Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.
27 June 1023, Achin Court, Nexing Cross, Nexinghamshire
My dearest husband,
I have not written, for there has been little to bring pen to paper these past days. Your father and mother remain delighted with our daughter; our daughter has made the acquaintance of a variety of goats, sheep, hens, fruit trees, and bodies of water; I have played many rounds of Lottery and Piquet; and I have waited most impatiently for word from John Gamble.
That wait ended today, in the most heartbreaking way possible.
I had thought Cathy might send me a note inviting me to tea, but instead John appeared at Achin Court this afternoon and asked if I might wish to go riding with him. He looked tired.
His invitation gave me a moment’s pause, for I would not wish to give the countryside any cause for scandal, but your mother told me not to be silly. “You’re an Archer, Amelia,” she said. “And if anyone accuses you of impropriety you will know what to do about it.”
And so I donned a matronly riding habit and off we rode. We kept to the main roads and bright daylight, and made no stops; and as we rode we had ample opportunity for private conversation.
“This has been difficult for Cathy,” John began, not looking at me. “She does not like to think about her great blunder, as she calls it. But she has authorized me to tell you the sorry tale in its entirety, with the hope that you will use it most discreetly.”
“Of course,” I said.
“This all took place while I was at Veronica in Edenford, reading wizardry. I had always wanted to be a wizard, you know, and so, as it happens, had Cathy. But they did not teach women at Edenford in those days, no more than they do now; and also it seems that she has not a single wizardly bone in her body. I showed promise of working magic from an early age; Cathy showed none, and it was a great trial to her.
“One spring, a young man came to Nexing Cross. He called himself Sloane-Price, and he claimed to be one of my fellows at Veronica. He was charming, and soberly turned out, and my mother—for our father had passed by this time—saw no harm in the acquaintance. And then, one day, they vanished. My mother was distraught, and sent for me; but by the time I was able to return from Edenford it was too late to follow them.
“I was entirely surprised by the whole matter, for there never was a Sloane-Price at Veronica.
“After looking for them with no success, remained here to support my mother—I never have returned to Edenford, alas—and several months later I received a letter from Cathy. She was in Yorke, she had eloped, and her husband had abandoned her. I posted down to retrieve her; she came home, and has remained here ever since.”
“That’s very much the story as I heard it from Sir Alexander,” I said.
“Yes, I am sure. But Cathy told me rather more.”
“Of course.”
“She told me that this Sloane-Price claimed to be a student of wizardry—indeed I think he must have been, to some degree—and persuaded her that he knew a way to awaken the magic within her. There was a man in Yorke who had been studying this problem and had determined how to do it. Sloane-Price told her that he had learned of her desire to be a wizard from me, and as he knew of this man’s recent successes had determined to bring her to him so that she could become one.
“He was most persuasive, as plausible a rogue as every was, indeed; and moreover he said that was becoming most attached to her, and wished to marry her as soon as may be.”
“It is an old story indeed,” I said mildly, “though it has some markedly unusual twists.”
“Just so; and there are more twists to come.”
“He took her to Wits’ End, where they were married, and thence to Yorke; and in Yorke to his lodgings, which were not at all in keeping with his dress or manner; and in Yorke she discovered that there was no man, and that her new husband had lied to her: there was no way to ‘awaken her magic.’ They parted in anger, she wrote me a letter, and she returned home, sadder but wiser.” There was a long pause. “At least, that is the story she told me at the time.”
“I gather she was not wholly forthcoming?”
“I did not get the true tale until this past week. It does not reflect well on my poor sister.”
“I am listening,” I said, bracing myself.
“There was a young man who called himself Sloane-Price. He did come to visit, and he did become attached my sister. He did not know me, and he was simply passing through Nexing Cross when they met. He was a student of wizardry, and when Cathy spoke of her envy of me, he mentioned that he had heard tell of a man who was trying to awaken the magic in those born without it. And after that….”
“It was all Cathy?” I said, appalled.
He sighed deeply. “It was all Cathy. She feigned love for him, and persuaded him to take her to Yorke to see this man. There was no wedding, at Wits’ End or anywhere else. And when the man could not be found she turned on Sloane-Price. He for his part had taken her attachment as genuine, and though he behaved badly in taking her to Yorke had every intention of marrying her as soon as it could be arranged.”
“To what extent had she compromised herself?”
“Socially? Almost beyond redemption. Only by taking the man’s name, putting the blame on him, and living quietly could she remain in Nexinghamshire. Morally? She certainly used him most cruelly. Beyond that I have not asked. But though the man was a fool, he did not play the seducer.”
I wanted to weep, but I restrained myself. “Why have you told me these awful things?”
“Because of Sloane-Price’s words when they parted. He told her, along with many other unflattering terms and much swearing of oaths, that a time would come when she would regret using him so—that one day she would find she loved a man who loved her falsely. She discounted them, thought them just angry words of the sort any man might say.”
“Any man who was betrayed.”
“Yes. But these past years she has come to wonder if they were more than that.”
“Octie,” I said.
“Indeed. She fears that Sloane-Price enchanted her—cursed her, to use the proper word—and that Octie fell foul of it.”
“Oh, dear. Is there any hope of finding him?”
“We must certainly try.”
And so there it is. If your brother isn’t simply a mooncalf, he has been cursed; and if so there is no immediate prospect of breaking it. I have, with John’s permission, sent a letter to Orthopractor Simms, for if Sloane-Price cursed Cathy then he was wrong to do so, however great the provocation. He arrives we shall see what we shall see.
It is all too heartbreaking.
Your most unhappy
Amelia
____
Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash
Zymurgia House 