The Countess

My first draft of my English coursework. I posted it on DA to get some (nice!) criticisms on language, literary devices etc. to add to my criticism from marking.

Some things you should probably know beforehand if you want to read it - we had to combine two already written texts (we were given a list of authors we could choose from) and transform them into another genre, audience etc. so I chose 'Porphyria's Lover' by Robert Browning and 'The Lady of the House of Love' by Angela Carter. It would probably best if you skimmed those first to fully understand the context... otherwise, just enjoy the story :)

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The man traipsed through the winter forest, wading through the thick, deep snow. A solitary bird chirped out in warning: now you are at the place of annihilation. The swallow sung out in fear, but the man could not hear him. The man heard nothing, except the last breaths of his lover – the only thing he could see were her ocean eyes smiling at him in relief and admiration before she finally fell into the darkness.

Porphyria; the woman had only one fate and it was intertwined into every fibre of her being and in every strand of her golden tress. Society saw it as callous and brutal, but he knew he gave her salvation – an escape from a life of misery. No one understood, and so he had no choice but to run. It was a convenient time to finally explore Europe, he had thought.

And now, here he was at the foothold of Death itself. He stumbled into the desolate village, thinking not of his safety from vampires, but of food, water and shelter. A fountain with a preying lion's head stood in the centre of the clearing, exuberating from the entrance of a new victim.

The man knelt beside the fountain and tried to drink the water before it froze. The snow about him melded to his shape, entangling him like vines. As he looked up towards the winter sun, he saw the silhouette of a woman coming towards him. He stood up, and inspected her as she came into view. She was old, her hair tied up neatly in a bun and she wore a dark dusty maid's uniform. She made gestures of eating food and sleeping with her hands. Finally, an angel had come to save him from his exhaustion and famine.

He followed her through a veil of plush roses, the smell so sweet it made his stomach churn. As he passed through, he saw the large castle looming over him in all its glory, leering at him and challenging him to enter its confines. Perhaps if he had his senses, he would have the wisdom to turn back.

The door to the castle was twice the size of them; it was wooden, the paint peeling and fading. The maid took the rusty metal knob and pulled the door with a tug. Their footsteps echoed in the porch, and the man shuddered. Cobwebs and old white sheets decorated the furniture, making the place feel lonely and abandoned. The man suddenly became alert, unsure of what to make of the place, but the sound of his stomach rumbling reminded him why he was there.

The maid beckoned him to an old damaged door with loose hinges, opened it and ushered him in. He stood in the doorway, clutching the bottom of his coat and wiping his cold, sweaty palms onto his trousers. A young woman in a long elegant white dress sat at her mahogany table with a deck of finely illustrated cards. Three cards were face up – La Papesse, La Mort, La Tour Abolie. The man looked at the cards perplexed, and looked back up at the Countess.  She had a defined face with large glossy eyes and thick lashes – she reminded him of his late Porphyria, though none shone as beautiful as his love – not even this maiden with rose red lips.

The Countess gestured to him to set before her. He dusted the aging chair and places his self onto the chair. The old maid entered, gliding across the floorboards soundlessly with a plate of food and a steaming cup of tea. The man's stomach rumbled once again, the sound echoing around the room – his face turning as red as the tomato on his dinner plate.

The girl opened her mouth and her words were like songs of Angels. She spoke of the weather, and her abandoned village, and small talk to fill the silences.

"Tell me, what brought you to Romania?" she asked him, not truly caring for the answer.

"Back at my home country, England, there was... talk about me. Talk that caused speculation. It became rather troublesome," he took a sip from his tea cup. The translucent skinned Countess looked at him with narrow eyes and flared nostrils.

"What kind of speculation?"

"Oh, you know how it is. Some tragedy happens and so people panic, they find someone to blame and it escalates from there. But like I said, it doesn't matter," he replied, fidgeting in his place and avoiding the Countess' gaze. She looked at his face, trying to read him, translating his body language.

A moment passed.

"Did you notice the trees talking on your journey?" she asked gazing through the window.

"Sorry?"

"The trees. They whisper. You can hear it in the wind – listen." They both paused their actions to listen to the wind.

The man chuckled, "well I think you must have very acute hearing then as I can't hear much at all!" He only paused for small moments between desperately piling the moist food into his mouth.

"They talk about things that happen in faraway lands. They talk about friends, and lovers… and killers." A fire set alight in her eyes; a burning passion for vengeance.
His eyes darted to her and quickly moved away again.

"Of course, it's all entertainment for me," she said with a small smile.

Once the Countess' visitor had finished his meal, she rose from her velvet cushioned chair and gazed at him. He looked at her with widened eyes as she gave a little smile at him. The napkin on his lap was soon lifted and folded onto the table, the sounds of his knife and fork clattering onto the empty plate. He rose too and followed her into the bedroom, thinking of his one true love, Porphyria.

As the night came to an end, the maid entered the bedroom to carry out her usual duty - bury the body in the garden and clean up the mess. The Countess sat on the edge of the bed staring at her prey, feeling truly satisfied for the first time in her life of eternity. The man had the one thing she wished for her whole life: love. And he threw it away as if it were nothing. The woman had her whole life to live, and he made the decision to cut it short. He had no place in making that decision. And for all these reasons, the Countess was happy about her revenge.

God had finally spoken.