Page 13 of The Curious Story of the Missing Lady
“Went through me like a steamer, and with Lady Madeline on his shoulder. I’m alright, M’Lord. Go and find him.”
Lord Ambrose got up and followed the passage through to its exit. He found himself in the great hall, at the end of which was a French window. It was open, and Lord Ambrose could see a figure descending fast through the brush on the side of the house. He followed.
Brambles caught his trousers as he followed the figure, which loped away slowly, and yet was far enough to present a challenge.
“You come back here this instant, damn you!” he screamed, rage exploding in his chest.
She’d been his first. And now, there she was receding from him like a tide. He found himself clawing desperately at the air as tears scorched the corners of his eyes.
“No, damn you! Bring her back!”
A maelstrom of thoughts went through his mind.
He thought of her beautiful voice, which she used at the oddest moments. How strange it was that she sang at the most improbable moments. And yet, that sound was the song of heaven itself brought down to earth. God had seen fit to bless him, Lord Ambrose, with this divine creature. He was not worthy of her.
Then there was her kindness and generosity. How she’d once asked him about the coat of arms, and he told her what each symbol stood for, and she smiled and said how wonderful it was that her family was so good and kind to people in need. She was generosity incarnate, where he himself had to be the ruthless Lord, the ruler, the steeled man of industry and nobility, reinforcing the great chain of being at every turn. And while that chain remained solid, keeping everyone in his rightful place, here was Madeline, his heart, searching for a breach in the link, not so that she could repair it, but so that she could break it and enter as a link herself. She loved all people, his dear, dear child.
And there was the soul itself that she carried in her. The tenderness and passion, the cooling reason, the zest for what was right and true in the world – all that came from his Abigail. And where was he in her? Where was Ambrose Whitcombe in the soul of that sweet child?
There were all these things going through his mind in a jumble of visions, impressions, and all in a wink. All of them, as he watched the figure leave the brush and lope towards a carriage that waited for him, foaming horses at the ready.
And then, what he thought was this: She’d grasped for the stars once. And he’d not been able to pluck them down for her.
A stitch had formed in his side, and his knee screamed in pain – no doubt wounded in the fall he sustained in the passage. And his breath came in sawing hitches.
“No,” he said weakly as he watched the carriage carry away his reason for drawing breath in the world.
And he fell to the ground, weeping miserably, revenge bittering his tears.
Chapter 8
Lady Emily paced the room. She caught sight of Madeline’s veil – an understated piece of fine lace – and the wreath of orange blossoms that lay beside it. She turned away from them, for somehow they represented her sister now – tossed and abandoned.
Her father sat in a chair opposite Lisbelle, who lay reclined on the day bed, Mrs Andrews at her side attending her with a cloth to the forehead. She’d suffered a terrible blow, poor girl. How strong she was, however, as she recounted the horrors she’d endured not an hour before.
And then there was the image of her father looking like a wretch, hunched over as he was; his head in his hand as he listened to the tale.
Lord Oliver stood off to the side, listening intently, his fingers locked behind his back.
“He was a brute. I’ll say that much,” said Lisbelle. “Told me to go and pick up something he’d dropped, like’n I was his maid instead of the Lady’s. Why, in hindsight, I should have bolted him about the ears and sent him on his way for that impertinence alone.”
“What happened next, Lisbelle?” said Mama, who – a credit to her sex and stature – sat erect in a chair, stoic as a philosopher of old.
“Well, I can’t remember much. I felt the blow to the head. And I was on the floor, all foggy, you see, and I could only make out shapes. But there was no mistaking one shape for another, I’ll say as much. That hulking brute moved like a great bear across the room and he ...” she stopped, beholding Papa in his miserable posture.
“Go on,” pleaded Mama.
Lisbelle swallowed hard. “He ... put his hands on the Lady. Large hands he had, like a butcher’s man. Well, I suppose he really is a butcher’s man. I don’t know. And he kept one hand across her nose and mouth and the other behind her delicate little head, oh, the poor dear.” She began to weep.
“There, there,” said Mama.
“She fell right there in his arms,” the maid said through tears. “And he picked her up like she was ... oh, like she was a carcass on the butchery line.”
Lady Emily gasped audibly.
Papa’s face was livid. “Spare us your commentary on the matter and tell us the facts, woman.”
“Ambrose,” chided Mama, “hold your tongue, please. The girl has had a fright. She knows not what she says.”
