The de Vere Inheritance

Chapter Fourteen - 15th August 1632

Elizabeth woke with a start as the ink jar fell to the floor and shattered. For a few seconds she let her racing pulse return to normal as she took in the early morning light seeping into the room before she tried to get up to clean up the mess. She wiped a few spots of ink from her face as she shoved away the sheaf of parchment perched on her lap. She'd been dozing in the armchair near the window with her feet propped up on the table. She must have moved slightly in her sleep and knocked the ink jar off the table. She managed to get onto her knees to scoop up the shards of glass onto a piece of blotting paper and crumpled it tightly so no shards could escape. She glanced around her for somewhere to place it but her dressing table was too far away. Given how long it would take Elizabeth simply to return to a standing position, she was not fool enough to attempt to make it to the dressing table. She leaned back against the leg of the armchair and tried to push herself back onto it.

Her arms gave out the first three times she tried, but on the fourth she just managed to lift herself high enough to lower down onto the cushion of the chair. Elizabeth forced herself to sit back with a heavy sigh, the simple action of cleaning up the mess of spilled ink rendering her energy entirely spent. What water there had been in the room, she had consumed the last of the morning before, and there had been no food at all in the five days that she had been locked within her bed chamber. She had been a fool to think in the first day or two that Eric might return. He had made his intentions abundantly clear to her now. He did not care if she lived or died.

On the second day Elizabeth had felt the real dashing of her hopes when she'd caught sight of one of the ladies from the women's group walking along the street below. Elizabeth had shouted herself hoarse until she collapsed in a heap beneath the window to cough up blood into her palm. The woman though had only looked up at her with disdain. She was being judged no doubt for her involvement in the apprehension of Madame Deschamps who had killed her husband. The woman on the street had likely told anyone else that she met there that Elizabeth was mad and had been locked away for her own good. That had been the last time Elizabeth had been able to shout from the window. Little food and water had worked quickly upon her already frail condition and now she was exhausted by merely leaving her seat for a few seconds.

The night before she had heard the landlord at the door as she fell in and out of sleep. She had tried to shout to him from where she sat in the arm chair but no sound would escape her lips. She had simply been forced to listen as the landlord told his man he would come back the next day with bailiffs to evacuate the building. Elizabeth did not hold out much hope for that. They were empty words. She had been left alone for five days and no one had paid her lonely little apartment any attention. It would likely be another five days before the landlord found the time to return and Elizabeth was fully aware that she would not see those five days out. She pulled the sheaf of parchment towards her and tied it together with a ribbon, ensuring that the message to Athos remained at the top. Her work was finally done. She had spent five agonising days scribbling out all of her husband's misdemeanours and adventures sporadically in between bouts of restless sleep. It was finished though, and she finally felt as if she could let go.

There was nothing to keep her fighting against the pull to fall into a rather deep slumber now that she had completed what she had set out to do. She did not know if anything she had to say would be of any use to Athos, but she had known as soon as Eric had left her locked up that she had to try. She needed only to hope that when someone eventually found her, they would see that the sheaf of parchment found it's way into Athos's possession. It was all that she had to offer the first real friend she had managed to make in a very long time. His kindness to her was a gift that she could carry with her no matter where she went, but she was so sorry that there was nothing she could do for him in return.