by Kate Sheperd
At least the offices weren’t that far from Henry’s estate. I’d get there quickly, and with precious little time to fret about my appearance. The carriage jolted with the horse’s uneven, forced steps, but I did my best to smooth out my wild hair. There was no glass here, which I mourned. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how I was looking.
Ah, well. It couldn’t be helped.
When I reached the offices of Mr. Burnham, I gave the cabbie his due.
And then I hesitated.
I remembered the last time I’d tried to sort this all out. It hadn’t been with the solicitor, but with grandmother herself. But we’d met in the salon, and she’d dressed very officially for the occasion. She looked as though she thought she should look like a solicitor. She was all in black, and above all wore a very solemn expression.
The night before, we’d done the yelling and the screaming. And she’d told me all her leverage, and she’d told me why she insisted I would not make such a mistake. And she’d told me I’d come around.
And I did.
There were no papers signed. Grandmother didn’t want it on paper, for reasons that were obvious to me. But we spoke the words, formally.
“I, Emma Cavendish, shall not marry nor henceforth have any relations but those unavoidable in the course of participation in the London social scene, with Henry Headwidge. I swear and affirm my understanding that if any lapse should occur, I shall be disinherited entirely, and that the Headwidge family shall lose protection from what is known about them.”
I had said the words, and then Grandmother had said hers. I didn’t even remember anymore exactly what they were, something about forbearing to serve justice against the Headwidges so long as I maintained my promise and, of course, promises that I should be provided for.
And she’d upheld her own end of the bargain. And I had not upheld mine.
So I walked into the law offices of Mr. Burnham a guilty, late, disheveled woman.
The secretary was not pleased to see me. He informed me I was late, as though I were not already perfectly aware, and as though my appearance did not clearly indicate hurry.
“He was most upset when he heard I had allowed you an appointment,” he told me, and I felt I had misread him. His tone was conspiratorial, and it gave me just a touch of relief from the unrelenting sense that I was in the wrong and the whole world was going to crash down around my shoulders any moment.
Mr. Burnham wasn’t here, anyway. He had gone to another solicitor’s office to hammer out an agreement, apparently. And so it would not even matter. The secretary showed me to his office, where I sat, and waited.
I read the titles of the books on the walls. They were almost all extremely dull. They were, as a matter of course, books about the law, and books about philosophy. Some science and some history was strewn about among them. It was more or less as I would have expected, except that they were entirely out of order – not the way the library of a solicitor should be.
And then I found it: one little novel that had found its way onto the shelves somehow, and had impudently settled in between a thick volume of Greek history and a collection of treatise about cases that had been heard by the crown in London in the seventeenth century.
I smiled.
And just as I was off guard, in came Mr. Burnham.
He was a large man, and in the years since I last saw him, he had only grown larger. Seeing him now, I was struck with a sudden remembrance of the last time I had seen him: at the reading of my mother and father’s wills. I’d been extremely distraught, and extremely young, and he’d been kind. He had kind eyes.
“Miss Cavendish,” he said to me now. It was not a question, nor a protest. It was simply a sad observation that I was me and I was here.
I gave him time to sit down, and he took it. Then he fiddled with the objects on his desk for a while, ordering them just so. It was a farce. There I was, in a full ball gown, and with messy hair, on what could very likely be the most important day of my life, held in suspense. And there he was, neat and orderly, worrying about trivial things.
He sighed.
“Miss Cavendish,” he said again, “I’ve known you since you were very young.”
No small talk. No bothersome questions about how I was doing or this or that or the other. Simply that.
“Yes, perhaps that is the problem. Perhaps because you knew me when I was young you think it is within your rights to exclude me from important matters in which I ought to be involved.”
The words were out of my mouth before I knew I was saying them. But once I had, I didn’t regret it. He ought to know how I felt. It was unacceptable.
But he didn’t seem disturbed in the least. He only leaned back.
“I know you are anxious, Miss Cavendish,” he said.
“I am,” I confirmed.
“But things are unfortunately not so simple as all that.”
I expected him to continue. I thought he should tell me what they were like, then, but he left it sitting there. It was as though he were hesitant to speak to me about all this in the first place, so he was going to make me draw every word out of him.
“And how are they not so simple?”
And then the dam broke, and his sea of words came spilling over.
“Well, your grandmother is not well. Yes, I see you know that. Of course you know that. But I mean that she is also not well in the mind, as it were. There have been physicians come to see her, and at times she is lucid for them. Most of the time when we have the psychologist in to examine her, she is having one of her few good days. Isn’t that always the way? It’s just that, under the circumstances, with some of the things she has been saying, it seems best if we had an evaluation that she were, as you can imagine, not in proper mind.”
It began to become clear.
“You want her will to be considered invalid? You would do that to my grandmother?”
Once again, there I went, speaking before I thought. Once I’d said it, though, I realized my folly.
“My dear Miss Cavendish, I wish you to understand: we do this in large part for your own enrichment.”
It was my turn to lean back and be quiet a moment, and considered what I should say.
“She’s been saying … many things. And many of them are regarding yourself. She’s made grand statements, and the will she has dictated to me is … most irregular.”
In all these years, she must never have put into writing the agreement we made that June day, that had so destroyed my life. Or created it.
“And you believe that were she of sound mind, she would not have dictated such a will? What does it contain?”
I watched him squirm. He didn’t want to tell me. So be it. I wouldn’t mind not being told as much.
“And it is not only that,” he said, changing the subject, “but she is making certain other claims, that must be investigated fully. If she is in her right mind, then quite a stir might be made if it ever got out, you see.”
I could feel myself going pale. What an odd sensation! The blood was draining entirely from my face, and from my head as a whole. The old woman was going to do that, then? I supposed that this was to be expected. She would have to put her threat against Henry in writing, now that she would not be alive to hold it over my head in her little mind.
“And do you intend to act on these … utterances?” I asked. My voice was so quiet, even to my own ears.
“My dear,” he said, kindly, “I don’t wish to act on anything. I only say that things must be investigated. And I was hoping, dearly, that they might be proven or disproven fully, so that when I must tell you, I could tell you the truth of the matter as well as what your grandmother has to say about it.
His manner seemed odd, considering the subject at hand.
“Is this why you have kept me from her?” I asked.
He nodded, looking down and fiddling with the row of fountain pens all laid out on a blotting cloth on his desk.
“I fear your grand
mother may say things to you that will be upsetting, or confusing. Particularly the demands she intends to make of you, as of this iteration of her will. I have, in my own way, simply been trying to help the timing align, so that you might see your grandmother either when I can tell you what she has to say is of no consequence or, better yet, when she is not saying such things.”
The excitement, such as it had been, was leaving me. I had thought this man an adversary. It seemed so mistaken now. Did I not remember him? Did I not remember that he was a kind man?
“You’ve kept me from my house,” I said, almost as an afterthought.
“Yes, I’m sorry about that. It seemed the most prudent thing to do. If you were at home, doubtless you would speak to your grandmother. And it simply isn’t the time, I’m afraid.”
I considered what to do. I could have a frank discussion with Mr. Burnham, sure. But I was loath to have such a conversation. Quite aside from anything else, my appearance might make it more obvious than I would like that I was already in breach of the conditions of my grandmother’s will.
And besides, I didn’t want to speak the words, and I didn’t want to hear them. I could still feel last night somewhere in my bones, and the thought of clinically discussing that I should not be allowed to feel such things ever again …
“If I swear to you that I will not go and see my grandmother, will you allow me and my travel companion and our servant to take up residence where I belong, in my family home?”
I said it in a pointed way, which I didn’t mean, but which seemed necessary to achieve my desired ends. The man nodded vigorously, and it was decided.
Having gotten what I wanted, I could have left just then. But after such a business, manners seemed to dictate that we should sit and talk for a bit. It was something like the same conversation I’d had so many times with so many women in London over so many cucumber sandwiches. But it was a little different. He asked questions most people didn’t think to ask, and I had to consider carefully and try to remember. For a man who was so busy, he didn’t seem hurried in the slightest, and by the time I left his office I had been there nearly an hour.
I went straight to the boarding house after Mr. Burnham and I had run out of things to say. I was long overdue to bathe and to change, and when I thought of my bed my eyes closed themselves entirely without my intervention. I’d slept some the night before, but not nearly enough. There had been far, far more interesting things to do. In the carriage on the way to the boarding house I found my mind running back to that bed, in that cottage.
The things he’d done to me! I’d been curious before, sure, but never so curious as to procure myself any literature that I might use to enlighten myself on the matter. I’d decided, quite as a matter of necessity, that that part of my life was never to be. And so it was all just a surprise. I knew the general gist, of course. I understood the basic anatomy of the act. But all the rest of it still shocked me when I thought back. It seemed so undignified! Where he had put his mouth … what he had done with his hands …
Undignified though it may be, that didn’t stop the yearning in my loins from beginning. My body remembered. My body wouldn’t forget.
But I couldn’t allow myself to remember. It wouldn’t happen again. That had been the night I had gotten, and it had been magnificent. It had been worth all the nights I would never have with any other shadow of a man I might have picked instead of the love that had picked me.
And just like that I was in a foul mood. I didn’t realize how foul a mood until Lucy caught me on the way in and commented on the scowl I had fixed to my face.
“Was it so bad as all that?” she asked, and I was scandalized for a moment, until I got my head straight.
“Oh, the appointment with the solicitor, you mean?”
She smirked.
“No, that wasn’t what I meant. But I supposed I’ll hear about that too, if I must.”
I ignored the insinuation, and we headed in for tea. I wanted to sleep. My body was sore all over. But coming back into these quarters that felt like exile, I was resolved not to sleep until I could sleep in my own bed, in my own family home.
When I finished telling Lucy of the solicitor, she was unimpressed.
“Yes, your family is all very interesting, I’m sure. There are dark, deep secrets that one of you was once rude to a vicar or some such. It is nice we will get to move to your home, if only for the finances. But honestly, how are we not discussing that you left last night and are only now returning in the morning?”
Yes, of course.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. I hadn’t planned on it. I was waylaid. I hope you were not worried?”
She was exasperated with me, and I knew why. She wanted all the lurid details.
“No, of course not. You’re the one who worries. Do you really not intend to enlighten me? What happened last night at the ball between you and that mysterious, handsome, ruined lord from your deep, dark, secret past?”
My face must have betrayed my surprise, because she laughed at me. But I held firm.
Even if I wanted to tell her all of the passionate, undignified, mind-capturing things I’d been doing, I couldn’t. Certainly not now, of all times. Perhaps she wouldn’t tell on me. I dared to say that I could trust her more than I trusted nearly anyone else in the world. But there was always the chance that she would say something she didn’t know she shouldn’t say to precisely the person she shouldn’t say it to. And so I left it alone, and decided not to say anything at all.
Our servant helped us to pack our things, and we were off. I thought we were going to need to call for several cabs, with the gifts and knickknacks I’d been given as presents to curry favor from acquaintances since I’d been back in London. But to my surprise, the family carriage was sent for, along with a few servants to help us pile all of our things as high as they would go.
I recognized the chauffeurs, but I could not remember their names. They remembered mind, and looked on me as affectionately as their station would allow them.
Home! It had been such a long time since I’d been there. I’d paid the greatest price to preserve my right to go there. I’d paid for it with my heart. And now I would see it again.
Lucy put on a pretense of not caring, but I could tell she was excited about it, too. She kept looking out of windows, and asking if we were near it yet, in the most roundabout of ways.
The manor wasn’t in the city, but it wasn’t far out into the country, either. It didn’t have such a prime position as Henry’s family home had, but it was a fair deal bigger. And it was beautiful! The house itself was in books, I was told, and was opened on occasion to visitors to study it, though it hadn’t been much lately.
When we arrived, all the servants were out in a row. There were mostly old, recognizable faces, but it was hard to pick out any one or another of them. It had been such a very long time.
A great many people were saying a great many things to me, and I found it hard to listen. I was struck with a sudden tiredness, as though I’d been putting off sleep for all the years I’d been away, and now that I was home I could finally shut my eyes. Perhaps that is the universal effect of a homecoming after a long time away, but in any case it was abetted by my actual need to rest, ignored for so much of the morning. The servants were barely able to show me to my room and get me under the coverers before I fell asleep.
When I woke, the afternoon had come and nearly gone. The house had a stillness to it, before dinner was in full preparation anywhere other than the kitchens, but after everyone had more or less done what that day was supposed to bring them. I had hated this stillness as a child, but now as an adult I cherished it.
I thought of Henry. And I hated him, just for a passing second, for all the stillnesses that he’d made me miss in this place. But that wasn’t fair, I knew. He hadn’t done that to me. I’d done it to myself. And perhaps I hated myself more for all of the stillnesses that I hadn’t been able to share with him.
I set abou
t trying to find Lucy. I’d been placed in the room I’d grown up in, which had been kept as I’d left it. I’d expected that Lucy would be just next to me. We’d always been just next to each other. Lucy had always been just next door. But here she wasn’t, and it unnerved me.
My search for her became an inadvertent tour of the house. I knew all the passageways so well, or at least I had once. Now there were some that blurred together.
I finally found Lucy in the gallery. Here we kept the most favorite of our collection: portraits of ourselves. For reasons I’d never had adequately explained to me, Grandmother only showed visitors those pieces of art the family had that were expensive or valuable. They were generally by famous painters, and were of biblical scenes, or half-fabricated historical tableaus. These were hidden away, in a room that visitors never toured.
“Those were my great-great-grandparents,” I said, startling her. She glanced at me, then turned her attention back to the painting.
“Oh, were they?” she said, as an afterthought, half under her breath.
We regarded the painting together for a time, until she spoke again.
“It must be a sweet thing, to have a family history.”
I didn’t know what to say, exactly, so I just let any old words come out.
“You have the memory of your parents, as I have the memory of my parents. All these others are only people I have never met.”
I could tell by the look on her face that it wasn’t reassuring.
“Yes, but even so…” her voice trailed off.
I sat on a bench put there for the purpose of sitting in observation, and Lucy joined me, and laid her head on my shoulder.
“You can stay here as long as you like,” I said. “This house is your house. I want you to really feel that way.”
Lucy sighed. It wasn’t like her to be introspective or morose.
“It’s only a house,” she said.
I must have seemed offended, because she quickly qualified.