by Beth Andrews
‘Oh, Heavens!’ she shrieked. ‘It is Augustus!’
‘And Edward!’ I added, my voice little more than a croak.
Sophia reached them first and bent quickly over her husband.
‘Gone!’ she wailed like a banshee. ‘Like the bubble on the fountain, he is gone, and forever.’
She immediately collapsed in a heap upon the ground while I bent over Edward, who gave a muffled moan and moved ever so slightly.
‘He lives!’ I cried exultantly.
‘Augustus lives?’ Sophia gasped, reviving momentarily and raising her head an inch or two from the earth.
‘No, no,’ I corrected her. ‘Edward lives. Augustus is dead.’
Sophia resumed her faint, while I leaned closer to speak to Edward, whose feeble voice was barely audible.
‘Laura,’ he whispered, ‘I fear I have been overturned.’
‘I fear you have.’ I was eager to reassure him. ‘But tell me, I beseech you, what has befallen you since that unhappy day when Augustus was incarcerated and we were cruelly separated?’
‘What?’
‘What trials have you endured? What persecutions have you suffered?’
He opened his mouth to speak, and I grabbed him by the broad lapels of his fashionable coat, raising his whole body in the intensity of my emotions.
‘I . . . I. . . .’
‘Speak to me, my Edward!’ I demanded. ‘Tell me what has happened. Speak, Edward. Speak!’
‘I will,’ he said, his voice trailing off pitifully.
The words had scarcely been uttered when his eyes rolled up into his head, he fell back like a sack of potatoes, and exhaled his last, halting breath.
What is a young lady to do when her husband drops dead before he can regale her with his heroic exploits? For me, there was no question what my proper conduct should be. Since this was Scotland, after all, it seemed only right that I should emulate the fabled Bride of Lammermoor. Standing up, swaying and moaning, I pulled my long, dark hair into wild disarray.
‘Do not talk to me of phaetons!’ I shouted at the empty air. ‘Give me a violin. I’ll play for him and soothe him in his solitude.’
At these words, Sophia revived once more.
‘You will play for Augustus?’ she pleaded.
‘No, for Edward,’ I snapped. ‘Augustus is still dead, you fool.’
‘So is Edward,’ she reminded me, somewhat pettishly, I thought.
‘Do not interrupt me now,’ I said, twirling and dancing through the grass. ‘I’m raving mad.’
‘Very well, then.’ She fainted again, leaving me to enjoy my lunacy in private.
‘Beware,’ I intoned, glancing this way and that, ‘ye gentle nymphs, of Cupid’s thunderbolts. Avoid the piercing shafts of Jupiter and the Ides of March.’
I continued in this manner for several hours, until finally night descended. I was quite covered in dirt and scratched with gravel, for I had on several occasions tripped over Sophia’s prostrate body.
‘Look at that grove of firs!’ I soliloquized, my voice at last growing hoarse from my constant vocal exertions. ‘I see a leg of mutton! They told me Edward was not dead, but they deceived me. They mistook him for a cucumber!’
‘A cucumber sandwich?’ Sophia asked, reviving yet again and sitting up. She looked around in bewilderment.
‘There’s no cucumber sandwich,’ I hastened to inform her. ‘Where on earth would we find a loaf of bread at this hour?’
‘My dear Laura,’ she announced, ‘night is upon us, the dew is falling fast, and I am weak from hunger.’
‘What,’ I demanded, ‘does any of this matter to a poor, mad widow like me?’
‘It matters to a poor, fainting widow like your dear Sophia.’
Tiring of my rant at last, I knelt beside my friend, eager to assist her.
‘Forgive me, dearest,’ I said, recovering my wits. ‘But where can we procure a good, hot meal and shelter from the cold?’
Sophia pointed westward. ‘What about that cottage over there?’
I turned, my gaze following her finger to where I soon perceived a large white cottage, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, plainly visible in an unusually bright shaft of silvery moonlight.
‘I hadn’t noticed that before,’ I said in some surprise.
‘Neither had I,’ Sophia admitted. ‘But there it is, as plain as day.’
‘Or rather plainer.’
‘Perhaps there we shall find some kind soul to take us in for the night.’
I reached down to help Sophia up, suddenly realizing that her gown was quite soaked through with the dew. I was not half as wet as I had been moving about all evening while she’d lain prone upon the ground.
Picking up our cases once more, we made our way slowly towards the cottage, leaving behind the wrecked vehicle and the corpses of our husbands—which we trusted some local official would soon remove and have suitably interred, from motives either sanitary or philanthropic.
It took us more than a few minutes to reach the humble dwelling, for Sophia was much weaker than I, and her faltering steps and constant leaning upon me impeded our progress considerably. At length, however, we arrived at the front door and knocked loudly for admittance.
Chapter Fifteen
The door was at last opened by a stout young country girl named Bridget. The cottage, it seemed, belonged to her grandmother, who was eager to offer us her hospitality. Bridget, I am sorry to say, eyed us with distinct mistrust and was not nearly so accommodating.
Nevertheless, we were given one small room with two narrow beds between us which we gladly accepted. I longed for a rest, for my operatic performance had greatly fatigued me. However, I got precious little sleep, for Sophia’s heavy breathing and a hacking cough she had unaccountably developed kept me awake for several hours together. I refrained from remarking upon her incessant noise, however, and stoically endured her thoughtless behaviour.
Sophia never left her bed the next day. That evening, as I sat before a roaring fire with a woollen blanket about my shoulders, Bridget approached me and crudely opened a conversation in spite of my obvious reluctance to speak.
‘I fear your friend is very ill,’ she said.
‘She complains of a violent headache,’ I answered, ‘aches and pains, flutterings and tremblings all over her.’
‘You really should not have been out so late yesterday evening. You should have brought her here before the night came on.’
‘My senses were not quite right at the time,’ I said defensively, resenting her scolding tone.
‘Are you certain that they are recovered now?’
‘Of course. Why do you ask?’
She looked me up and down, as if I were a hat in a milliner’s shop which she doubted whether she considered worth purchasing.
‘You do not seem quite normal to me,’ she answered bluntly. ‘And my grandmother thinks that your friend has little strength to fight this putrid fever she has developed.’
‘Sophia was ever a delicate creature,’ I concurred, ‘with the most exquisite sensibility.’
‘Yes, she looks like someone whose nerves are disordered.’
‘It is no such thing!’ I cried at once, taking umbrage at the unfeeling way in which she continued to refer to Sophia and myself. ‘My friend’s feelings are excessively tender and her mind quite exalted.’
Bridget fixed me with her basilisk stare, but only remarked, ‘Just as I said.’
I could endure no more of her insolence. Flinging off the blanket and quickly making my way toward the door, I pouted prettily and said, ‘I will go to her now.’
‘God knows what good you’ll do,’ Bridget answered sourly.
The bedchamber was neat and tidy, but sparsely furnished. The one small window was closed and the curtains drawn. A single candle on a small stand beside the bed illuminated the sufferer upon it, leaving the rest of the scene in shadow.
Sophia lay in the centre of the bed, her eyes closed and her
arms by her side. Her hair was splayed out upon the pillow, and her brow glistened with sweat. I knelt beside her and took her left hand in mine.
‘Is Bridget gone?’ she queried, not opening her eyes.
‘Yes, dearest.’
‘She is hopeless.’ Sophia pursed her lips. ‘She has neither refined ideas nor delicate feelings.’
‘She is nothing more than forebearing, civil and obliging.’
‘Contemptible!’ she agreed. ‘But one cannot expect more from someone with a name like Bridget Jones.’
Suddenly the enormity of the situation overcame me, and I broke down into a fit of strenuous sobbing, taking up the edge of the sheet and burying my face in it.
‘My dearest Sophia,’ I cried, ‘do not leave me! Do not leave me alone.’
‘I fear I must, dear Laura. The angels beckon.’
I raised my head, my eyes wide with terror.
‘From which direction?’ I asked. ‘Above or below?’
Sophia attempted to raise herself up on one elbow, but fell back again at once, too weak to support herself.
‘You must be strong.’ Her eyelids fluttered. ‘My disorder has turned to a galloping consumption that will carry me quite away.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘I do indeed.’
‘At least,’ I said consolingly, ‘my attentions to you have ever been above reproach.’
‘Yes.’
‘I have bathed your sweet face with my tears more than once.’
‘You have.’
‘I have pressed your hands continually in mine.’
‘I have the bruises to prove it.’
She lifted one arm limply, extending it to me. I caught it at once in a crushing grip and she winced slightly.
‘Ah!’ I moaned softly. ‘My poor, dear Sophia.’
‘I die a martyr to my grief for the loss of Augustus. One fatal swoon has cost me my life.’
‘So it has.’
A strange light seemed to illumine her delicate features, like a Florentine Madonna in a Renaissance painting.
‘Hear me, Laura,’ she whispered with intensity.
‘Yes, dear.’
‘Beware of swoons and fainting fits. Though at the time they may seem refreshing, if they are indulged in too frequently and in unseasonable weather, they can be ruinous to one’s constitution.’
‘True,’ I said. ‘Alas, too true.’
‘A frenzy fit,’ she continued, though her voice began to waver, ‘is not nearly as pernicious. It is an exercise to the body and ultimately conducive to good health.’
‘You are right, as ever, my dear friend.’
She opened her mouth to speak again, but for a moment had not strength enough for words. Her breathing was alarmingly laboured and her voice so weak that I was forced to place my ear almost against her lips to hear her.
‘Run mad as often as you like, Laura,’ she murmured, ‘but do not faint.’
Then, in an instant, her eyes closed for the last time and her arm fell limply from the side of the bed.
‘I will ever endeavour,’ I vowed fervently, ‘to follow your dying wishes, my Sophia.’
At this juncture I felt it appropriate to erupt into a flood of tears and to admit a short, keening wail. As I did so, however, I became aware that I was no longer alone. Bridget had silently entered the chamber and stood just behind me and to my left, looking down at the lifeless form upon the bed.
‘Is she gone?’ she asked gently.
‘Never to return.’
I stood and turned away from Bridget, moving towards the door.
‘We must make arrangements for her burial,’ the girl said, stopping me in my tracks.
‘I will leave that to you,’ I said. ‘I am too distressed to think of such things.’
Bridget was clearly surprised and apparently not much pleased by this.
‘Leave it to me?’ she demanded, scowling. ‘She was your friend, not mine.’
‘But I am quite unequal to such a task,’ I protested. ‘My sensibility is far too . . . too. . . .’
‘Exalted?’ she suggested drily.
‘Exactly so.’ I was pleased at her quick comprehension, which I really had not expected.
‘We will discuss this again in the morning.’
With this ominous sentence, she drew the sheet up over Sophia’s face while I slipped out of the room as fast as I could.
It was clear to me that the arrangements for Sophia’s interment would be very irritating and time-consuming, not to mention expensive. I had neither the inclination nor the funds for such an undertaking. Therefore, I thought it expedient to quit the cottage before Bridget and her grandmother should attempt to coerce me into exertions so unpleasant and unwelcome to me.
Chapter Sixteen
Sometime after midnight, when I judged the two women to be asleep, I packed my small valise and climbed out through the bedroom window. The valise went out first, and I landed on top of it shortly after.
Making my way back to the road, I was thankful to see that someone had indeed removed the wrecked carriage and the remains of our husbands. Nevertheless, I could hardly stay to dwell upon such matters. I walked briskly for almost a mile, panting heavily from the unaccustomed exercise, the valise growing ever heavier as I advanced.
Suddenly I heard behind me the unmistakable sound of a coach-and-four approaching upon the road. In less than a minute it appeared, and I began to wave my arms vigorously to attract the driver’s attention. It was, in fact, a stagecoach; it drew to a halt a yard or two ahead of me.
‘Please,’ I shouted up at the driver, ‘tell me, where is this stage going?’
‘To Edinburgh, miss,’ he replied promptly, doffing his hat.
‘And have you any room for a poor widow abandoned and in deep distress?’
‘I do indeed, ma’am.’
‘Thank you kindly, coachman.’
I handed my small bag up to him, then opened the carriage door and stepped inside, closing the door behind me as we pulled away.
The interior of the coach was far too dark for me to do more than make out that it was almost full. Everyone appeared to be fast asleep. Even so, I managed to squeeze into the nearest corner and hunched up between the window and the warm body of the stranger beside me.
All was silent, except for the loud and extremely uncouth snores emanating from one of the passengers. I sniffed loudly in disgust, but nobody roused themselves, and I soon closed my eyes from sheer fatigue and joined the contented slumberers.
The morning sunlight slanting across my eyes through the window presently roused me and I looked around to see that my companions had likewise begun to stir. Imagine my surprise when I immediately recognized three who were well-known to me. First I observed Sir Sidney, the father of my late husband; his daughter, the unsympathetic Augusta; and, of all people, my old friend from the Vale of Uske, my dearest Isabel.
I had been but half awake at first, yawning and stretching in an attempt to clear my sleep-addled senses. Now, though, I was shocked into full alertness.
‘Great God!’ I cried, stupefied. ‘Am I dreaming?’
‘It seems to me more in the nature of a nightmare,’ Augusta commented.
It may appear quite improbable—even impossible—that I should have happened on a conveyance filled with so many of my former acquaintance, all of whom had featured so prominently in my past melodrama. But stranger things have been known to occur. A medieval nun was said to have levitated on several occasions; Jonah once swallowed a whale; and only a few years ago some fishermen near Portugal hauled a mermaid up in their net—though she managed to escape, I’m told.
But if three acquaintances should seem difficult to credit, eight must be nothing short of miraculous. Still, that is precisely how many of my old acquaintance were travelling with me.
The other five consisted of Edward’s Aunt Philippa and her husband, who were driving the coach. I was quite astonished by this eccentricity,
but it turned out the explanation was perfectly reasonable. Apparently, Philippa’s husband had already spent all her fortune, and they had nothing left to them but their old coach, which they converted into a stage. This allowed him to return to his former occupation, which was all he had ever known before their marriage. As to why they were in Scotland when Philippa’s home had been in Middlesex, it was simply a question of pride: they could not very well remain in their old home as stagecoach drivers. They would have been a complete laughing stock to their friends and neighbours.
I had scarcely recovered from the shock of this revelation when I realized that the lady seated beside Edward’s sister was none other than the infamous Lady Dorothea—the very same woman whom my Edward was to have married, had he heeded his father’s advice. She was, after all, a bosom friend of Augusta’s.
Finally—and most fantastic of all, perhaps—I soon discovered that the two gentlemen seated in the basket at the rear of the carriage were none other than Philander and Gustavus!
When Lady Dorothea realized the connection between me and all the others, she could not refrain from exclaiming, ‘This is really too much!’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘the coach is a little overcrowded, but not so uncomfortable as one might expect.’
‘No,’ she corrected me with a snap, ‘I mean . . . Oh, never mind!’
I was rather annoyed by her attitude, but turned my attention once more to those two dear boys, Gustavus and Philander. I know that they had been in my black books since robbing Sophia and me of our inheritance. But once I met them again, and realized afresh how very good-looking and charming they both were, what could I do but forgive them for their harmless little peccadilloes? Indeed, we soon found ourselves getting along quite famously when we stopped for a rest at the nearest inn.
It was then, however, that Sir Sidney, Augusta and Lady Dorothea all chose to confront me. The look on the faces of the first two was one of heartless malice. Only my dear Isabel—friend of my childhood—eyed me with bewilderment and curiosity rather than distaste. Naturally, it was into her arms that I presently flung myself.
‘Oh! My Isabel,’ I cried, clinging desperately to her, ‘receive once more to your bosom the unfortunate Laura!’