Cooper is quite infamous around the house. He is not the best of house masters around the county. During the plague, they said, he discarded Dr William’s proposal. Thought that is quite what all could expect from him. Dr Willaim is our family physician. Well, he was my father’s dear friend. And he was the one who got around our house during the harder times. Today, he also became the one to pronounce Bailey dead. He said he came by the Abbey’s Local Hospital, they say Schubert would die. He is not yet dead, they say. But of course, he is bound to be dead, soon, when the time comes, they will know, they will realize, and they will pull the plug unto his life. Then everything will be peace.
Dr William doesn’t talk, or he doesn’t talk to me. I know when he saw her, he caught me, with a glint in my eye, and he has been worried since. Well, he is worried at all times. I have never ever seen him without sweat at his thick brown forehead and hurried [horried]expressions. He walks - or runs, his simple walks even seem to me, as runs to the poultry - so swiftly, quite comically but, with his small of a brown leather handbag at his behind. Dr William - though - has been nice with Priscilla at least. He like her, as a friend would like another, and has quite a charming condolence for her.
Bailey was tied to a tree stem, through her scarf. Which is probably the work of Candice. And if it truly is, then she has ruined our plan. We had decided, for once and all, that we will substitute Bailey to Candice. There she hangs now.
As an observer & friend of Candice, this truth was hard to swallow. Candice could be cruel, selfish, ignorant, greedy, demanding, egoistic, weird, or quite humble, but never could she be disloyal. Loyalty is a trait she loves about her. And she could never betray us. Not that she couldn’t, but she would rather not. Considering she is - literally - tied here, she could do anything but cross us.
Priscilla stood at a distance, enjoying the dead body of Bailey’s, enjoying how Cooper acted heartbrokenly and loved how I had made her a proud mother. She stood clutching the railing of the balcony of the third floor, unmoving as they took her away.
‘So you have accomplished the task.’ She sighed.
‘It is always difficult to let a loved one go.’
She fiercely turned to me, with her eyebrows crushed together, she spoke, ‘Not always. And certainly not when the loved one has betrayed.’
‘Well, more often than not.’
‘Yes, you are right. But I must say she was quite charming. What have you thought, must we do?’Priscilla rarely asks my suggestions.
‘We must -well not we; I must go and pay Candice a visit. She could not betray our plan like that. It is not like her, indeed.’
‘Well, certainly.’
Cooper drove his wheelchair through the main gate.
‘But for now - she smiled - let us cry.’
We laughed. On this petty inside joke. So hollow, I felt, is this what became of us?
