VII.
It was later on that cloudy day, and Victoria was just about ready to chew up her pillows with boredom. She wished something moving would happen. The only excitement she had gotten out of this day was the hiding of her secret letters under the floorboards, and the thrill had long since passed.
The girl had risen from her bed and made her way nonchalantly towards the window. She pulled back the heavy drapes and stared longingly out the foggy glass and to the normally boring people out in the streets. For a moment, she wished she would be able to see Victor again – it had been so long – but her hopes sank immediately. She still waited for his letter to arrive.
But something odd did happen. Victoria squinted to see if her eyes were playing tricks on her. A tall, skinny man walked only across the street from her window. Her heart leapt in her chest. His dark hair flowed across his eyes, and he brushed his bangs away irritably. Victoria couldn't be sure it was he – and she knew how improper it was to stare – so she pulled the curtains up so only her one eye peeked out.
Surprisingly, the young man was already staring up in her direction. Victoria, now heartily convinced it was her Victor, drew back the curtains and grinned down at him through her veil. He raised his hand and waved hesitantly. Victoria's face lit up and she raised her hand to do the same.
She had just smiled down at Victor when she noticed her reflection in the window and her hand held up in a wave. But through the reflective glass, she wasn't alone. A bony, skeletal hand was resting on her tiny shoulder. Victoria barely had time to gasp when the hand yanked her sharply from the window, letting the heavy drapes cut off the little light that had streaked through the glass.
Mrs. Everglot spun her daughter to face her, and by the look on her face, the mother was even more angry than usual. Victoria almost wished it were a skeleton.
"What is the meaning of this?" the ghoulish woman croaked.
Victoria turned up her eyes as innocently as she could. "I was merely getting a breath of fresh air, mother."
Mrs. Everglot raised one eyebrow in amusement and took her hand out from behind her back.
"Not the window, Victoria," she said, almost coldly. Mrs. Everglot held out an envelope to Victoria, whose breath caught in her throat.
"Read it out loud, dear," the woman's ugly features curled into a wicked grin. Victoria's hands trembled as she reached for the letter and read with a shaky voice.
"'To Victoria Everglot,'" she swallowed. "'Sincerely, Mister Van Dort."
Victoria's mother waved her hand to encourage her daughter to open up the envelope. "Go on," she said.
At that moment, Victoria wished more than anything that she could melt into the floor. Her cheeks burned as she slowly slit open the wax seal with her finger and pulled out the single piece of parchment within. So Victor had written after all. But how did her mother get her hands on this? Would Hildegarde ever tell?
"'Dear Victoria,'" she read, but couldn't go on. Her voice had escaped and she was afraid of what her mother would think if she read the rest. Her eyes went in and out of focus and the words blurred together on the page. Whether Victor was angry or not, it didn't matter. To Mrs. Everglot, romance was highly unseemly. And if Maudeline Everglot has an opinion it hardly matters what anyone else thinks.
Victoria stood there dumbly with the piece of paper quivering in her hands as Mrs. Everglot looked on.
"Toss it into the fire, then," mother finally said. Victoria didn't need to be told twice. She hurriedly made her way to the crackling fire and tossed the crumpled letter into the flames. It quickly turned black and shriveled like a decaying hand. The girl gave a silent sigh of relief, even though she knew she would never have another chance to read it.
Mrs. Everglot brushed off her maroon dress and looked critically at Victoria's black attire. "Whatever you and Victor Van Dort have been writing, I want it to discontinue immediately. It is highly unorthodox…"
"Will you call off the wedding?" Victoria asked. She hardly cared that she had interrupted.
Her mother blinked. "What on Earth for?"
The young girl looked up, perplexed. "Well, we were not supposed to communicate until the year was up for the mourning and…we disobeyed."
Her mother stuck her chin in the air. "Not if anyone else knows of this scandalous act. You are not to mention it to a soul. There are no more eligible bachelors in this bloody town, and Vincent Van Dort is…"
"Victor," Victoria quietly corrected.
Mrs. Everglot gave her daughter an irritated glance for interrupting. "Victor Van Dort is our only hope."
Victoria stared at her mother blankly, pretending to listen to the following lecture. But her mind was still lingering on the letter and her incomprehensible strokes of luck these past months. But she had been waiting for that letter for days and she couldn't even read it. Will she ever know what Victor wanted to tell her?
When Mrs. Everglot had finally finished lecturing and turned to leave, something had just hit Victoria.
"Uh…mother?" she asked as quietly as she could. The woman turned on her heel to face her daughter and stared at her somewhat impatiently. Victoria continued, bowing her head so the black veil covered her face. "How did you know about the letters, may I ask?"
Mrs. Everglot rolled her eyes with annoyance. "I was a bit suspicious with that Hildegarde from the beginning, always insisting that she would retrieve the mail. I intercepted the post a few days ago and found your little love note." She gestured to the fireplace. "And that maid will never be coming back, I assure you. We'll have to hire a new housemaid…"
Victoria was taken aback. "You…you fired Hildegarde? But it wasn't her fault! It was all mine! Mother, please…"
"Silence, child!" Mrs. Everglot boomed, tired of being interrupted. "She was untrustworthy, and it is none of your business whom I hire! Now I never want you speaking out of turn again! Do you understand?"
The poor girl hung her head in shame and nodded slightly.
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AUTHOR'S NOTEUg. Sorry it took so long to update…and it doesn't do me any justice that this chapter is so short. My computer crashed yet again, and though it was working later, the Internet went down. Just my luck.
Thank you for the comments! I got one asking why Victoria would write about rabbis and wedding dances in 19th century London or wherever they are, when she wrote that folktale. I'm gonna say that the Corpse Bride was probably more set near the 1800's, but Burton didn't really say. Anyway, I know, I know, why would Victoria care about rabbis? I thought about it, too. But I didn't want to change the folktale, and Victoria reads a lot, so maybe she was learning about…rabbis? Haha. Well, close enough. Can anyone else think of something better? Post it up for me to read! That'd be awesome!
Don't worry; the story is coming to a close. Nothing very exciting, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.