A Short History and a Mystery Intensifies

That evening at Lady Vanigne’s stalked her every thought. Surely there was not some strange connection between the two of them, she and the gentleman? Lupin had only ever heard of such things in quickly hushed talk or allusions to cults in the books of the limited library. Surely it wasn’t possible to be the victim of such nonsense, not she, a normal, quiet girl in pleasant England! Such happenings as psychics and mind control belonged in some darkly shadowed forest in the life of a gypsy maid named Lucia or some such. Lupin was not convinced of her own quixotic ideas in the least. Surely the gentleman had simply decided to turn about and rejoin the lively party. That he did little when he returned to the light and people, or that he seemed woefully disinterested when he did were not taken as valid arguments. The vision? (She shuddered to think of it so.) A lonely person’s graphic imagination, was all it could have been. And Lupin quite decidedly got up from her seat by the window and trod out of the quiet breakfast room. Unfortunately, her lurid imagination did not leave her with such assured alacrity. Indeed, her thoughts could not but turn to the prior evening, despite her best efforts to the contrary, and as time and time again she pulled herself away from the dreaded topic, she became inevitably frustrated with her own inability to quell this obsession. She spent her day in pursuit of diversion. A book passed beneath her gaze for a moment or an hour or two, but as pages were turned by her dismissive hand, Lupin would find herself in the middle of chapter she wasn’t aware she had begun. She had gathered her groom and mount and attempted a ride in the park, but a miserable mist of rain had descended upon the city, and Lupin, though willing to ride through the mizzle, was not able to bear the dreariness with which her groom approached the subject.
Finally, in desperation, Lupin took the steps downstairs to the low back entrance the servants were wont to use, when t was not their day off – or when they were more plentiful than they were at the moment. She had begun to explore the servants’ quarters and their realm when she was very young, when her nanny had been let off, and Mrs. Fortan had been put in charge of her well-being. That wise housekeeper had introduced her to a bustling fury that lived beneath the calm interior of the London townhouse, and Lupin had soon been adopted by all the members of the staff, from the most discerning butler to the haughty house-maid, right down to the stable-boys, who had curbed their forked tongues in her presence. Slowly, as funds had dissipated, her large band had been let go, given references and perhaps a week’s pay and were never seen again. When she was twelve, finally Mrs. Forton had been forced to leave because her sister’s family had fallen ill, and she had never returned. The housekeeper to work in her stead had never been found, and Lupin had drifted into the job. As maids left, ells of the house had been shut up. The world of the residence had dwindled each anum to an increasingly smaller and smaller isle of rooms. Soon, Lupin imagined, there would be little left to survive in. That much which she herself could look after, with the help of a maid or two twice a week. There was little amusement now in Lupin’s life, and less funds. Aunt Harriet was very seldom in the mood for London, and kept to her house in Kent, wherein she lived the life of a demi-recluse, happy in her solitude, increasingly unmindful of her charge in London, or the monthly bills that must be paid. Or, indeed, the very presence of London at all.
And Lupin, though she wrote until her wrist ached to request sufficient allowance to buy those necessities which were crucial to life, had fallen upon ever-growing difficulties. Only old Bailey’s son, Young George kept her company these days; the companion, Miss Collit, had had to leave in the absence of any money to employ her, and though Aunt Harriet had been written about the impropriety of the situation, nothing had been sent to remedy it. To buy the black and gold gown of the previous night’s ball, Lupin had frivolously taken from the small amount of gold she had saved from her father’s legacy. It was her only pin money; her small allowance. He had gone long ago to seek his fortune at the side of what was politely described as a ‘gentleman’s entertainer’, and Lupin had never known him. That he knew of her was also a question, for her mother had died in childbirth some eight months after he had departed. Her stash of gold was from the jewels Uncle Mortimer had pawned that had belonged to her father. Uncle Mortimer had then given the money to her, to keep until that day when she was in desperate need of it. Her life was crashing about her ears, she had little idea of how to survive and her nerves and mind were frayed to an indescribable thinness by boredom and lack of society. The dress had been a last siege on the reality that seemed like a strange sort of fiction. It had been the out post swamped by soldiers of an enemy land. She had won that only battle, an found a mystery within. Something to allay the torture of waiting for the end. Lupin took the steps two at a time. It did not matter now whether or not she acted like a lady. She was hardly even a person in most people’s eyes, she knew so few of them. She went quickly to the stables. George, the groom and stable boy was nowhere to be seen. She had a distinct feeling he had gone home for the day. And why should he not? On what she paid him he shouldn’t even be here a quarter of the time he was. She walked to her mount, Celeste. A beautiful mare, Celeste was a royal chestnut, one foreleg graced with a pure white stocking. Regal, elegant, she was a lady’s horse. Lupin could not bear to part with her, or with any of the three pure blooded horses in her Aunt’s stables. She trod to the next stall. Within lay Queen Mary, who had but foaled a week before. It had been successful, a great miracle, for it had been but George and her to see to the process. She was glad to see the angular colt nursing at his dam’s belly. He would have to be sold, of course, but she would get more for him if she could break him first. A year or more until that would be possible. She did not think the money would last. She reached into the stall and stroked Queen Mary’s muzzle. Certainly an awful predicament. She went past Pegasus’s stall quickly. He had been her uncle’s horse, and the memories were still rather fresh. She passed the last stall. Here, in deceptive meekness munched Flanders, a great black stallion. He was a rather wild one. A strong man’s mount. George was the only one who could handle him now. She had gotten him with another, smaller black, Sir Percy, but the smaller mount had since been taken to Kent. Why her aunt had chosen to leave Flanders there in London had puzzled Lupin no end. But left him she had. Lupin supposed that if she would sell any of the horses, the first must be Flanders. She held no loyalties to him, he had no progeny, and he was not her own mount. Of a sudden, she felt an urge to ride him. She had never done so, and if she was to sell him, she wanted to at least have ridden him once in her life. At that moment she fully dropped the pretense. She was no more a lady; she was a person in difficult circumstances. And as such, she would do the things and take the few pleasures that were afforded her, whether they belonged to the lot of a lady or no. She boldly fetched the bit and saddle, and marched into Flanders’ stall. His eyes followed her. She knew he had no notion of who she might be and was most probably feeling a little frightened. She put a calming hand on his neck, and stroked him slowly, letting her hand feel the power in his arch, letting him feel the superior power in her hand. She quietly went to his head and slipped on the harness; with a slight tossing of his large head the steed took the bit, and allowed her quick hands to buckle and fit the equipage upon him. He was soon ready. She tightened the last buckle of the saddle beneath his tail, and he was done. She led him out to the open part of the small mews, and unheeding of her dress or the mizzle in the air, she stepped up the mounting block and caught her balance in the side-saddle. She was much used to the idea of her legs hanging over one side, but Flanders was not. The black started, and began to jostle, side to side, a nervous sidling. Immediately, Lupin took him firmly in hand. She tucked her skirts more fittingly beneath her so they would not aggravate him, and with a slight loosening of the reins, and a nudge of her calf, she begged him forward. He went willingly, nearly dashingly, as he became used to the rider on his back. He was, unfortunately, fresh, however, and when she gave him a bit more head on the street, he began to canter nigh to an uneasy lope, the power of him surging forward to gallop. She let him canter broadly to the park, thankfully but a few squares away, and there happily let him go to a full gallop. She was not cautious today. The wind blew her cape out behind her, her hood had since blown back at her neck, and her hair was quickly tearing free of its moorings; sagging awfully with each jolt. But Lupin did not care. She leaned into her great black steed, flying across the wetted green, towards a line of trees beyond, and a grey pond that was but an iron puddle through the misting. Freedom tore at her heartstrings, a sort of freedom she had not felt for many a year, since the one night she had danced beneath the moon. She was not a lady, she was not indentured to a life of servitude, but only to herself. A life not lived by anyone before. That she felt strongly enough to carry her over the seven seas. The winds of hope had been harnessed and her ship would sail where she wished. She was free. And then she saw it, flashing before her eyes, an accident. A hole lay before her. Flanders’s fall was so clear in her head she was sure it was real, yet she galloped still. She tried to pull him up quick, but once given his head, he was not to be stopped. Lupin moved without thinking. She pulled him hard to the right, and though he slipped on the sodden treachery of the ground, she held him still. But something she had not forseen was at her right. Another horse, and rider, and Flanders balked, reared, throwing Lupin, and he slipped heavily. Thankfully, without her weight, he managed to regain his balance, but he was wild. His hooves crashed on the muddy ground, tearing up the soft grass. Lupin, bruised from the fall was very close to his descending hooves, indeed, another stomp of his massive feet and she would be beneath him. She cried out, and rolling like a flash, she managed to elude the danger by a hairsbreadth, but she was still close. She had not time to rise – a hand reached to her collar, and wrenching her up by the neck of her cloak, half-dragged, half-strangled her to a safe distance.