Elizabeth
"Beauty!"
She did not turn to me. I don't think she even heard. I saw Hob reach for her and their hands passed through one another. I stood gaping in the doorway, Father behind me.
"Beauty?" he said as even the last glimmer of the magic that had stolen her away faded. Then he crumpled up and collapsed on the floor.
“Hob!” I screamed. She darted forwards and put her hand to his neck.
“He’s alive,” she said. “Stay here.”
I couldn’t move. She dashed out into the hallway and I heard her demand that a doctor be found and that David be sent for. She came back in and knelt down next to Father. I started to shake.
“Elizabeth,” she said, and turned to me in concern.
“What do we do?” I said, not sure whether I was asking about Father, Beauty or what aspect of this mess.
“I really don’t know,” she said. She looked at me for a moment, standing still but for the shaking I could not stop, and got up and guided me to a chair. A noise from the hall sent her out again.
She returned with the doctor, a stranger, not the man who had treated Mother. Father never could bear to see him again.
“Come on, Elizabeth,” Hob said and took me out of the room into the hallway. A moment later David arrived and then I was in his arms, sobbing and unable to stop. “Look after her,” Hob said, and returned to Father.
He didn’t ask for explanations; he just held me until I was calmer. We went to my sitting room and I wept all over again until I was too tired to cry any more. I fell asleep on a chair with him watching over me.
The next morning I found Hob and David in Father’s study, going through the books. They both looked up as I came in. Hob gave me a weak smile and David came and put his arm around me.
“How is he?” I asked, barely a wobble in my voice.
“He’ll be fine,” Hob said. “It was the shock, the doctor said. Given rest he’ll be fine, so we have to make sure there is no work for him to do.”
“I’ll take over the books if you wish,” David said. “Or you can do it, until he’s ready.”
“I – I think I would like to do it myself,” I said. I really needed to have something to do, to make up for feeling so useless before.
“As you wish,” David said, smiling down at me. “I have to go down to the docks now, but I’ll return this evening.”
I walked down to the hall with him and kissed him farewell, then I went back upstairs to find Hob. She had moved from the study to my sitting room, and was kneeling on the window seat, looking out. I closed the door quietly and came to sit by her.
“Are you all right?” she asked without turning around.
“I think I will be,” I said. “And you?”
“The same,” she said.
“What about Beauty?” I said.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “We can’t go after her. From what Father said, he found the castle by chance, and in any case we can’t leave him.”
“So we just leave her?” I said
“We didn’t leave her,” she said. “She left us. I tried to stop her, but it angered her. And I think she was right to be angry.”
