Before the Midnight Bells

by Jessica Woodard

  “Ella...”

  “No. I mean it Max, don’t. Don’t say a word. I can’t believe...” She abruptly stopped and pressed her lips together, as though a torrent of words would come pouring out, if only she would let them. Max held his breath and waited. Finally she spoke again.

  “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  Then she, too, strode off into the darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Ella sat at her counter, pillowing her head on her forearms. The past two weeks had been a misery. In the Gothic romances she read, girls died from broken hearts, but her heart just kept right on beating, with no sign of the slightest pause. She hadn’t fainted, or taken to her bed, or even lost her appetite. No, she was a robust working girl, and her days continued on like always.

  Except, of course, for the enormous pain in her chest she felt every waking minute. It was as though someone had come along and taken every good feeling she had ever had and removed it, leaving behind a great awful nothingness. Even when she managed to think of something else for a short while, the gaping hole in her heart always reminded her of its presence before long. So she sat at her counter, thinking wistfully how nice it would be to have the vapors, just so she could do something other than sit there and ache inside.

  The bell above her door tinkled. Ella didn’t lift her head. She knew who it was. No one had been to her shop in the whole interval since the ball. Rumor spread viciously fast. She could admit, in a tiny little part of her mind, that the only reason she kept coming in was that she had been waiting for him to show up.

  Because she had a few things she wanted to say.

  “I hope you’ve come to settle your bill.”

  Silence.

  “As you can tell, from the lack of work that I’m doing, I don’t have any work right now. My shop has been totally devoid of customers since word got out that I drove the princess from the kingdom.”

  Still not a word.

  “Luckily for me the rent on this place was paid until the end of the month. That gives me at least another week to sell the stock that I keep here. I can probably pay the butcher then.”

  Soft footsteps, coming closer.

  “Of course, paying the butcher is really such a minor thing, when you consider there’s no way that I’ll ever be able to make the payments on our mortgage now that I have no income.”

  The steps paused.

  “Millicent and Prudence are both engaged now, but the weddings are being put off until I can safely appear in public without being pelted with rotten fruit. I suppose they can always go live in their fiancés’ houses until the ceremony, and my Godmother has offered me a place. But I’d very much like to pay all the merchants who have given us things on credit these past months.”

  “Ella...” at last he spoke, but Ella was in no mood to listen.

  “So you can see,” she lifted her head off the counter, and glared at him with all the rage and pain she had felt over the past two weeks, “it would be really helpful if you had come to settle accounts, Max.”

  “Ella...” His voice was anguished, “please don’t do this.”

  “Do what, Max? Force you to see what your actions have wrought? Blame you for it? Be angry at the wreck of all I’ve worked for? What, exactly, would you have me not do, my lord?”

  “Don’t push me away. Let me help.”

  “Help? Help? Listen to this, Max.” Ella ran to the door and flung it open. In the street were the same children that had been playing there every day this week. And they were skipping rope, as always. One little girl was doing very well in the center, while all around, the children chanted in singsong voices:

  Seamstress Ella, nabbed the fella

  Made the princess give a yell-ah

  Vivi ran when she lost her man

  That was evil Ella’s plan...

  Ella shut her door again and leaned her head against it. Tears ran down her face as she faced Max, and her voice was ragged, no longer with anger, now just with a deep pain.

  “The whole kingdom knows, knows, mind you, that I am a foul temptress who tried to seduce you away from the princess. What can you do to help? If you speak out on my behalf or keep company with me, it will only make things worse. I can stand being barred from polite society; it was never really a thing I loved to begin with. But my shop...” She stopped, and looked around helplessly. “This dream is done for. I will never be able to support my family now. And, oh irony of ironies, the option I did everything to avoid—that I marry some man just because he could afford to support me—is also no longer available. No man will want to take on the burden of a wife reviled by the whole kingdom.” She took a deep breath, and then kept going. “You cannot help me. The only way you could have helped me was to tell me the truth from the beginning, so that I could have kept my heart whole, and my life together.”

  “Ella,” Max stepped towards her, but she backed away, “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “I believe you. Now believe me when I tell you that the best thing you can do for me is pay and get out.”

  Max stared at her a long moment. Her eyes welled with tears, but he saw no hesitance, no weakening, no chance that she would take those words back. So he opened his purse and emptied it on the counter. Then he bowed low and dropped the parcel he had carried next to the pile of money, and left without looking back.

  As the door swung shut Ella caught the sound of the children beginning the second verse of that hated ditty. Gritting her teeth in frustration she opened the bag Max had left on the counter. Inside were her slippers from the night of the ball. Max must have gone back for them; he had dropped them in the maze when he’d kissed her.

  Kissed her for the very last time.

  Ella sat back down at the counter and cried like a child.

  ***

  Max sat in his study, drinking brandy. He been drinking brandy for several hours, but he could still remember the look on Ella’s face when she described the shambles he had made of her life, so obviously he hadn’t drunk enough. Perhaps if he managed to imbibe the entire contents of his cellar he’d be able to forget that he ruined her; carelessly, thoughtlessly ruined her. Then again, perhaps not. He barely noticed his butler entering.

  “My lord, you have a visitor.”

  “Send whoever it is away. I’m not receiving.”

  “My lord, I cannot.”

  “You cannot?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Mayhew, you have always been an exemplary butler.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “Really smashing.”

  “I appreciate it, my lord.”

  “Which is why I haven’t sacked you on the spot for telling me you can’t send someone away.”

  “My lord?”

  “It seems like it’s one of the basic functions of butlers, isn’t it? Maybe first is letting people in, but then next is sending them away, am I right?”

  “Perhaps I could bring you some tea, my lord, before showing her in.”

  “Her?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Mayhew, perhaps you could tell me who this visitor is, that is so special she cannot be sent away.”

  “Dame Fae Merriweather, my lord.”

  Almost before Mayhew had finished speaking Max was out of his arm chair and running for the door. As he dashed into the hallway he heard Mayhew dutifully calling after him.

  “In the morning room, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Mayhew!”

  “I’ll be in directly with some tea.”

  ***

  Dame Merriweather stood gazing through one of the large picture windows that faced his drive. She continued her perusal of his front lawns as he checked his mad forward motion and approached her at a more sedate pace. As he opened his mouth to greet her, she spoke.

  “Well, my boy, you’ve made a dog’s breakfast out of this whole affair, haven’t you?”

  “I didn’t realize you so greatly objected to well-trimmed grass
and a small duck pond, Madam.” Max’s voice was tense, but blast it all, he was tired of being told how vastly he had erred. Even if he had.

  “Oh, how clever. Yes, you have quite the clever tongue. A pity you used it to woo my Goddaughter, since you don’t seem to have a clever brain to go along with it.” The Dame used a mild tone. Her words were quite sharp enough, no matter how pleasant her voice remained. Oddly, Max felt his irritation draining from him. After all, she was right, wasn’t she?

  “Madam, if you’ve come to make sure I feel adequately wretched, I assure you, I do.” That drew her attention from the window. She looked at him, face in perfect repose but for one eyebrow, which arched alarmingly high on her brow. “Nothing you could say to me would be worse than what I have said to myself. It doesn’t matter that all I wanted was to help my friend. Nor does it matter that I kept company with Ella because, after meeting her, I found I couldn’t stay away. I have discovered, far too late, that I should have chained myself in my own cellar if that was the only alternative to bringing us to this particular pass. I am, as you say, an idiot. Although idiot hardly covers it.”

  Max’s voice had risen in agitation. Closing his eyes he brought himself under control, and then whispered the truth aloud. “I am an idiot who loves your Goddaughter. And I have ruined all her hopes with my thoughtless actions. So you see,” he opened his eyes, and looked at the Dame with an agonized countenance, “I do not need your words to make me miserable. I am already quite miserable enough.”

  Max flopped onto his sofa. Closing his eyes and letting his head fall back he waited to hear the sounds that would signal that Dame Merriweather was taking her leave. Instead her heard a gentle rustle, as she settled on to the sofa next to him.

  “So, you love my Ella, do you?”

  “Rather more than I intended, Madam.”

  “Does she love you, do you think?”

  “At the moment I am assured that she despises me.”

  “Been to see her, have you?”

  “Been to see her, been properly flayed by her, been thrown out by her... yes.”

  “Ah.” Dame Merriweather chuckled, an unexpected sound for Max. “You give up too easily, my boy.”

  His eyes popped open. “Come again?”

  “Never yet has there been a woman who allowed her heart to be broken by someone she didn’t care for.”

  Max sat up. “What?”

  “If I were in your position, not that I would ever be so foolish as to get in the position in the first place, mind you... I would think of a way to set things to rights with someone I loved.”

  Max was staring at her, eyes wide with hope, but brain fogged with brandy. “I...uh...I...”

  “Never mind, I’m not sure you’re smart enough to deserve my Goddaughter.”

  “Wait, wait, I’m not stupid, I’m just dead drunk.”

  Dame Merriweather gave him a skeptical look. As well she might. Dead drunk was hardly a sterling recommendation. Although, perhaps, if the alternative was real idiocy... Max shook his head. He wasn’t focusing properly.

  “What you’re saying...” he forced his mind to churn out a logical statement, “is that I should set things right.”

  Dame Merriweather beamed at him. “Mmmm... well, at least you’re trainable, if not overly bright.”

  “Hang on, hang on, let’s review the situation.”

  “A decent proposition, if you believe you can manage it.”

  “Well, I am currently in severe disfavor with the king. He has refrained from levying an actual punishment, because he, much like yourself, thinks I am just an idiot.”

  “Always knew our monarch was an astute fellow. Go on.”

  “I am in a great deal of trouble with Ella, mostly because I have destroyed her reputation and ruined any hopes of her garnering clientele or settling her family’s debts. Also possibly a little bit because I failed to tell her a few things.”

  “I think the word is ‘lied’ boy.”

  “Don’t distract me with your adherence to the facts, Madam.”

  “Sorry, pray continue.”

  “Vivienne should be half way to her mother’s kingdom by now, and if that’s the case...”

  Max trailed off. Dame Merriweather waited for him to resume, but he was lost in thought.

  “You were doing so well, boy, don’t stop now.”

  “I’m a little afraid of where I was leading.”

  “I should think so, it’s a terrifying idea.”

  Max looked at his caller. She knew. Somehow this canny old woman was looking inside his head. How? Max shook his head. A thought for another time, perhaps.

  “My father’s going to be very angry.”

  “Your father? Worry about him later, boy—the king is going to be furious.”

  “Any ideas on how to avoid banishment, beheading, or good old-fashioned incarceration?”

  Dame Merriweather cocked her head to one side, as though assessing him. Max got the distinct impression that whatever decision she made would be important, and he tried to fill his mind with noble thoughts and purpose. Instead it just filled with thoughts of Ella. Ella laughing at the peers of the realm in their finery, Ella working at her counter, Ella dancing in his arms; and yes, Ella kissing him, touching him, melting with him. He couldn’t suppress the memory of his night with her in the attic, and watching the Dame, he knew she somehow could see his every thought. He held himself rigid, waiting for her response.

  Dame Merriweather sighed.

  “Well, you’re still not good enough for her. But you do love her, don’t you, boy?” Running a knowing eye over his body she gave a small wicked smile. “And I guess I can see why she likes you.” Like a flash the smile was gone. The Dame cleared her throat and opened up her small reticule.

  “I would suggest that, when you go, you take this along.” She drew forth a small crumpled sheet of paper. Max recognized it.

  “How did you get Vivienne’s note? I looked everywhere for it when they first noticed she was gone.”

  “Yes, yes, and if you’d found it you would have handed it over, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, Vivienne said to give it to her father.”

  Max wasn’t sure why the Princess had written the note in the first place. It only said, “Don’t blame Max, none of this is his fault.”

  “But if you’d given it to him before, he would have assumed her Royal Highness was assigning blame to Ella.”

  Max furrowed his brow. He’d never thought of that. Perhaps the Dame was right and he wasn’t too bright.

  “Anyway, I think it’s safe for you to regain possession of it now.”

  “Thank you, I suppose.”

  “What, no further questions at to how it came into my hands in the first place?”

  “I’m a little afraid to ask.”

  “Good boy, you’re learning.”

  The Dame gathered up her gloves and reticule, clearly intent on taking her leave. Max took a quick step towards her.

  “Wait, after... after this, will you...would you... I mean...”

  “You want me to talk to Ella?” She gave him a piercing look.

  “Would you?”

  “I’m sorry, Max, truly I am.” Dame Merriweather gazed on him with eyes full of sympathy, a little affection, and a great deal of humor. “But have faith. You’ve convinced me, and I don’t even like you that much.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  For once, the parlor in the Emberton house was immaculate. Ella, deprived of anything else to do, had fallen to house cleaning with a ferocity that surprised her stepmother and stepsisters. Meals were once again composed affairs, and their skirts no longer brushed puffs of dust up everywhere they stepped, but no one much appreciated the change. Ella went about the house work with zeal, but no happiness, and her family found themselves longing for a return of the frantic, busy, happy Ella, who had no time to see to the comforts of home.

  All four of the ladies of the house were taking tea. Beatrice, Prudence, a
nd Millicent were all chatting around the fire, discussing possible wedding plans. It was one of their favorite topics, as nothing could really be settled, so they could natter on about it forever. More than one plan had been made for fall, winter, or even spring weddings. At this point they’d discussed flower arrangements so many times that Ella felt like shoving her hands in her ears and singing, just so she didn’t have to hear a serious conversation on the merits of lilies versus roses yet again.

  She didn’t, though. She was well aware that it was her fault that the wedding plans couldn’t be finalized. So she let her family talk about daisies and peonies and petunias, and she pretended it didn’t drive her mad, while a cup of tea sat cooling—forgotten—in her hand.

  The knock on the front door startled all of them. They hadn’t had an unexpected caller in over two weeks, since the night of the final ball. Beatrice and Prudence tripped each other trying to stand up, and Millicent stumbled over both of them. Ella rose, unhurried, and managed to open the door while the other three were all still trying to untangle their skirts. There, on the doorstep, stood Mrs. Pritchett.

  “Oh, Eleanor, dear, I cannot credit it! You must be so relieved!”

  “Why, I... What?”

  The question was lost on their neighbor. She had already made a beeline for the parlor and was ensconcing herself in the large, wing-backed chair.

  “I can’t believe you ladies are sitting here so calmly, surely you’ve heard the news?

  “What news?” Millicent and Beatrice spoke in tandem. Plopping themselves down on the sofa they pulled Prudence between them, ready to hear any gossip Mrs. Pritchett wanted to divulge.

  “What news? What news?! I can’t believe you haven’t heard.”

  “Perhaps,” Ella spoke as she settled herself in the window seat, “you might do us the very great favor of telling us.”

  “Well, my dears,” the busybody began, “it seems that this morning, Christopher Wellesley threw himself into the lion’s jaws. Apparently he suffered a crisis of conscience...”

  Ella listened in a daze.

  “...and he marched right into the audience hall, right in front of the king, and his father, and all the Lords Advisory, and...” the list went on. Ella lost track of the conversation. Max had gone to the king? What did he say? When was this blathering woman going to tell her what he said?