Tragedy and Loss

Master Hubert Briss III, son of Hugh Jr, was nearing his thirteenth birthday. He had been a dull and rather skylarking child, with little curiosity in his pale hazel eyes. His father often happened across him in the study, seemingly lost deep in the intricacies of dust, or possibly nothing at all–certainly not lost in study.

“The boy will make an excellent burden for some lucky lady one day,” his father would say to the group of fellow industrialists with whom he lunched biweekly at the whist club. This often earned a scoff, or perhaps a chortle, or sometimes a knowing chuckle from a father who had an equally unmarketable son.

Young Hugh was not concerned with commanding markets or railroads or any of the dalliances his father had dreamt for him. He dreamt only of Mistress Tragedy Oftenearly (of the Wilmington Oftenearlys).

Just a scant year ago, on the path leading through the wood from Briss Gardens to the Miller family’s grist farm, Hugh had passed Mistress Oftenearly for the first time. His eyes were unfocused, gazing toward, but not comprehending, the scarce clouds overhead. Her proud nose was splitting a hardbound copy of Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus, a rudder in a murky sea of morality. The two took no notice of each other, and did not meet.

A season later, young Hugh was invited to a dilettante ball in honor of Mistress (or, rather, Miss) Loss Oftenearly (of the Wilmington Oftenearlys) reaching her sixteenth year. One could almost say that he attended, although one could more accurately say that he was merely there, inattentive. He certainly was not present. In sharp attendance, however, was Miss Oftenearly’s younger sister, the rather angular Mistress Tragedy.

Hugh, preoccupied with the crown molding at the top of the ballroom, absently reached for the ladle to refill his planter’s punch. His attention came into focus when his hand encircled not the large silver spoon to which he had grown accustomed, but a somewhat softer, and somehow sharper, hand, attached to an equally dichotomous wrist. He turned to look at the hand, then the wrist, then the face, of the most beautiful woman he had ever truly seen. Up until this moment, no one of the fairer (or even the less just) sex had caught his notice. But all at once the dull thicket of his eyes alit with a spark, and blossomed into a conflagration.

He had been struck by Tragedy.

Tragedy, similarly, was instantly drawn to this Hugh Briss of youth. Her countenance softened (as much as it ever could) as she studied the curve of his rosy cheek, the pillow of his lips, the carefree wisps of his nascent chin beard. Her heart leapt into the column of her neck as he slowly removed his hand from hers.

Hugh stammered through a greeting appropriate of their respective stations. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss…?”

“Tragedy, if you please,” she blushed.

“Very pleased,” Hugh replied.

The two whiled away the rest of the party in the dark corners of the ballroom. He would light up and deliver a bon mot the likes of which his father could never imagine such a dullard capable of. She would laugh, leaning in to fleetingly touch his arm. They were the very picture of an innocent love extolled since the birth of writing itself.

—

Years of bliss ensued. Hugh and Tragedy took winding walks down the desire paths of spring gardens redolent with blooming tea roses. They found their way across the time-smoothed rocks of idyllic brooks. They snuck furtive kisses at dusk, bathed in the light of fireflies.

Hugh Briss and Tragedy, more commonly than not, went hand in hand.

—

The Brisses and Oftenearlys now dined together every Sunday. The two families were of the notion that young Hugh would make his intentions known presently, and ask Mistress Oftenearly’s hand. Mr Briss, particularly, desired the influx of capital that Mr Oftenearly’s partnership would bring. The matriarchs shared a love for needlepoint, and a predilection for discussing the needle-fine points of their contemporaries’ indiscretions. Miss Loss, unbetrothed and unbothered, attended these gatherings as well, although she observed more than she offered. All in all, the match was a fine one.

—

But just as inevitably spring passes into summer and then fall, and as blossoms in turn drop their petals to the ground beneath, young love faded so gradually as to be almost imperceptible. The pair, inured to the regularity of betrothal, took each other’s presence for granted. Hugh was comfortable in this; Tragedy longed for company.

Tragedy took to spending more and more of her time alone, often near the same babbling brooks that had once whispered so much promise, often along the same paths she and Hugh would follow, so time-worn as to be tiresome. One dusk, in the firefly-dusted meadow behind the Crestfall Estate, she happened upon a young man sat beneath the spreading canopy of a willow, paying her no mind at all since he was engrossed in a copy of Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus.

Upon seeing the soft arc of his gentle nose, the warm glow in his watery eyes, the untorn hands that spoke of a life of comfort, she very much desired his attention. An idea coalesced in her head: she would carelessly pass near him and catch her toe on the corner of a root, tumbling to the ground and hopefully into his arms.

And thus, Tragedy befell the young man.

—

The tryst only grew, and the anticipation of danger with it. Excitement drew the two to be bold and bolder yet, until their carelessness became evident not only to the whispers, but the everyday talk of society as well. 

The Briss and Oftenearly families could no longer politely decline to address Tragedy’s wanderings. One Sunday, after Tragedy had excused herself even earlier and more abruptly than had been her habit of late, the family told young Master Hugh what once was suspicion but had grown into undeniable fact.

Hugh sobbed and railed, alternately. The fathers and mothers, as the best of them often do, gave him long lead to experience the requisite range of sorrow and anger. When he had shed the last of his tears, and the embers of his rage had cooled to ash, he only said, “What in the world will I do now?”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” Miss Loss whispered, almost to herself. Hugh saw the keen edge of her nose, the delicate corners of her ears, the pale austerity of her hands, as though for the first time, and a smile crept through his tears.

—

And the two grew to live happily ever after, for as we all know, courting tragedy, oft and early, leads to loss.