A Haunting Reprise

by Amanda DeWees

  Two girls playing with dolls near the hearth were also dressed respectably, if not lavishly, in starched white pinafores and high-button boots, and their round faces showed no signs of neglect. A slightly younger boy in short trousers was lying on his stomach under a sideboard, absorbed in tin soldiers.

  These children were so young, though. I had quizzed Polly about our siblings, and she had not mentioned any as small as these. Then I realized they must be Mollie’s children. Polly had told me that my older sister had married. So these were my nieces and nephew.

  But what now seized the whole of my attention was a slight woman working a tapestry on a divan, who set that work aside and rose to her feet as we entered.

  “Polly, you thoughtless chit! I have been half out of my mind...”

  Then she took another look at me and fell silent.

  Despite myself I was a bit nervous. She was slight, even more than I remembered, and I felt as though I were towering over her like a clumsy giantess. Suddenly I remembered all the times those ice-blue eyes had looked at me critically, just as they were doing now. I found myself aware of how gaudy my pink-and-black gown was, how much space the massive bustle skirt was taking up. My nieces could probably both fit under it, as the children representing Ignorance and Want had huddled under the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

  My mother said in a flat voice, “Sally.”

  I had to clear my throat. “I prefer ‘Sybil,’ Mother.”

  The two little girls were now staring at us agog.

  I had thought a great deal about the moment when I would be reunited with my mother. I had even composed some dialogue for the occasion and rehearsed it with Roderick. But all of my plans were now pointless, for they had relied on my mother’s having expected me. Catching her off guard like this, I ought to have had an advantage. Instead I felt the opposite.

  She said, “I never dreamed I’d see the day you’d come home.” She did not sound pleased.

  “Nor did I,” I said, “but Polly told me that Father is very ill.”

  “He’ll be no better off for seeing you,” my mother said.

  I refused to let the words sting. “I never claimed my presence alone could heal him. But if there are treatments that I could pay for, or a trip to a healthier climate, I should be happy—”

  “If he knew your money was paying for it, it would do him no good at all.”

  There was the sound of a woman clearing her throat, and I turned to find that a plump-cheeked woman of about my own age had entered. She wore a brown challis wrapper rather than a day dress, so she had to be a member of the family. Then I gave a glad cry as I recognized her.

  “Mollie! It’s wonderful to see you.”

  She permitted me to embrace her. “How nice to see you, dear.”

  So mild a greeting reminded me that it had always been difficult to startle my older sister out of her habitual placidity. “You look wonderful,” I said. “Tell me, are these all your children?”

  “Yes, Myrtle is eleven, Violet ten, and Linden seven.” A shadow crossed her eyes. “We lost our Lily to the smallpox two years ago. She would have been four years old.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I exclaimed, squeezing her hand. But she kept her composure.

  “We were lucky not to lose Linden as well. He was dreadfully sick, and he is much scarred. That’s why he likes to hide himself away—he is shy about his face.” Then she patted her stomach, and I realized she was pregnant. “If the baby is a girl she will be Lily in memory of our lost one, and if a boy he will be Alder.”

  My mother’s penchant for matched names seemed to have been passed on to Mollie. I wondered how much longer they could extend the botanical theme. “And the store below is your husband’s, I take it?”

  She brightened. “It’s doing ever so well. Jerome is considering opening another store in Croyden.”

  While she told me about the business, I noticed Mother slip out of the room.

  “She isn’t best pleased to see me,” I could not help observing to my sister.

  “She’s happy to show you how well we have done in your absence, though.” She smiled. “When I married Jerome I became the favorite daughter, in part because it allowed Mama and Papa to repay all the money you had sent since you left.”

  “Truly! How interesting.” That put a different complexion on things. Evidently their principles had not extended so far as to reject my tainted lucre until they had another source of financial security. “Tell me, did they both feel strongly about that, or was it Father’s idea?”

  “Father’s, I believe. I think Mother thought better of you for sending the money, but he insisted they couldn’t be in debt to you.”

  “Your father will see you now,” came my mother’s voice, startling me.

  I bridled at the implication that I was there at my father’s sufferance and must bow to his command. But then, he was ill... and in his mind, at least, the wounded party.

  My mother had staged the scene effectively. When I entered, leaving the noisy commotion behind, my father was propped up on pillows in the bed, looking for all the world like an ailing king holding audience. A low stool had been set at the bedside for me, putting me in the position of supplicant.

  I refused to be placed where I would have to look up at my father like a child awaiting a reprimand. Setting the footstool aside, I drew a straight-backed chair up to the bedside so that my father and I might look at each other on a level, as equals.

  In the years since I had last seen him his hair had begun to gray, and the disease was probably responsible for his alarmingly thin frame and hollow cheeks. I had tried to prepare myself for a rush of sorrow and pity upon seeing him so ill. It was a shock, true enough, but his severe gaze made it impossible to feel pity for him. It would have seemed like an insult to one so proud.

  He watched me without speaking as I took my seat. It may have been another effect of the disease that his eyes seemed unusually large and piercing, but I was highly aware of them following all my movements, and I had to remind myself not to be intimidated. How well I remembered how implacable he could be, even after all these years.

  “Good afternoon, Father,” I said. I had never used a nickname for him like ‘Papa,’ and there was nothing in our circumstances to encourage me to do so now. “It’s Sally. I go by the name Sybil now, you may remember.” He watched me without speaking. The windows were open to afford fresh air, and the chill breeze made me shiver; it did not seem to affect him. “I was sorry to learn that you’ve been so ill,” I said. “When Polly told me, I felt it was my duty as your daughter to visit.”

  Still staring balefully at me, he said, “You’re not my daughter.” His voice had a wheezing gurgle to it, the sign that his lungs were going. Perhaps he was so far gone that his mind was being affected.

  “You must remember me. I’m Sally. When I was fifteen I left to—”

  The weirdly large eyes bored into me. “You mistake me. I no longer have a daughter named Sally.”

  It was just as painful hearing it from his lips as it had been seeing the words in his letter all those years ago. I said, “I’m sorry to find you still feel that way.”

  “You’ve done nothing to change my feelings. Asking forgiveness now means nothing.”

  That pricked my pride—the pride I had inherited from him. “I didn’t come here to ask your forgiveness. I am trying to give you mine.” Silently I added, You don’t make it easy. Aloud I continued, “The only thing I have to apologize for is leaving the way I did, without telling you in person.”

  But even that was no longer something I was certain I owed him. Facing him now after all these years, I was reminded of how stern a parent he had been, how little patience he had had for anything he considered a frivolity. The only treats we had as children were excursions to places that he felt were educational.

  He and my mother had never been on what I would call affectionate terms with me or any of my siblings. I remembered no tenderness from eithe
r. With wonder I had read in novels of parents who treated their children as darlings to be cherished. It seemed that my memories had not played me false... and that the years had not softened my father.

  “I should have stopped you,” he said now, biting the words out. “I could have hauled you back home, locked you in your room until you saw reason. But perhaps it was already too late. Your mother had failed to instill the proper morals in you, so you were probably already ruined. Is that why you ran off? You gave your virtue to some smooth-tongued seducer and couldn’t face us?” This long speech made him start to cough, a terrible liquid sound that told me he was far gone indeed. When he was finally quiet again, I took a long breath to keep my temper in check, and made myself speak lightly.

  “Do you know, I’ve come to find that a woman is not ruined by such means. Perhaps by being worked to a thread and forced to bear a child every year, though, or being denied expression of her natural gifts and desires. That was not the life I wanted for myself. I don’t know if you can understand how thrilling the theater seemed to me then—and still seems to me.” I smiled. “In a sense, I suppose I was seduced, but not by a man.”

  The wasted hands made an impatient gesture. “Fancy words can’t fool me. You chose a life of degradation. You make me ashamed.”

  I felt no shame, however. On the contrary, thinking back on all my years of happiness and fulfilment in the theater, the satisfaction of doing good work, the thrill of carrying audiences along into a spellbinding tale that awoke their empathy and stirred their nobler impulses—it made me proud, and filled me with happy anticipation for the future.

  “I suppose that’s an area in which we shall never understand each other,” I said. “No wonder Polly—” Just in time, I stopped myself. There could hardly be a less propitious time to bring up my sister’s desire to follow in my footsteps. Perhaps over the next few days he would soften toward me and be more receptive to what I had to say. It seemed unlikely, but it wouldn’t hurt to wait and see. Besides, it would have felt cruel just now to deal him the blow that his youngest daughter wanted to follow in my footsteps.

  “What about Polly?” he asked suspiciously. “You aren’t stirring up any spirit of rebellion in her, are you? I won’t have it.” But a fit of coughing destroyed the sense of authority he had tried to assert, and I felt pity for him.

  “I’ll leave you to rest now,” I said, rising. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

  His eyes followed me as I left the room, and once I had shut the door behind me I shivered. How horrible to see him so broken in body, so fragile—and yet so stubborn and hidebound in his ideas. Approaching death had not granted him any new insight or generosity of spirit, it seemed. On the contrary, it was as if he was determined in the time remaining to him to indelibly stamp his personality on those he would leave behind.

  Chapter Three

  Roderick had joined the others in the parlor during my absence. I could tell from his roguish smile and the way he was leaning over Mother’s tapestry that he was doing his best to charm her. Her ramrod-straight back and primmed-up mouth showed that she was having none of it. Probably she distrusted charming men on principle.

  I could see at a glance, however, that my nieces were smitten. Each clung lovingly to one of his arms as they chattered away, their faces alight. One couldn’t blame them, of course.

  At the sound of my footsteps, my mother looked up. “Well?” she challenged.

  I hesitated. “This first meeting after all these years was bound to be a bit—well—fraught. I think I’d best give him some time to accustom his mind to me.”

  “So that’s it, then? Ten minutes, and then you vanish just as you did before?”

  “Why, no. Of course I mean to visit again. Tomorrow, if that’s agreeable. And if you should need me before then”—if Father worsened, I meant—“Roderick and I will be at the Langham Hotel.”

  Her lips pressed together. “Oh, I see. Your own home isn’t good enough for you.”

  “It isn’t my—of course it’s good enough.” It had never occurred to me that Roderick and I might lodge there, and the idea was not welcome. I did not want to be under the constant scrutiny of my family, lacking all privacy. But at the same time it would afford me greater opportunity to make peace with my family and might win some goodwill. I looked questioningly at Roderick, who shrugged the decision back to me.

  “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,” I began. “I should feel we were in the way. You seem to be a bit crowded, and—”

  “We make do. Some of us aren’t above sharing beds.”

  “Well, naturally Roderick and I would share.”

  She drew herself up. “I’ll not have you bring your fancy man to sleep under my roof.”

  I stared at her in indignation, but Roderick’s lips twitched. “I hate to disillusion you, Mrs. Ingersoll,” he said, “but your daughter and I are lawfully married.”

  She did not look mollified. “And where did this so-called wedding take place?”

  “In Paris.”

  My mother sniffed. “I doubt those French clergymen know how to marry a couple properly. Why, next you’ll be telling me it was in one of those Roman Catholic churches.”

  She made it sound like a fate worse than death. Before I could stop Roderick, he attempted to reassure her.

  “It was in a registry office,” he said. “In France one needn’t have a church wedding at all. It makes things simpler.”

  Now we were out of the frying pan and into the fire. My mother looked at him as if he had just casually admitted to drowning schoolgirls in the Thames.

  “What kind of heathens think such a thing is proper?” she exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of anything so outlandish. That may suffice for foreigners, but I’m thankful to say that in this family we hold to a higher standard! If the two of you aren’t married in the eyes of the Church of England, you certainly aren’t in mine.”

  Coming at the end of an emotionally taxing visit, this volley of scorn pricked my temper. “I’m afraid it isn’t up to you, Mother,” I said. “It’s the law.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she deliberately folded her arms. “Well, my fine miss, in this house I am the law, and I won’t have the two of you carrying on under my roof like some kind of—of—”

  “Illicit lovers?” Roderick offered. I had the feeling he was enjoying this enormously. It probably suited him to be thought of as my scandalous paramour in a forbidden romance instead of something as staid as a decently wedded husband.

  My mother was not amused. She had never had much of a sense of humor, I recalled, certainly not where morality was concerned. “You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously, Mr. Brooke. But you will not find lodgings here.”

  That finally made an impression on him. “The devil you say!” When she puffed up in outrage, he added hastily, “I beg your pardon, ma’am. But it’s absurd to separate us. I can show you the marriage certificate if you wish.”

  “Any piece of paper from foreign parts holds no water with me. Sally, if you’re going to stay, tell your fancy man to take his foreign ways out of my house.”

  There was no point in arguing. “Come,” I said to Roderick. “I’ll see you out.”

  Down the narrow staircase we descended, and I tried not to let my spirits descend as well. It was a losing battle.

  “How was it seeing your father again?” Roderick asked.

  “Difficult. I don’t think I feel like talking about it just yet.”

  I was grateful when he didn’t press the issue. “Are you quite certain you don’t wish to come with me?” he asked instead. “I didn’t get the sense that your mother is going to make you feel at home.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll just stay a few days, speak to Father about Polly, and try to make some sort of peace with Mother. As for feeling at home...” I tried to smile. “You are my home, Roderick.”

  With an exclamation he gathered me into his arms and held me tightly. “I wish that I could help
you somehow,” he said in a different voice. “That you didn’t have to do this alone.”

  I couldn’t have him worrying about me. “Just work on your concerto,” I said briskly, “and come and call on me tomorrow afternoon. We might even go for a drive.”

  “I’ll hire a closed carriage so we can give free rein to our baser natures without anyone being the wiser.” His kiss was a promise of pleasure to come, but I was unable to enjoy it properly because of the giggling that broke out overhead. Looking up, we saw my nieces and nephew on the landing above, hanging over the rail and watching us. When I glared at them, they burst into laughter and ran.

  “Definitely hire the closed carriage,” I said. “I’ve a feeling I shall be craving some privacy by then.”

  When I returned upstairs, I found that my luggage had been deposited in the room occupied by Polly and my nieces, which was at the front of the house next to the sickroom. The little girls had already opened my trunk and were now nosing through my belongings. With great self-control I bit back a reprimand at the sight of them rooting through my intimate garments.

  “Mr. Brooke is so very handsome!” Myrtle exclaimed, wrapping a sheer purple stocking around her throat like a muffler. “How did you meet? Was it love at first sight?”

  That question put me in an awkward spot, because I could hardly say that on our first meeting he had gone so far as to proposition me, and I had slapped him in reply. But I was spared having to answer as Myrtle prattled on. “I should like to embroider some carpet slippers for him. What is his favorite color? I shall ask Mama for some money to buy the wool tomorrow.”

  “His eyes are so beautiful!” Violet sighed. “He looks as though he must have a very romantic soul, like the poet Shelley. Does he like poetry? I shall write a sonnet for him. What rhymes with ‘Roderick’?” Then she held up one of my fanciest Parisian undergarments. “I’ve never seen a red satin corset before,” she said. “I must show Mama.”