Isabelle
A few months had passed and it was nearing Agatha’s fourth birthday. Margaret had brought Chastity and her youngest child Reginald the Second, who was now five years old and would be leaving for boarding school in the spring.
“So who will be heir to your fortune after you are gone?” Margaret asked in earnest.
Alfred was not upset in the least that his wife’s best friend had cornered him the first chance she got. He did not look up from the mountain of paperwork on his desk when he answered. “I will make whomever Agatha chooses to marry heir. We have decided she is to follow her heart.” His voice then dropped to a troubled tone, “Just as her mother has.”
“Oh now you must be fair!” Margaret accused. “She had a life before you, feelings and emotions. Is she supposed to let those die? How? How does one kill their own heart and stop it from beating? How does one stop their emotions to keep from feeling? If you have some special insight on this, you must let me know! For I know a million women out there who would pay well to learn not to love!”
Alfred glanced up from his work with anger at Margaret. “I said nothing of the sort, Dear Margaret, and I will thank you to keep those thoughts to yourself. If I find my wife behaving strangely after your visit, it is you who make the trouble here. She is free now, as ever, to feel and think as she chooses. If it is not my heart she is after, then I hope whomever’s heart she desires she has won. For she deserves nothing better than to have everything she desires at her fingertips. I, myself, would never throw her to the wolves under any circumstance. If I have lost her favor, it is by my fault alone. For I never had what it took to keep her interest in the first place. I blame her for nothing.” He glanced down again at his work, “I feel only bitter defeat.”
Isabelle walked down the hallway and neared the study where her friend was questioning her husband. It was a silly childish thing to do, to listen in to the conversation. Isabelle couldn’t help it though, she was afraid. She had hurt her husband dearly and could not stand the sight of him anymore. Every time she glanced at him she saw only the betrayal. There were so many thoughts in her mind that would not stop. She was unsure of how he felt for her after all this time, or if she was even worthy of any feelings from him at all. She wanted to run away and find Thomas and start over, she wanted to stay and forget Thomas ever existed. She wanted to give her dear sweet husband a son to raise and to teach, someone to carry his namesake into the future. She was a failure as a wife for not providing it, everyone knew so. It would be so easy to run and live her life out with a scoundrel, they had no honor to speak of. Thieves had no need for honor.
Margaret watched him work in silence for a while and contemplated what an honorable and good man Alfred Gaunche was. She felt bad for him, he truly did love her friend. “If you feel defeated then maybe you should get up and battle again. She still resides under your roof. She is part of the family the two of you created. I offered my home to her, she refused to leave. There is hope for this marriage, all is not lost. Make her believe in you again. She thinks she is letting you down, with no heir, no son to call your own.”
Isabelle shifted her weight outside in the hallway and made a slight noise.
Alfred stood up from the desk and stared at Margaret with impatience. “She means more to me than any heir! Did you not realize that she could loose her life giving birth to another child? Why would I risk losing the sole reason I exist?” Alfred walked around the desk and began to shout at Margaret, “Why should I deprive my rightful first born because she is a daughter? These laws, these discriminatory laws, that would have stripped my Dearest Isabelle’s fortune from her the moment her uncle died.”
Isabelle walked nearer to the doorway as she heard the news. A faint feeling swept over her and she leaned against the wall.
“What!” Margaret gasped in horror.
“It’s true!” Alfred lowered his voice. “I saw the contracts, and the will clearly states that his entire estate will go to a male heir who currently resides in India. A distant nephew whom he’s never laid eyes upon, and the most horrid sort of person one can imagine. He would have tossed Isabelle out and sold the estate before she even knew of her uncle’s death.”
“How do you know this?” Margaret looked up in shock and slight horror.
“I love my wife. She is everything to me. I know everything about her, why would I not? Her every concern is my concern, her every situation is my situation. She and I are one.” Alfred looked at the horror on Margaret’s face. “You think my looking into her situation is questionable in some manner? I looked into this long before I married her. How else would I know what sort of man her cousin really was, or what his intentions for the estate are after his uncle’s death?”