{NOVEL PREVIOUSLY NAMED: "PALE EYES"}
𑁍Julius Cadwell is a pauper from an impoverished village, Porlock of Somerset in England. Julius journeys to Wellington to work as a footman for the Duke of Wellington, Somerset.
♕︎Reuben Griffith is the only s...
❝I watered it in fears, Night & morning with my tears: And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles.❞
• William Blake.
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Once what we lived for forsakes us, grace is stolen....
The Manor ꨄ︎
Dr Moreau arrived two days after the incident, he was there not a minute after dawn, taking a rail transportation per Lord Alfred's request. He needed the French doctor to treat his son promptly.
Dr Moreau ran some tests on Reuben. He gently rubbed and pressed Reuben's eye with his thumb across the closed eyelid. It felt abnormally hard against his finger.
“What do you see?” he asked the boy whose lips couldn't stop quivering. “Through your right eye, what do you see?” he repeated.
“E-Everything is out of focus, it is all blurred, Sir.”
After a few more tests, Reuben was sent back to his bedchamber after being prescribed morphine.
Dr Moreau informed the Duke of his return by evening with the diagnosis. The Duke was impatient and incensed, but he let it be.
➻
Oliver watched Reuben's chest slowly rise and fall in repose. He scooted the tapestry chair he was seated on forward, so as to adjust the warm cloth folded on Reuben's forehead.
“How is he?”
“He has been asleep for a while, but he is doing much better, Your Grace,” he informed.
Duchess Augusta offered him a weak smile, mumbling a thank you when he got up and off the chair for her to sit.
Oliver was bemused by her gratitude but was sure she hadn't even noticed that she had just thanked him.
Reuben's eyes slowly fluttered open. Only for his expression to quickly morph into one in great dismal.
“What did the doctor say?” he asked, voice gruff and croaky.
“Your father just went to the office with him,” she said, gently touching his arm. “We will only find out once their conversation is over.”
“Oh..” he let out a harsh breath, nestling further into his pillows.
“You look especially different without your glasses,” she smiled, brushing aside a damp lock plastered onto his forehead.
“I never want to put on that useless thing ever again,” he rasped. In fact, he had thrown it into the fire.
