“Good evening, Mr. Shaw.”
“Good evening, ma’am. I wonder if I might have a brief visit with Miss Bowen this evening. I’m quite willing to wait if she’s still at work.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Miss Bowen does not wish to see you. I believe she’s told you as much herself.”
“She did, ma’am, but that was some time ago—”
“Nothing has changed, Mr. Shaw. She’s made it quite plain. She won’t meet with you, and we’re not to take letters from you, either. Frankly, I’m surprised you’d come to this house and expect to be received.”
“I do not … expect, Mrs. Breault. I merely ask. Please, will you at least tell her that I’m here?”
“I’m sorry, but no. It would only distress her.”
“Mrs. Breault, please—”
“Good evening, Mr. Shaw.” Gently but decisively, she closed the door in his face.
He did not take a carriage home to Gideon Winslow’s house. He walked, brooding and bitter. For the first time since they had met, he felt anger toward Sylvie, mostly at the thought of what must have passed between her and Aggie Breault, at the way they might have talked about him. I never want to see the miserable sod again! I don’t want his letters! I don’t want anything of his! If he ever comes near me, throw him out!
But by the time he reached home, his anger, never very strong, was mostly spent. It was the housemaid’s duty to deal with callers, to receive the welcome and send away the inopportune. Even the Danners had to confide in her to that extent. A poor chambermaid who wished to be left alone could hardly do otherwise. Besides, she had told him Aggie Breault was her friend.
Her only friend, now.
He lay awake for a long time, staring at the darkness. He wondered what options he might have left, and discovered none. He could appeal to Mrs. Danner, but anything he said would only be his word. She did not know him personally; she had no reason to be confident that his heart was generous or his intentions pure. What kind of creature would she be if she overruled the wishes of a defenceless servant girl and allowed a rejected suitor to pursue her in her own home?
No, he told himself, Sylvie was gone. He should just accept it. They were terribly ill matched, after all. And perhaps she had never loved him very much. Perhaps the ferocity of her rejection was not grief, as he had imagined, but self-contempt, anger at herself for being seduced, for being deluded by the charms of a lying aristocrat, when she, if anyone, should have known better. Let it go, Erryn Shaw. It was a mistake from the beginning.
And if it was such a bad mistake, then why were we always so happy?
Maybe the housemaid had lied.
He did not think so, not really, but it was a possibility. Aggie Breault was a Northerner, a staunch Unionist, one of several Matt suspected of passing information, at least occasionally, to consular officials or to agents such as Jabin Romney. If this were the case, then a link between Sylvie and a known Confederate like Erryn Shaw would seem to her not merely objectionable, but dangerous.
So maybe she lied. Maybe Sylvie had changed her mind, at least a little bit; maybe she was willing to see him. Maybe, come Friday, she would let him walk with her again. Maybe they could find a bit of ground to stand on till the war was over. Till he could tell her the truth.
It was a lean hope, small and skinny as a wing bone from a sparrow, but it was all he had.
Friday did not come for a very long time. The hours went on for days, and the days for decades. When Friday finally dawned, he was, for a while, absurdly happy. Sylvie usually left the Den around two. Just before one he arrived at Boone’s Tavern, about half a block down Barrington, where he got himself a small glass of beer and a table by the window. Now and then a male guest strolled away from the boarding house; now and then a delivery wagon pulled up at the service entrance. Two o’clock came and passed, then three. He told himself there must be some reasonable explanation, and waited. It quietly turned four, but Sylvie did not appear.
At five he went into the street. He could no longer delude himself: she was not coming out. Perhaps she had guessed what he meant to do and traded her half day for another. Or else she had simply stayed inside, spending the afternoon curled up with a book.
He stared at the Den’s graceless facade, at the tiny lower windows that allowed scraps of light into the basement kitchen where the servants passed their free time. Sunlight burned warm on his sleeves and spilled like water through the streets. White gulls wheeled above the harbour, shimmering. On the Common, he knew, the first early flowers played. It was an exceptional spring day, the sort they rarely saw even in April. Nothing on earth would keep Sylvie Bowen shut inside on a day like this … nothing, perhaps, except himself.
Dear God, he thought, if she was so weary of him, so bitter, then in truth it was over. Then he had no hope at all.
Maybe it’s something else entirely. Maybe it’s just a case of the grippe.
He considered this quietly, because he knew he should, but the thought had no more power to persuade. If it was not over between them already, it would be soon. Not merely the evidence convinced him, but also something inside himself, a darkness, a sense of closing finality. This was not a separation he was going to repair.
You can still tell her the truth.
And he might have done it right then. He might have marched into the Den and made whatever outrageous demands he had to make to see her … only what if it was already too late? What if she handed his little piece of paper back to him, her eyes bitter and empty, and asked him: “Why now, Erryn Shaw? Why are you showing me this now?”
He took a carriage home. He would have preferred to walk, but he had no wish to meet or speak with anyone he knew. He offered a mumbled greeting to Gideon Winslow and fled to his room. He barely stirred from it the next day, pleading illness. By Sunday noontime he was hungry—no less unhappy, but very hungry—and wonderful smells of roasting chicken were drifting through the house. Gideon had probably cooked the bird to tempt him—he was a sly old cove, that one—but Erryn knew it was only decent of him to come out and eat it.
They were lingering over tea when the old man asked very casually, “Is there anything I can do for you, lad?”
“Do? No, not at all. Why?”
“Erryn, I may not be the smartest man God ever made, nor the most worldly, but even I can recognize a broken heart when it’s sitting at my dinner table. You’re grieving hard over something, lad. If there’s aught I can do for you, I will.”
“Thanks, Gideon, but no. I am troubled, I won’t deny it. But it’s all my own fault, and there’s nothing anyone can do.”
They might have said more on the matter, but they could hear steps coming up the walk and then a rapping at the door. It would be some flaming Grey Tory, no doubt, and right now he wished every last one of them packed off to Greenland and left on the ice.
If it’s for me, I don’t want to see them. The words formed in his mind, but he said nothing. When the bastards wanted him, he would come out. And God help them when he did.
Gideon came back with Jack Murray at his side.
“Erryn, how are you? MacNab says you’ve been back for days. Have you been sick?”
“Under the weather a bit. Nothing serious. Good to see you.”
They shook hands, and Gideon said cheerfully, “Sit down, lad, sit down. Have some chicken.”
Jack said he had eaten, but he accepted a glass of wine. He exchanged a few pleasantries with his host and then turned to Erryn.
“I’ve got Ames and the coach outside, Erryn. We’re off to the yacht club—thought maybe you’d like to come along. Collier’s got himself a fancy new skiff he wants to try, and there’s a party at his uncle’s place after. Most of the lads’ll be there.”
“I’d like that,” Erryn said. “Thanks.” Perhaps it would help, he thought, a bit of sailing, wind and water and not too much on his mind for a while.
But they had hardly settled into the Murray family’s classy carriage when Ja
ck said quietly, “Have you been over to the Den since you got back?”
Erryn shot him a quick, hard glance, but Jack’s face was serious and thoughtful. He was not, it seemed, making any sort of sport.
“No, why?”
“Well, I thought … when we talked before, I thought you seemed rather fond of the lass there … Miss Bowen … and seeing you haven’t been out at all since you got back, I wondered if you’d heard.”
“Heard what?” It was appalling how many dark things could flash through a man’s mind in the fragment of time between a question and its answering. She had sailed for parts unknown. She was marrying another. She was dead.
Please God, no …
“She’s been sick,” Jack said. “I mean, really sick—close to dying, I guess. Will Danner says her lungs are wrecked from the mills. I don’t think he’d have mentioned it, except now his brother might be needing a new chambermaid. It’s the worst time of the year, of course, with all the country folk going back to their farms, so he’s been asking all of us, don’t we know anybody, can’t we help? That’s how I found out.”
There were a thousand sounds coming through the open windows, dogs and children playing, carriage wheels and hooves, a quickening wind. It was, nonetheless, as silent as a grave.
“You didn’t know, did you?” Jack murmured.
“No.”
“I’m sorry, mate. I thought … I thought you’d prefer to hear it from me rather than over a punch bowl.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes. Drop me at South Park Road. I won’t … I can’t come with you to the club. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t think you would. South Park it is, then. And by the way, if there’s anything we can do for you, just ask. Christ knows my father and I are scrapping all the time now, over the war, but if I told him there was a poor lass without family needing help, he’d be the first man out the door.”
“Yes, I know. And you’d be right behind him. Thank you.”
He saw nothing of what he passed, walking to the house on South Park Road. He knew what he would do, and beyond that he thought of nothing except Sylvie and what Jack had said of her. She’s been sick … close to dying, I guess … her lungs are wrecked from the mills …
Back in England, through all their years of friendship, he had never feared for Cuyler. He knew the world was filled with peril, but he had been too young, too sheltered, too damn fool cocky to fear for Cuyler. They were best mates, smart, talented, ambitious; the whole world was their oyster. He would stage the plays and Cuyler would play the leading roles. They would take London by storm.
Instead, a rain-soaked grave and a brigantine to Canada.
And now here, with all of that behind him, he had not feared for Sylvie either. Even when his own instincts warned him of a terrible finality, a separation he would not repair, he had not feared for her—oh, no, he had been far too busy fearing for himself, his sad exile’s life, his poor broken heart, poor, poor Erryn. And all the while, dear God, she had been lying on a fever bed, coughing her life out, alone.
CHAPTER 28
The Letter
What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
THE FIRST THING Sylvie noticed when she wakened properly was bright daylight; the second was the soft, cuddly warmth of her bed. It took a moment to realize where she was—not in the attic, but in the sickroom on the first floor, just next to the family quarters. It was a small room, but wonderfully pleasant. It had gay wallpaper flecked with orchids, and a hearth and a window—not the tiny, dormered mouse hole they had in the attic, but a real window, with real sunshine spilling in, catching flecks of dust in a beam beside her bed, and lying in a small bright, puddle on the floor.
I’m still alive, she thought in wonder, and promptly fell asleep again.
A whole week went by in the bright little room. The fever diminished, but the cough remained, deep and harsh. Her strength crept back by inches, by halves of inches; and sometimes, when the coughing grew worse, it crept away again. Aggie brought her food and looked after her needs, and offered sometimes to read to her. No matter what Aggie read, it always made her sad.
“The doctor thinks I’m going to die, don’t he?” she asked once.
“He thought you would, before,” Aggie said. “Now he isn’t saying what he thinks.”
“I had a friend in Darwen, first good friend I ever had. She got sick from the mill. She were sick all winter. Sundays I’d go to see her when I could. She were so weak and skinny—always lying on her little cot, she was. First of May she died.”
“You aren’t going to die,” Aggie said sternly. “So stop thinking about it.”
“Thing is, you know, I don’t mind much. Oh, don’t look at me so, Aggie. It ain’t that I want to. It’s just I won’t grieve over it, see? Everything I was like to grieve over has already happened.”
Aggie made as if to speak and then did not. Perhaps she understood there was nothing useful she could say. She finished her chores and then, with a smile on her face that was somewhat less than steady, she bent and brushed her hand across Sylvie’s face.
“You’re strong, Sylvie Bowen. Strong inside, where it counts. You’ll make it.”
The other staff of the Den were not allowed in, lest they get sick too; but no one told Madame Louise whom she could or could not visit. She came with fruit and treats from her kitchen, and all manner of good advice. The third time she came—at least the third time that Sylvie was conscious enough to notice—it was on a Sunday afternoon. She picked her way across the room and settled in the chair by the bed.
“Sylvie, lass, how are you?”
“Much better, Madame, thank you. I was up for a bit this morning.”
“Good. I am glad to hear it.” The words seemed little more than a formality. The old woman’s eyes were troubled, and Sylvie could guess why. This morning, when she was up for those few minutes, she had looked in the mirror on the wall, and she had been frightened by what she saw: a woman so wasted and thin as to seem a child, with sunken eyes and hands like small, spent claws.
“Sylvie …” Madame was rarely at a loss for words, but she hesitated now, rubbing her thumb across her fingers. “Sylvie, do you still have … feelings … for Mr. Shaw?”
She could not meet the older woman’s eyes. “That be over, Madame.”
“Yes, I know. You ended your friendship because of his political activities. I quite understand. But do you still care for him? If, let us say, you had by chance been wrong about him—”
“I weren’t wrong, Madame. He admitted it himself.”
“Lord preserve us, you are a stubborn child! I never said you were wrong. I only ask about your feelings, and I would not ask without cause. Do you still care for him?”
Tears welled in Sylvie’s eyes. “Oh, Madame, how could I not? He were so good to me. And smart, too, and full of life. He could always make me laugh, when it seemed there were nothing left for laughing in the world.”
“Well then, that’s good. I have brought him to see you. He’s waiting in the parlour.”
Sylvie could only stare, swept by a blind animal joy, immediate and utterly astonishing; swept by hope and even by desire—and then also, as clear thought returned, by a wrenching sense of betrayal. Not now, dear God, she had no strength to face this now!
“Oh, Madame, how could you?”
“I would like you to see him, Sylvie. Just this once. Listen to what he has to say. He has promised me he will say it only once, and whatever you choose to do then, he will accept it. If you tell him to go away, he will go, and never trouble you again. I have his word.”
And what is that worth, Madame, when his whole life has been a lie?
“I have no faith in Mr. Shaw’s word,” she said bitterly.
“Do you have faith in me?”
The tears spilled faster. “Yes, Madame.”
“Then see him. Just this once.”
It was impossible to refuse Madame. It was perhaps more impossible to refuse herself, to forgo the chance to look on him again, to hear him laugh, to have, perhaps, a few last caresses. Nothing was going to change. She would not stop loving him, not for years, so how could it matter very much?
“I will fetch him for you, then, shall I?” Madame went on.
“Yes,” Sylvie whispered. “Thank you.”
She scarcely noticed Madame Mallette after, when the old woman returned through the door with Erryn behind her. He was exactly as she remembered—the same hawk’s face, the ragged blond hair, the fine, stylish clothing. Only the laughter was gone, utterly gone now, replaced by a distress so great it seemed almost to be grief, twisting his mouth and turning his eyes to grey water.
“Sylvie, oh my love, my poor, poor love …” He took her reaching hand and kissed it, brushing his other across her cheek, desperately, all the time saying her name, asking if she was all right, she was so thin, weren’t they taking care of her, Oh, God, he was sorry, he was so sorry …
Somehow she found the strength to wipe her face and try to speak. “I’m all right, Erryn. I mean, I’m getting better. They’re kind to me here. Really, they are. I’ll be all right.”
It was so good to see him. It was like food on an icy winter day. How did a starving person take a handful of it and shove the rest away?
“Why did you come, Erryn?”
“Because I love you. I would have come sooner, if I’d known you were sick. But I had gone away.”
He’d gone away. He wouldn’t have let me die alone. He’d gone away.
On Confederate business, no doubt.
She looked past him, to Madame Mallette sitting in the stuffed chair by the window, counting her beads; to the bright sunshine sparkling beyond, and the bleak, dead trees. It seemed such a contradiction, the bright sunshine and the dead trees—much as her life would be, she thought, if she went back to him. In time, something inside herself would break, perhaps her courage, perhaps her love. Something vital.
The Halifax Connection Page 39