by Bella Bryce
"It's all right, Wellesley. When Alice finishes her reading, escort her down to the music room and tell her I said to practise for an hour," Brayden said, quickly descending the stairs. He signalled to Bennett as he approached the foyer at the bottom.
"Yes, Sir," Wellesley replied.
"I told her you were driving over, and she guessed what's happened; she's locked herself in her en-suite bathroom," Brayden reported.
"She couldn't have guessed. Nobody could have."
"Well, she did," Brayden replied.
Bennett immediately started up the stairs from where Brayden had just come. Upon reaching the top, they both turned the corner and walked as though they were late for a very important business meeting down the long corridor to Elisabeth's bedroom.
"Where is Celia with the keys?" Bennett asked, as they crossed the massive room.
"She doesn't need just anyone bursting in on her right now, especially not her uncle. Elisabeth needs you," Brayden said, as they approached the big, heavy wooden door of her en-suite bathroom. It was closed and locked. There was absolutely no way to get in without the key, unless she turned it on the other side.
Bennett stopped in front of the door and knocked with little more than a bit of assertiveness.
"Elisabeth, open the door to me, darling," he called, his tone was one of concern and authority. He looked down at the floor and listened for a moment. He could hear Elisabeth whimpering, but the en-suite bathroom was so big and echo-ey amongst the marble he wasn't sure he would hear her properly even if she had responded.
Brayden waited quietly.
"Elisabeth," he called, again, knocking on the door.
Bennett looked over at Brayden. He wasn't amused in the least. "How long has she been in there?"
"Since I told her you were coming to see her. She ran in, locked the door and hasn't said a word since. I didn't want to force her out, not at a time like this."
"This is ridiculous, I can't get to her. I want the door opened now," Bennett said.
Brayden exhaled, looked at the door and then turned away. He returned momentarily with Celia, who ushered over and immediately unlocked the door with a key on her massive ring of copies. She quickly stepped aside as soon as it was unlocked and Bennett opened the door, allowing it to swing open as he walked in.
Elisabeth sat fully clothed in her dress, tights and oxford shoes with her knees hugged to her chest and her face planted downward in her thighs in the large, empty claw foot bathtub. Her shoulders heaved as she cried deeply. Bennett walked straight over to the bathtub, bent down and lifted her out without a word. He could feel her body convulsing as she breathed and sobbed intermittently. Elisabeth was trying to cry quietly, and she did a very good job of it, because she made barely any sound.
Bennett carried her back into her bedroom and toward the bed. Brayden excused Celia quietly and took Bennett's mobile phone when it was offered to him. Neither spoke a word to each other – Brayden knew to expect a phone call if Bennett was handing it over to him. He left them alone and closed the door behind him.
Bennett held Elisabeth across his lap as he sat on the edge of her bed; she hid her face in his waistcoat and her arms draped limply about his neck. He used one arm to support her head and the other wrapped around to hold her shoulders as he held his lips to the side of her cheek gently and kissed her every few seconds. He didn't say a word as Elisabeth cried, he just held onto her with a grip that made it very clear he was there if she wanted to make conversation. Clearly, she didn't, but all the same she knew Bennett wasn't moving until she was finished. Bennett held her like that for nearly two hours, not saying a word, asking questions or making promises or reassurances. Elisabeth didn't need reassurance just yet, she needed to grieve.
Elisabeth's tears were intermittent until she couldn't cry anymore and then Bennett moved her hair out of her face and kissed her forehead. She couldn't meet his eyes – she was ashamed. She felt insecure for having cried in his arms for so long without saying a word or offering an explanation, not that he necessarily needed one. Bennett reached inside of his trouser pocket with one hand as he continued to hold her with his other and removed his handkerchief. He looked down as Elisabeth took it and wiped her eyes quietly. She looked like a very small child in the arms of her father as he rocked her sadness away.
Bennett often felt as though he were Elisabeth's parent, constantly worrying about her and wanting to be the first and last one to put her across his knee for misbehaviour, and of course, to be the one to hold her when she was distraught. Seeing her go to pieces wasn't in the plan book. He thought he would have been the one to tell her that her parents were dead, and then take her straight to see their soulless bodies. At least, he figured that was what Elisabeth would have wanted. The way it was going, that seemed unlikely. He still had to find a way to tell her, even though she already knew.
"Would you like a drink?" he asked, bending down to speak quietly to her.
Elisabeth nodded meekly. Bennett readjusted his hold on her, freed one hand and leant over to the wall and pushed the discrete button beside her headboard. Wellesley had no doubt been sitting around waiting to bring something up to them, but unfortunately, he would have to come all the way upstairs to find out what it was. Bennett wasn't in the mind-set to remember how many pushes of the bell it was at Waldorf Manor to have water, tea, orange juice or 'just come up here.'
Bennett replaced his arm around Elisabeth and continued to hold her securely as he kissed the top of her head softly. He turned his wrist over and looked at the time; certain important details would need to be confirmed rather soon. There were specific measures that needed to be reached after a person died in their own home in England, compared to a hospital; of that much, Bennett knew. As soon as Bennett received the news, he was prepared to find out rather quickly what needed to be done, especially to shield Elisabeth from anything that wasn't absolutely necessary for her to handle.
Wellesley appeared with a silver tray of bottled sparkling and still water, and two glasses.
Bennett nodded toward the bedside table and Wellesley placed the tray where he'd indicated.
"Tea, Sir?" Wellesley asked.
"The water is fine, thank you," Bennett replied, quietly. He wasn't in the least surprised that the butler had brought a tray of water, and asked about tea. He'd been in domestic service since he'd left school; certain assumptions were always made when it came to the bells ringing, especially in a situation such as Elisabeth's.
Wellesley left the room just as quietly as he'd appeared, and closed the door behind him again. It was fortunate Wellesley was an intelligent butler because Bennett seemed to have lost a bit of energy just watching Elisabeth loose hers.
"Can you sit up for me?" he asked, as he propped her up against the headboard amongst the sea of gorgeous, upholstered cushions and pillows.
Bennett poured a glass of still water and pulled up his trousers as he reclaimed the prime place beside Elisabeth on the edge of the bed. She sipped the water tentatively and offered the glass back to him half full.
"A bit more. I don't want you dehydrating."
Elisabeth put the glass to her lips and let it sit there as she slowly sipped more mouthfuls of water. She stared across the room in the space between the floor and the ceiling until her vision blurred. She wiped her eyes, then finally looked over at Bennett when he took the empty glass from her.
"Good girl," he said, and placed it on the tray. He turned back to Elisabeth and took her hands in his, looking down at the massive yellow diamond engagement ring on her slim hand.
"Your father passed away this morning in his sleep," Bennett began, quietly. There was a long moment of silence. "He wouldn't wake for his medication."
Elisabeth nodded. It was a comforting notion to learn he had closed his eyes and died quietly in the chair where he'd spent most of Elisabeth's childhood.
"How is my Mum? She'll never live without him," she whimpered, as tears flooded her eyes. Her thought
s had suddenly switched from her father's peaceful departure to her mother's lonely existence.
Bennett had never appeared so uncomfortable before her.
Elisabeth sniffed as she stared down at her thin little legs in her woollen tights beneath a smart pleated dress, which stopped half an inch above her knees.
Bennett looked up at the ceiling and regretted his words before he even spoke them. "Elisabeth," he began. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand, ensuring his other was still holding Elisabeth's.
"She bloody overdosed," Elisabeth whispered, her face contorted as she covered it with both hands and crumbled against Bennett's chest. She inhaled a large breath and then let it out in irregular sobs. She cried for a few minutes against Bennett's perfect posture. "She did, didn't she?"
Elisabeth wrapped Bennett's handkerchief around her fingers several times as if it were something to occupy her anxiety rather than to dry her tears.
"You're not shocked." He was disturbed by her calm manner in responding.
"I stopped her several times when I was a child and even more when I was a teenager. She would pretend to swallow her pills and then keep them in the pocket of her cardigan. Even though she was blind, she still managed to be quite sneaky. I knew if she ever overdosed, it would happen when my father died," Elisabeth said, then bit her lip as she tried to hold back further tears. "She used to tell me if Dad ever died first, that she would find a way to follow him. Even as a little girl I remember her telling me that."
Elisabeth let her head drop and she wrapped her arms around her knees as she pulled them to her chest. "This is all my fault."
Bennett frowned; it was terribly difficult for him to watch Elisabeth fall to pieces repeatedly. It crushed him to watch her suffer.
"This is absolutely not your fault, Elisabeth," he said. He watched his young fiancée shake her head.
"It is, Bennett. I never wanted to go and see them anymore. I was so scared and worried about what state they'd be in, that I didn't even want to know," she cried. "Maybe if I had, I would have found her stash of pills like I did so many other times."
Bennett closed his eyes for a moment and pulled her into his arms again.
"You took care of them from the time you were old enough to dress yourself until barely three months ago. You had no childhood, giving up every opportunity and pursuit so that you could be their fulltime caretaker, and you wish to convince yourself that your father's impending death and your mother's decision to follow him are your fault? I can't let you believe that lie," he said, lifting her chin.
"Then why do I feel like they would still be alive if I had been there?" Elisabeth's eyes pleaded, as if she were silently asking Bennett to find a way to clear her mind of the guilt.
"Because you want to justify the shock and find someone to blame. In this case, you're blaming yourself."
She nodded and wiped her eyes as they watered again. Elisabeth knew that was true; she needed to pin the injustice of it all on someone and who better than herself? She was their only child; the one who hadn't been born with limitations. Her mother had been born deaf and was a victim of shaken baby syndrome; as a result, she lost all of her vision and most of her independence as an adult but had still managed to communicate via sign language, find a husband who understood what it meant to live with someone he could barely see, and who he would never hear. They both had various physical and internal ailments that only seemed to worsen. Despite all that, Elisabeth was the shining beacon of hope for both of them in that she was born a beautiful, perfect baby. In between the limited help from the county and the benefits system, Elisabeth had been the one who did the caring.
Elisabeth wiped her eyes again and rested her chin on her knees. She blinked slowly a few times to reset her blurry vision. "Do I have to go and identify them?" she asked, somewhat flatly, as she stared ahead again. She knew the protocol and had since she was a child, although things were very different from the way they'd been months before; before Brayden's email to Elisabeth, before her interview at Barton-Court, before Bennett insisted on hiring a professional nursing agency to look after her parents. Certainly, before Bennett fell in love with her. Everything was different. Absolutely everything.
From a young age, Elisabeth had thought about the day she would find her parents unconscious or on the edge of death, and having to go through the checklist of whom to call and what to do if it ever happened on her watch. Well, it hadn't happened on her watch, and she was engaged to a man who wouldn't let her suffer any more than was necessary as part of being human. That meant whatever had previously been of concern to her in independence was no longer a burden she needed to bear alone. Bennett's model for their relationship ensured that.
"I don't know what's going to happen with the fact your mother overdosed under the care of the agency," Bennett said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I will phone Michael, my friend who owns the nursing agency and ensure he knows this wasn't the first attempt. It's important he knows his employees weren't being neglectful."
Elisabeth put her face down against his thigh and remained there for a moment. "I don't want to be here without you. Please don't leave me."
Bennett looked over and then tapped her back in order to get her attention. She turned her head to the side and glanced up at him as he nodded his head to signal her. Elisabeth climbed back into his lap and rested her head against his waistcoat and blazer, her hand lying gently atop his tie.
"Uncle Brayden knew I was coming. He's having a room prepared for me." He kissed her forehead. "That's why I'm here."
Elisabeth looked up at him, then put her arms around his neck and sat up so she could hug him. "Thank you," she said, as she rested her head on his shoulder.
Bennett wasn't sure if he was the one who should be emotional. Through her grief and vulnerability, Elisabeth was touching parts of his heart and soul he didn't know could ever be touched. The darling girl rested her head on him and wrapped her legs around his waist, facing him. He held onto her, rubbing her back gently. Bennett maintained his upright, perfect posture as he held her. She felt so small in his arms.
It was healing for both of them to sit quietly, embracing, without words, as they soaked in the reassurance of their relationship. Elisabeth didn't have certainties beyond her Uncle Brayden and the Fowlers, namely the Fowler who was holding her. They had immediately accepted her, but Elisabeth hadn't felt the need to be accepted by them, not until the moment she realised that without them, she would be an orphan, sitting alone in the home in which her parents had just died.
Chapter Eleven
Alice stared at Elisabeth's empty chair across the formal dining table from where her place setting was. Her Uncle Bennett occupied the chair beside Elisabeth's empty place. Alice twisted her fork atop the foie gras filet on her plate as she glanced at her father, and then back at Bennett. The only sound for a long time that evening was silver cutlery on china plates, and the pouring sound as Wellesley refilled water goblets and wine glasses.
"Is Elisabeth coming to dinner?" Alice's voice broke the silence.
Brayden glanced at Bennett, who picked up his wine glass.
"Not this evening, darling," Bennett replied. He maintained his usual tone and structured behaviour. No amount of his fiancé being sad would make his shoulders slump. Quite the contrary. Elisabeth needed his leading more than ever, and his niece certainly wouldn't see him crumble.
Alice watched her uncle carry on eating, his usual strong front making it clear that although the meal was solemn because of Elisabeth's loss, life would carry on, and their routine would be the unchanging factor in all of it. Alice's implied age came through so naturally in most of her mannerisms and emotions, and that evening was no different; she knew Elisabeth was sad. She knew Bennett was sad (even if he could have won an award for hiding it), and her father was sad. Alice didn't quite know how to feel for Elisabeth without being sad herself and taking on the emotions of those around her who had a greater understanding of the los
s. Alice knew next to nothing of Elisabeth's personal life before meeting her, and could only assume she'd came from a similar background to her, although from the body language and quiet conversation she'd overheard throughout the day it made her think otherwise. Alice knew for a fact if her mother passed away she would not hide away and cry. She would have felt remorse for her mother, in that she hadn't lived a life with joy or fulfilment from things besides the artificial sweeteners of alcohol and one-night stands.
Upstairs, Elisabeth sat in the tartan wingback chair, her feet up on the matching woollen ottoman as she faced the fire in her bedroom. A blanket draped from under her chin down to her feet. Bennett had settled her there before going down to the dining room. Elisabeth needed an hour to herself, and Bennett needed a proper meal with wine. She stared into the crackling fire several feet in front as it roamed about the large stone fireplace until her eyes watered – or cried – she couldn't be sure which it was. She retrieved her leather-bound sketchpad from the writing desk across the room and then recovered herself beneath the chenille blanket. She opened the sketchpad and without even thinking, she began to draw. She let her pencil lead the way as it arched and flattened against the page, and then changed direction. She shaded and smeared until the outline of her father sitting in his chair with one hand across his stomach and the other stretched out in mid-sign language toward the rest of the empty page, could be made out.
The bedroom door opened some time later and she looked up as Bennett entered, with Wellesley close behind, carrying a tray. Elisabeth watched them approach and although her lips didn't tell, her eyes smiled as much as they could. The sight of Bennett warmed her.
"Would you like the table set, Sir?" Wellesley asked, as he stopped between where Elisabeth was settled into the sweet little tartan armchair and matching ottoman and the beautiful mahogany table with a vase full of flowers in front of the fireplace.
"Yes, please," Bennett said, looking at the table adjacent to Elisabeth. Wellesley would simply move the fresh flowers from the middle, lay a tablecloth and pull up one of the nearby Louis XI chairs, so that she had her own formal dining table.