“Of course,” Henry murmured. He’d risen to his feet. “Anything I can do for her.”
“Ally, not yet,” her sister insisted, putting a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
She stepped around Eliza and rushed to her mother’s room and opened the door, bracing herself for darkness, for the smells of illness, for dreadful rattling breaths.
But the curtains were open, letting in a grayish winter light.
The bed was neatly made with her mother’s wedding quit.
And there was no one in it.
“Mama?” She turned and crossed the hall to the other bedchamber, wondering if she was sleeping in the girls’ bed for some reason. But that room was also neat and empty.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
She hadn’t made it here in time.
“Where is she?” she screamed, running back into the kitchen. “She isn’t here.”
Eliza and Sally just stood still, as if they’d been enchanted.
And she knew.
She knew.
Her mother had died and they hadn’t wanted to tell her in front of Henry. They’d been waiting for him to leave.
She was going to be sick all over the floor.
“She’s dead,” she gasped, weaving on her feet. “Isn’t she? Isn’t she?”
Henry ran to her, and her sisters were behind him, shrieking.
“No, Ally, don’t cry!” Eliza said desperately. “She’s just—”
Sally rushed over to the front door and threw it open.
“Ally don’t cry, don’t cry,” her little sister said. “Come look, she isn’t dead, she’s just outside.”
Outside? What was a dying woman doing outside in the freezing winter air?
Alice ran to the door. A horse cart was pulling down the pathway from the road to the cottage, carrying something large and wooden on its bed, covered by a tarp.
A coffin.
But no, a coffin would not be so tall. She squinted to make out the driver.
It was William Thatcher. And sitting beside him, looking just as hale as ever, her plump cheeks rosy with good health, was Alice’s mother.
Very much alive.
And waving.
“What?” Alice gasped. She turned to look at her sisters.
Sally Ann was beaming like the King himself was in that cart. Eliza just looked faint.
“Liza,” Alice hissed. “You told me Mama was sick. Dying. She looks fine.”
Eliza instantly began to cry. “I’m sorry. She was a bit ill. She told me to exaggerate as she wanted to be sure you would come home.”
“You lied? You lied to me about our mother dying?”
“Don’t be angry!” Sally said. “Mam’s been helping William plan a surprise for you, that’s all.”
Alice turned her head back to the approaching horse cart. Rain had begun to fall while they were eating, and the air had a thick and humid quality. The bright day had gone surly.
Her mother was smiling at her merrily from the approaching cart, and William Thatcher was smiling too. Between them on the seat was a large bouquet of hothouse roses.
Alice began to feel a very different form of dread.
She put her hand to her chest, because her breath was coming so rapidly she felt like she might faint.
The cart stopped before the house. Sally Ann rushed forward to take the reins from William and tie his horse to the post.
Alice’s mother stepped down and opened her arms. “Ally! My girl! You’re home! You’re finally home.”
Alice stood still and accepted her mother’s embrace, unable to make herself move or speak or blink.
“William here has been planning a surprise for you,” her mother whispered, her voice buoyant with excitement. She squeezed Alice’s shoulders.
William walked up slowly, shyly, holding the bouquet. When he reached her he bowed low, and offered her the roses.
“Alice, it’s been no secret for some time that I want you for my wife. I hope that you will do me the honor of accepting my hand.”
Alice looked at the roses, so red. At William, so blond. At her mother, so jolly.
“Take the roses,” her mother prodded, clapping her hands in delight.
Stunned, Alice could think of nothing to do but obey. She took them from William’s hands, and he turned around and gestured at his cart.
“I know how you love music, Ally, so as a token of my affection I have spent the last year making you a wedding gift.” He grinned, then walked over to the carriage and pulled up a corner of the burlap tarp. It was a barrel organ—a pretty one—all brass and gleaming hand-worked wood.
“I managed to track down the one your father owned, the one he taught you on. It was in bad shape, but I salvaged his original ivories. The keys are grooved from his own fingers.”
Alice put her hand over her mouth.
Her father had always said William was a gifted craftsman. And this organ, she could see, was truly a piece of artistry. That he had made her an instrument using the keys of her father’s own organ was such a touching gesture that it genuinely took her breath away.
It would all be so moving, were it not the bait in a trap her entire family had conspired to set for her.
“She’s touched,” her mother declared, mistaking her fury for sentimentality. “Can hardly speak. It will do her good, I think, to play again.”
William smiled at Alice fondly, his blue eyes twinkling. “You always were Mr. Hull’s best shop window, Ally. And now you’ll be mine.”
Shop window.
She heard a noise behind her that echoed how she felt: a strangled gasp. She turned and saw that it had come from Henry, who’s eyes darted and met hers, horrified.
“Well don’t just stand there gaping, Ally,” her mother chuckled. “Answer him.”
She looked at William, standing with his hand on the instrument he’d made her using the skills he’d learned from the man who’d loved her more than anyone ever had.
She felt like she’d been lifted up to the sky, and was observing the scene take place from heaven. And what she saw down there, in her mother’s driveway, was not a picture of herself being presented with her future.
It was a portrait of her about to say farewell to her past.
“No, William. I can’t marry you. I’m sorry.”
“Ally!” her mother yelped. She gripped Alice’s shoulder painfully. “What are you doing?” she hissed.
Alice ripped her arm away.
William was a kind man, one she’d been friendly with since childhood. One who saw past her reputation as a loose-skirted, bad-mannered girl to her talent. She knew the life she’d have with him. Comfortable, secure, familiar.
But she did not want familiar. She did not want to be wanted for her talent.
She wanted a man who wanted her the way Henry Evesham wanted her. Someone who burned for her.
“Don’t be a fool,” her mother was whispering. “This is just as we’ve all planned. Just what your father wanted.”
“No, this isn’t what I planned. In fact, I haven’t been honest with you. With any of you.” She took a long, deep breath. “The place I work in London—it’s a whipping house. A private club where people come to indulge in unusual desires.”
She glanced at her mother to make sure she understood.
Her mother’s eyes went wide. “Alice! Don’t speak of such—”
“No, it’s time we all speak honestly. I look after the establishment, and sometimes help my mistress with the members of her club. I’ve been training to take on more duties. To become a governess, like my mistress.”
William let out a soft breath. “Ally. You don’t have to do that. I have the money to look after you all—”
She shook her head. “William, you are so kind to do what my father asked of you. But you see, I have never felt so much at home as I do in London. I have seen things that would shock you and I covet every sight. If I were to return here to marry you, I’d always pine for something else. And I won’t do that
to either of us. I simply can’t.”
William stared at her, shocked and silent.
And then something flat and cold smacked her along the cheek.
Her mother’s open hand.
She wobbled on her feet, for the blow had hit her so hard she nearly lost her balance.
And then she picked up her skirts and ran.
She didn’t know where she was going.
But she knew her future would not—must not—end in Fleetwend.
Chapter 25
No one moved as Alice dashed off toward the hillside.
Henry waited for this man, William, to chase after her—but he just looked in puzzlement at Mrs. Hull, seeming baffled that his proposal had been met with rejection. Henry wanted to shake him. You called her a shop window. A shop window! Do you even know her? What I would give for such a—
“Odd, ungrateful girl,” Mrs. Hull muttered, in a tone rich with self-pity. “Always has been a trouble to me.”
Henry could not remain silent. “Madam, your daughter has travelled for five days in miserable weather in order to reach you, afraid she would not make it back in time. I have listened to her sobbing through the walls at night in grief, thinking you were dying. I have prayed with her for your health and for your soul. Whatever you think of her, she loves you. It was very unkind to make her think you were ailing when you might have simply told the truth.”
“And who are you?” the woman sniffed. “Someone from that wicked place she’s working at?”
“I’m a friend of Alice’s. And I think she deserves better than such trickery.”
“Trickery! An ‘andsome ‘usband and an organ—most girls’d love such trickery as that I reckon.”
“We only meant it as a surprise, not a trick,” the suitor, William, said, aggrieved. “I hoped to do something nice for her. Her pa asked me to look after his girls when he passed on, and it took me longer than I hoped to get myself settled.”
A great boom of thunder struck, and a violent thread of lightning cracked in the sky.
“Will, the organ!” Mrs. Hull cried. “Never mind about Ally. You must move the cart into the barn before it’s ruined.”
Henry looked at her unable to believe that an instrument could be of greater concern than the feelings of her daughter.
“But Alice … ,” William protested weakly. Henry swallowed down a surge of irrational, unattractive jealousy at this man uttering her name.
Mrs. Hull waved her hand. “She’s probably gone up to the graveyard to complain to her father’s ghost or some such nonsense. You know how she indulges in dramatics.”
“I’ll go after her,” Henry said.
He ran toward her up the muddy hillside. By the time he managed to clamber to the top, he was soaked and filthy and panting.
Alice knelt before a headstone. She pressed her forehead to it, as though the slab of granite might embrace her back.
The sight of her broke his heart.
“Alice,” he said quietly.
She did not look up nor cease her sobbing.
He’d wondered at her composure this last week, her ability to remain calm despite their trials on the road and the obvious weight of her sadness. She’d been so good at keeping it at bay he’d nearly forgotten about it at times.
But here, cradling a rock, her shoulders quaking, rain plastering her hair onto her neck—here was the truth of what she’d carried, silently and strong.
“Alice,” he repeated, aching for her.
She must be aware of him, yet she was fixed in her posture of bereavement, lost to her grief. Harsh, guttural sobs heaved out of her, like they were being pulled from her against her will.
Feeling helpless, he knelt beside her. “Alice, love, come here,” he breathed.
He put his hands on either of her shoulders and she froze under his touch. Slowly, she turned around to look at him. And then she flung herself at him and resumed her sobbing, this time burying her head on his shoulder.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her as she wept.
He’d always disliked his stature. He’d always felt too big. But in this moment, he was grateful for his size. He was big enough to hold her grief.
Over Alice’s trembling shoulders, he read the words etched onto the headstone.
* * *
Joseph Louis Hull
Beloved father and husband. Maker of music.
* * *
“Oh, Alice,” he murmured, stroking the back of her hair, the way his mother used to do for him when he had nightmares. He no longer cared if she knew his faults and his embarrassments, or that she’d been untruthful. He only wanted to ease her pain.
“Henry, I was going to come here and give up everything. I’ve been mourning for myself, and for them, and for her, all bloody week. And then, oh God, I thought she was dead.”
He wrapped his arms around her tighter. “You’re a good girl, Alice. So good.”
She laughed through her tears. “You don’t think that of me, Henry. I know you don’t. You think I’m wicked.”
No. He didn’t.
He had seen enough of her character to know that whatever flaws she might possess, they existed with a fundamental decency and bravery that was unmistakable.
“That’s not true. I’ve been with you for almost a week, day and night, and have seen very little except you trying to do the right thing. Advocating for reform. Defending me from my own family. Fretting over horses. Over mice.” He held her tighter, running his thumbs down her back to massage some warmth into her.
“You’re just being nice because I’m crying,” she warbled.
“Oh, Alice, love,” he murmured. “No, I’m not. I just wonder. For all you look after others, who’s looking after you?”
She sobbed harder, clutching at his coat. He rubbed circles on her back and said a silent prayer to God.
Show me how to give her solace. Help me ease her anguish.
A bolt of lightning cracked once more, and the church lit up, its spires glittering in the light.
Yes. Of course.
He tilted up Alice’s chin and gently rubbed the tears from her face with his thumbs, which were larger than her nose.
“Come inside the church with me, out of this rain.”
Shakily, she nodded. He wrapped an arm around her and dashed with her through the freezing rain to the deserted church. It was empty. Their footsteps echoed to the buttresses a hundred feet above their heads.
The vast, cold expanse of the empty stone room was awesome, but not comforting. He guided Alice beyond the nave to the apse, where, as he’d suspected, there were candles to light for the ailing.
“Alice, will you help me light a candle? For a blessing?”
She didn’t speak, just twisted her fingers together until her wrists wrenched.
He took two candles anyway and lit them off one that was already burning, then set them in brass sticks.
He took her hands in his and closed his eyes. “Dear Lord,” he said. “Please bless this dear, good woman who works so hard to see to the happiness and wellbeing of others. And who needs a bit of care herself.”
He paused, and looked up, because if Alice did not wish for him to continue praying he would stop. But she was quiet, and her eyes were closed, and her hands had ceased their wringing, so he went on.
“And Lord, bless her family. May they see the good in her. May they love her the way you do, without condition.”
Alice began to cry again, but she continued to hold the posture of prayer, listening. “Lord, thank you for putting me in her path, for I am better for knowing her.”
She held herself still, and he squeezed her hands as tight as he could without hurting her. “Lord, please let Alice know that she is safe in your everlasting grace and love, and can be comforted and redeemed in it. Let her know that your light shines on her as it does all your children, and that if she wishes for it she need only—”
He could not continue, because Alice suddenly yanked
her hand away and placed her fingers over his mouth.
“Stop, Henry,” she said in a ravaged voice. “Don’t say it. Don’t say it.”
He gripped her hand and kissed it. “But it’s true. There is nothing more steadfast than God’s love for you.”
“God’s love is not what I need,” she said in desperate voice.
“What do you need?” He asked her. “Anything.”
And then he knew.
Music.
Music was her comfort. Music was her prayer.
He took her hand. “Where’s the organ? Will you play me something?”
She looked at him, fear on her face. “But, I’m not allowed. The vicar forbade it.”
He shrugged. “No one’s here but us. And God. And I cannot fathom the Lord would not welcome it.”
She gripped his hand and walked with him back through the church to a staircase. He followed her up and past a landing to a balcony, where the mighty pipes of a handsome instrument ran up the back walls of the church.
“My father played it,” she whispered. “I never have.”
Tentatively, she sat down on the bench and put her hands on the keys. She played a single note, as if waiting to see if she would be struck down by God. It vibrated in the empty cathedral, long and plangent.
“Play,” he whispered.
She adjusted a knob, then returned her hands to the manual and spread her fingers. And then the church began to moan. To cry. To vent pure sadness from its metal lungs.
The notes she played were not a hymn, nor any song that he could recognize. The melody was mournful, haunting—and then, delicate. It sounded like grief rising towards hope. It sounded like prayer.
It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard.
Her hands stopped. Neither of them breathed. She looked up at him, her dove’s eyes shining.
A tear fell to his cheek, and he didn’t bother to wipe it away. He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers.
She was still. Absolutely still.
And then her lips moved beneath his, so light and fluttery it made his stomach drop.
“Alice,” he said raggedly, melting onto the bench beside her, pulling her toward him. He pressed his forehead to hers, desperately unsure of what to do. He was all tension, every ligament in his body alive and pulled in two directions—to move away, to hold her closer. To run, to stay.
The Lord I Left Page 17