One week after that, Oscar had informed him that Sarahʼs wedding would be held in only a fortnight. Damian and Lord Partridge considered the outer threads to the marriage too big and the accompanying business deal far too important to waste any further time. In Oscarʼs words had lain the silent pledge to come and do something about it before Sarah would move to Damianʼs home in Wiltshire.
As if I could to do something about it... Henry had thought glumly. As if I could be the hero to save her from damnation. What if the alleged hero is in fact here and the victim still doesnʼt want to be saved?
The exact date of the wedding in mind, Henry still had taken up the journey to Oxford, had hired a coach to bring him to the Partridgesʼ estate, and had hidden in the bushes to observe the extensive ceremony, which had been held by a local priest in the lavishly decorated gardens of the mansion.
What ultimately had prevented him from gate-crashing the celebration and causing a huge commotion had been a couple of Damianʼs soldier friends that had suddenly appeared from out of nowhere, and who had grabbed him by his collar, hit him in the groin, and had threatened to break every single bone in his body if he didnʼt leave straight away. Henry guessed that Damian had, of course, anticipated that his rival would not stay away from the wedding and had therefore taken the necessary precautions.
On that day, Henry had terribly worried that Damian would notice that Sarah wasnʼt a virgin anymore when they would spend their wedding night together. Later, Oscar had informed Henry that this issue had in fact arisen, and that Damian had been quite infuriated after the wedding night, but Oscar had been able to soothe Henryʼs anxiety by assuring him that he had managed to convince Damian that Sarahʼs habit of spread-legged horse riding was the reason for that physical condition. And ultimately, Damian had believed Oscar. After all, Oscar was a doctor and his explanation had sounded plausible to Damian, who didnʼt know anything about these things.
Eventually, Oscar had come and visited Henry in London. He had told him that Sarah had begun to live on Damianʼs estate in Wiltshire, but that she was leading a lonely life with her husband being constantly away and only the housemaids looking after her. According to Oscar, she did not care about Damianʼs absence, of course, but it wore her down that she was all alone with her grief about the loss of her love. She was trapped in that huge house where her only company was the staff; the latter being a ʻhighly reserved and arrogant mobʼ —as she put it—that didnʼt care about her well-being at all, not even when she had gone on a hunger strike—her own way of rebelling. After a while, she had realized that the strike was not leading anywhere and had begun to eat again. She had, however, not found back to a regular eating habit and only ate tiny portions.
Oscar had told him that she was alright, though, and that he tried his best to check upon her on a regular basis. He had said that he even intended to transfer his doctorʼs office to Wiltshire, just to be able to be close to her. The thought of Oscar being near her and looking after her regularly had comforted Henry a little bit in his sorrow.
Still, Henry had played with thought of storming the Wiltshire bastion and get her out of there, but Oscar had assured him that it was too late for something like that, and that it would be a highly insensible idea, as Damianʼs estate could easily be compared to a state prison with fences that Henry would not be able to climb anymore. Apart from that, Sarah apparently still didnʼt want to see him and preferred to suffer in silence.
When Oscar had visited Henry, the latter had not been able to shake off the feeling that there was something that Oscar was keeping from him; a secret concerning Sarah.
“Is there something else you need to tell me about Sarah?” Henry had asked him several times. But Oscar had just shrugged his shoulders and denied it. Eventually, Henry gave up asking and guessed that he had only imagined things.
Henry had read Sarahʼs note, which she had given him on the night of his departure, at least a million times; just as many times as he had read the pages torn out of her diary—endless recollections of every single moment they had spent together, of the love that they had made. He had not been aware that she had felt so emotional about it all. The way she had described his kisses and his tenderness, his affection and his sensitivity, gave him the feeling that she truly saw in him something close to a supernatural being, which he knew he wasnʼt. He truly believed that he didnʼt deserve all that praise of hers. He was just a simple man who had to admit that he too, saw in her something so extraordinary and precious that he believed he wasnʼt worth her love either.
As for his supernatural status, he kept wondering what she would say if she saw him now, scruffy and tattered as he looked, completely neglected, dirty, grumpy, and suffering from a bad dose of depression. His doctor kept telling him he was drinking far too much, and warned him that he would soon live in a constant daze and eventually begin to see pink elephants.
But it was not only sadness that Henry wanted to drown with the alcohol. It was also the anger he felt for Sarah.
Yes, he was angry at her because she had been hesitating so long back then. Too long. And by acting this way, she had made him feel rejected; despite her assuring words that it was not because she didnʼt love him; despite the many pages of her diary which told him that she was merely afraid—afraid of him, afraid of the power he had over her, afraid of his love.
Henry kept wondering again and again, how she could possibly prefer to lead a life in gloom and misery, just because she wanted avoid that his love for her would wither and that her heart would then be broken.
What is she thinking? Henry wondered. Does she seriously believe that one day I will completely forget about her, or only occupy my mind with work or other things, and treat her in a cold and ignorant way? Just like Anthony Farringworth? Or that I will get bored of her eventually and start getting involved with other women at the dead of night under our own roof? Just like her Uncle Horatio?
Henry guessed that, of course, that was what she inevitably had to believe. She had never seen anything else but rude male behavior for the best part of her life. Not even Oscar proved to be a role model, although Henry assumed that Sarah didnʼt know what he was up to on his visits to London, that he chatted up loose women and spent the night with them doing God knows what, just to never see them again afterwards. But he was not married, and Sarah might have noticed that he occasionally had something going. And by being like this, he was not exactly coming across as someone who would stay with a woman till the very end of days.
Henry also guessed that Sarahʼs main fear was the one of being entirely alone. After all, she didnʼt trust anyone—not even God, who had taken her mother and with her everything that Sarah had valued and loved. In her opinion, it was obviously much safer to stay with someone whom she didnʼt love but who was tied to her by both marriage and a business deal, which proved to be some kind of fake security. And as this someone was keen on that business to work out, he would quite likely stay with her forever and make this marriage work out if it promised partial ownership of a profitable company. It was much safer than marrying someone who ʻonlyʼ loved her, even if that love was true. She had seen love wither. She had seen coldness and betrayal. And so she chose what she so desperately wanted to run away from because it was still safer than the unknown.
* * *
“You must eat something, Mr. Abbott. You are looking rather lean nowadays,” Mrs. Potter said when Henry staggered down the stairs for a little breakfast. “You should get outside sometimes, you know. During the day, I mean. Just for a change.”
Henry couldnʼt say what had ultimately caused him to really leave the house and go outside that day. He gathered that it had been the shocking sight of his face in the mirror, or Mrs. Potterʼs concerned looks and words, or the fact that he finally needed work in order to pay the rent.
After having nibbled at some slices of burnt breakfast toast, he aimlessly strolled along the streets of London in the warm glow of the autumn sun and inhaled the crispy air
. He sat down on a bench in Hyde Park and watched happy couples as they were taking a walk, their children running ahead of them, laughing merrily and chasing the birds and the squirrels.
In the face of this serenity and bliss, Henry saw himself yet again overcome with terrible sadness and frustration because of the miserable state he was in.
I can not go on like that, he thought gloomily. Something needs to change. I need to leave this path of self-destruction...
He knew that he could only achieve this by forgetting Sarah, by getting her out of his head. He also knew that otherwise his life would be over in the foreseeable future.
He buried his head in his hands and began to pray, something which he had not done for ages.
God, help me, please. Give me a sign. Tell me how to proceed with my life, or else I am lost.
He waited for a little while, but there was no answer. And somehow Henry wasnʼt surprised. In fact, he had by now given up the belief that God existed. What he had told Sarah about miracles didnʼt make any sense to him anymore. Where was the miracle in finding the girl of his dreams if, in the end, that exact girl decided to turn away from him?
God, help me, please!
But God just didnʼt speak to him.
The only thing that happened all of a sudden was that the weather changed. Rainclouds covered the sun and a strong breeze came up.
Henry turned up the collar of his coat, quickly rose from the bench and continued walking until he found himself in the city centre. He was trotting through the streets, checking the windows for notices which indicated that the owners were looking for staff, but nobody seemed to offer any work whatsoever.
Henry sneezed and got angry. Instead of sending him work or a sign, all God seemed to be capable of was giving him a cold. The breeze got heavier and soon turned into a strong wind. Henry kept walking, fighting the storm, and ran into a barrier of oxcarts, delivering goods to the shop owners in the street. He noticed that one oxcart had lost a wheel and had scratched another cart on its way. Then it had toppled over and therefore had lost a whole wagonload of potatoes. The latter had fallen onto the ground and were now rolling into all directions. Little dirty children were shrieking happily and were collecting the potatoes; not in order to return them to their rightful owner, but to hide them under their jackets and run off with them.
The lane was too narrow and the current potato chaos too big for Henry to be able to pass. Therefore, he saw himself forced to turn left and take another street than the one he had had in mind. Ultimately, he ended up in a little run-down and filthy-looking side alley, at whose end he saw a little boy who was busy selling newspapers. As Henry grumpily walked along the lane, he saw how the wind caught one of the papers which lay on the very top of the pile that the boy held in his arms, and blew it away. As the paper was very light, it flew right across the street. The wind tossed the pages around and whirled them into the air, and the boy was helplessly running after them, trying to collect them before they would be scattered all over the ground. Henry knew that the boy couldnʼt afford to lose one of the newspapers. Newspaper boys got half a penny for every paper they sold. And for them that was a huge amount of money.
Suddenly a single page came flying towards Henry and landed right at his feet.
He bent down to pick it up. The boy ran over to him, and when he breathlessly came to a halt in front of him, he looked at Henry expectantly, waiting for him to hand him the missing page.
But Henry hardly noticed the boy. His eyes were suddenly fixated on the piece of paper and the headline which was printed on it in bold letters.
“Are ye giving it to me or what?” the boy asked. “Cause if ye want to keep it, I have to charge ye a penny for it.”
“I only need this one...” Henry mumbled in a daze, staring blankly at the page in his hand.
“It will still cost ye a penny, though. Oy canʼt sell the rest of the paper with a page missing in it. People just buy ʼem in once piece, ye know.”
Henry reached into his pocket, found a penny and handed it to the boy, who happily ran off. Henry was quite sure that the boy would sell the incomplete newspaper for the full price to the next person who came along.
Still stunned, Henry read the headline of the two-page feature again and again.
MORE POPULAR THAN EVER BEFORE:
People leaving the country by the hundred, seeking new life in America
Underneath the headline was a big sketch of a huge steamship, accompanied by an article mentioning the advantages and disadvantages for the nation with waves of emigrants leaving England and settling down in far off places such as Australia, Canada and America.
This is the sign... Henry thought excitedly as he was staring at the single newspaper page which had so seemingly accidentally landed right at his feet.
America… That is what God wants me to do. The moment has finally come...
* * *
The small ticket shop was overflowing with people. About fifty of them alone were standing outside in the pouring rain, more or less forming a queue, whilst others were rudely elbowing their way through the masses, trying to get inside; not because of the rain, but because they were afraid that—considering the big crowd—they wouldnʼt be able to get hold of a ticket for the next possible transatlantic crossing on the weekend to come.
After the incident with the newspaper, Henry had rushed back to the guesthouse, had dug out a tin with his savings from underneath a pile of dirty clothes, and had run to the ticket shop. Now he could hardly believe that he was really standing there, in this queue, next to so many people who were, just as himself, eager to take this opportunity to majorly change their lives.
While he was waiting, Henry tried to figure out what exactly he would write in his final letter to Sarah, how he could possibly break the news to her that he would leave forever; for her sake and for his sake. But all that came to his mind were the things that he didnʼt intend to tell her; namely, that he wasnʼt certain at all if this undertaking would save him from his misery, and that he wasnʼt sure if he would find peace of mind when he was finally away from her; as far away as he could get.
I need to try at least, he thought. After all, I have been given a sign.
And he was certain that it had been a sign. Finding that the incident with the newspaper had simply been too strange for being put down as a mere coincidence, Henry concluded that God simply didnʼt speak to people in the conventional way, by means of words. Maybe he used a completely different language altogether, a language that consisted of gusty winds and oxcarts which had fallen over, forcing one to take different routes and in this way leading one to the God-sent destination.
After half an hour of queuing in the rain, Henry had only managed to come as far as the entrance door of the ticket shop. After yet another half an hour, his clothes were soaked wet, but at least he was now standing right in front of the ticket seller, who was an unnerved-looking, spectacled man with a pencil stuck behind his ear. Radiating an air of impatience, he was seated behind a wooden desk, frantically fobbing off the dozens of people who were crowding the little room. Next to him was a young freckled girl who collected the customersʼ payments and put them in a little box which was sitting on her lap.
“Next!” the ticket seller shouted.
Henry took a deep breath.
“One ticket, please,” he said, wondering if he was dreaming or if this was really happening to him.
“Which class?” the ticket seller asked.
Henry looked at the man in confusion.
“Which categories can I choose from?”
“1st, 2nd, 3rd,” came the prompt answer.
“Well, the cheapest will be fine. I can do without room service,” Henry said in a weak attempt to make a joke but immediately fell silent when he noticed that nobody laughed.
“3rd class then,” the ticket seller mumbled grumpily and handed Henry a registration form to fill in, a pencil, and a green slip.
The green slip was t
he ticket.
Henryʼs fingers were trembling when he accepted it. Almost reverently he let his fingers glide over the thin paper which looked rather like a meal ticket for the poor than a permit to be transported to the other end of the world.
The brusque voice of the ticket seller tore him out of his stupor.
“Thatʼs 8 Pounds, Sir.”
Startled, Henry looked up.
“There must be a misunderstanding,” Henry remarked politely, slightly shocked at the fact that he was about to be charged a sum which equalled an average clerkʼs monthly salary. “I wanted a ticket for the cheapest category; 3rd class, I mean.”
The ticket seller looked at him expressionlessly.
“That is for 3rd class.”
Henry & Sarah Page 29