Hungerstone

Horrified by her actions, Lenore decides she must frame Cora’s death as an accident to survive. She returns to Nethershaw and tells Henry there has been a terrible accident, and he summons the police. When Lacey arrives to take her statement, Lenore claims that Cora was dancing carelessly near the cliff’s edge, lost her footing, and fell before Lenore could reach her.

Later, Lacey seeks out Lenore for a private conversation in the courtyard. He gently suggests the possibility that Cora may have taken her own life. Lenore immediately seizes this opportunity, implying that Cora was distraught over an affair with Henry. Lacey notices bruises on Lenore’s wrist and asks softly if there is anything else she needs to tell him. Believing herself to be in danger, Lenore draws the letter from her pocket and hands it to him.

Cora’s body is brought back from the moors and stored in the estate’s icehouse. That evening, Henry confronts Lenore in her bedroom, calling her a “monstrous bitch” and grabbing her wrist. Molly interrupts the assault, witnessing Henry’s aggression before he storms out. That night, Lenore is tormented by a nightmare in which she sees Cora’s ghost beckoning to her from the icehouse.

The next morning, Lenore wakes with a ravenous hunger. She goes to the kitchens and devours a huge quantity of various foods, only to vomit it all up moments later. From her window, she watches as men load Cora’s body into a cheap coffin for transport. That night, after the shooting party dinner, she witnesses Henry secretly dispatch a groom with a message summoning staff from a nearby asylum, shattering the confidence she had felt.

The following morning, Lenore finds Henry in her room placing a tin of pastilles by her bed as a supposed apology for his behavior. She confronts him, revealing that she knows the sweets are poisoned with arsenic. She blows into the tin so that a cloud of white powder bursts into the air, watches Henry’s horrified reaction, and then tells him she has already disposed of the arsenic. Lenore informs Henry that she has given an incriminating letter to Detective Lacey to be opened should anything happen to her, effectively blackmailing him into ensuring her “long and healthy life” (298).

Lenore’s confidence is shaken when she overhears Henry telling Dr. Foxfield that she suffers from dangerous delusions and may be a danger to others and Foxfield obliquely references Cora’s accident. Realizing the gravity of her situation, Lenore gives Molly a large sum of money and urges her to take an extended holiday.

During the shooting party on the moors, Henry corners Lenore and gives her an ultimatum: She can agree to an uncontested divorce in which she takes the blame for adultery, or he will have her committed to the asylum that very day. When Lenore again accuses him of having an affair with Cora, Henry denies it, explaining the diamond necklace was a gift for Cora’s assistance in the Ajax matter. The realization that she killed Cora based on a false assumption sends Lenore reeling. A brief flashback recalls a specific night at Aunt Daphne’s house when a young Lenore walked out into the London streets, then returned and resolved that killing her own hope was the only way to survive.

Now, consumed by rage and a monstrous hunger, Lenore refuses Henry’s terms and attacks him. They fight violently across the moor, and though Henry wounds her with a rock, Lenore overpowers him. She bites into his neck and tears out his throat, killing him. As she stands over his body, she feels a sense of triumph and imagines she can hear Carmilla’s inhuman laughter.

When the shooting party returns, they find Lenore spattered in blood beside Henry’s mutilated corpse. Nearby, Henry’s notoriously ill-behaved hunting dogs have bloody mouths. Lacey crouches beside Lenore and asks her to tell him what happened. She is lost for words until one of the men remarks that Henry “quite literally couldn’t train a dog to save his life” (315). She tells Lacey and the others that the dogs went wild and mauled Henry to death. The men quickly accept this story.

Just as the scene is brought under control, a fine carriage arrives, and Carmilla emerges. She calmly addresses the men, stating she has come to take her “dear friend” into her care. As Carmilla takes Lenore’s hand, Lenore sees a shared understanding in her eyes. Carmilla smiles and says, “Come, my dear. You must be so terribly hungry” (317).