My heart shall be the faithful compass that shall point to thee
In honor of October and queer Regency romances, I have recorded an excerpt from A Remarkable Rake, the forthcoming sequel to Jeannelle M. Ferreira's The Covert Captain (2018).
It is a version of a Bengali folktale, retold by St. Clair, the non-binary hero of the A-plot, to the children of Rose Heller, the heroine; it tells more than it says on the surface, but the children don't have to know that. My godchild beta-listened and approved.
You can listen to it here. Many thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch for his audio engineering. The transcript, i.e, the original text, is under the cut. Happy month of Halloween!
* * *
"A ghost story," said Arie, staunch even as he pressed very close to Rose. "If you know any."
They took off their coat, rolled up their sleeves to spite the cold, and ignored him. "A ghost story?" St. Clair asked Rose, lifting their eyebrows, but she only shrugged. She hadn't been so pale two days ago, in London.
By the one rushlight St. Clair managed to forget which sticks of furniture stood where, so that their coat went onto the bed, over Rose's knees. They sat on the table, one boot on the seat of the one chair, and waited long enough for two hungry, restless boys to fall silent, expectant.
"All right. I'll tell you about my dad and the ghost in his bag."
I was born, beloveds, as you were, in a city that lives and dies by its river; my mother, as yours is, was the most beautiful woman in the world. My dad was lucky, and he knew it, but you are already old enough to know luck changes. When I was your age—the middle of a hand of children—we were living no particular place, eating no particular meals.
Dad packed the rest of his luck and walked away from us, up the river road to Barrackpur Cantonment, where he knew someone who knew someone who might turn his fortunes. Night fell and he sensibly got himself up in a tree, but at the foot of the tree a Company man had been buried, in the long ago when life was short in Bengal for Englishmen. No one wrote across the sea or said the rites for him, so in Bengal he remained as a ghost.
All ghosts are hungry—your only hope is in finding where their hunger lies—and it had been ever so long a time since this particular ghost had eaten. I never knew a ghost to mind who it devoured, but Dad had excellent English manners, and a very pretty face. "Wait, if you please," he said to the ghost in front of him, in its shroud and dust and all, and it did wait.
"You may certainly not devour me. My wife, the Marchioness of the Moon, and all my children would starve. Let me see what I have in my bag. Not the moon, tonight—my wife's wearing it on her necklace—but I have all the stars in here for safe keeping."
It was only a clouded night, but ghosts forget the sun and stars, having little to do with the light.
So the ghost came close to him, shroud and dust and all, close enough to put fear into his bones, but we have always held on to our wits by our very teeth.
"Ah, I've remembered what else I have here. About . . . a hundred . . . ghosts."
He hadn't, of course, he had three of the littlest dried fish and his spare shirt and a mango, and when the ghost bent to look in his bag, Dad thought it was up with him.
But my mother, cleverer than the handful of us together and full of secrets, had dropped into Dad's bag an old silver mirror, so he might have something to show him the rest of his luck. The ghost got back its own reflection, shroud and dust and all, and it cried, "Pity!" It said, "Mercy, I'll give you anything, I daren't go in there!"
"Anything," said my dad, "then bring me a lakh of silver."
And the Englishman's ghost vanished and returned—what is time to a ghost? And brought back a rice-sack and an oil jar and a rum barrel full, over-full, of ready silver.
Dad looked at the ghost, in its shroud and dust and all, and said, "I've five children, all keen and cold and lovely as their mother. They'll want houses, weddings, elephants, sailing ships. I could do with the same again, and if not, in you get, and for ever."
No Englishman's ghost wishes to pass eternity in another Englishman's kit bag. It brought back mohurs, rupees, gold-in-eights from Spain. Dutch money, French money, reais and pennies. It might have fetched and carried all night, shroud and dust and all, but the sun rose—it does, always—and ghosts can never bear sunlight. But only the living have any use for money, and beloveds, every bit of it lay at the foot of the tree.
It is a version of a Bengali folktale, retold by St. Clair, the non-binary hero of the A-plot, to the children of Rose Heller, the heroine; it tells more than it says on the surface, but the children don't have to know that. My godchild beta-listened and approved.
You can listen to it here. Many thanks to
spatch for his audio engineering. The transcript, i.e, the original text, is under the cut. Happy month of Halloween!"A ghost story," said Arie, staunch even as he pressed very close to Rose. "If you know any."
They took off their coat, rolled up their sleeves to spite the cold, and ignored him. "A ghost story?" St. Clair asked Rose, lifting their eyebrows, but she only shrugged. She hadn't been so pale two days ago, in London.
By the one rushlight St. Clair managed to forget which sticks of furniture stood where, so that their coat went onto the bed, over Rose's knees. They sat on the table, one boot on the seat of the one chair, and waited long enough for two hungry, restless boys to fall silent, expectant.
"All right. I'll tell you about my dad and the ghost in his bag."
I was born, beloveds, as you were, in a city that lives and dies by its river; my mother, as yours is, was the most beautiful woman in the world. My dad was lucky, and he knew it, but you are already old enough to know luck changes. When I was your age—the middle of a hand of children—we were living no particular place, eating no particular meals.
Dad packed the rest of his luck and walked away from us, up the river road to Barrackpur Cantonment, where he knew someone who knew someone who might turn his fortunes. Night fell and he sensibly got himself up in a tree, but at the foot of the tree a Company man had been buried, in the long ago when life was short in Bengal for Englishmen. No one wrote across the sea or said the rites for him, so in Bengal he remained as a ghost.
All ghosts are hungry—your only hope is in finding where their hunger lies—and it had been ever so long a time since this particular ghost had eaten. I never knew a ghost to mind who it devoured, but Dad had excellent English manners, and a very pretty face. "Wait, if you please," he said to the ghost in front of him, in its shroud and dust and all, and it did wait.
"You may certainly not devour me. My wife, the Marchioness of the Moon, and all my children would starve. Let me see what I have in my bag. Not the moon, tonight—my wife's wearing it on her necklace—but I have all the stars in here for safe keeping."
It was only a clouded night, but ghosts forget the sun and stars, having little to do with the light.
So the ghost came close to him, shroud and dust and all, close enough to put fear into his bones, but we have always held on to our wits by our very teeth.
"Ah, I've remembered what else I have here. About . . . a hundred . . . ghosts."
He hadn't, of course, he had three of the littlest dried fish and his spare shirt and a mango, and when the ghost bent to look in his bag, Dad thought it was up with him.
But my mother, cleverer than the handful of us together and full of secrets, had dropped into Dad's bag an old silver mirror, so he might have something to show him the rest of his luck. The ghost got back its own reflection, shroud and dust and all, and it cried, "Pity!" It said, "Mercy, I'll give you anything, I daren't go in there!"
"Anything," said my dad, "then bring me a lakh of silver."
And the Englishman's ghost vanished and returned—what is time to a ghost? And brought back a rice-sack and an oil jar and a rum barrel full, over-full, of ready silver.
Dad looked at the ghost, in its shroud and dust and all, and said, "I've five children, all keen and cold and lovely as their mother. They'll want houses, weddings, elephants, sailing ships. I could do with the same again, and if not, in you get, and for ever."
No Englishman's ghost wishes to pass eternity in another Englishman's kit bag. It brought back mohurs, rupees, gold-in-eights from Spain. Dutch money, French money, reais and pennies. It might have fetched and carried all night, shroud and dust and all, but the sun rose—it does, always—and ghosts can never bear sunlight. But only the living have any use for money, and beloveds, every bit of it lay at the foot of the tree.