It was ten hours past midnight the following day when Rosemary went out for a walk, indisputably shaken by the severe mental pain of heartbreak and illness. The weather was terrible, what with the grey clouds that mercilessly enveloped the morning sky, not letting a single ray of the sun shine through, and the winds of cold that ever so slightly swayed the black, withered branches of the dead trees all around her, but in her heart, she felt that there was something poetic even about this dreary landscape. As she walked gently over the unmown grass, her mind slowly descended into the deep valley of her thoughts, serene and sorrowful all at once.
With her surroundings so calm and asleep, she had all the time in the world to lovingly observe her state of mind while birds occasionally sang near her. However, there was not very much to be lovingly observed, for the happiness that she had felt was momentary and hollow, fueled only by the innocent romanticism that had always been a part of her. Her new, darker romanticism appeared suddenly, not allowing her to escape from it.
Her body had betrayed her, and Samuel had betrayed her also. Despite the immense pain of it all, it would have been a relief to know that those were the only betrayals in her life. What truly pained her was the fact that she had betrayed herself as well. She had let herself become a fornicating virgin, eager to lose the innocence she never really had with an affair, mesmerised by desires that were truly carnal and filthy, even if it was nothing but a moment's want. During most of the months when she wrote letters to him, she had never thought that there could be anything more to it, and now she had seen it as a prospect, if only weakly. She did not know how to judge herself based on what she had seen within herself. She had sinned, but was she a sinner in any way that mattered? The situation was as tangled as a Gordian knot, and her head hurt from it all.
Soon enough, there was a relief, or at least it seemed that way. She saw Caroline standing over the river and waved to her with a smile, startled by what she saw when she began to examine her closely. The woman in question resembled a phantom with her posture and look of madness as she frantically washed the dress she had worn the night before, dropping it into the water due to being startled by Rosemary's arrival. As Caroline fetched the dress from the water, Rosemary waited with cold sweat running down her back, not knowing how much of it could be attributed to her sickness and how much of it could be attributed to the strangeness of this event. When Caroline returned at last, Rosemary did not hesitate to speak:
"Hello, my dear Caroline. What is happening with you at the moment? Why are you washing your dress when one of our servants could have done so easily, and why are you so disturbed?"
"And why are you walking around here in a state of such sickness?" Caroline asked, crossing her arms.
Rosemary wagged her finger. "No, you do not get to avoid my question. I am not letting you leave before you answer me."
Caroline snorted. "What is so odd about washing a dress, Rosemary?"
Rosemary shook her head. "It is a bit odd, but that is not what I meant to ask. I meant to ask you why you looked so haunted while doing it."
"It is nothing," Caroline responded, uncomfortably tilting her head. "There is nothing that could haunt anyone on such a fine day, right, Rosemary?"
Rosemary nodded reluctantly.
After several seconds of complete silence, Caroline yawned. "Last night was terrible. I had ten hours to sleep and could not do so for a single minute."
Rosemary raised an eyebrow. "But why would it be so? Why was last night different from any other?"
Caroline scratched her neck. "That is precisely the question I had asked myself, my dear, but it turns out that my nerves are in utter disarray due to some things that have happened recently and that my state of mind decided to be horrible for no real reason at all. The point is that I have had to go for a walk in the woods and now feel nothing but exhaustion within my bones and I crave sleep more than anything."
"Why are you so exhausted?" Rosemary said coyly. "Have you been digging a trench or something?"
"A trench?" Caroline said, laughing nervously. "A trench?! Imagine digging a trench of all things!"
As her laughter became more and more maniacal, the movements of the bones in her face emphasising her bloodshot eyes and near-black bags under her eyes, Rosemary withdrew silently, making no effort to announce her departure. She went towards the still-silent streets of the town, her high heels echoing ever so slightly against the uneven rocks that constituted the roads, a wide smile appearing on her face as she forgot all about the awkward encounter and focused on studying her surroundings.
If someone were to see her at the moment, they would think that she had found something endlessly fascinating about the not-currently-open shops or the occasional pigeon that showed up in the branches of the countless dead trees or the random old woman who was merrily returning from the other part of town for some unknown reason, eager to spend her day cooking or sewing or gossiping or whatever it was that withered old women did in such places, but the truth was that Rosemary, paranoid as she knew she may have been at the moment, had discovered a trace of something strange enough about Caroline that she could not have imagined it, even though the woman was already quite strange on her own, and, with all the implications that fact contained within itself, Rosemary wished more than anything else not to think of it.
That mission of hers was rather successful, even if not for long. For a couple of hours, Rosemary had managed not to think about the unsettling matter in question, but when she saw Caroline again, the memories came flooding back to the surface. There was no way in the world for her to ignore them, for Caroline's eyes were still bloodshot and the bags under her eyes were still near-black, and the woman herself was looking at her in an odd manner, too. This caused many theories to begin forming in Rosemary's head, the cogs twisting and turning in all sorts of directions.
Rosemary had never known herself to be overly observant - not until now, at least - but it made sense that she would look at anything in the aim to distract herself from her hauntingly probable death. When it came to death, she had seen its cold and uncaring gleam in Caroline's eyes for a moment, or at least it had seemed so, and she could not look away from it, as indicated by the cold sweat that commenced running down her back. Pale as a shadow, she soon uttered:
"Caroline, something is not right in this residence today. The feeling of strangeness looms over our roof like an axe, all thanks to your presence - not that I dislike your presence, far from it - but it is all very different today. Would you care to tell me why it is so?"
Caroline let out a deep sigh. "Rosemary, it is your presence that is strange today. You are pale, you keep appearing out of nowhere, you ask all sorts of peculiar questions, and you do not at all appear to care for your poor health. I implore you to go to bed now and not get out until you are able to behave normally. It would do both of us much good."
Rosemary snorted. "I may be naive, but I am not stupid. It is a great idea to go to bed, which I shall now proceed to do, but do not think even for a moment that any of this is over. Have a nice day, Caroline."
As she marched back into her bedroom in protest - as much a frail, dying woman like her could march, anyway - Caroline stared at her with thoughts of contempt. She let them boil ever so slightly, not wasting too much time because Rosemary was not at all a person whom one would waste much time on, before forgetting all about them and going for a pleasant walk in the woods. Seeing that the weather had improved significantly and returned the true image of spring to the quiet town brought a wide smile to her face, which did not last long due to Fanny's arrival, which she had not expected at all and was completely unprepared for. For a couple of seconds, she allowed Fanny to stare at her with horror thanks to how exhausted and haunted she looked at the moment, before speaking at last and pulling her friend's arm suddenly:
"Fanny, we must go deeper into the woods. There is a terrible thing - a terrible, terrible secret - that I must show you immediately."
Fanny laughed uncomfortably. "Well, what can I say, Caroline? If there is one thing in the world that is absolutely certain, it is that life is never a bore around you. Let us go, then, and see just how terrible this particular secret is, I suppose."
"Are you certain that you want to go?" Caroline asked, pulling her arm tighter. "If you are to know of this terrible secret, you are never to not know of it again. There is a probable chance that you will be haunted by this cursed knowledge forevermore, all the way until the very day that you die, all without any relief whatsoever from it. Do you understand?"
"I am certain," Fanny said gravely. "There is no knowledge in the world that could be so terrible as you are describing, especially not when coming from you. Halt this nonsense and let us go at once. Time is a scarce resource, after all."
"If you insist," Caroline said, nodding solemnly. "Just remember that I have warned you."
And without any other word, they went deeper into the forest. They walked for what seemed like an eternity to Fanny, bringing her to the point of near-sleep several times and evidently irritating Caroline, and, precisely when she had least expected it, they were there, which was indisputable, for Fanny had stepped right onto the exact piece of soil where the terrible secret was located, which she knew from Caroline's sudden halting and the oppressive terror in her eyes, which caused her to feel an oppressive terror within herself as well. Before she could say anything, Caroline took a deep breath and spoke:
"Move a little to the right. Do you not feel any weight under your feet that should not be felt? It is a crucial part of the secret, trust me."
Unsettled, Fanny did as she was told. "I feel it, although I have not paid much attention. What could there be about the mysterious weight from the underground? The path is a little uneven, but that does not mean that... No! Do not tell me that you have done it! Do not..."
Caroline said nothing, but her soul-piercing stare was enough of an answer on its own.
"Here lies my firstborn son, Samuel," she said after a while, spreading her arms. "In life, he was the secret admirer of my ward, Rosemary, which neither of us could have expected. I was scandalised by his visit, no matter how happy for Rosemary I may have been at the moment. As we have all seen very well, I gave birth to many children over the years, but I was able to get rid of all of them in various ways with such skill that many doubt I was ever fertile at all.
It had all lasted peacefully until that night, also known as the night before, when he dared to ask me for his part of the fortune, enraging me to such an extent that I used the Wells family vase to crack his skull open without thinking. Horrified by what I have done, I scrambled desperately for a solution, eventually deciding that quietly burying the secret was the best thing to do. And so I dug him a grave for ten hours - ten wretched hours - bringing myself to the lowest point of exhaustion and hopelessness! But it does not matter, now does it?! You will keep this secret to the grave, right?!"
Fanny, appalled by the elaborate story and the maniacal look on her friend's face, fell into a fit of crying and shivering intensely with her whole body. "Stay away from me! You are a horrible friend! Stay away from me!"
"But that is not all..." Caroline said darkly. "There is a reason that no one knows the real symptoms of Rosemary's illness. The truth is that I have been poisoning her for the last eight months, hoping that she would die quickly, but not too quickly, and that I could comfort Harold in his grief and use that as leverage to marry him. Now I see how vile it all was, and now we will see what will come out of it..."
"I hate you!" Fanny screamed tearfully, running away in a rather frantic manner.
As she ran and ran, Caroline stood there like a statue and stared at her because it was all she could do at the moment. She had lost herself, and she had lost her closest friend as well. Little did she know that the situation was somehow even worse than she had expected. Rosemary was standing behind a tree, eavesdropping on their conversation because she wanted nothing more than for her questions to be answered, but she herself was staring at the horizon with great sorrow, now having more questions than ever before. She was not even certain that the scene that had happened before her was real, wanting to believe that it was nothing more than a hallucination that had come from her illness. And so she did, returning to her residence before she could be caught in the inappropriate act, wanting nothing more than to go back to her normal routine.