The Abandoned Heart

by Laura Benedict

  Finally, she was able to take her handkerchief away from her mouth.

  “Amelia. Are you all right?” Aaron looked at the handkerchief and then at her face.

  “What?” She looked down. The handkerchief and the bodice of her dress were spotted with blood.

  “Good God, Amelia.” Randolph grabbed her arm. “You might be injured internally. Cyrus Beard will be here soon. I’ll have him look at you immediately.” He shook his head, angry. “Clayton should be horsewhipped. I’ve put up with his shortcomings because I wanted someone who knew the area. But this is inexcusable.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Her hand was shaking, and her tongue felt thick. It was her embarrassment that she felt even more keenly. “Clayton surely didn’t do it on purpose. And it might have been the maid who was careless. Will you both excuse me?”

  Aaron stayed close to her as she left the room, speaking softly. “Is there anything I can do?”

  She shook her head, and hurried to the hall and up the stairs just as the first guest rang the bell.

  Before Amelia started downstairs again, she looked in on Tamora and Harriet. The back of her tongue was sore where the piece of metal or glass had cut her, but the bleeding had stopped. As she spoke to Harriet, her words felt clumsy and too large for her mouth.

  “Why isn’t Tamora ready for bed? Has Maud brought up her milk?”

  “Oh, how you startled me!” Harriet looked up from her knitting. Tamora sat on the floor surrounded by Brownkin and several of her dolls. She was wearing a dress, and her hair was combed. Her head lolled a bit, and her face was vacant. She rarely looked up when someone entered a room, but Amelia recognized a certain stillness about her that she only realized later should have been a warning. Stranger still, one of the dolls had a piece of cloth wrapped around its eyes.

  “What’s going on, Harriet? Why is she wearing a dress?”

  Harriet seemed uncomfortable. “I thought I’d let her watch the carriages arrive. Doesn’t she look pretty? She’s been such a good girl today.”

  It was true that Tamora looked pretty in the dress. The pink color warmed her fair skin and the soft, long sleeves hid the thinness of her arms. And she had been good. Or at least calmer than she had been in many days. But it didn’t explain why she was wearing the dress. Amelia decided that Harriet was perhaps being worn down, that she was amusing herself. Tamora wasn’t suffering.

  “She looks charming, but she should be in her nightclothes. Please take care of it. I don’t have time to help. There are guests downstairs.”

  “Yes, Missus Bliss.”

  Amelia knelt down and kissed Tamora’s cheek. Was that a hint of a smile on her daughter’s face? No, of course it wasn’t. Even when she laughed her strange, subdued laugh, she never quite smiled.

  “Good night, sweetheart. Sleep well.”

  Tamora leaned away and moved the doll with the cloth over its face so that one of its bright glass eyes peeped out.

  Perhaps it was the excellent wine that Randolph had selected, or the whiskey that had begun the evening—despite the piece of debris that had cut her—but Amelia found herself having a rather good time.

  Everyone was enchanted with the house, exclaiming over its dome painted with perfect, glowing stars, and the artwork that Randolph had selected. (Though she knew he had a dealer who chose the works beyond the family portraits he had had sent from the house in Long Island.) Because the weather was snowy, Clayton had led the ladies upstairs to one of the bedrooms to refresh themselves so they could reappear relaxed and freshly powdered. Later in the evening, Pinky Archer, who had attached herself to Randolph, prettily asked if the ladies might be given a tour of the upper floors of the house, and he said, with no small amount of pride, that he had planned to show them all.

  Seeing his pleasure, Amelia was reminded of how he had wooed her, how he had hung on her every word. Pinky Archer was young, perhaps twenty-nine or thirty. She was pretty in a classical sense, with upswept hair, and narrow shoulders and a waist much smaller than her own. She saw how Selina Searle, her closest friend, watched her out of the corner of her eye. Selina wore her pregnancy like a curse. Amelia had no doubt that she would put the child that was coming with a nurse and would have her own tiny waist restored in a matter of months or even weeks. She was obviously unhappy, and when she’d taken Amelia’s hand, it was without warmth. But perhaps it was just the pregnancy. Amelia had found herself in tears nearly every day for the first six months of her pregnancy with Tamora. Surely Selina might be excused for being uncomfortable and a bit unpleasant.

  “Are you pleased? Your husband has worked hard for this moment.”

  Doctor Cyrus Beard was at her elbow. His old-fashioned evening jacket squeezed his stout form as though it wanted to keep him from escaping it. Amelia admired his silver-white hair and mustache but didn’t trust his diminutive, feminine mouth with its too-pink lips.

  “I have nothing but praise for my husband. It’s a remarkable house.” Was her smile too big? Could he tell it was forced? She hadn’t spent more than an hour with this man, but somehow she was certain she couldn’t trust him. Not with herself, not with Tamora.

  “I told him that any person in his right mind could be happy here.”

  There it was. The suggestion that someone in the house wasn’t in their right mind. He knew about Tamora. Randolph had told her that he would be their doctor, but so far she had kept the child away from him.

  “May we talk a moment?”

  With a glance over her shoulder to see that Randolph was leading several women upstairs for the promised tour, she followed Cyrus Beard to the salon, where tables had been set up for whist. At home, it had been a game for mostly men, but somehow here there were men at one table and women at another. She wasn’t at all surprised to see that the women’s table was the louder.

  She sat with Cyrus Beard in front of the fire. When they were settled, he leaned forward with a confiding air.

  “Now you’re not one of those women prone to taking ridiculous amounts of exercise, are you? Not wanting to walk all over the countryside or engage in lawn tennis for hours on end?”

  Surprised by the personal nature of the question, Amelia leaned back further into her own chair. What a strange man he was.

  “It’s not healthy for women to take too much exercise. It develops muscle, and, I’ve found, often leads to the development of unsightly facial hair.” He squinted at her from behind his thick spectacles, and she self-consciously touched her chin.

  “I’m sure I haven’t had any of—”

  “My first wife, bless her soul, was fond of long walking holidays with her sisters, even after we were married. Couldn’t talk her out of it. I’m convinced it’s why we were only able to conceive one daughter. Her menses was never regular. Irregularity is a child killer.”

  Amelia blushed—something she couldn’t remember having done in several years. “I’m so sorry you lost your wife. Such a tragedy.”

  “Oh, I have another. You’ll remember her. She’s playing whist. In the green dress. She’s already produced a fine son. We’re hopeful for a second.”

  The idea of having to perform wifely duties for the portly Doctor Beard vaguely sickened her, but she was careful not to let it show on her face. “I wish you the best of luck, of course.”

  “Lawn tennis is particularly dangerous. I have strictly forbidden her from lawn tennis. You don’t engage in that, do you? At your age, you can’t take many risks.”

  “Doctor Beard, why are you concerned about my age? Are you afraid I’ll break a bone? I assure you that I’m from very hardy stock. Is Randolph concerned about something that he hasn’t told me?” Randolph had a confidence in doctors that defied her own slim faith. After the myriad and absurd suggestions she had been given concerning Tamora’s care, she would have been happy to never see another. The lumpish cut on the back of her tongue testified to that. What a relief it was that Randolph hadn’t pressed Doctor Beard on her for that strange mis
hap.

  It was a mishap that bothered her, though. Had it indeed been an accident? For a moment she wondered about Randolph. Could he wish to harm her? Or maybe she had irritated one of the servants. She hadn’t known them long enough to be despised that much by them, surely.

  As he started to answer, she became conscious of some commotion out in the hall. Not a shout or a scuffle; it was more subtle than that, as though there were some wave of unrest moving slowly through the house. She felt it in her chest, and she was suddenly afraid for Tamora.

  Cyrus Beard leaned closer and put a hand on her arm to prevent her from rising. “You haven’t conceived more children beyond your only daughter. Perhaps it’s some defect in your womb that you’re concerned about. Or perhaps there is a defect and you have conceived. And if that is the case, I can do nothing for you.” He flustered a bit. “Yes, your age might be of some concern, but there’s nothing one could do about that. I’ve told Randolph.”

  Now she stood, impatient. He had found the boundary of her tolerance, and she could hear the edge of cold in her voice. The one that her mother had told her that she needed to keep under control if she wanted to marry or have friends or be well thought of.

  “Thank you for your concern, Doctor Beard. Again, I assure you that I’m in superior health. As we have no lawn tennis facilities here, I’m certain I can maintain that happy state.”

  He put up his hand, about to protest, but she was already turning away, conscious that the players at the nearest whist table were watching.

  Randolph didn’t know, and her mother didn’t know. There had been two pregnancies after Tamora. One when Tamora was two and had already begun to cause Amelia concern. The second had been only the previous year. Both had been taken care of as soon as she had missed her second menses by the abortifacient provided by the pharmacist who had known her all her life, and who had no respect for the new wave of sentiment or even the laws that disallowed such things. After Tamora, there was nothing that could make her want another child. If Tamora—as much as she loved her—was a judgment for allowing Randolph to exploit her wifely duty in ways she knew were beyond the pale, and, worse, for sometimes enjoying it, she didn’t need a second judgment. One that might have been more devastating than Tamora herself.

  Chapter 22

  AMELIA

  December 1878

  Amelia met Pinky Archer coming down the staircase from the third floor. The stairway was out of view of the front hall, and the candlelight from the sconce on the wall sharpened Pinky’s already thin features and put a shadow across her cheek. Amelia met her eyes and wasn’t sure how to interpret what she saw there. Was it pity? No, it was pity mixed with a note of scorn.

  Yes, that is scorn I see. What have I done? What has Randolph done?

  “I’m so sorry.” Pinky stopped on the stair. She looked away from Amelia’s eyes and adjusted her perfectly adjusted evening glove. “We must go. Thank you for a lovely evening.”

  Before Amelia could respond, Pinky had gone on, with another woman following close behind. Amelia couldn’t remember the second woman’s name, but she pressed close to the wall without speaking a word, only giving Amelia an embarrassed glance. Amelia wanted to grab her and shake her and ask her what awaited her up on the third floor. Continuing up, she felt as though she were in a terrible dream in which the staircase seemed to narrow and lengthen ahead of her.

  When the scream came, it was no surprise. She ran up the final few stairs, heedless of decorum, and followed the sound to the ballroom, a room she had immediately found mysterious yet welcoming with its extravagant and red Oriental wallpaper and lacquered chairs and generous fireplace. But she had noticed that there were no windows (not such an unusual thing in ballrooms, but it always made her feel strangely imprisoned). And that there were two large, sturdy metal eyes hanging from the ceiling; eyes of the sort that seemed to await the addition of two large, sturdy metal hooks.

  When Randolph had seen her staring up at them, he had told her that she would have to wait to learn what they were for. “I want it to be a surprise.”

  The ballroom was red as blood, but the timorous glow of the two dozen standing candelabra that Clayton had lighted gave it a look of romance. No one she knew had a red ballroom. It was at once lurid and fascinating.

  Randolph stood in the center of the room, his face bathed in candlelight, a grin frozen on his face. He pushed the swing hanging from the eyes fixed to the ceiling by two lengths of velvet rope. No. Not rope. The metal hooks were attached to at least a dozen feet of chain that had been carefully covered by the velvet. Or not so carefully. The chain squeaked and groaned, the hooks scraped against the ugly metal eyes. Below it all, Tamora sat on the swing, gripping the chains so tightly that the tendons in her thin arms stood out in relief. Her eyelids were squeezed shut, her mouth open in terror.

  Seeing Amelia in the doorway, Randolph spoke, shouting over Tamora’s screams.

  “Amelia! I was just introducing our friends to our darling daughter. A spectacular debut, don’t you think?”

  “Randolph, please, stop this now!” Running into the room, she reached out to stop the swing herself, but it was moving far too fast.

  “Careful, my dear. I wanted you to see how well she did, but it’s ruined now.”

  When the swing returned to him, he grabbed the seat with two sure hands, jerking it to a stop. Tamora was stunned into momentary silence, her eyes flying open.

  Those eyes were not vacant, as they had been in the nursery. But Tamora—the Tamora she knew—was not in them. That Tamora had retreated somewhere far away from them all.

  Amelia made soothing sounds that were possibly not even words as she gently pried her daughter’s hands from the chains. Tamora’s knuckles were blue with tension, and Amelia stroked the fragile fingers.

  “Yes, darling. Mother’s here. Let’s go back to your room. Let’s go find Brownkin.” Finally, Tamora began to try to breathe deeply, gasping to fill her lungs. Amelia was certain she would begin screaming again, but she did not.

  “Poor lamb.” Harriet was there at her elbow. “She liked it the other day. We never would have put her on there if she hadn’t liked it well enough.” With the words had come the smell of brandy. “I’ll take her back to her room, Missus Bliss.”

  Amelia turned to see Randolph looking wryly amused. He winked at her, and she realized he was either terribly drunk or out of his mind. Then he moved away, speaking to the gawping guests nearest him.

  “Let’s go down and see how the whist players are doing. I’m in need of a brandy. What about you, Aaron?”

  Dear God, it was some kind of horrible dream.

  Amelia saw Aaron then. His eyes were filled with sadness. Perhaps regret. He hadn’t had the strength of character to stop Randolph from hurting Tamora. She felt another pang of anger in her chest.

  When she spoke, her jaw clenched in anger, it was to Harriet. “You can sleep in the staff quarters tonight. Don’t you dare come near the nursery.”

  Harriet stiffened. “I only did as I was required, Missus Bliss.”

  Amelia turned her attention back to Tamora, whose tense little body seemed as frozen as the statue of Hera in the garden.

  “Mother’s here,” she whispered. “All the people are going away, and we will be all alone again. Don’t worry, my darling. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”

  By the time she was able to coax Tamora from the swing, the ballroom was empty, and the candles had begun to stutter and smoke. She could hear laughter from far down on the first floor. So they hadn’t abandoned the house. Hadn’t abandoned Randolph. The fact that they had not sparked a feeling of betrayal inside her. Those who were left were Randolph’s friends. Not hers.

  She picked up Tamora to carry her to the nursery, and she felt the fluid softness of the child’s pink dress flow over her skin. Staring wide, and speechless, Tamora was like a broken doll.

  As they approached the nursery, Aaron stepped out of one of the open doorway
s, blocking her path.

  “Please do not speak to me, Aaron.” She moved to go around him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. Below them, a small group of guests stood in the hall, but Amelia didn’t care what they heard.

  “I’d only just gone into the room when you arrived. Please understand.” He glanced at Tamora, eyes full of concern.

  She held her trembling child closer. “You presume too much. Please take your hand away.”

  “I wouldn’t have let him hurt her.”

  Now she wasn’t able to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “Oh, good. I’m so glad that this doesn’t mean she’s hurt at all. Now, let me pass.”

  This time he let her go. She could feel him watching her as she continued to the nursery, and she hated herself because even in her current state of anger, she hadn’t wanted him to take his hand away. She believed him when he said that he had only just gone into the room, and who was he to her or Tamora that he could have stopped Randolph? Randolph was his own law, and they both knew it. He had shamed Tamora, shamed them all. But Randolph had no shame, and so it would mean nothing to him. She almost envied him. Tamora was her curse and her blessing, but to him Tamora was simply another of his possessions, and tonight she had been a disappointing toy.

  As she laid the dully responsive Tamora on her bed and took off the child’s satin slippers and dress and undergarments (these wet with urine), she imagined what her life might be like if she were similarly able to divorce Tamora from her concern. There would have been no scene, no confrontation, no humiliation, because Tamora would be back in New York, constantly sedated under the care of nurses and doctors. The frontal portion of Tamora’s brain would be gone, and Amelia might have the courage and humor to leave Randolph or take someone like Aaron as a lover.

  She cleaned and redressed her and then kissed her daughter’s damp forehead. Randolph might be so callous. She could not be. But she was tired of there being so little affection from Tamora. No comfort. No respite from Tamora’s pain. No real affection in her own life.