by Tracy Rees
It has been a bad day today. Mr Clay came to discuss the school but I fainted after breakfast and could not see him. I did not recover myself to any great degree until twilight was all around. What a waste of a precious day.
No matter, I had promised myself that I would write this letter this evening and write it I shall, though in a more sombre frame of mind than I have written previously. I have no spirits to write amusing recollections, nor for emotional unburdening, nor for the commitment to page of my greatest and most valuable secret. Not now.
Your trail is nearly at an end, dear Amy, very nearly. Therefore please, my beloved friend, take one more journey on my account. Go to York. ’Tis a beautiful city and the countryside is wild and wonderful. I believe you will like it.
Dearest Amy, my next letter will be better and fuller. Travel alone, tell no one where you are going and know that my confidence in your discretion brings peace to my poor ailing heart at a time when nothing else could.
With greatest love from your devoted
AV
Chapter Fifty-Seven
I rest my head against the window pane. Go to York.
I gaze out over the narrow, quiet street. A solitary carriage bowls along, two black horses high-stepping on air. On a stretch of pale wall, a squirrel dashes and stops, then vanishes in a flourish of tail. The sun is shining. Go to York.
My eyes brim hot and a tear escapes. I stare and I stare for, oh, I suppose ten minutes, if not more.
With a sudden deep swoop of foreboding, I hear Henry’s cheerful voice planning our life in Twickenham.
‘It’s not Cardiff! It’s not Manchester!’
York, I believe, is farther than Manchester.
I take a deep breath and swing my feet to the floor to face into my room. ‘My’ room. This strange space with its grey walls and its dipping eaves, its framed sketches of moths and an old woman’s former lovers. It is time then to leave it. And, suddenly, I come to understanding of what I am feeling.
I am furious! Oh, I am so angry I can hardly bear it! What has my time in Bath been? What have the last weeks achieved? Well, it has given me Henry, of course, but Aurelia was not to know that. Otherwise it has been time endured in the cactus patch that is Mrs Riverthorpe’s home: an onslaught of her merciless teasing, a tedium of stiff social occasions and an awkward entanglement with a gentleman with whom I should never have crossed paths in the first place. I have learned nothing of Aurelia’s year away, except that she was never here, which only makes it all the more pointless. And all for this? Go to York! A place she was never supposed to have visited for more than a day or two. If indeed she did! Just when a life of my own was taking shape.
The long-awaited clue, for which I have endured so much, amounts to just three words. I could spit. I am finished. I am finished with Aurelia. I am finished with her ridiculous quest and her demands for my loyalty and her secrets. Finished.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
‘Are you quite alright, Amy, my beauty?’ asks Henry gently over dinner. ‘You seem a little quiet.’
I lay down my fork and stroke his hand.
‘I am well, only preoccupied by all our happy plans.’ Despite myself, tears well in my eyes.
‘Well you had better accustom yourself to it and soon enough. As soon as our circumstances permit, we must travel to London and see my grandfather. He will be overjoyed to see you again and to know that you are to be part of our family. We must go to Hertfordshire together to see my mother. And then to Twickenham so I can meet the Wisters. Or Twickenham first and then London, it matters not . . .’
*
‘What’s the matter with you, child?’ snaps Mrs Riverthorpe over luncheon the next day. ‘You look more than usually dull and listless. Not sickening for something, are you?’
‘No, thank you, I am well.’
‘Hmm, what tiresome melancholies young people in love are prone to. A pity. I was going to ask you to visit Mrs Manvers with me today but I suppose you’ll need to stay home and sigh.’
‘On the contrary. If you will wait for me to change my gown, I will happily accompany you.’
‘Really? You surprise me. Yes, change your dress by all means. Your face too, if you will oblige me. Oh, and Amy? Do not think me more than usually rude, but have you yet formed any plans to leave me?’
I pause, my hand on the doorknob.
‘No, Mrs Riverthorpe. Unless you object to my staying.’ I brace myself for a cutting response.
‘I do not object.’
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The days pass. I consider myself, still, finished with Aurelia. I have no intention of going to York. I am going on with my life, and my life, for the moment, is in Bath. The weather favours us with some fine weather as well as Bath’s customary selection of rains, fogs and vapours. I am equally well disposed to either circumstance. When it is fine, there are picnics, walks and drives into the country. When it is wet, we visit the abbey or a coffee shop, we play the piano, talk or read.
Henry receives several letters in response to his enquiries, all very informative and obliging. One is particularly thrilling: he is invited to an interview at a ladies’ academy in Richmond. It is not precisely the group of students he had imagined, but then a school for girls is in itself something of a rarity. And, as he observes, the education of girls is scarcely a less worthy cause than the education of the troubled or needy.
The interview is not for several days, due to important cricket fixtures in the adjoining boys’ academy.
‘Why, I am very well pleased with that!’ exclaims Henry, laying down the letter.
The simple gesture makes me feel very tender towards him. It is as though, in that movement of his arm, I can see all the letters that will arrive for us in the years to come. Whether they bear sad news or joyful, he will lay them down just thus and his mannerisms will all grow familiar to me.
‘It gives me a little more time to spend with you, my love. And I do feel that a place that favours cricket over the appointment of staff must be a very promising place indeed, don’t you think?’
I laugh. ‘Yes, I do, and I am so very happy for you. You will make the most marvellous teacher.’ It is true; he will. And when he secures an appointment . . . perhaps then an engagement will be possible and we will be able to live the life we dream of, instead of sitting in Bath talking about it. ‘Mr . . . Merritt, was it? . . . will certainly think so when he meets you too. What a marvellous name for a teacher!’
‘What other profession could he have chosen, thus named? Now, Amy, my love,’ says Henry, taking my hand, ‘when are you going to tell me?’
‘Tell you what?’ Suddenly I am wary. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Tell me what has been amiss these last few days. You have not been happy and that’s not right.’
I pull away from him a little more sharply than I meant to. ‘I am, Henry! How can you say that? I told you, I am merely . . . overwhelmed, I suppose, with so much bounty, so much joy. It is hard to accept, to adjust myself, after a life so different.’
‘No, that is not it,’ he insists gently, watching my face, which I believe may be scowling. ‘I have not known you long, I realize, but I have seen you overwhelmed with joy and this is not it. I have two possible explanations; shall I tell you what they are?’
I feel my cheeks flame. Is this what marriage will be like, someone foraging out every thought when you are accustomed to keeping your own counsel and managing your problems in your own way?
‘I wish you would not,’ I mumble.
He reaches out a hand to tilt up my hanging head.
‘I’m afraid I must. I appear easy as a summer stream, I know, but I have a stubborn current that is something fearsome. You may as well know it as you are to marry me one day. My two theories are as follows. Firstly, you may be experiencing reservations about our attachment – though I trust it is not that, for I am a paragon amongst men, as you see.’
I smile. Henry can always, always make me s
mile.
‘Of course it is not that. Though I don’t see how you succeed in being a paragon and in having such a stubborn streak as you have described.’
‘It adds to my charm. Then I believe it is Aurelia’s letter that has upset you. Am I right, Amy?’
I am quite amazed. I have said not one word about the letter.
‘The twenty-ninth of April, was it not, you were due to receive it? ’Twas the twenty-ninth of April that I first noted the downhill curve of your beautiful smile. I did not like to ask you right away. I thought you needed time to reflect. I did not wish to rush you, my love, but now I am beginning to wonder if you are ever going to tell me anything at all!’
‘I did not realize you had remembered the date. That you had marked it. Oh, Henry, I am so sorry!’ I cover my face with my hands, then look at him in disbelief. It is inconvenient that he remembered it, for he is interrupting my blithe evasion of the whole affair, but it is heartwarming too.
‘Of course I marked it; it is of the greatest importance to you, and therefore to me. And, too . . .’ he hesitates and looks uncertain for a moment. I have not seen that look on his face for some time. ‘. . . I wonder how it may affect us.’ He takes a breath. ‘If the quest is at an end – as I know you were hoping – why, then you might come to Richmond with me when I attend my interview. I could be your escort on the journey, that would be quite proper, I think, and you could stay with your friends. I had hoped you might write to them.’
I am speechless. I look at his bright, hopeful face, his smooth forehead behind which so many plans and dreams have been spinning night and day, and all revolving around me. In that moment the reality of my dreadful predicament sinks in fully.
‘Or, if it is not at an end,’ continues Henry, ‘you might at least tell me – for then I might prepare myself for a separation. And surely, Amy, if we are to be separated we can correspond? I do not mean to rush you if there are difficult decisions to be made but I am naturally anxious to learn what lies ahead.’
Suddenly his tender expression, his utterly reasonable questions, are more than I can bear. But I have already made my decision – I am abandoning Aurelia in favour of my own life, the one I will share with Henry. It is quite the right thing to do. It is what anyone would do.
‘I shall write to Edwin and Constance, Henry. I shall come to Richmond with you. The quest is at an end.’
I see confusion cloud his face. ‘What do you mean, the quest is at an end?’
‘I should think it perfectly clear. Concluded. Finished. I am at liberty. I shall go on no further senseless, stupid, desolate journeys! I am free to go where I wish and when.’
My voice has risen and he tilts his head. ‘Then why do you not sound happy? What has happened? I don’t understand.’
‘Well, of course you don’t. How could you? I know a great deal more than you and even I do not understand. But we may let the matter rest, for the path ahead is clear.’
Now he looks very grave and seems to consider my request very seriously before shaking his head.
‘No, Amy, it cannot rest. I’m sorry. You are unhappy and you seem divided against yourself. You have just said everything I longed to hear, yet it doesn’t feel right. It is not at an end, is it? There is more, but you have decided to set it aside. Why? I hope you don’t do so for me. I want you with me, of course, but I would never ask you to betray your duty to Aurelia.’
I place my hands flat on the table – with some force. ‘It is what I want. It is what I want more than anything! Only, what if I cannot live by my own decision, Henry? I don’t wish to do what she asks of me. But can I ever know peace of mind again if I turn my back on it all, as I so dearly long to do?’
‘What has she asked of you?’
Numbly I reach into my pocket and pull out the letter. I have grown accustomed always to keep her latest missive on my person and so I have done with this unpromising document. I hand it to Henry.
‘Am I to read it? Are you sure?’
‘Oh, believe me, it gives nothing away. You will know nothing you are not meant to know, except my destination. That is, what my destination would be, if I were to go, which I won’t.’
He nods and reads the letter. It takes only a minute. ‘York?’
‘York.’
‘Then York played a significant role in her journey?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
We are silent for some time and then I start to talk. I tell him of my anger and frustration and how very nearly I had allowed myself to hope that this letter would be the last letter, that it would contain all the answers.
‘But it doesn’t, and there’s no explanation, only that she felt too tired to write more that day! Then why could she not simply have waited to write it another day? The last letter was four pages long, Henry. Four pages! Full of revelations I had never imagined. And now this! I have waited here, endured Bath society, tolerated Mrs Riverthorpe, suffered speculation and insinuation and outright insult. And for what? For this? “Go to York.” I am finished with her, Henry.’
But even as I say it I know that it can’t be so. She is part of me. I am alive because of her.
‘I must go with you,’ says Henry at last, in a decided voice.
‘I’m not going.’ My voice is weak. I am saying one thing and thinking another and detesting myself for it.
‘Amy, you are not honest with yourself.’ He knits his brows together. ‘You look as thoroughly miserable as I’ve ever seen you. It is as you say. You could never have peace of mind knowing you had not kept faith with her. I do not claim to understand this strange quest or what can possibly have gone through her mind when she engineered this . . . this . . . extraordinary plot. It seems to me a preposterous thing to ask of one’s fellow man. Woman.’ He gestures impatiently. ‘All I know is that if you follow this thing to the end then, when you say to me, “Henry, I shall come with you; the quest is over,” you will do so with a clear conscience and joy in your heart. But you need not do it alone. You have me now.’ He looks at me steadily.
‘No, she says to travel alone. I could not take you.’
A pause. ‘But, my dear, she also says to tell no one where you are to go and you have already done so! And how would taking me with you be more of a betrayal than abandoning it altogether? That is not quite rational, my love.’
‘Rational?’ At some point I have risen to my feet and begun pacing the room. ‘There is nothing rational about any of this. Not the quest, not the position it puts me in, not the way my life is unfolding and certainly not the way I feel.’
Henry watches me in concern while I storm and storm some more. ‘Amy! I didn’t mean to criticize you, I was merely trying to point out why there is no reason for you to suffer, either by travelling to the north alone or by acting against your conscience. Do what you must! Only, do not do it alone and unprotected. That is what a husband is for.’
‘But you are not my husband, not yet!’
‘Then let us marry at once and take care of that.’
‘No, Henry, not like this. Not in haste and expediency, because we have to. I can’t take you with me. I can’t explain it to you, for I do not fully understand it myself. But I cannot, I am quite, quite sure of that.’
The look of hurt on his face strikes me like a blow. There is a tight silence between us and I know he is waiting for me to capitulate, but I won’t.
‘The revelations of the last few letters,’ I say more gently, ‘are of the most delicate nature . . .’ I am about to say ‘for a woman’, but I fear even that would give away too much. How could I explain it to him? Aurelia’s physical intimacies, outside of marriage, the questions that have been circulating in my mind over the last weeks, are too personal to share. She is a woman and I am a woman and I cannot pass on a confidence like that and especially not to a man.
It was a relief to hand over the letter to Henry, to feel for a moment that my responsibility might be shared. But now I feel cornered. This journey cannot be
shared. York will be like London all over again, except with not so much as an Entwhistle’s to guide me. There is the possibility that I might find no reason at all, only another clue, another journey. Or that I might fail. These are things I could not bear for Henry to see.
‘I . . . I don’t know what I will find in York. If I were to continue the quest, it would be a highly personal matter between Aurelia and me. If I decide to turn away from it, that too is personal between us. But either way, I must choose alone. To have you go with me would seem . . . I do not know . . . wrong? Unfair?’
Henry shoots to his feet and stalks to the window. I anxiously watch his bristling back. How have we moved in moments from laughter to what may very well be an altercation?
‘And your pledge to share your life with me, in all its odd and problematical forms, is that not personal, Amy? Is the trust between us not personal? The revelations of the other letters may well be delicate. The revelations of this latest letter, however, are non-existent! Where would you even begin to find a letter when your only clue is the entire city?’
The demands Aurelia is placing upon me do not paint her in a good light. I don’t want Henry to think badly of her. Nor do I like to think that she has put me at risk, more than once. So to avoid considering the matter too closely, I snap at Henry.
‘This is not what you said ten days ago, Henry. You said you understood my loyalty to Aurelia, you said you accepted that the quest must come first until it is done. You said you supported me!’
‘I do support you! That is what I am doing by offering you my protection. Forgive me if I cannot be perfectly sanguine about you crossing the country alone to only a very vague destination! Amy, I stand by what I said. But it’s one thing when we’re sitting together beneath the trees and the matter is hypothetical. It’s far harder when we’ve admitted our feelings, started planning our future and I am faced with watching you slip through my fingers yet again! I am trying, Amy, but I do not see why you must choose between your loyalty to Aurelia and your loyalty to me. You may honour both! Why must you turn your back on her in order to be with me? I do not ask it of you. I don’t want you divided thus. But take me with you, let me help you; that is what the man who loves you is supposed to do! Is it that you don’t trust me? Do you think I might disapprove of Aurelia, or of you, or that I would betray your confidence? Whatever it is, Amy, it makes no sense!’