‘Um …’
It was the first time I’d seen Henley unsure of himself. He didn’t look like his normal composed self as I watched him search for words.
‘I–uh … I remembered what I came to ask you earlier.’ Henley looked like an overgrown child as he stared down at his feet. ‘My father asked if you would accompany us for a walk?’ His intonation lifted at the end of the sentence, like a question. When Henley’s eyes met mine, his cheeks were flushed. ‘I just forgot to tell you … Would you like to come? I’d … I’d like it if you could.’
I told him I would love to and hurried to get myself ready. Henley chuckled at my disarray as I grabbed his arm and we darted out of the door to meet Mr Beauford.
Chapter 10
As we walked, it wasn’t uncommon for the people we passed to acknowledge Mr Beauford in some way or other. The women nodded politely while the men tipped their hats, calling out greetings. Mr Beauford responded the same way to everyone he met. He simply waved them on about their lives, and that was that.
‘Now tell me, Margaret,’ Mr Beauford said, patting my hand as we strolled through the busy streets and into the park. ‘How’s your mother doing?’
I opened my mouth to say something – I’ve no idea what – but was thankfully interrupted by Henley, who was walking in front of us and spun around on his heel.
‘Oh yes. Margaret was telling me yesterday how well Aunt Emmeline is faring.’ Henley gave me a meaningful look to which Mr Beauford appeared oblivious. ‘Weren’t you?’
‘Do tell,’ Mr Beauford said. ‘How is my dear sister doing?’
‘Well—’
Henley cut me off, trying to relieve me of the burden of having to lie to his father.
‘She’s doing just fine.’
Mr Beauford looked at his son with stern eyes. ‘Let Margaret speak for herself. I want to hear about my sister from her own daughter, not you.’
Henley looked at me with worried eyes.
‘Now, Margaret – how is your mother spending her days? Is she still at it with her hobbies?’
‘I’m afraid she isn’t, Uncle. She’s caught the flu.’
‘Oh my. I should write to her, then,’ Mr Beauford said. Henley looked alarmed, but was hesitant to interrupt again.
‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary,’ I said. ‘I believe Mother almost prefers it – this way she gets some time to rest.’
‘She was never much of the social type,’ he agreed.
‘But when she’s well, she enjoys her needlepoint from time to time and has picked up painting.’ I felt triumphant that I was able to pull this off. To impersonate someone’s niece was one thing, but to lie to a person about their own sister was a completely different matter!
‘I think what Margaret means is that her mother has picked up painting again,’ Henley chimed in once more. He threw me a look as if to say that I shouldn’t be speaking when it wasn’t absolutely necessary, but started laughing when he saw the bewildered look on my face.
‘Yes, yes.’ I glanced at Mr Beauford to see if he’d realized something was amiss, but all he did was pat my hand once more.
‘Henley Beauford?’ a voice said from behind, the words clipped and punctuated with a precise British accent. ‘Is that you?’
All of us turned at once to see a man dressed formally in a frock coat and silk hat. He wore an ascot tie and kid-leather gloves that were the lightest grey I’d ever seen. Their colour was so light that they looked like morning shadows.
‘Willie, whatever are you doing here?’ Henley appeared to know the man well, but nevertheless still offered him a formal, distant handshake.
With a closer look, I saw that the man was no older than Henley. Although his clothes made him look far older than he actually was and his hat cast a wide shadow over his eyes, anyone could see he was a very handsome man.
‘A pleasure to meet you again, Mr Beauford.’ Willie shook Mr Beauford’s hand in turn.
Mr Beauford murmured a quick, ‘How do you do?’
‘What brings you to America?’ Henley asked.
Willie was silent, as if ignoring Henley’s words. His eyes darted from Henley to me and back again in quick shifts. It took me a while to understand why he wasn’t responding, but I realized he was waiting for Henley to introduce me.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Henley said, as if finally catching on. ‘Excuse me. This is my cousin, Margaret. Cousin, this is Willie. We went to school together.’
‘A pleasure to meet you.’ He tipped his hat in my direction as I smiled.
I wondered why he didn’t offer me his hand to shake, as Miss Hatfield had told me this was common courtesy for men as well as women. I decided to ask Henley later, casually, when we were alone.
‘Business, mainly,’ Willie replied to Henley’s question. ‘We just bought a few more factories in the south. I’m to stay in New York one more day before sailing home.’ He paused. ‘How’s the steel business? And how’s your family?’
‘Steel is boring, as usual,’ Henley said. ‘Buying more factories in Georgia, you say?’ I noticed that Henley didn’t really answer Willie’s question. I wondered exactly how involved Henley was in the family business.
‘Well, yes. There was a fire a couple of months ago in which two of our main factories were destroyed. We have to make up for that loss, and the textile business in England is booming …’ Willie paused when he glanced at Mr Beauford and saw his expression. ‘I won’t bore you with the details when you’re obviously out for pleasure.’
‘Nonsense. We have some catching up to do—’ Henley started, but Mr Beauford interrupted him by clearing his throat.
‘I’m sure you do, but I don’t want to bore Margaret with all this talk about business,’ Mr Beauford said.
I had to fight off a smirk as I realized that Mr Beauford was trying to use me to get out of talking with Willie.
‘Why don’t we leave you two to talk and Margaret and I will continue our walk.’ Without waiting for an answer, Mr Beauford took hold of my arm and set off walking at a faster pace than before.
Henley and Willie appeared content to catch up on all the things they’d missed, so neither objected – not that Mr Beauford would’ve listened if they had. Henley threw back his head and laughed, catching my eye as I left with his father. He looked pleased to see me going on ahead rather than talking to his handsome friend. We could no longer hear their excited tones when Mr Beauford finally began to slow down to our original pace.
‘You know, you’re a good influence on Henley.’ Mr Beauford turned to me and was the first to break the silence. ‘You’re helping him see his life in a new way. I don’t think I’ve heard Henley laugh this much since his mother was still alive.’
He stopped and looked straight ahead. I heard him suck in a breath.
‘He was just a baby. He wasn’t ready to lose her. And I wasn’t ready to, either.’
The arm clinging to mine shook with tremors and his whole body began to convulse.
‘Oh God,’ he whispered. ‘Oh God, Ruth.’
Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer strength he exerted to wrench free of my arm, the force of which sent me stumbling backwards. When I regained my balance, Mr Beauford was already out of reach and running down the street as fast as his legs would carry him. He dropped his walking cane and his hat flew off his head, but he didn’t appear to notice.
‘Ruth! Ruth!’ He was screaming at the top of his lungs now and passers-by stopped to look at him.
Mr Beauford shoved aside ladies walking with their lace parasols and knocked over a grocer selling strawberries on the street. I tried to run after him, but after only a few steps I realized that the dress and shoes I was wearing would only hinder my movement. Instead I turned and headed back the way we’d come as fast as I could manage, hoping to get Henley’s attention.
‘Henley!’ The people on the street probably thought I was as mad as Mr Beauford, for they scampered out of my way as I approached H
enley and Willie.
Seeing me with half my skirts bunched up in one hand and mud colouring the other half, Henley immediately knew something was wrong.
‘Are you hurt?’ He took me by the shoulders and forced me to look at him. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
When I told him about his father running off yelling, ‘Ruth,’ Henley’s face blanched. He told me to stay where I was, but as soon as he ran off after Mr Beauford, I tried to follow him.
Nothing had ever scared me as much as the look on Henley’s face the moment I told him about his father. He acted in a way I’d never seen before. He didn’t even pause to think before he ran.
My shoes hit the ground in a beat as erratic as my heart. I was only semi-conscious of the hem of my dress ripping as I tripped over it, but at least now I could move faster. Faces blurred past and I couldn’t tell whether it was how fast I was running that made them fuzzy, or the tears that were spilling onto my face.
I didn’t know why I was crying. I felt frightened and nervous – I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I wasn’t sure what was happening.
I didn’t know where I was going, but Henley’s bobbing head in the distance assured me I was still heading in the right direction.
It wasn’t until he slowed down at a gate that I noticed how much my feet ached. My shoes really weren’t meant for this. Nonetheless, I willed myself to go on. If Henley could do it, so could I.
My heart stopped when I saw Mr Beauford kneeling in front of a grave with his head in his hands. Henley was there with him, talking softly and stroking his back.
‘You didn’t mean to do it—’
‘But how does she know that?’ Mr Beauford snapped back at Henley. ‘All she saw was a man chasing her.’
‘But surely she thought you must have mistaken her for someone else.’
‘I could have sworn she was Ruth,’ Mr Beauford muttered to himself, ignoring Henley. ‘She looked like her. She even walked like her. It was only when she turned around …’ Mr Beauford paused, apparently overcome by all that had happened. ‘She wasn’t Ruth.’
‘Ruth … my mother is dead.’ I knew how much it pained Henley to say those words, but I admired what he was prepared to put himself through for his father. ‘She can’t be here. She’s dead.’
‘I–I’m sorry.’ Mr Beauford finally looked up at Henley. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘We should get your uncle home.’ I turned to see Willie standing beside me. He had followed us to the graveyard.
Before I could mutter an assent, Henley nodded. Willie and Henley helped Mr Beauford to his feet. Mr Beauford looked frailer than ever. My gaze was drawn to the shadows and lines that constructed his face, but I could barely make out his eyes, sunken in like caves.
When we arrived home, Henley put his father to bed with Willie’s help. I wanted to go with them, but my feet stopped working in the parlour. I heard Henley tell one of the servants to call the family physician and also the chaplain, since his father refused to see the physician until the chaplain visited his bedside. Father Gabriel came swiftly, as if he’d been awaiting Mr Beauford’s call, and the physician also arrived before long. Shortly after the chaplain left Mr Beauford’s room and the family physician took his place by his bed, both Willie and Henley appeared in the parlour.
It was the first opportunity we’d had since the incident to collect ourselves. Willie’s silk hat was crumpled, while Henley had lost his altogether when he ran. I noticed that Willie’s silver cravat pin was missing and his silk-faced lapels were all creased now. I decided that in the rumpled clothing Willie and Henley now wore, they finally looked their true ages.
Willie took off his coat and plopped down into an armchair.
‘Nothing like chasing people to get your daily dose of fresh air,’ he said.
I knew he was trying to lighten the mood, but Henley only stiffened even more. He stood frozen at the door until the butler showed the physician in.
When Henley followed the physician upstairs, Willie turned to me. ‘Good God, I can’t imagine what he’s going through.’
I nodded. ‘Especially as he’s his father’s closest living relative.’
‘Close only in terms of blood …’ Willie trailed off and looked at me intently. ‘But he has you.’
I’d forgotten again that I was supposed to be Henley’s cousin, but Willie’s words grounded me back in my reality.
‘Yes …’
I wondered what Henley would do once I left, for my leaving was inevitable. I’d be gone as though I’d never existed here, and Henley would live on in his time and eventually die. The world would keep existing without him. There would just be an empty space where he once was. It would be the same for him, of course – I would simply vanish.
‘He’s lucky to have you,’ Willie said. ‘I never really understood how much you meant to him.’
I was puzzled by that. I wasn’t sure if Willie had met Henley’s actual cousin, but if he had, surely Willie would have mentioned it when we met.
Willie laughed. ‘We talked about you when we were in school. We talked about our entire families. I knew how distant Henley was – and still is, it would appear – with his father, but I never knew how close you two were. Come to think of it, he didn’t say much about you at all. Just that he had a cousin out of the city, an only child he hadn’t seen since he was younger.’ He smiled at me. ‘He failed to mention how close you are. It’s apparent to anyone who sees you two together. With you he looks …’ Willie tried to find the right word. ‘Alive. His eyes – his whole person – are brighter around you.’
I couldn’t find the words to respond to that, so Willie and I sat in uncomfortable silence. We watched as a servant showed the physician out. The family chaplain went in again, but Henley didn’t return.
‘I’m worried about him.’ It was Willie, again, who started the conversation.
‘I am, too.’
‘Have you seen his father act this way before?’
‘He’s been distant, but I suppose he always is.’ I tried to be tight-lipped with my answer, as I didn’t want to say anything that was untrue. I couldn’t guess how much Willie knew.
‘I don’t know him as well as you do,’ Willie said. ‘You’re related by blood? He’s your uncle, am I correct?’
I remembered what Mr Beauford had said about his sister and my supposed mother and replied that he was, indeed, correct.
‘He was never there during Henley’s childhood,’ he said. ‘We both went to a finishing school in the Moors, days away from London. Parents would visit, and those who came from abroad, whose parents couldn’t readily visit, they received care packages.’
I nodded, interested in hearing about this part of Henley’s life, a part that had been hidden from me so far.
‘Even I received packages from home and my parents lived in London. But for whatever reason, Mr Beauford just wasn’t interested in that kind of contact. The only thing Henley would receive from home was the occasional telegraph notifying him of money being wired into his account for his birthday.’
‘Just that?’
‘Well, what do you expect from someone like Mr Beauford?’ Willie’s outburst surprised me. ‘Everything he does is done because it suits him – even this sudden piousness. The only reason that man’s taken an interest in religion these past few years is because he knows he’s going to die. A relationship with his own son doesn’t suit or benefit him enough.’ Up until now, Willie had at least been tactful when discussing things he didn’t agree with, but there was no hiding the malice in his voice when he talked about Henley’s father – my uncle, I kept reminding myself.
‘I’m sorry.’ Willie had seen the look of surprise on my face. ‘I know he’s your uncle. I shouldn’t have said that.’ He made a move to leave.
‘No—’ I touched his elbow, making him pause. ‘Please stay. I know that Mr Beauford – my uncle – hasn’t always been there for Henley when he’s needed him. I agree with you.’
I saw Willie relax.
‘I was just worried that—’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But right now we have to be here for Henley. Regardless of what my uncle’s done, he’s still Henley’s father, and we must stand by Henley, whatever happens.’
I briefly saw a shadow flitting beneath the parlour door and wondered who could be listening. Thinking it might be a servant, I prayed they hadn’t heard much of our conversation. But as quickly as I noticed it, the shadow was gone. Perhaps Father Gabriel had left Mr Beauford’s bedside and was pacing through the house, waiting to be called back in.
When I looked up again, Willie was smiling. ‘You’re right. You’re absolutely right, Margaret.’
It made me cringe to hear Willie call me Margaret. In the short time I’d known him, I’d grown to really like and respect him. I didn’t want to lie to him, but knew I had no choice.
‘Let’s go and see how Henley’s faring. Whatever the physician said, it couldn’t have been good.’ Willie took my arm as we went up the stairs. ‘No matter what, we have to keep our friend’s best interests at heart.’
Henley was seated outside Mr Beauford’s bedroom. With his head bowed in his hands, he didn’t see us approach. Willie impulsively moved to comfort Henley, but Henley didn’t even acknowledge him.
‘Henley, what did the physician say? It couldn’t have been that bad.’ I heard Willie say the exact opposite of what he’d said to me just a few moments ago. ‘You’ll see. He’ll get better. He’s having a bad day – all he needs is some rest.’
‘And how is your family?’ Sarcasm dripped from Henley’s voice.
‘Faring well, indeed,’ Willie replied. I knew he wanted to say more, but out of consideration for what Henley was going through, Willie kept his response short.
‘Your father must be proud,’ Henley said. ‘You’re finally working in the family business. It must be a dream come true for him.’
The Seventh Miss Hatfield Page 9