Villainess [1]: Ridley Becomes a Gentleman
Red Pill [0]: Rebuffs, Infirmaries
On seeing Janet’s fainting spell, Lord Ridley Woodberry ran up to her near the landing and crouched and rolled the girl onto her back before taking a knee and noticing a trickle of blood running from her nose.
(And along with Lord Woodberry were Janet’s clones running to their fallen avatar from the balustrade, half of them crowding around Janet’s prone body on the floor and calling out her name, and the other half stomping towards the the Prince in the hallway and cursing at his unwitting head. And amongst them was Janet’s suicide clone, kneeling at Janet’s head and saying, “Janet! Janet, can you hear me?”)
Then Lord Ridley pulled a handkerchief from his blazer pocket and wiped the blood from her nose, then pocketed it and patted her cheek, saying, “Janet? Janet, are you okay?”
Yet Janet was unresponsive to the words of her clones or the words of Lord Woodberry.
“She’s faking it, Riddle,” the Prince said.
(Which roused the clones into a frenzy, the rest of Janet’s clones save for her suicide double storming at the Prince and crowding around him and cursing him out, saying that he doesn’t deserve to be with Janet anymore, that he’s a disgrace of a prince and a human being, that there’s a place waiting for him in hell when he kicks the proverbial bucket, that he’s an idiot and a miser and a bastard and a dickhead and an ass-wipe and the like, adding other expletives too numerous and vulgar to recount in these pages.)
Heedless of the clones, Ridley turned back to Prince Blaise, saying, “How can you say that, your Highness?”
“It’s the truth,” the Prince said.
(Which made Janet’s suicide clone look up from Janet and glare at the Prince and say, “And you’re a piece of shit!” Which compelled more expletive-filled remarks from the other clones surrounding him like a school of piranha.)
“Would you think the same thing if it was Rosalie who fainted?” Ridley said, making the Prince glare back at him, but Ridley ignored him and shook Janet by her shoulders, saying, “Janet, wake up! Wake UP!”
And Janet still remained unresponsive, yet the disbelieving Prince approached with a scowl on his face, saying, “Can’t you see she’s playing you for a fool?”
(Which roused yet another round of expletive-filled remarks from Janet’s clones, crowding around the Prince and saying that he’s an inhuman bastard, that they hope his parents would disown him, that somebody from somewhere would steal into the Prince’s bed chambers and slit his throat or brain him with the butt of a pistol or string him up by his neck with his underwear or pour mercury into his ear, among other atrocities.)
As for Ridley, he just stared back at his friend for a time, wondering if the person before him was really the same Prince Blaise he and Kevin had known before the entrance ceremony of Lassen Academy, then said, “My God, your Highness, where is your humanity? Do you hate Lady Fleming so much that you would rather see her harmed than help her?”
“Then why don’t you check on her?” he said.
With that, Ridley reached out and lifted Janet’s eyelids and saw the full whites of her eyes, meaning that her eyes had rolled back in their sockets.
“Am I right or wrong?” the Prince said.
Lord Ridley looked back at the Prince, who now had his arms crossed over his chest.
“Well, which is it?” he said.
“You’re wrong,” Ridley said. “She fainted.”
“Then what are you waiting for, Riddle?” the Prince said, turning around and heading back to Classroom 1-3C when Rosalie’s crying and the hubbub of students consoling her issued from the open double doors. “Take her to the infirmary.”
Ridley just gaped at the Prince’s aloof conduct of Janet’s well-being, so he called after him, saying, “Wait a bit, your Highness.” But when the Prince kept on walking towards the double doors, Ridley fisted his hands and yelled, “Damn it, Donny, I’m talking to you!”
The Prince turned, saying, “What is it now?”
“My God, is that really you talking?” Ridley said. “Janet’s on the ground, and yet there you are—”
“I have my hands full already!” the Prince said. “You take care of Janet, while I take care of Rosy! End of discussion,” and he entered the classroom calling out to Rosalie, saying that it was going to be okay.
(All of Janet’s clones just stared at the double doors through which the Prince had entered, shaking their heads.
The suicide clone said, “He’s hopeless.”
Another said, “He’s an asshole.”
And the rest of Janet’s clones added their own expletive-filled descriptions of the Prince in turn, till there were thirty-one vulgar remarks about him, each getting more and more colorful. Then they returned to Janet, while the suicide clone stepped away as Ridley took Janet up in his arms.)
But when he carried Janet to the top landing of the stairs, Ridley knew that he couldn’t safely descend, because Janet’s body would hinder his view of the steps. And since he didn’t want to risk missing a step and having Janet suffer another indignity on the stairs, he placed her on the landing and thought back to his knight training with Kevin last week for Sir Parlon’s extracurricular class last Friday afternoon at the Knights’ Training Grounds behind the Western Annex. At the time, Ridley needed a partner to perform the ranger-roll technique, but since the Prince was a no-show that day, he teamed up with Kevin and practiced with him that afternoon and even over the weekend to perfect it. So he took a knee and grabbed Janet’s leg, hooking his arm under her thigh and grabbing the skirt of her dress, then rolled Janet’s body nice and easy over his shoulders, then held her leg and arm over his chest with both hands and got back up to his feet.
(All the while, Janet’s clones stared at Ridley with sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks, saying that he was a true gentleman, far better than the Prince.)
With Janet held thus, Ridley now had a full view of where he was going, so he descended the steps down two flights (as the clones followed). On the way down, he met Baron Palmer asking him what had happened to Lady Fleming, so Ridley said that she fainted in the hallway. Then Ridley (and the clones) continued down the stairs and entered the open-plan parlor area, Ridley garnering looks from late students heading for the stairs to get to their homeroom classes on the second and third floors, then headed into the Western side of the campus building, then passing the restrooms and afternoon clubrooms, till he (and the clones) reached the infirmary and entered.
“What happened?” the nurse said.
“She fainted,” he said and followed the nurse to an available bed beside a window, where she pulled aside the curtain and Ridley placed Janet on the bedside and then swung her legs over and positioned her flat on her back (as Janet’s clone all gathered around her bedside). “Will you watch over her? I need to let her maids know.”
“I will, don’t worry,” the nurse said.
“Thanks,” Ridley said and headed for the door out of the infirmary (while the suicide clone ordered three of her doppelgängers to follow him). Unaware of being tailed, Ridley passed the clubrooms and restrooms and exited the double-door entrance of the school, then cut a bee-line across the courtyard and the lawns and walkways of two dorm houses, till he reached the entrance of Mariana House. He asked the two guards to let him enter, saying that he needed to let Janet’s maids know that their mistress is in the infirmary.
So they let him pass.
Ridley then passed the double doors and entered the central hallway, walking up to the side door next to Janet’s dorm and knocking three times. Marin and Susan opened up, and Ridley told them what had happened and where Janet was and accompanied the maids on their way to the infirmary (while Janet’s three clones followed after them). While on the way there, passing by the fountain in the courtyard and entering the double doors and passing by the restrooms and clubrooms towards the infirmary, the maids asked questions, and Ridley answered them and asked them to watch over Janet. Then he thought back to what his father Duke Woodberry had said about Prince Blaise’s peculiar bias against Janet in connection to Rosalie, and the Prince’s demeanor this morning had confirmed his father’s words in the worst possible fashion.
So Ridley said, “If his Highness asks to see Janet in the infirmary, don’t let him in.”
Marin and Susan stopped and stared.
“Are you saying,” Susan said, “that his Highness is a danger to Lady Fleming?”
“He isn’t a danger, per se,” Ridley said, “but he’s not in his right mind right now. So don’t allow him near her, unless Janet says it’s fine, and keep an eye on him in her presence. Just to make sure, okay?”
Janet’s maids looked at him.
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Susan said.
As such, Ridley parted from Susan and Marin, both maids heading down the Western half of the hallway past the restrooms and clubrooms towards the infirmary (followed by the three clones). With that finally done, Ridley headed back into the open-plan parlor and stomped up two flights of stairs to the third floor and went down the Western half of the central hallway before the restrooms towards Classroom 1-3E in the middle of the hall for Homeroom 1. He had hoped to find Countess Julia Davidson alone, wanting to talk to her about some folklore about graveyards after reading yesterday’s assigned readings, but on passing the double doors, he found a gathering of boys and girls already standing at the professor’s lectern and talking with the black-haired countess about an urban legend of a haunted bridge in the outskirts of the Student Commons Town, which he’d heard before and had even gone there legend-tripping with Kevin once after curfew.
He mentally cursed when he saw them all talking with his homeroom professor like a bunch of fanboys and fangirls, hanging on her every word. If Prince Blaise hadn’t caught up to him on his way up the stairs, if he hadn’t insisted that he go with him to Classroom 1-3C to hear his explanation about Janet’s transfer to another class, Ridley might have arrived before his pseudo-scholarly rivals and talked with Professor Davidson a bit, but that was not to be, at least not today.
So Ridley bided his time, nodding to his rival colleagues and his gorgeous professor, and sat by his table near the front of the class, his mind now wandering towards the Prince’s conduct in the halls. He leaned back on his chair next to an empty one and thought back to the Prince’s disregard of Janet’s well-being, wondering if the rumors and the accusations against her were really true.
Then, when the fanboys and fangirls finished talking with Countess Davidson, they all went back to their tables and sat behind Ridley, and one of them (a count’s son) sat next to him and said, “All right, Riddle, your turn next.”
Ridley said, “My interest in Professor Davidson lies purely in the academic sphere, unlike you three.”
His three classmates, a count’s son and a viscount’s son and a viscount’s daughter, sniggered like a bunch of fools.
“Sure, mate, sure,” his desk mate said.
Ridley shook his head and stood up from his chair and approached one of his favorite professors, wanting to ask about revenants and vampires, if only to get his mind off the incident between Prince Blaise and Janet in the hallway.
