During the last few days that have passed, Dewbrook had undergone much more than it had in years. Even though it was a town of many happenings and vices, its residents could not quite process the latest string of them, what with so many things of such terror having happened in such quick succession. It was going to haunt everyone for at least the rest of the year, if not their entire lives, and they had no idea what to do with it.
The Rochesters had left Dewbrook for good, being forced to stay with Mildred's cousins in London due to their lack of income, humiliated upon having arrived. Mildred's relatives did not look too displeased to see them, given the situation, but they, especially Mildred, could not help but feel that it was not proper. Still, there was nothing else that they could do with their miserable lives, except for begging in the streets, which they did not even consider as an option.
They, especially Mildred, helped with all the necessary preparations for the period of their lives they were going to spend under the relatives' roof before they got jobs that paid well enough and earned enough to live a middle-class way of life in a middle-class house, which did not seem to be happening soon, but it was the best option that they had. The relatives' house was a nice place, taking care of all their needs, suitable enough whenever they did not remember the extent of their misfortune.
Stephen still led a dull and meaningless life and Mildred still took much of the care of the house and the children still played as children did, only with fewer resources. Stephen still desired Caroline even in his sleep and his wife was still forced to endure it, but she knew that change could not happen overnight, so she was ready for however long her husband's redemption was going to take, as long as it happened soon enough.
Two weddings had been organised by the Wells family in August - one for Harold and one for Rosemary. The first one came to be a while after Fanny's confession, which happened on a random day. Fanny had come to visit Harold, which at first seemed as mundane as the birds and the flowers and the light of summer that brought even more goodness to her appearance, but when he saw how solemn she was, he could not help but feel worried.
"What is troubling you, my dear Fanny?" he asked, his voice laced with sorrow.
"I cannot bear my feelings," she wept softly in her beautiful voice. "So much had happened during this wretched month of August, especially the sudden murderous intent and brutal death of a person I used to consider my best friend, and that is not even all of it. You see, I have been deluding myself this whole time. I am a woman in love, and I thought I could live without my beloved, but I cannot. It is you, Harold, for you are such a lovely and kind soul that I cannot stop dreaming of, and I want to spend the rest of my days with you by my side. What have you to say of it?"
"I love you too," he said, overwhelmed with joy. "I too want to spend the rest of my days with you. In fact, let us get married the following week. Does that not sound like a great idea to you?"
"Thank you," she said, crying tears of happiness. "That is wonderful! I am going to be unendingly mirthful as your wife!"
"Yes, you are," he whispered gently into her ear. "Such a lovely woman should not be anything but mirthful, and the horrors that we have faced are going to be much easier to remember when we are together. Together, we can do anything, you will see."
And she did. After the luxurious marriage that they had held, she saw nothing but mirth, at least in the beginning. The horrors returned to her only vaguely, just like with him, and their days were spent with love and tenderness, blinding them to anything even remotely wretched. Their mirth did not go uninterrupted, but all the moments when it was there made everything worth it, and it was sure to remain that way for the rest of their lives. They may not have had the chance to have children, but it did not matter amidst all their passion, a particularly sweet passion that they loved to share after having deprived themselves of it for years. Their current mirth was all that mattered.
The second one came to be a week after the first one, when Rosemary could no longer hold off the deal her father had made with Oliver Burns. The men quickly found out about her secret admirer and the circumstances of his death, but Oliver was not too surprised, and her father was not upset for long. This arranged marriage was the best possible opportunity for her and her family, so she took it lightly, knowing that she would not have to sacrifice much.
She was in the right. Their consummation had introduced her to the true joys of lust, after which she was eager to make love with her husband whenever possible. When one of them was bored, they would read some of the many letters Samuel had written to her, laughing merrily at the pathetically poetic memory of him. When not consumed with that nor any of the other mundanities of her life, she wrote, which she had also done while being poisoned, but not much. Now that she was healthy and in good spirits again, she wrote ambitiously, finishing her long-awaited first novel at the beginning of December after many revisions.
The moment she was done with the last page, she merrily ran to her husband, pointing at the large stack of papers once she had approached him. "Look, my dear! I have finally finished the first work that I can be proud of. I will give it to you to read if you would like, and you will surely be done with it in a week, and if you consider it to be good enough, I will attempt to publish it."
Upon looking at her work and then at her lively face again, he raised an eyebrow. "I am glad that you are so sure of your abilities, Rosemary, but are you not aware that people might not take your novel seriously due to obvious reasons? Also, have I read the title right? Read it out loud to me, just to make sure."
"Gladly," she chirped. "The book is called 'Cordelia: A Gothic Novel'."
"I do not understand why you would not write romance," he said, his voice laced with confusion.
"There is romance in Cordelia," she defended herself, causing him to let out a deep sigh.
"Fine," he said, vaguely annoyed. "I suppose that I will read it, and then we shall see whether I am impressed or not."
"That was one magnificent story," he said a week later, holding the pages firmly in his hands while placing himself on the edge of her bed. "Sure, it was a little dark, but for a beginner, you are great at the craft. The struggle between the heroine and her nefarious butler John felt really real to me with how you contrasted their respective virtues and flaws. In the beginning, I was afraid that it was going to be a weeping Gothic melodrama with impenetrable prose, but it was never quite that.
The hidden depths of what at first glance seemed like a standard virtuous heroine and scheming villain were lovely to observe, and near the end, I was afraid that Cordelia was going to succumb to the darkness within her soul, but I am relieved that she did not and that the good people lived happily and the evil ones did not get to live at all. At least that was a relief. But how are you going to get it published?"
She winked at him. "Well, I have a wealthy benefactor who respects me and knows me well enough and says that my novel is great for that of a beginner, you know."
He giggled. "Yes, I suppose that you do. Let us see how it goes then."
The following month, the novel was published under his name, but even though there were no people who could confidently say that it was a stupid book written by an equally stupid woman who should give up the pen because they could never be sure of the secret, it received only middling success, and there were still quite a few notable critiques in newspapers that sold well in the region, including some that claimed that no man could write such a womanly work of literature, but it did not matter. Her first novel was published, her marriage was successful, and it was all that she needed in life, making it easy for her to forget the horrors she had witnessed.
Matthew did not get to see such a happy fate. Dominated by his lust and haunted by the revelations he had received on that fateful day when the ball was held, he watched miserably as life went on without him, his great beauty decaying with stress and age, his presence in the town becoming more and more ignored as time went on, empty of the passions of life, a state which was sure to remain until his death. He yearned for nothing more than to return to his sinning, but women would not look at him again, seeking out new pleasures. If he did not find any consolation, which he had no idea how he would do, he would be damned forever.
The rest of the town remembered the horrors until the end of August, when new things started happening again at last. Many people wanted to replace Caroline and Matthew, and many more wanted to enjoy the pleasures of whoever the replacements would be, which meant that nothing had changed in particular, and it seemed that it would not change for a long time. The wealthy were decadent and selfish, the poor were poor, and the middle class was somewhere in between. Corruption lay everywhere, and when Death did not remove it, it appeared that nothing could. But corruption, or at least this particular kind of corruption, could not last forever, which everyone knew well. Either five or fifty years later, this gaudy way of living was going to be replaced by a completely new one, whatever it may be. All in the will of God.