London, 1851
Robert Knight was a man of iron. He paid taxes on time, he always kept the law, and he never strayed from his code of conduct. He was forty-three years old, and lived alone. Knight Printing Press was his company, and he ran it like clockwork day after day. As Robert closed his front door from a long day of staring blankly at telegrams, thinking of when he could get home to his wife, he sighed. As he walked into the living room, and smiled at her. The painting work was shoddy, and was certainly no Mona Lisa, but he loved it. After all, it was all he had left of her. Jeanette was a fiery, excitable woman from the day Robert first met her. They were a perfect balance. His calm, docile demeanor, contrasted so beautifully next to her raging, stormy eyes, those windows to the soul. She was all he could ever want. The courting and marriage was swift, almost indecently so, as it normally takes years in his time. They looked forward to a life full of opportunity and happiness. It was too good to be true. When they were each twenty, the plague raged through Europe, consuming so many lives. She looked so frail, lying there in his arms, all of her fire, her determination gone from those blue eyes. Consumed: oh, how fit a word! When the sickness hit her, she was left an empty shell. As he held her in his arms, breathing her last, his heart rent, it felt he was dying, he who was clutching her desperately, like a drowning man to a lifeline. She gazed deep into his plain, brown eyes, which seemed the most beautiful sight of all, now she would not see them anymore. Would not be able to hear the tired steps walk in, the briefcase clunk on the floor, feeling his arms around her, and his smile: a boyish, goofy grin that felt like a drop of warmth in her dull days of cooking and cleaning. She died there, in his arms. Died, and was gone. This was not a fairytale where she would live again, a comedy where she would get up and bust out laughing, no, no. She died without that hope. His boyish grin doesn’t make appearances anymore. As he sits and reads on his sofa, he hears a whisper in the ear, a promise, and he smiles, gets up, and walks calmly upstairs. The next morning, when Mr. Knight didn’t show up to work, the secretary was worried. She asked a friend of hers in the police department to run over and see if he was okay. As she walked upstairs, along the footsteps of Robert Knight, she pauses, worried. She finishes her climb, and finds Mr. Knight, sitting calmly in his study, with no indication of how he died. Then she hears it. A faint sound, subtle, nearly undetectable, and she understands. A voice, with a promise, and she smiles, as if in understanding, and turns, breathes, and slowly walks away. She stops at the stairs, turns, and takes one last look, and leaves, with a voice, with a promise in the air. A silent whisper in the ear.