CHAPTER TWO
"Quite a ride, eh, m'lady?" Egan asked, once more wearing his usual manner of joyful grin, though it felt far more manufactured now than it had been in years past, as if he hid something beneath the mask of mirth. Lady Havenshire stepped out of the carriage, the breathtaking size of the manor reminding her starkly of how small the world here was, where a wealthy duke's manor, garden, and the bounteous lands beyond dwarfed so much of the surroundings. The sun setting as evening began to creep in, Lady Nadia yawned, holding her gloved fingers to her lips out of courtesy. The windows, an entire gleaming array of them, spat back her reflection as the sun shone brightly; dressed in her simplest dress, a lacy affair of golden-yellow with a laced bodice of brilliant pearly white, her hair fell in curled, vibrant fiery-auburn coils along her dainty shoulders. Though she had a reputation as trouble among the local nobles, she didn't quite have the imposing stature of the firebrand they certainly all imagined - a petite woman, of only five feet tall and a thin, lithe figure, that small personage hid a vibrant mind and independent personality.
"One never quite realizes how large the estate is, until spending so much time away, Egan," she commented in a quiet tone. Standing tall and broad, with rows upon rows of windows and white pillars and archways, the mansion reminded her of the pictures of crumbling temples of classical antiquity, rebuilt to soar as they had in their prime, and glowing with a glorious marbled sheen. Egan offered his hand to escort her through the garden pathway and to the manor's front door; wrought-iron trellises overgrown with vibrant white-tipped ivy leaves lined the entrance to the mansion, beds of sprouting flowers nestled at their metal feet.
"Nelson has done quite well keeping the gardens as alive as I remembered," Lady Nadia observed.
"You won't let me escort you into the manor, m'lady?" Egan said with a frown, his hand still outstretched as the redheaded woman passed him by. With a playfully chiding look she turned to the aging chauffeur, her arms crossed atop her chest.
"You expect a willful firebrand like myself to take an offer, just because you're a man?" she joked. "Would my father have accepted such a request, had he been a woman?"
"I think he would have, if only to make a tired old man happy for a few moments," Egan said with facetious sadness. Lady Havenshire sighed, smiled, and finally took Egan's hand, its surface hardened like worked leather after years of laboring and handling rough, hempen ropes.
"Is this making the tired old man happy?" Lady Nadia joked, as the two of them walked to the manor's front door. Emotions overcame the aging driver, a longtime friend of the family; Nadia couldn't remember a time when Egan hadn't seen to her father and mother, before she passed. He looked away, sullen, and concern crept into Nadia's features.
"Very happy, just like when you were a girl," Egan said, his hand shaking.
"Is something wrong, Egan?" Nadia asked as they reached the door, noticing the portly porter had begun to try to hide tears forming at the edges of his eyes.
"M'lady, it's your father," he confessed, his voice wobbling. "He's called you back here for a very... very important, grave matter."
"Egan, please, if this is troubling you so deeply..." Nadia implored, her own breaths shaky and unsure.
"It's... it's not my business to say, m'lady. Your father is... i
s waiting for you," he confessed, composing himself and wiping away tears, his eyes reddened, his head held high. He rapped loudly on the manor door, and Nadia realized that something serious had so abruptly called her away from the world and back to her home. She had never in her life seen joyful Egan so despairing as that moment; it was a despair she, too, saw in the eyes of Ms. Mulwray, an elderly woman who had served as majordomo of the house staff since before Nadia was born, when the woman answered the door. She smiled, though it felt forced, and instead of curtsies and other such performative gestures, Ms. Mulwray caught the melancholy in Egan's expression and instead embraced Nadia deeply.
In that moment Nadia knew something very serious had happened. Ms. Mulwray could be quite charming, and had always looked out for the young Nadia as she grew, but Nadia remembered her as strict; as no-nonsense. Nadia could never have imagined returning home from an exploration of the world, and of herself - an exploration Ms. Mulwray had had serious misgivings about Nadia undertaking - and being greeted with a comforting hug.
"We're all sorry to have to see you again in circumstances so grave, m'lady Nadia," Ms. Mulwray cooed in that soothing fashion she had a knack for; the soothing coo she'd heard when Nadia had skinned her knee exploring as a child. Nadia blinked, swallowing hard.
"G... grave circumstances?" Nadia asked, her heart sinking. She searched the foyer for her father, and suddenly realized that he had not gotten up and come to the door to greet her - something she had expected, after being gone for so long. It felt... wrong. Ms. Mulwray glanced with widened eyes at Egan, who cleared his throat weakly.
"You haven't spoken to her about... about the nature of the visit, Egan? I quite figured you would've already had this conversation," Ms. Mulwray announced.
"I thought it best for her to... hear, from her father, the nature of the issues facing the estate, Ms. Mulwray. Beggin' your pardon," Egan bowed his head.
"Yes, per... haps, perhaps you're onto something, Egan. Perhaps she ought to see her father," Ms. Mulwray sighed; she seemed a woman broken, not the unflinching and proud servant Nadia had known all her youth. The majordomo took Lady Nadia's hand and led her through the foyer, its vaulted ceiling and ornate oak reliefs spotless and gleaming with polish. Atop the stairs, their carpets plush and springy as she remembered, her heart began to fill with a dread that only worsened the further down the second-floor hallway Ms. Mulwray led her.
"We've quite... missed you, in your time away. Especially your father," Ms. Mulwray said, her voice cracking, the majordomo clearly as startled by... something, as Egan had been. "How have you fared? Your letters, sparse as they were," Ms. Mulwray commented with mild bitterness, "told of some rather surprising and unusual ideas and encounters."
"I've missed... father, myself. My time out was... quite enlightening," Nadia said, distracted by her muddied thoughts.
"Please don't speak of any of that... confusing, startling nonsense you've learned of abroad with your father," Ms. Mulwray stated starkly and plainly. Nadia sighed, remembering quite well the admonitions so common from Ms. Mulwray, who chastised Nadia regularly in her youth about how women were supposed to act. "You're... liable to hurt him, to give him a terrible heart attack and just kill your loving father," Ms. Mulwray added, her voice increasingly addled with pain and sadness. Finally, the majordomo's eyes filled with tears as she chided Lady Nadia, who shook, realizing it was something more that drove Ms. Mulwray's sharp criticisms.
"Ms. Mulwray, what's wrong with my father?" Nadia asked plainly. Ms. Mulwray shook her head, wiping away tears; trying to face whatever waited on the other side of the door they now stood before with strength.
"He's a fragile man, Lady Nadia. Please, take that into your heart, and listen to him," Ms. Mulwray pleaded, as she threw the door open, wearing the same mask of a smile that Egan had put on. "M'lord, I present the lovely Lady Nadia, returning from travels to exotic lands to see her father," Ms. Mulwray exclaimed. Nadia took a step in to her father's bedchambers - the curtains pulled shut, with only the faint flicker of lit candelabras and hung lanterns to light the dark room, its lavish furniture and accoutrements cloaked away from dust with heavy sheets. Nadia's vision took a moment to adjust, and she wondered just why the curtains had been drawn shut; why her father lay in bed so early in the eve. Confused, Nadia stepped in, and the strong scent of stale herbs and incense immediately struck her nose.
"My daughter! Nadia—" Lord Havenshire could scarcely finish a sentence before a hoarse cough gripped his throat and squeezed deep, wheezing, painful-sounding noises from his chest. Nadia recoiled; she may have spent years away from the family estate, but she had not forgotten the tenor of her father's voice - proud, full, confident, and always mirthful, even when life felt its bleakest. What had been the voice of true Lord had somehow been reduced to a ghastly, strained whisper; the closer Nadia drew to the bed, the more of her stricken father she began to see.
"I've missed you dearly, Nadia," he added, another ashen cough thick in his throat. Though the low light of the candles obscured the finer details, she could see her father - weak, his once-robust chest and shoulders shriveled; his body withered as a dried-out corn husk. Nadia's features fell, her voice quivering; her father's head had been shaved, his eyes sunken, his skin pale, sweat beading at his brow. Her lips gaping in pained shock, Nadia took a deep breath and gathered herself up.
"F... father, I've... I've missed you, too," she said, avoiding the topic of the painful, obvious issues that had befallen her father and chained him so weak and fragile to the bed.
"Is the manor what you remember of it? I've tried to have Ms. Mulwray, lovely woman she is, keep it up, just the way it had been," he smiled, or tried to smile, as best his shrunken face would let him.
"Yes, it's... it's lovely," Nadia responded absentmindedly. She fought the urge to gawk, to see what possibly could've befallen her father, but she found her eyes wandering nevertheless.