An Innocent Affair

XXVIII

"With a heavy heart, I pulled out my own pocket knife, and carved three little words beneath Archer's. A plea and a wish, in a form I could never take back. Return to me." Ashleigh Zavarelli, Under the Cypress Tree

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XXVIII.

Jem had watched her all night. He had watched her helplessly, forlornly, powerlessly. He kept looking for glimpses of the girl he had once known, of the girl he had once been hopelessly in love with.

But she wasn't there.

Cressie wasn't there.

Belle had been right. She was a ghost of a woman. How could they not see it? How could all of these people around them laugh and dance and converse and flirt and not see that there was a woman in their midst who appeared as lively as a corpse?

This woman, Mrs Delaney, as she had become, appeared to be about two stone lighter than when he had seen her last. She had already been a small, perfectly proportionate young woman when he had known her, and yet now she looked as though a small gust of wind would blow her over. She was pale and frail, with the bones in her cheeks and collar bones far too pronounced.

Her brown eyes were not warm and vibrant, but dull and lifeless, and even the way she carried her figure was demure and reserved, entirely lacking in any sort of confidence. It was as though someone had taken Cressie's entire spirit from her body and had beaten it with a wooden stick like they would a dirty rug.

Cressie's entire being could be found in her spirit. It was something that he had loved entirely about her. She found joy in everything, even when there was much in her life that lacked joy.

For a moment, while standing in that ballroom looking upon the woman she had become, Jem was transported back to the day where she had smiled as big as the world while they stood in the fountain. She dreamed of the sea, and he had taken her to a fountain, and she had found such joy in it.

What had happened to Cressie? Jem could only speculate. He could only worry and imagine. But she had gone to that wedding his Cressie. Jem could only hope that his Cressie was still in there somewhere.

Jem had wanted to be wrong. He had wanted to see her, to lay his own eyes upon her once more and see that she was happy and content in her new life. It would have provided him some peace, he had theorised. He would have been able to close this chapter of his life and potentially not yearn for Cressie any longer.

But now that was entirely impossible. Cressie was here, and she was very real to him once again. He could no longer pretend she was safe and happy. He did not exactly know what to do, but he had to do something.

Jem had not been able to approach her. He had done barely anything all evening but skulk on the edge of the room and observe her. Cressie had not noticed him. She kept her attention focussed solely on the red-headed debutante she was chaperoning, occasionally entertaining whatever the mothers with whom she was standing were saying.

Every part of himself yearend desperately to approach her, to take her hand, and to whisk her away somewhere safe where he could make certain she was alright. But he couldn't. Be damned these rules, these expectations. He hated them. He hated every one of them, for they were what had separated them in the first place. Jem had not spotted Cressie's mother this evening. Was Mrs Martin proud of the waif her daughter had become?

"Jemmy," hissed Claire.

Jem had not at all noticed his older sister approach him, and so he practically jumped out of his skin and into the vase of chrysanthemums which he was standing beside.