Gothic Vault Advice Column, Issue 1
Gothic Vault is an advice column for tormented, Gothic characters and their dreadful, eerie, bump-in-the-night dilemmas. Correspondent Erzsebet Carmean replies to questions submitted by fictitious people who have fictional problems. As author of Gothic characters, Erzsebet is abundantly qualified to dispense no-nonsense wisdom to those penned by others.
I work in a castle as a personal assistant to the daughter of a wealthy man I’ll call Creep. There is an urban legend that Creep will lose his estate when the “real owner has grown too large to inhabit it” and the only way to keep it in the family is to have male kids to carry on the family name. Creep is getting on in years and pressuring his only son into a quickie marriage. This isn’t ordinary “I want to be a granddaddy” pressure: the son has a terminal illness.
Creep got a mail-order bride for his son. She came to the castle a few weeks before the wedding. She wasn’t into the son (and he’s busy dying), but she became good friends with his sister, which means I saw her often. On the wedding day, the great room was filled with flowers, an orchestra, and long tables with exquisite decorations. The vows were going to be exchanged there instead of the estate chapel, supposedly because there were too many guests to fit in the estate chapel, but everyone joked it was so there would be no time wasted making the next heir. The only problem was that the groom was missing. Creep snapped at one of my co-workers to go and find him. Just after my co-worker left the gallery, there was an enormous noise, followed by screaming. My co-worker ran back into the hall, pale and not making any sense. He just kept saying, “the helmet, the helmet.” You won’t believe this, but a giant helmet from a suit of armor had fallen from the sky and crushed Creep’s son. Instead of being upset about his son’s death, Creep was preoccupied with the helmet.
I gave Creep the benefit of thinking his reaction was due to shock. I was wrong. He became obsessed with his future daughter-in-law! It’s gross; his wife is still alive and in mourning. She is a devout Catholic and divorce isn’t an option for her, but Creep is convinced he can get a dispensation from the Pope to nullify their marriage. I’m used to being in the periphery of family drama (it comes with the territory of being a live-in assistant). If this is where things ended, I would have gotten used to the enormous helmet and the strained marital relations. However, when two co-workers quit after finding an enormous metal boot the length of the portrait room, I began to feel uneasy. Hats without heads in them are common, but what shoe can walk itself into a room several stories up?
Even the second omen didn’t stop Creep’s gross behavior! He approached me with an expensive gift and promised more if I could find out if she has the hots for him. My student loans are crushing (sorry, bad choice of words given the son’s death), and I was thinking about how good it will feel to pay off my debt when I got to the main staircase. A deafening noise of metal grating on stone made me look up & that’s when saw it – a gigantic metal glove lodged at the top of the staircase. I screamed and almost wet myself.
I’m a skeptic but I know what I saw. I’m scared out about what might appear next – greaves? gauntlets? codpiece (eew)? I like my job, the girl I work for is not overly spoiled, and the new “bonuses” will go a long way towards making me debt-free. But… I don’t know if management is changing, or if this family will be bankrupt after being sued for trespassing/squatting/stealing or whatever. Should I quit the castle?
Thanks,
Terror Upon Terror
Dear Terror Upon Terror,
It is understandable you are thinking of making a change. A workplace where individuals are crushed to death by giant, falling pieces of metal is unsafe. If you are a member of a union, you should report this to your representative; otherwise, you can place an anonymous tip with the occupational safety hazard organization for your locality.
If you have a three or more months of living expenses in savings and can extend your healthcare insurance to cover a lapse in employment, I advise you to leave. If your contract requires you to provide a term of service, you may be able to negotiate early termination on grounds of workplace hazards – especially if you have the police report filed for the wrongful death. If you signed a non-compete clause, can you afford to live without a job for the duration of the term? If not, consider how to leverage the skills you have to make a career change. Your hospitality experience could translate to industries beyond the Medieval castle; hotels, catering services, or personal shopper could be a great fit. However, if you cannot imagine your life without a job working in a castle, your options are limited; castle jobs are rare and experience low turn-over rates. In that case, staying may be the right decision – provided the safety issues are resolved.
You should not accept bribes from an employer – ever. This sets a precedent for abuse of power: I give you X, now you do Y – even if Y is repugnant. In your case, O paid you to be the accomplice to his infidelity at best. At worst, you’ll be assisting in the predation of a woman who may feel trapped and isolated. Return the bribe. Make it clear you are unwilling to be involved. Call financial advisors and see if you can lower your tuition payments or if you are eligible for loan forgiveness.
Now that we’ve finished discussing you, my deeper concern is for the former bride-to-be. Inform her of Creeps’s intentions. This gives her the opportunity to leave before Creep crosses from harassment into (perhaps violent) crime. His megalomaniacal fixation on forcing her to bear him a son is dangerous. Given that she is a from another country and far from her support network, she is vulnerable to predation. There are shelters for at-risk women in most cities; offer to help her get to one if she wants to leave.
Best of luck in your future endeavors,
Erzsebet
The story of the giant suit of armor is from The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. The Castle of Otranto is considered the first true work of Gothic fiction. Romantic tropes and themes are upended to create the buffoonish Prince Manfred Otranto and the petty royalty surrounding him. The most authentic characters are the employees, especially Bianca, who inspired this blog post.
And, yes, Walpole cast a giant-sized suit of armor in the role of “ghost.”
Erzsebet Carmean 