A Fallen Lady

by Elizabeth Kingston

  "You must not hate yourself when it is only natural to feel such a loss keenly."

  She turned back, her anger swinging back to him. "Leave me. Why are you still here? They will be gone and there will be no more need for you to come here. You will go soon anyway, so go now."

  "I will not leave you, Helen," he said calmly into her anger, knowing he was powerless to help her. He could only stay with her, which was the only thing he'd wanted to do from the moment he had first seen her.

  "Puppet of the gods," she said suddenly. "Like Helen of Troy. Hah! How appropriate! No choice and no control over anything!" She turned her face up to the sky as though to make the gods hear her.

  She came to him, shoving at him again. "Go! I am useless, don't you see? I was useless then and I am useless now and so are you, so just go. Go, go, go!" she cried, with a shove to his chest with each repetition.

  He did nothing but watch her silently as she continued pushing at him until the movement gradually lost force, her anger spending itself. Finally she let her hands drop and made a despairing sound. "I was going to feed her little cakes," she said with a hollow laugh, looking as though she would mock herself if only she were not so close to tears.

  He lifted his hands to her shoulders, pulling her unresistingly forward until her head was beneath his chin. She trembled there. He felt it like an ache.

  "I will be no one," came her whisper. "I will be nothing."

  He turned his head down, closing his eyes to better smell the sweetness of her hair, willing her pain away. He pressed his face against her hair, rocking her gently and spoke softly.

  "You are everything," he breathed, and did not know if she heard him above her own quiet sob.

  He did not come to see the little family off on their journey. He bade them farewell the day before their departure, knowing that Marie-Anne would be next to Helen as they said their goodbyes to the girl. He knew it was cowardice that kept him away from the scene, a fear that they would not want him there.

  It was perhaps a groundless fear, he found, as he happened upon Marie-Anne outside the bakeshop in Bartle a day later. He had debated all afternoon whether he should visit Helen, only to find himself lingering in the village on the cusp of nightfall. In his uncertainty, it had grown too late to call on her. But her friend had a warm greeting at the ready.

  "Is it usual for the ovens to be fired so late in the day?" he asked, noticing the steam that rose from the little basket of buns she held. There seemed to be quite a variety.

  She tucked a cloth over them and let her hand linger over the warmth as she answered.

  "Not usual, no, but Mr. Higgins is very accommodating," she said with a glance toward the bakeshop. The baker was closing his door for the evening, nodding to her and giving her a look that seemed to say a lot more than a simple good evening.

  "Is he indeed?" Stephen felt himself fighting against the first smile in days. "I suspect he is most accommodating when you wish him to be."

  The arch look she gave him made it even harder not to smile.

  "We each of us use the advantages we have, my lord." She gave him an irresistible smile, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I may not have wealth and title, but I am not altogether powerless to help my friends, I find."

  "Ah," he observed. "The basket is for a friend, then."

  "It is for Hélène," she said, and her face grew serious. "I hope to tempt her to eat."

  He held out his arm and offered to escort her to her home, which she graciously accepted. When she said no more about Helen, he decided to be straightforward with his concerns. "Do you think she makes herself ill in her distress?"

  "She is heartsick, my lord," she answered with some reserve.

  "As you are, I am sure."

  "Yes, but it is different for me. We are very different, she and I, though we are the dearest of friends." She frowned a little. "I am satisfied here, in this little village with my little life. I am happy with my memories. To bring Katie here was charity and a pleasant amusement for me. But it was much more than that for Hélène."

  He struggled to understand her meaning. "What was it, then?"

  She stopped walking and looked up at him. Her face was so very thoughtful, considering him, that he began to worry what she might say, what judgment she might be about to deliver. With the air of having made a decision, she let go his arm.

  "Perhaps you will ask her." She held out the little basket of bread to him. "Perhaps she will tell you."

  "Now?" He found himself holding the basket, caught between protesting the impropriety and fulfilling his wish to see her.

  Marie-Anne only looked at him, drawing all his attention to her in her gravity. "Go to her, my lord. Give her bread, and let her speak. I think you may learn many things you have not understood."

  She turned and began to walk away in the failing light, and stopped when he spoke.

  "But she was angry." He felt like an awkward boy, standing with a basket of bread and his heart in his mouth while the perfectly poised Frenchwoman looked patiently at him. "When I last saw her, it made her… angry, to see me. I would not wish to add to her distress."

  "I hope I know what is best for my friend," she declared, clearly in no doubt at all about what was best. "For our friend." She tugged on her gloves a little and pulled her thick shawl tight around her shoulders.

  He stared down at the napkin that covered the bread, hesitating. The word rolled about in his mind: friend. It seemed possible, if only he knew what he might do for her.

  But Marie-Anne de Vauteuil knew, and repeated it for him. "Go to her now. Give her bread. Let her speak. I am not mistaken in you."

  She left, the darkness gathering around him as he wondered in what way she was not mistaken.

  She waited upstairs in her bedroom, the house empty all around her. She knew he would come eventually. He always came, and she only had to wait.

  It was morbid, she knew, and childish, to let it affect her this way. There would be a happy ending for Katie, after that terrible beginning, and that should be enough. But there was that spoiled child within Helen, the stupid, silly girl who she thought she'd stamped out, who would not be satisfied. What was it for, what had that suffering been for if she could not say that at least it gave her this one good thing?

  And what would she tell herself now, when the memories came? There was no more promise. There were no more visions of a rosy future to pull her out of the terrible past. She would wake from nightmares the rest of her life, and would no longer be able to calm herself with the vision of a happily growing girl. A girl who would be safe. A girl who would grow up and have an ordinary life, with ordinary pleasures and sorrows.

  It would still happen, of course. Katie would have those things. But Helen would not be part of them. She would never see it.

  She stared at the empty hearth and heard his knocking at the door, his voice calling. The unseasonable storm that had threatened all day would break loose and soak him if she did not open her door to him, but she did not move from the spot. Let him come all the way. Let him find her in her hiding place, as he always had. She was too tired to meet him halfway.

  His boots sounded on the stairs. Another minute and he stopped in front of her bedroom, searching into the gloom to see her where she huddled on the floor, wearing only her nightgown covered by the thick cloak he'd given her.

  "Helen," he said. The warmth of his voice was like a sliver of life, but she resisted it even as he came to stand above her. He stooped down and she kept her eyes forward, refusing to meet his gaze.

  He went around the room lighting the lamps by the bed and above the mantel, scowling down at the empty fireplace. He built a fire quickly, stoking the flames high until she could feel the warmth from where she sat on the cold floor. Within minutes the room was warm and welcoming, a refuge from the thunderstorm that had broken loose outside. He had gotten wet in the rain, she saw. Drops glistened on his hair and soaked his shirt. His coat, lying across the chair by the
door, dripped water into a pool on the floor.

  She let him urge her to her feet, off the cold floor, until she sat at the foot of the bed in front of the fire. He pulled a chair forward to sit in front of her, holding out a basket of buns that smelled like heaven. It nearly brought her to tears, that smell.

  "Eat," he said, and she took one.

  He must have taken care to keep it dry, in this rain. That thought, and the freshness of the bread in her mouth, brought a lump to her throat. She made herself swallow past it again and again, until it was finished and she took another from his outstretched hand. Halfway through the second bun, she thought how there should be tea and she should be properly dressed. They should not be sitting in her bedroom, with her in her stocking feet. But all that seemed too much to care about.

  "I would have brought the doctor to you, if you refused to eat. Are you comfortable? Warm enough?" he asked.

  Her bones were like ice inside her, and she thought she might never truly feel warm again. But he accepted the nod she gave, and they both fell silent, staring into the flames and listening to the thunder that crashed and rumbled outside

  She felt stronger, now that he was here, his quiet strength close enough to touch, never demanding speech but somehow always making her feel that she could say anything at all. She wondered if she could tell him how she had held the promise of Katie like a talisman to her heart. She wondered what he would say if she told him that sometimes the memories came on her in such a way that she was frenzied, panicked, living in the awful moment again – and that she was only made sane again by assuring herself that Katie would be here. He would think her mad, and she wondered if that was worse than being thought a whore. She found that she didn't really care anymore, if she was mad, or a whore. Nothing mattered anymore, except that he had come to her. Against all propriety and though she had shouted at him and wept, he came to her.

  It struck her finally that he didn't know anything, that she had concealed all the truth that she could from him. He had helped care for Katie, never knowing who she really was. He gave her comfort now, never knowing what grieved her most.

  All her reasons for concealment no longer mattered to her. It was all protection that was not needed, she could see now. And so she suddenly wanted to tell him, to make him understand, but didn't know how to begin. She had never known. Even the thought of speaking of it acted like a fist around her throat, squeezing off every word she thought to say. It all swirled around her, inside her head, confusing her into a state where she could only feel the anger and shock and fear all over again.

  It always happened like that. What was unreasonable was that she had expected it to be any different this time. She stared dumbfounded into the fire, staying silent until words burst forth from her.

  "I told you once that I had no regrets."

  He looked up at her sharply, a wary expression coming over his features. It was obvious that he had not expected this, had not come here expecting to hear about her past or her regrets. She looked away, her eyes roaming restlessly around the room. She could not look at him, not if she was to tell him anything.

  "I lied," she continued. "I have nothing but regrets. A whole life filled with them." She felt the pressure begin in her chest, crushing the breath from her lungs. "I hate him." Her voice came out thin, barely a whisper. "He killed them."

  She sensed the change in him, his whole body going still as if poised for something, attentive.

  "Who?"

  "Katie, her family," she said, already faltering. "He had to kill them all, and I was too late." It was wrong. She was telling it all wrong again, like always. But she could only take the words as they came, tangled up in her breath, never sounding real. "If I could keep her safe, I thought – I told myself it would be worth it. If it gave me Katie."

  She should stop. She was not making sense. But she couldn't shake the mood, the need to tell him. He was trying to catch her eye, but she could only look at him in a glancing pass of her gaze.

  "Who killed them, Helen?" He said it patiently, sensibly. As if she were not trembling and incoherent.

  She pushed past the constriction in her chest, the force that clamped her lips shut and stole her words. "Him. I hate him...the...Henley."

  She watched his face go blank, and spoke immediately, not choosing her words but saying anything, anything at all, to forestall the denial he was sure to make.

  "It's simple. It's a simple story. I went to the woods. To see him. To kiss him." She swallowed past the lump of nausea that rose up. "I loved him. I was so stupid. And they... Oh God, I loved him. And he was dead already, on the ground." Her voice was so thin that she could barely hear herself. "The man was, I mean. And then the pistol – the woman. She was holding the little girl. Katie's sister, but I never knew her name. And he shot them, through both of them and..."

  Her mouth dried up, and she searched his face. She knew she must look wild, must sound mad, her eyes skittering continually across his face, panting as though she had been struck a blow to the stomach. But he did not look confused at anything she said. He looked appalled, horrified.

  "You saw this? You saw him kill her family, is that what you're saying?" he asked, as if he could not believe he'd heard her correctly. She nodded at him, staring, as a realization slowly came to her.

  "Alex," she said, more strongly. "He didn't – he never told you? What I told him, he never–"

  A sharp and violent shake of his head cut her off. He stood abruptly, sending the chair scraping back, turning to pace the floor in front of her.

  "He said it did not bear repeating. He said you were incoherent!" His open fist slapped against the wall, startling her. But he checked himself suddenly, visibly, and turned back to her. She felt rather than saw him studying her, controlling his sudden burst of anger. "But you… it is not easy for you to tell. Do you know why he would do it?"

  She shrugged helplessly. "He had drunk much. I think. They were on his land." It made her remember his face then, in that moment when she had found him, startled by the sound of shots. With a horrified little laugh she said, "He had a new pistol. He wanted to test it. I think."

  "Did you go to the authorities?"

  "He is the authority there. Anyone else of any power over him is his friend," she said, and knew he would understand how a peer could be so protected by his station. "And no one cares if a few Travelers are murdered in Ireland. Who cares for gypsies, anywhere? No one. Except Maggie, and me."

  He stood by the wall for a long time, saying nothing as the storm outside grew louder. She waited, bracing himself for more questions that she would be unable to answer with any sense. But he did not. He only stayed silent and pensive for the longest time until he finally came to sit next to her on the bed, not touching her, looking into the fire. It seemed impossible that he had not known the story of that day. Or the story of the day after it. But she refused to think of that, pushing it out of her mind, knowing she would break into a thousand babbling pieces if she attempted to tell that part of it, too.

  "And so you refused to marry him, and took care of Katie."

  She gave a nod, and now it hurt a little less to think of Katie, happy and safe and far away with a new family.

  "Do you..." she trailed off, looking at how the firelight played on his face. "Do you believe me?" He could not believe her. It was unbelievable.

  His face turned quickly to hers, a line between his brows showing confusion. "Of course I believe you. How could I not?" he asked almost angrily.

  He believed her. Her mind could not comprehend it, that he would understand it so quickly, in so few muddled words, and know it as truth. She shook her head slightly, relief flooding through her.

  "Alex didn't believe me." She gritted her teeth, refusing to cry. "And I lost him, too. And then Maggie, and now Katie. I am alone," she said, hating the self-pity that she could not hide. "I have nothing left, can't you see? He ruined me, in every way. An empty house and years alone. He took everything from me."<
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  She felt his hand on her face, caressing her cheek, pushing the hair behind her ear before falling away to clasp her trembling fingers. Oh, God. He believed her.

  "Your brother is a fool. Henley cannot hurt you anymore."

  He said it like he said everything, with such simple confidence. She reached up to him, putting her hands on his head, sliding them down to hold his face. She leaned into him, letting her forehead fall against his. She wanted him there, wanted him closer, loving him for not asking her more.

  He believed her, and he was here. She was not alone.

  "Don't leave," she whispered.

  All at once she was angry at being afraid, defiant in the face of this fear that had gripped at her heart for years. Not allowing herself time to think of what she did, she pressed her lips to his, twining her fingers in his hair to hold him tightly against her mouth.

  He didn't move, didn't return the kiss. She felt the shock in him, in his quick intake of breath, the way his hands came up to her shoulders to push her slightly away. But she resisted it, denied him escape by holding him to her. She reached out to the loneliness she had felt in him, moving her lips across his until he gave a short groan and opened his mouth to her, pulling him to her.

  It felt like life. Like sunlight and laughter and joy. All the energy she had spent evading the heat in him, shying away from the oblivion in his kiss – she surrendered all of it, wanting to feel his hunger for her obliterate the words she had spoken, the images she had evoked with her pitiful story. Her tongue slid against his, taking the strength and heat he offered. She did not want to think, did not want to feel anything but this, ever again, his hands winding through her hair and his lips on hers, their breath mingling.

  They fell back on the bed, his body pressed against hers, side by side. She smoothed her hand over his shoulder, feeling the warm flesh beneath flexing under her touch.

  "You are not yourself, Helen." He pulled back, breathing heavily, his eyes searching hers. "You don't want this," he said against her lips, and she heard the question in it, the doubt.