I suppose that what makes up a human being is, at its finest mechanics, the psyche; the mind of a man is more complex than any other existing entity. At least, that is, the proposition that I had assumed and understood as truth until now. 

Upon the noon-tide of a short attendance to the closest chapel, I found myself within the presence of my friend, Ms. Werthman. There, I sat within her parlor, serving myself a cup of coffee and a small biscuit, when she came back from the interior of her home with an ornate plate for which I was to set my food. “Quite surprised to see you fancying the thoughts of the priest this morning,” she said to me as she sat down in her white dress. The light from the wrought iron window behind her illuminated her like some sort of angel.

“I tell you it is not everyday that I do not attend.” My hand drifted over the dark liquid within the cup, sensing the calming warmth upon my palm. “Only rarely do I ever do so.”

“If you consider rarely to be just as soon as last service.” Ms. Werthman was often one to criticize me in many different ways, though every time she did so I knew that it was in a playful way, even if I could not always outright surmise so. The velvet armchair that I had fit myself into seemed to be almost hauntingly large, forcing me to reposition myself within it on multiple occasions. Each time I did so I took in the sights of the room once more; the damp air, the skillfully crafted furniture, and the bright sunlight that cut through that dampness. “I have known you to go down to the fishing wharf instead, is that not true?”

“You have known me for more than ten years, so why is there such a need for that question?” I said this in a light tone, hoping that she would not take offense to it.

“How is mother?”

“Same as always. You know, I never realized how needy a person could be when they have all of their simple abilities taken away from them in a mere moment.”

Ms. Werthman nodded her head slightly as she looked at the cheese. “Do you take care of her?”

“Of course I do, just as I have been for the past two years. Ever since father has been gone I have had to tend to her every need.” The coffee that she had provided me had a sickly taste to it, but I ignored this as I continued. “I suppose soon I will be needing to get a maid for her.”

Her expression turned from one of calm and somewhat content into one of intrigue and her gaze went from the cheese and up to me. “Why so?”

“Soon, I will be heading off to college, and I, of course, will have no ability to go from there and home. Limmere.” Behind her I saw the bowing trees, their leaves begin to rustle back and forth almost at the mention of the place. The eye contact that she had been keeping with me broke away; most likely she was saddened by how far away it was.

“Quite the walk, is it not?” Calmly, she placed her right hand on the table, then she slightly jostled the handkerchief that she had sat next to her plate. “I do not suppose I will be seeing you often, then.”

No response came from me; instead, I sat in silence, waiting for her to pick up the conversation once more. I knew that, truly, I wished to go and continue my studies in Limmere, but I also knew that in doing so I would leave behind many of my acquaintances. And mother, of course, needed me, however I could easily be replaced by a maid, like I had said.

“For a year, then, I won’t be seeing you. Not until summer comes.” Ms. Werthman took a sip from her drink and then placed her hands on her lap, covered with her flowing dress. “Quite the wait too.”

“Indeed.” I nodded, almost subconsciously, not really realizing that I was doing so. “Letters can still be written; nothing is stopping you from taking up your pen.”

She paused her breathing, holding for a moment. Her exhale was sharp and almost unnoticeable. “Yes, yes—I may write.”

“Well, if you do so, do not believe even for a day that I will not write back.” With my left hand I picked up my coffee and drank, while with my right I rubbed my thigh. “Please, do not doubt.”

“Believe me, I won’t. By the bye, I spoke to Chester this morning, in the courtyard.”

Her statement somewhat caught me off of my guard: “Chester? He was released from the clinic? By the doctor’s orders?”

“What, do you think he leapt from the third-story window? Of course, McAvoy released him. If he was still ill, why would he wish for there to be sick-men wandering the streets?” The way she spoke to me was almost in a playful tone, and practically every conversation I held with her usually felt the same.

Quietly, the white curtains wavered, caught up in a slow moving breeze that had gone through an opened window. “Ah. Only God knows what was wrong with him.”

“If McAvoy was willing to release him then he must have had some idea as to what he was suffering from.” She shook her head with a sense of disappointment. “I said mania, though who am I?” Ms. Werthman must have been pondering on the idea, as we sat in our silence together for two minutes, until she reopened the conversation, like always. “Is Limmere between Harthwaite and Iyesgarth, somewhere near that old fishing wharf?”

“As they call it, ‘the Bend’? Yes, it is.” The taste of the black coffee permeated my mouth.

“That is far.” Up from her seat at the table she went and out of the parlor, into the rest of the confines of her well-kept home. Though distant, I could still hear her voice as she spoke to me. “Chester spoke something about seeing you again.”

“I hope that day never comes,” I said as I put my coffee to the side.

“His intentions seem to be far greater than mine. Ambitions, more like. And at Limmere, what do you plan to study?” The topic of the conversation was jumping about like a frog on hot coals; this was nothing new to Ms. Werthman, so I took nothing of it.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“What I have been studying since my father died, I would think that you could easily come to that conclusion on your own.” I shifted my voice to a more sarcastic tone. “It is almost as though that has become the dedication of my life.”

“You mean that terrible sin that you claim to be science?” Instantly I knew I had begun to peeve her. “Why must you go about learning such a thing when you could concern yourself with much greater things? You have debts to reckon with God, you know, and the cloth would be fitting yourself.”

I scoffed at the response that came into the parlor. “It is science, and it is not a sin.”

“Yes, it is a cardinal sin. My apologies.” She continued to keep the level of disdain and bitterness in her voice throughout the conversation, even if it was barely noticeable. Ms. Werthman started to put away her dishes and tidy the kitchen, while I sat in silence for a time.

“Agnes, would it be rude of me to use your powder room?”

“Don’t soil it, I have far too much to clean up on my own time.” As I walked through the dining room I caught a glimpse of her white-gloved hand pointing in the direction of the room. My eyes scoured through her home, a place that I had not seen for quite some time; the furniture was pristine, the entire ambience was elegant, and everything appeared to be free from any touch of the finest dust. The powder room was no exception. The walls were covered in a beautiful, dark, and ornate wallpaper, with a flowering design, and the floor was a bright hardwood. I found a sturdy sink, fit with perfumes atop its marbled counter, with an ornate mirror hanging just above. The sides of the mirror were made of twirling gold—well, at least a material that seemed to be masquerading as gold. 

In the mirror I saw my reflection; I have no idea how she was so willing to let me within her door, as my appearance was rugged and my dark hair was disheveled. My face was patched with thin dirt marks and my overcoat was ratty. I placed my hands on the edge of the counter; one fleshy and pale, the other metallic and golden.

Out I came, back into the maw of the elaborate home, and I encountered Agnes sitting sheepishly at the dining room table. “Walnut; I bought it from an exquisite man I met when I was in the capital.”

“And how did you get it here?” I looked at the pearly, linen tablecloth that she had covered the table with.

“By horse, I believe. Or was it by engine? Or maybe it was by engine and then horse?” She spoke as if she was ignorant of the sort of thing; she was not ignorant, yet she acted like a dame who knew nothing of her own existence.

Finally, I finished off the rest of my coffee that she had brought to the dining room table. “Engine, most likely. They have been appearing all over the countryside lately, have they not? I do not suppose that one will be brought to Lowestoft; and if one was, then maybe I could take my mother about much easier.”

“Is she still bedridden?” Agnes’ eyes stared directly into mine—I found it hard to stare back at her.

“Yes, she is, but Roy has made her a fine invalid chair. It makes it easier for her to go out in the garden, and I have brought her into town with it once before.”

“Roy of Iyesgarth? Roy Loughty? Is it that carpenter boy?” She took off her gloves and put them on the table.

“Indeed, Roy Loughty."

“I used to be mashed over him, you know.” A smile quickly crept on her face as she reminisced about her child-self.

I thought this to be ridiculous; of all the times I had seen her in his presence I believed her to be annoyed by him. “I always thought you were peeved by him. You told me so, even; you told me that you wished he were to leave Lowestoft and go on his merry-way about this earth, never to set eyes upon you again.”

“I may have said that, but that was quite the opposite of what I wished to happen. And, of course, that is what we all did; move out of Lowestoft and establish ourselves in the other cities. Aside from you, that is.” Her smirk went away as swiftly as it came, and she finally broke her stare away from me. “Agnes Loughty, I even called myself.”

“It was true to me that you fancied me instead,” I said, hardly sealing away my laughter behind the empty cup that I still clung to. 

“My own cousin? What a horrible thought!” Agnes was somewhat disgusted by the notion. “But Roy moved out and into Iyesgarth.”

I felt my head go up and down in agreement as my gaze stayed transfixed on the wooden table top. “And he has made quite a name for himself there, as I have heard. He has even been called ‘the Carpenter of Iyesgarth’, so one can assume that he must have some sort of fame over there.”

With her gaze no longer stuck on my eyes, she looked over at the brazen clock that hung upon a papered wall. Agnes tapped the cup she held, then turned away from me and sighed a short breath. “Well then, I am sure you have other things to tend to.”

I did, and they had somehow slipped my mind, even though that morning, before I had attended the chapel, I had done everything to try and keep the thought it. My feelings were mixed on whether or not I should leave; I enjoyed Agnes’ company, and it was a rare occurrence in the first place for me to see her on a day like that, however still, I had things that I needed to tend to, like she said. Before I left my mind wandered off and to her piano, and I sat on its bench for half an hour as I peered at the ivory keys.

“You played, didn’t you?”

From my mouth, against my will, I confirmed her question. “Yes, I did; of course, that was when I was much younger. It has been years since I touched one. Before mother was how she is now she taught me, but now that old thing has been put away under white sheets. And before she completely lost it she covered almost everything upstairs in that same kind of cloth. What do you make of that?”

By then Agnes had finished putting away all of the cutlery that she had washed. “I make nothing of it. The doctor told you that she was slipping away from herself, and that must have been a symptom. Simple as that. It is sad to say that all of that beautiful furniture has been covered though.”

A simple nod came from me.

On my walk home I was met with the warm summer sun—Leurbost, once a subset of Lowestoft, a farming villa turned “noble” safe-haven, rarely saw a summer day where there was no brilliant sunshine. I kept my hands tucked away in my trouser pockets, with my thumbs sticking out. The cool breeze that had graced Agnes’ parlor made itself much more comfortable out in the open, and it calmly blew across my white under shirt. The gravel path that stretched up over a short hillock and to Agnes’ house was very well worn; before she owned it, the house would get many guests that traveled by carriage and horse, but now I was one of the sole visitors.

The leaves trembled as my eyes shied away from the golden light. A twenty minute walk would take me down and out of the burrow, and along that walk I would pass by the chapel that I attended that morning. I doubted that Agnes knew I had taken a short engine ride into the outskirts of Leurbost. If she had known she most likely would have made attempts to reimburse me, even though it was twenty or so marks, something that I could make a hundred-fold of in a day’s work. Truly, engines had been appearing throughout the major cities and some of the countryside, making them commonplace. Originally, many people had been worried of the possible risks they could bring within the industries, possibly turning travel by horse antiquated and obsolete. When it came to long distances, an engine would be the best option, and not every common man could afford a carriage, let alone the horses to pull it. Almost always I chose to go by foot, but again, it would have been foolish to not take an engine from Leurbost to Lowestoft if I could easily afford it.