Chapter 14- The prayer
Scarlett was on her knees, begging for forgiveness for once, rather than just laughing off sins without any guilt. Her forehead rested on her clasped hands as she knelt at the crucifix in the Height’s own tiny chapel, her elbows resting on a low dark wooden bench and her knees, grazed and bleeding, rested on the ragged stone floor. She reasoned with god through clenched teeth as water battered the tiny building from all sides. Her teeth were clenched not because she was angry but because she would not sob, not for this monster! Maybe she should see herself in the mirror a moment and notice that she was more a fiend to mankind than a friend also. But no Scarlett was far too arrogant and self serving to do anything that would not benefit her directly in an instant.
‘Oh Lord, I have sinned! I have lost my soul and I am out of wedlock and further the thief of this object had fallen from your favour but was not accepted by Lucifer either! Oh I know not what to do but I cannot marry Lewis for it would not do for either of us and my soul could not survive if it were to be taken from Nate or the Heights, we have grown together these past few months. Nate is my home and no one should be taken from their sanctuary but the Heights and I are one! Both of us together a pair of objects kept encased in Nate’s favour, love and hatred! Like two daggers forged and destroyed in perfect unison we shall never belong to anyone but the person who is responsible for these peaks and valleys in our lives. Nate! Oh Nate! How I hate him as you do Lord but love him more than I could love either you or Christ! I respect him more than both my earthly and heavenly fathers!’ Then a sob escaped her and she clenched her teeth harder and dug her fingernails into her own skin and kept her prayers silent as oddly cool blood began to dribble from her knuckles to her wrists.
The fool stayed pleading with the heavens for what must have been hours until a strong hand grabbed the back of her coat and flung her back against the sandstone pews. She shrieked at the pain as she crumpled to the floor.
‘Praying?’ Nate spat at her in disgust. ‘You hypocrite! What good should it do now? He won’t answer pleas from such a vile reprobate! You waste your time, foul miscreant!’ He did not sneer as Scarlett expected him to do, not that he could see his beautiful face clearly from underneath her selfish tears. Instead he lifted her caringly from the ground where he had placed her and inspected her crimson hands before kissing them gently. ‘There there, Scarlett, do not cry. If you were to be married to Lewis I should kill your parents to bring you back to the Heights. Then if you are still good to me I may even kill your husband, and free you from your guilt, if you even have the ability to suffer from an emotion such as this. And so through a show of hatred I confess my love once more for you, Scarlett. You should be grateful for what I should do to keep you here!’ Scarlett nodded and smiled sadly as he washed her hands in holy water from the alter.
‘Maybe if I were to marry Lewis I should bring the Heights down with me and take you from here to his house. A little suffering further may do you some good, though I love you so that harm to you would be harm to me. Ah! How I hate love, it is an emotion that was made to create madmen I should think.’ Nate smirked at this and dried her hands on his shirt. Then he put his strong arms around her and drew her close so gently as if she was the most precious object that had ever graced the earth. There could never have been a stupider pair.
‘Now Scarlett you would only do yourself harm as pulling down the Heights would have no effect on me as my foundations here are stronger than the buildings. I am more of a home to you than it, so you would always return to me. Yet you would have no shelter from the gales and storms of my temper. So you shall only hurt yourself, see?’ Scarlett nodded again and then closed her eyes, the pains of all her injuries finally spreading through her at once, but she was at peace here in his arms.
‘Why did you come here?’
‘You weren’t in the house, skilfully keeping away from your mother I expect? She’s inhaling white dust as a distraction from boredom again, the state it gets her into is quite ghastly.’
‘I know, I’ve had to put up with it since I was a young child. She says it was Jarred’s behaviour which led to it but…’
‘She is a liar then, like you. A family trait.’ He smiled at the discovery of another weapon to use against the girl. A silence followed until she eventually crushed it.
‘Nate’ She breathed almost silently but she knew he could hear. ‘Tell me about Marie.’ Nate stiffened but didn’t show any kind of awkward emotion when he responded to her.
‘You only ask because you are jealous.’ Oh, he could never resist an opportunities to criticize or mock.
‘Jealous? When I am with you and she is not? When you love me more than you could ever love her? That is an unfair judgement!’ Scarlett did not realise that by protesting the statement she was only showing weakness.
‘A true one though.’ He was on the verge of laughing with joy, oh how he loved to irritate!
‘How so, Heath?’ She asked bitterly, already resenting the impending answer.
‘Because I could never hate her but I hate you almost as much as I love you, Heathen.’ He was quiet as he spoke, calm and tired sounding, but still fighting to keep that smile from his face.
‘Tell me about her.’ Scarlett asked again, her voice still sounding sweet and innocent, masking the stubborn brat beneath. Nate sighed and pulled him and the girl down onto a cold stone pew for the story telling session.
‘Marie King was seven years old when I first met her. We met at church, she was always at church, always praying, she loved her god more than anyone.’ He muttered the last part bitterly into Scarlett’s dark hair. ‘She was like an angel with pale skin and blond hair and so beautiful; everyone said we could pass for a couple of twins. My Aunt and Uncle were still good to me at this point and encouraged our friendship and eventually arranged with Marie’s parents, who were not very wealthy but entirely respected, that we should marry on Marie’s fourteenth birthday. The wedding was a great show and Marie came to live at Eloise Heights that very day, poor girl was unaware that her parents were told to stay away and that she would be forced to live with me in the attic like a servant rather than rightful lady of the house. Soon we were assigned roles; she was a scullery maid and I was to be a stable boy, we worked hard as we knew that if we did not the punishments would be severe as they had already cut me off from my fortune and taken nearly everything I owned.’ He shook his head and clenched his teeth before adding. ‘Alistair was a bastard, he killed Marie’s dog in front of her because she spilt water accidently. That creature was all she had left apart from me and she loved it dearly, I remember how she wept and cradled the bloodied corpse to her chest as its head rolled. She was such a gentle soul and just smiled and promised me everything would get better, everyday she would wake up and announce that things could not be any worse for us and so we should feel lucky. She did her work all through the day and was charming and caring, even to Jane, Milton and Alistair, which made them even more jealous and spiteful. The last thing they wanted was to see us happy. You can imagine how they were when they realised she was pregnant, it was devastating to them that we might bring up our own family, even in the confines of an attic.’
‘What did they do when they found out?’
‘Jane could not conceive herself so she flew into a jealous rage and beat Marie so awfully, She then declared that she would take the child from us and raise it as her own and it was to never know that we were it’s rightful parents.’ His eyes clouded over and his arms tightened around Scarlett. ‘It never worked out like that, Jane’s conduct grew worse and worse and Marie became depressed and then fell to illness once she reached her sixth month of the pregnancy. She did not last long after that, I remember how amiably she smiled as she died in my arms in the middle of the night. Jane found me still holding her the next morning and yet again became psychotic with rage, claiming that Marie had died willingly, on purpose, to take the child away from her.’
‘What nonsense, Jane should be the one walking the earth with torture always on her mind!’
‘She is in hell, with the rest of them. I am sure of that.’ He cleared his throat and continued with his story. ‘Jane then proceeded to demand that her physician remove the babe from Marie’s corpse, but of course the child was already with her mother above our heads.’
‘It must have been terrible for you.’ Scarlett murmured when the pause grew to long and she felt she should say something. But instead of crying, or agreeing he just looked at her with a confused expression on his face.
‘No. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. The worst part of it was that I felt so jealous of them for being able to escape. It was my jealousy that turned me bitter, and one day yours will ruin you too.’
‘Rosalind was your daughter then?’ Scarlett changed the subject as she did not want to talk about herself, for once.
‘How did you know her name?’ He whispered, his temper brewing already.
‘I found their grave, with the headstone.’ She tried to make her tone soothing but it hardly worked.
‘Tell me, has there ever been a time when you did not interfere with and terrorise the dead?’ Her mouth dropped open a little in shock as her beautiful face began to contort in sudden hot anger.
‘Fine! Maybe I shall cease to do so at all. See how you like it Nate!’ She sneered at him, meaning every word, as she rose from his lap and marched towards the chapel doors, though he was before her in an instant.
‘If you expect for me to beg you I am telling you now it shall not happen. I grew tired of these little power games that you insist on playing with me when I first gained the upper hand, when we first met and I regret to inform you that I never lost it.’ He had retrieved his hold on her once again and had her pressed up against a stone wall, his hands grasping firmly at her delicate shoulders. ‘I do love you Scarlett, don’t spoil it.’ He kissed her gently on the lips, in a way that made her head spin even though it was so brief she was not even certain that it had actually happened. ‘Now be a good girl and mind your own business, you have enough of it.’ He released her and was gone, leaving Scarlett trembling with fear by herself in the cold, sparse chapel.
