Gibbous House 85

The leaves of the diary I turned rapidly through Arabella's callow musings, more rapidly still through her swoonings over her tutor, Cadwallader, and the veiled hints as their no doubt illicit relationship progressed to elopement . I was stopped short by an entry for January 12th 184_:

'I am in receipt of a communication from Septimus. I am loath to broach its contents with my Husband; viz. That we are summoned to Northumberland; that I shall learn something to my advantage. That pronoun being underlined with a savagely scored line surely precludes any perusal of this missive by Cadwallader.'

It seemed an affectation to refer to her husband so: by his familial appellation. Perhaps it was a measure of the distance between them; having been disappointed by the fading of romantic love in the presence of more ardent needs of a pecuniary kind. I wondered how Arabella had revealed their joint summons, without showing Septimus Coble's hand. Her journal gave no clue. The entry for the following day reading merely:

'Post coach north, from the Golden Cross.'

Thereafter came a pause altogether in the journal's entries. One month had passed before she had written another word: and one only:

'Quickened!'

The script foreshadowed that of latest entries, insofar as it seemed to show evidence of a shaking, perhaps caused by some great emotion. Arabella's next entry was more business like – and less terse;

'I wish that in my dealings with Coble I had bargained better. However, the man was immovable on the matter of income and interest, swearing that if I did not take the capital sum of one thousand pounds, I should receive nothing at all. In truth, I was glad to leave, and to take the sum offered. I shudder yet at the prospect of suffering Cadwallader's fate...

'No matter, one thousand pounds I have and not a penny more. One can but hope that it is sufficient to see the unborn child some way to majority, at least until I can acquire some prospects of my own.'

I continued to read as quickly as I could; noting with interest than mine own brief reconnaissance on the East India Docks had been no more painstaking than her own. She had inveigled herself aboard the clipper unseen by myself in the knowledge that I would likely meet her on the gangplank. A smile was the consequence of this intelligence, as I reflected that howsoever devious a man might be, he will be more than matched at some or other time and, most likely, by a woman.

Pages subsequent to these, I passed by in the most cursory manner. I had been there, after all, had I not? Again there was a lacuna in Arabella's entries; after a reference to Brougham's dilatoriness in plighting his troth, there was nothing for several months. Her grief had been profound, mystifyingly enough, for she had shown the child no great affection prior to her fiery demise. There was a subtle change in the diary; at times the hand was fierce in its assault on the paper, much as I imagined Coble's underscoring had been; at other times the script was beautifully formed – however at these times there was an undercurrent of the nebulous hysterical the text being full of rhetorical -and nonsensical- questions. On many pages she railed against punishments as yet unmeted, hinted at her fear of meeting with Cadwallader's fate and vowing that if she did, she hoped it would be soon, while still possessed of her looks.

Naturally, as I read, I realized, as I had not at the time, that the syphilis had been rampant in her and, that -despite appearances- she had been quite mad for some time before the curses and my name were her last words.