The May Wolf (Part IV)

The May Wolf (Part I)

The May Wolf (Part II)

The May Wolf (Part III)

The story so far… A talented young engineer, who goes by the name of James Grindy, has constructed a roller coaster in the rural heartland of Victorian England. He calls it The Gravitus, though it is better known as The May Wolf, on account of the howling sound that the cars make as they go around the track.

Women are forbidden from riding The Gravitus, owing to concerns that the violent physical forces at work will permanently upset their delicate sensibilities, and leave them in an immodest state of semi-undress.

In protest, a mysterious author, who writes under the pseudonym May Wolf, has started publishing a series of racy novels, in which women who have risen to senior positions of responsibility within English society engage in torrid affairs.

With the encouragement of Lady Margaret Luscombe, a small group of women have decided to ride The Gravitus in secret…

“It is far taller than I imagined,” murmured a subdued Florence Mowday.

The doubtful tone in her voice echoed the gathering uncertainty of her companions.

Across a dewy off-cut of pasture, an intricately structured heap of wooden scaffolding lifted the track of the Gravitus into a towering, steep-sided hump, that resembled the skeletal cross-section of a hill. The blinding glare of the morning sun filtered through the orderly but confusing lattice, where it was doused by a thick layer of grey dew that coated the grass.

“You wait until you get up there and find that you can see clear over the English Channel to France,” warned Ann Beare.

“How do we get onboard?” enquired Wendy Skilton.

“This is the middle section,” explained Lady Margaret Luscombe. “It goes around that way. The beginning is in a shed on the other side of those trees.”

“Should we risk cutting across the field?” asked Florence.

“I think that we will exercise caution and go along by the trees,” said Edith Daubney.

The station was housed inside a long wooden shed. Where the track entered and exited, at either end, the planking had been cut to form a pair of almost circular archways, giving the impression of a railway tunnel. The women climbed a broad flight of three wooden steps. At the top, Lady Margaret slid back the bolt fastening a small pair of barnyard doors. Inside it was very much like a miniature railway platform. A loose thread of track trailed off from the mainline, into a truncated siding. The May Wolf was pulled up at the stop. It consisted of three open-topped carriages. The foremost car had been modified so that the bodywork tapered downward at the front. A succession of barred apparatus, padded with cushions, were raised above each of the double seats.

“What on earth does this do?” said Wendy. She moved one of the bar contraptions up and down.

“It keeps you from falling out when the cars are in motion,” said Lady Margaret. “The padding is there to protect your head.”

Alongside her, Edith bent over to examine the stitching in one of the cushions. Pinching a seam between her fingers, she tutted loudly.

“Whoever sewed this needs a good dressing down,” she said.

“Can Mr Grindy sew?” enquired Wendy.

“Evidently he can, just barely. We must hope that his abilities as an engineer are greatly superior to his talents with a needle and thread.”

“Well, our husbands are all still alive,” said Wendy, brightly.

“Don't we need people to push the car to get it going?” said Florence.

“Not any more. Grindy's altered the design,” said Lady Margaret. “When everybody is settled, all it will take is for whoever is riding at the front to pull on the lever next to the platform. That sets everything in motion.”

“Very well then,” said Edith. “Who among us is brave enough to lead the way?”

Ann climbed into the back of the last car. She pulled the bar down, framing her head between the purple velveteen of the headrest.

“I suppose that it should be me,” said Lady Margaret. “After all I am the one who suggested it.”

They each climbed into a seat.

“Everybody pull your bars down,” called Edith.

“I can't get mine to go back up again,” panicked Wendy.

“It is all according to design,” said Lady Margaret. “The mechanism will disengage after the ride is over.”

The pillows pressed firmly against her ears. She found it impossible to turn her head away from the wooden tunnel entrance – a thick-rimmed, horseshoe of pure darkness, framing a circle of grass that was flattened along the bottom.

“I am pulling the lever now,” she announced.

Unsighted, her hand searched the area to her left until her fingers made contact with the handle. She drew it back with satisfying ease. From somewhere underneath the carriage there was a heavy clunk, that was followed by the sound a sturdy chain feeding through a mechanism.

The car jolted lightly, then began to judder along the track, passing through the flimsy tunnel entrance and into the open air. Her head vibrated against the cushions. Behind her she could hear somebody's muffled commentary, but couldn't make out the words. It was becoming a source of frustration that she could only see straight ahead and not what was on either side.

The track ahead was a solid metal ladder, striped along the centre by a chain that was held flat inside a narrow rectangular housing. It was drawing them up the side of a low hummock. Towards the summit, the rail was joined on either side by a pair of narrow wooden walkways that had been layered into shallow stairs and bordered by single-barred wooden fences.

A small bend in the track had moved her face into the path of the sun. She closed her eyes and felt its warmth against her lids. The smell of warm grass lingered in her nostrils. The sound of the chain in the mechanism reminded her of a performance by cavorting African drummers, that she had seen at the Princess Theatre in London; the taut clank transformed by her imagination into a scrambled tribal rhythm that seemed, in its haste, to struggle to find purchase. It was underpinned the dull background throb of the car against the leaves of the walkway, elevated in her consciousness to a rumble of distant jungle drums.

The warmth of the sun faded as the car began to slow. There was a cry from behind her, followed by some muffled words. She opened her eyes. They were nearing the brow of the dell, where she had tobogganed as a child. Ahead, on the right, part of the fence rail had been replaced by a surviving section of the charred banister from Pemberton Hall. In the distance, she could make out the blackened ruin of the mansion, along with the other stately homes nearby – Fallows Hall, Butterfield Hall, Rogbourne. The full extent of her small world was laid out before her, with more lying undiscovered beyond the horizon. She felt, rising inside of her, a potent swell of unfocused anger.

The chain was holding the car pointing slightly downhill, facing onto an almost vertical drop. A moment later she both heard and felt a catch release. The car plummeted towards the ground that rushed to meet them. A drawn-out lupine howl filled the air around her, drowning her screams, along with those of her companions. She thought for a moment that she heard one of the riders answer it in kind. The frenzied tribal drums rattled incessantly in the background.

They had levelled out now. Fields flashed past; on one side, a blanched track; a small group of sheep grazing beside a fence; ahead, a ragged thicket of trees framing darkness like a gnawed tunnel entrance. The track seemed to warp as they entered, listing first to the left and then violently to the right. The cushions pummelled her ears. Inside the copse, the trees seemed more evenly-spaced. The rail twisted and turned between the trunks.

The track levelled again as they emerged, before lumping into a row of five or six small hillocks that were lined up, one after the other, like the humps of a sea serpent. Ahead of them was the scaffold of a hill been where they had walked earlier.

She heard a muffled voice cry: “Oh, thank God,” followed by some more words that she could not make out. The car slowed as the chain drew them up the slope and around a graceful bend at a stately hearse-like pace.

Above the treetops she could see the patchwork meadows. The paddock adjacent to the old church had turned bright green under the sunlight. Its dowdy neighbour was a dull ochre, spotted here and there with the white dots of sheep.

The rapid ticking of the chain ceased as the car came to a momentary standstill, pointing steeply downhill, towards the seemingly impenetrable tree canopy.

“This is where the men discard their hats,” she called.

The end of her sentence was torn from her mouth as they plunged towards the dark leafy void. Over the mixed screams of the passengers, the cars howled like a chorus of wolves and were answered by the bestial howl of one of the women on board.

In the corner of her eye, she saw a bonnet take flight like an exotic bird, the loose ties dangling like trailing plumage. Then they were in the wood. The track twisted as if it was about to turn them over. Her teeth clenched as a bank of red soil blurred past a few feet from her face. The glare that filled the gaps in the branches ahead vanished abruptly as they were plunged into another descent.

The track began to arc upward like a ladder to heaven, at first bending back on itself, then almost straightening. Through the gaps in the spine of the rail overhead she could see the ground, where the sky should have been. Then she was racing towards it and carried breathlessly out of the wood and along a bed of smooth stones.

On her left, a horse, drawing a hooded trap along a dirt lane, skittered on the sun-baked earth as the howling cars hastened past. The lane acquired a stripe of green grass down the centre as it arced to the left and disappeared into the trees. They thundered underneath a brick arch that she recognised as Hobb Bridge. Many decades before, the river had been diverted a quarter of a mile to the west by her father, for the purposes of irrigation. The track pitched to the right clinging to the contours of a small earth mound. She felt the air current from a low branch against her forehead as if it was a physical contact.

They shot into the tar-black void of a brick culvert; the track bending; an arcing needle of light reflecting off the rail, heralding the sudden sun-glare of the tunnel mouth and a return to daylight.

Ahead, she could see the wooden tunnel entrance to the shed.

The car began to slow until it had lost all of its natural momentum and was being drawn underneath the wooden eaves of the station by the tribal rhythms of the chain. It came to a standstill alongside the platform. A few seconds later that was dull click and she felt the safety bar release. She worked her head out from between the pillows and rose unsteadily to her feet. Further along the platform her companions were doing likewise.

“Goodness me,” said Florence, somewhat louder than was necessary. “I can scarcely believe Ethna rode on that by herself.”

“I feel like my ears have been boxed,” reported Edith, equally loudly.

“Oh of course she didn't,” scoffed Ann.

“I think I am going to be sick,” announced Wendy, curtly.

“Don't you dare be sick and prove those men right,” lectured Ann.

Wendy pressed her lips tightly together. Her watery blue eyes stared plaintively into the middle distance.

Lady Margaret walked to the far end of the platform, which doubled as Grindy's workshop. Her legs moved strangely under her, as if she had recently disembarked from a ship, following a long sea voyage. She leaned against a brick pillar that divided the plank wall of the shed. As she fixed her long red hair, she caught sight of her reflection in miniature, caught on the surface film of a pair of Grindy's spectacles. She picked them up and studied them.

“That loop,” said Wendy, her voice quavering.

“I think that we should all go outside into the fresh air and take a few moments to gather ourselves,” counselled Edith.

“I lost my bonnet,” said Florence. “Did anyone she where it went?”

“Buckinghamshire, I think,” said Lady Margaret. She watched the double-image of her moving lips in the round lenses.

“Is that what brushed against my face?” said Ann. “I thought it was a pigeon.”

They followed Edith into the meadow where they reclined among the daisies.

Lady Margaret rolled onto her back. She held Grindy's spectacles high in the air above her head with the lenses pointing towards her. As she idly moved them through the magnified heavens, she felt the intensified heat of the sun projecting invisibly through the thin panes of glass and onto her bare skin

“It feels strange to stare up at the sky and find it in the right position.” mused Florence.

Wendy had wandered away from the rest of the group and disappeared among the trees.

“Well, we've done it,” said Ann. “What now? Do we tell our husbands the good news?”

“Charles Rockhill paid a visit to our home, almost a week ago,” said Lady Margaret, sleepily.

She angled Grindy's spectacles so that they beamed a corridor of warmth onto her left breast.

“He believes the engineering principles that inform The Gravitus will eventually lead to some more practical purpose – in war, or industry. What if the outcome of Grindy's toy railway is not a piece of machinery, but an idea? Each of us have been told that we could not safely ride on The May Wolf – that doing so would rend the clothing from our bodies, upset our delicate female sensibilities, and drive us all mad. With the exception of Florence's bonnet we have proven that this is not the case. I say that upon this foundation of self-discovery, that is based on deeds, not words, we build our movement.”

“Here, here,” said Edith.

“There is another thing,” said Lady Margaret. “When a new building can stand without assistance, the scaffolding around it is pulled down.”

Florence raised herself up on one elbow.

“Good luck with that,” she yawned.

Her fingers idly combed a dense patch of clover in search of one with four leaves.

Wendy emerged from the trees looking pale and drawn.

“I'm sorry. I tried, but I couldn't keep it in,” she said.

“It okay, dear,” consoled Edith. “I think we are all feeling the after effects.”

Wendy nodded weakly. As she began to lower herself to the ground, an expression of alarm flooded her face.

“I'm not finished,” she said, hitching her skirts and running back the way she had come.

Wearily, Ann rose to her feet and followed her into the trees.

Lady Margaret rolled over onto her side, pressing one ear against the cool, waxy grass. On the far side of the meadow, next to the station, there was a mature beech tree that she hadn't noticed before. The trunk had divided in two, just above the root. One division leaned in the direction of the shed. She stood up and walked towards it, moving through a patch of leaden shadow. The smooth, weathered bark was mottled with what appeared to be the impressions of red lips, as if the tree had been repeatedly kissed. She removed Grindy's spectacles from a pocket in her skirts and set them down in a V-shaped crook between two sturdy branches, where they faced the wooden wall of the shed a few inches away. She moved her hand up and down in front of the lenses feeling the unfocused heat of the sun through the glass.

They walked back through the dappled woodland, in high spirits.

“I feel so much better now,” chirped Wendy.

“Good for you,” said Edith.

“Look, there's a top hat,” exclaimed Florence, pointing towards a dark object that was lying at the foot of a tree.

“It must be Mr Mileman's. He was complaining that he lost one,” said Lady Margaret.

Something compelled her to walk over to it. The hat was lying on its side. The brim was slightly bent out of shape, but it was in otherwise good condition. She raised her foot, then slowly brought it down, driving the heel of her shoe into the stovepipe crown, the fabric tearing as it crumpled.

Wendy let out a surprised gasp.

“I don't think that was at all called for,” said Florence, when Lady Margaret returned.

“I expect to see it mounted on the wall with the other trophies, the next time I visit,” quipped Ann.

“We shall say no more about it,” ruled Edith.

The Gravitus is on fire,” said Henry Rowan

Lady Margaret closed the book on her lap. Rising from her chair, she went to the window. There was a blue-grey haze clouding the distant treeline, as if someone had lit a bonfire.

I am going to see what can be done,” said her husband. “I will be taking most of the male servants with me.”

In her bedroom at Rogbourne, Ethna Allenby dipped her pen in the inkwell. Beyond the window, a winding column of grey smoke had formed a dull fracture in the opaque skyline, like a terminal crack in a china plate.

She lowered her head to the white page.

The words flowed out of her.

“I call to order this inaugural meeting of The May Wolf Society,” announced Lady Margaret.

The Frog Floor had been taken up and dismantled, deepening the room by a good eight inches. The wooden blocks, that had previously filled the sunken recess, had been tossed into a quartet of orange crates that were lined-up against the east wall. Ethna's boy had removed a few of the pieces and was attempting to match cross sections of the painted pond. As he pushed the blocks together, he opened and closed his mouth, repeating a small, wordless sound.

“I take it there is no further word on May Wolf?” enquired Florence.

“She has vanished off the face of the earth as far as anyone can tell,” said Edith. “Her publisher has yet to respond to any of my enquiries.”

“You don't think that she has been unmasked?” said Wendy.

“Well, if she has, then it's been done behind closed doors,” said Ann.

“Ladies, please,” said Lady Margaret “There will be time to discuss the whereabouts of Ms May Wolf later in the proceedings.”

She paused as the door opened. My Grindy peered timidly around the side. There was a blackened smudge blemishing the right side of his face.

“I was just wondering...”

“Get out!” said Ann.

Grindy raised raised a soot-covered palm in deference. Hastily, he closed the door.

“Onward and upward,” said Lady Margaret.

End