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— Part One —
When Bess was just a girl, the pillow was one of the children’s favorite toys. Like the Velveteen Rabbit from the story — which Sam’s great-granddaughter read somberly many years later, her familiar dark hair falling into her eyes as she bent intently over the book — the pillow was loved not for its beauty but for its function. It was mostly an ugly thing — a worn, dismal brown disc hardened from years of use and lack of cleansing. It had a tanned hide front, darkened by water spots and small greasy fingers, and a woven cloth back. The only redeeming thing about its appearance, at least in Bess’s eyes, was the dark red ribbon loosely whipstitched around its border.
The pillow was supposed to be decorative, although Bess couldn’t name a single room in the inn that was improved by its presence. Instead, Bess, Sam and their younger brothers found it much more useful as something to pummel one another with and throw about in the stable yard. During the whipping winds and soggy rain of the winter, it could be hidden under chairs and behind curtains, as well — one small pleasure during Mother’s siege with cholera when the children were quarantined next to her bed chamber in a single small room.
Mother died early on their third day of isolation. Father, bitter with loss, harshly forbade Bess from seeing her. Bess was her mother’s twin, though, headstrong and determined — and she nevertheless snuck into Mother’s room while Father was attending a customer. The close air in the room was wretchedly moist, clinging like sweat to the fine hairs on Bess’s arms and face - yet Mother looked utterly parched in death, her dark eyes dully sunken and lips painfully cracked.
Bess couldn’t bring herself to touch Mother though she longed to embrace her. She paused, though, as she fled the quarantine chambers to grab the pillow. It lain askew behind a side table. She stroked the crimson ribbon as she wept hot tears by the casement that night. Mother had sewn it on herself.
On rare occasions after Mother’s death, Father bade Tim the stablehand to accompany Bess and the boys onto the moor. Tim would sit, although not on the pillow which he justly claimed was somehow less comfortable on his nether regions than a jagged rock, and watch them roam. He was presumably prepared to intervene in the event of unseen bogs or twisted ankles though Bess somewhat doubted his dedication to this. She was now nearly fifteen years of age and gave Tim a wide berth. His watery blue eyes seemed to follow her every movement unblinkingly.
On one such trip, Bess busied herself picking wild flowers while the boys ran riot - hurling small rocks, damp pieces of sod, and the pillow (of course) at one another. She’d just put an unruly bundle of yellow cowslip down next to a pile of it’s more orderly cousin primrose, when she heard Sam let out a genuine squawk of horror — and raised her head in time to see the pillow disappear over a wash of heather and straight down into a narrow ravine.
Sam pushed past his little brother, whose misfire had caused the disaster, and headed hotly towards the edge of the drop-off as though he intended to bodily follow the pillow down — only to be caught roughly by Tim round the waist.
“Come on,” said the ostler flatly, carrying Sam to safety. “There’s nought down there for ye excepting broken bones and dying of thirst.”
Sam looked like he wanted to fight himself lose and carry on with his original plan, but mutinously resigned himself to yanking hard on Tim’s dull blonde curls instead.
Before Tim could stop her as well, Bess ran to peer over the edge. Her hem snagged on jagged strips of wild grass. She jerked it loose violently, desperately hoping the ribbon had perhaps caught on an errant root or outcropping of rock. But when she looked she saw nothing; the pillow had disappeared amongst the overgrown foliage & rocks far below.
— Part 2 —
It was the etched ring on the stranger’s little finger that gave him away.
He’d slunk into the pub one particularly wet evening, water dripping steadily off each corner of his black cocked hat, and stood quietly — calculatedly surveying the inn’s customers as they sat scattered throughout the establishment.
Seventeen year old Bess watched him unabashedly from behind the bar. His eyes were barely visible in the dark shadow cast by the hat’s brim. When they finished their tour of the room and finally alighted on her in the far corner — she did not blink or lower her gaze.
The stranger inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of her gaze and smiled slightly. She did not respond — she’d learned not to, rarely did such overt acts of friendliness benefit her when the inn’s male patrons or alcohol was involved. He peeled himself off of the doorframe he’d been leaning against and came to her. She noted that his trousers, like his hat, were damp from the day’s endless rainfall — and also exceedingly close-fitted. He moved with a lavishly long gait in the small space, all the same. She marveled he did not split a seam.
When he reached the bar, he asked her for a drink — and set his long-fingered tan hand upon the counter. A dainty gold ring, with a delicate hatching pattern, encircled his smallest finger. A single small sapphire was affixed to its center, a dark point of lustre in the surrounding gleam.
Bess turned away from the stranger to pour his ale. That very mid-day, a distraught woman had come barreling up to the inn in a fine four-wheeled covered carriage. Her husband’s apparently lifeless body bounced like a rubber ball on one of the bench seats as the carriage hurtled over cobblestones.
Tim had soothed the woman’s harried horses in his usual bloodless manner, while Father had shouted orders upon their arrival: Bess was to hasten to a doctor, Sam was to help the woman indoors away from the inclement weather, and the younger boys were to immediately cease poking at the woman’s husband with a shriveled branch.
The woman pulled Father up short, however. She impatiently shook off Sam’s grasp on her elbow and barking loudly that her husband “has no need for a doctor, he’s merely fainted once more — the ungainly, impossible, worthless waste of a man.” The real priority, she added while wringing her hands, was their money and her jewels — all missing, for they had been robbed at gunpoint by a highwayman on the road.
Her cheeks aflame with rage, the woman held one boney pinky to the gloomy, spitting sky. “My RING,” she went on imperiously, as her husband stirred slightly behind her after a particularly sharp jab from the stick. She had described the missing heirloom in no small detail.
Bess turned back around now towards the stranger and gazed at his finger.
“Sir,” she finally said lightly, “did you know we’ve a very fine lady lodging with us tonight?” She raised her eyes upwards toward the rafters, in the direction of their nicest rooms — the only rooms the irate woman and her near-comatose spouse would accept, despite having been relieved of all their money and ability to pay for them, Father had noted quite irritably.
The stranger’s mouth lifted a bit at the corner, amused. He was young — not quite as young as Bess, she guessed, but certainly not older than Tim — with dark eyes like her own, high cheekbones and a stubborn set to his jaw.
“Is that so?” He asked blandly. He took a sip of his drink.
“Well… *used* to be very fine, I suppose,” Bess mused, “before a shocking incident befell her and her husband on the road today.” She shook her head as though in disapproval, sending ripples down her long locks, and leaned towards the stranger slightly. “A robbery, sir,” she confided. “Horrible. Lost all her money, her jewels, even her husband’s best embroidered waistcoat. It was silk, the lady said, with cockatiels set in with floss thread of red. A shame.”
“Indeed,” agreed the stranger, no longer meeting her eyes. He smiled, though, in the hat’s shadow. “Quite terrible. A veritable offense to the conscience.”
Bess nonchalantly picked up a glass and began cleaning it with a dry bit of rag. “She also mentioned a ring.” She watched as his smile tightened and faded. “A small gold ring with a small blue stone. Just big enough to fit on a grown man’s little finger.”
A long moment passed before the stranger set his drink slowly back onto the bar. “Is that so?” He asked, his tone dark now. No trace of humor was left on his handsome face. “It occurs to me that I am in possession of a ring fitting that description.”
Bess took a step back, setting down the glass in her hand. She fought the urge to look round for Sam, or even Father — she regretted her forthrightness in that moment. Still, she responded honestly. “It occurs to me as well, sir.”
The stranger’s already dark eyes seemed to blacken further. Suddenly, he leaned towards her. With surprising gentleness, given the thunder on his face, he grasped her wrist quickly but lightly. “And so what will thee do?” He asked her quietly, pulling her towards him. “Alert the red coats? I mean no harm to thee.”
Bess shook her head, a little uncertainly. She had no intentions of inviting the King’s men to the inn, her intention had merely been to aid the stranger on his way out the door. She wanted no trouble for Father, or herself.
The stranger’s fingers were soft and warm where they touched her skin.
He must have seen her hesitation, for in a single movement he released her and slid the ring off his finger. He laid it on the bartop with a *plink* — and tipped his head to her once more.
“I trust this will resolve things between us,” he said in even quieter tones — wary now. “Do with it as thee pleases. I intend now to retire to my room.” He glided from the room in the same gait as he’d entered, but caught Bess’s eye once as he exited. She couldn’t read his expression.
She put the ring deep into her pocket.
Later that night, the fine lady’s husband swayed into the bar. He looked drawn and pale, his eyes struggling to fix upon any single point. He dropped heavily next to an open table and heaved a near-painful sigh.
Bess pressed her fingers against the slight bulge of the ring in her pocket before walking over to him. “Sir,” she began, “may I bring you food or drink? And sir…”
He blew an heavy exasperated breath at her, sour already with drink. “There’s nothing you can give me, maid, that I’d accept in this squalor,” he sneered. He looked her up and down then, reconsidering, weighing her value to him. “Almost nothing, I suppose. What’s on offer, eh?” He reached clumsily for her and she stepped out of reach, turning heel and returning red faced to the bar.
He passed out, long pale face moulded uncomfortably to the table by sweat and sick, not long after. Bess didn’t bother to try and wake him.
The next day, before the sun even breached the horizon, the stranger fetched his horse from the stable. He went to place the saddle on the mare’s back and discovered a single woven thread tied to the stirrup leather. At the end dangled the ring, and a folded hand-written note in careful girlish script: “I believe this belongs to you, Sir.”
— Part 3 —
He visited, covertly, as often as he could. Although he was no longer a stranger, Bess still referred to him as such in her mind— fondly now. In the early summer, under the cover of darkness, he walked with her down the uneven road and next to the moor. She wanted to see the moonlight strike the waves upon the sea.
She told him then of the long-lost pillow as they travelled near the spot where the swallowing ravine stood. She told him about the ribbon, and about Mother too. She told him of the games she’d played with Samuel and the boys there — and he clasped her hand as he laughed delightedly at their childish antics. She grinned back at him, red lipped and lovely in the swaying lantern light.
A fortnight passed. Then, early one morning, a flutter caught her eye as she awoke. Tied to the hinge of the casement was a tattered and frail, but still familiar, dark red ribbon. Attached to it was a note on impossibly delicate paper, written in a masculine hand: “I believe this belongs to thee. Wear it when I come to thee tonight.”