Amelia wanted to be angry, wanted to scream and hit him, but all of the energy, the force that her elation and anticipation had brought her, had gone. When she left, she closed the door behind her, firmly, for that moment not thinking that she might be heard. He didn’t follow.
Before she reached the staircase, Randolph stepped out of the shadows.
“I liked that gown when I bought it, yet you never wore it for me. I wonder why.”
Amelia stopped. Of course he had been waiting. He had probably been waiting since begging off the party at Maplewood.
“What’s wrong? You look unhappy.”
Knowing she was taking a chance, she tried to pass him, but he pulled her back into the shadows, almost causing her to fall. Shoving her against the wall, he pressed against her. The odor of brandy mixed with cigar smoke and something else, something fetid, was on his breath.
“Didn’t he want you, Amelia? Did he look at your sagging breasts and your slack jaw and turn away?”
“You know what he did, because you made him do it.”
There was enough light that she could see his teeth when he smiled.
“All in good fun, though, wasn’t it? Did thinking that he wanted you thrill you? I’m sure it felt very exciting. Very dangerous.”
“You’re a criminal, Randolph. I’ve known it for a long time. But most criminals wouldn’t sink this low with their own wives.”
He pressed her shoulder, hard, against the wall. “Such a compliment, my dear. I’ve always thought of myself as a man with a taste for adventure. I hadn’t thought of myself as a criminal. A mastermind, would you say?”
With that, he used his other hand to rip the neck of her gown, jerking her so that her head slammed back against the wall. Both her breasts were exposed, and he squeezed one so that she had to force her jaws together to keep from crying out. “Did he go so far as to do this to you before he threw you out? Or was he more of a gentleman?”
She tried to move away, to the side, but he held her tighter. “No, no, my love. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble over you, and you’re not going to take my pleasure.”
He had taken her before when she had refused him, but never against a wall or where someone else might hear. He kissed her neck, devouring her, talking to her. “Did you beg him? Did you tell him all the things I’ve taught you that you might do for him? Did you get on your knees for him?”
She knew what he wanted. If she told him what he wanted to hear, maybe it would be over quickly.
“Yes.”
“Did you take him in your mouth?”
“Yes.”
He opened his robe and she realized he was naked beneath it. As he fumbled to rip the rest of her gown he grunted, and she thought of Aaron, just a room away. Surely he could hear them. Surely he would come.
“You must have been so hungry for him. Did you beg him to take you on your hands and knees so that you could rut like beasts on the floor? Beside the fire?”
God, please let this end!
“Yes. Yes, I did. Please, Randolph. Don’t. Someone will hear.”
Without warning, he backed away from her and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his robe. “You’re a liar. I watched you from the moment you went into his room. I watched you grovel, but he wouldn’t even touch you, you disgusted him so.”
She looked away. Some women considered him handsome, and she herself had almost believed him handsome once. But his cruelty was etched all over his face.
“I would tell you that you’re no better than a whore, Amelia, but that would be an insult to a whore. A whore at least knows how to lie effectively. Knows how to flatter. You have a long way to go before you reach a whore’s level.”
He tied his robe and pushed back the hair that had loosened around his face. “You’ll want to clean yourself up, my dear. Lust has an odor all its own, and it no longer becomes you.” He started down the stairs.
When she was sure he had reached the bottom, she wrapped the shredded gown around herself and walked slowly across the gallery to her own room. As she turned to close the door, she noticed that Aaron’s door was open a few inches. She watched as it closed altogether, and heard the key turn in the lock.
Chapter 27
AMELIA
January 1879
There was nothing like a child to drag one back to the reality of life. Amelia woke to the sound of Tamora howling as she ran past her door. Harriet’s slower, more measured footsteps came after. She guessed that Harriet must have done something out of order at breakfast. But when she saw the quality of the light coming in the windows and looked at the clock, she realized that she had slept until almost noon. She closed her eyes again, not wanting to move.
For hours she had cried into her pillow, her sobs like those of a child who desperately wants her mother to hear and come and comfort her. Her own mother would have come, but would have told her to stop being ridiculous. She had married Randolph for the very best reasons, and they had a child together. It was her duty to remain married to him. Her mother would have no understanding of a man who squeezed his wife’s tender breast until he left bruises or demanded to hear the details of her tryst with another man. It would be as though Amelia were speaking Hindustani or Russian to her mother. She would look away, puzzled, rejecting such strange words.
That Aaron had heard, that he had done nothing as Randolph assaulted and mocked her made her sick to her stomach. He was not any kind of man. He was weak and as untrustworthy as Randolph himself. But even as she thought these things she pitied him almost as much as she pitied herself.
She considered leaving with Tamora, taking her and Harriet up east, back to the house in Long Island. As he had planned and built Bliss House, Randolph had told her that Virginia could become their winter home. There was the letter that said she could go back to New York at any time, but she knew now he hadn’t meant it. Would she dare to leave him? If she did, he might stop their funds. The money she had would not last more than a year, and she certainly couldn’t support her parents. Or he might demand that Tamora be put in the care of doctors.
A part of her—a small part that was growing—was coming to think that it might be best for them all if she gave up trying to be a mother to Tamora. Randolph had the money to have Tamora kept in comfort and safety.
She touched her injured breast. Without Tamora, she might travel. As Randolph’s wife, she would have credit anywhere she chose to go, if he would let her. No longer did she desire affection or compassion or, God forbid, any kind of physical relationship with Randolph or any other man on earth. Her body had been violated enough. Her heart had been cheaply given and she had paid the price for it: her husband’s triumph and her humiliation.
If she couldn’t be quit of Randolph and their daughter, what was left for her?
Randolph might die.
Was she so desperate as to kill Randolph? They would surely hang her, even if she ran back to New York. No one would believe how she had suffered at his hands. She hardly believed it herself. Randolph was more than a criminal. He was a monster. A monster who was about to have another child in the world. With an innocent but heathen mother, and Randolph for a father, it was surely cursed.
She had no plan, no reason to move except that she could not stay in her bed all day. Harriet would need to be relieved. Perhaps it would be one of Tamora’s sweet days, and she would let Amelia brush her hair and read her a story. Perhaps there would be no tantrums. There were those days. Those were days when she could pretend, just for a while, that Tamora was not like the children she had seen at the private asylum, children so drugged that they slept most of the day and were wakened just long enough to eat and occasionally be bathed. That she was not a child who might be kept in one of those horrific face masks or straitjackets. The doctors had told her that those children—children like Tamora—didn’t really know any differently. That they were animal-like in their limitations. No, no, they insisted. It wasn’t that they actually were animals, but that their u
nderstanding was animal-like. They needed care and needed help keeping themselves from harm.
Wasn’t that what she and Harriet, and to some small extent, Randolph, Maud, and the odious Clayton had tried to do? They kept a constant suicide watch. She had heard of a family in a nearby county who had a disturbed maiden aunt who was free to roam the town. Everyone knew her and knew her to be harmless. She sang, they said, songs from her childhood, and was returned home every evening by any resident who happened to see her around the dinner hour. But she had a habit of picking up stray objects and eating them: bolts and screws or bits of fabric or ribbons or even small seashells. Everyone knew to watch out for her putting things in her mouth as though she were an infant. (Even Amelia had once swallowed a button, to the chagrin of her mother.) Finally the woman had swallowed a nail, and she had died a slow, painful death. But she hadn’t meant anyone harm. Had not meant herself any harm.
Tamora was like that woman. They had to be vigilant. They had to keep watch so she would not die before—before when? Before she became an old woman? Amelia had no idea what would happen to Tamora when she, Amelia, died. If Randolph outlived her—which, given the vileness of his soul, seemed likely, because it was well known that the meanest people live longest—she would certainly be institutionalized.
Amelia knew all these things, but she could not face them this morning. She wanted to die herself. She certainly didn’t want to see Aaron or Randolph or any other human being. She wanted out of her life.
There was no sign of either man when she emerged from her room. It was the first day of the New Year, and she had put on a loose day dress and kept the stays of her corset lightly fastened so her breast would not be injured further. She found Clayton in the kitchen bent over some sort of puzzle that had been fashioned from two horseshoes and a bit of wire.
“Have you seen anything like it, Missus Bliss? Maud gave it to me as a gift for the New Year, but I can’t make heads nor tails of it.” At the stove, Maud chuckled.
“I’ve made black-eyed peas for the New Year, ma’am. You’ll want to eat them for good luck before you go off calling.”
“Thank you, I’m not hungry, Maud.” She turned to Clayton. “Please take this note to Maplewood, Clayton. I won’t need you the rest of the day. I won’t be making any calls.”
“But Mister Bliss said—”
“If Mister Bliss requires you, then you should certainly take him where he wishes. I’m asking you to take this note for me. If you are unable to perform that duty, you may go and ask Mason or one of the other hands to do it, and I will tell Mister Bliss that you have been uncooperative.”
He took the note from her hand and gave her a quick nod and a “yes, ma’am.” When she left the room she heard him mumble under his breath and Maud laugh in response.
She went upstairs to find Tamora having a tea party with Brownkin and her dolls. Harriet was knitting, but she looked exhausted. Strangely, she had looked less well since she had stopped drinking so much.
“I’ll stay with Tamora this afternoon, Harriet. If you’ll come up and ready her for dinner and then take her for the evening, I’ll deal with her now.”
“That would be a blessing, ma’am. She was a hellion this morning, but I didn’t want to bother you as you’d been out celebrating the New Year and all. Mister Bliss made sure that Maud and Clayton and me had a bottle of that lovely champagne that was served at dinner last night, after Maud and Clayton and the girls from in town cleaned up. Did you have a good time at the party?”
After assuring Harriet that yes, she’d had a pleasant time at the party, and no, she hadn’t checked on Mister Bliss this morning, but that she was sure he was fine, Amelia closed the nursery door on Harriet and took her place in the rocking chair. As though to prove to her that she might be the daughter Amelia hoped her to be, Tamora brought Brownkin over to her for her to kiss and then went back to her tea party. Tamora did all the actions for each doll, lifting the teacups to their lips, and then also touching their mouths with the wax fruit and cakes that Amelia had bought the previous year at Mister Schwarz’s Toy Bazaar. To her surprise, Tamora had never once tried to eat the wax food herself, though Amelia’s father had told her that it was surely a risk. How little her parents understood about Tamora. How little they wanted to understand.
Maud brought lunch to the nursery. Tamora counted her food and arranged it the way she preferred on the plate before eating. Amelia told her all about the children at the party at Maplewood and how the Christmas tree had shone. She didn’t mention the girl in the blue velvet ribbon because she knew she could not keep the emotion out of her voice, and any strong emotion distressed Tamora. It was best, anyway, because the thought of the little girl led to thoughts of Aaron.
She had walked down the gallery outside Aaron’s empty room before coming up to the nursery, and, as any proper hostess might, looked into his room to make sure all was well, and nothing needed cleaning or arranging. She had thought he might have gone for good, but his things were all still there. For a moment, she had stood in front of the fireplace, remembering how unhappy he had looked. How vulnerable and young.
But he was not vulnerable. He was weak. And she had been—as he had told her—also weak.
It was fatal to be weak around Randolph. Why hadn’t she understood that before? From Aaron’s window she saw the cottage in the distance. Gray wisps of smoke rose from the chimney. The girl would be warm in such a cozy place. What did she do all day? Soon the girl would have a child, just as Amelia had. What would Randolph do about the child? It had been on her mind. It was one thing to hide a mistress in the woods, but quite another to hide both a mistress and a child and whatever children there would be in the future.
After lunch, Tamora did not struggle at all when it was time for her nap. At Amelia’s urging she climbed onto her bed and let Amelia tuck the hideous Brownkin into the crook of her arm.
“Rest well, my love.” Amelia kissed her daughter on the forehead. Tamora did not give kisses in return.
She found she didn’t want to leave the nursery, which felt as safe as the nursery she had spent her own childhood in. It had had five tall windows through which she could watch the street and the changing seasons, and some long-ago inhabitant had painted the walls with sky blue and yellow stripes. The furniture had been beautifully shaped, but sized for children. She would have liked to have had that furniture for Tamora, but her parents had sold it long before Tamora’s birth.
When she had made inquiries about it to her mother, her mother had been dismissive. “It was ancient furniture, Amelia. We had no use for it, and we got a very good price. Some of the pieces were quite valuable. Every bit makes a difference.” Like the nursery furniture and much of the family silver, Amelia had also been sold for a very good price.
Confirming that Tamora was asleep, she went to her morning room and retrieved the small lap desk she used for correspondence. The Christmas holiday and the decorating and the parties had put her behind on everything but the most timely pieces of mail. Back in the nursery, she got to work. She had to thank her mother for the Christmas gifts and let her know that she understood that her father’s health certainly took precedence over any travel they had thought of doing. It did not take much imagination to hear in her mind the growling tone her father had surely used to inform her mother that he didn’t want to make the trip. In truth, Amelia knew he disliked travel. There were letters from three school friends, two, in fact, from just one of them. Samantha Brown, whose family was less prestigious than the others—or so Amelia’s mother had judged—had written first to wish her happy Christmas. The second letter was dated a week later and had only just arrived. Samantha’s maternal grandmother in North Carolina was very ill, and while she had to rush down to help nurse her and could not stop in Old Gate, perhaps Amelia would come to her grandmother’s house for a brief visit? Her grandmother had a retinue of nurses and servants and only asked that Samantha come and read to the old woman for an hour or so each
day, as she had a pleasing voice, and she missed her.
Amelia’s first reply was written quickly. Of course she was terribly sorry to hear that Samantha’s grandmother was ill, but the demands of setting up a new household and her care of Tamora meant that she couldn’t leave Virginia at present. The other two notes were dispatched just as easily. Neither of the women demanded much. Their notes were polite and mentioned their children and husbands and had a bit of gossip about mutual friends. She replied in kind, describing the extravagant holiday celebrations she’d attended since arriving in Virginia, celebrations that were so different than the ones she’d known as a girl.
After sealing the letters, she looked up to see Tamora still sleeping. For the most part, she favored Amelia’s side of the family. But her forehead and nose were decidedly Bliss family features.
Could she leave Tamora for just a few days? God, she wanted to run out of the room and put on traveling clothes and leave that afternoon. There were surely trains out of Lynchburg that would take her to North Carolina. Samantha’s grandmother lived in one of the larger cities.
It was evident that Randolph meant to keep Aaron there to torture her. They were both puppets to him. How foolish she had been, half listening to all Aaron had told her about the upcoming projects Randolph had planned. She had been thinking of him. Of being with him. But in the end, she had been thinking of herself and her own unhappiness. Or rather she had been thinking of desperate alternatives to her own unhappiness.
Hadn’t Randolph urged her to travel a bit, to familiarize herself with the neighboring areas? It was true that North Carolina wasn’t exactly in their neighborhood, but she had never once traveled without him or Tamora or her parents since she had been married. And did she really need his permission? No.
What about you, my child? My Tamora?
A week. She would be gone a week at most. A day’s travel on the train either way, and a few days in between, visiting with Samantha and keeping her company when she wasn’t with her grandmother.
The Abandoned Heart Page 24