the Baron himself! The shock of that sight alone sent my heart for a leap. The Baron had served as a military man in his youth, so when he emerged from the dusk on horseback, I counted my blessings that the man may have few worries left about getting back on his way.”

The tale of an unfamiliar visitor lost on these lonesome trails was enough to caution me against late night walks into the nether. “What happened to the poor gentleman?”

“After the Baron arrived and saw the dehydration and worrisome look about the man, a room at the castle was offered as lodging for the night,” replied the driver. “I’ve seen many a kind act in my day, but few so good as that. The Baron took him in for the night and gave him good food and water, I’d heard later. The next morning, the Baron had said the guest left without so much as a shake of the hand. I didn’t get a good look at him, but by his dress, I assumed him a foreigner. You don’t expect a man to be so un-obliging, but you’ll find if you look hard enough that everybody’s living only for themselves these days.”