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Chapter Two: Opium Dream

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This spirit, o’ spirit, it haunts me each night.
Beating flesh in tight muscle, it taunts in delight.
This spirit, o’spirit, it teases and laughs.
I pray to God aid me, and hope but a chance

This spirit, o’spirit, each eve I try to flee.
Ravished thoughts, chilled temple, my mind a tempest on the sea.
‘There is no one waiting for you,’ he taunted ‘on the other side ‘cept me, 
yet foolish are mortals and too ignorant to see.

To think, in their disillusionment, something better awaits. 
You will be disappointed my friend, oh yes yes, just you wait.’
‘Be gone, you foul creature, wicked soul that you are! 
For only the evil stay eternal, the gates of heaven have cast you afar!’

‘Afar from what?’ the spirit delighted ‘From what am I kept? 
From the treasures of the afterlife? Or now, to face my regrets? 
‘Tis nothing I tell you, nothing at all! You trip, and you falter, you die and you fall. 
That is what death is awaiting, hark my words, hear them all.’

‘So why stay here spirit,’ I pondered ‘why tell me these things so? 
If alone as you say you are? Why linger if not go? 
For alone you could travel, far high and long fro?
Fly and be gone, make haste and just go!’

‘You live and you learn,’ explained the spirit ‘by the end you will see, 
to travel is pointless when there is nothing to perceive. 
No no, I will stay here in this maddening manor, 
causing mischief and mayhem, calamity and clamour.’

‘You are alone,’ replied I sadly ‘and I pity you so,
that is all I will offer, so I beg of you…go!’
‘Ah, but your silence in this house,’ replied the spirit ‘is all that I need.’
'My isolation fills you with delight?’ I scoffed ‘Now how can that be?’

‘Well,’ chuckled the spirit ‘a mortal lives just the same.
Each night by the embers, we sit by a dying pit of flame. 
Each night we retire to a dreary bedchamber, wishing the days by. 
And they do, ever so slowly, and then so quickly the years fly fast by. 

Before you know it,’ warned the spirit ‘you too will be dead, 
with the worm riddled ground to rest your sweet head. 
You will then watch them bury you, careless hand tossed with gravel. 
Your memory will fade, and your world will unravel. 

Then my dear friend, 
then you shall see,
there is nothing for you waiting on the other side,
…..nothing but me!’

 

Grief. What a tiring and complex affair. For there is anger and sadness entwined with fear and despair. Denial, and then reluctantly an acceptance of the truth, only for a sudden frantic clawing of desperation to refuse to accept what has happened once again. The cycle continues once more. To dismiss reality. Refuse to believe it. Clenched fists and screaming, the holder of grief is one that repeatedly convinces themself to say no no no!

 

It had been weeks since the funeral at the Southwark Burial Grounds of London, and naturally Craven knew his wife and daughter were dead…but perhaps…just perhaps it had all been in his head? Per chance he was in the throes of a terrible fit of fever, still in his bed writhing under the sheets, and all that had happened was some wicked and terrible dream that he would soon wake from.

 

Oh please God let him wake from it….

 

No. Sadly Craven did not wake up from his reality, and each day became harder than the one before. Grief is a never-ending dance of misery and acceptance, refusal and then a horrified acknowledgement of a new reality in its stead. A blank canvas of which the cruel hands of fate paint mortification in blotchy strokes of black, grey and dark blue. That was the stormy colour of grief. That was the colour of Lord Craven De’Montmoray’s world.

 

In the initial stages sleep was welcomed but then was hastily denied, as dreams of loved ones filled the mind, and curse the demons who placed them there to taunt him for each dream felt so real. Craven soon feared to sleep, he saw Emily and Mercy playing together on the wooden steps of a sweet summer cottage in the country, its terrace covered in the weeping soft pastel lilac wisteria of the tree hanging overhead, swaying breezily in the comforting warmth of a calm day. They were happy and smiling in this new home of theirs, raising their eyes to greet him with a smile and a wave. In these wakeless moments Craven's world had transformed back once more into sheer bliss, and in that moment his mind let out one long breath of relief. Wherever he was, Craven was home and he was finally happy…until he woke up and the tiresome charade of mourning started over once more.

 

Soon the lord refused to sleep, instead with sunken eyes and clammy palms he would pace the shadowy recesses of each room in the manor with shakes of his head and trembling hands. Grief is a foul fiend wrapped in a disguise. For one moment you are breathing, and the next you feel like you too have died. One moment Craven was fine, as fine as one could expect to be, and he took his first step forward, only to experience the next step tripping backwards, falling down into a crumbling pile of anguish.

 

As the days dragged on into weeks, Lord De'Montmoray often found himself standing catatonically in the middle of the cold empty rooms of his manor, once brightly lit and full of merriment. The evening sitting room where Mercy played with her dolls as Emily played the piano, delighting Craven with passionate performances of Bach’s Concertos in D minor. The Brandenburg Concerto Number One was the family’s favourite. Happily, he would read his books, his favourite of recent times being The Red and the Black by Stendhal, while Emily stole sweet kisses on his cheek, distracting him to his delight with that mischievous spark in her eyes. She would sit on his lap and enthusiastically recall the daily events while dog earing the pages of his book before deviously placing it away on a nearby table to distract him even further.

 

Yet now? Now Craven hated that loathsome sitting room. He threw glass ornaments and other trinkets placed perfectly on the mantel piece towards the piano in fury, smashing the delicate ebony keys. In those outbursts of rage some part of him believed he could manage to break all his memories to pieces. Yet even as he smashed the beautiful white painted instrument with gold trimmings adorned, the haunting music never left his ears. It played out sad and slow, waltzing a funereal dance in his heart that his soul pitifully cried out to.

 

As much as Craven hated the sitting room, it was the bedroom he loathed even more so. The walls…damn those wretched walls. He would spend the days laying on his side in the bed that Emily had died in, and would just stare at the cream washed walls coated in wallpaper of soft white and pink roses. How he hated those blooming roses, how he wished they wilted and withered away, petal by petal falling until all that was left was a shrivelled wall of blackened stems. Why pretend he was living in a field of flowers when he was living in a forest of decay?

 

While Craven had sent away most of his servants, a few remained to manage the upkeep of the quiet and sombre abode. Lord De’Montmoray was always an amiable man but now there was never a kind word uttered, only dark mutterings to the staff of minor issues that vexed him greatly. Too many candles were lit and the parlour was too jovial for his liking. On some nights the food served was that of which Emily and Mercy were fond of. Of roast quail and apple pie, he cursed the callous nature of the cook to make such cold hearted suppers and refused to eat one mouthful of the poisonous meals. The long clock in the hall chimed too loud at night, the summer breakfast room was filled with too much light in the morning. Everywhere he turned, there was memory and misery of which he could not bare to look upon. Craven finally could not sleep in the bed of his deceased wife, it was as if the darkness of night lifted the veil of the spirit world and beckoned her forth into the realm of the living. In those cold sweat drenched hours, if he listened very hard, he could almost hear Emily lying beside him. He could feel her warm breath on his neck, making his skin shiver as he recoiled in horror. In maddening terror, Craven fled the chamber and tried to fall asleep in a guest bedroom, yet their memories haunted him at each and every room.

 

Late at night he could hear a giggle, that of a small girl, and the sound of marbles being rolled down the wooden hallway. In sheer terror he would run to see the walkway abandoned, his ears perhaps playing tricks on him. Yet he could never mistake the mischievous giggle of his six-year-old daughter. It seemed Mercy was there also, her spirit haunting the halls in the still of night.

 

All these strange happenings led his mind further to recollect former days and wonder how he had ended up in the hellish place he was now trapped in. A hell on earth.

 

Lord Craven De’Montmoray was a respectable gentleman that owned numerous properties across London, as far north as East Riding and far south as Hampshire. The noble family of De’Montmoray had always held their wealth in property and it had been so for hundreds of years, the ample lands being culminated and passed down through generation to generation. Craven was the only son of Lord Edward and Lady Louise De’Montmoray, and he had but one sister, Cathryn. A year older than Craven, she now lived in a wealthy estate in Cheshire with her husband, Lord Saunders Burlington.

 

The De’Montmoray siblings were kind children with happy dispositions. Cathryn was born in 1798, and Craven a year later was born in 1799. Their poor mother died during the birth of Craven and soon the role of raising the children fell upon the doting Mistress Briggs, a kind woman who managed the family household. Their father also played a loving role in their upbringing, and although the death of his wife brought with him a sadness that never left his eyes, he never let that affect the way he continued to cherish his children. The De'Montmoray children grew up in a happy household, playing well together, and whilst children will be children and ever prone to squabble over the silliest of trifles, they were good hearted souls even from a young age, and it showed in their merry disposition. Craven and Cathryn grew up to be a sensitive and intelligent people. As most children from well to do families, the De’Montmoray children were educated by the finest tutors, and when they grew to be older Craven learnt the business of running the family estates from his father.

 

As inevitable as day turns into night, the happy days of childhood were over too soon. Tragedy struck and the De’Montmoray’s father died from an attack of the heart in 1828. At a young age as a gentleman of the world, Craven took full responsibility and ownership of the family’s estate at the age of thirty. A successful and rich bachelor in London, Craven soon fell into a world of high society soirees and gatherings, and it was not too long before he came across Mistress Emily Tennyson. The pair were smitten, and after a rather short courtship over a few months Craven proposed marriage and they were wed a year later to the very day, on the 1st of March 1830, at the parish church of St George’s in Bloomsbury.

 

The happy couple were blessed with a baby girl nine months later, one Lady Mercy De’Montmoray. She was the apple of their eye, the deepest and most enriching part of their life. For the love of one’s child trumped the wildest of passions, the most earthly and heavenly of delights. The love of one's child was the heart in its simplest and most purest form. Unconditional love with no expectation in return. That was the true meaning of love.

 

As businessman and landlord, as a husband, father, friend and general acquaintance, Lord Craven De’Montmoray was a highly respected gentleman. The addictive nature that many were consumed by in London at the time, whether through gambling or the overindulgence of spirits, through the gluttony of food, flesh or coin, or the desire of opium, was not something Craven was bound by. He was a man content by his fortunate situation in life, and that made him a very agreeable character indeed.

 

Of course, no one idyllic set of circumstances lasts forever….

 

As misfortune would have it, several staff were struck by a bout of consumption which soon spread to the family. Craven was prescribed laudanum by his doctor when he was sick in his own affliction. The tincture was a common treatment by the medical profession at the time, heralding its powers to cure many, if not most, ailments. A wonder of wonders, the very ambrosia of the gods. From colicky infants in their cots to the elderly in their death beds, laudanum was the answer. A concoction of alcohol and opium, it did ease some of Craven's suffering, numbing his senses to the pain. After the death of his wife and child however, he continued to consume the concoction and his physician was more than happy to provide him with the tonic that could aid the lord in sleep, and his new found agitation in life. Perhaps it was the misguided goodwill of practitioners who felt it their duty to help; or perhaps, as in other trades, business was driven by a desire of capital with little regard to anything or anyone else. Whatever the reason, the most common and cruel malpractice of the medical profession was the ever solicitous bestowal of miraculous chemical cures that would inevitably lead to the ruin of a patient’s life.

 

Laudanum.

 

Before he knew it, Craven was consuming the opium tincture more than water and food. In its sweet comfort, that agitated tap of his fore-finger against his knee ceased upon consumption, only for his hand tremors to begin soon after as his body desired more and more. There was never enough to keep the beast at bay, for it grew and grew the more it was fed, and the larger the monster the more food it required. Craven needed a stronger way to detach himself from the life that was spiralling out of control, and while the gentle little green glass bottle in his hand helped keep the fog at bay he knew there were stronger ways of obtaining his desires.

 

One dark eve in his own wretched despair, Craven fled to the streets of London late into the night. With top hat and black tail coats, black waistcoat, white cravat, blue damask patterned breeches, black boots, and a navy woollen cloak covering his shoulders, Lord Craven descended into the oblivion of the evening, in desperate search of one particular distraction. Emerging from his stately Ashcombe Manor in Bloomsbury, situated in the upper class residential area in the London borough of Camden, Craven aimlessly stumbled into the night.

 

The proper streets of London ever so subtly led into the wonky cackle filled cobblestoned laneways weaving into the seedier parts of the street of Cheapside. A place filled with single ladies dressed in ragged lace ruched skirts and stained corsets; the garbage, urine and vomit stench of the streets masked by the heavy laden cheap perfume the women adorned. The constant low bark of a dog sounded between the enthusiastic cries of the shop owners beckoning the idle passer-by into the depths of their shadowy lairs. Of women and men cloaked in debauchery; reeking of alcohol, tobacco and opium. Craven was already intoxicated by the madness of his new reality, and he stumbled along with bleary vision, pushing past the women who pressed themselves keenly against him for a pretty penny. Lifting his blurry eyes in between swigs of laudanum, the lord spotted a potential reputable place of respite. The Afternoonafied Affair.

 

Unbeknownst to Craven personally, the den had the appearance of where London’s high society could escape to. A fine shop window brightly lit with exotic coloured glass lanterns of red, blue, amber and green, and long sweeping purple curtains of fine silk floating in between. A well-dressed man in long coat tails and a fine felt black top hat stood at the entrance of a decadent gold plated and intricately carved large wooden door, opened wide and welcoming as his beaming smile. Craven was drawn to the establishment and approached the encouraging smile that beckoned him forth.

 

With a proper and elegant bow, the man remarked cheerfully ‘A good eve to you fine sir! Welcome to The Afternoonafied Affair. Please come in, and our staff will attend to your every need.’ 

 

Craven nodded briefly as he walked past the man, who stood aside to let him down the stairs into the den of chaotic delights. As Craven descended the stairs, he was met with a large yet shadowy room lit with soft candles scattered here and there in glass jars. Tall wrought iron candelabras, with soft honey scented candles burning, stood along the edges of the room, adding warmth to the atmosphere. The smell of sweet amber incense and a smoky syrupiness filled his senses as he looked about the room, where many decadent red baroque chairs and daybeds resided in various places, and in one corner in the furthest end of the room there were piles upon piles of large oriental cushions.

 

The den was busy that night, with many well-dressed strangers lounging about here and there. Nothing was certain but it was evident each and every patron was seeking some form of escape. Craven stumbled his way to a purple velvet chaise, easing himself down heavily in sheer exhaustion. While his body craved laudanum, he had neglected to nourish it with food and even the smallest of outings tired him greatly.

 

Instantly, he was met with a young man holding a silver tray.

 

‘Good evening sir!’ the attendant remarked, a young man dressed in a gold jacquard waistcoat that almost made him blend in with the decadent furniture surrounding him. As cheerfully as the man at the entrance, he beamed a brilliant smile ‘Can I interest you in a pipe of our finest opium? Or perhaps a premium wine, gin or brandy? We also offer our speciality, a fine sherry mixed with two ounces of opium, one ounce of saffron, and blended with bruised cinnamon and cloves. It is our magical tincture and guaranteed to make you forget all troubles!’

 

‘Just a pipe.’ muttered Craven, and the young man smiled as he presented a long ebony pipe from the silver tray, filled with the white chalky substance.

 

‘Shall I set up an account for you at the registry?’ inquired the man, eager to relieve the wealthy patron of his money, idly washed away in swigs and puffs throughout the night.

 

Craven wearily opened his pouch and placed five pounds on the tray ‘Lord Craven De’Montmoray.’

 

The waiter’s eyes lit up like a flame on dry leaves upon seeing the excessive amount of coin being offered, and with a simpering smile slinked away into the smoky depths of the den.

 

With a heavy sigh Craven inhaled that first breath, pupils dilating and a sense of ease sweeping over him as he lent his head back on the couch and floated away. Time and space began to fade, and the loudness of the world became muffled. The colours of the room were more vibrant and yet he felt detached from it all. The couch he was sitting on was more real than he, for how could he even prove he was even here? Perhaps he had already ceased to exist?

 

With deep breaths growing slower and heavy lulled eyes, Craven drifted away into a peaceful abyss…