XIV.
Dusk was falling, casting pale lavender streaks across the sky, reminding Ben of the gloves he was so intent on removing from Lissie's hands. She had not yet returned, and he wondered if she was lost somewhere along the way back—the way home.
He would fetch her, and with haste. It was time Lissie knew the warmth of a grand, crackling fire, and the unrivalled delight of a proper tea service. He would see her take her fill of these simple things so long denied her, and watch her caress the new nightclothes waiting for her approval. Then, tenderly, he would enfold her close to him and show her the delicious comfort of a real bed. Colour rushed to his cheeks as he realised how quickly his mind had turned to their sharing a bed.
His room was simply furnished, and nothing to a rich man, but he knew that for Lissie it would be like a palace. She deserved a palace, and all the jewels a palace would hold. But for now his little room would do well, until he could find a suitable house for them to call their own—a house for his dear Lissie to raise their children in.
Smiling at the thought, he traversed the streets that Lissie confided were the most troublesome for her to navigate. He stopped at the tavern, intending to ask if there was anyone who had seen his pretty young wife pass by recently, and perhaps to boast a little that he was now the husband of that pretty young wife.
The sight of Jiggy Nye there disturbed and startled him, but even more disturbing was the awful way in which he choked down as much liquor as he could between animalistic grunts and growls.
His hands that grasped continually for more alcohol were bloodied and bruised.
"YOU!" he barked, frighteningly steady on his feet for one so inebriated. "'Sss all yer fault, boy!" he sputtered. "Ye drove me to it! Did ye come here to challenge me?! Do ye want a duel, boy?"
Ben's head raced with what it all meant; the blood, the excessive drink, the desperation in his gestures. "What have you done?" He meant to be threatening, but fear made him hoarse. "Where is Lissie?"
Jiggy Nye was inches from his face, and his breath was hot and putrid. "I wouldn't hurt her, except ye filled her head with yer nonsense! I would never hurt my girl."
"What have you done to Lissie?!" The words rang clear and biting this time.
"None of yer business, ye scoundrel!" He howled like a beaten dog. "She's still mine and I'll have ye hanged fer trespassin' and thievery! Ye stole her from me! Same as if ye'd tied her up and kept her locked away!"
"Felicity is not a penny piece, or a scrap of cloth, or dog or a horse, or any of the poor belongings you treat with such cruelty! She is my wife, and if you have hurt her again, heaven help you, for I will not show mercy!"
Jiggy Nye hollered something incoherent and rushed at Ben, knocking him down with the violence of his collision.
Though the blows came hard and heavy, Ben was exultant. Jiggy Nye beat him for all to see. Little else mattered but that there were witnesses to the incident. Witnesses that would no doubt have the wild man arrested as soon as the constable could arrive. He felt a thrill of hope that Jiggy Nye sealed his own doom, and at the same time a gut wrenching dread of what he must have done to poor Lissie that would cause even him to despair.
He did not see who pulled Jiggy Nye off, nor who helped him to his feet, but the moment Ben could wrest himself from the fray, he ran to her as he had so many times before, yet never with such a need.
He coughed as he ran, and spit out blood so he wouldn't choke on it. It was nothing. Nothing that wouldn't heal in a few days. It only fuelled his need to find her.
The door to Jiggy Nye's house smashed into the wall and threatened to come off its hinges with the force that Ben used to open it. He first spied the gloves by the window. The dainty, lavender gloves that hid his Lissie's hands.
His chest tightened and a great chill shivered up and down his spine. Where was Lissie?
A wretched sob tore through him as he found her on her back, deathly still, and pale as winter frost but for the blood that still trickled from her head. She was in his arms at once, and he cried so that he could hardly see as he pressed his hand to the ugly wound. Her stomacher was soiled and torn. Bruises mottled her arms, and her skirt was tearing at the knees. Even her lips had not escaped harm, but were cracked and bleeding from either blows or her biting them in terror. Worse still was the gash to her head, which try as he might, Ben could not make the blood cease its escape.
He lifted her from the ground, agony in every breath as he remembered the words he had silently vowed only a few hours before.
"I am so sorry, my Lissie! I am so... desperately sorry," he wept, pressing his cheek to her cold face. "I could not keep my promise... I could not..." he could say no more for the pain that forced only the awful sobs to burst forth.
He kicked against the door again until it gave way, and tried not to jostle his precious burden as he carried her off the porch, towards their temporary abode.
The mild evening with its warm breeze and tender sounds soothed him for a moment so that his eyes cleared. It was then he saw the pair of wool stockings that Lissie held fast against her chest, made with the same material he had once given her for mittens.
Ben's knees shook, and he nearly collapsed in the yard.
Author's Notes: I would try to tell you when we'll have a chapter that doesn't make everyone (including me) cry, but I don't know that I wrote something like that for this story... although there will be happier ones to come! There will!