Day One, part 2.
01 November 2005, 20:22

Part 2 - Day 1

When Mr. Brown continued to sit limply in the chair he had collapsed in to, Lucy lifted her hand in a barely perceptible gesture to the slight, young boy tucked away in the corner. He fled to fetch the butler, who immediately appeared to show the investigator out. Just as quietly and quickly as he had left, the boy reclaimed his spot in the shadows. No one ever noticed him, they either didn't see him, or they thought he was dumb of mindless or both. He was neither. He saw and heard and understood most of the things he witnessed. If he didn't understand something, he tucked it away in the back recesses of his young mind, to be called forth at the right moment when understanding would dawn. Where he had come from, how he came to be where he was, these were all secrets that even the woman perched daintily on the edge of her seat did not even realize he knew, but he did. He also knew how and why she had killed the kind man she had been married to. He had been the one to take her rubbish out and bury it beneath the roots of the old tree on her nearest neighbor's property after the deed had been done. Lucy did not, however, mistake the boy for deaf, nor did she think him stupid. She merely thought him to inconsequential to bother with. What he heard and saw mattered in the least. After all, whom would he tell?
She glanced at him, her eyes touching him as softly as a mother's caress before turning back to the retreating back of the detective.
"I trust this will be the last I see of you Detective. Am I correct?" At the sound of her voice cutting through the cool air of the parlor, the man cringed. He paused, then nodded slowly, defeated by her rank, her wealth, and her psychosis. There would be no proof found, no further investigation. He would make his report and her name would be no where in it, except as the deceased man's surviving spouse and sole inheritor, just as the coroner's inquiry would state the man's cause of death as broken neck due to fall. No one would believe the allegations of opium being present, so it would be pushed aside. Later that night, as the detective was alone in the corner of a pub, he would convince himself that was what happened. He would feel guilty for harassing Lady Smythe and he would vow to be more careful and chide himself for being so jaded. The next day, he would push the truth further from conscious thought and move on.
When the man had been shown out of the house and she heard his cab being pulled down the drive, she stood and smoothed her skirt.
"Millicent?" She summoned her maid. The woman shadowed her skirts nearly as closely as the boy, but was far more annoying whilst doing it.
"Yes Miss." Miss. Always Miss. This had unnerved her husband, that his staff had never called her by her married title. It had pleased Lucy. Marriage was a tool. A way to improve one's situation in life. After the title and the money were secured, it was an obstacle to work around. Not that it had been hard. She cared only what the public thought of her marriage, not what the man she called husband thought. She was so brazen that she had often housed her lovers in the room next to hers. That her tastes were varied and sometimes bizarre was of even less importance. Things could have been so much easier if only her damned husband had learned to leave her to her games. Had he really loved her, as he claimed to before she had his neck snapped by the hired thug she then took care of by poison, he might have tried to join her in her bedroom romps.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, he not only had bland desires, but he seemed to finally object. He had, in fact put his foot down when he had come to her room little more than a week ago and found her receiving oral pleasure from the young priest that often assisted Father Lawrence in the abbey. When he ordered the two servants that had been physically holding the young man to his task to release him and lease the room and instead found himself ordered by his wife to join the supplicant, he stormed out, leaving her to her adultery. Afterwards, at dinner, he demanded she cease all of her sinful activity. He threatened her with divorce, a rare but acceptable solution to the behavior he had witnessed. His wife had said nothing, but he could see she was angry. The boy, always hovering somewhere, would recognize the look in her eyes later, as she spoke to the detective. It was hate. Simple hate, and he cringed.
That night, she summoned the boy to her husband's bedchamber. He nearly cried out at the sight before him. The man Lucy had married was naked, covered in welts and cuts, draped at an unnatural angle over the corner of the bed. The man that had snapped her husband's neck was writhing on the floor, alternately clutching his chest, the empty air before him, and the bed sheet that had managed to become entangled around him in his thrashing. A horrible gurgling sound was punctuated by short shrieks as he tried to speak, to say something, but his words were interrupted by the regular eruption of bloody bile and vomit, worked to a rabid froth on his wildly trembling lips. Lucy herself stood over the scene, the picture of calm satisfaction, all but nude herself, her filmy dressing gown transparent in its delicacy. She turned to the boy and handed him a small, rag-wrapped parcel with instructions to remove it from her presence and make sure no one every found it. He raised his terror filled eyes to hers and concern fluttered across her face for the briefest instant. She touched his cheek gently, telling him it would all be okay, that she would clean up this mess before he returned, and that he should come to her room when he had completed his chore. That night, she had cradled his slight body to her, crooning him to sleep as only a mother can. He dozed; safe in the one place he had always felt safe. When he woke in the morning, she had been there still. She called him her heart, her darling dearest. And she had told him he looked just like his father. Then she had kissed his pale forehead and told him to go bathe and have breakfast. He vanished, slipping through the house as only he could, the horrors of the night before drifting from his young mind, replaced by her affections. She was never more miserly than with him, and he basked in the warmth of her love, hoping it would last the day.
"Stephen!" The shock at hearing his name startled him out of his reverie. He glanced up the stairs and saw her standing at the top. As usual, he said nothing. His attention was enough prompting for her to continue. "Did you not hear me? Go begin packing." Packing? It was rare when he was caught off guard. The emotion must have registered on his face, and she continued, obviously angry. "I needn't tell you why, ore where we are going, but you will never see this dreadful place again. We leave in a fortnight." He scurried off to his room to gather his treasures, not even caring where they would flee. He had always held a fear of being left behind, abandoned. He would not allow that possibility to sneak up on him. He was ready within the hour. He was ready to leave before tea was served, before the superfluous help was let go, before the furniture was draped. He was ready before Father Lawrence was summoned and moved in to the guest room to await the date of departure, before the ship that would take them away reached port, and before their luggage was stowed on the ship days after it's arrival. He was ready long before the cool misty morning that brought a small carriage to the drive of the family home of the deceased Robert Augustus Smythe. He had no idea where the three of them were going, but he wasn't left behind, and a strange joy filled him, even as fear and trepidation at what was waiting them on distant shores rose in the shadowy parts of his mind.

Official Word Count: 1913

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