Sooner Than Never, Chapter 4
Lady Violet stood half-dead and nearly frozen on the gentle hillock above her father's gloomy estate. The snow had, at long last, ceased falling, and diamond-hard, glittering stars shone in the velvety blackness above her. Ghostly plumes of steam rose from the surface of the great lake, and the entire scene appeared a ghastly visage.
She had escaped the vile Lord Fortescue and his dastardly plans. After stealing about through the long corridors of his formidable manse, she had managed to find her way out into the frozen darkness, and had struggled, throughout the terrible night, to return to the most accursed of all places, her father's home.
Violet wept, and her gentle tears froze motionless on her alabaster cheeks. All hope was lost! Lost! She had missed her one opportunity to free herself from the unholy machinations of those around her. Her father would undoubtedly sell her in marriage to the corpsen Count Brisnow; Lord Fortescue would defame her name about the countryside, if he wasn't lying dead in his lurid sanctuary; she would never reach the safety of her beloved Auntie, Lydia Pinkerton.
She had no choice but to return to her father. Harlowe, her young ward, needed her. She could not stand by while an innocent child was subjected to the countless horrors she had faced in her father's house. She could not flee to the East while the orphaned boy lived imprisoned in a house with a man whose appetites knew no bounds, who cared not if the child lived or died. She could not let him suffer as she had so suffered. She had to return, for Harlowe.
Violet moved towards the house, wincing in pained torment with each feeble step. Her dainty slippers had worn through, and the crystal snow chafed the delicate flesh of her feet till they bled. A faint trail of pinkish smears marked her advance to the manor.
As she drew close to the house, she saw that her sleek barouche was haltered at the door. Harlowe had made it home after her abduction! She prayed that her father's fury had not spent itself on the lad's head. Would her wretched suffering never end?
She reached the steps of the manor and eased the door open. Every candle in the gargantuan entrance hall was ablaze. She wondered faintly if her father had perhaps rounded up his tenants in an effort to retrieve her from Fortescue. She laughed at this odd notion of her father's chivalry, a shrill, piping laugh. Her father did not care for her. Her father did not love her. No one loved her. . .except perhaps, for young Harlowe, and that love had drawn her back to this chamber of horror.
As she stepped into the entrance hall, she was grabbed from behind and sent reeling across the room. She collapsed on the floor, broken, wearied, expecting only the worst. . .for that was all she had ever known.
Her father towered above her. "You!" he bellowed, "you vile, stinking dirty slut!" He raised his booted foot and kicked Violet in the abdomen. She folded in two from the pain.
"How DARE you disobey me? How DARE you try to foil my plans for your marriage? You have betrayed me! You have betrayed my name and my home!"
"Father," Violet whimpered, "pray, have mercy! I --"
"You will be silent, or I will remove your filthy tongue!" He grabbed a fistful of of her flowing auburn hair. "To think that you defied me, in order to be a whore to that villainous Fortescue! How many times has he known you, Violet? How many times?"
"Never! Father, I pray you! Lord Fortescue marauded my barouche! I did not ever--"
"Liar!" He boomed, smashing her face onto the rough planks of the floor. "Delilah! Beguiler! Deceitful, lusting creature! You are cursed, daughter, cursed!!!"
Violet sobbed, as a trail of gore made its way from her tip-tilted nose to her dimpled chin, and then down to her sprawling skirt. "Father, I am not cursed! I have no--"
"Your mother dies on the day of your birth, your husband dies on the day of your marriage, the sickly desires of your womanhood force you to foul the name of this family. . .you are poison to all who touch you."
Violet swallowed, hard, and said in a brittle voice, "If I am poison to the touch, Father, then you should be but dust in a tomb!"
His hand hit the side of her skull with such a terrific impact that Violet assumed her life was knocked from her body. She crumpled to the floor.
***
Later, she had the sensation that she was floating, floating. It was such a lovely feeling.
She struggled to open her eyes.
Her father carried her through the halls of the manor in his powerful arms. Down many hallways, passed many closed doors. Where was he taking her? What was he doing?
Violet became aware that there was another man in their midnight sojourn. Was it Fortescue? Brisnow? Perhaps young Harlowe?
Nay, nay! It was a most fearsome figure! Damon Piquant, the village apothecary, struggling with the weight of his valise full of powders and potions, pills and potables!
Suddenly, they were ascending. Round and round they went. Would they ever stop?
Violet heard bells. Perhaps the angels in heaven were beckoning her into the lavender tides of the netherworld.
She was lain in a bed, and she heard the quiet voice of her father. "The girl is simply mad. Hysterical. Driven to wanton bloodlust and unspeakable indecencies."
"This, " murmured Damon, "taken three times daily, will calm her cravings and quiet her soul. A death-like trance will consume her."
A sickly seet liquid poured into her throat. . .tasting of cherry tart. . .custard. . .pineapple. All faded into darkness. As she drifted into the abyss, Violet murmured one word:
"Harlowe. . ."
And now, with the shutters and gates of the manor house closed, the dreaded apothecary departing, and Lady Violet hidden away in a secret chamber, we pass, without comment, over a period of eleven years.
And Lady Violet sleeps on.