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Chapter 17
The next day, Percy needed to take a trip into town, so he set off quite early. He had a few places that he needed to visit and knew that the earlier he arrived, the sooner he could return home and tend to the business that needed handling there.
But before setting off on his tasks, he took a moment on the river bridge to admire the beauty of the vines that were tumbling from it. It was then Percy noticed a man staring at him from the other end of the bridge. Percy stared back at him until he realized that the man was Edmund.
Percy walked over to him. “Good morning, sir,” Percy greeted him. “Thank you very much for your assistance last night, that was a great help.”
Edmund tipped his hat to him and smiled. “Glad to have been of service,” Edmund said humbly. “Why were you enquiring about my friend? Was there something happening that I missed?”
Percy couldn’t think of a good lie fast enough, so he simply told him a simplified version of the truth. “I was afraid that he had run off with a female friend of mine,” Percy informed him.
Edmund smiled knowingly and leaned against the side of the bridge. “Ahh yes, unfortunately, Arthur tends to be ruled by his member as opposed to his brain, what a silly man!”
Edmund laughed as though it was a very funny joke, but Percy did not see the humour. “You realize that your friend has ruined the reputations of countless young women with his dalliances, don’t you?” Percy asked him.
Edmund stopped laughing abruptly. “Of course I am aware of that, what do you take me for, a fool?” he asked Percy.
“Then why in heaven’s name are you laughing about it?” Percy demanded. “These young women were vulnerable and very much in love with your friend. All he does is seduce them and then abandon them when he has got what he wants from them.”
Percy didn’t realize how loudly he was shouting until he heard his own voice echoing back at him from the gorge below. He could not believe that Edmund was treating the horrendous way that Arthur was acting with these young women as though it was funny.
“My good man,” Edmund said condescendingly, “these were classless, meaningless young women. What does it matter if he had a bit of fun with them? They should be honoured to have had any time at all with a man as great as Arthur.”
Percy’s blood was now boiling. He stepped in towards Edmund, grabbed his collar, and pulled Edmund towards him. Their faces were inches from each other, and Percy snarled, “If you ever refer to any woman asworthlessever again, I will hurl you off this bridge without a second thought. Arthur abused his privilege with those ladies, and he should be ashamed of himself.”
Edmund, however, did not seem intimidated at all by Percy. He laughed in his face and replied, “Ashamed of himself? Just as you should be because of the behaviour you’ve exhibited around Miss Seymour?”
Percy abruptly let go of Edmund’s collar and took a few steps back. Edmund adjusted his shirt and tugged down his vest and jacket, as though Percy had really ruffled them when he was holding him. “You didn’t think I saw the way the two of you were together?” Edmund asked, sauntering closer to Percy. “The way she bats her eyes and treats you like you’re the funniest man in the world. And yet ... you haven’t requested to court her yet, have you? It would be a shame if someone were to swoop in there and whisk Miss Seymour off her feet, now wouldn’t it?”
Percy glared back at Edmund so hard that his right eye began twitching. He was sickened by this man and could not believe that Lydia saw anything redeeming in him. However, he was absolutely right about what he had said about Percy’s relationship with Lydia. Percy knew that he was an awful coward for not having asked to court her yet, but there was so much holding him back.
“How dare you speak to me like that,” was all Percy could think to spit back at him.
Edmund looked out over the side of the bridge. “Meanwhile, I’ve already visited Miss Seymour once formally, and I plan on doing it many more times shortly. You know, I think I might even go as far as to say I would propose to her ... and my gut is telling me that she’ll say yes.”
Edmund turned with a look of smug pride on his face. “If you know how I feel about Miss Seymour,” Percy snarled, “then why are you doing this? Do you have feelings for her? Are you madly in love with her, and can you not imagine the rest of your life without her?”
Edmund shrugged in a non-committal manner. “Miss Seymour is quite beautiful, but there is little about her that is particularly endearing. However, I believe that she will make a hard-working wife, unlike the women who are of the same class that I am. That is why I would like to marry her,” he explained emotionlessly. But then, he added, “Well, that and the fact that I would have the pleasure of watching you be unhappy for the rest of your life, Percy.”
“Did I do something to you that I’ve forgotten about?” Percy found himself shouting at Edmund. “Is there something about my personality that you find so insulting that you feel a need to take Lydia away from me?”
Edmund rolled his eyes as though he was a teenage boy listening to his parents tell him to tidy his room for the fifth time this week. “Oh, don’t take things sopersonally, Percy,” Edmund scolded him. “We live in a society where no one ever truly gets to be happy, so why should you or I be any different?”
“Because,” Percy screamed back at him, “there is an obvious answer to this dilemma! If you do not believe that you love Lydia, then you should not marry her! There are thousands of women of your own class who would throw themselves at you, and yet you’re choosing to go after Lydia because ... because why exactly?”
Again, Edmund shrugged. Percy was stunned how quickly this society gentleman was dissolving into a cruel beast before his very eyes. “I simply enjoy chaos, Percival,” Edmund answered back, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I have lived my whole life by the rules, and so because I have finally discovered one small act through which I can rebel against the system that made me who I am, I am seizing it. And as I get to upset a man who I believe personifies the very backbone of our upright society in the process – I am speaking about yourself, of course – I figure it could be one of the best moves I’ll make in my life.”
With that, Edmund turned on his heel and walked away from Percy without saying another word. Percy was so stunned by the whole conversation that he stood there without moving for a few minutes after Edmund left.How could this happen?he wondered to himself as he stood there.
Why would a man take the woman who I believe to be the great love of my life from me ... with no good reason to? It is not as though marrying Lydia would do wonders for his position in society or increase his wealth, and he isn’t even doing it because he has an issue with me. He is simply, as he said, wreaking havoc for the sake of itself.
Not knowing what else to do, Percy turned around and went home. He felt so confused, angry, and frustrated that he needed to be by himself for a while. Whatever errand he had needed to run could wait until another day.
Meanwhile, Lydia was assisting her father at her home to pack up his medical kit for a call he was attending. Lydia felt quite at home in her father’s surgery and knew his tools almost as well as he did. “If she’s exhibiting generalized nausea, tenderness in her chest and weight gain, do you not think that Miss Derry might not be suffering from a tapeworm but rather …”
“She may very well be with child,” her father said, sighing. Rodrick was not a stranger to going and visiting young women who were attempting to hide unwanted pregnancies from their families. Because he was a kind man, Rodrick would always turn a blind eye in front of the family and diagnose the young woman with some other, less disruptive illness so that her relatives would stop pestering her. And then, he would usually call Lydia in from the carriage so that the young woman might have a chance to tell someone who she knew she could trust what really happened and how she came to be in this state.
“Another one of these cases is it?” Lydia asked, closing up her father’s case and handing it to him.
