Chapter 16- Missing Letty
‘Are you alright dear? You’re looking a bit peaky. Maybe you shouldn’t spend so much time out of doors.’ Audrey offered helpfully. Nate watched from the shadows of the room as Scarlett smiled and shrugged delicately. She was looking much thinner than usual and had bags under her eyes from either being unable to sleep or having fits of tears deep into the night. Her pretty duck egg blue silk dress was draped around her thin frame elegantly and the rings on her fingers kept sliding down her knuckles. He sighed and leant his head back against the wall, how he wished she would eat something! She was making herself stupid and so weak with hunger, beggars ate better than she did some days. But no, Letty would not eat or stop crying so long as an engagement with Lewis Bradshore was likely. She would much rather waste away than see a wedding day with him.
‘Don’t worry about me Audrey, I’m perfectly alright! But maybe I should stay indoors more, even if they do declare it mid-spring it is quite bitter out there at the moment and I shouldn’t like to come down with the flu!’ Olivia came up then, dragging a less than enthusiastic looking Fletcher. ‘Oh! Hullo Olivia, Fletcher. It is so good to see you!’ She gave each a kiss on the cheek and he hoped that she would not receive the same comments on her ill health that she had been given fifteen times before. Each time it was more genuine that Scarlett was slowly killing herself.
‘Scarlett! Darling!’ She gave her a hug before drawing her gloves from her hands and passing them to Fletcher who was holding their coats. ‘A maid was over in that direction could you take our coats to her? Thank you!’ She chirped to Fletcher who seemed relieved to leave her side.
‘How is Vincent?’ Scarlett asked politely. It was only out of politeness Nate reminded himself as a jealous burning built up inside him, how could a child like her make him want to cry when she showed a care for anything other than he?
‘Very well I believe, and how are your parents? I hardly see them these days!’ Olivia returned, picking a glass of white wine off the returning Fletcher, who seemed to stare in fascination at the front of Letty’s bodice. Nate closed his eyes and held his breath, don’t ruin this for her! Just stay calm and out of sight. He can only feel lust not love nor hate.
‘My parents are very well in fact…’ But he never heard what she had to say as she was distracted by something in a window. ‘Did you see that?’ She asked suddenly.
‘See what dear?’ Olivia turned towards the window to see what on earth the girl was going on about.
‘Did you not see him? There was a boy at the window!’ Letty insisted to every ones sheer perplexity, she rushed to the window and opened it all too hastily. An angry icy wind blasted through the window, sending her carefully organised hair into its natural disarray. The party silenced and her parents threw disapproving looks at their daughter until Audrey (Olivia’s older, richer, childless sister) joined her in squinting into the obscurity until she pointed through the gloom.
‘There!’ Audrey declared. ‘I definitely see a shape! A runaway guest do you think?’ then she lowered her voice. ‘It could be Violet and Vincent, pray go and check for me and bring them back. It would give Olivia and Delphia a fit each to hear of them together in such a manner.’
‘I shall go fetch them back’ then turning to the surrounding guests she said ‘I shall not be a moment, continue enjoying yourselves.’ Before taking the cloak that Gladys held and hurrying out into the grounds to catch the shape.
It took hours for the gathering to remember that Scarlett had not returned and in that time it gad turned out that all the invited were present- including Violet and Vincent it transpired.
‘Not back? It has been over two hours!’ Agnes screeched at Emerson, the bearer of the bad news. ‘It is nearing eleven O’clock! Not to mention that it is storming out there! All manner of things could have happened to her! Oh gosh! She shan’t be ill! Let her not be ill! The Bradshores are staying again in two weeks!’ The whole party jolted with shock as the front doors slammed shut, Violet ran to the door but came back saying that there was no sign of Scarlett and it must have been someone leaving, Luella probably, as no one was sure where she had gone.
‘Letty!’ Nate’s roar echoed through the grounds though distorted by the vicious tempest which battered everything it could reach. His hair and clothes were stuck to him and he could barely see where he was, let alone where he was going but he struggled on. There was no way he was going to lose his Letty, not like he had lost Marie. He had barely left the drive and he was shuddering with the cold, not that it could kill him. ‘Letty!’ He searched his mind for inspiration for where the ludicrous girl could be. She would not have gone to the stables, if it had been daylight she would have gone to the heath, but it was pitch black and not even Letty was so silly.
He skirted around the lake but there were no footprints in the logged mud so she had not come out to drown herself. He found the chapel cold and silent, the aviary empty and flooded whilst the moors were hollow. All the while he called and called, not relenting when his throat burned from the pain of it as he knew that this was a fraction of what the pain of permanent division could be. How ungrateful of her presence I have been! Why is it when she could be dead that I think of how I love her! Oh Letty! What should I do if she is died? I shall spend eternity torturing myself!
‘Scarlett! Letty! Darling fool! Come home! Come home!’ He stumbled through the few cultivated gardens staring with sad eyes for his love. It took him near another two hours to find her whilst the efforts of the rest of the party were useless. Eventually he found her collapsed with bloodied hands and feet in the porch of a summer pavilion that was surrounded by weeping buddleia and strewn leaf skeletons. Without thinking he grabbed her from where she lay and shook her in his arms, her head rolled and her eyes were not even half open but her heart had a weak beat. Her thin gown was soaked through, her hair was destroyed and tangled like pondweed. ‘Letty, what happened!’ He felt her frozen bloodied hands and gasped at their stiffness. He ran back to the front of the house and lay her down on the doorstep before rapping on the door with all his might. Soon the doctor came to the door and with the help of two maids they had her in her bed in a clean nightdress with her hair just damp rather than soaked through.
‘She has a temperature, a fever and when she wakes I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she were delirious. She will need to rest for a good few weeks and for gods sake keep her indoors!’ The doctor had said whilst scribbling in a notepad and handing over the names of medicines that could help to her parents. ‘She will recover, its not life threatening but watch those cuts and grazes, god knows how she got them!’ Nate sat with her slumped body until she had the strength to waive an eyelid and then the other. It took a while for this to happen, it was almost light when she was able to mutter hoarsely.
‘Where am I?’ She asked staring round with discontented eyes which eventually settled on Nate with an oblivious stare.
‘Your room, Letty.’ He murmured, his voice was so stiff with tired. The girl blinked and stared down at her hands.
‘Oh.’ Nate snapped awake and inspected her face.
‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’ He asked leaning towards her a little out of curiosity and she frowned.
‘No, should I? You do look funny in those strange clothes! Are you a stable boy?’ Her eyes were bright from her teasing though her skin was so pale, so frail, stretched too tightly and thinly over her body.
‘You do know me! I am Nathan Heath! I am Nate!’ Letty’s composure was lost then as she set about cackling at her mild practical joke. Nate glared at her before getting up and striding out the room, letting his loves laughs turn into cries of self pity at her own pain and ill health. The cruelty they set upon one another shall not end in happiness.
