by L. K. Rigel
Marta felt split in two. She was Marta Singer who lived in the world, baked bread, loved her husband, and might be forgiven. She was also Marta Schonreden, who lived in dark places, who had placed herself in the way of a seducer, been ravaged, borne a tainted child which died. That woman didn’t deserve and could never again receive grace from any quarter.
“Oh, Lord! Hear our prayer,” Grim rolled on. “Make Your face to shine upon our sister in her distress. Soften her sorrow with the assurance that little Obadiah is an angel at Your side, even now, in Your glorious heaven.”
Yes! Heaven was the rock in this tempest, a hope she’d not considered, and she leapt upon it. Accept Obadiah, God. Do not punish him for my sin. She had forgotten heaven!
“Let Your daughter in Christ feel the comfort in Your outstretched hand. Let her gather strength from the well of your love as she has repented her sin of pride and shown sincere contrition.”
I do repent my sin of pride. Yes, I must forget. I will forget.
“Enfold her in the blanket of Your loving embrace and return her to the earthly embrace of her good and godly husband.”
About this last, Grim was not so enthusiastic, but there was no arguing against God’s favor. Leopold Singer bore every sign of it. His wealth, his manly good looks and easy way with people—even his amazing fortune in such a bride proved he must be one of the elect.
“I have not been at peace for so long,” Mrs. Singer said.
George often suspected he had made a mistake, that perhaps his true destiny had been the smithy where he had been put in the first place. But with Mrs. Singer’s words he felt his usefulness. He was glad for his calling. With all his heart, he renewed his commitment to his vocation.
Flushed with success, he followed Mrs. Singer outside where Leopold Singer sprang from his carriage with the irritating grace of a panther. “The Lord has been good to us this day, Mr. Singer,” Grim announced. He wouldn’t let the man put him off. Mrs. Singer’s recovery was powerful testimony to his ministry, and he swelled with satisfaction, which he in no way associated with pride.
On the way home, when Marta rested her hand on Leopold’s thigh, he said, “I have new regard for Grim’s spiritual powers.”
But it was no good. All the feeling of renewal had fallen away in the instant she emerged to Leopold’s anxious expression. She felt him warm to her, and she knew he would want her when they reached home. She was trying. She did feel better to think Obadiah was saved. The carriage rolled on through the sunshine, but she slipped back into the darkness.
Leopold didn’t care that it was midday. As soon as they reached the farm, he led Marta upstairs. He kissed her, ignoring her unconvincing half-smile. He inwardly cursed Grim, and he felt irritated by Marta’s passivity. He undressed her nonetheless. The physical act would awaken her. He would pour life, his own life, into her apathetic form. He would love her, and she would love him in return. He would make her be happy.
Choosing, Being Chosen
Susan Gray and Matthew Peter accompanied the Singers to the magnificent new West India docks. They meant to help with the luggage but were made instantly redundant as the Maenad’s crewmen swarmed over the stowage and hauled it onto the ship, leaving the lubbers to stare, mute and amazed.
“Thank you, Gray,” Mrs. Singer said. A breeze played with loose strands of her uncovered hair, and her eyes were like green hills in sunlight. She seemed sad, drawn into herself. “Thank you for everything.” She handed Susan a gratuity in an embroidered silk purse that alone was too fine a gift.
Susan thought, and now two quid from his wife.
Mrs. Singer joined Leopold on the gangway. He touched his lips to her forehead and never looked back to the dock where Susan stood. She wanted to hate Marta Singer, but where was the fault in simply having been chosen? She could tell that Leopold loved his wife. And Susan had made her choice, too. Already, there was a change in that tender lump of pain that lived in her breast. It was cooling, becoming a hard emotionless knot.
This ship was about to take Leopold Singer away from her forever, and she would do him the greatest violence possible: she would forget him.
“Those Jack-tars are admirable men. They’ve saved us an hour,” Matthew Peter said. “Let’s walk a bit before getting back to the ‘manse,’ as you call it.” He smiled at her the way Leopold had smiled at his wife.
Was there something to be said for love itself, wherever it might come from? She pressed Matthew Peter’s forearm tenderly. There was no thrill in the connection, but she would make herself love him yet. “We had better go back,” she said. “The duchess wants the carriage for morning calls.”
The Gohrum House kitchen was in a state. Amy, the latest girl assigned to bring the duke his coffee, had left her position without notice, and there was gleeful speculation as to the details of her disgrace. Susan felt oppressed by the pettiness of her world. Servants’ gossip and a few hours of freedom every two weeks seemed all she had to look forward to.
“Miss Gray, might I have a word?” Mr. Peter said.
Susan inwardly groaned. Now that the Singers were gone, the duchess had likely devised some fresh torment for her. She should follow Amy and leave Gohrum House, but she caught Matthew Peter looking at her with such compassion that her heart did soften, a little. He was a good man.
“You’re to be under-housekeeper again,” Mr. Peter said. “This comes from his grace, himself.” That settled things. She couldn’t repay the duke’s kindness by walking away.
She and Matthew Peter went on in a kind of stasis for days, weeks, and seasons, until a year and a half just slipped away. He nearly did propose marriage once, but she got away from him before he could get the words out. After much time and no further mention, he seemed to have changed his mind about her. She suffered the duchess’s little tortures and thought of Leopold less and less.
Then the duke’s latest maid Cecily went the way of all the duke’s maids.
Their graces returned from Millam Hall, and the downstairs was busy with kitchen maids chopping and kneading and footmen polishing silver and counting plate. The duchess herself came down to the kitchen and cast her cold gaze over them all.
“Gray,” she said. The raucous clanging and banging stopped. “You will take Cecily’s place with the duke,” she said. “Someone with your experience might be better suited to this task.” She said experience with a sarcastic twist.
That afternoon, Susan picked up the duke’s tray in the kitchen. There were two cups. “There you have it,” Cook said. “He likes his coffee with company, if you know what I mean.”
“Susan.” Matthew Peter touched her elbow.
“Don’t say a word or I swear I’ll cry.”
“I will.” He took the tray and set it aside and put his hands on her shoulders. “I will say a word.” She had forgotten how good it felt to be touched by a man who cared for her. “I have watched him, Susan. The duke is not a grasping sort. I think he will not force you. Be strong, as I know you are.” He put the tray back into her hands, and she went upstairs. She would remind Millie who she was. At least, she would remind him who her father was.
“Thank you, Fenton.” The duke dismissed his man as Susan set the tray on a table near the fire and poured his coffee.
“Pour a cup for you too, my dear,” the duke said. “Sit. Sit here by the fire. It must feel good against the chill.”
The heat was indeed lovely, and the coffee smelled of nutmeg and The Lost Bee. She thought of the good fires Leopold used to keep for her.
“Cecily has left us, I understand.”
“Yes, your grace.”
“I have never thanked you, Miss Gray, for bringing Cook this coffee. I do so enjoy it.” He knew her name, and that she had told Cook about the coffee. He chuckled. “I see you believe the stories, that I am an old debaucher who has his way with the upstairs maids.”
“Your grace, I…”
“Now you know my secret. I indulge the duchess and pretend to be
pleased with the girls she sends my way. We enjoy our coffee and gossip about the inmates of the house. It’s how I find out what goes on around here. Fenton does his best, but I find a female perspective is more, oh, complete.”
“Your grace.” She was so stunned, she wasn’t quite sure what to say.
“I am not unaware of my wife’s faults. Her gambling, her dalliances with other men, her intrigues. It is my great failing.”
“Your failing.”
“I have never been able to relieve my dear Delia of her fears. I watched her grow up, you see. I think I’ve loved her since she was a child. But I am too old for her. I was wrong to marry her. I thought I could save her.”
Over the next few days, the duke told Susan more about the duchess’s wonderful qualities. She was put so at ease that she confessed in her case those virtues were not so easy to see.
“Why don’t you marry our Matthew Peter and go back to Carleson Peak?” he said.
“I suppose for the same reason I haven’t accepted a coronet.” she smiled. “Neither the proposal nor a position in the country is on offer.”
“There you may be wrong—on both counts.” He paused as if debating whether to tell her something. “I remember your father, you know. Wasn’t he someone’s son?”
“Estranged son.” How she missed Papa still! Had he lived, her life would have been entirely different. “His family objected to my mother.” She wouldn’t have met Leopold Singer. But then, there would be no Persey.
“Yes, well. You see to your young man.” There was mischief in the duke’s expression. “And very soon, you might be receiving some other good news.”
Apparently the duke put a good word in one or two ears, and a few days later Matthew Peter asked Susan to marry him. This time she let him complete his proposal, and she said yes. She and Matthew Peter were to take positions in Carleson Peak at Laurelwood, Squire Carleson’s estate, and live in the great house there.
It was a mere five miles from John’s cottage, and Persey.
This opportunity came to Susan the old-fashioned way, through random events. Someone she didn’t know made a casual, thoughtless remark to another person she didn’t know who passed it on as a matter of chit-chat to someone she did know and who happened to think of her.
Mrs. Carleson of Laurelwood had been widowed and left with a young son. She had recently told Lady Branch that she wanted a new housekeeper and that she wished to find a woman of good character with a brain in her head. The baroness had thought brains an odd requirement and mentioned it to the duke as a bit of amusing gossip. The duke knew just the person.
Susan and Matthew Peter were married at St. James Church in April after the Banns were satisfied. The duke himself came to stand up with Susan, as ostentatious a gesture as one could imagine. “I’m not sure his grace isn’t having a laugh, Susan,” Matthew Peter whispered just before the rector started.
“It is rather grand for us,” Susan said, “but he is quite the romantic, I’ve discovered.” She loved being married at the exquisite, small church, reportedly Wren’s favorite design. She stole glances at the ornate wood carvings and the stained glass windows. This was exactly the kind of place where she would have been married had her father lived.
As the rector cited the gravity with which one should enter into the holy estate of matrimony, she inwardly shuddered then gave her word before God and everybody to love and obey Matthew Peter.
They went back to Gohrum House to collect their belongings, and Mr. Peter went with them to The Lost Bee where they’d catch the coach to Carleson Peak. Susan had never gone into The Bee without Leopold. There were only a few other customers, and Mr. Peter ordered a round of drinks for everyone.
“To the happy couple!”
Mrs. Jones joined the salute with no sign she recognized the bride. When the coach came, their boxes went up on top, but Susan carried her rosewood secretary on her lap. Once out of London, away from the noise of the city, a sense of dread crept over her. She kept thinking of the miniature of Persey in the secretary. The rain grew heavier, and a real storm came up with wind and thunder and lightning. The driver urged the horses on, but they weren’t happy about it.
Everything was going wrong. The idea seized her that she must tell Matthew Peter about Persey. If she wasn’t honest about this from the beginning, their marriage had no hope of success. The further they got from London, the fewer were their fellow passengers, until at the last stage they had the coach to themselves.
Her heart pounded in her throat. “There is something about me you should know.” She uttered the fatal words just as a blast of thunder shook the coach, but she knew he heard, for his face changed. The kindness, the enduring sympathy, every aspect of love in him drained away. She saw the shock of betrayal wash over him, replaced by loathing. All was lost.
The coach lurched sideways. The rosewood secretary fell to the floor, and Matthew Peter bent over to pick it up. The driver cried out something as the coach rolled. Susan flew up to the ceiling, and the back of her head slammed against an iron bar. She fell to the seat, and a sickening pain shot through her left arm. A horse bleated with unnatural terror. The cracking sound of splitting wood mixed with another flash of lightning, followed hard on by too-close, body-shaking thunder.
Then nothing but a horse’s eerie, faint moan and the drum of thick and steady rain.
Sir Carey’s Existential Break
At his club in town Sir Carey found his favorite chair empty and the fire nicely burned down to embers. Like the fairy tale, he thought. Not too hot and not too cold. He took a sip of his favorite brandy and settled in with the new Gentleman’s Magazine, but halfway through the first story he heard his name spoken behind him.
“He seems an intelligent sort.” Sir Carey recognized the Irish accent. “We might bring him round.” It was Ciaran Gallagher.
Hostility to Philly’s story about his birth colored Sir Carey’s feelings toward all things Irish, but he admired Gallagher. Otherwise, he took no great pains to associate with the Irish MPs let into Commons by the Act of Union.
“Sir Carey is intelligent enough, but it’s all wasted.” Gallagher’s companion was all-too-familiar. Sir Herbert Whitley. “Sir Carey’s talent is for keeping the Members’ wives happy. They say he is a divided man, the top part enslaved to his Duke and the bottom part to the ladies.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
Inwardly, Sir Carey scoffed at Sir Herbert, but it stung that Gallagher’s opinion was influenced by that man.
“Someone should inform the fellow that his youth has flown. A lad’s ‘natural high spirits’ are ridiculous in a man. No, don’t waste your efforts, Gallagher. He’s not serious. He’ll hear no one on the Slave Bill, I’d wager.”
Untrue and unfair! Sir Carey tossed the magazine aside rose from the chair.
“Sir Carey. I…I didn’t see you there.”
“Obviously not.” Sir Carey downed the last of the brandy and nodded to Gallagher. To Whitley he said, “If you need help with Lady Whitley, I’d be happy to give you instruction.”
A weak riposte, but it would do. He walked back to Asherinton. The encounter stayed with him, but he couldn’t put a finger on why. Whitley had no business commenting on someone else’s intelligence, and he was considered a bore among the considerable number of ladies Sir Carey knew. But neither of those remarks had carried the sting.
Two weeks later he was back at The Branch for Philly’s spring ball. He came down late and found the old girl at her usual post near the fire.
“Carey, my boy, you are a feast for our eyes,” she said as he kissed her cheek.
The dowagers and wallflowers sitting with Philly murmured their approval. His ensemble boasted the latest French influences replete with lace and silk and brocade. “I say never let matters of war interfere with matters of fashion.” He thought of the thinning spot he’d discovered in his hair while dressing. A wig would have done nicely, but these days they just weren’t the thing.<
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Lady Branch said, “We’re all dowdy beside you. Still, tonight there are several pretty things at play.” She waved her fan at the dancers.
“A very pretty picture. Who is that by the punchbowl?”
“You know Clarissa Whitley. She and Lady Whitley are visiting Martin Park.”
Whitley’s daughter, all grown up. He caught the girl’s eye, and she smiled and whispered to her companions who giggled in the delightful manner of elegant young ladies. Very nice. He’d see what he could do with her, and she was comely enough to make a debauch all the more enjoyable.
“Excuse me, ladies. Lady Branch.” He took the circuitous route, aware of the eyes upon him, admiring and friendly. As he approached Clarissa, she squealed some girl’s name and brushed past him. She hadn’t seen him at all. He walked on as if the punch had been his destination always.
The episode at his club came back to him, Sir Herbert’s offending words now in focus. Someone should inform the fellow that his youth has flown.
For the first time in his life, he felt detached from it all. He observed the mating ritual acted out around him. The charming and young Miss Whitley verbally parried with the equally charming, equally young Mr. Martin. Miss Whitley had selected the boy whom she allowed to woo her, and other young ladies made similar choices. So much was done with the eyes. A glance, a glance away—rejection. A glance turned into a brief gaze before the lashes were lowered with a demur smile—invitation.
In the eyes which did fleetingly light upon Sir Carey, he saw respect, even friendliness, but no invitation.
On the wall, the mothers and aunts evaluated each nod, every look, any smile. It took no time to understand that he was regarded a catch, but not the best catch. Good enough for third-best, but not the best or even second-best young ladies. These were reserved for men—of any age, it must be said—whose claims to inheritance were secure. His future wife might be called Lady Asher, and thanks to the Maenad she’d be provided for comfortably. But the barony and The Branch would never come to him.