by Susanna Ives
They walked side by side without speaking. Busy brown finches tweeted in the trees, diving in and out of the branches. The geese honked in their pen, their beaks poked between the slats, watching the passing couple with their shiny, beady eyes. The tiniest, most insignificant details filled Helena’s mind. Why, in what was going to be one of the most heart-wrenching moments of her life, did she notice the green weeds sprouting around the house’s foundation and the dead, brown-spotted moth on the window ledge?
Theo kept his eyes narrowed, jaw clenched, as he gazed into the scape of mountains. She couldn’t decipher his thoughts, and after several long seconds, she wondered if he would speak at all.
No more of this, she thought. Be done with it. Drive the blade quick and clean. She marveled at how much easier swallowing terrible news had become, as though sorrow was something practiced and improved upon. Best to quickly take it than wait, stranded in dread.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I always knew that—”
“I love you.” He turned. His jaw trembled, as if fighting back a powerful emotion. “I shall love you until I’m laid in my grave.”
She knew his next words would be filled with every reason he couldn’t marry her. And her dear, gentlemanly Theo would try to spare her feelings to soften the brutal blow.
“Theo,” she sighed, caressing his face, letting her fingers take in his details—the bristle of his beard, the planes of his jaw, the hard ridge of his cheekbone. Would she ever be able to touch him again? She spoke to save him the pain. “I understand. Your father is a peer. You must think of your family.”
“I don’t give a goddamn who or what my father is,” he barked. She flinched from the blast of anger. “I wouldn’t care if I were cut irrevocably from my family for marrying you.”
She began to laugh. The fears that had burned in her belly all afternoon now floated up like effervescent bubbles to the surface and burst. She smiled, cupping his cheek. “Then what can stop us? Nothing. There now, you gave me a terrible fright. How I’ve fretted. You must kiss me now.” She tilted her head, begging for that kiss.
He stared at her waiting mouth. Tears filled his eyes.
“Oh God, Theo, what is the matter?” She drew him into her embrace. His back quivered under her fingertips. She brushed her hands down him, trying to ease away whatever worried him, promising an intimate union made all the more sweet by overcoming this crisis. “Whatever it may be, it cannot part us,” she assured him. “I won’t let it.”
Theo yanked from her hold. What horrible thing had she uttered? Hadn't he said he loved her? What had happened?
He spun, putting his back to her. His shoulders heaved with his rapid breath. The wind billowed his coat and rifled the hair under his hat. Beyond him, the ancient barn rose. The silvery sky shined through the missing daub and the gray bones of its timbered frame.
“Speak to me, Theo. I must know what is the matter. We shall find a solution. We shall.”
He slowly turned and began to speak in a stiff, mechanical voice, devoid of any emotion, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the far mountains. “Six months ago, I was seeking a place to invest some funds. Several men in my regiment recommended your father’s bank because they had invested their monies with him.”
She inhaled, seeing the issue. She had come between him and his sense of responsibility to his soldiers. He was as protective as a loving father to those men, even years following the war. She admired his loyalty, but the thing she had respected about him was being turned against her.
“I’m sorry if they lost their money,” she said, fighting for Theo even as she felt him slip away. “I would give it back if I could. I would give everything back. You know that. I don’t want anyone to suffer for my father’s sins.” She grasped his elbow. “Please, my love. Please.” Her plea did nothing to chip his icy, stiff bearing. And her hand waited, suspended awkwardly on his arm.
He continued speaking with his cold precision. “I mentioned your father’s name to Emily in passing one day. I didn’t know they were related until she told me. And I thought it unfair he should possess such a fortune and be so ungenerous to Emily.”
Hadn’t she repeatedly admitted her wrongs and pleaded for forgiveness? Why was he throwing her sins in her face now?
“I wish I could go back in time and make everything better,” she cried. “I wish I could eradicate history. But I cannot. Almost every minute of my life is consumed with guilt. Every day is a game of what I could have done differently. Look at me, please. See that I am in earnest.” His eyes flickered to her face and then to the ground. Could he not bear to even look at her? Had more crimes of her father been exposed? Had some horrible new story circulated about her, some dreadful thing she said or did in the past? Was she beyond forgiveness now?
“I wrote letters to your father for my soldiers about their investments,” he said. “Then I took the replies I was given and began using what connections I had in the military and from school to investigate your father’s businesses. A few dealings of his were legitimate, but most were not.”
“Every person in England knows this! My father’s dealings are no longer secret. Why are you saying this now? Has Officer Wilson found something new? I vow I have done nothing more than what has already been exposed by the papers.” She seized his coat lapel. “Please, Theo, look at me. I love you. I love you so much.” Sobs cracked her voice.
He finally raised his eyes to hers. They weren’t cold and hard. There was no cold anger in their depths, only pain and another emotion she couldn’t recognize.
“Theo. Love.” She tried to kiss him. Her lips grazed his before he seized her arms and held her away.
“Helena, you must understand!” His words began tumbling out inchoate. He looked so much like he did that night in London when he insulted her on the dance floor. Fearful and lost. “I made an appointment. A secret meeting with Officer Wilson. I gave him damning documents. I told him… I told him about your father. And then that night, I danced with you. I held you.”
For a moment, she couldn’t comprehend his words. She was stuck in the role of spurned lover, begging for forgiveness. His lines were wrong. They didn’t fit. Her beloved, sensitive Theo would never betray her like the others. Like her father. She was the guilty one, not Theo.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no. I asked you! I asked you why Officer Wilson was there. You said it was about your mother. You said your father’s secretary…” She trailed off. How ridiculous it all sounded now. The stark truth had been in front of her eyes, and yet again, she hadn't seen. Or had refused to see.
How stupid he must think her.
How easily she believed every lie.
How easily she opened her body to him.
And as soon as Wilson had left Theo’s home that morning, she had let Theo make love to her and fill her with his seed. He had ruined her body, as he had ruined her life in London.
Hot tears trailed down her cheeks. She was tired of crying. It seemed like all she’d done for six months was weep. She should have sobbed herself hollow by now.
“Helena, I didn’t mean—”
“Stop talking!” she shouted. “Don’t utter another word! I don’t want to hear any more.”
She grabbed a handful of her skirt, lifting the hem, and ran toward the house, its timbers and brick blurring in her eyes.
“Wait!” He seized her elbow. Her fingers let go of her gown, and her toe caught the hem. She stumbled and would have fallen had not Theo slid an arm around her waist, catching her. She dangled from him, staring at the ground that waited mere inches below.
“Go.” She ripped away, and her knee slammed the soft grass. “Get away from me.” His hands were about her, trying to lift her up. She attempted to crawl from her captor, only to have him fall atop her.
His body weighed on hers as the night he had broken her maidenhead. The frenzy of their desire had given way to a lovely peace. Snug in his arms, she had felt safe for the first time in mont
hs, maybe years.
It was all falsehoods. All the while he had moved in her body, taking her innocence, he had known the truth.
“I didn’t know you would come to Wales,” he said. “Or that I would fall in love. I didn’t want to. I tried to send you away to protect you. But then Emily and the reverend interceded.”
“You betrayed me like my father betrayed me.” Her head was bowed almost to the ground. “You lied because you knew I would stupidly believe you.”
“No! I lied because I fell in love. I did everything because I love you. I wanted to shelter you and never see you hurt again.”
Her fingernails dug into the earth, drawing up a handful of black soil and roots. She twisted around. “You don’t love someone by lying to her. I may have been stupid and ignorant, but I was honest. My life was open for you… for everyone. I had no secrets. You once accused me of cruelty. But you are the cruel one. Don’t say you love me. Because you don’t.” She threw the dirt, spraying his chest. “And I felt sorry for you when you told me about the war. I gave my virtue to you. I gave everything to you!”
“I can provide you with twenty thousand pounds,” he said. “I’ll leave. You can stay. Efa and Gordon can take care of Emily.”
Now she had a price. Did he think he was going to pay for her silence and run away so he didn’t have to live with what he had done? Neatly wash his hands of her?
But his memory would remain with her. She wasn’t so fickle. Her love for him would be like that for her father, stuck in her heart—useless and aching, with no way to relieve the pain.
He stared at her, his eyes silently pleading for something. Was she supposed to forgive him? She wasn’t the broken window, the carriage accident, or the toppled candle. She was a human being, who would relive this betrayal every day of her life, as she lived with her father’s death every day, as she lived with the scorn of society and every vicious word written about her. How could she forgive? He wanted more than she could give, and after he had taken so much.
“You’re no better than my father!” Her voice was shrill with hysteria. “You think money will wash away your wrongs. Well, I don’t care for your money. Do you know what I want? I want you to know the agony of finding your parent with a gushing hole where his face had been. I want you to write letter after letter to the people you thought were your friends only to receive cold, distancing silence. I want you to have every aspect of your life detailed in some rag for the public to savage. I want you… I want you to know how it feels to find the courage to trust someone only to be betrayed again.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ve ripped me apart and you’re merely sorry?” She covered her eyes with her hand. Her body convulsed with her sobs. She turned onto her side, drawing her legs and arms close to her.
“Oh God, Helena,” he murmured. He stroked her hair and again said he was sorry. Maybe he didn’t know what else to do, but throw that useless, vapid word about.
She wanted him to know the extent of her hurt. The word “sorry” was inadequate. A million “sorry's” wouldn’t bring back what he had taken from her.
“All your soldiers,” she said slowly. Now it was her turn to speak with such mechanical coldness, her turn to wound. “Those poor Irish boys you told me about, the ones who sent their money to their mothers—you should have died instead of them. You shouldn’t have left that war alive with your handsome, unscathed face. Your body should be rotting deep in the dirt of Crimea with the soldiers whom you led to their death.”
He bolted to his feet, backing away from her. His eyes darted about, unfocused. A choked, mangled sound tore from his mouth.
“No!” Helena reached for him, her fingers gripping a mesh of air. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t.” Helena didn’t think she possessed any innocence or held anything sacred anymore, yet seeing the work of her anger penetrated the last stronghold inside her. What had she done? Turned into a tormentor? Become what she hated?
“You don’t think I wish that every day!” His face crumpled. “Goddammit!”
“No, no.” She threw her arms about him. His chest was taut, except for the skin above his heart, which palpitated with his heartbeat. “Please, I didn’t mean it,” she said again. “I… I just…” She had wanted to strike at his most vulnerable shame so he would know her pain.
She clung to him, seeking to give and receive comfort from the man who had devastated her life again and again. What a vicious joke to still love him. To feel sorry for him. Even now, as he whispered her name, her heart surged to his voice. Stupid Helena. Still loved a father who didn’t notice her. Still loved a man who destroyed her.
She turned and fled for the house.
She could hear him calling her name. She hated the sound of it. She hated herself. Stupid, blind, cruel Helena.
∞∞∞
In the house, Helena moved quietly through the hall. She didn’t trust herself to speak to anyone. Her words would fall out as disheveled and frantic as her mind. She just had to walk the distance from the entrance, past the parlor and dining room doors, to the stairwell without being detected, and then she could escape to her chamber.
But Emily was waiting for her and called from the parlor. Helena gripped the banister, her tears returning. She didn’t have the strength to explain what happened.
“What is the matter?” Emily swept into the hall with Betry and Megan in her wake. The daughter and servant tried to take Emily’s elbows to support her, but Emily yanked away. “For Heaven’s sake. I’m not an invalid! I do not need help.”
Emily searched Helena’s face. “What is the matter?” she repeated, this time as a whisper. “Speak to me, my dear.”
Helena realized Theo’s betrayal would ripple beyond her to impact Emily and Megan—two people who didn’t deserve any more tragedy. He would crack open the fragile shell of a family they had formed. But her cousin deserved an explanation after all the kindness she had extended to Helena, for being the closest to a wise, loving parent that Helena had ever known.
“Theo… he… told Scotland Yard about my… my father.” Helena’s lips could scarcely form the sounds. “He was the one who started the invest… investi…” She couldn’t manage investigation and gave up. “He was the reason my father k-killed himself. He...” She broke into stupid sobs again. Stop crying, she mentally shouted at herself. Stop bloody crying.
“No!” Emily swayed unsteadily. She reached out, flailing for the banister.
“Mrs. Pengwern!” Betry tried to help her mistress, but her swollen belly only pushed against the smaller woman. Helena gasped. For a frightening moment, it appeared as if both women would tumble against the wall, but Megan shot forward and steadied her mother. Betry managed to turn like a clumsy ballerina, letting her shoulder smash against the wall but protecting her unborn child
The ladies remained still and silent. The near miss, the accident that almost happened, hung in the air between them.
Then Helena could hear the muffled footfalls of alarmed servants running from the kitchen. She couldn’t face any more people. She fled up the stairs and into her chamber.
She flung open her trunk to get to Jonathan’s letter. Her father’s picture stared at her from atop a shift. She seized the picture and smashed it on the floor. The frame bounced and landed face up, her father staring at her amid the shards of glass. She couldn’t make him go away. His crimes would always be there. Theo would always be there. His memory would linger in every moment like a ghost. She loved Emily and Megan, but she couldn’t withstand the pain anymore. Theo had destroyed Helena’s second home as he had done her first, truly breaking her this time. She grabbed the portrait again, never minding the jagged glass, and threw it down. Her fingers itched to rip apart her room. She wanted to scream and scream until her lungs were raw, until she could get all this ugliness out of her.
She fished out Jonathan’s letter.
Yes, he was right. Yes, she would come back pleading. Yes, she
could leave tomorrow for London. Yes, she would be his mistress if he kept her hidden, if she didn’t have to think or feel.
Could she let another man touch her as Theo had? What she had given him was precious and pure, but what would she give Jonathan? Would she come to feel something in his arms?
The door swung open, and Megan stepped in. Her features carried none of the compassion her mother’s had. For several long seconds, she said nothing but stared at Helena. Her lips jutted in an angry pout.
“You can’t leave,” she stated at length. “You said you wouldn’t leave.”
“I’m sorry.” Helena squeezed her eyes shut. “I really tried to be the sister you needed. I did. Please don’t make this harder for me… for your mother.”
Megan swayed on her feet, taking in Helena’s answer. “Y-you said Theo killed your father, but he didn’t. Your father killed himself because he knew he would be hanged for his crimes. Why are you angry with Theo? He was just being honest. What else could he do? Your father was cruel to Mama. I’m glad he is dead. I’m glad Theo told Scotland Yard.”
Helena knew the poor girl was terrified and was lashing out in anger rather than showing her fears. Helena wished she could be strong enough to address the girl’s pain and not her cruel words.
“I wish it were so simple,” she snapped. “But I still love my father, whom you and everyone in England are glad is dead. And as for what else Theo could have done? Well, he could have told me the truth. He betrayed me in the deepest way.”
“But you have nowhere to go. Everyone outside this village despises you.”
“I do have another place.”
“Where?” Megan’s eyes sharpened on the letter Helena clutched to her chest. “Is it from the man who wrote that letter? Let me see.” She rushed forward, reaching for the missive. Her heels crunched on the glass.
“No.” Helena twisted around, shielding the letter with her shoulders.
“You can’t go!” Megan wailed like an angry child. “Betry is going to have an infant. I can’t take care of everyone. I can’t!”