“Who called friendship an unconditional love was for sure someone’s lover”

The carriage that was taking Eva out of Immaje soon disappeared out of Beth’s sight the moment they entered on the forest road.

With tears streaming down her cheeks, Beth finally stopped. Her bloody leg was hurting like hell and the stinging of the open wound was making its presence feel more and more.

Beth sat down on the muddy ground and looked at the wounded foot. It looked bad but not as bad as the wound in her heart.

Miss Eva left her. Elisabeth Alby, the one who had dedicated her entire life to Miss Stonebridge’s service. It was a betrayal for Beth. She couldn’t understand why Eva behaved like this, why she didn’t at least stop to hug her for the last time and this definitely hurt Beth’s fragile and sensible soul.

Beth didn’t know where Eva was going and if she would return to Immaje someday. She didn’t know if they would meet each other again in this life. She couldn’t understand why life turned this way that day and that day precisely. She thought that their meeting with mister Beneath at the lake was a signal of good luck, but it doesn’t seem like this anymore for her.

She will hate mister Beneath from now on. He ceased, at that precise moment, to be an ideal for her, and even if she didn’t know the reason for his visit in Stonebridge’s house, she could deduce it from the past events. Eva left Immaje and it is definitely related to Brian Beneath’s visit and she will find out why.

Beth wiped her tears in a mechanical way and after bandaging her wounded leg with a broken piece of her skirt she lamely turned back to Immaje. Behind her, the forest was trembling its leaves in the gust of the cold wind that had risen from nowhere.

She entered the town when it was already dusk. On the street were only a few passers-by who were caught unforeseen and now were hurrying up home. Nobody didn't care about Beth. None of them stopped or looked at the poor lame girl that was forcing herself not to cry because of the hurt she felt in her chest that moment and also her body was burning with fever and tiredness. But Beth didn’t care about it. In her mind were rolling thoughts with the same meaning: “Why so? Why did she go away? Why did she leave me behind?” Miss Stonebridge is gone and part of Beth’s soul is missing now.

She entered the house about 8 o’clock in the evening. While going to her room, she met mister Stonebridge who was smoking his evening cigar on the terrace.

“As always he does”, thought Beth while staring with hatred at her master. “He has a piece of stone instead of a heart in his chest. His only daughter left this town heading God knows where, but her father is calm and smoking … and breathing … as if nothing has happened”.

Beth slammed the door after entering her room. She entered the bed, the same way she returned home and, wrapping herself in the blanket she closed her eyes. She should at least cure her wound or it will inflame, but she didn't have enough strength to stand up again, to boil water, to find the medicine, and to cure the wound. It was something beyond her power and will at that moment. And she preferred just to sleep.

“Tomorrow will be a new day. I’ll think tomorrow about what should be done”. She definitely knew that she must do something, but she didn’t know what.

The next morning, while Alfred Stonebridge called her asking for his morning coffee, he was surprised to see Beth dressed for a trip, with a bundle under the armpit and staring at him.

“I’m leaving, mister Stonebridge. I’m leaving this house immediately and if you want some coffee, then you definitely must prepare it by yourself”, mumbled Beth and without waiting for Alfred’s answer she left the house slamming the front door.

She was leaving now: she was leaving this empty house, this village full of happy memories that now seem so gray, so lifeless, so inhospitable. She was leaving, but she didn’t know where she was heading to, but she knew something for sure: that she must find Miss Stonebridge and that she must serve her for her entire life.

Many would call it a servant’s insanity. To leave your hometown, the places you know and to go in that huge unfriendly world because your master left you was definitely something Beth never thought about, but the feeling she had in her chest, the gratitude she felt for Eva for being her friend and mentor all her life is something Beth couldn't explain, not because she didn’t know what she was feeling, but because she had a lack of words, a lack of thoughts, she had only one single aim in front of her eyes while her legs were stepping on the cold asphalt of the town in an autumn morning.

Brian Beneath’s carriage comes to meet Beth. She knows this carriage so well because so many times she had spied on Brian while she was in town. He was the first man for whom Beth felt something. He was the first idol she had, but now he fell from his pedestal and became a usual man in Beth’s eyes.

“Good morning, Miss Beth. Where are you leaving so early in the morning?” Brian asked her in a cheerful manner.

She wanted to ignore him. She wanted so badly just to pass by his carriage and never look again into his eyes, but she also knew that if she wouldn’t say it this moment, in that precise moment, she would regret it for her entire life. And she stopped and just stared at Brian while his carriage was slowly approaching her.

Something in Beth’s glacial glance made Brian wonder. “Something definitely happened in Stonebridge’s house and he must find out what”.

“Stop the carriage, Bardain. I have a talk with this young lady”.

Bardain pulled the reins and Raven and Black Sunshine, feeling that it was time for a rest, happily puffed from their nostrils.

Beth, without saying a word, took two steps toward the carriage. Something in her eyes told Brian that if she had that power, she could have killed him at that precise moment. But why? What did he do to deserve her cold glance? From what he remembers he always was kind to her, for the simple fact he was moved inside of some innocent love of a 15-year-old lady.

“Did you know she left the town?” Beth talked to him, trying to be as cold as possible while controlling the rhythm of her vocal cords.

“Who exactly?”, answered Brain, while watching her like a dumb. Those simple words, that somebody he hadn't ever cared about left the town, somehow woke up in him a weird feeling.

“Miss Stonebridge. You met her at the lake yesterday in the noon. She left the town and abandoned me. Because of you. It happened because of you after your visit to mister Stonebridge and I’ll never forgive you for this. Goodbye, mister Beneath. I hope we’ll never meet each other again”.

And Beth just walked away. She simply and coldly had turned her back to Brian and she felt so well then, at that moment when she also said goodbye to her first love, to her first idol, to the first she had ever loved.

“Alfred Stonebridge is such a jerk”, thought Brian while grinning in a strange way. “It means he’s afraid. If he sent his one daughter away it means that he felt my threat on his skin. But where did he send her? To Yorkshire? To Ashburton? Or maybe to London?” He must find out where Miss Stonebridge has gone. He must find her, but the question which has sprouted in his heart was “What for?” and something, deep inside him, was telling him that it hadn’t nothing to do with his revenge for Alfred Stonebridge.

The carriage had moved away, heading toward an unknown destination.