„Why to be a heroe when you can be a simple man?”
„Let’s go, Bardain!" Brian told his teamster and the carriage hit the road right away while the two Arabian horses, black like pitch, which were pulling the carriage at a normal step, nervously puffed their nostrils, feeling the burden of a long road in front.
And Brian felt the same as his horses: nervous and with the burning desire in his chest to throw fire through his nostrils, for the visit to Alfred Stonebdrige’s house didn’t end as he wished, even if he had had a single thought in his mind when he entered that office - to finally get what was his, but he failed again. What he didn’t expect has been to see Stonebridge acting so confidently and, at his question: „when you’ll finally leave this house?" the haughty Alfred Stonebridge slung a bag of gold toward him.
„Here’s your damn money, Beneath! And now, get the hell out of here,” and this amazed Brian so much, for it was a mystery where Stonebridge got that money from. And how not to be surprised when all the good people in town knew that Alfred Stonebridge was ruined and that he lost the last of his fortune at gambling, as nobody in his right senses would have lent money to a „dead one." But Brian also knew that he couldn’t win that battle that easily, even if he had taken care to spread the gossip around, about Stonebridge’s insolvency. And, doing this, he again failed. He should have at least thought longer at this, to analyze each detail, each step taken in front, to plan more what to do next. But, being too obsessed with winning in front of Stonebridge, no matter the cost, he has been the one brought to his knees eventually.
He should have thought about this, over and over again, till finding the right answer to all the questions that were spinning in his head. That’s why he went to the lake: to think. But, eventually, he felt even more confused, meeting her there: a young lady who was identical to the one his father had loved so much - Helen Walker.
And that meeting amazed him so much, for the resemblance between the two was absolutely incredible: „mother and daughter looking the same? It can’t be. Fate can’t play such a devilish game on me.” But fate was too eager to play and that’s why it headed Eva’s footsteps to the lake that day.
Remembering this, Brian sighed and turned his head to the left, watching a pair of passers-by, who were so lazily walking on the street on that beautiful evening.
„What a waste of time and what a stupidity to watch him,” Brian told himself. But knowing that it was the only thing he could do while the carriage was moving onto the London streets, he had decided to stop at least complaining. Yet, even if the London view at that moment bothered him somehow, Brian kept looking through the window at the passers-by that were rushing somewhere past the carriage and a big part of them were people he knew and so well actually, but for who he had in fact no good words.
„Look, there is Ashton Holmes with his too-young mistress Nane, and there, over there, is the tobacco merchant Alan Foster with his sultry wife, trying to hover again around John Evans, the richest Lord of these lands,” were spurring the thoughts in Brian’s head like riderless horses when he saw the crowd gathered in front of the store „Tobacco" and especially the play put on act by all those who wanted to get favors from Evans.
„It seems that the Foster have problems again if they are fawning on Evans now. What this time? Poker again or maybe another profitable business which Alan „smelled” in port?” thought Brian while staring at the red-hair woman, much taller than her chubby man, who didn’t reach 1.6 meters in height, and who was definitely much more intelligent than he was if they were still seen next to Evans.
„Probably,” said Brian this time loudly, forcing a smile of greeting when his carriage passed by the Foster, and they waved their hands, greeting him.
„Alan Foster” is a „genius” in finding such businesses, that are in most cases lean. The last time „genius” Foster made his rounds in the port, he found out about importing Cuban tobacco, without knowing that actually, it was a sacred area since John Evans charged it in his account, without even offering a chance to others to at least think that they could be a rival for him. And he was right: why lose the golden sheath for a jay like Foster?!”
„Good afternoon, mister Beneath!" heard Brian, awakening from his daydream. And, when he looked back, he could see Mrs. Evans hurrying toward her husband, and that rush was because she knew that Emma Foster was capable to charm her husband only to help Alan triumph, and Beatrice wasn’t eager for sure to share her husband with such a woman of easy virtue. Thus, a woman like Beatrice Evans, who has been born and grown up in luxury, who married one of the richest and most influent personalities of the time, was forced to somehow protect what was hers, „fighting” with the hyenas of the English society of those times, which, in such a shameless way, were calling themselves ladies of the high society.
„But…,” something caught Brian’s glance and he noticed that he was nervously moving in his place. „What’s this? Why am I so nervous?” and that inner botheration wasn’t for sure caused by his defeat in front of Stonebridge.
„Something happens, Mister Beneath? Is it too cold?” he heard Bardain’s voice, who was in the driving box.
„What?” has been Brian’s stupid question. „Aaa, no, don’t worry. It’s just…,” but Brian also knew that he couldn't fool the old teamster, for he saw him growing up, he knew when he was in good mood, when he had a bad time, when he lost a poker game, or when he simply, as it happened at that moment, was totally out of reality.
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Actually, Bardain wasn’t new in this, for he worked for Brian's family for 50 years already. He started to work for them at the age of 10, as a simple helper boy at the stables. But, because he has been diligent and because he always knew what he wanted, Brian’s father, Baron Beneath, took him under his wing, like his right hand, and, thus, they worked together, side by side, for almost 30 years, till Baron died, and Bardain, like a faithful dog, started his new „journey” next to Brian this time.
„Tell me, Bardain, how much do you know about Alfred Stonebridge?”
„About Moloch?! Not that much! Actually, I think you know more than me.”
„What about his daughter?”
„Aaa, you are talking about Miss Stonebridge! Well, to be honest, also not much. Only that her father hadn’t been ever committed to his daughter, if I can say so, and, even if she’s about 16 already, she had never had her social entrance.”
„Why so? I thought that his only chance to survive was to marry her to someone rich enough.”
„And it is probably still so, but… I don’t know if it’s true or not… what I’ve heard, but… the big mouths say that Moloch tried to marry his daughter to the old Solochar since she was 12 only. But Solochar isn’t stupid. He preferred to take care of his back and he married one of Miller’s daughters.”
„Mmm!”
„But… you probably also noticed this, right?”
„What exactly?”
„That Eva Stonebridge is Helen Walker’s vivid copy. I could swear that she is Miss Walker herself if I wasn’t sure that she died about 16 years ago.”
Brian instead didn’t answer, but immersed more in his thoughts, even if he kept hearing Bardain’s chatter: ,,as like as two peas in a pod, actually. And, what I felt now, is nothing compared to that weird sensation I felt the first time I saw that child,” and Bardain pulled hard the reins, having problems with them, for Raven, the horse that was all the time pulling the carriage from the right, was trying to break the rules and to change places with his older brother Black Sunshine, which actually felt Raven’s teeth biting from his ear, and, as a reward, he also bit from Raven’s neck, forcing the younger horse return to his place. „Good job, Sunshine, teach him well! Let him know his place in this world, as actually everybody should know his place in this life,” told Bardain to the old horse, which had probably had the same age as he had.
Bardain’s words resounded in Brian’s ears like a lesson known since long ago, but forgotten, at least for the moment.
„Everybody should know his place in this life,” but how? When the hatred you feel in your chest, since you were 15, grows - with each step, with each breath of fresh air inhaled, and more in such moments when Helen Walker is back. It’s more difficult now to focus on a single aim only and Brian knew this since he was a teen only and his mother died.
He was 12 at that moment when on a cold winter morning they found her breathless on the bank next to the lake, on their property. She had probably felt her end close and she had preferred to breathe her last breath there, in the place she had loved the most and where she had spent a great part of her free time, for she loved to watch the sunshine in the morning and the sunset in the long summer evenings, on that bench made from pine wood where she fell in love with her husband, where she had whispered the first words like a mother and there, probably, she had also talked to the wind that took her soul on its wings and carried it on toward worlds unknown for us.
Two and a half years later, Baron told Brian that he had decided to marry again and that he was already talking about this with Lyre Walker, to marry his youngest daughter, Helen.
But Baron had never taken into account the girl’s feelings and he had also never asked her if she agrees or not with that marriage. So, on the morning of their wedding, they all found out in amazement that Helen ran away with an idler called Alfred Stonebridge, the son of a florist and, thus, Baron Beneath’s madness started.
He looked for Helen everywhere, in all known places, but nobody could tell him where she was and that feeling of defeat and the bitter taste of shame were felt even more on the top of his tongue and in his chest. Till one April morning when a shot brought Brian into his father’s office and he found him breathless, lying on his armchair, in front of his desk, with a bullet in his temple.
Thus the father’s hatred passed to the son and Brian swore to do everything to bring that Stonebridge to his knees in front of his father’s grave and to make him ask for forgiveness, that jerk that destroyed their lives.
Years later, when Brian was 20, Alfred turned back to Image. But nobody ever could find out where he has exactly been in those 6 years of absence, and this was something really strange because he turned back without Helen and with a 5 years old girl, who wasn’t ever seen playing or running in the garden like any other children of her age and neither she was seen in the village or London, accompanied by her governess to teach her how are things going in such a crowded village like Image was: the village where the Gods are playing.
Thus, years have passed, one after another. Alfred Stonebridge remarried… again… and again… and again, and thus the locals forgot about his daughter. More than this, because of the big number of wives that have ever been seen in Stonebridge’s house, many hadn’t been at all surprised to see a young girl about 15 reading on that wooden bench next to the lake. For many of them, she was only one of many seen next to Alfred. For people, it didn’t even matter who Eva really was, and their indifference made her even lonelier and quiet than she actually was, somehow freak, like a kind of savage bird, as she appeared in front of Brian that afternoon.
And he remembered that he heard first her breathing while she was running toward him. But, because she was looking at the ground, he couldn’t see her beautiful eyes, blue like the clear sky that could make one feel dizzy only by watching them. But that dizziness made Brian shudder, feeling a strange wince crossing through his body as if he was the 15 years old boy again, meeting a girl of the same age for the first time.
„Love at first glance?” Maybe yes, maybe no, or maybe it was something that Brian couldn’t explain: to fall in love with his enemy’s daughter, who could also be later an enemy for him, twice younger than he was, could be only something insane. But namely this thought made his heart beat so madly in his chest.