Okay. Where was I?
So after their day of doing nothing but worry, Matilda decides she wants to see the other rooms. Not because there might be anything to find that might help her friend, mind you. Nope. Matilda had been promised blood and prison chambers and scriptions to make a body's hair stand on end and she wants to see them. (Not that I fault her this sentiment at all. You know I'd have been hunting those up the first day. I just think at this point her priorities are a bit.... er..... backwards?) Anyway, she tells Joseph that she wants to see the room with the terrible inscriptions and he says she better not go because they are dismal. (I'm not sure Joseph understands that anyone who wants to see blood and scary inscriptions is not expecting cheeriness and rainbows.) But Matilda insists and since she is the quality and he is the servant he can't refuse her. (He couldn't anyway. After all she is the sweetest lady, right? In spite of a penchant for wanting to see dismal rooms.)
He gets the keys, but one of the keys is missing. He goes up without it and they go into the room they can--but find it locked from the inside, which is apparently weird. THIS is when they decide they should perhaps explore the other rooms because there might be something about what happened.
Joseph heads back downstairs to see if he can find the other key while Matilda explores the room they could get into. It is the prison room!! There are iron bars on the windows!! And mildly disappointing. It's kind of like the rooms for royalty in the Tower of London, all done up and pretty. You stand in the rooms thinking, wow, this is nice. And then realize that the person staying in the room in such opulence was waiting to be beheaded.... Nevermind.
So this prison room is "handsome, but the grated windows made it appear gloomy."
Joseph returns in a panic. He couldn't find the key, but he did find a knife covered in blood. Now they decide it is vitally important that they get inside. (Finally!!!) They break down the door and both gasp in horror!
There is the lady's servant woman, throat slit, covered in blood (and probably smelling terribly too, since it's been rotting for a day and it's summer. Or worse thought, not smelling terribly because she didn't die immediately and was waiting for Joseph or Matilda to notice the mess and go searching, but they didn't and she could hear them in the rooms the day before, but she couldn't scream and... ---yeah, Parsons never tells and probably means it as the woman died immediately, not that she could have been saved had Matilda and Joseph had any sense between them.)
Honestly I'm not sure how much more I can make fun of this. I feel like I'm giving a blow by blow of absurdity at this point. There is more blood and such, but it's old and here are a few quotes of shocking, bloody goodness as you only find in these old novels.
"a woman on the bed weltering in blood!"
"casting her eyes on the floor, she saw it was all over stained with blood, driend into the floor--"
"On the floor was plainly mark'd the shape of a hand and fingers traced in blood, which seemed to have flowed in great quantities"
"the wretched victim to some merciless man was sacrificed in that closet where the hand was deeply imprinted in blood on the floor"
And this line is my favorite ever:
"...what scenes of murder and atrocious crimes must have been perpetrated in this castle; how great is my curiosity to know more...."
Fast forwarding: They have explored and then decide to do nothing. Then they realize, 'the wretches who have carried off the lady, murdered the servant to prevent discovery," [said Matilda.] "I fear,' cried Joseph, 'my turn will be next.'"
But then, in spite of the danger of staying... they do nothing.
Matilda spends some time in her room thinking of herself and "shedding a torrent of tears." She goes on about "no friend to advise me, no certainty of place o receive me, if I go from hence, and a probability, that, if I stay, I may be murdered;--what a dreadful alternative is mine!" Joseph, apparently, never even thinks of hightailing it, because, no reason I can think of. Guess he'd rather stay at his post and wait to get murdered.
Matilda decides it's disrespectful to leave the woman to decay there, but since Joseph is too old to dig a grave, they finally decide to put her in a big trunk-- because rotting there is so much better than rotting on a bed? Matilda goes about raiding the kidnapped lady's money and closet (the lady did say Matilda could have some of her stuff) and since Matilda is good and sweet and honest, she feels guilty about it and writes down an account of everything she took so the lady will know in case she ever comes back.
While Matilda and Joseph (but mostly Joseph) are moving the body-- and hey, you gotta give Matilda some credit for being willing to do that. Not many gothic heroines do that kind of thing. Joseph is horrified at the suggestion that a lady would help in such a task. But when a body's gotta be moved, Matilda does not shirk. This is the kind of friend we all need. She might not think enough to save the day in time, but she will help move the body.
No. Matilda never says that. Gothic heroines never just need a drink to deal with this shit. But I seriously would.
In the midst of body moving Matilda finally finds and reads the scriptions to make a body's hair stand on end! They are poetry, and my hair didn't stand on end, but I did wince a bit. Even Matilda is not overcome with horror and thinks the lines are, "expressive of misery though not of poetical talents." The only difference between this and Radcliffe's poetry is there is a lot less of it. The poetriy is all about some woman named Victoria lamenting being imprisoned there and her baby taken from her. Who could this Victoria be?!? Yeah. We've figured it out by now, but Matilda has no clue... Because pretty and good are more important than smart and it will be centuries before nerds are considered cool. I'm not even sure bowties have even been invented yet.
With the closets now raided, the dead woman rotting in the same room, but in a trunk now, and the possibility of someone coming back to murder them, Matilda settles down to doing nothing but hanging around. The letter from the sister comes saying Matilda is welcome if she can get there fast enough as they are about to sail for England. Matilda decides to start out in a few days, because nothing should be done quickly or immediately or anything. I mean, eh,... the murderer might need a few extra days to get back here, and Matilda wouldn't want to miss it.
Matilda and Albert (bet you forgot his name by now. I nearly did by the time he's mentioned again. He's the servant she originally came with. I wonder if Albert has been jealous all this time of the attention Matilda has been paying to Joseph. Do servants get like that over their sweet heroines? Or has Albert been using this time alone to woo Joseph's wife, Bertha. I mean we already know he was planning to live off of Matilda's money making talents....). Matilda and Albert leave, giving Joseph the horse they had been riding since, with Victoria's not-stolen money and the prospects of mooching off of Victoria's sister, Matilda can now afford to get a chaise. Which probably did take a few days to set up from the middle of nowhere spooky castle. Now I can see why Matilda would risk a few more days to stay there. Albert is not Jaimie Fraser and wouldn't be as much fun to share a saddle with. I'd probably risk a couple more days for a chaise too.
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