Gone

Proverbs 31:12

She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

Lady Hadassah Ambrose rolled over in her bed and stretched, yawning. She heard Nara in the dressing room. It must be early, as she was not preparing their breakfast. She rolled over and heard… why… it was a carriage!

She went to the window and opened the drape. It was a carriage indeed. A carriage leaving. “Nara,” she said, “Do you know who that is in the carriage?”

Nara came back, and one look at her face caused Haddassaah to look back out the window, her face flushing.

“I reckon it is Our Lord,” Nara said, eventually. “On his way to London. He told us not to make up the table for breakfast this morning.”

Lady Ambrose felt her heart fall, and she opened her mouth to make a comment, but she stopped herself. “Very well,” she managed but kept her eyes back to the window. She had been beginning to hope he would stay… fool that she was. She knew, everyone had told her, that he would run off to London. Esther had told her, her mother had told her… she had even told herself! But she had thought things were going so well!

But however much she told herself that she should concentrate on being a good wife, on not minding, on how he was probably just going off to gamble not to… Her mind couldn’t help wondering what his mistress looked like. Or did he have several?

“Tell the kitchen I will have breakfast in my room, please,” she told Nara, who fled.

Hadassah frowned. It wan’t Nara’s fault! She would need to be more careful about letting her displeasure show.

Breakfast, when it came, included a very nice fish, which annoyed her. Or, she tried to let it annoy her, but it was a very good fish. It was hard to remain angry while eating such a good fish.

She picked up a book of sermons, deadly dull sermons, and started reading as she ate. She never got to do that when he was home. She turned page after page until she came to the verse, written out very neatly,

Luke 16:10

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.

Her eyes practically skipped over the verse, but then she looked back at it, read it again, read it yet again, and in her mind’s eye, heard Esther reading it to her. What kind of Christian was she if she couldn’t even manage to trust God in a little thing like this and keep working? She had known it was coming; it wasn’t even like it was some surprise. So, her husband had gone to London. Well, men did that. It was foolish of her to expect him to always be around.

So… what was there for her to do? When he was here, she had spent a lot of time with him, meeting his needs… or his desires anyway. Now that he was gone, what could she do?

What would he want her to be doing? He certainly hadn’t said, but she knew better than to bother about that. It wasn’t like she was some little girl that needed to be told everything. What would he want her to do?

Well, she was the Lady of the house, the chatelaine, and she knew almost nothing of the house. She could describe a dozen walks, a dozen trees, and one very private pond… but she knew almost nothing of the inside of the house or the servants.

Just then, Nara came softly in, and Hadassah called to her, “Nara, we are going to go on a tour of the house. I wish to learn it all. Ask Jeremy if he is free to accompany us or, if not, one of the footmen, please. Or even the boy who shines the boots if he is the only one that is free.

Nara gave her a startled glance and left at a run. Haddasah grinned. This was going to be fun. She liked startling people and no doubt she was going about this in a very startling way.

Nara was back in a few minutes. “He says he’ll meet us in the entryway, My Lady, and he says he’s told everyone that we’ll be touring, so they’ll all be ready.”

Lady Ambrose gulped; she hadn’t really intended to disrupt everyone’s day. But, she supposed, it was proper.

Thank you for coming round Arthur’s Substack. I hope and pray it will be a blessing to you.

Arthur publishes with Wise Path Books and include the children’s/YA books:

The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid: A Christian historical fiction chapter book about four orphans who go to live with their aunt on a dairy farm.

The Bobtails and the Cousins: The sequel to Preacher’s Kid. The aunt has married, and the cousins come to visit. Meaning town kids dealing with chores and manure and…

The Bobtails go to France: The sequel to cousins. The Bobtails, and Preacher’s Kid, get to take a trip to New York, London, Paris, and a small town in France. To get some cheese.

and

No Ordinary School: A brilliant but socially clueless boy gets recruited for a special school. Where he makes a lot of money, gets a girl, and solves a mystery.

As well as GK Chesterton’s wonderful book, “What’s Wrong with the World”, for which ‘Arthur’ wrote most of the annotations. The book is a series of essays on how modern politics has gotten the wrong prescription for the wrong diagnosis.

Quite a few chapters of the Bobtails and No Ordinary School are here on this substack as audio.

I also write as Von, and I encourage you to check out that substack. There is a lot of theology and politics there, as well as quotes, poems, other articles, and links to other Science Fiction. But ‘Von’ also is publishing some serial books and stories. Much more adult and serious books than here, for the most part. Some of them.