Loving Tales of Lords and Ladies

by Abigail Agar

  With that, Ms Hodgins strode out of the room and slid the door closed behind her. The sound of the door’s click made the Duke feel the weight of silence and solitude—almost like a prelude to all that would come after when his children were sent away. He lurched towards the corner of his room, his fingers sneaking around his cabinets, hunting. There! He latched onto the violin case, dusty from weeks of ill use, and placed the case tenderly atop his recently-cleaned off desk.

  With a flourish, he produced the violin from the velvet. Taking it from its case felt so organic, the very act so natural to his fingers and arms. And when he inhaled, he dropped the bow against the strings and sent a high-pitched, chaotic note into the air. The note matched exactly his feelings of anger, of sadness. Of knowing that nothing would ever be all right again. Not when Marybeth was no longer alive. Not when his children would be faced to grow up apart, alone.

  He began to play louder, faster. He shot his bow out as far as it would go and then cranked it back in, playing an old Baroque tune and then rejuvenating it with his own melody. As he played, tears swept down his cheeks. Long ago, perhaps a million years before, when he played too angrily, Marybeth would creep up behind him and wrap her arms around him. She would say, “Shh,” into his back, until he started to chuckle. He would spin around, halting his playing instantly, and hug her back. How his thick arms would wrap all the way around her thin frame as if he could possibly protect her from everything. “What is this shhh-ing you’re doing?” he’d ask. “You’re messing up my perfect tune.”

  Now, there was no one to hear his cries in the dark. He couldn’t even see his fingers as they flew over the strings, plucking and then pressing so hard that they almost tore through his blisters. He knew he was even outplaying his own strengths, trying to tear beyond his own boundaries. But if he was going to die blind, then he wanted to be able to feel every moment of it—to his core, to his bones.

  He stepped towards the window, sweating. During a moment’s pause, he opened it, delivering a sweeping October breeze through the crack. He bent down to feel the air as it dried off his tears. Then, he brought the violin back to his neck. He didn’t expect that he would sleep that night or the rest of the week. Somehow, this was his cry in the dark. This was his alert that everything in the world was wrong.

  If things continued the way they were now, he wouldn’t even keep his business: the very thing that had been passed to him, from his father and his father’s father before him.

  Chapter 12

  Christopher’s little neck arched over the fairytale book as he told the story of the little boy who’d struggled from the latches of the Viking men, scampered through the forest with the help of some of his forest friends (a magical squirrel, a fairy, a crotchety beaver, and several birds of various colour), before finally discovering the treasure, lost in the woods.

  As he spoke, he grew excitable, his cheeks becoming pink, and his lips bumbling over syllables. Each of the other children, including Claudia, was incredibly rapt, leaning towards him as if he held all secrets.

  Marina had never been more captivated with the way a child told a story. She sensed that the story had been memorised by the children, due to their mother telling it over and over again. And even the way Christopher told it—making his voice quieter, then suddenly LOUD during the more intense parts—showed that they’d seen this book performed before. Marina began to get a sense of what love their mother had had for them. The love that was now voided out, in her absence. A love, it seemed, that the Duke couldn’t quite generate on his own.

  Near the end of the story, they heard the first screeching of the violin, far down below. Christopher’s lips fumbled over another word. His eyes beamed towards the window, towards the next wing. It was the direction of the Duke’s study.

  Immediately, Marina’s cheeks grew bright pink, her breath short. They all sat in silence as the violin music grew more rampant, wild. It seemed like someone screaming for help, yet in musical form. It was almost like torture—yet oddly beautiful. A sound unlike anything Marina had ever heard before.

  “He hasn’t played since he went blind,” Claudia said, bowing her head.

  “Is that right?” Marina asked, shocked. She slid from the edge of the bed, standing beside the children. They were captivated, their jaws slack. Christopher had allowed the fairytale book to fall from his knees, lost in cushions and pillows. Lottie pressed her hand over her lips as if she were poised to scream.

  It was perhaps the first time their father had exhibited any sort of emotion for them since their mother had passed. It was clear they didn’t know what to do with it, how to calculate what it was supposed to mean to them.

  “Why don’t we go?” Marina asked, tilting her head.

  “What?” Claudia demanded, her words almost angry. “What are you talking about?”

  “Why don’t we go listen?” Marina said again. “It’s my last night in your home. My last night to ever listen to anything as wonderful, as passionate as what your father is playing right now …”

  “Ms Hodgins and Father will be absolutely horrified if they knew we were out of our beds at this time of night,” Claudia scoffed. “In fact, maybe we should all go to bed, now. Christopher certainly needs his rest …”

  “Claudia. There will be time for bossing around and for rules when I leave in the morning.” Marina sighed. She paused for a moment as the violin rose in texture, in tension—soaring from a Baroque tune to a darker, romantic one. Her heart grew heavy. Each of her fingers flickered with desire to press against a violin, to allow this music into the world. Where had it possibly come from? Did it come from the depths of his heart? Certainly it hadn’t been written out. It seemed too organic for that.

  “Come on,” Marina said, her voice a whisper. She took a heavy step towards the door, raking her fingers through her dirty hair. She felt oddly anxious, with the sweeping of the music. Like a spider, unable to control all of her limbs.

  “If you children don’t go and listen to him now—if you don’t claim this opportunity, then your house may go silent all over again. What if this is the last time? The last time you ever hear him play like this,” she said, feeling the tension of her own voice.

  She paused, gazing at the searching faces of these children—all seemingly swimming with emotion. They’d spent the last hour listening to the story that their mother had said to them, the story that had meant the world to all five of them (before one of them had left them forever).

  And now, their father was bleeding his fear and anger and sadness into the world … How were they meant to grapple with such reality? As children, weren’t you meant to have wild afternoons of play, of laughter; weren’t you meant to face the harsh bitterness of the future post that eighteenth birthday?

  It all felt like too much. Like the world closing in on all of them.

  “You didn’t know the last time your mother would tell you that story. Did you?” Marina whispered, illustrating that she’d understood just how much that fairytale meant.

  Lottie and Max both shook their head, turning their eyes towards the ground. Lottie’s little fingers snaked through the quilt, causing it to shred outward. Christopher tossed the front part of his body towards the far edge of the bed, drawing his hand around the edge of the wheelchair. Before Marina could reach him, he tugged the wheelchair closer and closer. His eyes burned with certainty, darker blue than she’d seen them all day—even in the depth of his pain.

  “I’ll help you!” Marina said, rushing forward. She brought the wheelchair’s back to the side, then watched as Christopher shoved himself upward with his hands, tossing his backend on the edge of the wheelchair. It tilted left, then right, but Marina held it steady. This young boy’s incredible, wild decisions: when he made up his mind about something, he would do it.

  Lottie scampered from the bed, rushing her little feet towards the door. Christopher steadied himself in the base of the wheelchair, stretching his busted leg out in front of him. Marina
knelt, drawing out a small wooden latch, which allowed Christopher to splay his leg out without effort. She gripped the wheelchair handles, spun her head back towards Claudia and Max, and arched a brow. As she did, the violin screeched wildly, like an injured animal in the woods.

  “Are you two coming?” Marina demanded.

  “If we’re caught …” Claudia sighed. She brought her fingers over her cheek, drawing them towards her chin. With a heavy sigh, she tore from Christopher’s bed, stabbed her feet back in her slippers, and sauntered towards the door, her arm strung over Lottie’s shoulders, gripping her against her waist. “If we’re caught, I suppose it doesn’t matter. They were going to send us off, anyway.”

  Marina hadn’t the words to answer. She pressed forward, drawing Christopher’s wheelchair across the hardwood. Behind her, Max scampered, sniffling. As the most innocent, most sensitive of the crew, he was most susceptible to such emotion. Perhaps, if given the right backdrop, he could become a marvellous musician, like his father. Certainly, he had the emotions to fuel into it, given the chance.

  The five of them stepped down the long hallway, lined with flickering candles. Claudia held strong to both Max and Lottie, walking out in front of Marina and Christopher. Her head darted left and right, seemingly hunting for any sign of Ms Hodgins. But any shadow they spotted was only their own, or belonging to a statue. Everything felt eerie, a strange, poisonous green colour, cast from the various stained glass windows above them. Of course, Christopher had assumed they were living out a fairytale. How could it be any other way when growing up in such a mansion?

  At the steps, Claudia assisted Marina in carrying Christopher’s wheelchair all the way to the second floor. At the top, Marina and the near-twelve-year-old made heavy eye contact. Claudia pressed her lips together tightly, and then turned her body with a curt motion. They were just steps away from the violin playing, and their father’s emotion had become like a wall of sound.

  They began to penetrate it, drawing closer and closer, before the five of them found themselves awaiting outside—drawing a half-circle around the door. Claudia collapsed alongside Christopher’s wheelchair, dropping her hand across his good knee. Lottie wrapped her little arms around Max, who, in turn, flung himself towards Marina. Marina remained standing, her feet wide apart. There was such expectation on this moment. Such promise that, whatever words had been said, or hadn’t been, by the Duke himself, this was the truth.

  The truth was, he ached. He ached for his sight. For his children’s love. For his wife, long gone. Even his business—which Marina knew to be faltering (a fact she should have avoided, perhaps, when he was in the midst of firing her—but what did it matter now?). And this truth was filtering out to his children, through the crack in the door. Everyone, including Marina, began to weep. It was tormenting, hearing such pain. But it was also so necessary.

  Marina held Max’s face against her. She gripped Lottie’s hand. She marvelled at the beauty of Claudia’s face—the tears trickling towards her lips, her eyes so heavy with wet—knowing that she carried within her the beauty of their mother, so missed. And she felt awash, overjoyed, with the fact of Christopher’s burning mind—how he leapt up in his chair during the particularly frenetic parts of the music, tossing his body to and fro. This was him, dancing. This was him, acknowledging that sometimes, living meant living messily.

  This was Marina’s last night at the mansion. And in some respects, it felt like the last night of her life. She couldn’t verbalise why. Rather—she knew that when music wrapped itself around her neck, around her stomach, around her legs (like a cat), she had nothing to do but give herself over to it.

  But suddenly, Lottie let out a wild, volatile cry of panic and sadness. Immediately, the violin halted. Marina’s eyes grew orb-like, nearly popping from her skull. She waited, gripping Max tighter against her, as the man who played the violin shot towards the door, his feet stomping.

  She knew that the world he’d built for the six of them (unbeknownst to him, of course) was about to be smashed to smithereens, its reality smeared across the Afghan rug. She prepared for his blistering words, for his anger. It had always been a possibility.

  She shivered along with the children, feeling one of them. Twenty years old, yet she felt one of them.

  Chapter 13

  The Duke had nearly lost consciousness as he played. Without his eyesight, he struggled to comprehend if it was day or night, if he was awake or asleep. But still, the muscles in his arms strained as he churned the bow up and down, side to side. It felt almost like he was chopping down a tree or trying to destroy his violin before he could possibly get to the end of the song.

  The violin itself was nearly two-hundred years old—two hundred years of death, of disappointment, of anger and loss. He could almost feel the emotion of the people who’d played it before him. The people who had pushed as much feeling into it as they could before they’d either passed away or had to sell it, for profit.

  Profit. The mere thought of it—and the realisation that his business wasn’t making one—made his stomach crank with anger. He pressed his fingers tighter, firmer into the strings, feeling blood splatter along the tops of his wrists. He hadn’t bled like that while playing since he was a boy and just picking up the instrument.

  He hadn’t offered the instrument to his children, yet. He’d planned to introduce the piano to Claudia. But she’d shown an interest in reading and writing, instead. At least, that’s what he remembered, from before: when he’d actually paid attention to them. When they’d had conversations that seemed to bubble with promise.

  Now, he hadn’t had a conversation with them that didn’t feel stunted in ages. He felt like they were becoming strangers.

  Suddenly, he heard something. A shriek, a cry. Immediately, the sound yanked in him some kind of memory—a memory of a past life when he’d stayed up late alongside Marybeth, awaiting the first cry of their hungry baby. Although, of course, they’d had a night nurse, he and Marybeth had frequently journeyed together in the middle of the night, with Marybeth hovering behind a curtain as she gave the baby her breast.

  This cry. It sounded so familiar to that. At least, it tore at his animal brain, telling him something was off. Immediately, he brought the bow from his violin, frowned. He spun around, towards the door. Again, he heard the whimpering, the crying. Images of his children’s face filled his mind. Memories of their tears, when they fell, when they felt fearful. He took a harried step towards the door, incredulous. Why would they be out of bed? What could possibly be going on?

  But the whimpering grew louder, perhaps in the wake of his finished song. The Duke’s ears continued to ring. He tugged at his curled black hair, placing his violin atop the desk (now so smooth, after all the chaos of the night). He took another step, and then another, reaching with a volatile hand towards the knob.

  He brought it open, inhaling the scent of children—of their scrubbed skin, of their lavender-washed hair, of their linens and pajamas. He felt awash with memory of when he and Marybeth had tucked them into their beds, cuddling them close as they’d picked one book after another.

  With a jolt, he was reminded that Lottie hadn’t had much of that experience. That she’d been too young to remember.

  The children, for he was certain it was them, continued their weeping when he arrived in the doorway. He felt their unwavering fear like a wave over him. He tried to draw breath, yet his chest shook.

  “Father?”

  It was the voice of Claudia. This snapped him out of his reverie immediately, charging him with adrenaline. He leaned forward, his voice rasping as he spoke. “My Lord, child. You know better than to be out this late at night. All four of you should be tucked in your bed …”

  Lottie let out a shriek. He could hear her muffle it into someone’s clothes. He stretched his hands out wide on either side of him, feeling oddly monstrous. Robbed of his sight, how was he supposed to know how to react to any situation? He played his tongue over his lip
s, tasting blood. Had he bit down on his tongue as he’d played, so caught up in the emotion? He’d done it before, as a younger, more volatile man.

  “I—I tried to tell her,” Claudia began, stuttering. “I just. She didn’t listen …”

  “Who didn’t listen?” the Duke demanded. His mind traced through all the possibilities. Then, he paused, placing his hand on the doorframe and drawing his eyebrows low. After clearing his throat, he muttered, “And why the hell aren’t you upstairs packing, Marina Blackwater?” The name came to his brain in a second.