The People of Dewbrook

Chapter Twenty-Three

"What is going on?" Lucille asked with a gleam of worry in her eyes.

"We are dispossessed," Mildred explained morosely to the large crowd, most of whom began pointing and laughing at her and her husband.

"Such wretched people you are!" Lady Poole of Canterbury said, dying of laughter. "I would pity you if your antics were not so foolish. I cannot help but laugh, being provided with a source of such amusement! Living in your vicinity is most certainly never a bore."

"Verily," Lucille said, earning her a glare from Mildred.

"And what have you come here for?!" Mildred shrieked, waving her hands. "First you were worried about me, and now you are mocking me again! You are free to go away, along with the rest of them!"

"Why should we be free of our amusement?" Lady Faulkner of Oxford said, crossing her hands. 

"You ignoble toad," Mildred said coldly, staring her in the face. "Ignoble toad indeed, for much like your Canterburian friend, you hop from lilypad to lilypad without a care, resting your flexible legs there where it is most comfortable for a short while and then moving on as if nothing had happened at all, as if it were necessary for you to live."

"You wretch," Lady Poole said through gritted teeth. "You are in no position to judge me, or any of us for that matter. You are so stupid that you ended up with no possessions, but perhaps it is because you are so stupid that you still have the gall to attack other people from where you stand currently."

"Go away!" Mildred screamed at her, but mostly the large crowd in general, dragging her husband back into the house and slamming the door behind them so that they would fully understand her wish, leaving them to scatter around town and be occupied by this news for the rest of the day.

In the meantime, her mood had not improved at all, even with the absence of any vile people who could judge her for her tragedy. Her day was filled with packing all their possessions before their house was to be sold and talking to her dear little children for a while, mostly to explain why they were not going to live there anymore, overwhelming her heart with profound grief over a place she had known for a year and the bleakness in the two sweet and innocent faces of her blood. 

Dewbrook was never hers - never theirs - and never had been, for they had expected idyll and gotten corruption. To be honest, there had been idyll, and corruption would follow them wherever they went, as it did everyone, but the new routine they had established did not belong in their lives, and in an old place, it was going to be easier to return to the norm. This knowledge pained her like a stab in the chest. And, as if it were not enough for the day, the resident servant of the Devil came to her door, ringing the doorbell timidly.

"Why are you here, you wicked harlot?!" Mildred yelled at Caroline instead of a greeting, even with how humble and depressed the woman looked in her plain white dress.

"Yes, injure me with your words," Caroline said in a voice bereft of emotion. "Pain is good, if only in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. We must all feel pain in our pursuit of kindness and a blessed afterlife, if only for the reward of having done good. There is nothing in the world that warms the heart more profoundly."

Mildred blinked twice in confusion. "Is this a farce? If it is, then why do you look so gloomy?"

"It is not a farce at all, my dear," Caroline answered, placing her hand on Mildred's chest. "I have seen the light and intend to renounce my old life completely. Earthly pleasures are brief and feeble, but the pleasures of kindness are forever. I will settle down and marry Harold, after which I-"

"You cad!" Mildred screamed at the top of her lungs, struggling to restrain her wrath any longer. "You have destroyed Harold too! If this is the truth, then your redemption can never be! I despise you, and I hope that you suffer in the ninth circle of Hell for all eternity!"