MoonlitSerenity, thank you so, so, so much for your kind words. You'll probably think, meh, whatever, but seriously. You really made me click that what the hell am I worried about? I should be writing for myself! I mean, I want it to be a good story of course, but at the end of the day, if I keep worrying all the time purely about what people would like, then I'll never write a good story. Your review came at about the right time because I was seriously going to alter it. Thank you heaps. Really, thank you. And now I've probably weirded you out. BUT ARGH, A BOSTON LEGAL FAN! I bought another season today...God help us all. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And Ravencaller, what I meant to say last night - yeah, Hindley treating Heathcliff like crap wouldn't have helped, like you said...Really pity Hindley though...Ehhh, everybody in that story is so deliciously screwed up and dysfunctional. Ahhhh, I'm glad you think he's Heathcliff too! It's funny because I started writing him a few weeks before I saw the BBC version, and then saw it, and it just *clicked*. Ahh. Thanks for the trivia on asylums - you've given me future ideas of flashbacks...Hmmm...And write the idea you've got! Thank you as always for your input.
Chapter Thirty-Eight.
Bridget Hope had not been able to stop shaking when she saw what they had done to her brother. She had arrived with that Sanders lawyer and a colleague of his who would assist with their cases, with a dress for Johanna from her own wardrobe, and a new suit she had bought especially for her brother. Sanders had had Johanna brought into the visitors room first, and they had all known immediately something was wrong.
Johanna had said quietly, avoiding Bridget's gaze, "I think you should go to Anthony first."
Sanders had raised a brow, "Why? Yehr bail hearing is first. Yeh were the great Judge Turpin's ward, yeh get precedence."
"Dane, please, you must go to him," she pleaded.
Sanders sighed and closed a file, "Fine, I'll be back in a moment," he stood and gestured for Bridget to follow.
If truth be told Bridget was not expecting what she saw. She thought he might have received some bad news, but to see the evidence of an assault on her kind brother made her fly to him the moment the cell door was unlocked and clasp him to her tightly, before realising that such an embrace would cause him pain.
"Why did they do this to you?" she demanded, but he said nothing as he slid down on a chair with a shrug.
He then murmured, "I suppose it's to be expected," and she turned on Sanders who seemed to be staring at him in thoughtful silence.
"Well aren't you going to say anything?" Bridget exploded at him, "Aren't you going to storm out of here and demand why they harmed him? Use your flaming temper to intimidate them?"
Sanders tapped his chin with his finger, then looked at her surprised, "This is good, Miss Hope. Now, don't give me that bleedin' look. We can use this today and see if leniency can be made. Appearance is everythin' – now, if I had first been told the pup had been beaten, rather than seeing it, I'd be livid. Yeh take a bruised and battered man into court and he looks as if he's just a drunk tavern lout and he'll be thrown into prison as quick as yeh can say lickitie hickitie – but he looks so hopeless don' he? So pathetically delicate. So wretchedly pitiable, so –"
"Yes, Sanders, I think we get the point," Anthony grumbled and Sanders grinned.
"My point is; we can use the sympathy card. Say yeh haven't even been properly put on trial and look what's happened to yeh," then he said carefully, "What exactly did they do to yeh lad? I need names and what happened for my records."
Anthony looked at Bridget fleetingly, then back to Sanders, "I don't – I don't exactly want to say –"
Sanders looked at Bridget and without the delicate sensitivity that Anthony had been aiming for, he said "Leave woman. He wants to talk," bluntly.
"I beg your pardon –" she began.
But he interjected sharply, "The longer yeh take offense at yehr brother wanting his right to privacy is longer yeh take off me being able to help him. Now, yeh can either act like a bleedin' female, or yeh can use some sense that one of yeh has to have been born with, and leave us. Yehr decision, Miss Hope."
The words from the fiend didn't hurt her of course, but turning back to her twin and seeing him avoiding her gaze stung...It suddenly dawned on her that they had been separated for years. How much must he have changed? He had always told her everything.
She said nothing but left the room with a swish of her skirts and walked back to the visitor's room where the only telltale sign of her shock was her hand trembling as she tried to light her ivory clay pipe with Indian weed.
She calmed quicker than she thought, indeed, after Johanna's success, it seemed that really was the only blemish to the day. Sanders was indeed good at what he did and she was already excited about being able to send word back home that Anthony had been released on bail. That would indeed make her Mother happy, the poor woman, having to worry for her son's life as well as her dying husband's...
Whatever injury had been caused between the siblings early that morning seemed to disappear later that afternoon, as she had given Anthony the suit he was to wear to court. It seemed this brought them back to a happier time as he turned about, gazing at himself in the foot-length mirror Sanders carted in.
"Bleedin' hell, I swear he should have been born a woman," Sanders growled.
"Yet," Anthony had said without skipping a beat, "It was you who had a full-length mirror in his possession."
She had purchased a dark brown frock coat for him with shiny silver buttons, and a smoky grey waistcoat. His face had nearly twitched as she had brought out the knee-length leather boots for him with matching silver buckles, and he could not stop circling around, looking at himself in the reflection.
"Don't expect a Christmas present," Bridget said jovially then held out a forest green cravat and silver pin to Johanna who had been watching the proceedings in shy amusement, "Perhaps you would like to tie this for him? He's always been so hopeless, you see."
Johanna obliged and took the cravat, "I have a hard time believing that," she said mischievously, "He seems more of a fashion plate than I."
She moved over to him and smiled bashfully and wrapped the cloth around his neck, tying it awkwardly, "Forgive me," she stuttered, "I'm not really good at this."
"Nonsense," he said with a half smile and with his hands he guided hers, crossing the long end of the fabric over the short end, then bringing the short end over the long end, and continuing the process till it was neatly finished. He then clasped his hands over hers for a moment longer as they shared a gaze, till Sanders cleared his throat and the moment was ruined.
In a few more moments his hair was pulled back with a grey ribbon and besides his bruised face he looked the gentleman, though Johanna murmured, "Since Bridget won't be getting you a Christmas present, I suppose I should buy you a nice pair of leather gloves."
Anthony then turned to Sanders who looked at Bridget and said outright, "Yeh're not to come to Anthony's hearing."
Bridget could not help but laugh as she was told this, "…Is this a jest?"
"No, it is not," Sanders said, "Yehr brother does not want either yeh or Jo there, it's as simple as that."
Bridget looked at Sanders, "He is my brother-"
"I'm sorry Bridget, I'm sorry," Anthony fidgeted nervously, "But you must understand…"
"What? What must I understand?"
Anthony said nothing for a moment, then blurted out, "I will have you barred from entering if you refuse to comply, do you understand? I cannot – I won't – I refuse to have you watch me dragged away in chains to prison if this doesn't go the way it should, because God help me, I don't know if I can keep my dignity intact!"
She reached for him, her hands taking him gently, "You silly boy – you won't be thrown in prison – Sanders is brilliant, you should have seen him this morning. It was over so quickly, he just had to open his mouth and everything went his way. They have no real case to hold you anyway –"
Anthony said stubbornly though, "Be that as it may, I don't want you there."
Bridget looked over to Johanna helplessly to try and gain some support, but she was looking at Anthony thoughtfully, then, "I will respect your wishes, Anthony."
"You're all insane! This isn't how family works! Anthony, you cannot pick and choose the extent to which I can support you – you're my twin and if I was in your position, you would refuse to meet this ridiculous term!"
"I know," he said simply, "But I'm a hypocrite…Forgive me Bridget, but I have made up my mind and that's all there is to it. Sanders knows the proper procedures, if you refuse to comply, then he can easily have you locked out."
Hot tears grazed Bridget's cheeks painfully, and she tried to push back the agonising lump in her throat.
Sanders sighed and tried to say soothingly, "Lass – I know what yeh must be feeling –"
She pointed at him and said with a snarl, "Don't start that patronising rubbish with me. You can craft words all you like to the court, but not with me. How can you understand? You've never really known what it is to love someone till it hurts, have you? You have no children, no wedding ring, nobody to love you. You read in stories about what a crime it is for someone never to be loved, but I tell you this, it is an even greater crime to have never loved. It makes your heart hard and cold and cruel, so that you would ever think this request from a terrified boy who doesn't know any better in his state, could ever be normal. To spurn his sister – to hell with you Dane Sanders!" and she turned and bolted from the room.
It was late afternoon when she was found. Smoking again out of her clay pipe on the steps of a nearby building. It had taken longer than what had been originally thought, and Sanders sat beside her wearily, his hair hanging loose around his face, but still wearing his court robes. He said nothing as she sat and smoked, then left a trail of ghostly lace make a ring of smoke in the air, till she said, her voice strained, "You don't need to tell me it's bad news. I know."
He chewed his lip pensively before saying, "I am a right bastard, yeh know," he paused for a long moment, "I should have seen it coming…They sent him to Queen's Prison…Oh Christ, I should have seen it coming. I had thought he didn't want yeh there because of normal fear, because of the small risk…He purposely sabotaged himself, Bridget Hope…What have I let happen?"