Amelia

Opening of a gothic little short story, set in the Saunmoorverse. I've shared this on Reddit.

Amelia

North London, September, 1719

Amelia Farrow was the last blonde girl of her bloodline. She had been known, ever since her childhood, to be quiet and capricious by nature—to carry herself, always, with an air of elegant disappointment. Despite these social turns, by the age of twenty she had provoked many an eager gentleman’s address. This was owing in no small part to the beauty of her person, which, by most accounts was only amplified by her tendency to stare, statue-like, when she found no diversion in present company. Her female friends were loyal and few, her male acquaintances nervous and fawning, especially of late—for Amelia had taken ill, once again. This, the most recent of her grey spells, saw her often moaning feverish as she slept, as well as expressing a sharp sensitivity to daylight, which had prompted her father to send out for deep black drapes, to block the sun’s aggressive pretensions, casting the narrow halls of his house in perpetual twilight.

So it was that today, despite every fear for her constitution, and with sunlight yet blazing in the quarantined sky, Amelia left her room, braving the dull and chilly air, in a dark robe over sheer linen shift, to descend to the landing, candle in hand.

On the foyer floor below stood Robin Montrose—his fawn leather hat, edged with gold, was clutched to his chest. This, her most fetching young suitor, had not surrendered his overcoat to the footman, but stared earnestly up at her, his shoulders spattered with rain.

Amelia looked at him, toying with her candle. She would not speak first.

“My dear Amelia,” Robin said at last. “Will you not greet me? But you will come hither straight from your bed, undressed, with your hair loose, and wild?”

“Why do you come so late, Robin,” she said. “I have nothing to report. I am the same now, as yesterday.”

          “It is not late,” he said, stepping forward. “T’is but half-past one in the afternoon. Have you not only just taken your dinner?”

“I had no dinner,” she said. “But a little tea caudle, which was lovely.”

He put his foot on the bottom stair. “My dearest, that cannot sustain you. Will you let me come up, and warm your hands in mine?”

“See me again tomorrow,” she said. “I’ve an evening appointment, with Doctor Guire.”

“Again you rebuff me, for the sake of this precious doctor—but the man rides from Windsor Great Park every day; it is twenty-five miles, Amelia!”

“Do I not require him?” she said curtly. “Have you not scolded me yourself, for how pale I look?”

“Oh, this relentless gloom!” he cried, gesturing emphatically. “If I scold you, it is only because the sun could not but do you good!”

“Are you a doctor?”

With a grim expression he grabbed the railing, mounting a step. “Where is your father? Am I to rely on the greetings of servants, until we are married?”

“My father is at the Exchange,” she said, waving her candle to watch its lazy trail of light. “I shouldn’t be surprised to hear he sleeps on the floor, so as not to miss a trade.”

“And should I be surprised,” Robin said, taking another step, “that it does not vex you, when your doctor only condescends to see you at night!”

“You speak with contempt,” Amelia said dreamily, grasping the plump wooden ornament on the banister, “but I think you are only jealous.”

“Jealous, of your doctor?” he breathed, climbing the remaining steps between them. “Oh my dear, do not speak to me as a child, or I will correct you, as a child.”

Amelia drifted away from him, leaning against the wall of the landing. “Will you? Go on then, correct me.”

Robin approached. She held the candle between them and he caught her wrist. “Shall we treat in the dark like ghosts,” he said, holding her arm firmly to one side, “while the sun shines beyond these unhappy walls?”

She grunted softly, her eyes drifting closed. “Is it not raining?”

“Open your eyes!” he snapped, tugging her suddenly closer, “or will you pretend to sleep at me, like I were your music box?”

“Go away, Robin,” she said, tilting her head back. “You have effected in me the mortal sin of ennui.”

“The mortal sin of ennui?” he scoffed, standing closer still. “There are seven mortal sins, Amelia, counterpoise to the cardinal virtues. Ennui is not among them.”

“Virtues? Virtue is a desperate, cloying dance,” she said softly.

He was close enough to breathe on her, and she chuckled. The candlelight played on her flesh.

“You are delirious; the grey spell has you,” he said, reaching for her waist.

But Amelia turned away from him, stretching her free arm along the wall. “If ennui is no mortal sin, it must be added,” she said, “for you do bore me, Robin.”

“Do I?” He demanded, squeezing her wrist. “No, you only seek to toy with our encounter, to bemuse me. Do not forget, you love me, Amelia, and I you.”

She looked at him abruptly, her dark eyes open. “I am not well, and now I am bored. Good day.”

He tried to hold her, but she fought his grip, writhing with desperate ferocity.

“I say!” Robin released her with a start. The candle fell, knocked out on the

landing carpet, and the shadows swallowed them. He could scarcely detect her now—a slip of white between dark, as she backed away from him.

“My dearest, please! You are not well!” he pleaded.

The slip of white vanished as she turned her back, ascending the stairs.

“Amelia, will you not listen to reason? Will you not let me fetch you a proper doctor?”

“Call on me tomorrow, if you dare,” she replied, waving without turning.

Robin knelt to take up the candle, scratching at the stuck wax in the rug, and when he rose again she was gone.