Sarah hit Damian with her fists again and started to cry when the latter grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the stable. Henry wanted to run after them and free Sarah from Damianʼs grip, but suddenly Jeremy appeared next to him, armed with a huge pitchfork.
Then Lord Partridge began to speak again.
“Mr. Abbott, you have definitely broken a record in being the one teacher who spent the shortest time under this roof. I want you to pack your things and leave—at once.”
Shooting Henry a rather frosty look, the Lord turned on his heel and marched off.
Jeremy smirked at Henry. He gave him a prick with the fork and urged him to move.
“I donʼt need an escort!” Henry muttered. But Jeremy just grinned and then followed Henry all the way back to the mansion. He wouldnʼt even leave Henryʼs side when the latter entered the building and rushed upstairs to his room in order to pack his belongings.
As Henry had not brought many things from London, it only took him a couple of minutes until he was ready to go. He didnʼt mind leaving. In fact, he couldnʼt get away from the mansion quick enough.
But he wouldnʼt go without Sarah.
When he walked downstairs he found Lord Partridge and, to his surprise, Oscar waiting for him in the entrance hall. Apart from that, nobody else was around as all guests were currently on the upper floors, making themselves comfortable in the spare rooms. Judging by their merry laughter, Henry gathered that they were really entirely ignorant of what was going on.
As for Oscar, Henry guessed that the doctor had somehow become aware of what had happened, or that someone had told him. Henry knew that he wouldnʼt have any chance to talk to Oscar, his only ally, alone. And this he highly regretted because he was all too keen on knowing where Sarah was and if she was alright. But then again he guessed that Damian had locked her in her room and that she was of course in a more than pitiful state.
“Angus will drive you to the station in town,” Lord Partridge said coolly. “I am not having the people say I was inhuman.”
“Donʼt bother. I will walk,” Henry retorted. He didnʼt want Angus to drive him to town, even if it meant a longer walk through the night. After all, he could do with some fresh air and, apart from that, it wasnʼt his intention to leave straight away.
When Henry arrived at the door, Oscar suddenly stopped him.
“It was still a pleasure to spend the weekend in London with you, Mr. Abbott,” he said, sounding calm and reserved. Henry knew that Oscar couldnʼt afford to show any kind of sympathy or friendliness with his brother-in-law standing right next to him, but from the slightly troubled expression on the doctorʼs face, Henry could gather that Oscar was in fact in a terrible turmoil and probably would have loved to leave with Henry if it had not been for Sarah.
Oscar extended his hand to Henry, and when Henry returned the handshake he could feel that the doctor secretly passed him a small piece of paper. A note.
Oscar let go of Henryʼs hand, then he hesitantly turned away and glumly walked upstairs.
The note carefully hidden in his fist, Henry stepped out into the night, still followed by Jeremy who proudly carried his pitchfork.
“I will accompany you to the gates in order to make sure that you really leave,” the stable boy said, his voice dripping with gloat.
“Donʼt be ridiculous...” Henry scoffed and walked off. But Jeremy wouldnʼt go away and followed Henry like a shadow over to the main gate where he let him out and closed the gate behind him, locking it thoroughly. Then, with a smirk on his face, he marched back to the mansion, whistling a merry tune.
Pretending to head straight to Oxford, Henry walked along the path which led away from the mansion and towards the main road to town. After a few minutes, however, he abruptly turned around and hastened back to the Partridgesʼ estate where he hid in the corn field opposite the main entrance gate and watched Jeremy from afar as the latter was performing his patrol rounds in the garden. The boy was still armed with the pitchfork and obviously felt proud and important—more than ever before.
Henry waited for three seemingly endless hours until he noticed to his surprise that Jeremy had fallen asleep and was now lying slumped on a bench, snoring peacefully.
That will cost you your work and your head, you silly fool... Henry thought gloatingly.
He laboriously clambered up the high iron fence, ripped his trousers on the way, and let himself plump down to the ground on the other side.
Only the pale light of the moon, which every now and then emerged from behind some ominous-looking clouds, helped Henry to find his way as he very carefully sneaked through the garden in the darkness, past snoring Jeremy, until he eventually came to a halt in front of Sarahʼs bedroom window. He bent down to pick up some gravel from the ground and then hurled it at the window. After a few seconds only, Sarah appeared behind it, just as if she had already expected him. She appeared all churned up and devastated, and her eyes were red from crying.
Henry wanted to give her a sign, one that indicated that she should try and steal away in order to take this final opportunity to run away with him, but before he had a chance to, Sarah carefully opened the window and then threw something down to him. Henry noticed that it was an envelope. He hurried over to the spot where it was about to drop and caught it quickly, afraid that even the faintest sound of it falling onto the ground could make a noise and wake Jeremy from his slumber.
Reluctantly, he opened the envelope which contained a letter and numerous other sheets of paper with Sarahʼs handwriting on it. An uneasy feeling in his gut, Henry began to read the letter first.
It said:
My beloved Henry,
I am so terribly sorry! Please forgive me for having ruined it all for us…
You were so right. I should have taken the chances that fate offered me. But please believe me, I have my reasons for turning them down; although these reasons might be entirely incomprehensible to you.
I would like to ask you to accept these pages which I have torn out of my diary and which represent a written record of the unforgettable time we spent together. Please read them, and I hope they will make you see how much I feel for you so that you need not doubt anymore that my love for you was and still is genuine. And maybe upon reading, you will also see the fear that I carry inside of me and that keeps me more imprisoned than this house.
Writing these lines fills me with endless grief because there is something I need to ask of you, my dear Henry. I need to ask you to stay away from me. I have seen your willpower and determination, and your wonderful ability to paint mental pictures of a distant paradise that might or might not have become reality. Still, I am urging you to believe me that it is better for your own sake if you do not pursue me anymore. I do not want you to get into any more trouble, any more pain, just because I am such a coward...
Never forget that I will always love you, Henry, and that I have never loved anyone as much as you.
You are a treasure to me. And you will have a special place in my heart for all my live.
Sarah
Henry gazed at the letter incredulously. There was this strange sensation again, that numbness which he had felt earlier that day when he had seen Damian slipping the ring over Sarahʼs finger; and there was a nausea and a pain, just as if someone had hit him in the stomach.
Dazed and heartbroken, he folded the paper and stuck it back in the envelope.
He slowly raised his head and looked up to Sarah, who was still standing at the window, sadness and despair written all over her face, tears running down her cheeks.
“I am not going to give up on you that easily, Sarah,” Henry mumbled quietly to himself, not caring anymore if someone could hear him or not.
Then he hesitantly turned around and left without looking back.
Nobody saw him and nobody heard him when he crossed the garden one last time, when he climbed up the fence and let himself fall down the other side. He grabbed his luggage which he had hidden in the corn
field, then he trudged along the road leading to Oxford.
After approximately two hours he finally arrived in town. He headed for the train station and when he got there, he entered the railway platform and let himself sink down onto the ground, feeling tired and exhausted.
More than ever he wished that he could talk to Oscar now. But the latter was staying at the mansion that night as he was expected to attend some special birthday brunch the next morning—something he was not particularly looking forward to, as Oscar had secretly told Henry earlier that day.
But then Henry wondered if it really would have been of any use if Oscar had been there right now, giving Henry the chance to unburden his heart. What kind of help could Oscar have offered him in his mission to free a girl that didnʼt want to be freed at all?
Suddenly, he remembered the note Oscar had given him shortly before Henryʼs involuntary departure.
He took it out of his trouser pocket, unfolded it and began to read.
Henry,
Please, write to me and tell me your address as soon as you have one.
We need to stay in touch!
Always your friend - Oscar
PS: I have never got the chance to tell you how ʻMyriadsʼ, the theatre play, ended - Lucinda and Bunbury ultimately get together. Just thought I should let you know.
Laughing bitterly at Oscarʼs final remark, Henry stuck the paper back into his pocket. Then he closed his eyes and tried to find some sleep while he was waiting for the arrival of the morning train to London and a sign which would tell him that his life still had some meaning.
Chapter 12 – The Aftermath
November 1886, London
“Mr. Abbott...?” Henry heard Mrs. Potter call.
Then there was a knock at the door; first a careful knock and then, when he didnʼt reply, a louder knock. And then, when he still didnʼt reply, the hammering of fists.
“Mr. Abbott! Are you in there?!” Mrs. Potterʼs voice sounded slightly worried now.
“I am...” Henry groaned weakly.
“Sorry for disturbing you! It is just that I havenʼt seen you for ages. And I am starting to wonder if you are still alive at all…”
“I am perfectly fine,” Henry mumbled, trying hard to sound alive and kicking despite the fact that he felt awful and dazed, and could hardly remember where he was or who he was.
“Well, then…” Mrs. Potter said, not seeming very convinced.
Henry heard her footsteps on the stairs as she was disappearing downstairs again. He was relieved that the old woman had not tried to enter his room because he was certain that she would have been quite shocked at his sight.
He lay face down in his bed, one arm dangling over the edge and holding on to an empty bottle of wine. When he stirred a little in his semi-somnolent state, the bottle slipped out of his grip and rolled over the floor.
For quite a while he had felt the need to go to the bathroom, but he was terrified at the thought of getting up as he had a terrible headache. Not that he had not somewhat got used to these headaches. After all, they were a normal accompanying symptom of hangovers; and he had had loads of those recently thanks to the huge amounts of alcohol he had consumed.
When the urge to relieve himself got too strong, he laboriously clambered out of bed and somehow managed to stand on his two feet again. In his attempt to cross the room, however, he almost stumbled over his clothes, pants and empty bottles which were scattered all over the floor. He had stopped tidying up his room a long time ago for the simple reason that he had gradually become lazy and indifferent to order and cleanliness. Not that the little chamber had been entirely clean and tidy before he had moved in, but it definitely looked worse now after he had inhabited it for a while.
He shuffled over to the mirror and looked inside.
He wasnʼt sure who exactly the man was who stared at him with these vacant eyes, but he guessed that if one pictured the face without the beard, the tousled straggly hair, and without the pale skin, one could have assumed that it was Henry Abbott, the tutor who had been kicked out of Partridge Mansion three months ago; the Henry Abbott who, after that, had been regularly seen in the numerous taverns of London, but who recently had started to spend more and more time within the walls of his humble lodgings at Mrs. Potterʼs guesthouse because he had become fed up with the company of other people, with the world, and life in general.
When he had returned to London after his involuntary departure from the mansion, his mother had offered him to stay with her. But he had found that living under the black factory clouds, which permanently covered the borough where she lived, would only have added to his misery. He had not wanted that blackness to surround him when it was already ever so present in his depressed mind. Instead, he had gone to Mrs. Potter who still remembered him well from his last visit when he had shared lodgings with Oscar, and who had offered him to stay as a regular tenant of one of her rooms.
After a while however, Mrs. Potter had begun to notice that Henryʼs lifestyle left a lot to be desired. He was untidy, slept in every day, and stayed away all night. Still, she had let him stay as she was glad to receive the money he regularly gave her. And Henry was content with the place as well although Mrs. Potterʼs cooking had not really improved since his last visit. But the rent was cheap and the guesthouse was in the immediate vicinity of many taverns and bars. And in Henryʼs opinion that was all that counted as he found himself more and more drawn to liquids which helped him forget.
This desire to forget was the reason that he had not managed to go and apply for a job as a teacher. He was unable to face anyone whom he would have been supposed to teach something. The mere sight of a classroom and a school book would have inevitably reminded him of the lessons with Sarah. And he couldnʼt bear that memory.
Suddenly, he found that he should have never pursued a career in teaching, and considered quitting it altogether. He came to the conclusion that he should have rather become a stable boy, which didnʼt require any thinking and which was just about obeying and removing the dirt. No risk of getting into trouble; after all, stable boys never took any risks as they didnʼt want to lose their work. They most definitely didnʼt try to get involved with their bossʼ daughter. Maybe they would flirt with her a little if they were as cheeky as Jeremy, but other than that they were careful to observe the rules.
But as Henry still needed to finance the rent and the alcohol, he had accepted whatever work he could find. He had swept the streets, had worked as a sales assistant for an undertaker selling coffins, and had served drinks as a waiter in a tavern. But he had never lasted very long, the reason being that he had become unreliable, had never turned up on time, or had even forgotten to turn up at all. The position in the bar he had lost because he had begun to drink more than the customers. The beer taps right in front of his nose had simply been too alluring.
During the times of idleness, he had written letters to Sarah; at least one every single day, and sometimes two. And in these letters he had declared again and again how much he loved her, and he had sworn that he would never give up wooing her. Then he had sent the letters to Oscar with the information that he stayed at Mrs. Potterʼs guesthouse, hoping that Oscar wouldnʼt let him down and would secretly give the mail to Sarah. And Oscar had proved to be that reliable friend he had promised to be. He had passed all of Henryʼs messages on, and in his return letters had kept Henry updated on what was happening in the mansion.
One day, Henry had received a rather distressing letter from Oscar in which the doctor mentioned that Sarah had indeed read all of Henryʼs messages but had been in a terrible state after that; a state from which she only gradually recovered. The letters had caused her a lot of pain because they reminded her again and again of their forbidden love, and she had claimed that she could hardly bear her fate anymore if Henry kept sending her these heart-breaking lines. Therefore, she had asked Oscar to let Henry know on her behalf that she didnʼt want him to write to her anymore.
Henry
had been devastated by this and certain that Sarah was already in the process of forgetting him, but Oscar had assured him that not a single day passed that Sarah didnʼt shed a tear over him.
And so Henry had still written letters to her, but following her request to leave her in peace, he had not sent them off even though this had tortured him. Instead he had kept them, thinking that maybe the day would come when she would have a chance to read them and would realize how much he had felt for her.
Three weeks after his departure, Henryʼs mother had died. She had never been very resilient or physically strong. Therefore it had hardly come as a surprise to him when she had fallen victim to a nasty flu, circulating among the people in the borough where she had lived. Her death had shocked him to no end and had only added to his misery.
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