January 1st, 1892 — Sugerplum

It had been a nice evening -as many such evenings had been since they had announced their engagement. She had spent much of the evening on the arm of Mister Roman Crouch, they had danced 3 times together, not enough to be excessive, and yet not enough in Benevolences estimation. Her last Christmas and New Years as a single woman, as a Montague, was over - with 3 months to their wedding she couldn't believe that in a few short months she would be a Crouch.

Roman had gone to fulfil his social obligations by taking a turn on the floor with his sister. Benevolence was heading to procure herself a glass of punch before her next dance; conspicuous among the gay crowd of revelers was the youngest Crouch. While the music, dancing and food were distracting everyone else, he was craning his neck, clearly looking for someone.

She hadn't spent much time with younger Crouch, she had been clear in her support of Melody from the beginning - believing as she did that Melody had escaped a loveless match for the love of her life, and when she had met with Melody it had been without her husband. Her first proper meeting with him at been over Christmas, in her new role as Roman's fiance. Nev took a detour away from the punchbowl, to intercept the confused looking Crouch. 'Are you alright Mister Crouch? You look a little perplexed?' Nev asked brightly.

---

By now, Ben was frazzled, but still trying his best not to look it. He'd arrived tonight with Melody, even though neither of them had received an invitation of their own merit. A friend of his had invited Ben along, and he was determined to make the most of the evening. Networking was part of his job, which meant tonight was more work than pleasure. He'd parted ways with his wife periodically throughout the night, but it had never alarmed him. He was busy, she seemed to be having fun, and they'd circle back through each other's conversations every half-hour or so throughout the night. Things had been going well for them, both tonight and more generally if one looked at the last few months. But he'd lost track of her half an hour before midnight, and he hadn't seen her since. Some people were starting to depart, either for home and bed or for more raucous after-parties, and there was no sign of his wife anywhere.

He didn't want to ask anyone to help him look for her because while things were generally improving between the two of them, they were still publicly not ideal. The last thing they needed was someone starting rumors that Melody Crouch had run off in the middle of a party, or that he'd been too busy flirting with someone to notice her leaving. He was beginning to think that she must have left, though, because he'd circled the ballroom twice at least and not come across her anywhere. But why would she have left without saying anything to him first? Even if she'd had a headache and wanted to retire early, she would have told him before going. He was beginning to think something was wrong, though his fears were too shapeless at this point to even say what could have happened.

Miss Montague's question was a relief; he might have been hesitant to reveal his anxiety to someone else, but with her connection to both him and Melody he trusted that she would not be inclined to start any nefarious rumors. "I'm looking for my wife," he admitted. "I haven't seen her in — almost ninety minutes, now. Have you seen her? Did she say anything about leaving early?"

---

HIs concern was evident -the source of it was less clear to her however. She raised her hands in a placating gesture, ’I’m sure she is around here somewhere!’ Nev said with full confidence, casting about her shoulder, hoping she would spot her friend in the crowd and be able to direct her anxious husband in a timely fashion.

’She is probably cornered somewhere by someone wanting an update on Nora.’ she soothed, ’You’d be surprised at the level of detail the Mama’s want to know!’, her intention to keep the conversation light and on something as pleasant as their daughter while they looked. ’How tall is she? Is she walking? Talking? Eating solids? Every detail. ’ she chuckled, making a slow circuit of the room with Ben

’Where did you last see her?’ Nev pressed, worrying her lip, before schooling her features. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Melody for a little while, and she was straining to remember where. She rocked up on her tip toes, trying to see over the crowd, but she was still shorter than her companion.

---

She was obviously trying to calm him down; her tone made that much apparent. Ben internally derided himself for being so obvious about his anxieties. Melody was probably fine, even if she had gone home early. There were a thousand reasons why she might have left without saying anything to him first. Of course, he couldn’t think of any, but surely there were some.

“I, ah — I don’t know. Before midnight. That’s when I started looking for her, right around midnight. And I guess I hadn’t seen her in — I don’t know,” he admitted. “Twenty minutes, thirty minutes? Something like that. Maybe longer. I don’t remember. She was — I was talking to Mr. Patel, that’s when I last saw her, and she wandered off — can’t blame her, it wasn’t exactly a thrilling conversation. But I don’t know where she went from there.”

---

Ben waited where instructed while Miss Montague disappeared into the ladies’ room, though he did bounce on the balls of his feet a few times to try and see if certain dark-haired women passing nearby were Melody (they never were). The retiring room was a good lead, though he’d been looking for her long enough that it wasn’t reasonable to assume she’d just popped in for a moment to use the lavatory. If she’d been in the retiring room this whole time then something must have been wrong — could she have been struck with an illness, or grown faint? — he had been more worried about her leaving without him, but now the idea of Melody struggling and alone somewhere on the premise was a more visceral anxiety.

Miss Montague returned without his wife in tow, and Ben’s shoulders fell with disappointment. Back to square zero, as it were, but now with a growing anxiety that something might have happened to Melody, rather than just that she had left without telling him. “Nora’s with her nurse,” he said, chewing his lower lip — it had not occurred to him to worry about Nora, and now he wondered if it had been stupid to keep circling the ballroom looking for Melody. “She would have told me. She would have — at the very least sent an owl back after she left,” he said, though he was trying to convince himself as much as her.

“Maybe I should go,” he said, wavering indecisively.

---

Benevolence didn’t want to scare him, but she rather agreed - Melodys sudden disappearance was beginning to be a little ‘concerning - perhaps that was over stating matters too much but as she ran down the list of the reasons that Meloday might have absconded from the party and none of them were good - none of them were amormentia punch, and mostly involved some manner of personal calamity.

’Perhaps you should.’ she acknowledged. ’I’ll be here a little longer.’ She wasn’t sure when Roman intended to go but she had dances on her card that were probably more than an hour away. ’I can keep an eye out for her, and can send you a message if I hear something.’ Hoping that Mister Crouch would get home and find his wife tucked up in bed, and a mistransmitted message of her departure.

---

Ben was nodding before she’d even finished the offer. “Thanks, yeah. Thank you.” He was by now convinced that Melody wasn’t in the main ballroom, and Miss Montague seemed like she’d been gone long enough to be sure that Melody wasn’t in the retiring rooms, too, which meant there was nothing to be gained by staying. The only thing his continued presence in the ballroom would do was alert more people to his predicament, and he didn’t want that — especially when there was still a chance that nothing was wrong at all. Ben still hadn’t come up with any viable explanations for why Melody would have disappeared from the ball without so much as a word, especially since he hadn’t been particularly difficult to find at any point throughout the night, but he was still holding on to the hope that there was one, somewhere.

That, or Melody was ill and had gone home intending to send him a note, but she’d passed out somewhere before she could manage it. Or something had happened that had put them back at odds with each other and she’d stormed off, somehow without his realizing they were even fighting again. Or — he didn’t know. Nothing that was coming to mind was good.

“I’m sure she just went home early,” he said, though he was not at all sure of this. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Thank you.”

---

’Don’t worry I’ll keep an eye out, but I’m sure you’ll see her before I do.’’ she acknowledged with a smile. ’Give Mel my best, and I should love to have you both for dinner in the New Year’ , sure as she was that her friend would be back at home with nothing to be concerned about. These would soon be her family too, she didn’t know Reuban or Aldous especially well, a situation she intended to remedy.

---