Frail

by Susanna Ives

  His gaze locked on hers. The light flowing through the window lit his eyes, and for the first time in their brief acquaintance, she could make out their exact color—dark gray, like black pearls. They looked at her with that guarded hostility she now garnered almost everywhere she went.

  “Mr. Mallory, I can see that you do not desire me here—”

  “Not at all! I merely—”

  “It is well.” She held up her palm, silencing his polite protest. “You needn’t lie. I’m not upset.” She didn’t have enough emotion to spare anymore. She hung her head and rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m just very, very fatigued.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said…” He swallowed and then performed a terse bow, keeping his hand tight on the doorknob. “I shall leave you.”

  ∞∞∞

  Theo hurried down the stairs. She didn’t belong here. Despite that sweet, gentle smile Helena gave him when she glimpsed his garden—completely different from the obnoxious, flirtatious one she wore in London—he had to believe the old Helena was waiting not far below the surface. How could a selfish, privileged young lady who never had to lift her finger, now care for an ailing woman and her willful daughter? Or maybe he didn’t want to see those haunting, scared eyes every time he visited, knowing he had inflicted her suffering and could never admit his guilt. But he couldn’t very well have her leave with nowhere to go.

  Emily waited for him at the threshold to the parlor, her arms still wrapped in her shawl. She had an I-told-you-so arch to her brow.

  “She is wonderful,” she said. “Not a spoiled, arrogant girl at all.”

  “She hasn’t been here above half an hour.”

  “You are as stubborn as my husband. Will you ever admit you might be wrong?”

  “But I’m not.”

  Emily only smiled, an odd glow burned in her eyes, prompting him to ask, “What?”

  “She’s a handsome girl, is she not?”

  “No,” he lied, beginning to see where the conversation was leading. “Don’t form any ideas.” He removed his hat from the side table. “I need to get back. Gordon has written out an entire list of tasks we have to do for the next two days. He is worse than any nagging wife.”

  “Will you bring the carriage around this Sunday?”

  “Of course,” he said and then wagged a finger before her nose, pretending to tease to cover his racing heart. “But if you insist on playing matchmaker, I may very well change my mind.” He gave Emily a peck on the cheek and then issued a whistle. “Come, Branwen, remove yourself from the carpet. This isn’t your home.”

  ∞∞∞

  At Castell Bach yr Anwylyd, Theo found Gordon sitting on an upturned bucket by the gate, sharpening a kitchen knife. “Well?” he asked, squinting below the brim of his hat.

  “She’s scared and oblivious to her situation,” Theo said.

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  “She’s too…too fragile.” He sleeked his hand down his face. “And if I say something now, I’ll only hurt Emily, and the controversy will upset my father.”

  Theo’s father didn’t like “talk.” Good or bad. And Theo had certainly generated enough after the war. The earl brokered the gentleman’s way, the honorable way. Agreements were made between serious men over the dinner table after the ladies had withdrawn. The earl didn’t know how to deal with his angry, ranting son who had to stand before a magistrate for his unhinged behavior, who, during an argument, had ground his Victoria Cross under his boot heel. “That is what I think of your goddamned country.” Theo just wanted to pass the rest of his days in silence and anonymity, bringing no more attention to himself or his family.

  “Maybe I can ask my stepmother to take her in as a companion,” he said. “If I agree to visit one of their bloody quack physicians.”

  Gordon scratched the stubble growing along one of his scars. “It’s best to take care of this matter before Emily becomes too attached. She wants another child after she lost that boy.”

  Theo muttered a curse.

  With Branwen beside him, he strode up to his library, composing the letter to his stepmother in his head. I must ask a most extraordinary favor… I would be willing to visit a physician, if you could… Miss Gillingham cannot stay here.

  He opened his desk. Folded and sitting beside the ink stand was a missive from Officer Wilson that Theo had received last week and hadn’t yet responded to. He opened it and reread the lines.

  Dear Sir,—England is indebted to you. I wish you would reconsider your request for confidentiality. It appears that Miss Gillingham is removing to Wales. I have tried to dissuade her, but my attempts have been in vain. Perhaps if she knew the truth, she would change her mind.

  Gillingham’s monies are proving hard to track and recover. And I have determined the daughter is ignorant of her father’s matters. I have gained nothing from her. I ask that you come to London and allow the Bank of England and Parliament to interview you. Please write with the day you will be arriving…

  “How did this all become so bloody tangled?” he spat and hid the letter under several bills. He pulled out a clean sheet of stationary and began to write to his stepmother.

  Six

  Helena curled up on the bed, careful to keep her boots off the covers, and tried to rest as her cousin had instructed. The mattress slumped in the center and the ropes creaked. Her body was exhausted, yet her mind kept racing, churning with thoughts.

  From where she lay, she could see out the window. Dusk was beginning to darken the clouded sky. Between the ancient walls, she could see slices of Mr. Mallory’s garden.

  Who was this man? In London, they said he was mad, and she had certainly witnessed his insanity. Yet, here he appeared a different man: insightful, strong, and possessing enough rationality to want her to leave.

  She crossed to the commode, poured the water into a bowl, opened the neatly folded cloth, and plunged it into the water. She sponged the cool water across her face. Without bothering to check her reflection in the tiny round mirror, she left the room and headed downstairs.

  The hall smelled of broth, onions, and celery. Helena found her cousins in the dining room opposite the parlor. Cousin Emily was smoothing the lines in the tablecloth where the fabric had been folded. Megan gripped a handful of forks and spoons and was placing them about blue Dutch plates. In the center of the table, two candles burned.

  “Did you get enough rest?” Emily asked, connecting her arm through Helena’s.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “We don’t normally dine so formally, but I thought we would have a small celebration tonight.”

  “You didn’t have to do that on my behalf.” Helena saw nothing on the table to indicate a celebration. Before her father’s death, she had dined much better than this at every meal.

  “Of course I had to. I didn’t want to disappoint my London cousin. Megan, please go tell Betry to bring the soup.”

  “Make Helena,” Megan said, putting a fork on the wrong side of a plate. “She said she was here to help.”

  Emily’s kind face hardened. “Young lady, you will go tell Betry this minute.”

  “Helena wrote saying she would help,” the girl said under her breath, releasing the utensils, letting them clatter on a plate. She stomped from the room.

  Emily released a long sigh, picked up a fork, and corrected her daughter’s handiwork. “Megan is not angry at you,” she said quietly. “She scared. She’s lost her father and brother, and she’s afraid of losing me. She sees you here as a sign of my slipping away.”

  How was Helena supposed to respond to that? Should she embrace her cousin? Was she supposed to say something wise and comforting? She didn’t know any such words, else she would have said them to herself long ago. She drew her arms about her chest, feeling useless and awkward.

  Emily moved a spoon above a plate, making sure it was parallel. “But I don’t plan to leave just yet,” she said, a hard resolve in her voice that she softened
with a smile.

  A young woman pushed the door open with her backside. She gripped the edges of her apron in her hands as she carried a huge bowl above her protruding pregnant belly. She wore a plain burgundy gown with circles of sweat under her arms. Her hair was tied back in a tight knot, and her plain face was pale, despite the sheen of perspiration, and dotted with blemishes. Her mouth hung open, her breath audible as she carefully set down the soup between the candles.

  “Thank you, Betry,” Emily said, and added a few sentences in Welsh.

  The servant replied in her native tongue as she wiped her brow with her apron. Even though Helena couldn’t understand the woman’s words, the discomfort in her voice was evident. Betry left, nearly colliding with Megan as the girl slipped back in the room, holding plates of sliced bread, creamed turnips, and potatoes.

  After sitting, Emily said a prayer, thanking the Lord for keeping Helena safe in her journey to Wales and blessing all the members of her family, which included Betry and Mr. Mallory. Helena forced herself to eat. Since her father’s death, she didn’t have an appetite. She could find the day had passed, and she hadn’t eaten. Her arms were shrinking to sticks.

  The dinner conversation consisted of Emily discussing everyone in the village, their general lineage, and the type of dogs they kept. Every woman was “such a dear,” each child “precious,” and every man “so respectable and kind.” Emily’s descriptions were at such odds with the harsh reception Helena had received earlier that afternoon. Her cousin was positive everyone would love Helena as she did.

  Megan made little contribution to the conversation except to insert several exasperated huffs when her mother asked her to go back to the kitchen and help Betry bring out the mutton and onions and finally the dessert of plain custard.

  “Megan, assist Betry with cleaning up,” her mother said after all the meal was done. “The poor dear is so ill. Helena, why don’t you join me in the parlor.”

  Megan slapped her linen on the table and shot her cousin another evil look.

  Helena rose from her seat. “If you don’t mind, I—I think I shall help your daughter.”

  “You don’t even know what to do,” Megan countered, her chin jutting in a challenge.

  Helena recoiled at the words she was about to say. Had she become a scullery maid? But she couldn’t take this little brat’s taunting any longer. “Megan, if I help you clean, will you allow me to teach you the finer points of society?”

  Megan’s face was screwed with indecision. Helena knew the girl preferred to keep her an enemy. It was her mother who spoke, diffusing the tension. “Let us all go to the kitchen, then.”

  Helena took her plate and followed Megan into the old narrow wing of the house to the kitchen. The ceiling was low and timbered and the brick floors uneven. A large oven heated the room, and dried herbs hanging from the beams scented the air with thyme and sage. Betry was curled on the bench by a large table with her arm over her forehead. She bolted up when she saw Emily and began to wail in Welsh.

  “It’s well,” Emily said, with a calming wave. Helena had never treated her servants with such a casual touch. She had learned from the haughty style of her father, who separated the world by breeding. Those without breeding were little better than horses and should be treated as such.

  “The waste goes in the pail so I can feed it to the animals.” Megan tilted her plate, letting the remains of her meal splatter into a pail filled with a chunky pale stew of bones, grease, and peelings. Helena’s belly heaved when she did the same.

  Megan snatched up a water bucket and disappeared out the back door, sending a waft of cold night air inside. Cousin Emily sat at the bench, and Betry draped a blanket about her shoulders. When Megan returned with water, the servant began scrubbing the dishes. Betry’s hands were red and wrinkled in the water and she slumped over the sink. Megan wordlessly handed Helena a towel. She fumbled to dry the dishes and stacked them on the table for Megan to put away.

  What was Helena doing? Was she no better than a common servant in a rotting home? What if Wilson was right and Jonathan didn’t write? She would be lost here, as if she had fallen down some deep, silent well. Her anger flamed again. Her father had lived the life he desired, stealing what he wanted to finance his extravagance, leaving her to pay the debt of his sins. Leaving her to this pitiful place. She would be anything Jonathan wanted if he would take her away from this primitive, ugly home with its slop pails.

  She didn’t realize Emily was singing. The sound was so soft and whispery. It seemed to seep under her thoughts.

  In Scarlet Town, where I was born,

  There was a fair maid dwellin'.

  Made every youth cry well-a-day;

  Her name was Barbara Allen.

  Then Megan joined. The girl’s voice streamed like silk. Helena stared at Megan, stunned that this hostile child could produce such music. The girl’s angry expression had vanished, her relaxed face as lovely as her voice. Emily motioned for Betry and Helena to sing. Helena didn’t join in but continued to listen, reluctantly allowing the sweet sound to soothe her.

  Twas in the merry month of May

  The green buds were a swelling.

  Sweet William on his deathbed lay

  For the love of Barbara Allen.

  An hour later, a swollen orange moon hung low in the sky and the wind gusted up and keened through the chimney. All the dishes had been put away, but the four women remained around the kitchen table. Megan rested her head on her mother’s shoulder, and Cousin Emily idly ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair as Megan continued singing in her beautiful voice.

  Seven

  Helena’s chamber was frigid. No fire burned in the grate. A single lamp on the commode illuminated only a small radius.

  Twisting about, she struggled with the buttons on the back of her gown. The filthy dress slipped from her shoulders. She didn’t even try to get out of her corset. Her hair fell oily and limp when she removed her pins and combs. She had never stunk so badly in her life, but washing off with the frigid water required more fortitude than she could muster.

  She opened her trunk, and the scent of her old home assailed her nose. She brushed away the tears that swelled and yanked out her toiletries and the ill-fitting crêpe mourning gowns bought from the warehouse, all she now owned. She hung them on a rope strung across the corner. The bottles and brushes she placed on the commode.

  Beneath her clothes, she placed matching miniatures of her mother and father. She ran her finger over the glass of her mother’s beautiful image. Her face was soft and shadowy in the low light. Helena couldn’t recall the features of her mother’s face in her memory; she had snatches of expressions, colors and words. And now her father was becoming blurry in her mind, too. In his picture, he was about thirty, his hair still dark and swept to the side in a wave. His lips and chin were full and soft like a woman’s—hardly the face of a monster. She still felt the same raw love for him she did when she was an infant and would cling to his leg to try and keep him from leaving the house. She had tried so hard to make him love her. Each moment of her life seemed laden with a seed of her downfall, bringing her to this tiny bedroom in a ramshackle home, lost in the wild lands of Wales.

  “I’ve wasted my life,” she whispered.

  She closed the trunk and shoved it under the window. The pane glass was frigid and vibrated with the gusting wind. The moon rested atop Mr. Mallory’s tower, casting his garden into deep blue tones. Gold light burned in the arched windows of his home. Jonathan had said Mr. Mallory was insane, and she had seen a glimpse of his madness in London. Yet the man she saw today was different. He was strong, at ease in his body, confident in his stride, and wise enough to want to her to leave. She remembered that beautiful afternoon in Hyde Park when she and Emmagard had ridiculed him. She had certainly paid a thousand fold for that tiny crime and hundreds, hundreds more she had committed.

  An hour or so later, the lights were extinguished in his house, but she recl
ined on her bed, continuing to watch the moon, her mind refusing to rest.

  ∞∞∞

  Helena awoke in a frigid, foreign room and panicked. Where was she? Then the realization sunk deep into her stomach. Wales. She may as well have been washed away at sea. The sunlight illuminated the chamber, accenting its scuffs and dinginess. Her hard life had been reduced to a sad hovel.

  She curled onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Jonathan, please.

  She heard the muffled sounds of movement downstairs, but she couldn’t rise yet. She hadn’t the strength. She remained curled up, walking through her old home in her mind, remembering each room as it was before her father’s death.

  Finally, she forced herself up and doused a cloth with chilly water. Holding her breath, she wiped under her arms and around her thighs. She shoved on two pairs of wool stockings, four petticoats, and a black crêpe gown, but still shivered from the cold. She studied the hideous scarlet shawl, but decided to leave it hanging on the rope. Helena headed downstairs.

  The hall reeked of putrid vomit. Megan sat on the last step, lacing her boots, a basket sitting beside her. She gazed up at Helena with hot, angry eyes. The tenuous truce from the previous evening had been broken.

  “Betry is sick—again,” Megan said. “We must go to the baker’s shop.”

  So Helena set off with Megan through the fields on the hillside. The village was laid out below them, built along the banks of the stream that cut through the valley.

  Megan clambered over fences and trotted across the grass. Helena tried to keep up while stepping carefully to avoid sinking her shoes in the damp earth. Sheep peppered the land. Each ewe had a lamb or two under her belly, sucking on her teats. They regarded Megan and Helena suspiciously with their narrow pupils, thumping the earth with their front hooves.

  “Hurry up,” Megan shouted above the wind.