The Macabre Tales of Young Edgar

'Now, Edgar,' said the old Lord, kindly but gravely. 'Please tell me where you got this, and I promise I shall not be upset with you.'

Edmund held the note between trembling fingers. As he did so, his eyes stared into it, tracing the long loops and dangerously sloping letters in ink so glossy that it seemed forever wet, but his mind was a million miles away. On one level, however, he remained conscious of the scrawled handwriting. It looked as though a spider had been harnessed to a quill and let loose on the paper. Edgar's penmanship was always so much more exaggerated when he was writing a dream. It was much more feverish, and less refined, than the practiced flicks and swishes he had executed when they had been exchanging letters.

Yet, this was not a note which had come from a dream. It had been copied -it must have been- from the desk in Lord Edmund's office, where all the Lord's own poetry was deposited, and where Edgar was instructed to leave his nightly works.

Did this then mean that Edgar's earlier, more flourished, handwriting had simply been the rehearsal of a devious pen? Had it all been a facade, a deliberate ploy to flatter and charm him, Lord Edmund, so that he would offer to bring the boy here to live in relative luxury? Was the theft of the note also a part of that ploy? Were all of Edgar's visions fabricated? Was this a trap?

He felt blood flush into his neck and cheeks. The sensation was of a numbing heat, as though from alcohol. Only, it was not drink that drove him to be so surly. It was anger.

'Tell me the truth!' he demanded, adding it effortlessly to his last sentence. Though it seemed like minutes since he had been engulfed by thought, very little time must have passed.

'You took a note from my desk, didn't you? You found it on the night you left me the first half of your story, and you decided to copy it down, for a trick. Doubtless, you already had the second half planned out on that night, for when I inevitably pressured you into staying. you think you are so much cleverer than me. You are clever, too. Yes, clever- but also insolent! You only want to trick me so that you can inherit my fortune. Oh, woe is poor Lord Vile! You only want to take advantage of an old man's-'

As quickly as it had come, he felt his colour drain. His chin shook, and his top lip, with his bristling moustache, quivered, halted in mid-sentence. He had just remembered something else, something unsettling...

'No,' he whispered. 'But, you c-can't have done. I d-didn't leave the poem in my desk that night. I had it in my p-pocket.' His frightened hand scampered up the front of his jacket to its safe inside, where the paper had previously been tucked, as though it were a mouse whose home was there. 'You can't have seen the poem,' he reiterated, 'because it was with me the whole time.'

'Exactly,' said Edgar, sighing again.

This time, however, he did not make any fuss about having been mistrusted. He was simply tired, and fed up, and he wanted to get to the bottom of things. He also suspected, though he was aware of his paranoia, that Lord Edmund knew something he didn't.

'Well, this is quite extraordinary!' Lord Edmund proclaimed, mopping at the sweat that had beaded around his pinkish face. He was still thinking of the original poem, and where it was now. He had only locked it inside his desk drawer after he and Edgar had rowed, when he had been sure that the boy would not be impressed with his efforts. He had thought himself a fool.

Even now, he cringed. He had not written poetry for years, having given up on his meagre talents in his thirties to become a patron of the arts. Was he only doing it now to impress, or to imitate, Edgar? How like a youth he was, in all the worst ways!

'This is most extraordinary indeed!' he muttered again, in order to cover his train of thought.

'So, what does it mean?' Edgar pressed.

There was a childish eagerness and optimism in the young man's eyes, so that he looked momentarily like a small boy trapped inside a gaunt, adult body. He was a child monster. Lord Edmund missed it, however, and so his heart did not skip any more beats. He continued to stare alternately into space and his handkerchief.

'I think you will find, young Edgar,' he said solemnly, 'that there is rather more to your visions than either of us could conceive of.'

How much more there was, indeed! thought Edmund, privately. This was all happening more quickly than he had anticipated.

'So, what do we do?' Edgar asked, more anxious than hopeful now.

'There is only one thing we can do, my boy,' said Lord Edmund. 'We will continue with our, er, arrangement, the fruits of which I shall observe more closely than ever. Now, we must, ah, wait to see what will reveal itself. Yes, that must be the way of things, unless I am much mistaken. You write, and we wait.'