The Sordid Tale of Eliza Chanticleer, Widow

Chapter 4: The First of Many Funerals

January 1821: One Year after the Wedding

Eliza stood at the edge of the funerary party. Odd word for a group of mourners. There was nothing festive about them. They were all in black, standing around a gaping hole in the frozen ground. It was scorched black on every side from the fires that had been lit on its surface to thaw the dirt enough for proper grave digging. A dowager Countess would not be allowed to molder in a back room or shed on account of dying during inclement weather conditions. No no. She must be put in the ground right away. They had a crypt, a lovely above ground stone building for the storing of wealthy deceased persons, but it seemed that Bainbridge would be selfish even in death. He hated his mother, and so she would not enjoy the luxury of being allowed to decompose in a nice marble tomb. Indeed, worms would eat her. He’d been giddy about it. His sad twisted expression was a testament to his acting ability.

As far as Eliza had been able to tell, the woman had died of natural causes. If having the windows of her room left ‘accidentally’ open on a frigid night and dying of exposure was natural. Given that winter air did occur on its on in nature, perhaps it was. The latches on the windows had rusted nearly to pieces, and everyone had been happy to declare the whole thing a tragic misfortune. The woman had taken to her bed four years previous and never left it. If a seventy some odd year old woman who’d been dying for several years finally did bite the proverbial bullet under somewhat odd circumstances, no one really cared. Except perhaps Eliza. There were two reasons for that. The woman had been the only person in the manse who had spoken to her on a daily basis aside from the polite murmurs of the servants. The woman’s death had been an object of dread in her mind for months because she knew it was going to start her husband plotting a murder. Her own murder. Which, as one might imagine was not high on her list of things she wanted to experience. Death was something one practiced every night for eight hours, lying still in one’s bed, but she didn’t want to do it permanently.

Everyone looked like giant crows in their long black coats, blinking in the incongruous bright sun that turned the snowy graveyard into a wash of blinding light. It almost made Eliza want to laugh. The Count was feigning sorrow as best a man could who’d just killed his mother. All the mourners were offering him their sympathy with unwanted handclasps and sad looks of pity. He offered his hand to them as limply as one would dangle a dead fish. People seemed to be taking it just as eagerly as one would do when being offered something so distasteful.

Eliza bit her lip. She couldn’t laugh. Everyone already believed her to be a bit unstable. It was Count Chanticleer’s fault. He was forever spreading rumors of her instability and frequent attacks of nerves. It was his excuse for why he never brought her with him when he went to the necessary obligations of his office. The occasional party, court, and parliament were generally places that a man of distinction was expected to bring his wife, but Eliza was a virtual prisoner in the manse. If he brought her places and let her talk to people, there was every reason to believe that she might tell some of them the degree with which she was made to suffer. She hated him. She hated all his friends for not seeing the torment she was clearly in. More than anything she hated her…

Her father appeared at her elbow, asking after her health and if he could expect a joyous announcement soon to counteract this tragic one. Birth announcements tended to follow those of death he was assuring her, it was nature’s way. Life following death in an endless cycle. He put his arm about her narrow waist, ostensibly to offer comfort but she knew he was really feeling for a bulge in her abdomen. He’d be disappointed to find it just as spare and smooth as ever. Her corset felt like a metal vise. His voice never stopped. He was blathering on and on about a wife’s duty and how he’d feel so embarrassed if she failed to produce an heir for his friend Chanticleer. His line had never failed on that point, and so if she was sterile, then the fault must lie with her dear dead mother. Even so, he’d be mortified if people thought he had produced a defective child who was unable to fulfil her wifely obligations.

“Father!” Eliza snapped, just to shut the man up. “This is not the place for a lecture on my feminine failings.” Her husband was leaving his flock of wretched acquaintances and heading to her side. In public he would present himself as a normal and dutiful man. Even more importantly he made sure to never let her speak with anyone outside his presence. Outside of the servants of course, who were paid by him and whose opinions of him he could care less about. Money was an effective tool for stopping tongues. The Count reached her side and took her arm, fingers digging into the underside where they couldn’t be seen. Her arms carried bruises as an ever-present reminder to tell her father and everyone else nothing. His grip on her arm was such a constant part of being in public that she actually preferred being alone in the manor. The power to make her miserable was his, the law on his side and she had no recourse.

“Good of you to come your Grace.” The Count gave a nod in her father’s direction.

“Yes of course. Couldn’t leave you alone in your hour of need.” He replied. The Count’s fingernails were cutting into her flesh.

“Since my marriage to your daughter, I am never alone. Now am I?” His tone could hardly conceal his hatred of that fact, but her father didn’t seem to notice. He was a dog with a bone and was unable or unwilling to release it.

“I was just telling my daughter how much I hope to hear more cheerful news soon. It has been a year after all. Due time my good friend. Due time.” The trio of them were headed across the glittering white graveyard towards a black swathed carriage. A luncheon would be waiting at the manse. Her miserly husband had demanded a large and fanciful feast to look the dutiful son. A brace of suckling pigs in his guests’ bellies would keep their mouths busy, too busy to speak of oddly open windows.

“If I am being honest,” Her father continued, despite the fact that his words were clearly unwelcome. “I’m sure my daughter would enjoy getting her allotment for a job well done. I do hope you’re giving her ample opportunity to do it.” The Earl elbowed his friend in the ribcage suggestively. The entire exchange was making Eliza feel like she had to vomit. “For myself I cannot deny that I wouldn’t mind if my ever faithful daughter had some coins about her with which to throw my way. The hounds are baying at my door again. It is the damnedest thing how infrequently the cards seem to go my way.” He chuckled about it as if it were not something to be ashamed of. The Earl’s lack of pride and his willingness to flout his debts astounded her. As something that had been lost in one such card game Eliza found his casualness about his drunken losses to be infuriating.

“Father! Your debts must not be discussed at a funeral.” Eliza scolded as Bainbridge helped her into the carriage, momentarily releasing his painful grip on her arm. Her father, ever oblivious to social cues, pushed past the Count in order to sit beside her.

“I was hardly discussing my debts my dear so much as I was attempting to remind the Count of his duties as a husband. You always wanted me to take an interest in your welfare before now. I can’t imagine why your current circumstances should make you feel any different.” Count Bainbridge sat across from the two of them in the black satin interior of the carriage with the face of a man who’d just had his foot slammed in a door. It was a mix of fury and discomfort that made Eliza genuinely afraid. Her father blundered through life like a hurricane, unaware of his effect on his surroundings.

“Please Father. Such matters are private, between the Count and myself. Such impropriety is unbecoming.” She scolded. Her father began huffing and blustering, his cheeks puffing and reddening with anger. No man liked to have his behavior corrected by his own child, least of all a female one. This was going to be the most awkward forty-five minute ride that any of them had ever endured. She was already sure of it.