Better Than Byron

Vengeance is Sworn, and Hope Renewed

XXI

Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of Good in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms.

-Lord Byron

After driving to the Potro Villa half mad with grief, Edgar left his phaeton at the front gates and ran the rest of the way up to the garden, where he leapt over the wicket gate and coming upon a tall shovel, he cut the ground with it, beginning to turn over the heavy soil. It took him an hour to finish digging, but when at last he had the long white coffin in view, he struggled to haul it out and unhinge the cover, which had been nailed shut. Though he had soiled his hands and his fine clothes, and though he had many gashes and blisters on his palms, he did not think of pausing for breath. Because he was not strong enough to break the lid, he reluctantly lifted the shovel over his head and swiftly lowered it onto the coffin, creating a crack at the feet of the deceased.

He feverishly tore up the remainder of the coffin until he had a full view of the corpse, whose face was shrouded by a worn white veil. With hands trembling from distress, they seized the girl's round shoulders and held her veiled face to his breast, his body swaying from left to right in uncontrollable agony. After weeping over his sister – so unjustly treated! so ignobly deceased! – he laid her gently upon the soft grass, and removing the veil from her face kissed the grotesque lips and trudged into the villa, his heart heating with hatred for the man he had so long esteemed and had faith in. The villa was just as dimly lit as it had been the night before, and the dusky proprietor was in his boudoir, slouched in an armchair by the waning fire of his open hearth. At first, Edgar was certain that he was asleep, and thus he could come upon him more successfully, but as he slowly edged towards him with the shovel, the man convulsed and fell to the ground, making an unnatural guttural noise. Edgar froze. He stood tall and said, in his harshest tenor, "Rise if you can, Oscar March, for I have discovered you."

The Siñor gave a start, and he then faced his old friend with a drunkard's grin. There was a laughing devil in his sneer. His face looked like a confirmed alcoholic's – every time he swayed to one side, it was as though his face were slamming into the floor. He was incurably impaired. Edgar saw his advantage and came at him with the shovel, smacking him directly in the mouth, and thus propelling him into the ashy hearth.

"Come, Oscar," he said hoarsely, "I should like to see you try and fight back – you loathsome brute!"

"What the devil is this about, Edgar?" he chuckled dryly, his hand shaking as he wiped the blood from around his mouth. "Have you finally learnt to decipher me?"

"You murdered my sister," he growled with an extravagantly tragic groan tacked on to his accusation. "And now I am determined to make you pay for it. First, you murdered my father – and now Amy! I thought you loved her, you scoundrel! You must tell me what you did to her, or I shall be puzzling over it for the rest of my life."

"O, many things, old chap," he smirked.

"Oaf!" Edgar hissed with restrained rage, satisfying himself only by glaring venomously at him. "Tell me – I must know every wretched detail!"

"Well, it's like this," he said with preposterous gravity. "After having abducted the pretty thing, I lodged her in this deliciously decorous villa. I did what I liked with her – from pinching her to kissing her. She complained in her quiet, modest way, but after the first time that I had my way with her, she became positively savage. Her lovely, unspotted face often darkened with your expressions of... malice, which only made her the more desirable. She was too cunning, however, for so pretty and helpless a thing, and while you were roaming the Continent, my malicious darling provoked her own demise. You see I was rather drunk, and I was beginning to assault her when the sweet-faced vixen scratched my cheek like some venomous kitten, motivating me to strangle the life out of her frail neck that I had once decked with so many dripping kisses."