Chapter 12- Split Personalities
Gladys pushed forward the heavy door, it seemed to almost push back, attempting to refuse the two girls entry to the less than welcoming sitting room. The wood panelling surrounded them and the two windows (the only light source, which made the room rather dark despite the size of them) were being engulfed by heavy crimson velvet curtains.
‘Miss Scarlett here to see you madam.’ Gladys bobbed a quick curtsey and rushed out, laving Scarlett alone in her front room with this stranger. Agnes looked up from her magazine and shifted her neatly tucked legs slightly to the left.
‘Ah! Scarlett.’ She trilled. ‘We are having guests tonight, Lord Abram Bradshore and his son, Lewis. You have not met since you were children but I think you and he should make a fine pair so please be charming. Besides’ She took a gulp from a brandy glass before continuing ‘his father’s health is beginning to fail so soon he shall have a fortune that will even exceed what you shall one day have.’ She laughed and gestured for Scarlett to sit.
‘What is he like as a person?’ Scarlett inquired as she sank into an armchair and stowed her legs in a similar fashion to her mother. Agnes shrugged unhelpfully and offered Scarlett a brandy which she refused.
‘How should I know? I have not seen him for a little over a decade.’ Agnes twittered on. ‘Hand me my cigarette case please darling? Oh and the matches! Thank you dear’ she said stuffing one between her lips before lighting the vile article and taking a long drag, which was exaggerated by the dimness of the room. ‘Just be delightful to him. It would please us all to see you with such a rich suitor!’ Scarlett smiled weakly.
‘I will do as you ask but I would like to know his character better before-‘
‘Before what?’ Her mother suddenly snapped. ‘It is not your choice dear!’ Scarlett looked up in shock and Agnes’s expressions softened in the grey light as she tried to explain. ‘You are, as I once was, all too innocent. You are a woman in a man’s world, Scarlett. We are not made for happiness and we do not marry for love like novelists believe. We marry in order to give us security and as it is the only option we have to better ourselves!’ Heated tears pricked at Scarlett’s eyes.
‘What if I never intended to marry?’ She inquired in a choked voice.
‘And end up the subject of evil idle gossip like Luella? I think not! I’d prefer you to marry for love than not at all. At least you could not be branded Scarlett the harlot then.’ She said the word ‘love’ with scorn, as if talking of unicorns or some other mythical subject.
‘Don’t worry yourself; I intend to marry at some time. But I do not know whether I am a little young at the moment.’ Agnes waved away the remark and her daughter.
‘I shall not worry, you are a good child Scarlett and have always acted well. Unlike your brother, and I hope such a severe punishment shall serve as an example to you. After all we do only want what is best for you.’
‘I know Mother, may I excuse myself? I have letters to write before the postman drops by in an hour as well as other tasks to busy myself with today.’ Agnes nodded with Scarlett’s speech and gestured for her to go as she took another drag from her cigarette and drank the last of her drink. Scarlett stood and turned to pace towards the door as a serving girl walked in carrying a silver tray with white powder arranged in rows on it’s surface. Agnes’s face brightened as Scarlett’s fell, her mother’s habits disgusted her and the maid’s willingness to feed her this vice was simply grotesque.
On her way out of the room she saw Gladys lurking by the front door, Scarlett was quite sure that she had some sort of special relationship with the postman. She walked up to her and lent to ask in a low voice.
‘That girl who took that tray into my mother, what is her name?’
‘Melissa, Miss. She seems a little proud of her post if you ask me.’
‘I didn’t ask you Gladys, but I dare say she is.’ Scarlett carried on in her low tone. ‘Melissa you say? Well, I am going up to my room to write letters now, alert me when the postman makes an appearance would you? We have special guests tonight so I have not the time to go out to town.’
‘Of course, Miss.’ Scarlett smiled and took to the stairs, her mind distracted with removing the girl from the house and talking to Nathan of these new demands. Or Nate as he had referred to him his past two weeks out of spite, though he had quite warmed to this new nickname and if Scarlett did not know better she would insist that he did in fact quite like it.
‘Letty, where have you been?’ He asked exasperatedly. ‘You finished breakfast nearly twenty five minutes ago and we planned an amble so I can show you more of these lands. Well? Have you no apology? Probably not and I should have known! You are a rude creature!’
‘Rude? Am I really?’ Scarlett asked in a panic, hoping she could live up to her parent’s expectations in the evening and somehow purloin Lewis’s heart, or soul. It did not matter which.
‘Since when did you have a care Miss Letty?’ He laughed and took her hands to drag her into her own murky sitting room.
‘Since I realised that I cannot exist as a savage forever Nathan. Now please tell me, am I really very rude?’
‘Nathan?’ He looked hurt as if her half an hour absence had stolen her personality from her body. ‘Fetch your shoes and I shall wake you from this civilized slumber, it is unnatural and I won’t let it control you much longer.’
‘Nathan, Nate, Scarlett, Letty! Of what significance is what we are called, they are all the same object so what does it matter? And what is such a trouble with being civilized?’ Nathan groaned in frustration before breaking the first thing that his hands came into contact with in his fit of resentment- which this time happened to be a crystal pitcher which spun glinting shards across the black stained oak floorboards.
‘Miss Scarlett?’ A muffled maid’s voice called up. ‘Is everything alright up there? Would you like for me to tidy that for you?’ Letty crept closer to Nate and bent down so she could meet his downcast eyes and her face split into a smile before laughing out loud.
‘There! Nastiness amused me!’ She took a pair of black pointed leather boots from the floor and begun to lace them in a hurry. ‘Rouse me from ladylike beliefs if you must but I must siesta further later, be warned.’ Nate’s gaze did not move from Scarlett but he did not react to her retreat. She huffed like a brat and sauntered closer to him with her right bootlaces still trailing, she reached up to touch his lips and the contours of his gentle face before leaning in close enough to kiss his cheekbone. All her troubles earned her was a single blink. ‘Nate! Do not be so awkward you are wasting our time!’
Suddenly the statue grew animated and snatched Letty into a turbulent embrace followed by a beautifully suffocating kiss which left his love close to collapse but rather than allowing her a second to recover he brought her down stairs and out of the house, still fastening her coat as she skipped into the cold.
‘Miss Scarlett? Miss Scarlett!’ She heard Emerson’s angry calls chase her through the spinney as she went. ‘You had better be going to a place with purpose! If you get lost I shall not hear of it young lady!’ Nate laughed and pulled her through to the other side of the trees.
‘Oh!’ was all Letty could manage when she was faced by a never ending sea of purple bell and ling heather, decorated here and there with patches of gorse, moss, herbs and whortleberry. His grip on her hand tightened and they smiled at one another. ‘It is so full and yet so sparse! So like the sea! It can be turbulent, calm, so lovely and so hateful!’
‘Is that ourselves you are describing?’ Nate enquired with glee in his tone.
‘I suppose I could have but I was referring to our desolate counterpart.’
‘It is not so barren, there is a tree here somewhere. I used to identify with the lonely soul. Shall we find it for you?’ she giggled like she would have in her schoolgirl days had she been happy enough as Nate and her ran hand in hand like ravening aborigines.
The tree was dead when they found it but it was still intact and beautiful enough, truly a landmark in the otherwise violet landscape. Letty leaned back against it and the dirty bark formed blemishes across her pale green dress and grey coat. Not helped by Nate keeping her against the offending sycamore so his lips could graze against hers.
It was so bitterly cold as the white clouds obscured the sun to nothing more than a faint silver disk through the layered clouds but the two were kept happy by the others inane chatter and silly actions that they must have stayed stood at the one spot for close to four hours.
‘Will you come to bed early tonight Letty? It is these times when my soul tears when you are even a few floors below me for too long.’
‘No, we have company tonight, a lord and his son are coming to visit.’ Letty attempted to keep her voice light.
‘And pray what is the purpose of their visit? Is it so pressing that you cannot conjure illness or a better excuse to force yourself to bed early?’
‘Yes it is I am sorry, I wish it were not so but I cannot contort my parents plans.’ She whined. Nate picked up the desperate tone in her voice and eyes her suspiciously.
‘This is not just about not being able to leave this gathering prematurely is it Letty?’ he whispered. ‘No, there is something on your eyes telling me that much. What is it? Oh! God! It’s shame! Guilt!’ He laughed cynically. All the anger and vengefulness that the day had removed from him returned. ‘Come on! What is it? Explain this!’
‘It seems my parents are trying their hand at match-making. This young man who is stopping for dinner may marry me if I look and act well, however if I do not make him love me than I shall lose my home and family.’ Scarlett was only just begging to realise how small her own aviary actually was and how solid the bars that held her were.
‘They would disown you?’
‘They have already done so to my brother.’ She murmured downheartedly. ‘So why should they hesitate to do the same to me?’
‘If you really believe that they could be so fickle why do you stay? They cannot love you as they should.’
‘Ha!’ She laughed scornfully. ‘And where could I go? What could I live on? My reputations would be ruined and my life would be impossible to salvage!’
‘So.’ He muttered sinking to the floor staring up at Scarlett. ‘How would you expect me to be with this? With you going out to be someone else’s wife? Do you think that I should leave and let you move on with it? Stay and make you guilty for the sin? Treat you as dearly as I thought you were once worth until I cannot stay by you any longer?’ A sob broke from Scarlett.
‘You cannot leave me Nate! I live for your deathly breath on my face and silent heart against my own chest.’ Nate just smirked.
‘What does this mean exactly Scarlett?’
‘I have an irrational and illogical love for someone who by god’s laws I could never have!’
‘But you do not obey god, you obey me. Which changes things as I may always have you in a way no one else could mentally.’ He paused as Letty silently kneeled down next to him. ‘But physically I should have an obstacle and not just my own mortality. I shall have to contend with a man that one day you could call husband for you when I already own you and love you.’ He chuckled darkly at how unsound it all was.
‘I shall always love you the best no matter what your competition is.’ Nate picked a twig of purple flower from a low bush and tangled it into Letty’s dishevelled hair.
‘I will stay… but I will not stop my passion, I shall not refrain from inflicting pain upon you as punishment for your sin. I just hope and pray and beseech the lord with all my heart that this man is the foulest, most diabolical and cruel persecutor! For if this was answered in my favour I know I should be happy…’
