Two Loves

Chapter 27

[minor messings with the time-line because we have two actions taking place simultaneously.]

CYMBELINE

I wake up from the longest and most restful slumber I had in years, curled up in my pillows like a child. Slowly, the memory comes back from the depths of sleep.

But something is immediately missing - two arms, specifically. My hand reaches out to the left, blindly searching for Ada, and Ada's warmth. Instead, all I find are cold sheets. Oh, no.Within a second, I am wide awake.

The curtains of the bedroom are still drawn, and only dim morning light falls into the room. But it is enough to see that the bedside beneath me is empty. Ada is gone.

Of course she is. With a disappointed sigh, I sink back into the pillows. Of course she's gone.
I know the feeling all too well, I understand why. The whole waking up, the feeling of not belonging, the feeling of having to disappear without a trace, the slow getting up and soundless dressing, and you take your shoes out into the hallway to make no noise, the last regretful, loving look on the sleeping person who will wake up in a few hours and wonder why you think that they should wake up alone.
I grumble. To be on the other side of an accostumed behaviour feels deceiving. But normally it's me who leaves first, so I only deserve this, don't I?

Then I hear the whistle of a tea kettle. And something that suspiciously sounds like a half concealed, hefty Irish curse. Unwillingly, a smile spreads over my face.
When I shuffle into the living room, wrapped in a morning gown, I know how Isaac must feel every morning. Another reversed routine.
Ada, who seems determinated to master the foreign art of making edible food, has left the kitchen door open and is carefully making tea - without doubt for the first, maybe the second time in her life. She eyes the kettle as if it were an opponent in a fist-fight. I have no doubt that it was also subject to the curses I heard before.
The table is already half-laid. When she hears me coming in, my friend looks up from the cups.

"Morning, love! Are you feeling better?" she asks, smiling, and comes over to embrace me. She still smells of peonies and wax, proof that she keeps her favourite perfume in her handbag. Note to myself: Ask Miss Cecily to help me find out what it is exactly.
"Much better" I mumble back. "I only fear that I exploit you as my kitchen maid."

She giggles and pecks me on the lips. "Don't be silly, I think it's terribly romantic - by the way, some letters came an hour ago, I put them on the table."

"Really?" I didn't expect anything, and the whole letter affair painfully reminds me that I still have to ask people for money to get Isaac back alive. "Eh, alright."

While Ada is still vehicling with the tea kettle, I yawn and examine the letters. One is a bill - oh, great, the last thing I needed! -, one from tedious Aunt Theodora, Ada's alleged mother and the last one - I recognize the handwriting before I read the address and basically rip the envelope open. My heart skips a beat.

A letter by Atticus can only mean that Isaac is awake again or that something bad has happened.

But when I read, my confusion grows with every line. Not only because Atticus' handwriting is so squiggly that one could mistake it for a wedding cake.

Dear Cymbeline,

After you left so abruptly yesterday, I gave the thought of helping your brother recover more thought. As his health and well-being concerns me as much as it concerns you, it will not agree with my conscience to let you carry the financial burden all on your own, when my person has way more wealth than useful for myself and more than enough for the both of us.

But since you, in the admirable nobility of your nature, will not accept any further financial means from my side, I decided to not propose any to you.
Instead, I arranged an agreement with a befriended family that own a small country house not far from Brighton, and near the sea side. Since they use the estate only in the late summer, it is perfectly fine that we occupy the house for a couple of weeks, without a monetary reward - I assume I must only play Polo with their son to compensate this offer, a sacrifice I am absolutely willing to undertake. Doctor Payton has also already agreed that a stay at the sea side, with the experienced care of your person or mine - me, who lacks your experience and will compensate it with devotion - will perhaps help Isaac as much as if he were sent to a sanatorium. The stay is already arranged - we must only decide the day of the departure.