The sound of horse hooves pounding on moist soil roared through the quiet town, bouncing off the rural manors and abundant trees, yet fading as quickly as it had come. A few heads poked out of windows and doors, curious at the unusual and loud noise ripping through their town.
The gent on the horse nodded politely and waved briefly with his index and middle finger, and went on his way. His name was Julius Alexander Morfit, and it was not unknown to many. His wealthy family had earned a very respectable reputation many generations back, and had maintained it well.
Julius enjoyed this lonely part of town. It was quiet and the land wasn’t occupied by busy cobblestone streets and large buildings. The lush trees grew freely over the mountainous hillside. The leaves were just turning autumn colors, and glinted as the sun barely peaked out of gray clouds, newly wet from the steady rain that had drenched the town for days. Julius breathed in the clean morning air and galloped even faster under the canopy of the trees, finally breaking away from the last of the sparse homes, surrounded by nothing but raw nature. Julius smiled and lifted his head to the sky, letting the arctic drops making its way through the trees pelt his skin. He then leveled his head and when he looked upon the path ahead, he saw a lady strolling peacefully in the rain, right before him.
“Move!” yelped Julius frantically. With a start, the girl whirred around, and froze in her spot.
Julius vigorously tried to slow his horse, and succeeded only inches away from the petrified woman, splattering mud all over her worn and unfashionable dress. He went flying off of the horse and landed on his face with a sickening grunt, his top hat flailing somewhere near by.
The girl gasped and ran to Julius’s body, falling on her knees. The cold, wet ground stung them. She gently turned him over, and gasped again.
“A Morfit!” she cried, slapping a hand to her heart. She began to shake him violently. “Oh, do wake up! Please wake up!” she sobbed, shaking him harder and harder.
“Please,” Julius wheezed very suddenly, “stop…”
Frightened, the girl drew back in a flurry. “Oh, of course! I’m so dreadfully sorry, sir, forgive me!” she gushed hurriedly, rushing to stand up and help him up.
Julius held his hand up to stop her from lifting him. He then tried to ease his way up, propping himself on his elbows. A sharp stab of pain shot through his stomach like a newly sharpened knife. He groaned and slowly laid his curly head back down.
“Look what I’ve done!” cried the girl, her broken voice piercing the still air. She looked so miserably at Julius lying there on the ground that he almost forgot his own pain.
“No, no,” he soothed. “It wasn’t your fault!”
The girl just sniffed and swallowed slowly, as if to stifle another sob climbing up the slippery slops of her throat. She held out her hands, carefully lifted him to a standing position, curtsied tipsily, and began to leave.
“Thank you,” Julius said softly.
She stopped for a moment. Her shoulders rose and fell once before she turned around. Her cheeks were ruddy in the most inviting way. It was then Julius saw the beauty in her. She had an average face, and Julius knew not many could call it beautiful. But he saw it. He saw it behind her lovely blue eyes and shimmering golden locks.
She curtsied once more, swooping low to the floor as though she was before the Queen of England herself. “My name is Evangeline Smith. Good day to you, Mr. Morfit. I wish you well.” She turned around once more and began to walk away.
Julius knew this was a farawell, but something inside him couldn't let this woman go so soon when he'd just met.
"Where can I come to check on you tomorrow? I fear you shall get sick in this weather," he said hurriedly.
Evangeline--still facing away from this handsom man, narrowed her eyes in thought. Between the two of them, he was the one who needed to be checked on. But something in his voice made her want to comply. She walked nearer to him and told him where he could find her home.
When he had trotted off on his horse, Evangeline just stood there in the cold. What had she gotten herself into? She could never love him--she'd spend her life hiding the horrible truth from him like she did with everyone else. But could she keep something so important from a man she loved? All of this might end her life. Yet Evangeline knew she wanted to get ill if it meant seeing more of him.
♦
“Did you hear? The Morfit boy is engaged,” gossiped an elegant girl to her friends as they strolled down the busy streets, frilly parasols protecting their flawlessly fair skin from freckles.
“No!” shrieked a particularly unsightly girl whom had been flirting constantly with Julius every time she saw him. “He said he loved me!”
Another girl laughed arrogantly. “Entirely not so! He stepped on your foot on purpose and walked away on your first dance together,” she sad with a smug look.
“He was just nervous to be dancing with someone of such beauty!” the repulsive girl snapped back.
“Hardly!” said yet another. “Besides, he actually smiled at me when I danced with him and…”
“Enough!” scolded the girl who had spoken first. “Anyway, the girl is some wretch called Evangeline Smith. And she’s not even pretty, I hear.”
And it was true. Evangeline was neither pretty nor ugly, and had no fortune to make up for it. She was just average, with her homely clothes and jewelry. Her eyes were far too close together than they ought to have been, though they were the loveliest shade of blue. Her lips were much too big for her face, but they were smooth and naturally crimson. Her nose was not that of a Grecian, though it seemed to fit her face well.
Evangeline, who happened to have been just a short distance from the girls, looked sadly at her hands. She knew she wasn’t good enough for Julius, and everyone else seemed to know it too. Even Julius’s parents hardly approved of the engagement.
♦
“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Morfit. I’m so very pleased to see you all so well again,” Evangeline said amiably as the whole Morfit family was gathering in the drawing room. Gregory James Morfit, the father of the family, had an excellent education in law, as did Julius. Gregory’s wife, Lenore Elizabeth Morfit, was the kind of woman all the young girls wished to be. She was beautiful, with all her fashionable dresses and jewelry, and enviously trim. Her three daughters, Emma, Lydia, and Clarissa, were just like her, with their sleek, dark curls and breathtakingly green eyes—and they shared her surly attitude as well.
Evangeline held out her hand, in which Mr. Morfit took rather hesitantly. Lenore Morfit only looked at it through narrow eyes and growled when it was offered to her.
Julius turned red and quickly took Evangeline’s elbow. “Let’s eat, shall we?” he said hastily, leading his fiancé into the dining room. The rest of the family followed, taking their places at the intricate mahogany table. Evangeline was alarmed by the fancy interior of the room and all its contents. She’d never seen anything like it.
The table talk began while they waited for the first course to arrive.
“So, dear Mr. Morfit” Lenore began turning to her husband. “How has work been this weak?”
Rather surprised by his wife’s uncharacteristically kind mood, Gregor took a long moment to answer. “Excellent, Mrs. Morfit. We’ve sent at least a dozen more left-handed freaks to prison. Where they belong.”
Julius winced. As much as he enjoyed studying law, he despised this topic. For as long as anyone could remember, people who wrote with their left hand instead of their right, were discriminated. They were thought to have been born with a fatal defect. Many were afraid that it was a contagious disease and cowered away from them. The left-handed people were monsters in the world’s judging eyes, and those monsters were punished for it. Not so long ago, countless beings began to lock the rejects away forever, thinking it would eventually free the world of all sickness. And now, not only did they do that, but they also cut of the left hands of those people, hoping that it would stop the illness from being spread. Julius felt it was barbaric the punishment in the situation, infected or not.
That night, as Julius was passing his parents room to retire, he heard hushed, ghostly whispers inside. He paused and pressed his ear to the thin wood.
"There is something suspicious about that girl..."
"We can't have our only son marrying someone like [i]that[i].
Julius sighed. There was no way he could marry the woman he loved.
The Morfit family—all except for Julius—had devised a rather clever plan, and so far, it was working marvelously. They accepted the engagement, much to Julius's suprise and in this doing, they were able to watch her more closely, and without much trouble. But Julius was beginning to get suspicious. They treated Evangeline so sweetly. Something was going on.
Only a few months after Julius had been married, he temporarily left their busy, London town to go to Cambridge, to study further into law. So, as seeing her husband was gone, Evangeline was alone in their new, rather large house. Lenore told Evangeline it was improper for a young lady to be in an empty house by herself, and insisted as warmly as she could that her daughter-in-law should stay at their own home.
“Oh, that’s very kind, Mrs. Morfit, but I can stay at my own family’s home. They will enjoy seeing me after so long,” Evangeline said, though touched at this kind act.
“But darling,” Lenore said a sweetly as honey, “it will be so good for all of us. We can get to know our new daughter better if you’d stay with us.”
Evangeline smiled. “Well in that case, I shall bring my things tomorrow.”
This contributed to the Morfit’s plan even more. Everyday, the husband, wife, and three daughters spied on Evangeline. They had all collected some suspicious facts, like when Evangeline wrote, she indeed wrote with her right hand, but it was so sloppy that it looked as though a blind goat had written it.
But Lydia, being the nosy girl she was, heard beautiful music exuding from the second floor one day. She crept up the grand staircase and followed the sound of the music like a hound dog looking for game. She followed down a winding hall she and the rest of her family seldom set foot in. Its spacious rooms held things that required skill and talent, of which the Morfit family didn’t have. The paints, easels, pianos and whatnot were just used to take up space, and make them look good.
There was a room with the door cracked just enough to see the golden evening light drenching the floor. The music was coming from inside. Without taking a single breath, Lydia poked her nose into the crack and peered in. There was Evangeline, playing a delicate violin with vigor. Her song was epic and intense, moving like liquid around the room and into Lydia’s ears. Lydia found herself leaning forward when the song reached a particularly suspenseful part, and swaying joyously when the music made a smooth transition to notes at gentle as a kitten.
Yet something was wrong; Evangeline was playing with her left hand. Lydia suppressed a loud shriek of victory and broke from her spell and ran to tell her mother. How her parents would be so proud of her!
♦
When Julius returned, Evangeline was gone.
“Where is she?” he asked his father, his tone a worried one. When his father did not answer, he began to shake his father by the collar. “Where is she?” he screamed. “What have you done with her?”
“Locked her up!” Gregory finally yelled. “She was a left-handed freak, and it took a down right fool not to notice!”
Letting go of the collar, Julius backed away, falling onto the wall for support. “No,” he breathed, looking blankly at nothing in particular. “You couldn’t have…”
He ran. He bounded outside, where a fresh pile of snow sparkled in the eerie glow of the moon. He retrieved his horse, and though he was tired, a new energy coursed his blood.
He galloped of to the dark, shady part of town. He was suddenly thankful his father was so devoted to worldly events, for then, Julius wouldn’t have known where to go to find his wife. But he knew exactly where they kept the diseased, after several disturbing trips with his father. He sped down the streets with purpose, causing many late night walkers to step back to avoid getting trampled on.
The town was once a busy, cheerful place, but over the years had been neglected. Most all of the buildings were owned by gruff men, and was visited by that sort as well. Several breweries were scattered about the town, and every shadowy corner held a homeless, drunken person. The streets were littered with an unacceptable amount of trash. The windows of many of the buildings were broken and doors were left open. It was obvious it was a man’s town. Julius shuddered at the thought of his wife dwelling even anywhere in the town, much less a dark and gory prison cell. The very image of her huddled in the corner or the cold, wet cell made him command his horse to go faster yet.
♦
Julius’s imagination wasn’t very far from reality.
In the depths of the cell, Evangeline lay on the floor, sobbing into the grimy tile. It was more than a miserable sight to see this helpless girl in the rough setting; it was sickening. Dried blood masked the floor and what was once an elegant lavender dress was now a dreadfully frightening shade of red. Most or her hair had fallen from it’s extravagant combs and buns in wisps, specked with blood here and there. Her left arm was matted with bloody strips of cloth she had managed to tear from the bottom of her dress and wrap around it. Her left arm was a good deal shorter than it ought to have been; her hand had been chopped off.
Due to blood loss, Evangeline weakly lifted her head when she heard a noise outside.
“I kill a man if it guarantees me my wife!” she heard Julius’s voice echo down the hall. A small sense of hope rushed through her body, but she was only vaguely aware of it.
There was a distressed yelp and a thud. Evangeline then heard rushed footsteps coming closer.
Through the rusty bars, Julius saw a feminine figure outlined in the dim light of the cell. She looked up and Julius knew at once it was Evangeline.
“Evangeline!” he gasped, thrusting the door open with the keys he had no doubt stolen from the man he’d just killed. He frantically ran to his wife and swept her limp, almost dead like body into his arms. He could nearly taste the horrific, rusty smell of blood on his tongue as he began to run out of the cell. He heard an angry yell somewhere behind him, but did not look back. He ran out of the prison and swiftly mounted his horse, Evangeline lying heavily on his lap. Her eyelids fluttered as she was thrown about. She looked up at Julius, and her blood-shot eyes haunted him. She looked dead.
“Violin…” she said after a long time of riding in the silence.
Julius wasn’t sure if he had heard correctly. “What, love?”
“My violin…” she said so quietly, so weakly. “I shall never play again.” She smiled sadly. “I never got to play for you, Julius. Lydia was the only one who ever got to hear it. Shame.”
Julius was speechless. Had he known she would one day have her hand cut off, and had he ever known she enjoyed playing the violin, he would have made her play until her fingers grew stiff. Had he know that if he hadn’t left, his wife would be healthy and well at the very moment. Had he know everything of the past, present and future, he would have made sure none of the bad things would ever happen.
“Stop,” she said very suddenly.
“But, darling, we must get away, or they’ll find us,” Julius replied.
“Stop,” she said again, gentler, stroking his face with her bloody left hand.
He obeyed, and pulled off to the side of the path. They were in a place very much like the once where he had very first met Evangeline. He laughed quietly to himself at the irony.
“Take me off the horse,” she told him.
Julius slid off the horse and eased his wife into his arms without questioning why.
“Now, let us go deep into the woods. I don’t care if there is no path follow, just walk until I tell you to stop,” she told him.
“And leave the horse?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, nodding feebly.
So Julius walked on and on, until Evangeline told him to stop.
She smiled, even weaker than before. “Set me down.”
Julius set her onto the dirt gently and made sure she was comfortable. All the while she just smiled knowingly.
“Now what, love?” Julius inquired.
A tear finds its way down her grubby face. “There is a cottage only just a short distance away. They are very kind people. Leave me here, and go ask them for a shovel. They won’t deny you. Come back, and I will give you the last order.”
“Evangeline, I can’t leave you here,” Julius said. “I’ll carry you with me to this place, if it suits you, though.”
“What suits me is to stay here, Julius, dearest. Now go,” Evangeline replied, more tears falling.
Julius obeyed reluctantly, and indeed the people in the cottage did not deny him of a shovel. He returned, and found his wife laying there in the spot he had left her, her chest still. In the dirt next to her, a simple word was etched in a sloppy hand, dig.
If you catch my drift. ... >.>
