The Widow's Fire

by Paul Butler

  Something else — something vague yet troubling in an undefined way — began to chew at me as I watched Harville’s quick, decided movements over the bread and crockery. There was, despite the smiling eye that he threw at intervals upon me and his doting wife, a distant air about him this morning. He seemed far away, I realized, because he had almost certainly lied about the dog and about the gypsies. A lie on the lips of so kind and honourable a man is indeed a disquieting thing. It drew the imagination into places it did not want to go.

  ***

  It was done. The letter to Oliver Mason was written, and sent — via a White Hart errand boy — to catch the chaise to London. While scratching the quill against the paper, I had imagined at my shoulder the host of family connections and acquaintances — Anne, her sisters, Harville, Benwick, and Louisa, Sophia and Admiral Croft, my bother Edward, Anne’s father, Lady Russell — all the people whose goodwill, grudging or otherwise, would be the ground beneath my feet in the weeks to come. I had dared them to see anything amiss in my sentiments, anything at all suspicious or inconsistent with the overflowing cup of natural friendship between men when one tells another of his good fortune and invites him to share in it. All I sensed was calm approval.

  I had written the letter twice and now, for reference, overlooked the imperfect copy I had not sent. It read:

  My dear Oliver (or Captain Mason as I now have the pleasure of addressing you!),

  I have the delight in conveying to you, my dear friend, the most felicitous of news. I am to be married — and very soon! — to the most worthy object of any man’s affections. The name of the lady who is to make me the happiest of men is Anne Elliot, middle daughter of Baronet Sir Walter Elliot from the Somerset seat of Kellynch. We are to be wed in the third week of March – the date is set for the twenty-second of the month — in the little church in Kellynch village. One of the reasons I presumed to write in such haste was that I would be most grateful if you would consider attending as my chief groomsman. Rest assured you would be most welcome in Kellynch — the ladies of the family have a great affinity for the navy and of course you will have heard me speak of my sister, Sophia, and brother-in-law Admiral Croft.

  I know this is a dreadful imposition at such a late stage and with so little notice! My only excuse is that I have had so little warning myself, hardly daring until very recently to even hope my addresses would be met with favour by so very sweet and gentle a creature. I must tell you also as an aside that it so happens I have been acquainted with Miss Elliot for many years and that there has been a history of strong feeling from me to her, but I will explain more fully someday how the course of our affections ran aground through no fault, if truth be said, of hers or of mine.

  I heartily trust you are in the best of health and that you are at leisure to consider this request. Please reply to the Bath address on the reverse. I shall be resident here until just three or four days prior to the wedding.

  Yours in friendship and trust,

  Frederick Wentworth

  I had made some alterations to the final draft, notably removing the aside “(or Captain Mason as I now have the pleasure of addressing you!)” and the exclamation mark after “—and very soon—”. Both of these had a rather desperate air of someone trying too hard to be light-hearted, and in the first example it seemed to remind the reader too pointedly of my own role in helping to secure his promotion. It was also ill-timed in that I had stayed with Oliver in London quite recently and long after his final promotion. Any pleasant fencing now about his status must sound like an artificial recreation of a happy buzz of laughter that had died away long ago.

  These qualms aside, it did not seem like a bad letter. Still, there was no telling how it might be received. Once his youthful reticence had fallen away, Oliver proved to be an emotional young man, much more prone than I to rash and poorly-considered displays of either anger or affection. Though his open nature had initially drawn me to him, it was now this same quality that made him an object of fear.

  My eyes skimmed the letter again and rested on a phrase that I had not altered from the original: Yours in friendship and trust. What would Oliver see in that word “trust?” Trust that you will not betray our secret? Trust that you will not show me up to be something other than I pretend?

  A wave of nausea, sudden and unexpected, washed through me. Beads of sweat formed on my temples. Why had I added those words? The host of acquaintances gathered at my shoulders again and this time they were restless. Mary Musgrove fluttered her fan. Admiral Croft gave a short cough and straightened himself. Anne herself leaned into me, put her hand on my arm and whispered “but, Frederick, why ‘trust’?”

  I turned the paper over and waited for my skin to stop burning. A renegade word or two wasn’t the problem, I knew that. The problem was rather that before entering the most delicately balanced of campaigns, I had already made mistakes. When Oliver arrived — assuming he did — I would not have time to meticulously form my words; I would have to juggle many tasks, speak to many guests at once. The unforced conviviality of the events to come would require I explain the circumstances of my friendship with Oliver. I would have to be expansive — no less was expected of me now. They would want tales of hurricanes and of waves washing across the deck, examples of how Oliver came to my rescue and how I came to his. And all the while I would be catching his dark eyes across the candlelit table, checking as I did so to make sure that my perceptive bride had not noticed anything unusual.

  A sudden jolt of energy came through me. I had an urge to overtake the chaise and recover my letter, even if it meant riding for twenty miles. My body was so used to meeting fear with action, I had a job preventing myself. Action was so wholesome and honest when troubles come upon one with sickening speed and complexity. With an effort, I remained in my chair, listening to the fire crackling behind me. He might not come, after all. We had not parted well when I stayed with him in London. He had become restless, yet watchful, demonstrative yet angry. His moods had changed so often it was bewildering. He no longer smoked opium, which I’d been glad about at first as it had become too much of a habit with him. But then I found he’d taken to drinking a liquid derivative. He had wanted to keep me there, wanted too much to be always in my company, always coming to me at night — and worse; he’d begun to find stimulation by taking risks in front of the servants. I was the opposite. Surely he resented me too much to race to my summons. Surely I was safe.

  I took up the draft letter and folded it over several times. Getting to my feet, I made my way around the bed to the fire that was giving an unexpected amount of heat. I opened the grate and let the letter drop onto the flames. A knock sounded upon the front door below as the black edges of the paper curled. Anne was to come with Mary this morning. Glancing at the clock, I could see it was the appointed time. I fastened the grate and made my way to greet the future.

  10. PLATO

  I HOOKED NURSE ROOKE’S ARM from a sea of high hats and bonnets and scooped her over to me. She’d been hurrying through the Pump Room entrance, half lost in the crowd. Such an act, even some way from my own place of work, was entirely forbidden by the terms of my employ. I was hardly surprised to catch stares from the preening gentry as it passed.

  “What happened to you?” whispered Nurse Rooke, gazing at the gash over my eye; the poor woman seemed to think that our curious posture together, a lowly black servant and a respectable nurse, was somehow less suspicious if she kept her voice low and leaned into me. But it wasn’t her fault. I, too, had become indiscreet.

  “I walked into a wall — I need a favour from you, Nurse Rooke.” Her eyes blinked, and she seemed pleased at the idea.

  “First,” I took out the purse I had been given. “Take this back to Mrs. Smith. I have already paid Henry his share.”

  She shrank from the purse as though it were a knife blade.

  “Quickly.”

  Already, a fr
esh cluster of overdressed and under-washed people were approaching the doors. Nurse Rooke took it at last.

  “And hide it!”

  She swung it behind her back and gazed at the approaching crowd with the same transparent guilt that must have adorned the features of Bath’s criminals who until so recently had been displayed in the town stocks.

  “You can’t return Mrs. Smith’s money,” she said. I saw that her eyes were watering. “It is too great an insult.”

  I wondered not for the first time at the curious devotion Nurse Rooke had for her dark mentor. But there wasn’t time to explore the undercurrents of this strange woman’s idea of love. “I want something else more, Nurse Rooke, something I believe Mrs. Smith will be able and happy to provide.”

  “What else could there be? Don’t you remember Judas?”

  “What?” I was obliged to drop my hand from her elbow and stand more erect; some gentlemen in the new wave of idle rich seemed about to intervene on Nurse Rooke’s behalf. “What about Judas?” They passed by us, assured now I meant her no harm.

  “He insulted Jesus by returning the thirty pieces of silver just as you are insulting Mrs. Smith.”

  For a moment I was speechless, wondering what manner of surgical miracle might restore this woman to some semblance of sanity. “Judas accepted the money, Nurse Rooke, and not from Jesus but from his betrayers.” I watched the cloud of confusion pass over her features and then a realization seemed to descend on her. The entranceway had, for the moment, become silent and deserted. A breeze wafted and circled, picking up some loose straw and dust.

  “What do you want, Plato?”

  “Information, Nurse Rooke, information as to the whereabouts of a certain woman.”

  She moved closer. “An affair of the heart?” Her breath was uncomfortably close to me all of a sudden. Her eyes revealed the same kind of curiosity I had seen once at a travelling circus where clusters of people had surrounded a cage, gazing with wonder at the surly bear chained within. Some of them had prodded its fur with long twigs. Whatever burning questions those people had about the beast’s movements, habits, or feelings, whatever veil into the mysteries of nature they expected to be lifted as they nudged and teased, clearly Nurse Rooke expected some similar kind of revelation now. Does the African love like a human? Does he feel longing and desire? I was almost sorry to disappoint her.

  “Not my heart, Nurse Rooke.”

  I watched her interest fade like the colour from a dying sunset.

  “I need to know the whereabouts of Captain Harville’s maid, Elsie.”

  “Lucy’s mother?” she whispered. A certain awe had returned to her. Knowledge was double-edged with Nurse Rooke and Mrs. Smith. Their knowing, or being able to find out, could be an advantage, but sometimes I dearly wished they knew less, particularly about me. “But why now, Plato?” she said. “Why, when you and the Cheap Street wet nurses have been looking after the baby so long?”

  “If she needs reasons, Nurse Rooke, I will give them when I see her. In the meantime, please return the money and explain my request.”

  She stared at me unhappily, still clutching the purse behind her. Clearly, she still thought my actions an insult to her mistress. A moment later, she was gone, scurrying through the Pump Room doors presumably to issue some discreet warning of an account past due.

  I was left to wonder about Nurse Rooke and about myself. She had turned a Bible story inside out and I had thought this made her stupid. But actually, I considered, did it matter that she was wrong about the details? Her story was not about Jesus. It was about Mrs. Smith. A breeze circled again, and a mote of dust landed in my eye. I turned from the street and raised a shielding hand too late. How much Nurse Rooke’s extraordinary loyalty had influenced me, I did not know, but I felt uneasy. Somehow returning the money seemed wrong; it did indeed have the resonance of betrayal.

  PART II

  11. MRS. SMITH

  AND SO, DEAR READER, I FIND it is time to provide a brief pause in our narrative. When we left you, Captain Wentworth had sent his request to Oliver Mason as I had asked of him. We had gathered testimonials for the ostensible purpose of helping to clear the Captain’s name, and Plato wanted payment in the form of information on the whereabouts of Captain Harville’s former housemaid, Elsie.

  Captain Wentworth’s anxious state as he awaited news from his friend Mason can easily be imagined, as can the rather distant, agitated manner with which he greeted the world. The common fallacy that bridegrooms are supposed to be out of sorts as they approach their wedding day was perhaps a fortuitous thing for Captain Wentworth and for Anne. There was, in any case, no evidence of worry in Anne’s manner on those occasions we met; she registered no alarm regarding any serious change in her betrothed. Piece-by-piece, often while walking indoors in the Assembly Rooms, and once in Sydney Gardens (I had to go out much more than I was accustomed), I managed to feed Captain Wentworth encouraging reports of our progress regarding testimonials and the determination of those that gave them to stand by to clear his name. He was attentive as always during these discreet talks but I sensed he remained troubled at having to leave the reins of action in the hands of another. I did not ask Captain Wentworth for any more advances of money. He trusted me, almost to a fault, it seemed, and for the moment at least, trust was the most valuable currency of all.

  The Captain was most concerned about not hearing from Oliver Mason, especially as time constraints and expectations had given him no option but to mention to Harville and to his brother Edward that he had asked this friend — whom neither had met — to be his lead groomsman, his “best man.” As the time drew nearer, and as the name Oliver Mason was bandied about with increasing curiosity by a larger and larger circle of friends, relations, and acquaintances, the burden on poor Captain Wentworth increased proportionally. But we will hear more of this soon enough.

  The weather remained dull over Bath. Rainclouds scattered their contents without much sense of forethought or drama. Ragged wheels of crows circled the chimneys and turrets. Carriages and servants were dispatched to Kellynch to prepare for the day. The Crofts, I heard, had sent an army of wagons and carts to move all their property from the hall to a large property close by so when they all returned to the region for the celebrations, they might visit the happy couple without presenting an encumbrance. Dresses were purchased for the bride and her attendants and Anne was as ready for, and as confident of, happiness as her sweet spirit deserved. What a curse my avocation can be! Secretly knowing myself to have produced the one growing cloud that might wash away all her happiness was a private grief that smarted most painfully. Yet I bore it with as much fortitude as I could.

  A few details must be mentioned before we rejoin our narrative: in the meeting with Plato during which I agreed to his terms, I ascertained from him the cause of the wound above his eye. It was so like Nurse Rooke to have omitted this startlingly obvious injury and its equally obvious connection to Plato’s unusual request (common sense had long since taught me that if two unexpected events take place at the same time, such as an attack and an unforced return of thirty pounds, they are likely to have the same causation). Plato had apparently told Nurse Rooke he had gained the gash over his eye by walking into a wall. She had believed him.

  I will spare you all Nurse Rooke’s hand-wringing and her constant fretting that she had failed me at every turn. She didn’t need to feel so bad. Stupidity is, after all, its own punishment. And in any case, Plato told me the whole story of the confrontation at the graveyard straightaway because he knew that, if he wanted to enlist my help, he would have to. So Harville, it turned out, that most gentle of men, had the most extraordinary temper. I stored this knowledge in that recess of my brain where I keep all kinds of miscellaneous details that speak of unexplained fears and violent action. Rarely, I have found, does evidence of extreme emotion fail to come in handy. With all men, Captain Harville included, anger
means something important. One day, I believed, I would profit from knowing precisely its significance. And this would be auspicious indeed. Harville was close to the story of Anne and Captain Wentworth and he was almost universally trusted; it was difficult to imagine a more useful ally, willing or otherwise.

  The other detail — connected with this last — is the dismal failure of my attempt to find the whereabouts of Elsie. The procedure I had envisaged could not have been simpler. I continued to have both the ear and the trust of Captain Wentworth, and as Captain Wentworth was one of Captain Harville’s closest friends, the plan was merely that Captain Wentworth should ask his fellow officer where Elsie now resided. I suggested that he should tell Harville that he was asking on behalf of a trusted friend who had lately written to him but had not disclosed the precise reason for the request for information; this way Harville might be forced to assume it might be a legal matter, an inheritance perhaps or the sudden illness or death of a relative. In any case, Harville’s reaction unnerved Wentworth. The Captain refused to give any information, demanded to know the full background behind Wentworth’s request, which, of course, poor Captain Wentworth couldn’t supply because he had made it up. Then, when Wentworth backed off, Harville went into a long and hostile silence that lasted two or three days. This was all rather awkward given that the Harvilles, the Crofts, and Captain Wentworth all shared the same lodgings on Gay Street.

  Captain Wentworth, of course, knew as well as I the reasons for Elsie’s disappearance. Plato himself had told the Captain about his niece, his brother, and their unhappy history with Captain Harville. Poor Wentworth considered whether this is what had irked his friend so much. Had Harville guessed from the question that Wentworth knew the whole sorry business? Wentworth wasn’t sure but he tried to explain his sense of disquiet to me once. He had been gazing up at the vaulted ceiling of the abbey, its high ribs the colour of bone. His expression wavered between inspiration and anxiety. Anne and Mrs. Croft examined the altarpiece some yards distant. As Captain Wentworth had my arm in his, I waited, certain he was searching for words to explain his mood.