by Karen Brooks
Rosamund lay quietly, her hand limp against the bedclothes.
‘Aubrey?’ she asked finally; his name a wound upon her lips.
Matthew shook his head. ‘I… I was too late.’ How did he explain that as soon as he saw her, crushed not only beneath a great burning piece of wood, but Aubrey as well, his only care was for her. With a strength he didn’t know he possessed, he’d heaved the beam aside, then pushed Aubrey off. What the poltroon was doing there, having sworn to keep away, he would yet discover. Out of the corner of his eye he’d seen the man was unconscious, that his legs were already burning. Even so, he’d intended to come back for him, and would’ve too, had the house not fallen.
That was his intention…
‘He’s dead?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ Matthew would never tell her about his animal screams, the way they echoed as he fled down the stairs with her in his arms, how Aubrey’s pleas to save him haunted his nightmares.
‘Perhaps —’ She began to cough again. ‘It’s better that way,’ she said.
Matthew didn’t dare speak for a moment. It was better. Most of all, for Aubrey. ‘When you’re able,’ he said, clearing his throat, ‘I want you to tell me what Aubrey was doing there. How the fire started.’
A pained expression furrowed her brow.
‘Only if you wish, my lady,’ he added quickly. ‘If it causes you too much —’
‘I want to,’ said Rosamund hoarsely. ‘I must. There’s something you need to know…’ Her voice died away and her eyelids grew heavy.
Matthew stared at her, willing her to be with him once more. Learning what had befallen them had been too much. She fell back into the blessed release of slumber.
Three nights later, knowing everyone else in the crowded house was occupied, Rosamund sent for Matthew and Bianca. It was time to tell them what had happened before the fire at Blithe Manor, and about the pages from Lady Margery’s diary.
Sam, with help from a subdued Wat and a jovial Mr Nick, had spent the entire day transferring all the household goods he’d stowed away because of the fire back into the house. After enjoying luncheon at the Globe, he was off to Deptford to fetch his wife, who’d been away again. Apart from Filip, Solomon, Thomas, Grace, Adam and Hugh, who were enjoying a game of Primo in the kitchen with Sam’s servants, Jane and Will, and Mr Nick, who had found a nearby ale house, they were quite alone.
Rosamund felt so much better. Bianca had been solicitous in her attentions, feeding her soup and bread dipped in warm milk, while Filip prepared special bowls of chocolate. Sam had ensured the chocolate and the chocolate-making equipment was salvaged from the wreckage of Blithe Manor. Most of it suffered only some singeing and the indignity of soot.
Each day, the boys and Grace had spent time with Rosamund, mostly to reassure themselves she was really on the mend, but also to boast of their bravery during the London fire. Able to crawl out of bed, she’d sat on the chair Matthew usually occupied and listened as they spoke over the top of each other, trying to earn her admiration. Draped over the back of Thomas’s chair, Grace hung on his every word.
Hardly boys any more. Thomas was broadening across the shoulders and his voice had deepened. Solomon, who was looking more and more like Filip each day, appeared to have grown inches since she last saw him. Perhaps the water with which they’d fought the flames had, as it did plants, helped them grow. The thought made her smile.
It was from them she learned that Wat was also staying in Seething Lane, albeit bunking down in the stables with some other homeless people. Bianca explained that by making himself useful, he wanted to make amends. Rosamund wasn’t sure she was ready for that and was grateful to learn Mr Nick was keeping a close eye on him. What she was ready to learn was that Adam, Hugh, Kit, Art and Timothy had found work at one of the few surviving coffee houses.
Prowling the streets each day, looking to help where he could while also collecting stories for the London Gazette, which returned to publication on the 10th of September via an open-air printing press, Matthew had come across a coffee maker who was desperate for more boys. Provided with excellent references, and demonstrating these were not mere hyperbole, the boys had been welcomed. Their work came with accommodation. Spilling into her room, awkward and grateful, the boys bade Rosamund farewell and let her know that when she opened again, they would return to her faster than she could twirl a molinillo.
With a heavy heart she watched them leave. She would hold them to that. When she reopened.
When? Who was she fooling? The question was if she reopened.
Ever since she’d regained her faculties, it preoccupied her every waking moment. Aubrey’s reminders of her financial situation had struck a chord. He was right that without an income from either the chocolate house or the bookstore, she’d be forced to rely on the generosity of others. ‘Others’ meaning men.
With Blithe Manor gone, the situation was even more dire. And what of those dependent on her? It was grand the boys had found work, but apart from rebuilding and cleaning, the sort of skills Filip, Thomas, Solomon and even she herself possessed needed not only demand, but a place in which they could be utilised. That required money, time. And what of Ashe and young Grace?
Losing the chocolate house and bookstore, not to mention three-quarters of the city, while very inconvenient (she almost laughed hysterically at how inadequate those words were), as long as they’d had a roof over their heads, their circumstances were not completely grim.
Losing Blithe Manor changed everything. All she’d owned had been contained within those four walls. While the chocolate-making equipment had survived, what good was it to her now?
While it was fine to presume on Sam for a few days, this arrangement couldn’t last forever. How could she remain in London when it was little more than charred rubble? How could she open another business without a cent to her name? Without any material goods to barter with? As a woman? Well, there was one way, and she wasn’t even going to consider that.
The fact was, she had nothing. She was a nobody with a title, and that wouldn’t pay the rent or put food on the table.
She could hear Sam now: ‘What you need, my dear, is a husband.’
Matthew’s face rose before her. A face that was so dear to her and yet, what happened back at Blithe Manor, learning the truth about the whole sordid mess, the way in which Matthew had been manipulated, the lengths to which Aubrey, Helene, Lady Margery and Sir Everard would go to protect the family name no matter the cost, left her feeling scraped out and hollow.
Everything was now tainted. She’d known almost from the outset that she resembled Helene Blithman. It was the reason Sir Everard married her; he depended on the similarity to make his vengeance complete. Aubrey had regarded her not only as a reincarnation of Helene but God’s approval of their incest made flesh.
The thought made her skin crawl.
What of Matthew? Did he see Rosamund as a second chance at love? Or a second chance at his first marriage, minus the incest and cuckolding? Was that why he brought her into his business so willingly? Why he had been so delighted that Mr Henderson left the bookstore to both of them? It had bound her to him in other ways.
Thoughts whirled in her head, mixed with flames and ashes. Her dreams were nothing but charred ruins. She didn’t even know if she wanted to rise like a phoenix any more. After all, didn’t the damn bird just burn again? She would have to make up her mind soon; it wasn’t fair to keep Matthew close under a false pretext; to offer hope where there was none. If she did, then she was no better than those she despised.
Before she could make those kinds of decisions, she owed Matthew and Bianca the truth. They needed to know what Lady Margery had written.
Bianca lit some candles and stoked the coals in the hearth while Matthew mixed them all a bowl of chocolate. The rain was light now, so light they heard the distant bells of one of the remaining churches chime the hour. Seven of the clock. Rosamund prepared what she would say.
Matthew and Bianca settled in neighbouring chairs, steaming bowls of chocolate in their hands, their eyes upon her. Slowly, interrupted by the occasional cough, she relayed the contents of the remnants of Lady Margery’s diary. Then she briefly told them what Aubrey had done and said. How he’d threatened her and, through her, those she cared about. Her voice was still husky, scorched by the smoke.
When she finished, Matthew’s eyes fixed on her face for a long moment. He let out a protracted whistle.
‘His threats… to expose me, you, they were empty, you know. Said to frighten you, force you to capitulate to his whims. He’d no proof. I made sure of that once I realised Sir Henry wasn’t paying the men to watch us. I had him call them off and order them never to work for Aubrey again. I told Sir Henry their time was being wasted over a matter of the heart when it would be better spent ferreting out real traitors. But you weren’t to know that.’ He sighed, his eyes downcast. ‘As for Lady Margery… I never knew… never suspected.’ He placed his bowl on the floor and raked his hair with his hands, as if turning over the topsoil of his mind. ‘She was so quiet, remained so much in the background. I’d never have guessed the level of her involvement.’ He shook his head. ‘It always appeared she was obeying Sir Everard’s whim.’ He looked to Bianca for confirmation.
‘I believe that was impression both of them wanted to give. She was a very strong and able woman for all she appeared… demure.’
‘Like Helene,’ he whispered. He looked at Bianca. ‘Did you know about them… Aubrey… Helene?’
Bianca bit her lip. ‘I had… suspicions. Jacopo and I both, but we dared not speak about them, lest they… be made manifest. But,’ continued Bianca hesitantly, ‘it does explain why Lady Margery took her own life.’
‘She what?’ Matthew sat forward.
Rosamund drew in a sharp breath. She had wondered how Lady Margery died, but never suspected she’d killed herself. She recalled the words in the diary:
… I would do anything to secure my children’s future and preserve their good name. Ours. Anything. I do not regret one thing. Not even what I am about to do. May God forgive me.
‘How?’ asked Rosamund softly. She leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment.
‘She hanged herself from the bedpost. Plaited a sheet and looped it about her neck and —’ Bianca took a deep breath. ‘I found her the next morning. I woke Sir Everard immediately. Together we… we took her down, untangled the sheet, placed her back in the bed and the master ordered me to tie a scarf about her neck so when the doctor came, he would not see the dreadful bruising. We told him she died in her sleep.’
Rosamund’s hands crept to her own throat. ‘It explains so much.’ Not only the words in the diary, but why Sir Everard was so guarded when he spoke of his wife. Suicide. Incest and suicide. May God forgive her; forgive them.
‘He ordered us to never speak of it again,’ said Bianca softly. ‘Of her. I oft wondered why she did it. I prayed for her soul, at Meetings.’ Her hands fluttered. ‘As for the baby.’ She shook her head. ‘Again, I wondered but I never saw, only heard rumours. Helene was careful as few as possible laid eyes upon him.’
She flashed an apologetic look at Matthew.
‘She kept him heavily swaddled.’ He paused. ‘I scarce saw him myself. I never suspected what I learned later. I believed God had sent us a flawed child to love and nurture. I would have, too, you know.’ His eyes took on a faraway look before they snapped back to the present. ‘In many ways, I should be grateful to them, I suppose — to Aubrey and Helene.’
‘Grateful?’ Bianca spat. ‘How can you, of all people, say that?’
Rosamund knew what he meant, or thought she did.
‘Had Aubrey not defied his father’s orders and written to Helene from the colonies, had she not kept the letters and copies of those she sent to him, I might never have known the truth. I would have believed my wife and my baby drowned at sea and continued to blame myself. I would have spent my life grieving and being held to account for deaths in which I played no part.’ He released a long, sad sigh. ‘Knowing about Aubrey and Helene, their unnatural love, I’ve had years to reconcile her death and the babe’s, but even so, it has been difficult. Now to learn of Lady Margery’s part in all this, when I thought it could not become more sordid, has, I confess, quite flummoxed me. I always thought… I believed it was Sir Everard alone who set out to deceive and then punish me for learning the truth. I used it to bring him to his knees, force him to compensate me for the humiliations and deception I suffered.’ He gave a contemptuous snort. ‘But it was never the whole truth, was it?’
‘It never is,’ said Rosamund softly. She was thinking back to Bearwoode and what Master Dunstan used to say whenever she asked him why her mother had abandoned her. There are always three sides to every story: yours, theirs and God’s. She wondered what God would say about this one. Wash his hands of it and pass it to the Devil?
Now she understood why Matthew never revealed the name of Helene’s lover. What was it he’d said when she asked why Sir Everard didn’t force his daughter to marry the man who got her with child? There was an impediment to their union. Impediment. Aye, incest. No wonder Sir Everard was desperate to have the letters returned; no wonder Matthew was able to use them to force first Sir Everard and then Aubrey to do his bidding… For a time, anyhow.
Once more, the terrible power of words was laid bare. The ways in which they could be both used and abused…
‘And Aubrey thought to find redemption by taking you to wife,’ said Matthew sourly, interrupting her thoughts. ‘His reasoning beggars belief.’
‘He said,’ Rosamund tried to recall the exact words, ‘We can undo all those terrible things — the baby’s death. Father’s actions.’ She paused. ‘He said to me, But you, you’re not my sister, you only look like her… With you, I can love openly, out of the shadows. Even God Himself would bless our union.’ Her eyes dropped to her hands twisted together on her lap.
‘Mio Dio,’ whispered Bianca.
‘He was deluded,’ said Matthew, shaking his head. ‘Not even God could forgive what he’d done. What Helene did too.’
‘What they all did,’ finished Bianca.
There was silence.
‘Bianca,’ began Rosamund, ‘do you think Sir Everard suspected there were pages missing from one of Lady Margery’s diaries? From her last one?’
‘He would have turned the house upside down if he’d known they existed. He simply didn’t want anyone to read any of her diaries — he destroyed whatever he found.’
‘Were there many?’
‘Si. Written over years. She would oft be found in her closet writing the day’s events.’ Bianca frowned, her voice thoughtful. ‘I came across Sir Everard in there once, not long after you —’ she nodded towards Matthew, ‘married Helene, reading them. The following day, they were all gone. After that, Lady Margery took to hiding them. He remonstrated with her for being so foolish as to record everything. I did wonder what she wrote that so perturbed him.’
‘Do you think tearing out those pages, the ones where she reveals everything, was her vengeance upon him? For destroying her words, silencing her?’ asked Rosamund.
They all exchanged a long look.
Bianca nodded slowly. ‘In more ways than one. Sir Everard never tolerated her Papist sympathies either. Forbade her its rituals; the solace of the confessional. She must have kept the beads after he broke her rosaries and covered her confession with them. It was also her way of undermining him and of adhering to her faith.’
Matthew stared at the ceiling, exhaling loudly. ‘I don’t know whether that makes me feel worse or better. All that time, I dedicated myself to revenge — but I was punishing the wrong person.’
‘Not entirely,’ said Rosamund. ‘Sir Everard chose to take up the mantle. Remember, he did try to kill you.’
‘He tried to get you to kill me.’
Rosamund went quiet. Imagine if she had succeeded. Imagine life with
out that man sitting opposite her now. Imagine if she was still married to Sir Everard and had the weight of Matthew’s death on her conscience. She shuddered.
Bianca moved to cover her.
‘Are you cold, my lady?’ asked Matthew.
‘Not really.’ She waited until Bianca finished tucking the blanket in, and thanked her. ‘I was just thinking what a wasted emotion revenge is. It fills the soul with nothing but darkness.’
Matthew gave a sardonic laugh. ‘The important thing is not to get swallowed by the darkness. To remember, even when the shadows grow long and you fear they will consume you, there’s still light in the world.’ He glanced at her before turning to face the fire. ‘You just need to find it.’
And love, thought Rosamund. And love. You just have to be brave enough to acknowledge it.
FIFTY-THREE
In which Rosamund walks in her own shoes
The three of them were interrupted by Sam and Elizabeth returning home. Bursting into the room, Elizabeth threw herself upon Rosamund and declared herself delighted to see her cousin in such remarkable health considering Sam had painted such a grim picture of her condition.
Before Rosamund could respond, Sam also charged towards her, lifting her from the chair, pressing her to his chest and smothering her with kisses, much to Elizabeth’s chagrin, and declaring her recovery nothing short of a miracle. Rosamund refrained from reminding him he’d seen her that very morning before he’d set out for Tower Wharf and Deptford.
When he finally let go of her, she slid back into the chair, rearranging the rug. Elizabeth wasted no time bidding them good night and all but dragged Sam back to their chamber from which a sound scolding was heard followed by noises that had little do with anger and a great deal to do with a husband and wife having a long-awaited reunion.
As any attempts to talk above the din failed dismally, Matthew and Bianca made their excuses and left; Matthew to the room he shared with Filip and Will, Sam’s clerk, and Bianca upstairs to the maid Jane’s room to share a bed with Grace.