Sweet Satisfaction (Purple UGC Winner 2014)

Sweet Satisfaction - Fifty

Fifty

Ellie, I am so very sorry. Words can’t express how terrible I feel. I love you so dearly. Susanna had developed feelings for me, but they weren’t mutual, she made an advance on me that day you saw us. I am so angry that she would do this to you, and she isn’t staying with me any longer. Please come back to England and I can hold you in my arms once more, like that day we stole together, that perfect day. John isn’t worthy of you. Bobby xxxxxxx

I leant against the railing around the veranda, hot tears sliding down my cheeks, hands shaking. Was he telling the truth? How could I ever trust him again, even if he didn’t like Susanna. He had kissed her back. But was my dearest friend to blame? Had I looked at it all wrong? Oh, how I yearned for his touch, how my chest heaved when I remembered our day together. I still loved him so much.

Or was Bobby trying to sweet-talk me, using my pet-letter name Ellie? I felt angry that he should say that about John- and how had he acquired my address? Surely Mother or Mary or Emma wouldn’t have given it out? And how had the letter arrived so quickly? With a sigh, I opened the other letter, trying to take my mind off the pain in my heart.

Meet me. The lake. Tonight.

*****

With my fingers entwined in John’s, we walked apprehensively towards the lake, which was a deep magenta, almost black, unmoving sheet, set under a globe of piercing light. The sandy plain crunched beneath our feet. The trees whispered. Suddenly, my surroundings felt ominous, and my palms were sweating; who wanted to meet me?

We reached the water’s edge, as a woman moved towards us, emerging from the forest.

“Ludmilla?” I whispered, and John’s grip on me tightened.

“She is one of the village people. How could you possibly know her?” Ludmilla reached us, the bells on the hem of her skirt jingling. There was no mistaking those narrow green eyes, and the scar that sliced down the middle of her left hand.

“Elsie. You have grown. You are old enough to know the secret I have kept for almost 15 years.” Her cold mannerism hadn’t changed in the slightest, and there were flecks of Polish still left in her accent. My heart was pumping faster. My mouth was dry. She was talking about the year 1901. The year Benjamin died.

“Your brother Benjamin-”

“You had a brother?” John interjected. I glared at him to keep quiet, and the fact he didn’t know, he didn’t know why I was bringing the Kingston fortune to him.

“His death was not an accident.” I stumbled back and John held me as I trembled.

“A woman named Natalya suffocated him under the water. She was released from prison last year.”

Everything around me was spinning. My cheeks were hot. I tried to control my breathing, staring at her, fists clenched softly, John’s hands steadying me as I swayed. Natalya had killed my brother. My mother’s cousin Natalya. Natalya whose parents were killed by Father.

“Is this true? Why?” I whispered.

“Revenge. Your father killed her parents. Natayla was not hanged. Your mother protected-”

“- her cousin.” I finished, flashbacks from Yeovil entering my head. John was throwing me bewildered glances.

“What about Natalya’s child?” I finally asked, as if it was more important than the fact my brother was murdered by his own bloodthirsty cousin, his little face dunked and held under water until he drew his last breath. Ludmilla shook her head.

“A nanny only knows so much.” She looked at me unwaveringly in the eye, emotionless as the queen of steel as usual, so one never knew if she was lying.

“Now, you must pay me back, for giving you the information.” John stepped across me, proffering his purse as it suddenly hit me. My brother was murdered. My little brother. My chest heaved as my knees buckled and I sunk to the ground. He was murdered. How could she hold his neck, her own cousin, under the water? How could she be that revengeful? And because of Father. As always, my family suffered because of Father. I thought of Mother, my pregnant Mother, and wondered if she knew, or if she and Father had hidden this from me. John crouched down and put his arms around me, untangling my hair from my face.

“Not money. I would like Elsie to stay in the village for a while.” I looked up, face illuminated in the moonlight.

“What if I won’t allow her to?” John said defensively.

“Then I will not warn her of the danger she is in.”