Saturday, August 18, 2012

A Love So Beautiful - Chapter 12


This song made me think of Peter and Maria



Disclaimer: These characters are the sole property of Stephenie Meyer. I am just messing around with them.
A/N I don’t have a pre-reader or a Beta or anything of the sort. All mistakes are mine and mine alone.

-x-X-x-


A Love So Beautiful

Martha’s Vineyard, United States of America 1891

The spring air feels lovely as it blows my bonnet away. I laugh as Peter jumps from his horse and runs to fetch it.

“Really, Peter! It’s just some silly bonnet and not the first one I’ve lost riding with you!” I yell at him.

He ignores me and fetches the wayward bonnet before the waves have the opportunity to wash it away into the ocean.

“I present you your muddy bonnet,” Peter says as he hands me my very dirty and sandy bonnet back.

“Well this one is ruined,” I laugh, giving a perfunctory glance at the spoiled bonnet before throwing it away into the waves.

“Hey! I liked that one!” Peter protests.

“I know, I did too,” I reply before I urge my horse to continue. “However, now I’ll win this race!” I add before I kick my heels and speed away from him.

I laugh as I hear him swear behind me.

It has been almost a year since I was first introduced to Peter and so much has changed but stayed the same as well.

I’m still hurting. I still miss Edward, but now it’s a dull pain that throbs from time to time in my chest. Not the same acute ache that I used to carry constantly.

I have my family to thank for my ability to laugh nowadays and surprisingly, Peter as well. I believe that our unusual friendship has given me some perspective about my own pain.

I guess one could say Peter and I have bonded over a shared bad luck in love.

-x-X-x-

Martha’s Vineyard, United States of America 1890

It had been a month of Peter’s and Mrs Rothschild’s visits before he was able to truly converse with me, and even then he seemed to be on guard.

Finally, on an opportunity during which he have been acting particularly vexing, causing his mother to retire to another room with my aunt. I had decided to confront him.

“Exactly, what is your motivation to be so unpleasant?” I ask as Peter walks towards the fireplace and stokes the dying embers with a poker.

“What do you mean?” he asks trying to act as if he doesn’t know what I’m referring to.
I bristle at his attempt to dismiss me as if I were a simpleton.

“I mean your animosity towards your mother and anyone who dares to show you any kindness. Your complete disregard for your own reputation and the way you seem determined to make everyone think the worst of you. The way you’ve continued to see Mrs Denali, even in spite of your mother’s constant requests to stop the affair. Do I need to continue?”

I know it’s not my place to question him or his actions but he seems to recoil whenever his mother does. Also, I’m very aware of the fact that for some reason he continues to visit my aunt’s residence, even when my father openly disapproves of any type of friendship between us.

Yes, Charles Swan is not happy with my aunt Leah for introducing me to a notorious rake.

He turns to me with menacing eyes, the ones he uses to intimate people, push them away. I’m not going to allow him to badger me like he does his mother. I’m not willing to let anyone else badger me, like I was badgered out of Edward’s life by his father.

“Are you offering to take Mrs Denali’s place?” he taunts when he’s near me, much too near me.

I gather my courage for I’ve seen him use this technique before. If he thinks I’m going to wither under his words he’s sorely mistaken.

“I’m offering no such thing! I’m asking why you do everything you can to hurt your mother and hurt yourself in the process? Do you think you can hide the way you wince every time your mother looks at you with hurt eyes? Do you think you can hide how you brood every time you disappear for a couple of days with that dreadful woman, Mrs Denali? You don’t even like her, yet you amuse her only because it suits your purpose to destroy everything that you once held dear!”

He looks at me, stunned into silence. I realise I’ve just said all the right things that would hurt the most, the deepest. It’s as if I grabbed the poker he’s holding in his hand and twisted it inside his chest. For an instant I regret my words but then I remember Mrs Rothschild’s hurt eyes and harden my stance.

“Why do you care?” he asks in an almost childlike voice.

“Because, I have a feeling you’re suffering from the same ailment I am. Only, I have family who understands and supports me. Your mother, as lovely as she is, doesn’t understand and you lash out at her. Am I correct?”

“What ailment are you referring to? From what your aunt Leah has said to my mother you weren’t even engaged to the boy you loved. I was left at the altar by the woman I loved. I do not believe you could ever understand the pain and humiliation I’ve felt these past months!”

Now, I’m the one stunned into silence. He was engaged? Aunt Leah never mentioned a broken engagement.

“Your mother, aunt Leah, they never knew did they? It was a secret engagement?” I ask as a new realization dawns on me.

He turns towards the fireplace again, avoiding my gaze and says, “It was an unsuitable match. My mother would have never approved. She was an actress. Entirely unfitting to marry a man of my rank, and yet I loved her enough to offer for her hand.”

My stomach turns at the picture of an even younger Peter, buying a ring for a woman who ultimately hurt him so deeply he feels the need to hurt all those who dare love him.

“What happened?” I ask in in a whisper.

“I was a fool, that’s what happened!” he yells and hits his fits against the wall once. I go to him and grab his hand without regard for my own safety. I haven’t seen pain like this since the last time I spoke with Edward.

“Let go of me,” Peter whimpers but I ignore him. I know deep down he won’t hurt me.
We stand in silence for a long time.

“Her name was Maria. She was beautiful and older. I never asked her age, but she had to be at least twenty seven. I was so fascinated by her. She was sophisticated and worldly. I was only seventeen when I met her and had no defences against her wiles. She bewitched me and before I knew what was happening I was under her spell.”

I listen to him, not trying to fill the silence with any of the platitudes my parents have fed me thus far. No words can soothe you when your heart is broken as his and mine are.

“I bought her expensive jewellery, an apartment in one of the finest neighbourhoods in Manhattan, her own coach, everything I could afford to make her happy, everything she asked I gave it to her. I wanted to win her favour, make her look my way. I thought my money could help me gain her love; make me stand out amongst the string of admirers that always followed behind her. For a while, it seemed as my efforts were successful.

“I proposed and she greedily accepted. After all, a woman of her age and with her reputation could do far worse than the heir of a railway fortune. We set a date and started preparations for a quick and small wedding. I never told mother because I knew she would try to convince me to balk from the engagement. A day before we were supposed to marry I went to her house. The maid didn’t want to let me in at first but I was so insistent she let me pass in the end.”

I gulp, because I can only imagine what his unannounced visit revealed for him.

“I heard Maria giggling. Whenever I visited I always went straight to her room. We were beyond such proprieties. Her room was practically mine, or so I thought.”

I feel him clenching his fist which it’s still engulfed in my hands.

“She was with another man, some nobody that worked in the theatre where she used to perform.  She was in her chemise, sitting on his lap, feeding him the strawberries I always used to buy her because she loved them so much. He was naked. It was obvious I had intruded in the interlude of their encounter. They were celebrating. And why wouldn’t they? They had this poor rich ninny buying them everything they could have ever dream of, and the next day Maria would have had unrestricted access to my accounts as my wife.”

“Oh heavens,” I whisper; only imagining the sting of such betrayal makes my heart ache. How could have Peter survived it without being forever changed? The answer is that he didn’t, he was irrevocably changed by the experience.

My aunt told me he was another person, not the boy she had grown to love as if he were her nephew. I did not quite understand the extent of the change until that moment.

“I asked her why? Why not accept my gifts and remain as my mistress? Why accept my marriage offer? You know what she said?” he inquires finally meeting my eyes.

I shake my head and allow him to continue. I can’t begin to imagine what a woman like that could have said.

“She said that a boy like me was only good for one thing. I was only good enough to be her bank account. I was boring in bed, inexperienced and dull she said. She admitted that she would never have paid me any attention if her lover wouldn’t have mentioned I was set to inherit the Rothschild fortune.”

I’m appalled by the bluntness and hatefulness of the woman’s words. She plunged a knife through Peter’s heart and twisted it until there was nothing left but unrecognisable pieces.

He’s right, compared to his, my story is almost laughable. I may be in pain but at least Edward never made me feel as if I was nothing but dirt on his shoes. He loved me until the last minute, until there was no hope for us. Peter had loved a woman, loved her still in spite of the hurt, but his love was never requited.

“It’s that why you keep seeing that woman? Mrs Denali? You’re trying to prove that you can satisfy and keep the affections of a woman like Maria?” I probe.

“Have I told you scare me, Bella?” he replies, lifting his hand with mine still wrapped around it. He kisses the back of one of my hands, in a gesture of gratefulness.

“Why? Because I’m so incredibly witty?” I joke, trying to diffuse the tense atmosphere that has descended upon us.

“No, because you’re the only one who can read me like a book.”

-x-X-x-

Martha’s Vineyard, United States of America 1891

Ever since that day Peter and I have formed some sort of alliance. He still keeps seeing Mrs Denali, but I’ve noticed his interest waning in time. She is the one pursuing him now, and a part of me knows that he takes perverse pleasure on that fact.

I cannot begrudge his unkindness towards Mrs Denali though, because in time my heart has hardened as his. I am not sure I will be able to spare any sympathy on Edward if we ever meet again.

At first I tried to justify his lack of communication with fear, fear of his father intercepting his letters, fear of stressing his ailing mother. However, after some time none of the excuses I’d created seemed to work anymore. I became embittered and sometimes the mere mention of Edward makes me go into a state of anger I can hardly control. It is only through my friendship with Peter that I have managed to remain true to myself and not act on any of my self-destructive inclinations.

“Aha!” I hear Peter yell from my side. He and his horse catch up easily with mine because I still refuse to let him teach me how to ride like a man. There’s only so much speed I can gain side-saddle.

“Damn it!” I swear, one of the few unsavoury things I’ve picked up by spending time with Peter. At least unsavoury in the eyes of my father, I find it terribly hilarious.

-x-X-x-

Martha’s Vineyard, United States of America 1890

After that conversation in my aunt’s library, Peter and I remained mostly silent about our pasts. One day though, Peter surprised me by asking an unexpected question while we were riding on the beach.

“Do you still love him?”

I turn to look at him and for an instant I don’t understand his question. But then the dull ache, my old companion, reminds me of whom Peter is referring to.

“I think I always will,” I reply simply and honestly.

“Do you still love her?” I enquire as well.

Peter takes a moment to mull over my question and then says, “Have you read Byron?”

I blink confused by the non sequitur.

“Just a few poems,” I reply.

“I’m not very fond of him, but one of my tutors was obsessed with his work and made me read a few of his poems repeatedly. One of his favourites was a poem called ‘When we Two parted.’”

“What does the poem say?” I ask, indulging whatever whim made him remember his tutor’s love for Byron.

“I don’t remember it all, but there’s a phrase that stayed with me that I find relevant for our situation.”

I wait for a while before he recites the few lines he remembers from Byron’s poem.

“In secret we met—      
 In silence I grieve,         
That thy heart could forget,     
 Thy spirit deceive.        
If I should meet thee    
 After long years,             
How should I greet thee?           
 With silence and tears.”

I make my horse stop and guide it to stand in front of Peter’s horse.

“I don’t understand,” I declare.

“If you and this Edward should ever meet again, I think you and him would meet in silence and tears like Byron’s poem states. You two have unfinished business. Your relationship was not only romantic like Maria’s and mine was. You two were best friends from what I gathered. Even if this meeting occurs years from now, I believe there would still be some feelings between you. Maybe it won’t be love, but something will still be there. What Maria and I had ran its course and ended in a horrible note. It’s over though. I have no more silence and tears to spare on her.”

I’m shocked by Peter’s insightful reply. I’ve always known he is an intelligent man, in spite of the way he only uses his cleverness to seduce women. However, his thoughts show a level of analysis I did not expect from him. I feel hopeful that he’ll be able to move on from the heartache.

I know that you can’t replace someone when for some reason he’s taken from your life. I know Peter will never replace Edward. But at least in his friendship I find solace, I find a kindred spirit, even if what unites us is our pain.

-x-X-x-

Martha’s Vineyard, United States of America 1891

“I win!” I shout as I climb down from my horse in front of Aunt Leah’s house.

“You cheat!” Peter accuses as he stops his horse in front of me.

“I did not cheat! I told you to leave the bonnet, but you just had to be a gentleman and recover it for me,” I say in a sarcastic tone.

“I don’t have to be a gentleman. I am one, no trying involved,” he says as he descends from his horse.

I’m about to interject something when I hear my aunt’s voice calling me from the porch.

“Bella!” she calls as she descends the stairs in a hurry followed by one of her maids.

“What is the matter, Aunt Leah?” I question, curious and apprehensive as I catch sight of my aunt’s expression.

“A letter, from England,” she replies breathlessly.

I blink, taken aback by my aunt’s frightful eyes. Alice writes regularly. Why is she so shaken by one of her letters?

“It’s from Edward,” she adds in a whisper, and I feel as if I’ve been punched in the stomach. 

-x-X-x-

So, time jumps…they were necessary!  Probably last update till Monday. My friends are kidnapping me this weekend… So, er…cliffy, I know. Bad, bad Ange. *hides under a rock*

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