Better Than Byron

Misfortunes and Misadventures

XX

When we two parted / In silence and tears,/ Half broken-hearted / To sever for years, / Pale grew thy cheek and cold, / Colder thy kiss;/ Truly that hour foretold / Sorrow to this.

-Lord Byron

When Mrs. Dalton retired to bed that night and Mr. Dalton to his study, Edgar caved into himself in the drawing-room, drumming a melancholy tune on the grand piano, refining the only accomplishment he had ever been taught by his mother. He recalled the happy days in Atsbury Hall when he and Amy had played on the pianoforte, both singing like larks even though his voice was off key and hers rather low.

The door of the drawing-room suddenly opened, and a servant appeared in the doorway. Upon perceiving his young master slouched over the piano he took a step in and announced a visitor. "Mr. Meriwether." He then withdrew, and the gentleman entered. Edgar lifted his eyes and beheld him with dazed astonishment.

"Considering that today your sister has been married to a good man, you look miserable," he said, advancing towards him and then hovering over him with his hands snugly burrowed in his breeches pockets.

"I wish to remain mute until the day I die," Edgar said under his breath, lowering his eyes back down to the black and white keys of the piano.

"Why do you say such things, Edgar?" he asked with concern, seating himself beside him on the leather stool and leaning with his elbow on the edge of the piano.

"Because it seems as though whenever I say something, it is to cause trouble and inspire dislike in the hearts of those I love," he said with languid despondence.

"I would not believe in such a thing, at any rate." He sighed deeply, and then went on. "I suppose that the news I bear shall only contribute to your despondence," he said, rising from the seat and going to the hearth.

"What news?" he asked, sitting up.

"Come by the fire, my boy," Mr. Meriwether said, patting his waistcoat in search of a cigar. "It is too draughty in your corner." Edgar came as requested, and then faced him with an expression of gentle concern. His look was so fragile – so tenderly tragic. Meriwether observed this, and after biting down on his cigar, he bid him be seated, but did not take a seat himself, being in too perturbed a frame of mind to affect tranquillity. After lighting his cigar and tossing the match into the fire, he turned his face from the light so that most of it was obscured, and said very gravely, "These news shall crush you, I'm afraid, but it must come out, for I have held it in for long enough. You must know the truth about your sister, Edgar." Edgar looked up, not knowing what to expect. His face was as still as stone. "Amy did not marry Mr. Harold Kendrick of Hassett Hall this morning. She is not in London either. She is nowhere to be found." Edgar's nostrils flared, and then he rose abruptly from his chair, seizing the old solicitor's collar and impaling his flinty black eyes into his. They filled with malice as he muttered between his teeth, "What the devil are you running on about, Meriwether?"

"For goodness' sake, Edgar, be calm," the solicitor said in a choking whisper. "The spirit of madness has seized you – it frightens me." As soon as this had been uttered, Edgar relaxed his grip and sank sullenly into his armchair.

"Tell me then," he muttered. "Tell me what it is you dare to imply."

"Amy disappeared a year after you disowned your mother, Edgar," he said with trained composure. "Probably you fathomed a certain change in the girl who was married this morning to Mr. Kendrick, but never suspected the truth. Indeed, that girl is your own cousin, the youngest Miss Deighton – now Mrs. Harold Kendrick. The replacement was made soon after Amy's disappearance, for your family feared social ostracism and the loss of their respectability. Miss Patricia's death was feigned, and then your mother, deeply afflicted by the desertion of her two children, took her in as her own, transferring her affections from her real daughter to her niece, who was strikingly similar to Miss Amelia, and so this was easily done."