Nevermore, p.13
Nevermore, page 13
Shaking in every limb, I hurriedly extricated myself from the entangling undergrowth, then staggered towards an open field that lay at some distance from the house. I sank to my knees, rolled onto my back, and lay spread-eagled in the grass, staring upwards at the blackness of the heavens, where shimmering stars commingled with the fiery embers that floated skyward from the blazing house.
Several moments elapsed before I was able to draw myself up into a sitting position. Employing my loose-hanging shirttail as a kind of towel, I wiped the moisture from my stinging eyes and looked about for Crockett. At first, I could see him nowhere. Gradually, however, I became cognizant of a sound drifting above the roar and crackle of the inferno. It was a hoarse male voice, emanating from a point somewhere off to my left. As I strained my ears to listen, I perceived that the voice was repeatedly shouting, “Miz Asher! Miz Asher!”
Rising with a groan to my feet, I made my way in the direction of the sound until, in the unholy crimson glow of the fire, I spotted the frontiersman. Moving as dose to the house as the scorching heat would allow, he was circumambulating the premises, hands cupped to his mouth, calling out the name of Asher’s sister in the evident hope of finding her still alive. Even at a glance, however, I could determine that his efforts were futile. By now, the once-stately manse was little more than an enormous furnace. Billowing clouds of smoke poured through every ruptured window; tall flames shot upward from the roof and danced along the ramparts. It was inconceivable that anyone trapped within those blistering walls could yet be alive.
Hurrying up beside the frontiersman, I laid one hand upon his shoulder. “It is no use, Colonel Crockett,” said I in a voice loud enough to be heard above the noise of the conflagration. “Unless, like ourselves, the mistress of the house has somehow managed to escape, we must forgo the hope of saving her.”
Crockett turned to me with a look of weary resignation. “I reckon you are right, Poe,” he sighed, dropping his hands to his sides. “C’mon!”
With the frontiersman in the lead, we bent our steps to the front of the house, where we discovered—not entirely to our surprise—that our horses, in their instinctive terror of the flames, had managed to tear their reins free of the hitching post and were nowhere in sight. By that point, the extreme, the unprecedented strains of that seemingly endless night of misery and peril had begun to exact their inevitable toll. Overcome with both physical and mental exhaustion, I sank to the ground beneath a towering tree, resting my back upon the gnarled trunk. Crockett—whose exertions had, at the very least, equalled my own—lowered himself beside me. For several moments we sat side by side in utter silence, transfixed by the scene of cataclysmic destruction taking place before our eyes.
At length, I turned my head toward my companion and asked: “In heaven’s name, what happened, Colonel Crockett?”
He opened his mouth to reply but was seized by a paroxysm of coughing. Finally, he shook his head and replied: “Blamed if I know. After you went to roost, me ’n’ Asher headed back to the kitchen and commenced to palaverin’ some more. We was hittin’ his jug at a tolerable pace, too. After a spell, ol’ Asher said he’d best go see how his sister was farin’. I was feelin’ a mite drowsy by then, so I put my head down on my arms and figgered I’d get me a little shut-eye ’til Asher came back. Next thing I know, I’m wide awake and the whole damn house is burnin’ like a canebrake afire.”
At that instant, a thunderous noise—like the roar of a thousand demons—smote upon our ears. Swivelling our heads in the direction of the fearsome sound, we saw the blazing roof collapse inward with an earsplitting crash. An enormous geyser of smoke and flame and fiery cinders erupted into the sky—a fierce blast of scorching air blew the massive front door from its hinges—the ramparts toppled—the very earth beneath our bodies trembled—and the stately and venerable house of Asher was no more!
CHAPTER 13
With the tedious particulars of our journey homeward, the reader need not be concerned. Suffice it to say that, when the sun finally ascended over the smoldering ruins of the once-proud house of Asher, Crockett: and I—having remained seated on the ground with our backs propped against the tree—rose stiffly to our feet and commenced what promised to be an exceedingly arduous trek in the direction of the city.
We had proceeded only a short distance, however, when the fickle goddess Fortuna—who had, until that moment, appeared to revel in our discomfiture—unexpectedly took sympathy for our plight. Rounding a bend, the frontiersman and I were overjoyed to spy our horses grazing contentedly on a gentle, grassy slope. Had I not felt fatigued to the point of near-paralysis, I might have broken into a rapturous dance of celebration at the mere sight of the beasts. Mounting our steeds, we promptly reined them in a southerly direction and headed towards the city at a gentle walk.
So benumbed was I by exhaustion that I passed the entirety of our journey in a condition akin to that of the chronic somnambulist. I recall only the jouncing motion of my steed—the beneficent warmth of the day—and the droning voice of the irrepressible frontiersman, who (in spite of his own utter lack of sleep) poured forth a more-or-less continuous soliloquy, of whose content I remained, in my stupefied state, mercifully oblivious.
My next memories are of arriving, after a seemingly interminable period, at the doorway of my domicile on Howard Street—of dismounting from my steed and staggering through the front door—of the distressed exclamations of my dearest Muddy and Sissy as they led me to my chamber and helped me to bed.
Then all was silence—and stillness—and the blessed darkness of oblivion.
I slept like the dead. But for all their profundity, my slumbers offered me little, if any, relief from the agonies I had endured during my recent misadventure. My dreams were of the most dismaying, the most harrowing variety, in which a pale and wraithlike figure pursued me through the labyrinthine passageways of a gloomy, Gothic manse, while—faintly visible in the background—a slender, dark-haired female with indistinct features floated ghostlike through the shadows.
I awoke not with a start but by slow degrees, my consciousness reviving in small, incremental stages. Unclosing my eyes, I remained, for several moments, in a state of extreme mental confusion, uncertain as to my whereabouts. Only gradually did the realization dawn upon me that I was safe in my bedroom and that, seated beside me—wringing her hands as she gazed down at my face with a look of ineffable solicitude—was my own dearest Muddy!
“Oh, Eddie!” she exclaimed in a tremulous voice. “Thank heavens that you are finally awake!”
As my bleary vision cleared, I perceived, by the attenuated quality of the daylight outside my window, that the afternoon was already well advanced. Upon inquiring as to the time, I was very much surprised to learn that I had been asleep for nearly sixteen consecutive hours—a circumstance that naturally accounted for the intense sensation of hunger of which I Quickly became conscious.
As though endowed with a preternatural faculty that enabled her to read my very thoughts, Muddy immediately declared: “Poor boy, you must be famished!” When I acknowledged the accuracy of this observation with a small, affirmative whimper, she promptly rose from her seat and bustled from the room, returning a short time later with a bowl from which wafted the indescribably delicious aroma of chicken consommé. After helping me to sit upright with my back propped against several pillows, she perched at my side on the mattress while I ate.
Thanks to the salubrious effects of Muddy’s invigorating broth, my spirits were soon restored to such an extent that—in response to her queries—I was able to provide her with a detailed, if suitably modified, account of my recent ordeal. In conformity with my earlier, well-intentioned prevarication, I explained that—having travelled through the countryside until late in the afternoon—Colonel Crockett and I had taken refuge from the threatening weather in the imposing Asher residence, whose master had kindly invited us to partake of dinner. The remainder of my story adhered closely to the truth, though I revealed nothing of my deplorable intemperance, or of my subsequent encounter with the strange, spectral female in the darkness of my room—an incident which I had also refrained from mentioning to Crockett.
I had just completed the last spoonful of broth when Sissy appeared in my room and—after taking the place of Muddy (who bustled off to begin her dinner preparations)—spent the next several hours at my bedside, beguiling me with her extensive, if not inexhaustible, repertoire of ballads, songs, humorous anecdotes, and riddles.
By the time dusk approached, my eagerness to escape from my bed had reached the point of near desperation. At my insistence, Sissy had finally taken a respite and joined Muddy in the kitchen for supper. Donning my dressing gown, I made my way into my study, seated myself at my writing table, and enkindled the lamp. No sooner had I done so, however, than Muddy re-appeared at my door and announced that Colonel Crocked: had arrived and was eager to see me.
“Please bid him enter forthwith,” I replied.
Moments later, he strode into the chamber, appearing as ruddy and robust as though he had just enjoyed an invigorating outdoor stroll. He was garbed in his customary high-collared coat and gray-striped trousers. In one hand, he clutched the brim of his black felt hat; in the other, a newspaper folded in quarters.
“Evenin’, pard,” he exclaimed. “I am powerful glad to see you up ’n’ around. Your Aunty Clemm says that if you warn’t quite dead since you come home, you was actin’ mighty nigh it.”
I made a casually dismissive gesture with one hand. “Her unwavering concern for my well-being has led my dearest Muddy to exaggerate the severity of my condition. While it is true that I have remained largely confined to my bedchamber since our return, I have done so almost entirely for the purpose of maintaining that precious seclusion so conducive to exertions of a contemplative nature—my primary interest having been to meditate on the significance of our recent ordeal.”
“Well, when it comes to meditatin’, you are a regular rip-hummer, all right,” said Crockett with a chuckle.
After moving a straight-backed chair close to my writing table, Crockett turned it around so that its slatted back faced in my direction—then straddled the seat as though it were a saddle and rested his folded forearms upon the headpiece.
“It don’t take long to curry a short horse, Poe, so I’ll get right to the particulars. Now that this Macready business has been settled up, I’m fixin’ to move on.”
I made no effort to conceal my surprise, openly conveying it in both my voice and facial expression. “But what makes you so certain that the matter has been, as you put it, ‘settled up’?”
“Why, there ain’t no buts about it, Poe! It’s plain as preachin’! Asher kilt that poor ol’ landlady to git vengeance on the Macreadys for ruining his life. Once he seen that you ’n’ me was onto him, he knew the jig was up an made up his mind to end it all by burnin’ up the whole kit ’n’ kaboodle—himself, his house, that pestiferous sister o’ his, and you ’n’ me into the bargain!”
“But how, then, do you account for the hideous manner of Asher’s death?”
“That’s easily explained,” the frontiersman replied. “Once that blaze got roaring hot, he must’ve decided that bein’ roasted alive warn’t such a prime idea after all. So he high-tailed it for the front door. But in all the smoke an’ gen’ral confustification, he ran smack-dab into that skewer an’ ended up like a gigged bullfrog.”
“And you are absolutely confident of this analysis?”
“Blamed if I ain’t. That’s how the police calculate it, too.”
“Ah—then you have already communicated your theory with the authorities.”
“You know me, Poe. I ain’t one for dilly-dallyin’. ‘Be sure you’re right, then go ahead!’—that’s Davy Crockett’s motto.” Extending one hand across the table, he proffered me the newspaper. “Here. Take a gander.”
Frowning, I unfolded the paper and held it dose to the lamplight. It proved to be that morning’s edition of the Baltimore Chronicle. Immediately, my gaze lighted upon a bold headline occupying several columns on the front page:
SHOCKING TRAGEDY!
ASHER HOME DESTROYED BY CONFLAGRATION!
Roger Asher and Sister Perish in Blaze!
Thrilling Tale of Escape Related by Colonel David Crockett
Perusing the article—whose author had evidently derived much of his information directly from Crockett—I soon encountered the passage to which the latter had been alluding. It read as follows:
As to the cause of the devastating blaze, an explanation was proffered to police by the celebrated frontier scout, author, and congressman, Colonel David Crockett of Tennessee, who, as fate would have it, was present at the Asher home at the time of the tragedy. In an interview with Police Captain Horace Russell, Colonel Crockett—who has been a visitor to our city for several days—intimated that a connection may well have existed between Mr. Roger Asher and the recent, ghastly murder of Mrs. Elmira Macready—the widow of the late Junius Macready, who had reputedly been embroiled in a singularly bitter feud with Mr. Asher’s deceased father, Samuel, over business dealings involving the New Export-Import Mercantile Association.
“Pitch me naked into a briar patch if that Asher feller didn’t butcher that poor ol’ landlady in her bed, then start the fire hisself to escape bein’ hung,” Colonel Crockett is quoted as having said. “Tell the good folks o’ Baltimore that Davy Crockett says they can rest easy—for the varminous murderer o’ Mrs. Macready is now roastin’ in flames a monstrous sight hotter than the ones that burned up his house!”
Neatly re-folding the newspaper into quarto size, I passed it back to the frontiersman and regarded him silently for a moment before saying: “With the plausibility of your interpretation I have no dispute. Nevertheless, I cannot entirely share in your sense of absolute conviction.” Here, I hesitated for a moment, silently engaged in an internal debate over the advisability of revealing to Crockett the particulars of my extraordinary nocturnal visitation in the hours preceding the outbreak of the fire.
At length—having reached a decision—I inhaled deeply and remarked: “There is one additional piece of information of which I have not yet apprised you, Colonel Crockett. Of its possible significance I myself remain in considerable doubt—though it may well have a direct bearing on the events which subsequently transpired.”
His brow furrowed in perplexity, Crockett said: “Great guns, Poe! You got me feelin’ exactly like Moses when the candle went out—plumb in the dark!”
Placing my arms upon the surface of the writing table, I leaned forward and proceeded to describe my encounter with the mysterious female figure who had appeared so unexpectedly in my chamber on the night of the fire. I elected, however, to make no mention of her extraordinary countenance, whose features had struck me as so startling, so uncanny, that—in my subsequent ruminations on the episode—I had come to doubt the reliability of my own perceptions.
Crockett took several moments to assimilate this singular narrative, all the while regarding me with narrowed eyes. At length, he shook his head and exclaimed: “Dad fetch it, Poe, but that don’t change mithin’! What you seen was more’n likely that ailin’ sister o’ Asher’s, who drug herself from her sickbed an’ wandered into your room by mistake. Or maybe it warn’t nuthin’ but your own imagination. I’ll be scalped with a jackknife if you weren’t downright obflusticated from all that liquor.”
“Conceivably so,” I acknowledged. “Indeed, I myself have considered both of these possibilities.”
“No sir,” said Crockett, rising to his feet. “There ain’t no doubt in my mind.” Settling his broad-brimmed hat onto his head, he thrust out his right hand and said, “Put ’er there, pard, for I will be leavin’ town presently.”
At that instant, from the threshold of my chamber, there emanated the distinct sound of a delicate foot stamping emphatically upon the floorboards, “But you can’t!” sang out a sweet, mellifluous voice in a tone of endearing protestation. “You promised!”
I directed my gaze at the source of this ejaculation, while Crockett swivelled to look in the identical direction. There, in the doorway of my room, stood my darling Virginia, her arms folded across her chest, her countenance arranged into an expression of the most charming petulance imaginable.
“Evenin’, Miz Virginny,” Crockett said, immediately doffing his hat again and favoring her with a small bow.
“You said that you would come and hear me sing!” my angelic cousin and wife-to-be retorted.
“Why, I plumb forgot,” Crockett conceded.
“How about now?” Virginia cried with enchanting impetuosity.
Extracting a watch from his pocket, Crocket consulted the time for a moment before snapping the lid shut. “I’m afeard that ain’t so convenient,” he said in an apologetic tone. “I got me an appointment with a lady friend, and blamed if I ain’t already a mite tardy.” For a moment, he mused in silence. Then, addressing Sissy, he said: “Tell you what. I ain’t fixin’ to shove off ’til the mornin’ after next. If it’s agreeable with your mama, why, I’ll come by for a farewell supper tomorrow night and we’ll have us a regular jamboree.”
“Oh, goody!” exclaimed Virginia, clapping her hands as she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.
“That set all right with you, Poe?” Crockett inquired, turning in my direction.
In truth, the frontiersman’s proposal filled me with sentiments of a less than enthusiastic nature. Nevertheless, I saw no way to demur without violating every precept of my deeply inbred sense of Southern hospitality.
“Perfectly,” I replied. “And I am certain that dear Muddy will likewise be delighted.”
“Well, that settles it,” said Crockett with a broad smile as he replaced his hat atop his head. Bidding me good-night, he strode to the doorway and departed—though not before assuring Virginia that he was “keen as mustard” to hear her sing on the morrow.
