It had been long since he first arrived. Not only thirty days, but sixty, and many a sun's rising and sun's falling was witnessed by him in all its colored magnifigence. Its beauty, at first, was a marvel to him, how the softened shades all seemed to embrace one another, and he quite liked to fancy that they lifted their faces to kiss each shaded cheek. Before long, the novelty of it began to fade into a much more gentle affection, and became a comfort as he would sit in the garden with Cecilia, looking up from her book and watching the customary greetings for the ever-changing sky.

The afternoon was quiet. No unwelcomed visitors came to trespass on the house and its serenity, and Cecilia could say with such certainty that not a soul besides Smike had made themselves known to her throughout the morning.

Little flashes of golden wings hovered over the lush grass, and butterflies took to perching atop the rose petals or swaying meekly over the stems of her lilies. The sun, in her mild temper, offered soothing light, but it was not enough to allay the discomforts of an intruding cough. Cecilia withdrew her handkerchief, and allowed her fit to pass with the hope of evading Smike's curious nature.

But, as she turned to assess his reaction to her coughing, she found him at peace, ensnared by the weaves of intangible sleep.

She could not blame him, for the fine weather seemed a lulling temptress in subduing the pursuit of monsters that came in the night. His body, frail and washed in incandescent light, lay stretched across the lawn, his hands strewn, in a slipshod manner, across his languid form.

Every so often, as she watched him, his lashes would flitter, and his brow would gather low into the sockets, throwing shadows where they did not belong. The weather had no remedies for troubling dreams, and so Cecilia, after a few terrible moments of hearing his fitful groans and watching his inescapable distress, took his hand into hers.

It was the only comfort she could afford, and though she felt the weight of the impropriety lay on her shoulders like boulders of guilt, she could hardly allow herself to watch him suffer. "Hush, now, my dear friend," she murmured into his dormant ear. "It is only a dream which frightens you. I am here….I am here, and never shall I leave until your words tear us asunder."

She drew a hand over his forehead, sweeping away a dark, stray hair. And in the midst of her dutiful grooming, she found herself entranced by the sweet softness of his skin. Her fingertips drifted longingly over the angles of his gaunt cheekbones, over the ridge of his jaw and finally, as his mouth parted, lost within his fitful dream, she brushed the pads of her fingers over his lips.

Only a moment did she allow such abhorrent indecencies endure. But as she found herself amongst the wistful wonder of her intrigue, she recoiled, and reached for a rose to keep her libertine hands from unearthing more trouble for themselves.

A few glances she cast toward him, but as the afternoon wore on, she did not let herself as near to him again.

It was a beautiful afternoon that Smike had missed, and he found himself unable to mourn the loss of its radiance. For instead, he found himself in the presence of such books, such writings that he could not yet understand, but would come to know intimately in due time. If only he had the ability as Cecilia, to speak with such enduring elegance and not be intimidated by the length of such words…he would have relayed his gratitude to Mr. Redgrave in every beautiful phrase.

The very same man to whom Smike had turned his thought entered the room, closing the door behind him with such gentleness as to not startle the boy.

Redgrave had learned from his infrequent observation of Cecilia's manner around Smike that a mild temper and slow, calculated movements were calming. And so, he extracted these movements from those observations, hoping he would earn a venerable trust from his ward, a boy that he dearly wished to learn more of and, mostly, have his affection.

"Smike!" cried Redgrave, who walked toward his desk to retrieve the book. "Why, my boy…has it really been so long since our last lesson? I believe Cecilia is quite selfishly hoarding all of your time for herself…"he paused, and Smike concealed a grin as the man looked him over. "By and by, boy, have you, dare I say it…grown taller? Or…is it that you no longer fearfully slouch in such an unholy manner?"

Smike bowed his head slightly, as if in entreating Redgrave to forgive his poor manners. "I do not know for certain, sir."

"Ah, yes well," Redgrave gave a hearty sigh and scoured the depths of his desk for the book. At last, he found it, and returned his kind gaze to the boy, "Perhaps you enjoy the presence of a lovely girl more than that of an old, whiskery fellow. Am I not correct in this?"

Smike laughed, and Redgrave found himself priding upon the fact that he had inspired such a delightfully sound of mirth from the youth. "I…I enjoy both your own and Cecilia's presence," Smike rubbed his hands shyly. "You are both…so very kind to me."

Redgrave eased into the tall lounging chair across from Smike, and looked on him with a kind and genteel eye. "You have been given everything that you deserve from us Smike," he replied. "You may know, from mere observation, that we are not a family that so readily confers their affection on merely any one who requests it. Selfish it may be, yes…but, in regards to you, it may be taken as a commendable feat."

"Thank you sir," Smike responded, and he looked so very mysterious in his impenetrable happiness that the master of the house, who was rarely impressed upon by any one person, was quite convinced the boy should have been his son, and his alone. "I will take it, if you are kind enough to give it to me."

Redgrave cleared his throat, and bestowed the volume on the boy, who took it with wavering hands. "There you are…yes, you have it," he crooned softly and watched as Smike rested the book in his lap. He felt a cold stab of pain stir in his heart as he watched the hand shake and the crooked, gnarled ankles curl protectively around the other. "Return to page..eighteen, if you please, and begin where we have practiced before…"

Smike then found the passage which he had marked as incomplete, and, as instructed, began to read aloud…

There are Crowns of glory to be given us, and Garments that will make us shine like the Sun in the firmament of Heaven. There shall be no more crying, no sorrow, for He that is owner of the place will wipe all tears from our eyes. There we shall be with Seraphims and Cherubins, creatures that will dazzle your eye to look on them: There also you shall meet with thousands and ten thousand that have gone before us to that place; none of them are hurtful, but loving and holy; every one walking in te sight of God and standing in his presence with acceptance for ever. In a word, there we shall see the Elders with their golden Crowns, there we shall see the Holy Virgins with their golden Harps, there we shall see men that by the World were cut in pieces, burnt in flames, eaten of beasts, drowned in the seas, for the love that they bare to the Lord of the place, all well, and clothed with Immortality as with a garment.

The reading was a pleasant one. Smike had practiced the passage with such fervor and delight before that, though a few mistakes interrupted him now and then, and a few corrections of behalf of his tutor halted his reading as well, it had become very clear and a delight to the ears.

And when he was done, Smike looked up from the page, entranced by the words which he had read; he looked hopefully at Redgrave, his white hand still on the smooth, black-and-white page.

"You…inquire after some thing, Smike?"

"Yes, sir…it is…well, only that I," he sighed, and his hand traveled softly over the parchment. "I wonder if it is where my mother had gone, when she left me in her untimely death. At Dotheboys…they talked so often of Hell and torment and punishment that I often…I often forgot of Heaven."

Redgrave was indeed enthralled by the boys' simple statement, masked in its evasive inquiry. Smike had so many a question and hidden concept of life and death that had been left to linger in the netherworld of his thoughts, of his ignorance. Now that he was there, with his tutor, they were all unleashed in hopes of being answered.

The man eased into his chair, idly scratching his cheek as if to conjure a philosophy similar to Smike's inquisitive statement.

"Since I had not the pleasure of having your mother's acquaintance in her life, I cannot assure you, in certainty, that she is there now," he began, and immediately regretted his blatant honesty as he saw the crestfallen look on Smike's face. "But if I may, Smike…if she were even half the creature of kindness and loyalty and honesty and affection as you are…I believe she is the very angel of your guidance now, looking on you from her sentry in Heaven."

Smike's expression was alight with hope. "Then there is, sir…life after death?"

"I may detest myself for reverting to such commonplace phrase, Smike but…I do believe that life is merely one passage which leads us through the phases of existence. Death may only be the entrance to another experience entirely, and one not so frail and unkind as this one."

He emitted a small breath of restored hope then, of assurance. "I always wished, "he said, the corners of his lips upturned in a bright, encouraged smile. "But I could never know surely…there must have…that is, someone…must have seen me through my darkest days."

"I do believe there has been...that is, some creature of mercy and splendor, veiled and unseen by our eyes, but nonetheless there. And I must thank her for it, if I am ever permitted to enter the same world as your dear mother," Redgrave replied softly. "For the world should not be robbed of such a kind boy as you, and I could not entrust my daughter's companionship to any other."

And in a moment of sheer vulnerability, Alfred Redgrave removed the thought of his daughter's secret and her love for the boy from his mind. He suddenly wished so ardently that Smike were a more prosperous and healthy prospect, so that he could give Cecilia to him, willingly and happily, without the fearful regret of delivering his daughter and his ward into the slow and painful rot of poverty.

She had been reading to Smike, in the pale morning light before breakfast, when her father's summoning had reached her.

Benedict had arrived, looking rather pale and undone, as if unraveled to the core, a mere strand of ribbon-like soul shackled by flesh and bone. His words were not shaken by the unsettled manner he bore.

But Cecilia could see the small distress in him no sooner did he arrive.

"Miss Cecilia, you are desired in the library." He said, and was gone before she could give a proper reply, a wisp of smoke curling into a tempestuous wind.

Smike noticed too, and beseeched her to stay with him, the softness of his voice like waves through her heartstrings, and the crestfallen look that never abandoned the pale, lovely blue of his eyes remained in her too. She assured him, and took her leave, following the fading footsteps, left cold by their lack of his buckled, black shoes.

Before long, she found herself before the door, the same she had knocked on so many times before, asking for ponies, for ribbons, for lovely dresses and dolls and tea parties just for her.

She believed it was his turn for requests, and deep in her heart, as she entered the door with his approval, she knew it would not be a demand to be considered lightly.

"Cecilia, dearest," Redgrave looked on her sullenly, pulling his eyes away from the nurtured blaze in the hearth. "It would be best if you received this…no, these particular words in comfort."

Anxious, she at first hesitated to accept his offer, but found herself inclined to do so as he began to meander toward his desk. He was displaying his material proof, she knew. As a man of logic and a believer in the beauty of reasoning and material knowledge, he was hardly one to confront a conundrum without first knowing which angles it presented for his use.

But for what she was being confronted…she could only pray it would stay her heart's secret, and to her heart alone.

Redgrave, after bending to retrieve something hidden by behind his desk, let a little groan escape him as he returned to his full height once more. His arms were latched behind his back, holding a mysterious object which Cecilia was all too eager to remain ignorant to.

"Have you even an indication as to why I have summoned you here, dearest of mine?" He asked, and halted in his languorous wandering, looking an ominous shadow as he stood before the orange-washed light of the fire.

"No, sir, I have not." She replied, keeping her head low to escape his probing eyes.

"Then, I suspect you may not be acquainted with the owner of this…"He pulled out a portrait from behind him, displaying it before her and gently laying it across the mahogany table. "Rather remarkable portrait. The ah…subject looks a touch familiar, do you not agree, Cecilia?"

She did not look. All too well did she know the face in the painting, the seraphic beauty which, concealed behind the mask of a cripple, not many could percieve. Her father knew it and cherished its potency, and Lettie had fallen victim to its affectionate and exquisite charm as well. But for once, she could not bear to look.

"Look on the portrait, Cecilia!" He demanded, and his voice, heightening with a rise in temper, raised her eyes at last to the painted canvas. Smike's sleeping form, angelic and unmoving, met her tearful stare, but she hardly knew if she could explain its existence to her father.

"Is it not our crippled boy? Our dear and beautiful Smike?" He asked, and began to pace the room. "Have my eyes failed me in their perception, or is it not him that I see before me?"

Silence.

Despair.

"I demand your answer, Cecilia, or, God forbid it, I will strike you for this insolent manner."

His voice was so low and so menacing in the delivery of his threat that Cecilia was urged to speak out of preservation, and her eyes seeped their sorrowful tears. A gasp, and a sob, and she buried her face into her hands.

She could only hope that Smike had not followed her, that he did not press his ear to the door and hear his most beloved tutor's anger.

"It is Smike, sir," she said, releasing her face from her caging hands. "And I will declare with honesty that it was my hand which caused its existence."

Her father was silent, only a moment. And in this long, unsteady moment of suspended truth, he went to her, falling to his knees before her as she wept once more. Her hands, which shook, were gathered into the weathered crevices of his, and he looked on her with such fear that he swallowed hard against the growing hysteria.

"I beseech you, my daughter," he whispered, and she met his eyes, hers red from weeping. "Assure me that you do not love him. Assure me!"

She chewed upon her lip for a moment, biting back the honesty of her intentions.

But she could repress them no more, and she said to him, "I love him, father. I love the precious and beautiful creature, the dearest boy that the world could ever offer, and he has stolen my heart so earnestly, so softly, that I dare not request for its return."

Redgrave rose from his perch before his hushed daughter, paling and shadowed by the weight of the revelation as he allowed the truth to soak into his skin, to rot in him. He reached for the mantle, over the fireplace, and leaned against the comfort of the blazing hearth, drinking in its console.

Almost at once, he prayed for rum, for drink, to soothe the nerves which plagued his every thought.

For long moments, the room strayed into obstinate silence. Neither would speak, but only Cecilia lacked the courage to face her father's undulating rage.

"Cecilia, you…."He shook his head, and slammed his fist against the mantle. "You are a foolish girl….indeed, you are exceedingly foolish! Have you so easily forgotten your duty? To yourself and to Pickett, as terribly obnoxious I might declare truthfully in your defense, as he is? Have you so easily forgotten your…your betrothed?"

At once, Cecilia was caught in a rage, and flung herself from her chair. "I will not marry him father, I will not! I do not love him!"

"Love," he shouted in return. "Is not to be reckoned here! It is not to be thought of, or wished for, or permitted in the face of reason. You, as a wife, will be mistress of Thoreau and will be exempt from the destitution my death should have brought! I will not allow my only daughter, my cherished one, whom I love with all the heart I am able to give, to be thrown into poverty in the wake of my death. I will not allow it!"

Her knees gave way, weakened as her resolve stood firm against his fervent disapproval. "Father, please…please do not give me away to that horrid man!"

"And I suppose you want to marry Smike, then? Is that what I am to derive from your entreaty for mercy?"

She stared at him openly, without submission, seething with such anger as she'd never known before. "Yes."

Redgrave looked on his daughter with pity, his anger subsiding as he began to realize her anger was born of misery.

"And what life could Smike offer?" He questioned. "The life of a nurse in which you will waste away, nurturing his adverse infirmities? A life of poverty and sickness? If he were to die in the midst of his frailty, you, my dearest, would be rendered a poor maid."

But Redgrave did not halt in his pragmatic rebuttal. "And what of a child? It is uncertain whether poor, delicate Smike harbors the capability to conceive a child, and if such misfortunes were allowed to progress, should that child, God forbid he be permitted entrance into a world of mockery and pity, be reduced to a poor and fragile cripple – as his father before him?"

"I do not care! I love him, and all that I desire is the love of my dear companion for the remainder of my life," she declared, and felt the heat of her tears sting her pale cheeks. "I would rather endure a life of poverty, of destitution and ruination than be showered with the riches and silks and poisonous endearments of a pretentious and ruthless cad."

"Cecilia, he is a cripple! He is a pitiful creature, not to be married, not to give you children, but to be only bestowed with compassion and mercy!"

"He is not pitiful, father!" She retorted, her fury resurfacing in the face of his blatant disregard. "He has been dealt with badly by the world, and yet he is unchanged by its hand. For that, he is a hero, and for his loyalty, his sweet nature and his beauty – I love him. And not with reason or logic or medicine can you alter the will of my heart!"

Another bout of silence settled over the heated room. Redgrave looked on his weeping daughter, barely restraining her sobs, and began to feel sick himself. It was a long time before he could conjure the courage and will to speak to her, to reject her plea for the happiness and contentment he knew she so rightfully deserved.

"You will marry Pickett. He is to inherit this house, and you are to be his wife. I cannot allow you to marry a cripple and die a lonely old maid when he is taken from you early by sickness or accident. No, I fear you must think practically. Smike will remain here, with me, when you go. And that is the end of it."

Cecilia allowed her last, pitiful sob to escape her, and she released herself from the manner of her composure, fleeing from the room in a fit of renewed weeping.

And as her sobs faltered into the quiet of the house, Redgrave sank, utterly defeated, into the cushions of the sofa.

In the garden, there was peace.

It offered escape which no other place on the large Thoreau estate could replicate. The flowers, the grass, the memories of laughter and poetry and prose and soft gesture of friendship. Perhaps, Cecilia thought as she wandered through its veil which separated her heaven from its earth, the flowers could have been removed, the grass could die, the little white bench which she loved so dearly would disappear altogether, and as long as Smike would not go, she knew that the place in which she sat was one of its kind.

With red, swollen eyes, she looked on it.

The white picket fence, standing like the gates of Heaven around the fragile blossoms, surrounded the entirety of the flower-studded yard in its sunlit glow. So many flowers that defied the simplicity of monochromatic shades, roses of red, violets of blue, and lilies and peonies and patches of sweet-smelling heather. There was a small stone path, rather beaten by unkind feet, washed gray and darkened by the shade of a great apple tree, not yet bearing fruit, but freckled with the blossoms of spring.

And then her little bench – white and carved of birch wood, settled near the roses, not five feet from the gate, and the patch of grass before them was where Smike would fall to dreams, pleasant or cruel, as she read to him.

It had not been the hardest work he'd endured, certainly that was plain for even him to see. In fact, compared to some of the chores that Mistress Squeers had appointed for him, assisting in the stables seemed a walk through Cecilia's garden in contrast.

Cecilia's garden.

It had reminded Smike that he had not seen the mistress all morning, and had missed her at breakfast as he was summoned by Benedict to administer oat and feed to the horses, as the stable boy had come down with a terrible fever. Smike, though rather disappointed in missing one of only three times in the day he could converse with Mr. Redgrave for more than five minutes at a time, mutedly accepted the task and hobbled down to the stables.

He had rather enjoyed visiting the horses, as they were all beautiful, well-bred creatures, and gentle too; not one of them rejected a pat on the nose or a stroke on their long, sleek necks. He'd almost been sorry to leave, but seeing them so involved with their own food, their jowls working and their eyes soft, allowed him to leave without much regret.

Upon seeing the first glimpse of the fresh white paint of the picket fence, Smike pressed harder on his walking stick and arrived on the threshold of the garden. The bench was not vacant; he saw Cecilia there, her white dress, speckled with calico print, glowed in the light of the sun.

But the usual graceful posture that captured her form had abandoned her, and she sat with her head in her hands, her body looking woeful and broken in its frail, curving pose.

"Cecilia?" He called to her, his soft, lovely voice drifting over the current of the win, and as she received his mild address, she released her face from the comforting cage of her hands.

Her skin was flushed and her cheeks had been rendered ruddy and unevenly blotted from tears. Even her nose, untouched even by sunlight beneath the shade of her various bonnets, had grown bright red from uncontrollable sniffling; she looked a disaster, and the worry of such a countenance overwhelmed him. He hastened, pausing only to gently shut the white gate behind him. As he came toward her Cecilia began to awkwardly sift through her sleeves for a handkerchief, turning her face away from him out of the shame of her appearance.

Once he had reached the bench, he struggled to quietly ease into the spot beside her, as to not disturb the girl in her unrest. The walking stick was settled over the lush grass to rest at his crooked feet, and he took a clean white handkerchief from his breast pocket, extending the cloth to her as a peaceful offering. I mean you no harm, miss…I want only to help you, it said.

Cecilia took it gratefully, and rewarded the offering with her acquiescence. "Thank you, dear friend."

He almost dared not inquire, after seeing the aftermath of her tears, but his curiosity seized him, as if caught in a fit. "Cecilia…why do you cry?" He asked. "Have you…been hurt?"

Embarrassed by her lack of conduct, she briefly turned away from him again, as if to gather her wits, and a coughing fit ensnared her again. She blamed it on the relentless weeping.

"No, no," she told him, nonchalance in her voice. "It is nothing of great significance. Merely a…disagreement between myself and my obstinate father."

For a long while, he stared at her white, gloveless hand, and it shone like pearl in the light. Despite the urge to take it, as was the customary form of comfort that he had always known as a safe reassurance for the boys at the school, he knew the regulations of propriety that forbid him to resort to such reckless console. And so, he was reduced to a drone, a slave to his inner contender. Dare I take it and risk her ruination if she be caught?

At last, he shoved away all rumination on the matter and outstretched his own ashen hand toward hers. It trembled, out of weakness, out of fear, and hesitation plagued him as he tentatively brushed his fingers over the smooth skin, just under the shadowed knuckles. She recoiled and gasped, and Smike, out of habit, resorted to the small pathetic hunch that had been his sanctuary when faced with the school spoon, the wrath of the mistress at Dotheboys.

However, he was met with quite a different response to his endeavors than what he had expected by the girl.

She closed her hand over the trembling fingers and smiled at him in a rueful sort of way. "Thank you."

"Sir, would you be so kind…"Smike began, one afternoon during one of their many lessons. "To teach me to read a certain poem?"

Redgrave had been reaching for The Pilgrim's Progress when the request had been made, and had been quite intent on delivering the book to his student without any other thoughts of poetry or prose to delay his delivery. But upon hearing Smike's voice, and the earnest wish that he should learn something other than the prose of John Bunyan, he was entirely stalled and plummeted into fearful anticipation.

He gave a laugh to suppress the fear that spread through his old and somnolent veins. "Why…why ever for, my dear boy? Have you ehm…grown weary of Bunyan's venerable work?"

Smike shook his head, his mouth shaped into a small and similarly fearful shape. "Never sir…I…I would never tire of him but…I should like to be able to…very much…to read to Cecilia her beloved Shakespearean Sonnets."

And there it was. The declaration of requited affection that Alfred Redgrave had, many various times in his head, recited and invented before. And though it was not at all like the confession he had fabricated in his own vivid and rather wild imagination, he still found it suitably alike in the ways of a shy proclamation of love. From Smike, a timid creature who would rather unveil his affection slowly, patiently, it was a brash and cleverly furtive statement that would send Redgrave reeling from his hopes that the boy had been indifferent to his daughter.

Or so he avidly thought.

"My boy, it would be much too ah…complex for you, at least in this awkward stage in which you find yourself amateur. A wonderful amateur, I declare, and you are quite the avid and skillful learner, Smike! An intelligent creature indeed, however," he paused and bent before him, apology settling in his eyes. "Shakespeare's flowery, indulgent language would be much too difficult to articulate and comprehend in the…novelty of your erudition."

Immediately, the remorse flooded him, and he was forced to turn away, out of fear of discovery. He acknowledged the verity that Smike was no simpleton in mind, despite his lack of education or nurturing in his childhood, and Redgrave, though skilled with words and intellectuality, was never a master of his own emotions. Thus, he was ruined as a card player…and as a liar as well.

But then, just as he was to celebrate his own victory, he was defeated, his will scattered by the mere sound of such a heartrending and entreating voice.

"Please, sir…I would do anything for Miss Cecilia."

Redgrave, hearing the desperate sorrow and lingering in the boy's voice, turned to see an expression so pitiful, so hopeful, that he would sooner tear out his heart than allow such pity to purge his sound reasoning. But he relented, seeing the distressing look on the boy's pale face, and he eased himself into his sofa with a sigh, settling down beside the boy.

"Well, Smike…might I be offered at least a partial semblance of reasoning as to why I should educate you in the ways of Shakespeare's eloquent world of rhyme?"

"Reason, sir?"

"Why yes…whenever Cecilia is to request an indulgence, I am required, by my own determined and obstinate mind, to demand that she extend her reasons for wanting such a petty trifle," he replied, and lifted his shoulders, as a sort of dismissive gesture, as Smike frowned inquisitively, a reaction to his addling explanation. "It is a rather…customary game, of sorts. A battle of wits between us."

I love her sir…I love her more than I could ever dare to love again.

I wonder, would that suffice?

"It would….that is, for the both of us, sir," Smike began, and fumbled through his brain for the right clarification for his request. He felt secretly proud, to be permitted to play such a game that had been deemed a diversion reserved solely for the Redgrave family. "It would help to teach me and..and it would entertain and repay Cecilia…for all the prose and poetry she has read to me."

Redgrave laughed with such energy and mirth as the explication of Smike reached his ears that, at first, Smike feared he was being mocked for his words. But as Redgrave rose, still chuckling to himself in little peals of delight, and removed a small, thin volume from his collection, he realized his request had been accepted.

"Here you are, Smike," Redgrave said, a small, forced smile on his face as, at last, the laughter died away fully into oblivion. "I believe this is what you are referring to?"

As Smike took the small, leather-bound volume, he was so utterly devoured by the sight of it that he missed the unmistakable mark of guilt and sorrow which grew in the hollows of Alfred Redgrave's lined, weatherworn face.

"Which poem do you wish to learn?" He asked, sitting down, slowly, into the tall armchair behind him.

"I…I cannot recall…" Smike lamented, his fingers stroking the leather covering. He was silent, and at first Redgrave rejoiced in the boy's forgetfulness. It was soon decimated when Smike recalled and announced, 'Sonnet 116!' with such excitement he had never seen before in him. Though it was soft and quiet as gossamer sliding over naked hands, and hardly pronounced, it was still such sentiment he'd never seen so ardently revealed in Smike before.

This is the end of it, I am sure of it now…I will never forgive myself for this.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds, Admit impediments, love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover…to remove," Redgrave spoke quietly, mournfully, as he realized his own correlation to the poem.

Am I to be deemed the remover of this love? Am I to be the villain, when all my hopes in the remainder of this life lie on the hopes that my daughter remains in comfort and stability? Am I to dash her happiness, and his as well…these dear children, one whom I loved all my life, and one…whom I have come to love as my own son?

'Love is not love, which alters when its alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove.'

This love shall not be broken; I am to be the fiend…

"Yes, I know it well," Redgrave cleared his throat, and bent forward, over the space which separated the two, to point to the first line. "Begin here, Smike…"

And as Smike read, as he allowed the words of such love to flow through him, Redgrave wallowed in his wretched secret and the agony of such horrid revelation.

Word of the disagreement between the master of the house and his headstrong daughter spread throughout the household like a wild inferno even for the few days after the actual occurrence itself, and each remark, like tinder to the heart, had its own fuel to add to the ravaging fire.

No one knew of the true nature of the dispute, and in their desperation to include their own good addition to the retelling of the story, most of the housemaids had taken to the finer details as opposed to the greater picture.

Some whispered that Cecilia had claimed her father was an 'insufferable and tyrannical cad', and swore to high heaven that it was on account of his intervention in the affair between the daughter and his young stable boy. Others recounted the father's cruel names for his impudent daughter, and that his disowning of her had been owed to her cruelty toward his favorite pet: the ward of Redgrave, a crippled boy who'd arrived not three months earlier and had been employed as the caretaker for the misses' garden.

If only they had known how entirely wrong each one of them had been in regards to the confrontation between the two.

Nonetheless, the gossip proved to be a most helpful diversion as half the household help convened in the kitchen to prepare for the dinner party to be arriving that evening. The rest arrived from the fields and the washing shack to set the decorations and candles in the formal dining area, chattering happily all the while.

But the servants were cunning in keeping themselves mute in the presence of their masters, and once the company had been let in, all was silent on behalf of the housemaids.

As the Picketts and the Redgraves, and young Smike as well, had all been settled in their seats, only Benedict remained behind to oversee the success of the evening meeting.

For once, the room was much too silent as Benedict commenced his usual pouring of the wine; at least it was considering that Nathaniel Pickett was present, sitting across from Cecilia Redgrave herself. He looked rather smug, casting expectant glances toward Redgrave, sitting at the head of the table as master of the house, that his mother and sister had missed.

Instead, the two female relatives, of the name Pickett of course, entertained themselves with surreptitious whispering amongst each other about the appearance of the strange young boy that sat so silently across from them.

The mother, Mrs. Mercy Pickett, and her pretty daughter, Abigail, had never, not once in their entire lives, seen him before. They'd only known his name from the initial welcome they'd received in the foyer on behalf of Alfred Redgrave. He was not dressed in such finery as Cecilia and Mr. Redgrave, looking quite simple in his dark blue overcoat and fresh linen shirt beneath. But it was his physicality they did not like; both Abigail and Mrs. Pickett had been quite opposed to his disability upon discovering his unseemly walk.

Redgrave did not percieve the whisperings, and as he took the first sip of his wine, looked to Pickett and said, "Sir, if you insist upon your relentless winking, I shall make my own insistence. Please, unveil to us your purpose in tiring your eyes, if it is not so needless as I should think?"

Pickett's grin resembled that of a leer, so wide and thin and unfriendly in spite of its intended honesty. He stood with his glass, as if to toast. "Indeed, you percieve this wrongfully my good sir! I have purpose, and I declare that it is as sound as any should be!"

"Indeed." Redgrave murmured, and indulged himself in his wine a little more. He should think he would need it, if the evening was to be suffered with the incorrigible young man and his unstoppable chatter.

The scarlet-haired youth gave an affable little laugh as he stood before the company, and began his speech. "To all of you, I make this most happy announcement, and I should hope that it will bring contentment and happiness to you all in regards to the feelings and comforts of our dearest Cecilia and, of course, myself," he paused, clearing his throat, and his mouth seemed stretched with its unruly enthusiasm. "In but a month – nay, perhaps a fortnight, Cecilia and myself shall be joined in the bonds of matrimony! Is that not such wonderful news?! Yes, isn't it so wonderful? I fear I shall die of happiness straight away!"

Mrs. Pickett and Abigail were not at all surprised, and in honor of the great declaration, they afforded the handsome youth a standing ovation.

Smike was the only one present at the table to be overrun with the awful shock of surprise.

He looked to Mr. Redgrave, who was greedily drinking the last of his wine and summoning Benedict to fill his empty glass, and then to Cecilia, who stared despondently at her empty plate, showing no contrition, no explanatory glance which only she, in her own mind, thought she owed in the least to her dear friend.

Smike felt no such obligation. Despite his own bafflement, he knew he should not have been so utterly astonished by the publication of the engagement. Cecilia Redgrave was a woman of affluent connections, of old wealth and good breeding, and her manners, though not of the most esteemed kind, were relatively acceptable amongst her peers. Could have he expected anything else of the girl? Anything less?

He was a mere drudge, and though they were equal in spirit, their social statures separated them in the reality of the world. Though he loved her, in the face of societal veracity he did not deserve her, nor deserve to ever look upon her without the intent to speak to her as a mistress and nothing more.

Not until then did the authenticity of his impropriety breach the borders of his unspeakable love, and as the women laughed and reveled in their celebration of the event across from him, Smike became instantly contrite. He felt that he had not even merited being amongst such good, wealthy company.

And so he rose, bowing very low to Cecilia and Mr. Redgrave as they watched him leave. The Picketts witnessed the small gesture too and, upon seeing the boy's departure, suddenly quieted, as if they had been spooked into submission by a most unhappy ghost.

Pickett frowned as he picked up his wine. "Have…I revealed too much for the boy? Has he been unsettled by such news, to lose his good mistress?"

Cecilia stood instantaneously, giving her female counterparts a hearty startling. They gasped, clutching the napkins to their mouths to conceal the frailty of their blushes, and watched humbly through their lashes as the girl lay her own napkin gently over her plate.

"I beg of you, all of you, to pardon my absence this evening but I – I feel as though I suffer a…a cruel flush and I am quite unwell," she turned to her father and addressed him. "Please forgive me. I must go."

He acquiesced to her silent beseeching, and mildly waved her off. The girl bowed and she took her leave, the two women behind her left in a flurry of hushed whispers.

"Why, if I have never seen such impudence in the presence of esteemed company!" muttered Mrs. Pickett, her eyes flashing with indignant disapproval. "If you had behaved in such a manner Abigail I should have done you a great hurt!"

Abigail, however, was quite enraptured by the girl's dress, and would not hear of the strained formality of her departure.

Meanwhile, Cecilia had reached Smike's room. She gathered her wits, taking one swift, encouraging breath, which refreshed her audacity to enter the boy's room without so much as a chaperone to supervise the visit. She knew she should not have even entertained the idea of such improper endeavors, but she knew Smike deserved her explanation. It was the least she could offer, in the face of her own unkind deception.

She gave a knock on the door and his soft, sweet voice permitted her entrance.

As she walked inside, she saw that he had regained his composure. The surprise had, at first, overwhelmed him, but as she looked on him now she could find no traces of such bafflement. In fact, he looked pleasant, kind, and welcomed her with a countenance that suggested laudatory congratulations, though touched by weariness. He had removed his blue dinner jacket, and it lay smooth and unfurling over his coat rack near the window while he lay quietly on his bed. Cecilia could not endure the appalling obscenity of even considering sitting on his bed with him and, instead, brought up a chair to his bedside.

For a moment, she was silent, perching like a porcelain doll in her perfectly straight posture, drowning in the lace and satin of her evening dress. He seemed to look on her expectantly with such soft, compassionate eyes, and in the candlelight, Cecilia secretly mused that she had never seen eyes as beautiful as his.

She drew one hasty breath, and said, "Smike, I beg you…permit me a moment to enlighten you...I know that I have not been entirely truthful on the matter of my engagement to Mr. Pickett."

He shook his head. "There is no need for it, miss."

She found herself stricken dumb by his abrupt dismissal, and her hands, in response to his detached reaction, furled uneasily in the folds of her dress.

He smiled, and it was such a whisper-thin sort of gesture that, if Cecilia had not looked hard enough, she would have missed the curling edges altogether. "I am happy for you. I…I am, truly."

"Smike…." She replied, feeling tears breach their borders. "Smike, my dear friend, please…will you not listen to me?

Smike frowned then and struggled to raise himself from his indolent repose. Once he had comfortably settled into a sitting position, he looked at her, rather confused by her words. "I need no explanation, miss. There is nothing for it," he said, and there was nothing but the light of his eyes to suggest the presence of life in him. "If you are to be happy, then I shall be too…and I am quite, for the both of you."

She found herself quite hurriedly discharged from his presence.

There was no spite in his release.

Dejection, certainly…but there was not a hint of brutality in the way that his voice flowed through her ears, pierced her heart. What hurt her most, however, was the regression of his calling her…he had addressed her as miss again.

Directly after the expression of his wish for solitude, he turned away from her, his body twisting until it faced the window, and she saw nothing more of his face. It was what he wanted most…for her not to see the unleashing of his true sentiments in regards to the announced engagement. Jealousy was foremost in the procession, with fear and hurt and desperation soon after.

It was anger that was the meager of the company, and it was so vague in its appearance that it seemed more irritation than downright fury. He could hardly be angry with her, or even him for that matter, if she was to be happy. But he could certainly invest envy in the man that would have his beloved's heart, as precious as it was.

He could only hope that Nathaniel Pickett endeavored to deserve such a cherished gift.

Finding herself immersed in his rejecting silence, she rose dutifully from the chair, hoping he would turn and face her…hoping he would do something, do anything to quell the fear in her that she had lost him for eternity. And she found herself wishing that some sort of emotion would manifest in him. Anger, disgust, sorrow…anything but the ambiguous indifference which claimed his posture then.

But she could not see the veracity of his emotion, and for that he was thankful.

"Goodnight, my friend," she whispered, and swallowed hard against the growing mound of misery in her throat. She bent toward the candle, and it was snuffed out by her one strained, weak breath.

The light was dispersed from the room, reduced to mere shadows as her silhouette glided noiselessly across the room. With one last look, she closed the door behind her, and Smike settled into his head deeper into the goose feather pillow, listening intently to the fading sound of her footsteps across the wooden floor.

It was in the grey hours before early morning, on the threshold of the passing of cold, dreary night, that Cecilia woke from tumultuous dreams.

In them, there was the slow, vague malice of alteration and the permanent separation from her father and her friend that was depicted in such vivid and aloof violence. She could not escape them, could not evade the scarlet monster in the terrible dream, and so she woke with a start, her heart thudding in her chest like the slow, padded resonation of footsteps across a shadow-strewn floor.

For a long time, minutes that could not be measured by mere afterthought or deliberation in her muddled head, she lay there, staring at the pale ceiling, washed in the light of the sterling stars which flooded her drowsy windowpanes. But the pain of the dreams seemed so lucid in presentation when she had been caught in between the worlds of waking and slumber; the pain did not allay, only stumbled on until it allowed itself to become a dull ache, and she found herself climbing out from the warmth of her coverlets, reaching for her the rumbled black fabric of her housecoat nearby.

She hardly knew where to go, where to wander to when before, it had appeared to her to be the most obvious concept in the world. When such dreams had come to her in the past, she wandered toward the library, to lose herself in the candlelit worlds of pirates and princesses and poets stricken by the muses of love and loss.

The most obvious place of comfort now was so forbidden, no longer open to her like the books of the library or the console of the moonlight through her windowpanes. Her comfort lay asleep in his bed, fragile legs sprawling across the linens and his breath like whispers in the darkened room. And she longed to hear it, the ease of his breath; she longed to see him, drowned in his peaceful sleep.

And so, she disregarded the admonishment of her teachings of manners. She tied the housecoat over her, securing the knot as she crept into the drowsy corridors; in his room, she stole across the floorboards, illuminated by the glow of the moon. Her chair still remained in its solitary sentry, watching over the delicate creature in his sleep, the frail angel wrapped in a film of reveries.

Once there, she took over the guard of the chair and eased into her former perch. He lay on his side, facing away from her, and his dark hair was made silver by the beams that filtered through the glittering, white-washed panes.

And in that moment, she felt the tears consume her. They filled her, like a flood unleashed from the hands of God himself, ridding the world inside her of its filth and its iniquity. Only the purity of her affection remained, and she was besotted by that strange and elusive angel in his crippled disguise.

She could not understand the sorrow that filled her, the tears that riddled her cheeks with a formidable chill and unyielding heat. A coughing fit rose in her, and she struggled to contain it as she began to weep.

Where are you? She reached forward, her face glistening with tears, and touched his unmoving shoulder. Come back to me. I am in need of your warm voice, your sheltering kindness.

But when she had shaken him, and he had not stirred, she surrendered to her tears, burying her face into his arm and allowing them to flow freely into the skin of her most beloved.

Where are you, Smike?

I am sorry…I beg your forgiveness, though I do not deserve it.

Come to me…please, come to me.