To Paige
The Beginning of the End
In the silent deep of an autumn night, Cecil entered the little lord’s bedroom. Not a light was lit, and the room made concert with the gloom, taking on the eeriest of aspects and birthing in the young rabbit the most fantastic and terrible of visions.
The little lord was asleep, and, from the wrap of blankets in which cocooned he lay, there flowed a stream of what we shall call “snores”—though the cherubic tricklings of the little lord’s larynx, we must admit, were rather soft for snores.
It may seem mysterious then that with every faint sigh that from our slumbering seraph slipped, his rabbit spy shivered and quaked as if before him there lay not a nine-year-old boy, hardly meatier than a whippet, but a foul and evil behemoth that if awaked would waste not a second before devouring him whole.
But let’s go back…
The Beginning of the Beginning
“Percival Emmet Fitz II” or “Percy” or “the little lord” or “that overgrown corgi”—depending on who you asked—was debating in his small round head whether to pick his nose or that of his terrier, Samson. The resulting prize the boy had made up his mind to eat, and not out of perversity of taste—for he was no more than other boys his age enamoured of snot of any origin—but, rather, out of spite. His aim was to avenge himself on Dame Fitz, who had for the second time this week (and it was only Tuesday) denied him an extra sugar cube in his tea.
“I shan’t drink it,” he had told the Dame as Samson nipped playfully at his knees.
“It is all very well whether you drink it or not, Percy, for if not, you will surely drink something else when you are thirsty enough, but you will not have another sugar cube, regardless.”
Percy, disarmed by this sparse but eminently logical reply, had at first only sulked, but then added slyly, “Please do give me a moment to consider whether to drink it or not, Madame. I would like to please you.”
The Dame had looked at him sceptically before departing with an “I’ll be back”, leaving the tea tray before the diminutive child, with the kettle, empty teacup, and single sugar cube arranged neatly thereon.
That configuration, pretty as it was, held now in the young boy’s mind a searing significance it had in its domestic banality no reasonable right to.
“I will have my second sugar cube”, the little lord muttered and with a vicious jerk grabbed Samson by the collar and shoved his index finger into the dog’s left nostril. Samson let out a piercing yelp but had not the power to escape his tormentor, who did not let go of the collar until after an excruciating interval he had removed his finger and satisfied himself it was well enough coated in mucous for the next stage of his plan.
The yelp did not go unnoticed and, presently, Dame Fitz marched back into the room.
“What on earth?!”
Percy stood defiant, holding up like a sacred totem his wildly glistening digit.
“If you will not permit me my second sugar cube”, he said in his tiny yet commanding voice, “I shall lick from this mucous coated finger I have just removed from the nostril of our inglorious mongrel every last trace of mongrel snot on it!”
(This was unfair not only as an unreasonable ultimatum but also as a slur on poor Samson, who, despite his rather pathetic circumstances, was a purebred of impeccable lineage and by now had surely suffered enough.)
The Dame’s reserve was severely tested and, had not her spirit been chained firmly to the ladylike manner befitting her standing, our story might have taken a very unfortunate turn for the imp in her charge. As it was—with Herculean restraint—she merely plucked the child up by the wrists and, making sure to keep the offending finger separated from the offensive mouth, carried all to the bathroom where a vigorous handwashing was promptly enforced.
The little lord, oblivious to his aunt’s leniency, screamed and protested through the whole affair with cries of “villain!”, “murder!”, and “en garde!”, which led the Dame merely to suspect the lad had suffered excessive exposure to “The Three Musketeers” pamphlets that lay scattered about his room.
But, in Percy’s mind, a monstrous indignity was being heaped upon an unforgivable denial, and it was clear to him even in the midst of his hysterics—the effectiveness of which by no means matched their intensity—that this meant war.
§
Cecil, on his way to a very important meeting, pushed his large ears down under an even larger hat—which he found ridiculous, but at least less ridiculous than his ears. Of course, being a learned soul, he knew the appendages in question were perfectly appropriate for a rabbit and that his angst stemmed from an arbitrary self-construct of the type expounded upon by Francis Fallon in one of his most treasured books, “Furry Faces, Bare Minds’. Sadly, his learning had fallen flat and he could find no way to allay his discomfort with the floppy feelers other than to give in to his lower nature and obscure them for the sake of his imminent interlocutor—who was to be… none other than the little lord.
Percy had entreated Cecil through a rabbit intermediary who knew more of his fellows than the little lord would ever take the time to discover. And though this rabbit was unfamiliar enough and the little lord’s intentions murky enough that Cecil had considered refusing the request, anxiety had given way to curiosity and he had acquiesced.
It was arranged the two would meet at Pransil Park in Yorkton, a town Cecil had little occasion or desire to visit but which was, all things considered, an apt enough location. It was just a short hop from Cecil’s home in Rumbleton—Yorkton’s more rabbity twin—and if this all turned out to be a prank, he would suffer little inconvenience from it.
Cecil had told no one of the meeting, not so much from fear of humiliation, but of a vulgar response from his peers: “Take him for his dirty lucre,” they would say; “Do nothing on the cheap”; and worst of all in its sheer implausibility, “We’ll be right behind you”.
Cecil, you see, was hardly fonder of his own brethren than those of the little lord’s. Whatever had separated their species, whether it be their disparate physical features or emotional temperaments or something wholly illusory (for neither their features nor temperaments were so dissimilar as to deny either a claim to soulhood), whatever the difference was or from wherever it sprang, it united them only in mutual distrust and degraded them in base competition.
And though Cecil, being a highly ethical fellow, would wish away all such unfortunate contingencies had he the power, he knew well such a wish was but a fantasy and it would take more than his sensitive nature to strip either species of the indelible marks of their nature and the multitude of misgivings that sprang therefrom.
§
Our rabbit arrived punctually at the park but did not expect the little lord to be on time—for such was not the habit of the aristocracy thereabouts. And so when he saw on the bench where the rendezvous was to take place, a short and slight figure dressed in top hat, tails, and silver-buckled boots, he quite convinced himself that it was by strange coincidence someone else entirely.
But it was the little lord, who had not arrived early from any impulse of charity, but, rather, an urge for expedient revenge. He had hardly slept the night before, had risen at six, and only having been ceded such an unusual helping of time, had hastened his trip, ensuring that, uncharacteristic of his type, he would wait rather than be waited on.
Any sense of relief on Cecil’s part when he realized he was indeed faced not with a doppelganger but the true object of his liaison was dispelled by the little lord’s first words, which, rather than form a friendly greeting, made instead the rude command: “Come and sit!”
Cecil, resisting the immediate urge to flee at a boldness so alien to his senses—for rabbits rarely gave each other orders (simply knowing what to do and when to do it)—did just as the boy directed, and this perhaps was his first great error, though it was certainly not his last.
§
To one of the wood pigeons perched on the higher branches of the old yew that overhung the bench on which our players sat, the two would appear inconspicuous, unless either disclosed some manner of tasty treat to fire a bird’s appetite. And banal they would appear too—had it eyes to observe them—to the park itself, a generous sprawl of over a hundred acres that at no point strayed from being an exemplar of kempt nature, wound as it was by paths and streams that plotted ponds round dimples of hillocks and meadows; coloured as it was by nests of flower beds and motley trundling carts; and planted as it was by rows of majestic trees, like the yew that now gracefully shaded Cecil and the little lord. Swans and ducks paraded its waters, happy dogs chased balls across its lawns, and children flew kites over the town museum, which centered the whole pattern and all its parts. And so, accidentally yet perfectly harmonised, the park made deserved its reputation in recreational spaces as not only the pride of Yorkton but of the county too. The wood pigeons, were they souled like rabbits or people, would surely agree, but not being so made them no less integral to the place’s charm. And, in keeping with the poetry of their nature, they stared down at our two little characters and cooed.
It is at this juncture we must depart from happy description, for no happiness outside ideal is without imperfection, and the beauty of the park—as close to perfection as it was—could not conceal the sore ulcer that the meeting of Cecil and the little lord was fast becoming.
“If I may beseech you, rabbit (Percy seemed unaware or unconcerned that “rabbit” was neither a title nor a name), my aunt—and I dare to speak frankly with note of your hesitancy—is a deeply evil woman and being now informed of this, I ask only that you heed your obligation as a fellow soul to help me to purify her spirit, not only to allay future crimes by this bounteous villain, but to save her soul and mine too—for being under her control and of a tender and impressionable nature such as to which we children are condemned, it is inevitable that if her desperate course is not soon diverted, mine own must soon follow.”
Cecil, while realizing the logical power of this mazy argument, could not suppress an instinct that screamed danger, and, had he been any other rabbit of a less rational mind, would not have been able to resist the natural outcome of such an impulse and run away. Yet, unable to find flaw in the little lord’s reasoning, he stayed himself, and so the other worked on him a dark magic that first captured his intellect and then his emotions, all with the intention of enslaving his soul.
“The beatings you see,” the little lord continued, “I cannot stand them any longer. I would rather sacrifice all dignity and principle, for at least then I might live, rather than to go on this way and to be nothing but an object of depravity—to court, indeed, oblivion. And who next when she’s finished with me? Oh, dear rabbit, let me stir your conscience, which I believe is of the purist stuff and fully synchronous with your unique intelligence, the very qualities that prompted me to engage you, and only you, in the pursuit of this sacred mission.”
The little lord had by now completely forgotten Cecil’s name and though having anticipated the problem and scrawled “Ceccel” on a piece of half-torn sweet paper he had then lodged in his back pocket—was loath to retrieve the note and risk breaking the flow of his rhetoric. In fact, his speech— adapted from a biography of the scheming French diplomat Talleyrand he had procured from Fitz Mansion’s library—was weaving almost as great a spell over him as it was over our rabbit, so much so that he felt the beginnings of tears welling in his eyes (and a few he might even have squeezed out for his bunny victim had not his delight at their potential dried up their source).
“But what can I do?” Cecil stammered helplessly.
“That shall be arranged anon,” said Percy, sensing a victory he ought to grasp. “For now, promise me only this: that you will help and you will not forget. And for my part, I promise you that I will ask of you nothing that would transgress a happy and just outcome for all.”
Cecil, exhaustedly, assented.
§
The little lord stood before his looking glass, regaling his fine form. And it was not an arrogant waif wearing oversize breeches and an absurdly fancy hat that he saw (such as a less biased observer might report) but an elegant Napoleon set for conquest. He noted with pride the pink blush of his cheeks and the nonchalant toss of his hair while ignoring his grubby face and uncombed locks; he smiled at the sheen of his white pants and the cut of his tails rather than note both were in dire need of an ironing; and he bathed in the commanding glory of the whole effect, not admitting of the possibility there may be nothing more staring back at him than a snot-faced little rascal in want of a hiding.
Presently, he spoke, still looking in the mirror.
“It was but a trifle to lead the rabbit this far up the path. The simple carrot of rhetoric he consumed as it consumed him. But what when our darker thoughts we reveal to acquit our purpose? Will not then the ethical foolery we have fed him make him vomit at our deeper cause? Will not…”
He paused and looked distractedly to his dresser on which several books lay. He had extended his research on the ways of villainy to readings of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Shakespeare, but his powers of concentration were waning, and he was still at a loss as to how he could fully transform this principled animal into his evil pawn.
And then a thought.
“The dish need not be eaten at once, but a bite at a time, and this patsy’s soul will we so corrupt, morsel by morsel, that not until he has lost it all will he know we have made a meal of him.”
He paused again. He could no longer tell his own ideas from those of his books, and yet such confusion was overcome by a renewed confidence that he could fully mould the rabbit (as he still thought of him, having now lost the mangled sweet paper on which he had scribbled Cecil’s name) and rid himself once and for all of the tyrannical Dame.
“And on that day”, he announced with finality, “I shall have four sugar cubes in my tea even if it makes me sick.”
He smiled then with a childish glee, looking for all the world the innocent boy he perhaps once was but never again would be.
§
Cecil—who was feeling rather uncomfortable with the affair but was certainly not expecting to have his soul or any other part of him eaten, least of all by a nine-year-old boy—lay on his bed reading Schiller.
“We have been brought to the idea of such a correlation between the two impulsions that the action of the one establishes and limits at the same time the action of the other, and that each of them, taken in isolation, does arrive at its highest manifestation just because the other is active.”
Cecil nodded sagely and put the book down. His philosophical readings had certainly made him more erudite, and though they were not the sole source of his moral leanings—for he had been a caring soul since he was a kit—they emboldened his sense of justice and helped him feel less alone in his ethical uprightness. Cecil was a rabbit you could trust and he was proud of this fact. Unfortunately, Cecil was a rabbit anyone could trust and therein lay the danger.
It was not from the goodness of the world, we note, that Cecil had yet to be harshly punished for his naivety, for Rabbiton was no better or worse a place in the moral purity of its denizens than anywhere else. Life was but the usual chaotic mixture of charity and malice, truth and mendacity, and gentleness and cruelty that one should expect, and only that fate had sheltered Cecil from the worse of these antipodes and warmed him in the buxom of the best, he might have been altogether a less vulnerable soul.
As it was, it was only a mild intuition of danger that now discomfited him, and, every time it returned, he read or thought it away—Schiller this, Kant that, Spinoza, the other. The thoughts of the great thinkers elevated or, perhaps, haunted his mind, and there was little room for anything else. So, he read and mused and occasionally worried but within a day or two had almost forgotten the little lord.
Then came the letter.
But before we reveal its contents, let us pay a short visit to the dining room of Fitz Mansion where the little lord had the evening before sat down for supper with Dame Fitz.
§
“Madam”, the little lord said as he stared dolefully at a string bean.
“Yes, Percy” replied Dame Fitz, hardly concealing her dismay at having to converse with the figurine at the other end of the almost endless dining table.
“I have made a friend.”
“You have made a friend?” The Dame looked at him quizzically.
“I have made a friend of a rabbit.”
The Dame frowned. “I suspect this is one of your jokes, Percy. You have never before spoken of rabbits except to inquire as to whether it is legal to hunt them. And the answer, as you know, is that it is not, for they are souled as we are.”
“It is not a joke, madam”, said Percy, a little more impatiently than he intended. “I have befriended a rabbit and I request to be allowed to bring him here to meet you.”
The Dame, despite herself, remained expressionless.
“And what, pray, is the fellow’s name?”
Percy’s first inclination was to blurt “Bedamned if I know his name! He is but a rabbit!”, but aware that his natural insolence might sink his careful plans, he instead counted to five before retrieving a more suitable reply.
“It is odd, madam. Though I several times beseeched him, he would not—through shyness, I suppose—reveal it to me. And respectful of his feelings, I did not insist to know it.”
“And when would you fetch the anonymous lagomorph hither?”
“I should—if I have your leave, Aunt—dispatch him a letter of invitation to visit Friday.”
“You have my leave, Percy, provided you eat the remains of your supper and refrain from disposing of any more string beans into your pants’ pockets. You will be the death of the maid and of me too.”
If only you knew, thought Percy.
§
And so, the letter.
“Dear rabbit,” it began, unpromisingly.
“It is not from impatience but sheer urgency I write to you. The Dame has become most frightening in recent days such that I fear not only for my life but for the very soundness of her mind. And if it be not for my life—which in truth I now hold in such little standing that I would sell it for a fig—then at least to save the esteemed Dame from herself, I beg you to honour our contract and meet me at the gates of Fitz Mansion at midday, tomorrow. More I cannot now say as I must quickly hide myself lest when you come, you find here not a handsome young lord but his lifeless remains.
Your most elegant acquaintance,
Lord Fitz”
The odd mixture of inconsideration, humility, and vanity passed straight over Cecil’s head as his thoughts fully engaged with his horrid dilemma. He did not wish—to put it mildly—to visit Fitz Mansion under these (or most any) circumstances, but nor could he disjoin himself from the obligation to do so. As a rather feeble compromise, he crumpled up the letter and threw it in his wastebasket while at the same time resolving to honour his promise. He glanced then forlornly at the Schiller book lying on his bed as if begging for an answer to his predicament that from it could never come.
Nor could it come from his little room, as neat and cozy as any a young rabbit’s around—lined as it was with orderly shelves of books, furnished with a sturdy desk, and decorated with self-drawn portraits of his philosophical heroes. Not from there nor from anywhere in the tidy little town house in which he lived; nor from the two hard-working parents who resided there with him; nor from the busy street outside his window; nor from any rabbit denizen thereon—whose more parochial concerns and routines Cecil for once envied; nor from the quiet cosmos of Rabbiton as a whole; nor, in truth, from any village nor town nor city outside. It could not come from anywhere it seemed because it was not anywhere. That is, it was not anywhere or it was everywhere, but in either or both cases, Cecil, for all his learning, could not grasp it.
§
“If it be a joke”, Dame Fitz muttered to herself, “I shall not indulge him in his mockery, but if it be true then maybe a friend, rabbit or no, will do him good, though I cannot imagine him doing good for a friend.”
Dame Fitz ceased muttering then, but the pleasant hope that this rabbit might be an entertainment for the little lord that would keep him from her presence and perhaps mollify his tendency to tantrum, just the faint possibility that this friend, if he really was so, might help the boy—bluntly—to grow up, held sway in her mind and lightened her step as she proceeded to the maid’s quarters to inform her that there would be an extra seat at luncheon the following afternoon.
§
Before we proceed to that meal, dear reader—and at the risk of making a meal of our tale—allow me to furnish you with a little more clarity on the world of rabbits and humans in which our players live, for though it is very like our world, it is for all its likeness very unlike it too and this conundrum I elucidate thus:
That rabbits and humans are here souled you must by now know. And by this we mean to say not only that both can speak and understand, and be happy and sad, and feel pleasure and pain, but that both also, in being conscious beings, are of equal dignity and worth of species regardless of the moral worth of any individual one of them, which—as in our world—varies widely. Of course, this leaves open as many questions as it answers. For example, are only rabbits and humans souled, and, if so, why? To that, let me say only that in the world of our tale, yes, only rabbits and humans have souls, but why no other creature extant is so blessed should be considered no more a mystery than why in our world we claim exclusive right to such a blessing.
It is worth adding that the rabbits of this story, though certainly known as rabbits both to themselves and everyone else, do differ in some important ways from the rabbits of our world. They are considerably larger, for example, and more dextrous of paw, and walk upright as we do. They wear clothes—as I’m sure you have gathered—and form communities and societies just like our own. As for the details of their temperaments, they are not so different that we need be too explicit here—that is, they are not so different than culture as we understand it can explain, or has been above explained, or the tale as it unfolds will, to the careful attendant, in due time reveal.
And so to that tale, let us return.
§
We cannot blame the weather for Cecil’s increasing disquiet as he approached Fitz Mansion, for—though it was a grey and windy day and gusts danced wildly around him so that he had to keep one paw firmly clasped to his hat lest it be whisked up into the elms that lined his way—it was not so very grey nor so very windy as to worry a rabbit. Neither was it the majesty of the looming mansion nor any fearful omen of his fate therein that disturbed his mind. Rather, it was a strange detail of the path he traversed, or—to be precise—of the series of stone statuettes of nymphs and cupids that ran along its sides—to wit: they had no faces. It was not that their faces looked damaged or worn so as to distort their features, but that there were no features at all, only smooth blank stone such as one might find on a river bank or near the sea so that—on looking for some hint of emotion or expression—one stared only into a void.
And because, as one approached, their little bodies revealed all the other details one might expect, this blind spot of character imparted the eeriest of impressions. Upon meeting the first few of these stony ghosts, Cecil merely shuddered and hurried on, but, then, in sight of the great gates of Fitz Mansion, he stopped in front of one of the odd relics and—as if not truly believing his eyes—reached out to touch it.
“Stop!”
The voice came not from the statue, but, it seemed, from one of the lurching elms.
You may have heard the expression “A rabbit caught in the headlights” and have you, you would likely apply it to Cecil right now, for on hearing the voice, he froze. But what you may not know about rabbits caught in headlights is that they are not, despite appearances, simply dumbfounded or shocked, but rather in a state of heightened concentration. Of course, rabbits in our world, when faced with situations they were not evolved to deal with and do not understand, may not have time to make use of such a state. But Cecil was in this respect altogether better off: his eyes darted about the scene, his nose twitched excitedly, and only his ears, constrained under his floppy hat, failed to reach their full rabbity potential.
“Turn yourself around, dear Rabbit, and hop right back to where you came from.”, the voice continued.
Cecil remained still.
“You see, Rabbit…”
At that moment, there was a godawful creak, and Cecil looked up the path to see the huge gates of Fitz Mansion swing open, and he heard then the familiar voice of the little lord cry: “Here! Come here!”
With hardly another thought, he bounded on.
(Afterwards, Cecil would claim he had had another thought, though not of the wordy type. He described it as more of a pull—as if some invisible hand had grabbed him and tugged backwards in a final, but vain, attempt to stall him. And, further, he claimed he had wanted to heed the pull, along with the voice that had preceded it—that he had not wanted to go forward at all, but that his body had obeyed not him but an alien desire that seemed to carry him beyond himself to the gates and to the shocking destiny that lay within.)
§
The little lord suffered from none of Cecil’s dissonance, for he had a plan, and, he thought, a very good one. In the wee hours of the night before, he had written it down, and it proceeded—with a mixture of incongruent logic, dubious justification, and sheer megalomania—thus:
- The Dame must “disappear”, and, as she deserves to be in prison for her vile acts, I will imprison her myself.
- She must be imprisoned somewhere where she will not be found.
- I will put her in the cellar which contains nothing but rats and my dead uncle’s wines.
- I ought not feed her—it would be too dangerous. Let her eat the rats and drink the wine (ha!).
- The rabbit will do my dirty work. I shall direct operations.
- The rabbit should disappear too, for there should be no witnesses.
- With both of them gone, any suspicion of foul play will surely fall on the rabbit.
- No doubt the authorities will furnish me with a new guardian.
- By then, I will have eaten so many sugar cubes, I probably shan’t even care.
- As I grow older and continue my readings, my powers shall expand beyond limit and no one will be able to constrain me.
§
“You see, rabbit” the little lord was saying as they walked towards the mansion, “she is a sick woman and will never get help on her own. And though she has done me the most devilish of harms, inflicted on me the cruelest of tortures, and—all in all—made of me the pitiful object of her sadism, I sense still that, beneath her brutality, there beats a gentle heart worth saving. And, therefore, though it may briefly injure the natural order, we are obligated, in deference to a higher calling, to sequester the good Dame so that we may then hand over to the charitable authorities of the state all responsibility for her care and ask nothing for ourselves but the pleasure of observing her kindly rehabilitation.”
Cecil was about to reply, but the little lord ignored him and continued.
“But, I beg you, note her at table. She is a canny woman and covetous of her reputation, even among rabbits. Do not be disarmed by that thin film of charm that coats, like a sickly mucous, the monstrous substance of her being and makes nebulous her intent. I inform you frankly—not to frighten you but to steel you against her subterfuge—that she once spoke to me of her desire to boil rabbits and eat them, an act of malice only denied her by the firm hand of the law. And yet I have seen her sit and entertain the mayor of Rumbleton (who she would as soon see in a stew as guest at her table) and smile and coo at him as if he were the very mirror of her love. So, be not beguiled, rabbit, and note her at table! Behind her subtle mask, note the flared nostrils, the shrunken pupils, the thinned lips, and all obscured aspects of her visage. Note them screaming hate and death and remain, despite her dark arts, fixed on our joint intent.”
Again, Cecil was about to reply, but a bell rang out and the little lord shouted, “The lunch bell! Let us run, rabbit, run!”
And they ran through the wide doors of Fitz Mansion, which swallowed them whole.
§
The Dame smiled sweetly. “Welcome, welcome. It’s wonderful that Percy has found a friend at last. I had almost despaired of him ever having one. Now, do tell us your name, little fellow.”
“I’m Cecil”, our rabbit said warily.
“A fine name for a rabbit. Or anyone. Ha! Well, please sit down, Cecil, next to Percy here, who I see has already taken table.” (She shot the boy a displeased look, for it was bad manners to sit before a guest. Percy merely ignored her).
“Oh, and let me take your hat and coat, lad”.
Cecil reluctantly parted with both and sat. Dame Fitz passed the clothes to the maid—a cautious looking rabbit, who had just appeared—and then sat herself down.
Cecil had hardly had a moment to think before arriving. He knew only he was in the presence of evil. He could feel it, an evil that his reason—pummeled and shaped by the little lord’s rhetoric—attributed solely to Dame Fitz, but that his spirit sensed elsewhere. He was in a state of gross confusion. By every ethical standard— utilitarian, deontological, consequential—the lord’s cause seemed just and the arguments for it indefeasible, and this just cause and all its justifications whirled around in his head like the leaves that whirled in the wind outside. Surely, he should help? But what was he to do? He was but a twelve-year-old rabbit and though a hardy enough specimen, hardly a match for the handsome Dame—who was twice his height if she was an inch. Did the little lord expect him to pick her up, put her in a wardrobe, and lock the door until the police arrived? Absurd. The more Cecil thought about it, the less clear it all became. It mattered not, after all, how transparent the ends were if the means remained obscure.
As if looking for an answer, Cecil peered about the room. It was all very impressive. As large, if not larger, than the floor of his entire home and curtained, draped, and chandeliered in the most elegant style. On the walls, in neat rows, hung portraits of nobles equipped with dogs, horses, whips, and other imposing accoutrements—the paintings mounted in curling carves of wood hewn to a perfection duplicated in the chairs and table at which he sat. And there his place was neatly set before him, furnished with several utensils of a type he had never before seen, which formed—along with three plates, a bowl, and two types of glass—a striking geometrical pattern as unperturbable as it was inscrutable. Very impressive, our rabbit thought, a little dubiously, and did not expect the food to taste any better for all that.
His musings were interrupted when, from under the table, the little lord shoved into his paw a scrap of paper. Cecil inferred it contained a message, and when an opportune moment arrived, he glanced at it. Cellar, play along, it said. He looked at Percy, who, seeing his memo had been relayed, turned to the Dame.
“Dear aunt, my friend Chester here…”
“Cecil”, Cecil interrupted mildly.
“Indeed”, the little lord continued, unperturbed, “my goodly friend, Cedric, has expressed to me an interest in seeing my late uncle’s famous wines. It is, in fact, a common oddity amongst rabbits, Aunt, that—though they do not themselves drink—alcoholic beverages of all sorts fascinate them. Is this not true, rabbit?”
Cecil gritted his incisors and nodded.
“Percy”, the Dame interjected, “let me first remind you that your friend’s name, as he has informed us both, is “Cecil”, and I am sure it would be more convivial if you addressed him so rather than with the myriad of alternatives your fancy has allowed you.”
Percy did not look at all grateful for the notice.
“Secondly, your late uncle’s wine collection is in the cellar, a dark and inhospitable place that we have not had the occasion to visit for years, and I frankly do not dare imagine its current state. I would certainly not want to inflict it on our guest, who I’m sure will find the gardens much more pleasant to explore. Besides which, there is wine in the kitchen. And I will be happy to have Amelia fetch him a bottle of Chateau Du Tong to examine should it give him pleasure.”
The little lord, confident in his scheme, was wholly unprepared for this answer.
“Shall we not proceed to the cellar, aunt?” he said weakly. “It would surely… “
“We shall not, Percy.” replied his aunt, cutting him off.
Percy’s inner world roiled and screamed, and it was all he could do to stop himself shouting “You wicked harpy! Get you to the cellar now!”, for he was more and more apt to imagine himself—especially now that he had Cecil in his charge—as the great marshall not just of his own life but of everyone else’s too. But instead, he merely sat and chewed his beans, ignoring both Dame Fitz and Cecil and pondering his next move.
“Well, Percy”, his aunt addressed him at last, “let us go to the garden. I’m sure Cecil would like to see the pond.”
Percy, still deep in thought, suddenly shouted “I’ve got it!” startling both Cecil and his aunt in equal measure.
“You have got what, Percy?”, the Dame managed after a moment.
The boy, realising his faux pas, quickly recovered. “Only a wonderful idea for how we can amuse ourselves in the garden, dear Aunt.”
§
“I told you. Did I not tell you, rabbit? Oh, horrid witch. How she cast her spell! Did you mark the sneer as she said your name, the black glint in her eye. Did you mark it?”
Cecil had to admit he had not marked anything of the sort.
“She seemed like a nice lady.”
“Oh, Neville!”
“Cecil.”
“Indeed, yes. Forgive me, rabbit. My mind is fraught with the machinations of this wily medusa. She is becoming ever subtler and more dangerous. I fear your kind anchor should be lifted by her charm and you become unmoored from our noble harbour and lost to her seas. As for me, I expect I will end up in the cellar with the rats. No doubt she would like to feed me to them. I can see it in her eyes. Is all lost? Is all lost? Oh, I despair!”
“Well…” Cecil started, about to suggest that the little lord might be overdoing it.
But the boy anticipated him. “Well? Well? You will leave me to her, won’t you? I can sense it. Oh, cruel and empty world where friendship expires in trickery and lies! If I cannot trust our bond, I may as well be fed to the rats, for my soul will be consumed in hopelessness! Oh, loneliness, oh, misery… oh…”
The little lord paused here, having run out of quotes from his books, and decided what he really ought to do was to cry. And so, with great effort, he placed his hands over his face and imagined the most horrific eventuality he could conjure—a world entirely absent of sugar cubes. Within moments, he was relieved to note that tears were streaming down his face. He removed his hands and presented the wet mess to Cecil.
“I will honour my promise,” Cecil sighed after a moment. “But what shall be done?”
The little lord—still traumatised by his sugar-cubeless dystopia—took a moment to retrieve from memory his new plan.
§
As Cecil stood by the cellar door, he paused, wondering how it had come to this. A vision of the faceless statues returned to him, and he heard again the voice, and all melded with a feeling that his brain, despite all its reasonings, had, somewhere along the line, erred terribly in delivering him here.
“And so,” the little lord was saying, “I will tell the Dame that despite her injunction, you convinced me to take you to see the wines and that down you went, wanting only a harmless peek, but then, having reached the bottom of the stairs, relented, and, panicking that you might be discovered on your exit, begged me to fetch her to convey your apology and gain her forgiveness before you would dare emerge. Having heard this tale, she will surely come, and when she does, and I open again the cellar door, merely feign to faint, and she will be compelled to attend to you. Then rise and run, rabbit, up the stairs and out, and your part in the whole affair will be concluded. I ask of you no more than this. You have my oath. And I would not ask were I not sure that both our lives—for we are now together in her charge— depend on it.”
Cecil was by no means convinced anyone’s life depended on it. But—in light of a utilitarian calculus—he could not avoid the conclusion that even a tiny risk that something awful would happen to them should be worth a short stay in the cellar for Dame Fitz. And, as soon as he departed, his obligation fulfilled, he would bound home, and, leaving all else to the authorities, would never darken the doors of Fitz Mansion again. So he reasoned and he could not for the life of him come up with a compelling counter—though every cell in his body still rebelled at the idea of going on.
“Please, rabbit, please”, Percy—faced with Cecil’s mental squirmings—entreated. “You promised”.
Cecil, as a last resort, tried to remember exactly what he had promised and any loophole therein that might free him from his bind, but he could think of none and so, slowly, and with the greatest reluctance, he turned and crossed the threshold into the cellar.
“Good, dear rabbit, good,’’ Percy fawned after him. “And do not forget to faint when I return and open the door!”
Cecil looked back as if to say something, but the little lord closed the cellar door and left him in darkness.
§
The doors of the drawing room burst open, and in ran Percy.
Dame Fitz jumped up from her piano, but before she could utter a word of rebuke, the boy shouted, in apparent panic, “Aunt, Aunt! Help, Aunt! Help!’’
With some suspicion that the little lord’s scene, for all its extremity, was yet another ruse to extract from her a sugar cube, she inquired.
“What is it, Percy?”
“It’s Chester. He has…”
“You mean, Cecil. Oh, Percy…”
‘’Yes, yes, the rabbit. Excuse me, aunt! I am distraught!’’
‘’Well, what is it with the fellow?’’
‘’Oh, he has fallen! He has fallen!’’
‘’Fallen where?”
“I am afraid to say it. “
“Spit it out, Percy!”
“He has fallen down the cellar stairs, Aunt!”
“The cellar?”
“Oh, Aunt, forgive me. He insisted with such force that I bring him there, I could not refuse. Please give me your pardon that I granted him his wish to visit the place. I fear I have killed him, for in his enthusiasm to see the wines, he ran when he should have walked, tripped on a stair, and fell harshly on the cellar floor where he lay then unmoving. Oh, oh, have I killed my dearest friend, rabbit? Is it my fault, Aunt?”
“Oh, stop it, Percy. Let us go and see.“
Percy ran back to the cellar with Dame Fitz following closely.
§
Cecil stood forlornly in the dark, mulling over and over to himself the lord’s instructions: “Door opens, faint, Dame comes, run out.” It was as if he hoped the mantra would dispel the growing feeling of disquiet that threatened to distract him from his purpose. But, after a few repetitions, the words failed, the feelings intensified, and frightening visions took over. He saw again the faceless statues, heard again the warning voice, and soon a nightmare even more terrible enveloped him, for then formed—before him in the darkness—an apparition of his very self! There were his legs, his arms, his torso, his ears… But one thing was missing, a lacuna that lent the specter its singular horror, and what was missing was his face. And so a mirror of his body floated before him, but every feature and character of his visage was smoothed into nothingness, and he stared—just as he did when he stared into the statues’ faces—into a void, only this time—he realized in sheer panic—the void was his very soul!
It was at that moment the cellar door opened. The apparition disappeared, and Cecil, looking up, saw the little lord staring down at him in feverish anticipation.
Percy’s words came to Cecil: “Door opens, faint, door opens, faint”. But he did not move, and—quite unexpectedly—another word, one he was, of late, wholly unaccustomed to, burst forth from the very core of his being, loudly, clearly, and unequivocally:
“No!”
Percy’s eyes widened as Cecil stood there, perfectly erect, staring him down. The boy could see his plan fading away forever, a mountain of sugar cubes melting and flowing into a sweet sea, the delights of which he would be eternally denied.
Dame Fitz turned to Percy to speak, and as she did so the boy sensed in her an imbalance. In a desperate move, he threw his whole body at hers, and, though he was slight, he caught her off guard, and she slipped sideways into the cellar and fell heavily down the stairs.
Percy quickly recomposed, slammed shut the cellar door, took from his pocket the key, and locked the rabbit and the Dame in with glee.
§
The look of pleasure on the little lord’s face as his aunt tumbled helplessly down the cellar steps Cecil would never forget, and he knew then for sure, though he did not know the full extent of it, that he had been tricked. And yet he was relieved. Though physically confined and in the greatest fix of his life, he felt freer of mind and conscience than ever.
§
The little lord sat in the kitchen on his third cup of sugar-laden tea, giggling and congratulating himself. It was only when Amelia, the maid, arrived and, seeing him with his unusually sweet condiment, asked with concern, “Where is Madame, Lord Fitz? Have you seen her?” that Percy realized that the Dame and Cecil had not quite disappeared. That is, they may have disappeared from view, but they still inhabited the mind not only of the maid, but of their respective webs of family and acquaintance, which stretched across the land and would no doubt deploy the full force and intelligence of the law to find their missing kin. So, it was not at all so simple as the little lord had first imagined. Even the most incompetent of investigators would eventually discover the two menaces in the cellar and he would be condemned.
But there was no going back. There was no denying the violence of that push nor the Dame knowledge of everything he had told the rabbit. And, unless by some blessed twist of fate, his aunt’s fall had killed her or knocked her so senseless she could no longer speak or understand, she would undoubtedly come to realize—and impart to anyone who would listen—his evil intent.
And so, even in his glucose induced stupor, Percy realized he could not remain passive, but ought expedite an end that could no longer be left to nature. A myriad of modes of dispatching his two nemeses flitted through his mind: Shotguns, bombs, poisons, shocks, drownings etc. But of no method could he make a sensible plan until he lit on an idea that glowed and grew in his mind: Fire!
Amelia stood awaiting an answer as these machinations roiled the little lord and he silently mouthed his fantasies.
“Lord Fitz?”
“I have not seen her”, the boy mumbled absently and returned to his musings.
§
Cecil made a pillow of his overshirt and gently rested the Dame’s head thereon. Though she was still unconscious, he could not discern any injury dreadful enough to threaten her life and expected she would in time come to. He thought sadly that, when she did, she would open her eyes in vain, for there was not a chink of light to be had except the minutest speck that made, through the keyhole of the cellar door, a faint star in an ink black firmament. But that bare illumination, though poor fuel for human vision, was sufficient flint for a rabbit’s. And so, when late that night Dame Fitz awoke, he was well familiarised with his surroundings.
“Ooooooh, ooooh, my head,” the Dame moaned.
“Ooooh, where am I? I cannot see! Am I blinded?”
“Rest, rest, Dame Fitz. You have taken a fall in the cellar and it’s very dark.”
“Taken a fall? No, wait. I remember. Percy! Damned little beast! He pushed me!”
“Us both”, said Cecil meditatively. “But we must push on. We’re locked in here. Do you know a way out?
“Pushed and locked in? Oh, beast. He has gone mad. It’s the books. He’s been in our library, you know. And the sugar cubes. Books and sugar cubes. Oh, sour ideas and sweet tea! He has gone mad. The little beast!”
The Dame took again to moaning.
Cecil looked around. Against one wall, rows of sturdy wine barrels were stacked. On another, shelves bedecked with fat cobwebbed bottles were lined. Bottles and barrels and barrels and bottles and little else save for a few spindly spiders and their buzzing prey. But then, from atop a barrel, there was a little thump, and a plump rat stood there sniffing the air, before scuttling down and across the floor in front of our two captives.
“Oh, bloody rats”, lamented the Dame, “rats, rats, everywhere.”
Then there was another little thump and another rat atop the same barrel. Cecil walked towards it and looked up to the corner of the wall above. There he saw a vent with a hole chewed through its mesh that lent the rodents passage.
“Dame Fitz, where does that vent lead?”
“What vent?”
Realizing the Dame couldn’t see, he described it.
“I daresay it leads outside, Cecil. Whence come the rats, who would not dare traverse any other part of the house, for Samson would rip them to pieces.”
“I have an idea, Dame. Are you well enough to stand and take me on your shoulders?”
“I’m sure I can stand and carry you well enough, Cecil, if you’ll guide me.”
“I will.”
The Dame stood, steadied herself, and then knelt so Cecil could climb upon her shoulders.
There mounted, he directed the lady to the corner and, reaching out, he grabbed the torn mesh, and, with a sharp jerk, pulled it from the wall. The wiry mass burst from the crumbling concrete and, through the open vent, Cecil smelled faintly but distinctly the night air.
“It leads outside, Dame Fitz, and I think I am fit to crawl through it.”
“Oh, Cecil. Are you sure?”
“Sure enough to try.”
§
For the life of him, the little lord could not find a book on arson in the library. The nearest he got were a few volumes on the Great Fire of London, which he found amusing, but altogether unilluminating.
“I need instructions, not a bloody adventure story,” he complained. “Pah! Books, you’ll burn with the rest of them. I’ve had enough of you, too. It is not words but actions that move the world, so books be damned! I’ll move the world without you!”
It was rather an odd perspective from a lad whose speeches and deeds were almost entirely pilfered from literature, and who would likely have done no more than sulk about sugar cubes if he hadn’t been eminently corrupted by the villainous characters that marauded through the tomes of Fitz Mansion library. But his faith in himself had now grown out of all proportion, and where others would see only a cheeky counterfeit, he saw another Nero, a Bismarck, a Stalin. The short of it was he had got so big for his boots that anything or anyone big enough to fit him back in again was likely too to utterly destroy him. Still, he was beyond sensing any danger in his self-appraisals and convinced himself it was hardly more than a trifle to raze the entirety of Fitz Mansion to the ground and to get away with it too.
“I have more than enough relatives left to take me, all rich and well-stocked with sugar cubes. I fancy they shall feel so sorry for me in my destitution, I shall never drink a bitter tea again. And all for a few matches and some kindling. My worries are much ado about nothing. I will do the deed in the dead of night and my bonfire will mark an early dawn for Yorkton!”
§
Cecil, being a rabbit, was fortunate to share his kin’s lack of claustrophobia. His instinctual memory of tunneling through the depths of the earth’s womb made scrambling through the space into which the Dame had now hoisted him seem entirely familiar. What was less fortunate was his fear of rats. Rabbits are—contrary to popular opinion—not only not rodents, but hardly closer to that order in the taxonomy of life than humans are, and they share humans’ distaste for those maligned creatures. Cecil’s aversion, as it happened, verged on musophobia, and, as he pushed himself further into the tiny passage—which gave him the barest room to maneuver, he suffered the terrifying prospect of facing a rat coming the other way and of knowing that neither could go on without one turning back. He prayed the journey would be swift enough to avoid that ordeal, but, hardly a few metres into the cramped tunnel, he heard, echoing down its length, the tiny patter of scurrying feet, and he braced himself for an unpleasant encounter.
Sure enough, around the bend there rushed a rat, who was evidently as rattled to see Cecil as Cecil was to see it. It stopped immediately, raised one paw in the air, sniffed, and then crouched down on its haunches as if forming a spring to uncoil directly into our hero’s face. Cecil had a horrid vision of the rat launching itself at him and eating right through him and out the other side, but he realised that he must counter his feelings and not show fear. And—as he knew of no other way to assuage his fear than to talk—he did so, even in full knowledge that rats were not souled and his adversary would not understand a word. He began in a voice that first quivered but then steadied and echoed commandingly through the tunnel.
“Dear Rat, we find ourselves in each other’s path, and, it seems, if we insist both on advancing, one must slay the other to go on. I am not of the persuasion today to either slay a rat or be slayed by one, but neither, due to my bulk, can I sensibly retreat. So, either you, having the easier path, turn back and return to this tunnel only when I depart —which, I assure you, I presently will—or we must fight to the death. So, allow me to entreat you as a fellow creature to adopt the former path for both our sakes and for the sake of reason. As Thomas Paine once said, and the great W.E.B Du Bois echoed… “
At this point, the rat moved and Cecil stopped. The beast seemed to be oscillating between two entirely contrary instincts leading to two entirely different worlds. Then one instinct won over, one world evaporated, and it turned and scurried away.
Cecil, utterly relieved, pushed on.
§
“A single death is a tragedy”, mused the little lord as he dressed for bed, “two is but a statistic… Besides, she is old and he is a rabbit. Dash! It doesn’t matter a jot. It’s me or them! A treacherous rabbit and a stingy old madame vs the ubermensch! I have the glory of a life of mastery and command before me. They are but flotsam and jetsam on life’s waves. For the world to lose me would be the only tragedy.”
He paused and then to some imaginary oppressor hissed, “And, no, I shall not wash my teeth. Teeth, be dammed!”
Then, satisfied, he whispered musically:
“Last night in a Fitz Mansion bed,
Now do I rest my weary head,
Let me sleep deep before the pell mell,
They will be dead and I will be well!”
He yawned, set his alarm for four, and then retired, smiling cherubically as if nothing but the sweetest fancies graced his little mind.
§
It was only a few minutes after Cecil’s encounter with the rat that he reached the end of the tunnel and, emerging as he had anticipated into the gardens, perked himself up and sprinted for the path.
He ran swiftly through a darkness that seemed like light under the freeing lead of the moon and the orchestra of stars that flared in its sway. On he ran with the speed of hope and determination; on through Fitz Mansion’s gates and under the overarching elms; on through the rows of faceless statues that still haunted his thoughts; on he ran and ran, and then, as he reached the very tree from where he had heard the mysterious voice that had bade him—it seemed eons ago—to turn and flee Fitz Mansion, he heard again the very same voice and the very same words too.
“Turn around, dear Rabbit, and hop right back to where you came from!”
Cecil stopped dead.
The voice repeated, “Turn around, dear Rabbit, and hop right back to where you came from!”
Cecil’s mind whirled in the most horrid of confusions. Back again? To the mansion!? He felt now as the rat must have felt in the tunnel when faced with its fateful decision. The world split itself in two before him and all that he had to make his choice were words that though—unlike a rat—he could fully understand, he could make no sense of.
But I am almost away. Freedom beckons! The gates are behind me! The dawn is about to break! Go back? Why? Why…?
He raged against the thought of turning. But had he not disobeyed the voice before and had not disaster ensued? It was a voice beyond reason and sense. And neither reasoning against sense nor sensing against reason could help him. He trusted it or not. He looked in desperation to the mutilated statues about him, and, as he stared into the empty face of one of the disfigured cherubs, an apparition once more manifested, and across the stony blank—that empty void where a face should be—features began to furnish—a face! And not just any face, but his very own! And, when into that ghostly mirror he stared, he knew for sure he was looking into his very soul, and his soul looked back at him and said “Time!”
Time! Of course! He had to save the Dame himself before it was too late! So he turned and bounded back towards the mansion, as on the breeze came a final counsel, so faint he could hardly distinguish it from the wind.
“Look in his britches for the key!”
§
Amelia, the maid, stepped from behind the elm and watched as our rabbit disappeared into Fitz Mansion.
“Be safe, Cecil”, she said.
§
As the Dame paces nervously in the cellar and Amelia hurries back to the mansion, we return by commodius vicus of recirculation to Cecil, who, as I’m sure you remember, is entering the bedroom of the little lord as the boy snores his tiny snores. And we need say no more about the gloomy room and its ominous portent other than that all seems suddenly darker and eerier in this last hour before the dawn.
Cecil, who had opened the door without a creak, stole light-footed towards the little lord’s bed, over the end of which his britches hung. There, peaking out from a pocket, was the bow of the cellar key. Cecil reached nimbly for it. But then, the clock struck four and the little lord’s alarm rang, and up the boy sprang, opened his eyes, and said with frightening lucidity.
“Hello, Cecil… Hah, I remembered! Shan’t you congratulate me? Ah well, no need. For I will soon forget you—as will everyone else when you are gone.” Percy sighed happily before continuing, “You see, you are not so special, rabbit. And despite your fairy tales, your philosophy, and every blind striving of your rabbit brain, you will always lose. And so, I have no compunction in revealing to you that I will soon burn Fitz Mansion to the ground and you and the Dame with it… Well, look at you, frozen there. You could have fled this place, but from the fact you haven’t and have instead come to my room and hold now the key to the cellar—my key to the cellar—I deduce that, though you managed to escape, my aunt remains imprisoned. Ha! It is not for nothing, rabbit, that I have read the books of the great detectives— though all those will burn too, the books, the mansion… and you. Because I don’t need any of you any more! And now a puzzle, rabbit : can you figure where you have gone wrong in your contest with me? … No? Well, let me add some fuel to your reckonings: I have set a fuse that runs from its end in this room to a pile of gasoline-soaked rags outside the cellar door you are apt to run to, and I have in my hand a match with which to light that fuse, and if you believe you can outrun its progress from here to there, I invite you to try… But, pray tell, can you still not glean, rabbit, why you can never be my equal? … Pah! I shall tell you before I bring all to a conclusion… It is because you cling to a soul that weighs you down and will ultimately smother you, while I have set mine free and fly!”
At this, Percy grabbed from beneath his bed a rapier and lunged recklessly at Cecil.
“En garde!”
Cecil dodged the thrust, but, in doing so, allowed the little lord to maneuver him away from the door—the only exit—and into a corner.
“En garde!”
The boy hemmed Cecil in further, and, while our rabbit held the key to his chest, Percy made to deliver his final thrust. Cecil raised the key in front of him in a desperate act of defiance.
The little lord paused, knowing he had won, but greedy for an even greater victory.
“Repent your stupidity, rabbit. Swear yourself to my side and I will let you live.”
“No!” Cecil shouted.
“Swear!”
“Never!”
“Swear!”
“No!”
“Then die!”
The little lord drew his rapier back and lunged.
And he lunged with all his might and pitilessness and straight for Cecil’s heart. But though he lunged, the rapier did not lunge with him, for some force had stayed its pommel and the lord’s hand slipped from the guard, and the boy, rather than deliver the final cut, fell in a heap on his nemesis. So stripped, Percy turned, and saw the sword held firmly in the grip of another, also a rabbit: The maid, Amelia.
“Maid!” he screamed.
“It’s Amelia! And note me, Percy, for I am in charge now. Move one muscle and you will forfeit the only thing that matters to you more than sugar cubes—your life!”
Though Percy’s inner agony was apparent in every muscle of his face, he remained otherwise still, and only his eyes writhed terribly like those of a cornered rat.
§
After the authorities had escorted the little lord to a new habitation that was, sadly for him, unlikely to be replete with endless cups of sweet tea, Amelia, Cecil, and Dame Fitz gathered in the drawing room.
“Amelia and Cecil”, the Dame said gently, “I am indebted to you both—though I do not know how to make recompense. Percy was under my care, and so the stain of his behaviour mars me too.”
“You weren’t to know, Dame Fitz”, said Cecil.
“Please, call me Paige. I have always loved my name and never wanted to be a Dame—Fitz or otherwise. Besides, we should not stand on ceremony now.”
The two rabbits assented, and Paige kindly offered to them, and to anyone else they wished, free passage, at their pleasure, around Fitz Mansion and its grounds.
“Soon, I will open it to all,” said Paige. “For what is beauty, if it is not shared?”
“What indeed”, said Amelia, taking Cecil’s hand.
“What indeed”, our rabbit replied, smiling at her his widest rabbity smile.
The End