Four – The Abyss

 For the first minutes, Anne just started walking down the pavement of Camden Place.

She was too stunned to notice who was strolling along the broad sidewalk in the damp and cold March evening. There were not a lot of people outside and certainly not on foot. Only a few carriages drove by and hurried away. When violent shivers started rolling down her back, Anne came out of her bewilderment and looked around her. Realisation hit her like a blow in the face; she was out in the streets, alone, at night, with absolutely nothing to cover her and she was getting cold and wet.

Where could she go, to whom could she turn? It was as if an abyss was beginning to yawn in front of her, a chasm widening by the second, already too large to span.

Frederick! She must go to Queen Square and ask for shelter. The kind Admiral and Mrs. Croft would surely take her in for the night and tomorrow she could make other arrangements. Full of hope she began running towards her destination when a light but ice-cold sleet was starting to fall, soaking her within moments. Her woollen dress was no protection against this weather. Before she had even reached Camden Road, where she hoped to find a cab, the South-East wind was picking up, further draining her of whatever warmth was left in her slender body. Anne’s hair was coming down and wet strands were blown into her eyes. She impatiently wiped them away but to no avail. God! She needed to get out of this torrent! Stumbling blindly into a dark porch she welcomed the temporary lull out of the wind and rain. Her heart was beating like a drum and her lungs were aching from her run.

A growl came from behind her and Anne swivelled around! Looming over her like a spectrum of hell was a large figure of a man, his huge, calloused hands reaching out to her! A beggar! The thought rushed through her numb brain but she was totally unable to move when the hands grabbed her by the shoulders. An acrid smell of rancid beer wafted over her and then came the stink of unwashed body, of rags that were never washed, of poverty and deprivation.

“Please, …”

“Beautiful …”

The voice was deep and hoarse and now Anne saw the man’s face, crude, unshaved, gaunt. It came closer to her own and suddenly her brain was working again! Anne tore herself out of the man’s grasp and stumbled backwards. Losing her footing, she fell and her head hit the pavement.

The dreaded abyss yawned widely and swallowed her.

~~~~

“Sir Walter,” Lady Russell asked again, “am I to understand that you … that you expelled Anne from your house, at night and in a downpour of sleet? Did she say where she was going?”

Lady Russell could barely fathom what must have happened the night before, when she had left this house. She did, however, began to have an inkling of how much Sir Walter hated his middle child. He had never had any love for her but it frightened Lady Russell to see how much he despised his daughter.

“No, she did not. I am not in the least interested in her whereabouts and nor should you, Lady Russell. Anne is dead to me and to Elizabeth. We will never speak her name again in this house.”

“But … she could be … what if she … she could have gone to that man’s lodgings and throw herself at him! She is violently in love with him!”

“Madam!”, Sir Walter bellowed, “You forget yourself! I am fully aware of the fact that you were my late wife’s dearest friend but that gives you no right to interfere with my personal affairs! Kindly take yourself off, your presence is no longer wished for!”

Lady Russell began to understand a little better what Anne must have felt the night before, now that she was shown into the street by a haughty footman who banged the door shut after her.

~~~~

“Absolutely shocking!”, Sir Walter said, his voice rigid with disapproval.

“What would that be, dearest father?”, Elizabeth Elliot asked without lifting her eyes out of the fancy women’s magazine she was perusing at the breakfast table.

“The “Bath Daily Gazette” is fast becoming a veritable rag, these days! They are reporting about crime, can you believe it? As if respectable people would take an interest in the vile lower layers of Society and their disgusting deeds! It says here a … I don’t know what to call it … a person without a place to live has been shot through the head, last night!”

“You could call it a homeless person, I think,” Elizabeth mused and put her finger to her chin as if deep in thought.

“Oh, my goodness! It happened on Camden Road! That is two blocks away from here, outrageous! I must call upon Sir Bertram Coleridge, our M.P. right away this morning! He must take urgent measures to ensure that such a matter never occurs ever again in my neighbourhood!”

~~~~

The thin, emaciated figure of the physician straightened his aching back away from the bed whereupon a small, slender woman was lying. He turned towards the man behind him and declared:

“The lady will regain consciousness very soon now, sir. She suffers from severe concussion and must be kept in a dimmed room for at least ten days. It is to be foreseen that she will be violently sick when she awakes. She is allowed only a drop of water and no solid food for a week. It is also possible that there are repercussions to be expected, such as severe headaches, memory lapses, anxiety attacks, delusions and hallucinations. Do not pay any attention to them but keep her tied onto the bed to protect her from harming herself.”

The gentleman by the door nodded towards the servant who stood beside him, a large brute of a man with a face like a ferret’s and small beady eyes.

“If you would care to come with me, doctor,” he mumbled in a hoarse voice, “my master ordered me to have you paid.”

The doctor gathered his instruments in his bag and followed the servant downstairs into a dim lit parlour. A violent blow on the head sent him rolling over the carpet. A second later, the servant shot him through the head with a pistol wrapped in a blanket to mask the blast of the shot.

Upstairs, the tall figure of the gentleman stared at the motionless, naked body of the girl on the bed.

“Hell’s bells, woman!”, he shouted at the maid next to the bed, “cover her up, will you! She is appallingly ugly! I never thought her beautiful but now, I think her truly hideous! Be sure to keep her tied and blindfolded the whole time, even when you feed her, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” the maid whimpered and hurried to do her master’s bidding.