Sweet Satisfaction (Purple UGC Winner 2014)

Sweet Satisfaction - Fifty-Nine

Fifty-Nine

"You are sitting there feeling guilty again, aren’t you?” John guessed. I nodded slowly.

"If you feel guilty again, I shall box your ears.” I tried to smile weakly, but I couldn’t find the effort nor energy to do so. He came to sit beside me, putting an arm around my shoulders.

“How can you stand to be near me?” I whispered, “I am a mad woman and a murderess.” John shifted, trying to change to subject a little.

“My love, it was natural for you to react that way. I would if I found you sneaking around with another man more handsome than I! (I gulped.) But I promise you I didn’t write that note. Mary seems nice enough, but I would never dream of…”

I had been rash. Mary, my secretive sister Mary, wouldn’t leave her private notes lying around. It was probably one of Emma’s jokes.

“Let’s just forget this ever happened.” Oh, how I couldn’t.

*****

I whiled away the time by sitting on the veranda knitting, reading, or immersing myself in a state of melancholy. Every day, I would stare out to the still lake. I was overridden with guilt, the end prize for a lust for revenge. I felt so empty inside. I felt so tired, so pointless, so weak. I had ruthlessly murdered someone, in the heat of the moment, to save myself, and yes, for my own satisfaction.

I didn’t see the point of living, even though I had committed my wicked crime so that I could live. I shut myself in the bedroom one day, with the dagger. I could feel my blood and own shaky breaths pumping in my ears. It only felt fair that I should suffer for my wicked crime. I wasn’t sobbing gut-wrenching-ly any more. I just shook silently, letting the tears fall.

"Stop.” My eyes locked into a gaze with John.

“If you do this, you will dishonour your family and no good vicar will bury you in their graveyard, unless they sympathise towards suicide.”

“Do you really think I care?” I shrugged my shoulders limply, turning the blade so the piercing point faced him.

“Elsie, she took away your little brother’s life. How can you grieve for someone who did that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, alright? I could be hanged, John, hanged, for my crime.” My knees knocked together as I wobbled.  

“You got justice, Elsie, justice!”

“This is no justice, the pain of guilt!” I screamed.

“Is everything alright in here?” Sarah poked her head around the door- she was ever so nosy. She stared at my dagger, which gleamed from John’s frantic scrubbing of Ludmilla’s blood. He had ordered her body be buried in secret, her possessions burned. I knew why; he didn’t want to lose me to the hangman’s noose, should anybody find out. I remember her screaming at me that I would go to hell, and now I probably will. I watched her die, as John tried to drag me away, screaming, blood coating my hands, wondering what I had done.

“Elsie,” Sarah whispered, slowly entering the bedroom, “Don’t show you are weak, face your fears. You can get through this. I did when I told everyone I wasn’t a real Countess; let alone of the Doggett Islands. (John blinked at this.) People still like my amazing clothes. People won’t judge you on the past. I liked you both exceedingly much, as you are so well suited; you are two cowards together.”

Sarah was right. I was a coward, always pretending. I would not be brave enough to go down with my ship like Captain Smith did in the terrible sinking of the RMS Titanic 3 years ago, I would jump for safety. I couldn’t find safety much longer, I had only a couple of lives left, and I had to use them well. I had to find out the truth. The truth about everything. If that led to a yearn for revenge, I would have to learn to deny it. I had already wasted so much time in this pitiful state.

“Elsie, don’t do this, I love you so much.”

Slowly, I put down the dagger.

*****

A few days later, I picked up my skirts and rushed, as best as I could, with my aching rib, towards John. He had come running out his study into the gardens, where I had been walking with Sarah and Thomasina, brandishing a piece of paper. He grabbed hold of my hands, and kissed me full on the lips, regardless of the other two. But I could not enjoy the fluttering sensation, as my heart beast faster with panic.

“John, what’s happened?” He handed me the telegram.

C o m e  h o m e  E l s i e. W e  s h a l l  t r a v e l  t o  S t. T u d y,  C o r n w a l l, m y  h o me.

N a t a l y a  h a s  t r i e d   t o  s t ab   m y   m o t h e r.  W i l l  e x p l a i n.