The Sealed Letter

by Emma Donoghue

  "Thank you, Miss Faithfull."

  The slut, she takes it as homage! "Which makes it all the more inexplicable that you'd jeopardize your position by stooping to the very lowest trade your sex can make."

  Our sex, the girl's eyes seem to correct her. "Oh, you've got it roundabouts," says Flora Parsons. "I didn't take it up to make more cash just now; I've been at it since I was fifteen."

  Fido flinches.

  "I'm just a mot who does some typographing on the side, see?"

  "Quite." She tries to gather her thoughts. "What about your engagement—what about Mr. Dunstable?" she asks, with a stern nod towards the workroom.

  "That's all off," says the girl with a toss of the head.

  "You don't care that I am obliged to turn you off without a reference?"

  "It's not like I'll starve." The girl gives her a lingering smile, before turning towards the door.

  Fido knows she ought to give this creature the most impassioned of lectures, but she can't summon her energies. No use, is there?—as the girl said. Flora Parsons has chosen her path, it's just a shame that Fido failed to see it years ago, and wasted the training.

  Alone in her office, she leans back in her chair, entirely limp. Like some stain spreading across the buttoned leather. She's been trying to lose herself in work, in the three days since she turned Helen out of the house, but it's impossible: she can't sleep, she can barely eat. She doesn't know herself. How could she have done that to the woman she—despite everything—loves? And yet how could Helen have dragged her into this stinking quagmire?

  People are never what they seem,not even to themselves. Harry Codrington tried to rape her, after all, she reminds herself—and all these years she's managed to deny it. How murky the human mind can be. What other terrible things has Fido managed to forget? What else lies occluded in the back of her thoughts? Her mind's a graveyard where the ground has started buckling; bones heave out of the grass.

  The boy puts his head round the door. "Madam? Miss Parkes."

  Oh dear God, today of all days. Fido jumps up, a wide-eyed jack-in-the-box, to offer her visitor a chair.

  Bessie Parkes is looking particularly smart this afternoon, for all her plain blue costume; there's a healthy colour to her cheeks. "I must begin by congratulating you."

  Fido is winded. And then she understands. "Oh, the Victoria Magazine, yes, thank you."

  "I've already offered Miss Davies my felicitations on the new enterprise," says Bessie Parkes, "since it was she who had the courtesy to tell me about it."

  Fido shrinks at that.

  "And now that she's resigning the editorship of the English Woman's Journal, I mean to take the helm again myself, as in the early days."

  "Marvellous," says Fido feebly.

  "As it happens," remarks Bessie Parkes, "I've recently come into a legacy which will allow me to become the principal shareholder, and bear the Journal's entire management on my shoulders."

  "How fortunate," says Fido, startled. Not that she'll miss those interminable committee meetings—but she can't help feeling there's been a coup d'etat.

  "I want to transform it into a more practical vehicle, to uplift working women. The Alexandra Magazine and English Woman's Journal, I was thinking of renaming it," says Bessie Parkes.

  Fido represses a smile. To borrow the princess's name is such an obvious echo of the Victoria. "How exciting!"

  "I'm afraid I'll be obliged to end our printing contract with your press. I'll need lower rates, you see, and a more reliable schedule."

  She nods, reckoning the financial loss. "We'll be fighting the good fight on two fronts, then. As sister publications," she adds.

  Bessie Parkes's smile is distinctly sour. "Miss Faithfull—are you being wilfully naive?"

  "I don't believe I understand you," says Fido.

  "The Codrington case—"

  "Yes," she gabbles, "I'm really uncommonly sorry that I didn't tell all of you about it beforehand, but you see, there was a misunderstanding."

  One tapered eyebrow goes up.

  "The solicitor—he gave me the fallacious impression that my name was to be quite kept out of it."

  "Miss Faithfull," says Bessie Parkes as if to a child, "you're all over the papers as the woman's chief intimate, and worse."

  Her cheeks are on fire. "Much of what they say is pure libel. And I've already taken steps to dissociate myself from Mrs. Codrington somewhat—" She finds herself listening out for a cock crow.

  Bessie Parkes brushes that away. "We of the Cause must keep quite clear of anyone who has publicly violated the cardinal rules of morality. It's a thing understood; at least I thought so. One can't touch pitch and not be defiled."

  "My friend hasn't been found guilty of anything yet," says Fido, too loudly. Something occurs to her. "And what of Miss Evans? Ten years ago, you and Madame Bodichon made a point of standing by her when she eloped with a married man."

  Bessie Parkes's mouth purses. "Marian's circumstances were highly particular; Lewes was only prevented by a legal technicality from getting a divorce so he could marry her. And she's famous not only for her novels but for acting on the highest principle, which is why she's been accepted in society again since. Your Helen Codrington, on the other hand—"

  It's the sneering tone that forces Fido to interrupt. "I still owe her something. What of loyalty? What of sisterhood, if you will?"

  "Oh, but I won't. Were you thinking of us, of your comrades in the Reform Firm, when you got yourself entangled in this notorious case? Where was your precious loyalty and sisterhood then?"

  Fido clings to the edge of her desk and strains to take a breath. "I deeply regret the publicity. But it should die away soon, as I've no intention of going into the witness box."

  Bessie Parkes tilts her small head. "Haven't you been served with a subpoena yet?"

  Fido shakes her head.

  "Did you or did you not approve that affidavit?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "Then you'll be obliged to appear, on pain of fine or imprisonment."

  Fido sucks her lips in panic. "I mean to write to Mrs. Codrington's solicitor again. There's still time; the case won't come up for several weeks, I understand—"

  "Monday, according to my father," says Bessie Parkes crisply.

  She's been forgetting that Joseph Parkes is a lawyer. "Monday?" She can hardly form the word. This is Thursday.

  "An unexpected reconciliation between the parties in another case has created a sudden opening in the court's schedule."

  Fido blanches, gets to her feet. "I—I'm not well."

  "Oh, you're hoping a doctor's note will let you off? I doubt that very much, Miss Faithfull." Bessie flips open her watch.

  "The Cause means everything to me," sobs Fido, "and I won't be forced into anything that will do it the slightest harm."

  "I wonder, have you the slightest grasp of what harm you've done already?" And she sweeps out of the office.

  ***

  FIDO JUST NEEDS TO GET HOME AND LIE DOWN. A little steam, a few cigarettes, and surely her lungs will loosen a little. Monday, Monday. She won't think that far; she can't spare the breath. Four days to live through, and then whatever comes after. She'll have to take these appalling hours one at a time. The fearlessness of the reformer, the world-changer, has dropped away; she's plain Miss Faithfull of the rectory again, wheezing with fright.

  "A clerk was here, from a Mr. Few's chambers," Johnson tells her as soon as she steps through the front door.

  Fido stares at her maid. "Did he—did he say what it concerns?"

  Johnson shakes her head, neutral as ever. "He has something to put into your own hands, that's all he said. He'll call again this afternoon."

  Her pulse stops for a second. The subpoena.

  She can't; she simply can't. It's not just the mortification of standing up in court, in four days' time; Fido believes she could muster the strength for that, if conscience required it. No, it's the choice that lies before h
er: to damn a man by swearing on oath to what she really can't remember, for all her efforts—or to admit that she can't remember, and has perjured herself, and so destroy her friend's whole case.

  Impossible.

  She's been putting off answering a note from her favourite sister. She scribbles a reply now, standing at her desk, afraid to sit down in case she loses momentum.

  October 4

  My dear Esther,

  I can't express how ashamed I am that our parents have learned from the newspapers of my reluctant association with this Codrington case. Please assurethem that I hoped to spare them and all the family this distress by keeping my name clear of the business—but in vain.

  How sweet of you, Esther, to offer to accompany me to the Matrimonial Causes Court. But I must tell you that I will not be appearing as a witness. I go abroad today and will stay away until the trial's conclusion. If you please, if you hear what's said of me, don't believe any real evil of

  Your sister,

  Emily

  In flight Fido finds a kind of steely strength. She's packed in half an hour. She picks up her velvet choker, studded with all the small treasures of the Kent shore, holds it in her palm for a moment, wraps it in its linen strip, and puts it back in the bureau drawer. She leaves instructions with Johnson to tell the others to say, if anyone asks, that their mistress is gone abroad on private business. "Accept no documents in my name, on any consideration, remember."

  "Yes, madam." The maid's sallow face is as blank as ever.

  The servants read the newspapers too, Fido remembers; they must see right through me.

  If she never receives the wretched summons, surely she can't be found guilty of having defied it? She wishes she knew more about the law. Not for the first time, she curses the sporadic, gappy nature of even the best female education. It occurs to her to consult a solicitor of her own—there's Mr. Markby, who represented the press in that ridiculous plagiarism case about the rules of bridge—but no, she can't bear to explain to him that she approved (without reading it) an affidavit about an incident during which she was asleep.

  The maid follows her down the passage and asks, "But where are you going, really, madam?"

  Is that concern in the low voice? Disapproval? Affection? Fido can't decide. "I'm truly sorry, Johnson. But if you don't know, no one can oblige you to tell." She takes the valise and lets herself out the front door. She looks down Taviton Street, and the city opens like a chasm.

  Trial

  (a test; a frustrating or catastrophic event;

  an examination of a case by a competent tribunal)

  Women should not make love their profession.

  Barbara Leigh Smith (later Bodichon),

  Women and Work (1857)

  Do sit down," Helen tells Few on Friday evening, leading him into the dusty drawing-room. In the ten days since the staff—all but the taciturn Mrs. Nichols—were discharged, the house has taken on a derelict air. "A sherry?" Helen asks. The formulae of politeness are stiff in her mouth. The cockatoo shrieks.

  "Nothing, thank you," says Few, taking a small chair. "My family will be expecting me."

  That startles Helen; the solicitor seems too much of a dried-up bachelor to have a family. "To business, then," she says, as briskly as she can manage, sitting down. "Judge Wilde: what can you tell me about him?"

  Few shrugs. "He breeds roses."

  Helen wonders what bearing this trait may have on her case. An intolerance for anyone who poses a threat to the laws of lineage—or a sympathy for the frail flowers of womanhood? She notices that the three silver fish are floating motionless at the top of their bowl. Mrs. Nichols must have remembered to feed the noisy birds, but not the fish.

  "Mrs. Codrington? I've come in person, to give you some bad news."

  "My girls?" Her voice is strangled.

  "No, no. Your friend, the inaptly named Miss Faithfull," he says dryly. "She's disappeared."

  Helen stares.

  "Yesterday, the very afternoon my clerk attempted to serve her with the subpoena—he found that she'd gone abroad."

  "I don't believe it."

  "That's all her servants will say—no forwarding address. And the same goes for her employees at the press; my clerk's talked to several of the girls, as well as the men who supervise them."

  Helen sets her teeth.

  Few releases an old man's sigh. "I need hardly point out that without her testimony as to the attempted rape ... her flight at the eleventh hour may strike the jury as giving the lie to the whole story."

  Damn the woman.

  "Now, the petitioner's case will take several days to present, which gives our side a little time. If you have the least notion where Miss Faithfull might be skulking, with a particular relative perhaps..."

  She shakes her head.

  "I thought you were very old friends."

  "Well, I thought many things," hisses Helen. "I thought I knew her, and it appears I was mistaken."

  "Hm," says Few. "Well. I must take my leave. I'll send over a full report on Monday evening on the first day's business..."

  When she's shown him out she stands there, in the dim hall, unable to decide what to do next. Should she go to bed, in the faint hope of sleep? Ask Mrs. Nichols to send up something to eat? Sit in the dim drawing-room, contemplating the putrefying fish in their bowl?

  She doesn't move. She looks out the glass panel in the front door, as if the answer she seeks might be out there on the silent pavements of Eccleston Square.

  Fido, Fido, where are you?

  Helen's imagination roams all over London. England. Europe. The railway's reached Nice this year. Squeezing her eyes shut, Helen pictures Fido wheezing as she walks along the Promenade des Anglais, under a hard Riviera sun.

  How could you abandon me in my hour of need? The woman's only lost her nerve, Helen's sure of that. But it amounts to the same thing: betrayal. After all these years. After all we've lived through, all we've been to each other. She owes me!

  It's much later, tossing around in bed, entangled in her hot nightgown, that Helen comes to a more painful conclusion.

  Yes, she used Fido. She took advantage of her old friend's innocence and idealism from the start. Much as Anderson took advantage of Helen's boredom and vanity, it occurs to her now. It's the way of the world, she supposes: everyone uses everyone. The trick is to know how much a given person can bear. No doubt Fido would have stood by her side throughout this ghastly trial, if Helen hadn't pushed her a step too far by obliging her to testify about Harry's attack. My fault, my own stupid fault!

  Now Helen's lost everyone. Husband, daughters, lover, friend, like sand trickling through her fingers.

  ***

  Helen finds a seat near the back. She's as calm as fifteen drops of laudanum can make her. Despite the protection of her veil, her heart judders with dread that she'll be spotted and pointed out. The court's crammed with visitors, as they're officially known, though Helen finds it a curious choice of word: as if they're paying some courtesy call. Watchers might be better, carrion feeders. It seems as if everyone in London who can muster a coat and hat has been allowed in; here comes one of the under-sheriffs, finding a place for a dodgy character in a battered topper. Some of the crowd standing at the back smell so mouldy, Helen suspects they just want to get out of the autumn rain. She's never come, herself, but a couple of her acquaintances queued up last year to hear the octogenarian Viscount Palmerston defend himself against a charge of adultery with the wife of a dissolute Irishman. How irritated they were when it was announced that the Irish marriage was not legally valid, so the case was dismissed! Helen thought it an amusing anecdote, at the time.

  She tries to steady herself and make some sense of what her eyes are taking in through the irksome layer of black lace covering her head. There's the judge's high, empty seat. Newspapermen are on its left, squeezed into the first of the visitors' benches. To its right, what Helen recognizes from illustrations as the witness box—as if wi
tnesses must be caged like lions or else they'll flee. And a larger panelled enclosure where miscellaneous men are already filing in and taking their seats: they must be the jury. Some have a pompous manner, some more hangdog, some a curious combination of the two. They'll sit there for long hours, for no pay, but at least there's a thrilling case in their hands. Who are these strangers to judge whether Harry should have the right to cast me off? Three gentlemen, perhaps four, she reckons; the others bourgeois. A military fellow who smirks through a thick moustache at a lady in the audience: he just might favour Helen's side.

  No sign of Anderson in the audience, of course. Off on honeymoon, or hurrying back to his regiment in Malta, little Scotch bride in tow? Will Helen's last note have given him nightmares, she wonders? It's all that's left to her to hope. How she's come to despise her persuadable heart.

  Now Helen sees her solicitor plodding up the aisle. "Mr. Few," she hisses as he passes her elbow.

  He peers at her, then his expression turns to a frown.

  "I found I couldn't stay away."

  Few tuts. "It will only upset you, and if you're recognized it'll cause talk."

  Talk? Helen laughs under her breath. What else is this mob gathered for but to hear talk about the most private details of her history? "It's only your beetling brows that will make anyone give me a second glance," she tells him, almost flirtatiously. "Which is my barrister?"

  "The tall gentleman at the table on the left," he says, pointing discreetly with a thumb towards the middle of the courtroom. "Hawkins is a very brilliant advocate."

  The man looks suave in his wig and gloves; half Few's age, which is some comfort. The one with his head in some legal tome has a more dusty air about him, and his bands are crumpled. "Is the other..."

  "Bovill, counsel for the petitioner," says Few shortly, before he moves on.

  A few minutes later her husband stalks up the aisle, his huge silhouette passing within inches of Helen's skirt. She flinches, but he doesn't notice her. Insensate frog! He's looking much as he did last Wednesday outside his club, when with maddening mildness he peeled her arms away from him, holding her at a distance as one would a yowling kitten. (So all that grovelling was for nothing: Helen's jaws tighten at the memory.) Harry takes his place beside his barrister and they exchange a few words. Helen squeezes her eyes shut for a moment.