The Veil of Virtue

by Karen Joyce

  The Veil of Virtue

  The Veil of Virtue

  Midpoint

  THE VEIL OF VIRTUE

  By

  KAREN JOYCE

  THE VEIL OF VIRTUE Copyright ©2017 by Karen Joyce

  Cover Art Copyright ©2017 by Karen Joyce

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claim for damages.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  I

  All the clocks had been stopped upon the hour of his death and sheets of black crepe hung over the mirrors to prevent his spirit from being trapped inside. It was on this day, somewhere in the year of 1842, that all the guests found themselves sitting in an uncomfortable silence as the weathered host moved around the room weighed down by the sorrow that was still so fresh within her heart. They were all dressed in full mourning widow weeds ensemble, but only one wore a gold locket hanging from her neck that held an image of the deceased inside. One young woman who sat at the back of the room tightly holding the locket within her hand; the way she used to hold onto her father’s hand when she was a little girl. And as she sat there, watching the others stitching together their fragmented memories of her father like the patchwork of a quilted rug, she wondered when all of this would come to an end so she could go back to how things were before he died. For surely his death was but a pause to be continued and in time she would know him again.

  “Oranges,” said a voice, startling her. She looked up to see a young man standing tall and proud like a soldier preparing for battle. “Your hair always reminded me of a basket of fresh oranges.” He stood there waiting for her to respond and her silence allowed her, for a brief moment, to glimpse an evident vulnerability that surprised her because she imagined a man as handsome as him would have an ego the size of a mountain and one would have to scale up to the very tip to get his attentions. “Please accept my condolences for your loss, Lady Madeleine.” She didn’t know who this man was, but her mother had invited many guests that evening she barely remembered.

  “Thank-you for your kind words,” she replied, offering her hand to him. When he heard the sadness in her voice, he understood her pain for it renewed his own.

  “I still remember when my father passed away when I was just a child. So many years have passed since then but I can still remember him so well. I’ll never forget how I would climb into his arms like I was climbing up to the highest branch of a tree.”

  “A child is too young to know such loss.”

  “No one is ever old enough to bear its weight,” he said, looking across the room. She followed his gaze and settled her eyes upon an older woman who lived on the neighbouring estate to hers. “My mother was never the same after he died.”

  “Lady Rinehart is your mother?” She asked, turning to look at him with surprise. “Lincoln…You’ve come home after all these years.”

  “Even when I could no longer see her pain on the outside, I knew it was still there, hiding just beneath the surface. I wanted to climb inside her mouth and slide down her throat so I could find it and rip it out of her. What strange things are in the mind of a child.” She remembered him now. This memory from her youth. They had been so close before time took their paths in different directions. His took him abroad to gain an education while she stayed behind to study the fine art of needlepoint and to care about the things that didn’t matter to her, and to not care about the things that did, though she no longer remembered what those things were anymore.

  “Forgive me, Madeleine. Here I am speaking of my father’s death when the wound of your loss is so keen.”

  “I don’t know if I can forgive you.”

  “I understand,” he said, nodding, “I didn’t mean to cause you any harm.”

  “You did, but it was many years ago.”

  “What harm could I have caused to you? We were only children.”

  “When I found out you were leaving I couldn’t bear the news, so I ran away from home, unsure of where I was going. I had to do something because I couldn’t do the one thing I wanted to do.”

  “What was it you wanted to do?”

  “I wanted to run to your estate and search every room of your house until I found you.”

  “And when you found me, what would you have done then?”

  “I would have begged you not to leave, but instead I ran into the woods and cried myself to sleep. When I woke up two hours later, you were gone.”

  “I still don’t understand what harm I’ve caused to you.”

  “You broke a little girl’s heart,” she said, letting go of the gold locket and placing her hand upon her breast. He saw that little girl in his mind and it made him unconsciously touch the shallow dimple in his chin with the tip of his finger the way she had done, so many times before, all those years ago.

  “I used to place my finger right there, but then there came a time when I couldn’t remember if it had always been there or if it was because I had touched it so many times. I began to believe that it was there because of me, and then I thought, if I could mark your skin like that, then I could make you do anything and that meant in some strange way, you belonged to me, but when you went away, I realised you were the one that held the power over me.”

  “If I had known, Madeleine how much I hurt you back then. I would have written to you.”

  “All your letters would have done is remind me how far away you were, and that you were no longer here. It would have been cruel in the end.”

  “Then is it too late to ask that little girl to forgive me?” he asked, smiling at her affectionately. “I don’t think I would be able to go on with my life if she didn’t.”

  “I will forgive you,” she replied, smiling for the first time in days. “But you must promise never to break my heart again.”

  “I will never hurt you like that again, Madeleine, but,” he added, noticing now just how beautiful she had become after all these years, “you must promise not to fall in love with me again too.” As soon as he spoke the words, he immediately regretted the impropriety of them, though they had been spoken in jest.

  “I was just a child, Lincoln,” she replied defensively. “My heart healed faster than it took to wipe the tears from my eyes.” But that wasn’t the truth. It took years for her heart to mend, and it left a scar so deep that always reminded her how much she had loved him then. Perhaps that’s why she invited him to take a seat beside her, and why she felt so comforted when she felt him by her side. For the first time since her father’s death, she didn’t feel so alone.

  “I can’t believe that he’s truly gone, Lincoln. I feel like I’m in a dream.”

  “When I lost my father, Madeleine, I couldn’t accept it, and the waiting for the pain to go away, it was like a vast, empty space that could never be filled. But time will soften that pain. I know it seems impossible now, but I promise you there will come a day when the agony of waiting for that pain to end will
come. It will still hurt, but not how it does now, and you will know happiness again.”

  “I can’t believe there will ever come a day when this pain does not tear at my heart, and as long as it does, I will never know happiness again.”

  “Perhaps happiness is an illusion that only belongs to our youth,” he wondered, settling his eyes now upon a young couple in the corner of the room. Their threads intertwined like the infinite, crisscrossing dance of a netting stitch. “Our young cousins are so in love. It’s a shame their recent engagement has been overshadowed by this tragedy.”

  “They are so in love, aren’t they? It’s as if nothing can destroy them as long as they have each other. I can’t help but envy them.” Lincoln didn’t envy them. He felt that love opened our hearts to being hurt, and so, in his mind, it was a weakness. One he didn’t welcome into his life and avoided at all costs. Maybe it was the death of his father at such a young age that made him this way, but he kept his heart hidden away all the same. Madeleine sensed this within him. She always believed that if she could find a way to open his heart, he would love her too, and seeing him again, she thought for a moment perhaps she could find a way into his heart, but when he spoke again she saw a change in him and she knew that same wall that had always been there between them had returned.

  “They make such a lovely picture,” Madeleine said, wishing she could step into their frame and experience what they shared within it.

  “Even a picture fades,” Lincoln said, as if it were a question, and in some small way it was, for the picture of their young cousins was one of love, and he didn’t believe in love. He believed in many things like rules and customs, and that life is what you make it, but love, that kind of love between a man and a woman, he didn’t believe that it could be real, because that kind of love always faded away. His mother had loved his father, and she loved him still, but it was an arranged marriage of convenience, and their affections for one another were a different kind of love. One of duty and obligation. He had never seen that kind of true love in all his existence. So the question he was asking was, is there a love that can be shared between two people that not only endures hardship and keeps them tied to each other, but also burns as bright as the day it was born and can never be severed, not even in death.

  “Lincoln, supper is being served. Will you be joining us?” Madeleine asked, offering her hand to him.

  “Of course, Madeleine. I’ll be there in a moment.” He waited for her to leave the room with everyone else and sat there with his thoughts. Then he walked into the hallway to join them in the dining room, but he took his time to delay his arrival taking a different turn down another long hallway. He needed to get away from them; away from the pain. In their words; in their silence; in Madeleine’s eyes that kept searching his own for something more within him that could take hers away, but that moment they had shared was gone. The pain he felt from bringing up the past was too great and he had to push it back down, and that meant closing himself up again. It was causing him to feel too many things that he didn’t want to feel; didn’t even know how to feel. He continued walking through the house when he heard a faint melody beckoning him. He followed the sound until it led him to a young woman sitting behind a grand piano. He was surprised to see her there and watched her quietly from the doorway. Her fingers danced upon the ivory keys, as if they were dancing upon the keys of his heart. Then it stopped.

  “Forgive me,” she said, rising from the piano and moving towards the doorway.

  “Wait,” he pleaded, reaching out to take her arm. She was so close to him now that he could feel the sweetness of her breath and it felt like the mercy of grace upon him. Then he looked down and saw the impropriety of what he had done and removed his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…who are you?” She stood there not saying a word. It was an impossible question to answer, but she wished there was a way to find the words because she desperately wanted someone to confide in. For many years she had wished for the kind words of a dear companion, but it was an impossible wish, and she no longer wished for anything anymore.

  “Do you have a name?” he asked, intrigued by this young woman’s behaviour. “My name is Lincoln Rinehart.”

  “Lincoln,” she whispered, as if the word breathed life into her heart.

  “I heard you playing in the hall, and well, the melody was so haunting, I had to see the person responsible.”

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, looking up and down the hallway. “You must leave at once.” He sensed her fear and was troubled by it. He didn’t usually have this effect on anyone.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he smiled warmly, wanting to reach out and touch her again. Her fear compelled something paternal within him and he wanted to hold her in his arms until she was no longer afraid. “Are you expecting someone?” he asked, seeing her look back down the hallway again.”

  “I’m always afraid,” she said, looking up into his eyes.

  “Is it the dark?” he asked, turning up the wick on one of the gas lights hanging upon the wall.

  “The darkness is my only friend.”

  “You have quite the morbid sense of humour, but I find it hard to believe that a young woman as lovely and talented as you are has not one friend. I would bet you have dozens of friends, and is Lady Madeleine not your friend?”

  “There was a time when life knew me, but now there is nothing left, except the darkness that’s always waiting for me.”

  “Well, you are quite odd, so perhaps it’s true that you have no friends,” he laughed. “But I think I understand your predicament. You’re one of these sheltered young ladies who often spend their days tucked away in a small library reading about other people’s adventures, wishing you could have an adventure of your own. And this has led you, regrettably, with the severe malady you are now suffering. You have been struck with a terrible melancholy, but, there is hope. It’s nothing that a few excursions away from home or even a morning stroll and a leisurely ride in a canoe under the warmth of the sun won’t cure.”

  “There is no cure for death.”

  “You must be speaking of the Duke of Montague,” he said, suddenly feeling foolish for making fun of her when she was in mourning. “Yes, you are right, there is no cure for that or for the pain, but maybe you can find some solace in knowing that he is in a better place now and his suffering has come to an end.”

  “His suffering has just begun,” she cried, running from him down the hallway until she was consumed by the darkness and he couldn’t see her anymore. The whole incident was strange, but he thought nothing of it. There were many young woman here tonight, though none as odd as her, but there was something else. Her fear was real. She was afraid of something or someone, and it troubled him. He wanted to understand what she feared and who she was. He felt drawn to her in a way he had never felt drawn to anyone before. He couldn’t understand why. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and her manners left something to be desired, but there was beauty there, and it was enhanced by the sadness in her eyes. A sadness that knew no depth as if she was lost out at sea and she knew no one could save her.

  “There you are, Lincoln. I was afraid you had changed your mind about dinner,” called Lady Madeleine, walking down the hall towards him.

  “No, I was just on my way to the dining room when I came upon one of your guests.”

  “I don’t see anyone,” she said, looking around. “Are you sure it was one of our guests and not one of the maids?”

  “Well, she didn’t look like a maid, but she did behave quite odd. I think your father’s death has affected her quite deeply.”

  “It has been hard for many of the servants who have spent nearly all their lives working here, and now that my young cousin, Fortescue has inherited the manor they’re afraid of what will become of them.”

  “Naturally, but I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he reassured her, as they walked towards the dining room. “He appears to be a
considerate and sensible young man.”

  The dinner table was decorated to perfection and the seating arrangements were placed in the most favourable positions, allowing for those of whom were the most extroverted to encourage conversation with those who were the most reserved. Lady Madeleine and Lincoln took a seat at the dining table, and as a maid poured them each a glass of Sherry, Lincoln quickly surveyed the guests seated at the table, searching for the young woman he had seen earlier.

  “Is there something wrong, Lincoln?” Lady Madeleine asked, seeing the look of disappointment come over him.

  “The young woman I mentioned earlier, she isn’t here. I do hope she’s okay. Perhaps we should look for her. She did appear to be very upset.” Madeleine looked around the room, searching for this young woman.

  “Was it one of my cousins seated down there?”

  “No, it was neither of them. This young woman had dark hair and she was fashioned in an old expensive gown. In fact, it’s a style I haven’t seen for quite some time, and she played the most remarkable melody on the piano. One I’ve never heard before, but it was quite astonishing.”

  “Now that is strange, Lincoln, and I’m becoming quite concerned.”

  “Then shall we look for her and ensure her wellbeing.”

  “No, Lincoln, I’m not concerned for her, I’m concerned for you.”

  “I can assure you my concern for this young woman is above reproach.”

  “I’m not worried about your intentions, I’m worried about your state of mind. The young woman you saw, she is not a guest of this house. All our guests are seated at this table, and our maid’s do not make a habit of walking through this house taking liberties with our home. If they were caught doing so, there would no longer be a position for them here.”

  “I understand, Madeleine, but the only explanation is that she was a maid.”