The end of a villain.

This short story is taken from 'In Love and War'.

“It is written” . . . Some believe that all fate is preordained, that the course of an individual’s life is already decided even before he is born, and may be foretold in the stars.

As the clock struck out ten, its sonorous booms echoed and then faded through the almost empty, dark, house, leaving only its loud regular tick, tock; tick, tock. The time had come!

Elizabeth had often thought about this moment, and wondered if she would have the courage to go through with it.

What her father had threatened for William; hunting him down like an animal and then killing him out of hand, because William had intervened and come to her defense... knocking her father down, defending her... had been the forces to make up her mind.

Those, and a thousand other pinpricks over the years. She did not care what he might do to 'her' for going against him, but she would defend William to the death, against her father.

She had gone against him before and would continue to do so, though after tonight...? It would not matter.

She had rebelled at such thoughts many times, knowing that she would face everlasting damnation afterward, except that it had now become necessary to protect others. Her father had brought it all upon himself. There would be no better opportunity than tonight. Her mother and Angelique were in New Orleans; Charles, her half brother, was with his friends . . . somewhere distant. She was effectively alone in the house while never being truly alone. She liked the peace that came with an empty house.

Her mind worked with a cold and logical clarity as she worked out each step in turn to what she planned. She saw that it was all possible. It had to be tonight or not at all. She would wait until everyone settled down for the night, which they were doing even then, but there were other things she could do while she waited.

She had no choice. It would serve a larger purpose, or as those who planned great mischief might say, “for the greater good” as they committed some cruel or atrocious act upon some individual or small group. She rose to her feet. Her father would not be back for at least another three or four hours, if not longer, and stumbling drunk, as he usually was, but it was never wise to assume that he was predictable.

She worked the action to the empty gun to be sure it worked as it should. She regarded guns as an instrument of the devil, and had learned what little she knew, with reluctance. She would do the devil’s work tonight.

A 'just' God, would forgive her.

When she was comfortable with what she knew, she loaded it and took it with her as she went along to her father’s room, her way lit by the kerosene lamp she took with her. No one would question that light, with those rooms facing out into the woods.

She put the gun down at the back of the desk, recovered the key from a vase on the dresser by his bed, sat at his desk, and opened the bottom-most drawer containing those letters that he had written with difficulty for her to transcribe for him later. With her doing that for him, he had at least been able to present some superficial show of literacy and ability where his business dealings were concerned. Rather than being grateful to her, he had resented it, but knew better than to make an issue out of it. His ignorance was a constant aggravation to him, but try as he might, he had made no inroads upon it, and it irked him that he could appear so stupid while his own daughter was the one who had a better grasp of the business of the estate and made them all look like simpletons, though she was always careful not to do so.

He dared say nothing of his burning resentment toward her at those times. Her always-willing assistance had saved him from being embarrassed most of the time if he were found to be barely literate or unable to write. If he but knew it, most of his slaves were more literate than he was but knew better than to show it to him, and to keep books or newspapers out of sight except to be thought to be used to start a fire with if he came upon them with one in their possession.

He had also needed to trust her in many other directions too, laying out the state of his financial affairs to her and even confessing various other thoughts as to what he would like to see happen going forward. He had rarely relaxed enough to be able to do that, but there had been times. He had not envisaged that there would come a time when he would not be part of it all or that he might die before any of his plans came to fruition. That is, except for that one time when he had been brought down with that fever and had been laid low in his bed for a full week.

Elizabeth could make use of her knowledge of that now, to see to the right changes being made.

She lay the papers out in front of her. She had lived with that writing for many years and knew it as well as she knew her own. She took a single sheet of paper from the top drawer. It was one her father had started the last time he had begun a letter, and it was marked in just one place at the top before he had crossed it out and given up. It would look as though he had not been happy with his first effort but had persisted.

She cleaned off a nib, dipped it into the inkwell, crossed out his first letters again that he had started, and began to write. If she began to doubt what she was doing, she raised her eyes and looked at that gun lying there. William? Or her father? That was her stark choice. She could imagine her father sending for Sedgwick and his dogs by the next afternoon and pictured the chase in her mind. They could confuse the dogs for some time but not for long enough, and she could see them cornering William and dragging him down. Her father would stand over him after that and put a bullet in his head before he dragged him back to the house and hung him from that oak tree to serve as an example. Thought of that, cleared her head. It would not be William lying dead. She knew what she must do, and with no hesitation and no doubts about the justice of it.

She first dated it more than one year earlier (March 13, 1859) when her father had been laid low with that fever. Thought of his almost having died at that time had suddenly re-entered her head, as she had sat thinking about how to phrase it to appear as though her father had composed and written it for himself.

There is nothing likely to sharpen a man’s mind more to his own mortality than to come face to face with death as hehad at that time, but it had not lasted for more than just a day or two. It would be easy for others to believe that he had suddenly made his mind up about a will at that time. He had been a different man for a few days—more gentle, grateful, and mellow—though in truth physically weaker and unable to throw his weight around. Until he had recovered, and could see that he would live.

He attributed that to Angelique watching over him and keeping the others away and not letting them poison him. It would be believable that he had written his will with that recent brush with death on his mind and feeling that he owed his survival to Angelique.

What Elizabeth intended to do to protect another, was as bad in its own way as what Angelique had done, but would be much more effective in changing the way things went forward. However, it was only one of at least two steps that she would need to find courage to go forward with tonight. It would also need to be thought through clearly, so that what happened would not be questioned too closely, nor any doubts raised about his having written his will in the way he had.

She knew how her father’s mind worked and how he expressed himself. It was all laid out for her in his untidy scrawl that he had struggled with, rather than having the good sense to approach her at the outset and tell her what he wanted. He had preferred to have agonized over it for an hour or two with many wasted pages and rewrites before his pride suffered another blow, and he realized that it would be beyond him. He had swallowed his pride, rather than waste more time over it and had reluctantly taken it to his daughter.

She had always dealt with him with consideration and diplomacy at those times, knowing that he was a proud man and would hold the deepest resentment if she had said anything slightly critical of his deficiencies. She had not said anything, recognizing the precariousness of his mood. He would likely have laid her out across the floor with a blow to her head, never to approach her again. She carefully guarded those few points of contact she had with her father, and used them as a means to try and let him see that there were other ways of achieving the same things than the violent course he seemed to prefer, both with his own family and his slaves. However, it was a lost cause. He did not wish to change. She would not change him. No one could.