What Manner of Man: Chapter 26 🦇

This week’s chapter is an unexpected op-ed.

• Happy Friday the 13th! 🦇

• Especially to my exquisitely wonderful patrons, for whom there is a new post.

• (Featuring a fun and flirty priest drawing!)

EDITOR’S NOTE: The precise manner in which the following came to be among the papers of Victor Ardelian is unknown. It seems probable that it was deliberately placed there by the same hand which is responsible for the preservation of these documents. I have decided to include it as it bears directly upon proceeding events.

LETTER FROM SILAS TO A FRIEND

Undated.

Donal,

Just writing to apologize for standing you up tonight. I do so in full awareness, of course, that no letter will find you til tomorrow at the earliest. It could hardly be otherwise, since no mail leaves this island except with me. I’m sorry all the same to be missing our rendezvous — and, as it seems I’ll have some time to kill while this fellow plays at being Howard Carter in yonder ruins, I may as well write and plead my case.

(As I write it is not yet the hour at which I’m meant to meet out outside of the White Bull, but I see no prospect of these goings-on concluding any time soon.) By this time you ought to be pretty well used to the ways of unreliable seamen. You can bet I’ll make it up to you as soon as I get a chance, though. I have a thing or two I save for special occasions.

I’ve been waylaid by some unexpected business which seems bound to keep me on this bloody island some hours yet. To tell the truth, I’m not at all easy about it. I badly want someone to talk it over with, and there’s no opinion I’d welcome more than yours. However seeing as you’re currently being lord and master of your newsstand, and I’m stuck in an uninhabited portion of a remote island, I’ll just have to make do with your charming ghost.

It’s to do with this whole affair of the priest, Ardelian, I believe I told you about him at the time. I wish you’d seen the man, what you might call forbidden fruit. Rather girlish — more Claudette Colbert than Clark Gable, if you follow me, but with an arse you’d gladly break one or two of the commandments for. 

Men with his assets ought never to be allowed to take vows if you ask me. It’s a criminal waste and an unfair temptation on the rest of us. But there I go again, you’d think I’d know better than to commit such things to pen and paper. 

He’s been staying, unaccountably, with Old Nosferatu up in his old family crypt lo these many months, and this to-do has been the result. 

I made my usual fortnightly run to the island postbox today. It was uncommonly pleasant out — clear sky, calm sea — when I arrived in the early afternoon, only a little behind schedule (though you wouldn’t have known it from the mood of all-pervading gloom I found in St Silvan’s Head.) I found myself taken aside by a woman with whom I’ve had few dealings. Rather unsociable and mysterious as a general rule, though Danny (her particular friend) is what you might call a girl after my own heart. Always good for a laugh, in any case — tells jokes so blue it’d probably set fire to this paper were I to write them.

Anyway, this woman, Sylvia, told me a tale as wild as high heaven about Lord Vane and the padre. Some young men, it seemed, and disappeared and she suspected Lord Vane of being involved. Ardelian seemed to have been mentally overpowered by the man during the months they’d been shut up alone together — so that even now it was as if he’d been hypnotized. Hopeless to try to reason with him. As she described it, the thing sounds more like black magic than mesmerism. You know how superstitious this lot can be. I’ll admit, though — if anyone was capable of such a thing, Vane would be the man. I’ll allow Vane certainly seems to have done a number on him by one means or another. 

Sylvia informed me that she and a few others had determined to go to Whithern Hall that day and confront Vane about the disappearances. But, as the padre would be certain to get in the way, she engaged me to bear him on this errand to the far side of the island and keep him there as late as possible. Then she paid me well enough not to ask further questions and the thing was done. It’s left me with a sour taste in my mouth. 

I’d have readily believed her tale of the man whom I first brought here; who had more than a touch of the doe-eyed ingenue about him. (Though I flirted all I was worth, he was as blind as a bat.) That man was just about the biggest mark I’ve ever seen. Just the sort who one would have no qualms about deceiving for his own good.

No longer, though — I don’t know what’s become of him in the meantime, but the fog has lifted. He’s even changed his frock — lost the dog collar and all. Yes; the man I set sail with today knows what’s best for himself. He’s been sharpened, Donal. Hardly a man who’d be twisted around Vane’s little finger.

Oh but the whole of the island has descended into pandaemonium since this fellow landed on yon blessed shore. Can Vane truly have gone mad and murdered those men? The longer I look it over, it seems to me, the more sinister this affair becomes. I’ve always said that whatever bad blood lay between the denizens St Silvan’s Head and Whithern Hall, I had no interest in it. Yet somehow they found a way of dragging me into that mess.

Now, I bear no particular affection for Lord Vane, as well you know. But I’ve done business for the man too often to stand idly by and let who-knows-what be done to him — and the murderous look I caught in Danny’s aspect as I left does not encourage me to believe they intend only to exchange words with the man. I feel I’ve been fed a story, and though in most cases I’d look the other way, I fear there may be blood on my hands if I let things go the way they’re headed. Much as I wish I could wash my hands of it and go, I’m already involved. I’ve got no illusions about my shortcomings, but I am no coward. 

Much though it pains me to say it — I can see only one choice left to me. Perhaps if I go fetch Ardelian now and return with him to St Silvan’s Head, it may yet not be too late to mitigate whatever damage I might have done by sticking my oar in. I’m sure a chat with him will be most enlightening.

Thank you for this heart-to-heart, Donal. Perhaps I’ll write you a proper letter tomorrow.

JOURNAL ENTRY

Undated.

A brief note en route from St Silvan’s Head to Whithern Hall —

I have spoken openly with Silas. Sylvia, it seems, had told him some unconvincing lie about Alistair manipulating me so that he would remove me as an obstacle. I cannot fault her, and it feels absurd that any part of me would feel betrayed by this. I’m not sure I wouldn’t do the same in her position.

Silas took my rather poor explanation remarkably in stride, telling me he’d seen enough strange things on Swallow’s Rest to believe just about anything. I wish I could be grateful that he is so forthright, but I am not sure my ego will survive the journey back with him.

Another man has died, and a mob is headed for Whithern Hall. It feels absurd — I am too late. With Silas’ assistance there is a small chance I may still be able to make it in time. The only thing I know is to pray, but what god is there to listen?

P.S. FROM 2024:

Hello! 👋 What you’re reading is a draft version of What Manner of Man. The order of the various entries and letters in this section has been slightly rearranged, and that final journal entry there rewritten from scratch.

(You can get the complete, edited and expanded novel DRM-free on Itch.io or at the retailer of your choice.)

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