Of Moths and Butterflies

by V. R. Christensen

  “Brava, my dear Imogen!”

  She turned to find that Claire had followed her.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she said and embraced Imogen warmly.

  Imogen smiled in gratitude and returned her gaze to the gardens beyond.

  “You are abandoning your guests,” Claire said, recalling her.

  “I need just a moment to catch my breath. I’m not possessed of your indefatigable energy, I’m afraid.”

  “No. Of course. Shall we walk?”

  “Yes.”

  And so they did, though little was said between them. Imogen needed a moment to collect her thoughts, and Claire seemed prepared to allow her that. Yet there was something Imogen wished to know of her friend. In light of yesterday’s conversation with Mrs. Montegue, in light of the decision she had come to that tonight must be the night—to tell him all, to give herself completely—she required one thing more.

  “Claire, I want to ask you something.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “I’m afraid it’s rather personal.”

  Claire glanced at her furtively, perhaps nervously.

  “When I told you of my degradation, of my–”

  “Yes,” she said, interrupting her.

  “When I told you, you said that you understood. I believe you do. You said you would one day tell me. Will you do it now?”

  Claire glanced at her, but did not answer.

  “Please, Claire. I know you would much rather forget it, but I want to know.”

  A long silence followed, but Imogen was prepared to wait. At last her patience was rewarded.

  “I have a brother,” Claire began. “Did you know?”

  “No.”

  She sighed heavily and went on. “We are estranged. He is–” And she shook her head. “I’ve not heard from him these past five years.”

  Another pause before Claire went on, more earnestly now.

  “My brother, was—I imagine still is, for they never change once they have gone wrong, I think—of an infamous character, and he had friends equally deplorable. One of these fancied himself in love with me. He called at the house very often, and our acquaintance improved. But when he learned of my affections for another, he became jealous. He offered to me. I refused him. But my refusals, it seemed, only drove him on. He presumed upon me in every conceivable manner, at every opportunity…until…”

  “Until?”

  “Well… Until he took it upon himself to take from me that which I would not willingly give him.”

  Though Imogen half expected this conclusion, it was still shocking to hear. “And the other? He would not have you?”

  “I never gave him the chance. For the same reasons as you, I feared to give him the opportunity to reject me and to despise me. At the time I considered myself unworthy of him. Now I see that I should have given him, and myself, the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Would you give it to another?”

  Claire stopped and turned back toward the house. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Perhaps someday.” The slightest flame of hope sparked in her countenance. And then extinguished as she averted her gaze from the house and toward the gardens, flushed and not quite herself.

  Imogen was puzzled. It did not last long.

  “My dearest, Imogen,” Roger said and stopped to kiss her on the cheek before turning to Claire. “Miss. Montegue. Won’t you come back in? The dancing is about to begin. I know you’ll be very much missed if you remain any longer.” This last he said, and rather pointedly, to Imogen alone.

  “Yes, do go in,” Claire urged her.

  “Will you not return as well, Miss Montegue?”

  “I think I’ve had enough of your manhandling, Mr. Barrett, to last me quite some time.”

  He laughed. “You were under the impression I meant to ask you to dance?”

  She looked away, embarrassed, and Roger gave her a long moment to contemplate her presumptuousness.

  “If dancing is too much for you,” he said eventually, “then perhaps you’ll walk with me instead?”

  She turned to him, not quite as humbled as perhaps he had hoped.

  “Very well, Mr. Barrett. If you think you can behave yourself.”

  “I can only promise to try.”

  Imogen returned to the house, both eager and trepidatious for what must come next. She had nearly reached the protection of the music room when she heard, or thought she heard, a voice call out. Like a child’s. Familiar and pleading. She looked about her, but she was quite alone. Well…nearly alone. Archer was standing just within the music room doorway.

  “Will you come in?” he said, and held out his hand to her.

  She hesitated, looking about her still for the voice she was not quite certain she had heard.

  “I’ll carry you if I must, but you will dance with me.”

  Recalling herself, she laughed and took his arm. “Roger had to do, so I suppose it seems right that you should.”

  “Barrett?” He looked puzzled, though, to her relief, not angry.

  “He taught me, you know. While you were gone.”

  “You didn’t know how?”

  “No.”

  “How is it possible?”

  There was no time to answer. At least it seemed unimportant as they reached the centre of the floor, where their guests parted the way to look on, and to wait for their turn to join in.

  The music began. Brahms, of course. Such beautiful music. Such a beautiful room. Claire had gone all out. The servants, too. The candles in the chandelier winked and threw sparkling light upon the cherub bestrewn ceiling. Little archers everywhere. She blushed at the thought.

  “Are you all right?” Archer asked, placing his hand, warm and gentle, on her back.

  “Yes, of course. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “You look a trifle flustered.”

  “Well, that’s because I am.”

  “Have I told you how beautiful you look? And your song, Imogen… I did not know you could sing. Not like that. I had no idea.”

  She felt that spark of flirtatiousness rise up. Only now there was no shame in it. It was right and good. “I thought perhaps you disapproved,” she said. “You left so soon after it.”

  “After you, there was nothing worth seeing or hearing.”

  “Archer,” she said. “If you keep this up, I’ll be persuaded to believe you.”

  He laughed and held her a bit closer. “I wish you would,” he said. “I truly wish you would.”

  He held her closer yet as they danced. In his arms, just now, she felt so safe. She felt as though she belonged, and she rejoiced in the exhilaration she felt. If only it could always be this way. If there were no uncles to navigate, nor leering and licentious cousins to avoid… If there was not his past to fear. Nor hers to reveal. No mysteries to uncover, no secrets to tell, she imagined she might indeed find herself truly happy. It might yet be so. Tonight, the obstacles before them seemed not so insurmountable. She felt the prick of happy tears.

  “You are a puzzling creature, aren’t you?”

  She dared a glance at him.

  “You are one minute frightened nearly to tears, the next minute conquering them as though they were nothing. Now tears again. Would you mind telling me what these are for?”

  She meant to answer him, if she could only find the words. But just as she opened her mouth to speak, a flash of sudden and hurried movement caught her eye. She craned her neck, this way and that as they turned with the music, trying to see over, or through, or around the crowd, into the courtyard beyond.

  “What is it?”

  She did not answer, did not even hear the question.

  “Gina, what is it? Will you tell me?”

  “I saw something. Or thought I did. Wyndham would not come? Would he?”

  “He had best not if he has any sense of what is good for him. But then sense is asking a bit much from him, I think.”

  There was movement again. A shock of unruly grey-white hair.
Sir Edmund. He was looking for something, it seemed, just beyond the conservatory doors. Something or someone. Was Wyndham here? Please no. She could not face Wyndham’s insolence. Not here. Not now with a crowd to watch. Not when the evening had so far gone so well.

  “Is something the matter?” Archer tried again.

  She heard once more the cry. A child’s cry as Sir Edmund reached and grabbed for something. He caught it, it seemed, and now struggled to hold on.

  “What is it? What’s wrong with you?”

  Still she ignored him. Her efforts were at last rewarded as the crowd parted just enough to allow a clear view to the outdoors. There, just within the conservatory garden, Sir Edmund stood, and clutched within his arms was not a man, not Wyndham, but a child.

  “Charlie,” she whispered, more to herself than in answer of Archer’s question. She attempted to break from him.

  He did not wish to let her go, but she was insistent. And unprepared to struggle with her in the midst of a crowd of curious onlookers, he released her and watched as she fled the room. Leaving him to bear his humiliation as the guests looked to him for the answers he could not give. Politely he made his excuses, and hers. And followed in pursuit.

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  Chapter sixty-six

  MOGEN, AT LAST free of the house and the crowd within, quickly followed in the direction she had seen Sir Edmund dragging the boy. Charlie’s echoing cries and Sir Edmund’s half-whispered remonstrances led her onward toward the east wing cloisters and around the side of the house, but there she stopped again. The echoes produced by the towering Abbey walls were disorienting. Where had they gone? And where was Sir Edmund taking the boy? Within, presumably, but there was nowhere on the ground floor he might be certain of privacy. Except his library. She began in that direction, but stopped again. Voices, then the banging of a door above. They were in the cloisters!

  Imogen quickly climbed the stairs and entered the east wing, but she had to wait for her eyes to adjust from the bright lights of the cloisters to the near darkness of the inner corridor before she could continue on. Perhaps she had made a mistake, after all. The east wing, as usual, was ghostly quiet, undisturbed by footsteps or… No. She heard it again. The sound of shuffling, of a cry, and then sharp words not quite whispered.

  Rounding the corner, she at last caught a glimpse of them. Through the pale light which shone in the hallway beyond, she could see Sir Edmund dragging little Charlie by one arm as the boy kicked and struggled to be free. They had nearly reached Sir Edmund’s rooms when Charlie at last succeeded in freeing himself. He turned and ran toward the great staircase that led to the main entrance of the house.

  “Charlie!” Imogen called out to him.

  He stopped, and, squinting into the darkened hallway, he at last recognised her. She held her hand out to him, as she walked quickly toward him. Toward her he ran, but instead of sheltering himself in her embrace as she had expected him to do, he clasped her hand in both of his and pulled her along behind him, silent tears streaming down his face.

  “What is it, Charlie?” she begged. “What is the matter?”

  “You have to come,” he said. “You have to help her.”

  “Help who, Charlie? I don’t understand.”

  Sir Edmund, having caught up, held out an arm to stop them as they reached the top of the stairs. He caught Charlie by the collar and pushed him up hard against the wall, holding him still as he rounded on Imogen.

  “This is none of your concern. You have guests. Go to them!”

  “Let him be,” she said. “What harm has he done you? Let him go!”

  “He is supposed to be on a train to London.” Then, turning to Charlie: “Why didn’t you get on that train, boy?”

  “I didn’t know,” he said. “I went out, and when I came back, my things were packed but my mother was sleeping. She wouldn’t wake. So I came here for help. I came to find Miss Gina.”

  “Take me to her, Charlie. Will you?”

  “I said this is none of your affair! When will you learn to keep your place, you worthless—”

  Charlie struggled again, which earned from Sir Edmund a violent shake.

  “Leave him be!” Imogen yelled. “Let him go!”

  “Where is the key to his room?”

  “The room’s not ready, I did not want guests—”

  “Where is the key! Do you have it?”

  “No.”

  “Get it!”

  “I won’t.”

  “Do you mean to defy me?”

  “I do not belong to you. You cannot order me as though I were a servant, or a dog to do your bidding.”

  “You might as well be. You’re good for little else.”

  Silence then as they stared each other down, her breath coming hard and fast, his coming thick with smell of alcohol and tobacco. But she was not afraid of him, sorry, drunken wretch that he was.

  Charlie struggled once more, and with Sir Edmund so distracted in his mounting fury, he succeeded once more in freeing himself.

  “Come, Charlie,” Imogen said far more calmly than she felt, and, holding her hand out to him, she moved toward the staircase. He obeyed and took her hand once more as they began their descent.

  “I’m warning you,” Sir Edmund called after her. “You leave this house, Mrs. Hamilton, you’ll not come back into it. You can go the way of that whore Bess Mason, and I dare say we’ll all be better off!”

  She cringed with this epithet. For herself. More so for Charlie. But still she refused to listen. Charlie needed her help, and she would help him as she had sworn to do. She led Charlie onward, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her again. She turned to face Sir Edmund, his countenance full of loathing.

  “Go, Charlie,” she said. “I’ll catch you up.”

  He didn’t move, and Sir Edmund looked to the boy as if he were contemplating how to reclaim hold on him as well.

  “Go, Charlie! Run!”

  And he did.

  Sir Edmund took her then by both shoulders and shook her hard. She fell against the banister, and there remained as it supported her. Sir Edmund, caught off balance, stumbled, one foot sliding from the landing to the step below, and there he remained, leaning against her now, as she braced and steadied herself against the supports. He was slower to recover, and held on to her, not so much in anger, but so as not to lose the precarious footing he held. She was afraid now, of him, yes, but far more of herself, seething with a decade’s worth of rage and resentment. How very like another occasion was this, the episode that had granted her the opportunity to flee home and family, fortune and history. Her hands clasped tightly to the banister rail, if only to avoid the temptation to use them for another purpose. It would be too easy to push him away. To push him down. Down and down, and then…

  Sir Edmund at last recovered his footing and was standing once more upon his own feet, yet his face remained just before her, his putrid breath clinging to her flesh, suffocating her. The hand which had been on her shoulder now slid to wrap its bony fingers around her neck as he held her against the wall.

  “You filthy, worthless, ungrateful baggage!” he spat out, though his speech had somewhat slurred. “If you had one ounce of appreciation for the place you deserve rather than the place to which you’ve been too precipitately raised… But then it is a rare woman indeed who recognises her place and submits to it as she ought.” His hand lowered once more to her shoulder, and then…

  It was all she could take. If she had to strangle the breath out of him with her own bare hands, she would be free of him, and forever if possible. She felt the rage and hatred fuel her. Felt herself give way to it. She released her hold on the banister, her arms tensing in anticipation of the effort that would end this struggle.

  “Imogen!”

  Sir Edmund released her. They were no longer alone. She was aware of them. Of Roger, who had spoken, of Claire who had followed him. And Archer. She could not bear to look, to see the faces of those who had witnessed her
in her murderous fury. She closed her eyes as silent, shameful tears fell.

  “I beg you to explain yourself, sir,” she heard Archer demand, and in a voice she had never heard before. One that frightened her.

  Silence then. The sound of glasses and laughter, music and chatter went on in the background, but all around them was silence. Sir Edmund took a staggering step or two back, then retreated in the direction of his rooms.

  “Pack your things, Imogen,” Roger commanded. “You’re leaving. Now!”

  “No!” Archer said, turning to him.

  “I think she must,” Claire said. “It should never have come to this. You should have known. We all should have known.”

  “No! Not this way!” Archer’s devastation was apparent.

  “She’ll go,” Roger said. “With Miss Montegue. Can you leave tonight?” Roger asked of Imogen next.

  “Yes,” she said. Then: “No.”

  “No?” Roger said, stunned. “This is insanity! You must see—”

  “Yes, I see,” she said, suddenly alive to her surroundings. “But not yet. Charlie came here for help, and I mean to help him.”

  “You can’t go out,” Archer said stopping her. “Not now. Not as you are. We have guests.”

  “I will help him. He came to me, looking for me. Because no one else here cares enough to—”

  “Stop!”

  “I’ll take you, Imogen,” Roger said, stepping forward. “If you insist on going, I won’t deny you. But I will see you safely there.”

  She advanced toward the door, but stopped. “I don’t know where she lives.”

  “You do,” demanded Roger of Archer. “You must.”

  “I can’t abandon my guests.”

  “But you’ll abandon the child who needs you?” Imogen demanded of him.

  “He’s not mine, Imogen. How many times do I have to say it?”

  She stepped nearer him. “That was not the question I asked you.” She turned then, and addressed the first footman who appeared. “I need the doctor, Roberts. Will you fetch him for me?”

  He nodded and left to attend to the task. She gave Archer one more, accusatory glance, then walked out into the night. Roger following close behind, removed his coat and placed it around her shoulders. They entered an awaiting carriage and the door closed upon them. But they could not leave until the doctor joined them.