From a Paris Balcony

by Ella Carey

  “Henry was not going to acknowledge the little girl and risk her coming back, claiming her rights as heir to the estate. Mind you, he knew that Evelyn probably wouldn’t come back, not if she were anything like as stubborn as her mother. All she would want was freedom. Henry’s false legacy lasted for generations. But now, you are here.”

  Sarah didn’t want to keep on gasping. But she was not sure what else to do. “But hang on—what about the family who are here now? Henry died childless. And it looks like his heirs are cousins?”

  “Aye, a cousin inherited after Henry died soon after the Second World War. He was the current duke’s father.” Frank regarded her and went on. “Charlie raised Evelyn in Hong Kong, where Charlie and Samuel worked together. Evelyn married and gave birth to a daughter, Alice, in 1922.

  “During the Second World War, Charles, Evelyn, her husband, and Alice returned to England, but Evelyn’s husband was killed in an air raid. Charles and Evelyn went back to Hong Kong, while young Alice chose to go to America in 1945. To Boston.”

  “To Boston?”

  Frank continued, a determined expression on his face. “Alice took up a job in a bank. But in 1953, she became pregnant. She was unmarried. It was a quick affair. She found herself alone and lost.”

  Sarah felt herself blanch. Something landed, hard, in her stomach.

  Frank stood up, easing his stiff legs straight, and Sarah did not know where to look. “Alice decided to give up the baby. She decided it should have a better life. The West family in Boston were relations. Edward and Elisabeth West were childless. Edward was—”

  “Samuel’s grandson.” Sarah brought her hand up to her mouth. Her other hand shot out to the faded old armrest at her side.

  “Edward had found the war very hard. He couldn’t cope, like many men.”

  “I know. He struggled with illness all his life. The war affected him terribly. I think,” she whispered, “his troubles couldn’t help but affect my father . . .”

  Frank regarded her now. He sat down and folded his hands to make a tent. “Not coping with the war was no disgrace.”

  “I know. Please, go on.”

  “Edward and Elisabeth adopted the baby. Alice kept out of it. She felt it was best. She ended up in New York, I believe. She stayed in America, worked all her life, was successful. But she didn’t see her baby, Simon—”

  Sarah’s hands were shaking again. Her father’s reticence about the past. Had he ever known who his mother was? Had he suspected? Had he been told? The fact that he had kept that letter locked away. Of course. It would have come, somehow, from his birth mother. If Charlie had somehow gotten hold of it, he had probably given it to Evelyn and she would have passed it on to her daughter. Alice clearly thought it was important enough to be handed down to her son.

  But had her father ever read it? Or had he decided, like his adopted father, that the past was simply too much? Had he bottled it away?

  One link, one letter. What damage it could do—or was it damage? How much should we share with each other? It was impossible to tell.

  Frank went on.

  Sarah’s mind flew backward, like a film reel in reverse.

  “Simon was just what the West couple needed. They were childless, like I said.”

  Frank eyed her. “Secrets abounded around adoption back then, Sarah.”

  Sarah stood up.

  Frank was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, he sounded as if he were trying to apply a balm. “The older I get, the more it astonishes me how little of ourselves we share with others,” he said. “I think it depends on the nature of our relationships as to how open we are ourselves. If they are not good . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Sarah said, and she was aware that she sounded almost wistful now. She moved across to look out the window at the garden, at the bees and the flowers outside. And wondered herself. What legacy would she leave for future generations? Shrouded secrets? Or would she be open and share everything? She turned back to face the old man.

  “My great-aunt, Jess, was very old when I was born,” Frank said, his voice barely audible. “This story was so hidden, and yet of vital importance to Ashworth. Jess asked me to keep it safe.”

  “Thank you,” she said. He had told her so much, had clearly kept all this information in his head for years, for the family’s sake. His loyalty was touching.

  She looked down at the old man as he continued to speak. “Charles and Evelyn kept in touch with Jess, then with my mother, over the years. And now, here you are.” He paused for a moment. “Things turned in a full circle, in the end. As they tend to.”

  Sarah moved a little closer to him. “But the family here knows none of this. I wonder why it had to be kept such a secret from them?”

  Frank eased himself back in his seat. Sarah waited. But she had a dreadful feeling that she knew exactly what he was going to say.

  “The reason it had to be kept secret was because you, Sarah, are the true heir to the estate. There was never anything to say a woman couldn’t inherit. The third duchess was the eldest daughter back in the mid-1800s. And she inherited. That was one of the reasons that Henry never wanted to see Evelyn, who he suspected was Charles and Louisa’s, ever again. He had to obliterate her memory, so that she could never claim to be who she was—and neither, Sarah, could her descendants.”

  Sarah sat down opposite him with a thud.

  Paris, 1895

  A chill breeze picked up in Paris, sweeping cool shafts of air around the balcony that had become a refuge from the ghastly scene that was playing out inside the apartment. The coals that had simmered between Charlie and Henry for who knew how many years seemed about to turn into a roaming, windswept blaze. Louisa knew that she would be hard-pressed to stop it. It was as if the fireball needed to run its course.

  Her breath was coming in hard, fast patterns. Half of her wanted to run, to get help, to shout out, but she also felt an overwhelming desire to step in, to calm things, to sort this out. But in the end, she knew Henry’s animosity ran too deep.

  “How dare you,” Henry growled now, his voice barely recognizable.

  Louisa took a step forward. Goodness knew, she would intervene if she had to. Charlie stood right in front of her. His body shielded the open doors.

  Louisa could not pull her eyes away from her husband’s face. His mouth was twisted into a distorted, strange shape. Louisa hated to think what it was going to spit out. She closed her eyes against nausea, but sadness filtered into her system too, for this whole situation, for the madness of its descent.

  But then she started at the sound of movement. On instinct, she sensed herself at full alert.

  She took a step toward Charlie, but Henry lunged at him, shoving Charlie into a side table against the wall.

  Henry punched Charlie, hard, in the mouth. Charlie reeled backward, falling hard against the wall. Louisa moved nearer to him, but Henry blocked her path.

  “And how dare you,” he growled. He was breathing hard, like an animal on a hunt.

  Louisa braced herself. She shot a glance at Charlie, but he was still slumped against the wall. Henry’s hand was raised. In one split second, he dashed toward Louisa, stepping out onto the balcony, which seemed more like a cage than a relief now—all she wanted to do was to get to Charlie. Henry pointed his finger at her face as he spoke, forcing her closer to the low railings. The cold, sharp air hit her, and she glanced, desperate, toward Charlie, but she couldn’t see past Henry. His hair blew in the wind, backward in streaks. His face, which was too close, was pale, and his mouth was drawn back in a contorted grimace.

  “You betrayed me,” he said. His voice was unutterably low. “With my brother. With my little brother?” His voice jumped up a few octaves on the last words.

  “No.” She had married him in good faith. She had not betrayed their marriage, even if she could no longer hide her love for Charlie.

  He didn’t love her. That was clear. So was it pride and v
anity and ego that mattered now to him, the fact that she was his property? The fact that she was not behaving as his wife? The irony of his attitude astounded her.

  “Henry,” she said. “Calm down. You don’t want me. You haven’t wanted me . . .”

  But he simply shook his head. “That’s hardly the point.”

  Louisa couldn’t stop the hollow laugh that escaped from her throat.

  But then, movement. Henry turned around. In the flash of a whip, Charlie was on the tiny balcony too, next to her, his arm around her shoulders, firm between her and Henry. Louisa stood as close to him as she could.

  “Your betrayal is complete,” Henry growled again. “How the hell long has this been going on? Since before our marriage? Since the first night you met?”

  Louisa closed her eyes at the sound of his hard, hostile voice. Her lips were frozen. She shook now, her whole body convulsed with rapid shudders that she could not control. It was all she could do to keep breathing; her chest rose and fell alongside the shivers of the wind.

  Charlie moved his hand down and placed it in Louisa’s.

  Henry’s head shook back and forth in a fast, clocklike rhythm. He was half on the balcony, half in the room. “Seeing you like this—”

  “Henry.” Charlie stood, quiet and still, but his breathing was hard and strong and real and he stroked Louisa’s palm with his fingertips.

  And right then, Henry looked down and saw it too. “I will never speak to either of you again.” And he raised his hand at Charlie.

  Louisa was next to Charlie on the balcony, but she was on the far side, right next to the low railing.

  She stepped forward to protect Charlie from the blow. If she did so, she thought in that split second, perhaps she would stop him from being struck again. God knew, Henry would hurt him. Louisa thought fast. If she pushed Henry’s arm away, toward the railing, he would strike the hard iron instead.

  She tried to deflect Henry’s hand before it struck.

  But she underestimated his speed and his strength.

  Henry pushed her arm away as if it were as slight as a stick in the forest, and she heard snapping, then felt harrowing pain as Henry’s fist landed on her side instead of Charlie’s. Louisa could not stop herself from keeling over backward, fast, faster, and Charlie was shouting, and she had lost her grip and she slipped over the small, hip-height railing, toppling and twisting, her body free-falling like a rag doll. For a moment she felt Charlie grabbing at her arm, but her hand was cold, clammy, slick.

  And she realized, suddenly, that she was falling.

  Louisa heard screams as she went down—she was aware of that. She was aware, strangely, of French accents and that smell again, that awful nauseating stink of cheap perfume and wine and cigarettes and bodies, heaped up. Were they underneath her, or above, was she upside down, or straight up? And her instincts moved her toward Charlie, and he was shouting, desperate, scared, his voice wrenching into the air. She reached up, instinctively, again toward him. She loved him so much and with such pure, honest force. But her head hit concrete. Another dreadful crack. Harder, more final this time. And her eyes flickered for a moment. Her baby—Evelyn—Jess, her work, Charlie?

  Blood dripped out of her mouth; she felt her own red warmth on her lips. Her own blood. There was the fuzz of the crowding of strangers above her, words, random things—last things, she suspected—coming in rapid, urgent French. Shadows, stink. And then Charlie. She felt him by her side. His hands around her body. And he picked her up and he held her, close to his chest, and her aching, leaden head was against his heartbeat now.

  “You’ll be safe,” he was whispering. “You’ll be alright.”

  And she leaned in closer and her head pounded with something stronger and harder still. But it wasn’t a life force. It wasn’t that. She tried to tell him. But her mouth wouldn’t open. Not now.

  “I love you,” he said. “I’m always here.”

  She tried, again, to nod, and focused what little there was left now on his heartbeat.

  “I adore you,” she managed to say. And she tried to reach up. “I always will.”

  And his head touched hers, and his arms cradled her body.

  And she had to close her eyes properly, just then. They were too heavy now.

  Just for a moment. Just for a rest.

  Ashworth, 2015

  Sarah picked up her empty mug, turning the old ceramic piece over in her hands, running her fingers over the thick china. It was still slightly warm from the tea.

  “Frank,” she said, “thank you so much for what you’ve said. The thing is, now I know all this, but you see, there was something else that I came here to find out. I guess the one thing that is haunting me is how Louisa died. Her mother did not cope, her parents’ marriage crumbled, and her father lost his business after what happened in Paris. Cousins kept away. Now I have no family left. That moment on the balcony in Paris has lingered like a heavy rock at the bottom of a clouded pool in my family. I don’t think that what happened to her is clear. There seemed to be so much subterfuge surrounding the circumstances. And a lot of determination to say that she killed herself. Too much, for my liking.”

  Frank leaned back on his seat. He paused for a moment, as if he was deciding whether to speak.

  “My great-aunt told me what happened,” he said, after a while. “Charles told her, but only her. You see, Louisa died trying to save Charles’s life. Henry tried to hit him when they were on the balcony at the party in Paris. Henry had just found out about Louisa and Charlie. But you couldn’t have the heir to one of the greatest estates in England arrested for trying to murder his brother and mistakenly killing his own wife instead, now could you?”

  Sarah took in a sharp breath and nodded her head at him.

  “Charles decided not to prosecute.” Frank sounded firm. “There was little Evelyn to consider. How would the idea that her father had killed her mother affect her, even if it had been a terrible accident? Charlie didn’t speak out in order to protect Louisa’s daughter. He didn’t want the shadow of foul play hanging over her for the rest of her life. But by protecting the present, he endangered the future. By not laying bare the truth, he left future generations in the dark. I don’t know if he did the right thing. But I sometimes wonder what other choice he had.”

  Sarah nodded. What would she have done? It was impossible to imagine the turmoil that Charlie must have felt at the time—his ability to make rational decisions would have been wracked by grief and anger toward Henry. Had he had a choice, in the end, about any of it? About whom he fell in love with, about the outcome of that?

  “The best thing Charles could do was take Evelyn away. Give her the freedom, the education, that Louisa always wanted,” Frank said. “Charlie wrote up a piece in the family Bible for Louisa, which he made sure was kept faithful to her spirit and her character, but he never indicted his brother in her death. I think he understood, in some ways, what Henry’s struggles were too.” Frank looked thoughtful, but he was quiet.

  So, it had been Charlie who had written about Louisa. The length of her entry had been a little enigmatic given all the family had done to wipe the circumstances surrounding her death from history. But someone had respected her. Someone had believed in her and valued her. Was that, in the end, what mattered most?

  She walked over to the window and looked out.

  Frank cleared his throat.

  Sarah was quiet for a moment. “Can you promise me something?” Her words came out as a whisper.

  He looked at her, his old eyes steady.

  “I don’t want you to tell anyone that I’m the heir to this estate.”

  He smiled. “I knew that,” he said, “which is why I told you. You’d have to live with the lot who are here now, anyway. Doubt they’d budge.”

  Sarah moved toward him and held out a hand. Frank stood up and held it for a moment. His hand was surprisingly soft, still warm with life.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for
everything.” She leaned forward on an impulse and gave him a hug.

  She took one more look around the cottage. So, that was that.

  It was done.

  Now she knew.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Ashworth, 2015

  Half an hour later, Sarah climbed into the taxi that sat at the bottom of the front steps. Jeremy and his parents stood framed in the front doorway like any family waving off a cousin. And she waved back to them, as if everything were as normal as could be. She watched them turn around, returning into that great old house. They would take care of it, Sarah knew, just as Charlie would have wanted them to.

  And one thing was certain—they wouldn’t rattle any ghosts from the past. Was that a good thing?

  As the car wound its way along the edge of the park, along a path that Louisa would have walked on countless times, Sarah found her thoughts turning to more practical matters.

  She found herself thinking about where she was going next. She had been so caught up in Frank’s story that she had pushed her deliberations about going back to Boston out of her mind. But it seemed inevitable that she would have to go home now. She leaned her hand against the car door, then moved it, pulled her phone out of her bag, and put it back.

  She forced herself to concentrate on what was going on outside. They passed through the gatehouse, where pretty cottages were built into the stone walls. A family sat outside at a table in the garden. Sarah waved to them, and then frowned at her phone.

  She should simply go home to Boston.

  But she wanted to go to Paris. Laurent, who she thought was a Henry, had turned out to be a Charlie instead. Soon, Sarah had formed a record number of lists and rationales in her head.

  But while all of this analysis had its merits, she returned, stubbornly, to the same conviction. She could not get on a train to London, then a flight home, without making one call. So she scrolled through her contacts list and found the number she needed.