Chapter Fifteen
December 1888
The remnants of a strange dream lingered in her mind as she woke, but Elizabeth did not care to try and remember it. She knew William had been there, but then that was true of most of her dreams lately.
She had been living listlessly since he’d passed away, going from moment to moment in a haze of sadness and sorrow. The pain was unlike anything she had ever felt before, a hollow ache in her chest, a constant sickness in her stomach, a numbness of her limbs.
Stephen and Mary had been wonderful, the former taking care of all the practicalities and the latter coddling her so much that Elizabeth almost felt smothered. Still, she allowed it. It was a comfort to them both, as Mary had been with the Pratt household since William was a child and she grieved him as a mother would.
Elizabeth dressed mechanically, her fingers stiff while she laced her dress, uncaring that the ribbons weren’t even lengths when she tied them. When she was ready, she went downstairs to the dining room, where a small breakfast of tea and toast awaited her. She ate without really tasting it, then moved aimlessly into the sitting room and sat down at the desk. Her fingers played with the writing implements there, she picked up and put down a pen several times, and then shredded a piece of paper, her mind elsewhere.
Her routine had been the same for the last few days, ever since the funeral. It had been a quiet affair, subdued and solemn and not at all fitting for the man William had been, Elizabeth thought. She had allowed Stephen and Mary to pull her along like flotsam on a drifting tide, and had been introduced to the few attendees as William’s widow. It was better to go along with that pretence than to explain the truth.
What happened next? She almost didn’t want to think about it, far preferring to stay locked in her mind and allowing Mary to guide her through her daily tasks.
Her hands flitted to the pile of books that Stephen had unpacked from William’s bag, a mixture of novels, poetry books, and William’s own writing. She recognised a couple of the books as the journals she had acquired for him back on the island, simple and plainly bound but clearly well-used. She hadn’t looked at them yet, hadn’t dared to, for fear of breaking down, but now she felt a compulsion to read the words he’d written.
He hadn’t had a chance to read them to her.
Shakily, she reached for the first of the journals and flipped it open to the first page. The first sight of his cursive writing made her breath catch in her throat. It was immediately clear that the poem was about her—about them—from early on in their correspondence.
Ruled by heart and not by head,
I do not know where I am led.
Something strange and something new,
My mind is filled with thoughts of you.
What to do? the lines are blurred,
The only escape through our words.
Alone, I stare at the stars above,
As always, a fool for love.
For the first time since William had died, she allowed herself to cry.
***
Life went on, much as Elizabeth wished it would stay still and static. She spent her days at the house, sometimes wandering into the garden for hours on end until the cold air forced her back inside.
The bed of pansies in the garden should have looked bright and vibrant, but Elizabeth only saw the flowers as a carpet of grey. Everything seemed to have lost its colour and become dull.
She knew she had to find something to do, find some purpose for her life, but she didn’t feel like it. What she didn’t do today could be done tomorrow, after all. Except that every time tomorrow came, she dismissed her ideas as whimsy. There didn’t seem to be any point.
Mary tried to interest her in preparing for Christmas, but the enticing smells of gingerbread and mince pies from the kitchen did little to pique her interest.
Elizabeth was in a stupor, and nothing seemed able to break her out of it.
Then, one day in mid-December, everything changed.
She had gone out into the garden, mindful of the slippery ice on the pathways, and seated herself on the stone bench by the small pond. It was quiet and peaceful and reminded her of the gardens at Ventnor.
Elizabeth watched as a robin flittered into sight and landed on the ground nearby. It pecked at the ground three times before taking flight again, a piece of twig clenched firmly in its beak. The sight made her smile, and the realisation of that shocked her; she had had very little to smile about since William had died.
Something so small and simple as a robin redbreast had lightened her heart a little and, whilst it still felt heavy and dark in her chest, it was a start. A sudden coldness on her cheek made her jump, and she looked up at the sky to see that snow had started to fall. It wasn’t heavy, not yet, but when it started to settle on the grass and flowerbeds, Elizabeth felt that it was time to go back inside. Perhaps Mary would do her a cup of tea and a mince pie.
She picked her way carefully back towards the house and the kitchen door. It was slightly ajar and she looked around; that usually meant that the kitchen cat had needed to go outside. Sure enough, Moggy was sitting underneath the bare twigs of the white-speckled rosehip bush.
Elizabeth left the cat to its business and was about to push open the door when she head a voice from within the kitchen that made her heart near stop beating. She flattened herself back against the wall of the house, out of sight of the window, and tried to calm her racing heart. Her father. How had he found her here? He must have got Aunt Tara to spill the beans.
“You’ve allowed her into London town by herself? Are you quite mad?”
“Of course not, Sir!” Mary sounded indignant. “She’s accompanied by the house butler, Mr. Walters. He’ll see no harm comes to her.”
God Bless Mary for covering for her!
“I see.” Mr. Summers sighed. “And what of this fellow she thinks herself in love with? Where is he?”
“He—” Mary paused and Elizabeth could hear the waver in the woman’s voice. She held her breath and awaited the cook’s answer. “He’s away on business.”
“That will make it easier for all involved, then,” Mr. Summers said. “I’ve come to take Elizabeth back with me. Her… association with Mr. Pratt is most unfortunate, but I don’t believe the situation is irredeemable. Mr. Rayne still wishes to marry her; no harm has been done.” Elizabeth heard the rattle of a teacup being replaced on a saucer and then the scraping of a chair on the floor. “Perhaps you have somewhere more comfortable for me to wait, Mrs. Rampton? I do find wooden chairs to be most unforgiving on the back.”
“Right this way,” Mary replied, her voice tight.
Elizabeth listened as the footsteps retreated further into the house. She slumped against the wall, the pounding of her heart so loud, she feared her father would be able to hear. A split-second later, she pushed away from the house, scooped up the cat, and ran towards the other end of the garden and the unused Summer House.
She shoved her way through the door, coughing a little when she disturbed months of gathered dust, and slammed it behind her. She had never been into the Summer House before, and she looked around curiously.
It was sparsely furnished, and white sheets covered everything. Weeds had pushed their way through some of the floorboards, and a thick layer of dust enveloped all of the surfaces.
Setting the cat down onto the floor, she tugged at the corner of the most likely-looking white-sheeted object, pulling it away completely when she saw that it was indeed a settee.
She sank down onto it with relief, smiling slightly when moments later a most disgruntled cat leapt up beside her. It had dusty paws that it set about cleaning thoroughly, after levelling Elizabeth with a suspicious stare.
“Sorry Moggy,” Elizabeth whispered. She sighed when she heard the tremor in her voice; she didn’t want to be afraid of her father. He had always been good to her—arranged marriage aside—and he was a kind man, but the shock of him turning up like that had frightened her.
He wanted to take her back to the island, back to the marriage she had run from, and she simply couldn’t allow that to happen.
She loved William.
But… he was gone. And the weeks alone had shown her that without him there, she was useless. Perhaps it would be better if she did go back to the island with her father, even if it meant she had to marry a man she hated.
What use had she in London? What worth here?
At least on the island, she was able to help the patients at the hospital. She had a purpose.
Squeezing her eyes closed, she leaned against the back of the sofa. The cat, having finished preening, leapt onto her lap and curled up with a contented meow. Elizabeth brought her hand to its head and petted it. Purring happily, the cat closed its eyes and seemed to be settling in for sleep.
“Oh, to be a cat,” she said, stroking its back. “Such a simple life, and nothing to worry about.” She laughed abruptly. “Oh, God. Wishing I was a cat. I’m going quite mad, it seems.”
A sudden flash of something half-remembered hit her, and she blinked. Had she spoken those words before?
Shaking her head, she pushed aside all longing to have the straightforward life of a feline and focused on the problem at hand. Her father sat inside the house, waiting for her to return with Stephen from an imaginary shopping trip.
She knew she couldn’t keep wandering aimlessly through life, as tempting as it sounded.
It was time to make a decision.
She could go back up to the house and see her father, let him take her back home. Or, she could— She sighed. There was no or.
She stood up, dislodging the sleeping cat that tumbled to the floor with an angry yowl. That flash of half-memory hit her again, and she stumbled backwards. There were no strong hands to catch her this time, and she half-fell against the side of the settee, the hard wooden arm digging painfully into her side.
“Ow,” she said, but the pain was short-lived as the half-memories became full memories, remembrance of a forgotten dream from several nights before.
William had been there, so strangely dressed in tight-fitting clothes and with bright white hair. They had been in the Summer House, and she had had the cat with her.
How odd that she should dream of that before it actually happened.
Looking around herself almost fearfully, she half-expected to see William appear, as he had in her dream. He had been so insistent about her not returning to the island. Scarily insistent.
Had she known in her subconscious that it would come down to this? Had she known somehow that she would soon have to decide?
Now she remembered it, the dream took on new life in her mind. It had felt so real. William had seemed so real.
“I left you money. I left you this house. Go to Paris, like you wanted! Or America. Use your nurse’s training to help others. Take Mary and Catherine with you. There’s a whole world waiting for you. Just please, don’t go back to the island."
Elizabeth stood again, brushing dirt from her skirts. She bent down and picked up the cat, nuzzling her face against his for a quick moment.
It was time to make a decision.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and made her choice.
***
November 2010
The flurry of nurses hurrying down the corridor towards Buffy’s room told Spike that something was wrong, and he dropped his empty coffee cup on the floor before racing after them.
A porter barred his entry to the room, saying something about giving the doctors room to work, but Spike was deaf to the man’s protests. He pushed open the door and came to an abrupt standstill when he saw the crowd of medical staff around Buffy’s small form on the bed.
Her gown had been pulled down, and two flesh-coloured squares put onto her chest. A doctor held the paddles of a defibrillator high, said something to one of the nurses, and brought them down onto Buffy’s chest.
She jerked up off the bed before falling back, and the sight of it made Spike feel sick. He was unaware of the single word he chanted through tight lips while the doctor repeated the procedure. “No, no, no, no.”
Spike felt his world start to crash down in slow-motion around him, when the monotonous whine of the heart monitor broke into his consciousness, and the doctor spoke to his colleagues.
“Let’s call it. Time of death, eleven-eighteen.”
***
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you to my readers and reviewers! The consensus seemed to be that you'd like the picspam, so I'll work on that this week and will hopefully have it ready to post with the epilogue. Thank you, as always, to Sotia for beta reading. :)