Late one evening, Aubrey sat and tended to the Christmas presents for the servants. Material for a new uniform was gifted annually to maids at Christmas time by their mistress. Most servant girls had trouble affording the money or time to fashion their begrudgingly-received present. At this time, Pembina’s servants had been difficult to control and the manor had fallen into callous disarray. Aubrey could not even get them to bow, but they faced the wall in the other method of acknowledging a master when she entered a room. The regular workload was not being maintained, though it always had been with Emmett. As a result, more servants were hired for the same amount of duties. In an attempt to restore order, maids were made to display to Aubrey exactly how much dirt they collected per day. Aubrey had fired two girls for laughing while they cleaned a room no one else was in. Daily portions had come to a halt. Curfew moved to a few hours ahead of the normal previous time. Servants were now forbidden to socialize at all. Aubrey did not allow the annual Christmas party to happen altogether. There was no invitation to the Laurentiens’ Christmas party. It was cancelled, like practically all parties of any fashion.
Unexpectedly, Llewellyn walked into the room. Duties faithfully fulfilled91, the customary bow to leave was not made, though his unreadable countenance gave nothing away. Before she could ask, “Whatever is the matter?” his reason for staying in the room was made ghastly clear. Before her, placed on the silver platter, was a telegram. How very odd, the mail coming at such an hour — No! thought Aubrey in inarticulate despair. Every female lived in hourly dread of the much-feared war telegram. The missive informed a family their loved one was dead. The telegram usually came in the evenings. Simply to see the telegraph boy as he walked by downtown proved ever a fright. To look over the post was a daily torment for wives of males in uniform. In residences that could claim a telephone, the ringtone of a call as it waited to be accepted was an endless strain to the owner if a relative was over there. Every “next-of-kin” female had dreadful anxiety over such matters.
The delivery boy’s departure was faintly heard while his bicycle went over the gravel. Aubrey could scarcely speak for fright to ask Llewellyn the rhetorical question the missive implied. Killed in action on duty92, read the telegram. Auré was gone. She knew a Lady whose husband died on the battlefield. His last words were his wife’s name. Aubrey wondered, almost absurdly, whether they would find a last letter on Auré’s person, though he was the least sentimental or romantic of people.
“They never fail who die in a great cause93,” Llewellyn spoke without being spoken to, but out of attempt to comfort his mistress and deference towards his late master. Farewell in hope, in love, in faith, in peace, in prayer94 Aubrey thought, dazed. Then she laid down on the floor and wept.