In His Castle. In Her Presence.

The Teathre.

"Gwyneth,..." I began.

" And now it comes: 'I sincerely apologise for my actions, I hope you can forgive me.' "

Her thought amused me, but the words she wished me to say we're still out of reach and I still don't know what to say. "Why don't you go fresh up?" I offered her. One of her eyebrows was lightly lifted, she probably thought I wouldn't notice, but I did.

"Fresh up? What does that mean?"

"From your confused look, I shall explain myself. There is room two doors from here, one of the guest rooms, you can use it. There is an bathing room attached to it and there are clothes ready for you, I hope they fit." I proudly said.

Yes, that seems right. It will buy me some time to think things through.

Her mouth was hanging open a little bit. "B-but Roderick... And..." She tried to speak softly looking at the carpet. I let my head fall a bit to the right and raised my left eyebrow, with a bit of teasing look in my eyes. Her head moved to look me in the eyes, hers were confused; mine were blank. I walked over to her and her big eyes were still locked with mine. My index finger went underneath her chin and closed her mouth. "Don't want you to catch flies." I whispered in her ear. And with that I walked to the door to open it for her. Like a bag of sand the walked to the door in the given directions.
I waited until I heard her door close.
"That was close... But what to do now..." I searched for my pocket watch. Not to check time, because time stood still on this clock, but for the picture with it. My thumb traced the face of the picture of a beautiful smiling young woman.
"What do I do Blair?" I asked the picture with a little smile.
I closed the pocket watch and read, for the millionth time, the engraved message.
To travel and to love is to be happy.
The pocket watch disappeared in my pocket again and with a determined feeling I prepared the evening me and Gwyneth were going to spend together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With a, still, dumbfounded look on my face I entered the room. It took me a moment to realise how big and beautiful the room is, because his words were playing in my head: 'fresh up'
"Get out of your thoughts, Gwyneth." I said to myself.
The room I entered was breathtaking, for this is what I saw:
*

Even the curtains were open. I walked over to them and touched the thin curtains. This room had an beautiful view, you could see the grass fields and ... Stalls! I had to blink my eyes twice to realise there were six horses in the stalls. The garden had a few fountains and statues with straight trimmed trees (like the garden of Versailles). I was amazed that this beauty was empty of living things.

Did Hugo ever took a evening walk there?

In the distance I saw a little house of glass, it made me want to run towards it and explore it. I felt like a little kid, so curious to discover what was in front of him. I let go of the curtains and walked to the bed. As tired as I was I let myself fall on the bed and started laughing for it felt so good and soft. After looking at the ceiling for a while I let myself sit up straight.
There were two doors behind the bed. I picked the right door and opened it. A clean bathroom revealed itself. It was all white with golden accents. A big bath on little paws, a big sink with a round mirror and a rack with towels for months were the furniture filling this room which too had a big window that lightened the room, above me hung, yet again, a chandelier. I can't explain why, but with hesitation I turned the water on of the tub and it was warm! The feeling was probably because this luxury wasn't at my disposal before. I picked out a lovely smelling soap and let warm water fill the bathtub.
"Even if you get overthrown with gold and silver, even if the worlds knowledge is at your fingertips and even if you get desperate to do anything for anybody, promise me not to change who you are. They might drown you in compliments or in the fires from hell, but they can't change your inside. So you must take that as your light in the dark, as your life string to the real world."
These words, spoken by my father once, replayed themselves again while I stood in front of the mirror looking at myself. And why, you wonder? Because that feeling, the fear that I might change because of the luxury presented to me or the hell from the day before, was the exact feeling I felt. I sighed. "Do not change..."
As I got ready to jump into that bath, I took another look in the mirror.