Gretchen-Jane’s Moon — Part 1
A Gothic Horror Short Story in the Tradition of Turn of the Screw
Winchester, Hampshire, 17 May 1894
“My grandmother told me a criminal must never be executed during a full moon… ”
Henry lowered his voice to a whisper and fastened bright, mischievous eyes upon each of the boys in turn.
“… She said no matter what the crime, the prisoner still deserved the chance to atone for it in the next world. But… if the date of execution fell on the same day as the full moon, his soul was doomed to stay close to the earth and would continue to torment those left behind — ”
A branch crashed against the window. The fire hissed and flared, casting strange, flickering shadows onto the wall. Outside, the gale continued to rage. Lightning lit the room, followed by deep, rumbling thunder that seemed to shake the walls.
The littlest boy burst into tears.
“That’s enough,” Constance said firmly, placing her knitting to one side. She glanced at the grandfather clock just as it began to chime. Goodness gracious! It was already thirty minutes past nine!
It had begun innocently enough. Following a dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, the boys retired to the drawing room to sit around the fire and tell stories.
Edmund began, his story about a pack of dire-wolves that prowled the countryside eating the heads of children but leaving the bodies behind. The tale was met with howls of disbelief but it spawned countless more, each one more gruesome, more fantastic than the last: female vampires who sucked the lifeblood from their step-children, witch-maidens who lulled their victims to sleep before tearing out their eyes, headless highwaymen who attacked fine ladies in their carriages and now the evil spirits of criminals past returning to wreak vengeance upon the innocent. It was time to put a stop to it.
“It’s off to bed for all of you,” Constance said briskly.
A chorus of disappointed voices met the directive, the loudest that of Constance’s favourite great-nephew, Oliver.
“Oh, please Auntie!” he begged. “Mightn’t we stay up just a little bit longer? Giles hasn’t told us his story yet… and Mama and Papa won’t mind, I’m sure!”
“Fiddlesticks,” Constance replied. “Your father gave me strict instructions you must all be in bed on the stroke of nine, so you’ve already had an extra thirty minutes. You should be grateful.”
Constance pulled herself out of her chair, trying to ignore the stiffness in her back, and glared at the petulant faces before her. “And look sharp about it!” she warned, frowning when she saw Miss Netherby tap the bottoms of the departing boys with a feather duster as they beat a hasty retreat up the stairs.
Grace Netherby might be an adequate housekeeper, but the girl was far too familiar for Constance’s liking — she with her saucy eyes and impertinent ways. Constance had said as much to Oliver’s father, Sir Simon Gifford.
“Utter rot, Auntie,” Sir Simon had replied. “You didn’t see her with the children and Mrs Gifford when they were ill. She was absolutely marvelous: bathing foreheads, emptying chamber pots, making countless cups of tea and cocoa — ”
“But there is something wrong — ” Constance had begun before thinking the better of it and holding her tongue, unwilling to risk losing the goodwill she so precariously enjoyed as a dependent maiden-aunt.
Constance stooped to add some logs to the dying fire. Then she crossed the room to the French windows that overlooked the terrace and gazed up at the sky.
The clouds, so thick and gloomy during the day, now appeared fluffy and light against the inky night sky. Suddenly they parted, revealing a bright, round, golden moon.
Constance felt a strange prickling on her scalp. She shivered.
It had been a full moon on the night of Gretchen-Jane Nadel’s execution.
She drew the heavy curtains across the windows and returned to her seat before the fire. Reaching for her portmanteau, she retrieved an ancient, battered book. A log shifted, and the fire blazed, spilling a shower of sparks onto the hearth.
The book felt hot in Constance’s hands. Constance shuddered. Had Satan himself just thumbed through the contents?
Could she bear to open it?
These days, her mind played tricks on her, but the events back then would never be forgotten because she had transcribed them faithfully into the leather-bound journal sitting in her lap. She carried it with her like the keeper of the key to Pandora’s Box, terrified that if she opened it, she would somehow resurrect the she-devil who must, at all costs, remain buried in the cold, dark earth for all eternity.
Constance closed her eyes and sighed. Perhaps tonight she would force herself to read it for the first and final time and, when she had finished, deliver the wretched volume to the cleansing flames of the fire and watch the pages curl and blacken and turn into ash.
Perhaps then she might finally be free of the nameless, unspeakable terror that had dogged her for so long.
With trembling hands, Constance opened the journal and began to read…
19 April, 1874: Rutherford Green, twenty years earlier…
Winter made an angry return to Rutherford Green that evening. Hail hammered the roof and a fierce wind whipped the new leaves from the trees and lashed them against the windows.
Inside the Bascombes’ Tudor mansion, however, a large fire roared in the hearth and the maelstrom outside went largely unnoticed, so engrossed were we in the words of Reverend Stutchbury, Chaplain of the Gildebourne Gaol. A thin man of indeterminate age with a sallow complexion and a lazy eye, he was telling us all about his visit with the Rutherford Poisoner, Gretchen-Jane Nadel.
“She is probably the most unpleasant woman I have ever had the misfortune to meet,” the Reverend said, taking a proffered glass of claret from the butler’s silver tray, too intent upon his discourse to offer thanks.
“Oh please, Reverend, do explain!” Amelia Bascombe’s prominent blue eyes were bright with excitement. “Tell us what she is really like! Imagine… a female poisoner… a veritable Catherine de Medici living here amongst us in Rutherford Green!” She sank back in her chair with a theatrical sigh and mopped her forehead with a lace handkerchief.
The Reverend, despite being used to excitable middle-aged ladies eliciting his opinion on any number of matters, looked pleased for the opportunity to impress some of the most eminent folks in the village with his first-hand experience of the infamous Miss Nadel.
“May I be so bold as to ask your own opinion, Reverend Stutchbury?” It was Amelia’s husband, the Honourable Sir Reginald Bascombe QC, who spoke. “I believe the woman has protested her innocence very strongly — and her employer, Mr Fleming, insisted she was innocent of any crime.”
Sir Reginald’s voice was earnest and Reverend Stutchbury responded with like seriousness, no doubt honoured his opinion was being sought from a man of Sir Reginald’s reputation and social standing.
“There is no doubt she is guilty,” stated the Reverend. “There is no breaking through the web of circumstantial evidence arrayed against her at her trial.”
“Indeed,” Sir Reginald nodded, blinking rapidly and pulling at his bushy moustache.
“And were not the bodies of her victims all exhumed?” piped the shrill voice of Emma Bascombe, Amelia’s eldest daughter. “Mrs Fleming and the five little ones… and they found arsenic in all of them?”
The Reverend cast an irritable glance towards the interruption and continued to address Sir Reginald.
“Let us be mindful that Miss Nadel has not been charged, tried, or convicted for the deaths of the Fleming children, only that of Mrs Fleming. Even a condemned criminal is deserving of fair consideration in that regard. Anything less is offensive to my moral and Christian sensibilities,” the Reverend added (a trifle pompously, I thought).
The more liberal-minded amongst the company nodded feelingly.
“But, theoretically, if Gretchen Nadel did poison the Fleming children as well — ”
“I think we can safely presume that, Reverend,” interrupted Dr Edward Hill, GP. “I have personally read Dr Black’s autopsy reports from start to finish. Enough arsenic was found in the little mites’ bodies to kill a dozen horses!”
Amidst horrified intakes of breath from the ladies present, the Reverend continued his speech, brushing off the interruption as though it had not occurred.
He took another sip of wine. “But what is most horrifying to me is that not once has Gretchen expressed any remorse. It is almost as though the nature God gave her was deficient in some respects… and there is something more… ” the Reverend murmured, his eyes clouding over.
Transfixed, we all leaned forward to catch his next words.
“When I sit in the same room as Gretchen-Jane Nadel, I feel like I am sitting with evil. It radiates from her. Her smile is charming, her voice soft, her demeanour calm… yet beneath the surface I sense a deep and malevolent hatred.”
I spoke for the first time. “How do you mean, Reverend? Hatred towards whom? Yourself? The wardens? The Flemings?”
“All of us. Everything. Anything at all. I believe that just as there are souls who dedicate their lives to good, there are others — of whom Miss Nadel is a chilling example — whose lives are devoted to disseminating hatred, discord and destruction in the lives of others. She is also handsome, which, in my opinion, makes her even more dangerous because she has the ability to entice and entrap. Her eyes are especially arresting — ”
“How so, Reverend Stutchbury?” asked Emma Bascomb.
“They are a pale emerald in colour — most unusual, quite beautiful — yet they hold no warmth, no sparkle or life. Looking into Gretchen-Jane Nadel’s eyes is like looking into a bottomless pool. They are eyes that cannot love or feel. The devil himself could not better the malice I saw in those eyes.”
We were silent, shocked beyond words. Mrs Hill, the doctor’s wife, turned to me.
“Miss Breckenridge?”
I inclined my head and gave a small smile.
“You also work at the Gaol — in fact, you are well known for your wonderful work with the women prisoners. Is it true you have been approached by Governor McGuire to give counsel to Miss Nadel?”
I nodded again as Reverend Stutchbury uncorked another bottle of wine with a loud pop. It has become clear to me that the Reverend disagrees with the Governor on this matter, believing that only he — an ordained servant of God — should minister to the unfortunate inhabitants of Gildebourne Gaol.
“Yes, it is so,” I replied, glancing at Reverend Stutchbury. His eyes were upon me. “Of course, I do not know if I shall meet with any more success than the good Reverend, but the Governor is hopeful that, as a woman, I might be able to penetrate that peculiar reserve of manner already described by Reverend Stutchbury and, in time, encourage Gretchen-Jane Nadel to confess to her crimes.”
The Reverend coughed, determined, it seemed, to wrest the attention back to himself.
“The most pressing objective,” he insisted, “is to encourage the wretched woman to open her heart… so that when she marches to the scaffold, she is penitent and willing to accept the mercy of God. Otherwise, our mission shall have failed.”
Amelia Bascombe squirmed in her chair. I could see she was becoming impatient with the conversation, hungry as she was for more salacious revelations from Reverend Stutchbury.
When she realised none were forthcoming, she changed the subject to that of the butcher’s apprentice who had recently attacked the butcher’s wife and escaped with the weekly takings — an event that had caused a great deal of nervous twittering amongst the fashionable ladies of Rutherford Green.
Soon afterwards, the party broke up, and we all went home.
But I could not sleep that night, my forthcoming mission to elicit a confession from Gretchen-Jane Nadel weighing heavily upon my soul.
End of Part One — Part 2 coming soon…
