“Why must you try to control me?” he asked, once again trying to free his leg from her grip. His hands bunched into fists and Augusta closed her eyes praying that he would not use them on her mother.
“I am not trying to control you, Arnold. But what kind of conversation is this? How is any of this normal? You speak these hurtful words without a care about my feelings,” she said, still holding on, although her hands faltered for a moment.
“You are worse than a stone tied to a drowning man’s feet. You should not bother waiting for me because I have no intention of coming back tonight,” he wrenched his leg free finally and headed for the door, pausing for a moment to deliver a final blow.
“Just to be clear, I have every intention of being with as many women as I feel like tonight. It’s time you get it through your head that things will never stop being like this.”
The viscount slammed the door, leaving his wife in a pile of tears and heartbreak on the floor.
Augusta whimpered as she stood behind the pillar. She looked at the expressions on the servants’ faces as they watched, looking rather mortified by what they had witnessed. They all looked away, trying not to look at her mother, lying there in her shame as her husband once again proved to her what a terrible choice she had made in her decision to marry him.
Her hands bunched into little fists. This was supposed to be her parents’ private quarters and yet, there had been nothing private about the conversation her mother just had with her father. She released her hands, a sigh escaping her lips as her heart filed with great sadness. Her mother did not deserve the treatment she was getting from her father and yet it seemed like that was all she was going to get.
Augusta wished there was a way she could get her out of that situation. Her heart hardened as she approached her mother. Her father was a monster. That was the only word to describe a man who treated his wife in the way that he had. The words he spoke remained stuck in her heart, replaying over and over again.
Her father was heartless to marry her only because he saw her as a conquest and not because he saw the humanity in her or wanted to give as much love to her as she would have reciprocated, had he given her the chance to do so.
“Mother, why do you cry for him?” she asked as she leaned down, wrapping her little arms around her mother.
Her mother gasped, her expression one of shock and even deeper anguish than she had expressed after the viscount’s hurtful words.
“My sweet baby. I am so sorry that you had to see me like this. I wish you did not see it.” She wiped her eyes clean. “Sometimes, love can just be painful, that’s all.”
Augusta turned in bed as the scene shifted.
Augusta stared angrily at her mother. The Viscountess’s eyes were sunken and permanent dark circles had formed there such that she struggled to reconcile the beautiful woman in their family paintings to the woman that sat now in a chair, struggling to keep her eyes open.
Augusta was not angry at her mother. She could never be. Not after all that she went through in the hands of her father. Her mother’s embroidery needle hung awkwardly in her arms as she tried to embroider with Augusta. It’d been years since the ill treatment started and her mother still hadn’t lost hope for her husband.
“What are you doing, honey?” she asked when her eyes cleared of the sleep.
She stared at her mother in confusion. What was she doing? She hadn’t done anything save watch her and hope that she would sleep instead of waiting up for a man who was never home. Augusta could not remember the last time she saw her father. It had made her happy that he had begun to skip coming home, choosing instead to remain with his mistresses.
Now, Mother will have rest and he will not hurt her with his words anymore, she had thought, going to bed happily for the first time in so many nights.
It was not long before she realized how wrong he had been. Even in his absence, his inability to love his wife tormented her to no end. Two days after he began staying away completely, she noticed the dark circles and the eyebags. Her mother had tried to hide it with powder but it hadn’t been enough to help.
“Augusta, stop, you are making a mistake,” she said, bringing her back to the present.
Augusta looked down at her hands. Lost in thought, she had messed up her embroidery to the point of uselessness. She set it aside just as the butler came in.
“Theodore, what’s wrong?” she asked when she noticed the tense look on his face.
“I’m afraid I have some awful news,” he said gravely. “it’s the master. He had a carriage accident and was trampled by the horses. He did not make it.”
The embroidery needle dropped from her mother’s grasp at the news and she stood up so fast, she swooned as a result of her low energy.
“What? Where? How did this happen?” she asked, walking closer until she was right in front of him.
“It was at the courtesan district,” he said, his face coloring in embarrassment.
Augusta watched as her mother’s face crumbled, her hands falling by her side as she remained motionless for a moment. She was old enough now to know what was going on and she understood things better now. Her father had died while leaving the arms of one of his numerous mistresses.
She cast her feeling aside, not that she felt much. There was no tear to be shed for a man who was every bit a stranger and a monster in her books. Still, her mother loved him and she needed her now.
Augusta moved to hug her mom, wrapping her arms around her. Her mother sobbed, her voice raw with emotion. Augusta wished she would not be so sad for someone who had been so terrible to her. Still, she hugged her to herself as her mother’s voice grew faint.
Her eyes widened when her mother grew heavy in her arms. She shook her but she did not wake and fear gripped her as her heart pounded harder and faster than it ever did before.
