BALDER'S BANEby A.A. McBraid
Macready Mills was well in the black, and Hugh Macready's Christmas party was as much a celebration of that as of the season. Friends, business associates, and a host of attachments to both came to celebrate with him.
No one more than Hugh himself enjoyed this opportunity to make merry; he delighted in the excellent repast, the sparkling company, the wine that poured as if from Bacchus' own inexhaustible skin, that made him sing boisterously at the piano, and laugh all the harder at the jokes of others, and at his own, too. He was successful, in the prime of life, and unmarried, by choice and with the common knowledge of all that he preferred his women in multitudes, and had no need to engage only one for the sake of propriety.
So his married and less-prosperous male companions were doubly envious; their wives, naturally, tried to make their husbands see reason, and were openly disdainful of Hugh's dissipation. "He's not happy," they said, "he's delirious. He doesn't know what's good for him." To which their spouses could only nod and agree, whatever their private feelings on the matter may have been.
They watched Hugh catch the arms of girl after girl and coax them each under the mistletoe, then turned away with a wry smile and a shake of the head, a response both honest and safe should they be observed. The luckier of them had no cause for regrets; they gave or received similar invitations of their own with wives or sweethearts, and appreciated them fully as much.
A gentleman was there, and addressed Hugh while he refreshed his glass at the punchbowl. "Mighty good spread you've furnished, Macready," he said. "Your mills must be doing solid business."
"They are," Hugh answered. He waved and winked at a passing ingenue whose acquaintance he had just made earlier that evening. "I opened three new ones this year."
The gentleman was aware of this fact. "Imagine it helps make up for the collapse of that one in Everett last year-- it was about this same time, wasn't it?"
Hugh's face darkened, but only for a moment. "Yes. That was an awful tragedy." Words came to him that he had spoken before. "Just before the holidays, too, a very sad thing. We made what reparations we could to the families. Still it was an enormous loss. These things happen, however." He said this looking the gentleman straight in the eye, challenging him to make more of it. The gentleman only filled his own glass. "All those women," he mused. "You use a lot of women, do you?"
"They seem to have more experience with the sewing machines," Hugh countered, his voice flat. "I can't recall very many men applying for the position in any case." He appeared to consider saying more, but excused himself instead and joined a knot of people over by the window.
Carolers in the street regaled them. Hugh sent his butler down with money to give them for their performance. They gestured in happy acknowledgement up at Hugh, and launched into a rousing chorus of "Silent Night" that seemed to belie the words. Hugh turned to see the lady smiling at him, and offered her a ride home later if she required it. She did not, but indicated that she might at another time.
The factory at Everett had been one of the first Macready had built, back when his business was just getting off the ground. He had cut corners and used inferior materials to save money, and it had caved in one day last December, killing most of the crew inside. The money he'd thought he'd saved went to hush the whole thing up, and he had to hire more workers, more women, build new plants. But business was good. It all worked out. Time and ready cash soon superceded the worst recall, and the unfortunate event passed from substance to history with the briskness of a dream.
Macready missed some of them. His was still very much a local franchise; inevitable that most of the unmarried women in the area (and some of the married ones) would come and work for him. He thought of their delicate hands, soon roughened by the thread, their calm, serious faces at the machines. He thought of how they looked in love, limbs bright as ivory, eyes full of promise. Unbidden, the image arose of how they looked crushed and broken under brick and beam, pulp where he once caressed firm flesh and violet eye a-dangle. It repulsed him less than it made him wonder.
A game of Rumors was started up; the players sat around the table. A phrase was selected and written down, then whispered in the ear of one's neighbor, who then whispered it in turn to the next person, and so on around the table until the beginning was again reached, where the result was compared to the original. The meanings suffered horribly, which of course was the whole point, and the source of much amusement; "Four horses to a coach" became something unbelievably coarse with only a few passes, and completely unintelligible by the end. Other phrases fared no better. Truth is fragile in a single ear; in several it is rarely met again, it has so many to please. Hugh heard their mirth, and sat in for a round. When the girl whispered in his ear what she thought was the message she had been told, he blanched and left the game abruptly. The puzzled girl had to repeat it to the next person down.
Later, someone slipped a blindfold over his eyes. Hugh flailed about him bravely at first, confident he would catch one of the laughing feminine voices he fancied were on all sides-- but he had to give up this game, too, chagrined and pale with illogical fright. He had blundered into the tree and sent ornaments splattering to the floor, unable to extricate himself from the impression of many harsh, misshapen arms reaching out to enfold him. His friends sat him in a chair and got him another drink, and told him to relax and watch for awhile; he was in his own house and could do what he liked, of course, but he was beginning to startle people, and might for the party's sake try and be a bit more behaved.
After the guests had gone, Hugh lingered in the drawing room over his brandy. Outside he could hear the carols: "Deck The Halls," "O Come All Ye Faithful," "Good King Wenceslas" and the rest, filtering through the casement like memories, and over a like distance. Faces in the fire rose up to smile at him before disappearing up the flue. He lifted a glass to them. "I was as good to you as any," he declaimed. The drink stung his eyes to tears, and he rose and went through the room, muttering. "It's done, and has been, but I still remember. Not a few but would remember too, if they were here to speak of it."
He heard "Jeanette, Isabella" sounding from the street below. It made other names come to the fore, names which he pronounced with a fondness, each one conjuring up a reflection that acquiesced to his thought. The light in his eyes was in full blaze now, and seemed to dance around the room.
They found Hugh in his bed the next morning, dead. His eyes stared at nothing, as though nothing were as horrible a sight as any human could be forced to bear. The young doctor who was sent for did not bother to close them, but drew the sheet up over the corpse's head and hurriedly left the room. Hugh's eyes were not what made him quail in his profession; the doctor had seen death looking at him many times. It was Hugh's mouth that defeated his manner: bloodless, fishbelly-white, the lips as shriveled as fingers too long in bathwater. They gaped slackly around the teeth in the vacant face, while, above it, hung in the quilt of the canopy over Hugh Macready's bed, dozens of sprigs of green leaves drooped mournfully around clusters of pearl-colored berries.
The End