“Do you remember your father’s pet wombats?” Jane asked William.
“How could I forget them? Those beasts had better places at the dinner table than I did.”
During dinner, I had begun to feel rising irritation as Jane and William discussed Gabriel and the other Pre-Raphaelites, some of whom were still living. Though I had wanted to hear such stories, I sensed that Jane was determined to make me feel like an outsider. So by the time we were sitting in the study, I had stopped trying to participate in the conversation. Instead, I scanned the walls, which displayed many of Morris’s sketches. Several were of buildings, often crumbling cathedrals. The bookcases were filled with volumes on subjects ranging from art, to architecture, to radical politics. William had once told me that while Jane was shut out from posh London circles due to her romantic affairs, Morris had been ousted as a result of his political beliefs.
I turned my attention back to William, where he sat by Jane across from me in the small parlor. I sighed in irritation, thinking that Jane’s politically controversial husband seemed marginally more interesting than Jane herself.
The sigh was too audible. William looked at me sharply.
At that moment, a realization came upon me with the force of a storm wind. I scrutinized the scene before me slowly, carefully. I watched Jane Morris’s hand rest on William’s shoulder. It was a maternal gesture … but not entirely maternal.
The truth suddenly became quite clear.
William instantly looked uncomfortable when he saw my expression.
I sat up in my seat suddenly, nearly slamming my teacup down in its saucer.
How could I have missed this?
Mentor. Friend in the years following Gabriel’s death.
“Arabella, are you unwell?” Jane asked.
“Abbie!” William stood up and rushed toward me.
“We must leave,” I replied curtly. “Thank you for dinner, but it is time for me to go home.”
It was near ten o’clock when we abruptly left, and the night had gone from chilly to cold. A volcano of emotion erupted within me. Grandmother’s warnings about the Pre-Raphaelites and their bohemian lifestyle flashed through my mind. Now, though, I actually gave weight to her words.
“Abbie … what is the matter?” William asked. He could see that I was furious.
I ignored him and kept walking, too hurt and furious to speak.
After several blocks, I stopped and faced him. I could see my breath puff out in the air.
“You never told me.”
He knew exactly to what I referred. Nevertheless, he stood silent, bewildered as to what he might say in these circumstances. I glared back at him for several more seconds. Then he spoke: “I did not think it was necessary. Why should I have told you? It was in the past.”
“Tell me everything. Now.”
He looked baffled. “You cannot expect … .”
“No, wait,” I said quickly. “Don’t.”
I turned, walking quickly away from him, then stopped, facing him again. “No, do—I mean, not the details.”
“It was a few years after my father’s death. Both Jane and I grieved for him. I was nineteen, busy in my studies at Oxford. But I was lonely. I had only my aunt when I returned home.”
My imagination became overwhelmed with images that I did not want to see. My mother had been far from conventional, and she had, unlike the manner of most mothers, never hesitated to tell me about basic life matters such as lovemaking.
“She’s old enough to be your mother!” I spat out. “And she was your father’s mistress. That’s revolting, William.”
“She was more experienced than I was at the time in such matters. You must understand, I was young—”
“Enough!” I yelled, cutting him off. “I’m going home.” I turned and began walking away. The tears warmed my face.
William rushed after me, panicked now.
“She is the only one I have been with.” He paused, blushing. “Other than Isabella, a friend’s sister, just after I returned to London from Oxford.”
“What?”
“But it was a brief affair. I had not yet met you.”
I had not even known William for an entire year, I reminded myself. I began to wonder if I had been mad for plunging headfirst into a relationship with a Rossetti. William’s unconventional deflowering bothered me. I worried that he might be more like his father than I had thought. And I could not stand the fact that he had known others in a way he had not known me. But then, how could I have been so naïve as to think that he had not? He was, after all, a man. Isabella, whomever she was, was forgivable. But the other affair … with his father’s married mistress … It seemed too much like something Gabriel Rossetti himself would do; it was so unorthodox, so bizarre. Furthermore, I felt such a jealousy toward Jane Morris. William had adored Jane almost as a mother, but now I knew that she had been more than that to him.
He laid his hand on my arm.
I shook him away. The shock of what I had discovered was still too much. I trembled in rage.
“I do not care how your father and his friends lived. I do not care even how my mother lived. But I am not going to remain with you only to end up, in thirty years, as Jane and William Morris are now.”
William looked as if I had struck him. “Why would you think we would be like that?”
Incensed, I continued, “But you have esteemed her so much in the past to me. And she is not only part of your past but part of your family’s history, beloved by your father. I can never be her, or live up to who you think she is, and you cannot love her or anyone else if you are going to be with me.”
“Abbie,” he replied softly. “Why would you think that my history with Jane would have any bearing upon us now?”
I did not know how to answer that question, so I said instead, “You certainly seemed to feel fondness for her tonight.”
He sighed. “Jane is still a dear friend, a friend only. I will never see her again if it will make you feel better.”
“But you have known her that way. You have done what we have not … ”
William looked almost amused. “Abbie, I was nineteen years old at the time. And I am a man, after all.”
It was the wrong answer. I flashed him a disgusted look before turning and running away from him to catch my own hansom cab. The exertion of running was somewhat soothing. Once I had left him and was safely in a carriage, my heart thudded within me on the ride back to Kensington. My thoughts remained shocked and scattered.
I let myself into Grandmother’s house, tearful, flushed, and perspiring. I flung off my coat myself, without waiting for Richard to take it. I hoped Grandmother was in bed, as I knew I looked and felt disarrayed.
“Abbie!” I heard my name shouted from outside.
William had followed me and was forcing himself through the front door just as Richard attempted to close it.
Hearing Grandmother’s and Ellen’s alarmed voices, I ran immediately to my right, to the parlor. William, close behind me, slammed the parlor door behind us. He was no longer panicked; he seemed angry.
“Abbie, you are being irrational. I am not Simon St. John. I never was.”
“No you are not,” I said, walking away from him toward the fireplace. When I turned to face him again, his expression was stony, unreadable. I blushed, ashamed of my desire to hurt him. But my anger, my jealousy, felt overwhelming. I had thought that he was mine alone, and that he had always been meant for me. It was a selfish—and even then I knew, a foolish—thought.
Also, new fears about William and his future constancy crept into my consciousness. Everything seemed irreparable.
“What we had together, William, must end,” I whispered. “Do not come back here again.”
He stayed where he was, near the door. He did not move toward me. “There has an
d never will be anyone that I love but you.”
I heard a step in the hallway, and I knew that Richard waited out there.
“How can this be about trust, Abbie?” William continued. “Can you tell me, honestly, that you have not withheld anything about your past life from me? About your earlier years, before you met me?”
Roddy. My friend Roddy. I felt startled. I had never told William about Roddy. But that was different. Although I had begun to have stirrings for Roddy, I didn’t have a sexual secret. I pulled my mind away from that terrible day when I lost Roddy—that day I hardly allowed myself to think of.
“It doesn’t matter, William. But I can assure you that I have never been with anyone in that manner. And certainly, I have never slept with anyone who had been my parent’s lover! Who does that, William?”
No response.
My head throbbed. I touched my temples with my fingertips. “This night has to end,” I whispered. “Please leave.”
“Abbie, please, I will not let you go.” William seemed desperate as he started to cross the room toward me.
I felt furious. “Not let me?” I exclaimed. “I am not yours to keep!”
Before I could stop myself, I grabbed a porcelain shepherdess off the mantelpiece and hurled it toward him. William ducked just in time, and it smashed into the wall behind him.
Richard flung the parlor door open, concerned at how the argument had escalated.
“Goodbye, Abbie.” William straightened. He could not say more. But he remained where he was.
“Goodbye, William,” I said.
Richard cleared his throat, signaling to William that it was time for him to leave.
William bowed very slightly and left.
As I left the parlor, I felt a silly and awkward urge to hug Richard. But I held myself back; it seemed inappropriate. I had grown quite fond of Richard in the past year. I felt more endeared to him, most of the time, than to anyone else in the house.
I rushed past Grandmother and Ellen, who both stared wide-eyed and silent at the foot of the stairs. I knew they must have heard the argument, seen William storm past.
I could hardly believe what I had done, or the angry emotions that had exploded between William and myself. But what I knew for certain was that whatever had happened, it had emerged from my own entry into a swift and foolhardy relationship in which I let my feelings overrule good sense.
Still, in spite of all this, my heart felt as if it bled.
The hunger continued to rise inside of her; it was becoming unbearable. She thought perhaps vigorous swimming would ease it, so after feeding the animals one evening, she went into the water. But instead of swimming out to sea, she felt drawn toward shore, where villagers and fishermen would be. She knew that she should not do this, particularly in her hungry state, but she could not help herself. She was a hunter, drawn to prey—and there was flesh, beating hearts, on the shore. Perhaps if she could see these humans, hear their beating hearts, her appetite would be satisfied a bit, and she could return to her island home and feed on her normal meal of fish, bread, and vegetables.
She pulsed through the salty sea into shallower waters. The air was foggy, dusty, the waters gray, but her vision remained sharp and clear. She saw the stingrays, some small, some beautifully large, gliding along the bottoms below her. She saw pieces of old fishing boats covered in moss and barnacles, pieces of paddles. Old torn fishing nets pulsing in the depths.
When she broke the surface, in a small lagoon shrouded by mossy rocks, she heard voices nearby.
“Are ye insane, man?” a youth’s voice shouted. She eased up against the hard rock. Two young men, no more than eighteen years old, swam along the shores nearby.
“Only as insane as ye! Gie out haur wi’ me!”
Through the foggy blanket, she could barely make out their figures, splashing each other, wrestling in the surf.
She pulled herself under again, watching them from beneath the shallow surface. The youths had stripped all their clothes off, and she saw their pale naked bodies swimming and diving in the cold shallow waters just offshore, the depth no greater than ten feet.
She felt almost proud of herself, lingering here, not rushing forward to kill them. Perhaps this was all that she needed to ease her cravings for a bit.
But even as she watched the boys swimming, she remembered being a child and stealing gingerbread one afternoon. The spicy, sweet aroma had beckoned her to the kitchen—where she was normally not allowed to go. It had been close to dinnertime and she knew that she would receive a slap on her wrist from the cook for even trying to eat the bread. She still remembered how watching the bread had done no good; as the cook stirred a stew over the fire on the far side of the kitchen, she had pulled a large hunk from the bread and run to her room.
Even as this thought crossed her mind, a scarlet cloud burst out from the leg of one of the boys.
The venom flowed in her mouth, and her stomach growled.
No.
No.
She could not let this happen.
She clutched at the rocky wall behind her, trying to hold herself back, until her own clawed fingers bled.
The boy broke the surface, shouted in pain.
“Well, haury up mate, ye don’ want to bring th’ sharks.”
The other boy moaned in pain as they headed quickly toward shore.
She couldn’t hold her hunger anymore. In a frenzy, she swam toward them, suddenly regaining control just as they stepped onto the rocky shore. Her hesitation, and their speed, was what saved them.
Quickly, before she could pursue them onto land, she turned away and swam back to her island. The venom still flowed heavily in her mouth; she knew that her appetite for humans was intensifying even more.
When I reached my room, I locked the door behind me. Hearing no footsteps on the stairs, I gave a silent prayer of thanks that Grandmother had not followed me. My legs wobbled and I leaned against the door, sliding down until I sat on the floor. It was then that I gave myself free reign to cry.
As I sat there, in the darkness of my room, I felt too weak to even go to my bed. Wiping my face with my sleeve, I leaned my head back against the door and let myself think of Roddy—of that terrible day when he had died and I had almost drowned. Only now could I allow the pieces of that day, like driftwood, to fit together in my mind. Mother’s death, and the truth behind her death, had been difficult enough for me to face …
When Mother and I had moved to the outskirts of Dublin for her governess position on the Edgeworths’ estate, Roddy had quickly established himself as my best friend. I squinted through tears in the shadows of my bedroom, remembering his face so vividly. I could almost see him, like it was a photograph in my mind. He was tanned, freckled, the son of a blacksmith. He’d had taken pity on me the first time I had been ruthlessly bullied by the local children; I was only ten years old at the time, and Mother and I had only recently moved into our small house on the estate. Because Roddy had an uncle who was a boxer in Stepney, even at ten years old he harbored a fierce obsession with fighting, particularly bare-knuckle boxing. It had been Roddy who had taught me how to fight and knife throw. I was never as skilled at fighting as he was, but within a year I surpassed him at knife-throwing.
I wiped a tear from my eyes. Seven years. Seven years he had been my friend. We were so close. Then Mother’s seizures—which I now knew were her psychic visions—intensified.
“Can you tell me, honestly, that you have not withheld anything about your past life from me?”
William’s words stung me now.
There was no possible way I could tell William about Roddy. I had barely allowed myself to think of Roddy during these past months. I wiped the tears from my eyes and took a deep breath as I remembered how our friendship evolved after we both turned sixteen. Something almost imperceptible had grown between us,
and neither of us knew how to accommodate its presence. Our friendly touches had become awkward. Part of me wanted to embrace these feelings, and part of me wanted to ignore them; a large part of me wished for our old endearing relationship where we were nothing more than friends.
During those years, Roddy had stopped by our cottage at the edge of the Edgeworths’ estate nearly every day, most often in the late afternoons after he finished his work in his father’s shop. But after Mother was diagnosed with dysentery, I had to care for her, and I feared that he would catch the illness. At least we all thought she had had dysentery—I clenched my fists so tightly that my fingernails cut into my palms. Max, I now knew, had murdered her—most probably poisoned her.
The pain she had endured … I shut my mind against the thought.
I heard the grandfather clock strike eleven, but I could not even consider trying to sleep. I thought about how awful I had felt upon learning that the Conclave executed her, of how that knowledge had driven me to kill. That night at the Montgomery Street house, I became a different person … murderous. I wanted nothing more than to kill each and every one of them. And ever since that night last autumn, I had been forced to rewrite, reassess, my last days with my mother in Dublin. And now I was finally allowing myself to think of my last day with Roddy, of his fate and the mysterious circumstances under which my life had been saved.
The day Mother’s illness came upon her, she had been giving the Edgeworth children their lessons. One of Sir Edgeworth’s servants brought her back to our cottage and laid her in bed. Fear gripped me as throughout the day as her fever increased and she began vomiting. Then, by the late afternoon, her excrement became bloody. Roddy stayed with me until Sir Edgeworth’s physician arrived, and then he had to return to his work in the blacksmith shop.
“Dysentery,” the physician announced dryly after examining Mother. He stood, rubbed his nose, and put his stethoscope back in his bag. “I’ve recently seen a couple cases in the city. I will inform Sir Edgeworth that she should not be around his family for the time being. She is highly contagious.”
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