‘Something that can be seen in sunlight. Something that I can tell my friends about, and—and my family. What’s left of it, at any rate.’
‘Your sister.’
Of course she would remember the speech he had given that day. The most personal thing he had ever said in front of other living souls. ‘Yes. I—I want to see her happy. Failing that, I want her to see me happy.’
‘John, I—’
‘No Christian names, please. I know you’re ashamed of what we did.’ He had to harden his heart, he knew it—so why, why, had it never felt so tender in his chest as it did now? ‘Don’t make it harder on yourself.’
‘It is already impossible.’
‘If it helps, this is the hardest thing I have had to do in—in quite some time.’
‘I know.’ Rebecca’s kiss was soft against his cheek, light as a ghost. ‘And if things were different—’
‘Don’t tell me what we would do if things were different.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’ll hurt.’
‘The idea of the opposite hurts more, at this precise moment.’
‘I know.’ Peterson sighed. ‘But in time, it’ll hurt less.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘... No.’
‘Neither do I.’
A long, deep silence passed. Rebecca’s whisper came again eventually, closer to his ear, full of a guilty want that shivered through his fractured heart.
‘I would walk in the sun with you, if I was less frightened. I would—I would do everything with you, if I was less frightened. I would—well, I would even say that I—’
‘Don’t.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I would say it back, and it’s been too short a time.’
‘I know. It’s ridiculous.’
‘Yes. All the more ridiculous for… for seeming right.’
There was nothing else to say. Nothing sensible, nothing real. The words Peterson wanted to say—strange, ridiculous words, words of passion, belonging, love—were knotted tightly in his chest, to remain there for as long as he could possibly stand.
The soft rustle of the bedclothes, and the sudden absence of Rebecca’s body next to his, hurt far more than they had a right to.
‘I will go.’ Rebecca’s shadow fell against the wall, her back straight. ‘I will go and—and mourn this. Or forget this. Or—or attempt to save this. I do not know which. My mind is the most abominable whirl.’
So practical, even in the midst of such sentiment. Peterson, blinded by painful admiration, struggled to keep his tone even. ‘I would begin forgetting. Hope… hope will hurt.’
‘I know.’ The pain in Rebecca’s voice was agonising. ‘But it is necessary.’
Necessary. This parting was necessary, even if hope was debatable in its efficacy. Peterson forced himself to remember it as he sat up in bed, watching Rebecca restore herself to order, covetously staring at her face and form despite his sadness.
She was so beautiful. Beautiful when prim and proper, beautiful when half-undone… the most beautiful women he had ever known.
Beautiful, and walking out of his life. Walking away, on his orders.
‘Goodbye.’ Rebecca paused on the threshold of the bedroom door. The sight of her standing there made the fragments of Peterson’s heart shiver in his chest. ‘I… there is so much more that I wish to say.’
‘Don’t say it.’ Peterson turned his face to the wall. If he wasn’t cruel now, he would crawl to her on bended knee. ‘Goodbye.’
He had felt strong, for the first few days. Masterful, and wise, and in control of his own destiny. Telling her firmly exactly what was required was certainly the correct thing to do—he wouldn’t regret it.
He could ignore the nightmares. He could ignore the creeping absence of cheer that spread over him like clouds covering a formerly clear sky. He could push away the sudden bursts of rage, the moments of terror that would brush against the back of his neck, like someone walking over his grave.
After three days, with no word from her, Peterson found himself in St. Peter’s church with a bottle of whisky and a broken heart.
Losing himself in drink had never held any attraction. Not after living with Helen’s rages, her desperate search to forget the myriad hardships of her life. Losing himself in anything, drink or opium or otherwise, had never felt preferable to reality.
That was before Rebecca Westbrook. Peterson looked at the whisky bottle with narrowed eyes, wondering when he would break. Wondering when the absurdity of his feelings—their strength, their swiftness—would drive him to drinking as much of the bloody stuff as possible.
A shadow fell over him. Looking up, a reflexive glare already on his face, Peterson fought a stab of embarrassment as he looked into the steady, sympathetic gaze of Reverend Calcourt.
‘You’re a little early for the service.’
‘No need to coddle me.’ Peterson shrugged. ‘You already know I’m not here for that.’
‘I had guessed. Unless you were thinking of bringing me an unexpected gift.’ Reverend Calcourt looked pointedly at the bottle. ‘Not my preferred vintage.’
‘Very funny.’
‘You don’t need to speak to me.’
‘I’m well aware of that.’
To Peterson’s annoyance, the vicar merely smiled. Just his bloody luck—a priest that had the air of a man of the world. It made it almost impossible to dislike him. ‘Try not to fall unconscious on the floor of the church. Poor Mrs. Weston would be insensible.’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘No. You’re sitting here with your head in your hands and an unopened bottle of whisky next to you. If I leave you alone now, it’s like a doctor leaving a wounded man in the middle of the street.’ Reverend Calcourt sighed. ‘Does this have something to do with the afternoon at Vauxhall Gardens?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘I thought I saw you throwing away flowers.’
‘It has nothing to do with you.’
‘Sorrow is everyone’s business, Mr. Peterson. Shared sorrow is everyone’s comfort.’
‘It doesn’t feel comforting.’
The vicar’s small smile should have been maddening, but wasn’t. ‘Give it time.’
In the silence that followed, Peterson tried to feel more irritated. To his surprise, both the presence and listening ear of Reverend Calcourt was indeed more comforting than sitting alone in the church.
‘I know you must feel terrible.’ The vicar’s voice was gentle. ‘But I know that you don’t want to lose yourself in drink.’
‘You have no idea what I want.’
‘Forgive me, Mr. Peterson, but—but we men of the cloth are not machines. Many of us have loved, and lost.’ Reverend Calcourt settled into the pew beside him, sighing. ‘How would you know if I were fighting the loss of a great love? It’s hardly discussed at the services.’
‘Great love.’ Peterson tried to snort, but couldn’t.
‘All right. A smaller love.’ Reverend Calcourt gently moved the bottle of whisky away from Peterson. ‘The beginning of a great love, nipped cruelly in the bud.’
Peterson looked away from the vicar, scowling. That was exactly how he would describe what had happened with Rebecca Westbrook, if he were a man given to poetry.
Alas, he wasn’t given to poetry. The only way he could encompass the raw, dark sensation spreading through him was with a harsh sigh, and the clenching of his fists.
‘You don’t have to tell me I’m right.’ Reverend Calcourt paused. ‘You could nod.’
Peterson nodded. ‘That enough for you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been very stupid.’
‘I doubt it. You’ve always been a man of sound sense.’ Reverend Calcourt smiled. ‘And you were wise enough to come here, looking for help, instead of drinking yourself into a stupor at home.’
‘I’ve never done it, you know. Drank myself into a stupor.’
‘Because of
Helen?’
‘Yes.’
‘You see? You are a man of great sense.’
‘I’m a man with too much sense to steal from his master’s cabinet of spirits.’
‘I’m sure Sir Marcus has a tremendous collection of vintages.’ Calcourt paused. ‘But I wish to speak of you, not your master. A heart cannot be mended, but the fracture lines can be smoothed down.’
‘Such optimism.’
‘I’m a priest. If you want optimism, go to a clown.’ The vicar sighed. ‘Come now. You must know a better way of smoothing down the broken edges of your heart than this.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Think.’
Peterson thought. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Reverend Calcourt’s expression as patient as a stone, he eventually sighed with reluctant obedience.
‘I think it might be time to go to Truro, and see my sister. I can ask for leave—I have it coming.’ He nodded, surprised at how quickly the idea had come to him fully-formed. ‘Time for me to see the back of London for a bit. Time for me to see the sea.’
‘I think Helen will be very happy to see you.’
‘She is rarely happy to see me. She always thinks I am going to move her somewhere worse than where she currently is.’
‘I thought she liked the hospital.’
‘She does. I hope she’ll stay there.’ Peterson gently shook his head, wondering when the last time he had talked so openly to anyone about his life. About his hopes. It would have been Rebecca, lying next to him as the rain fell onto the roof. ‘I think she’d take to the life of a nurse herself, if she could heal enough.’
‘She is already living a good life, I think.’ Reverend Calcourt looked steadily at Peterson. ‘Is this wish for your sister, or for yourself?’
‘For me.’ He could admit it to Calcourt—he was a priest, but he had been a man at some point. ‘I would worry less.’
‘I do not think you would worry less if she were in a hospital forever. I do not think you would worry less if she were made Head Nurse.’ Reverend Calcourt’s smile was gentle, but his gaze was steady. ‘I think that you will worry about your sister forever, because worry is the necessary weight of love. And I think that going to see her will make you feel calm, for a little while—but a solution will need to be found for this troubled mind of yours.’
‘I’ve been praying quite enough, thank you.’
‘I am not going to recommend prayer. I am sure you are doing the correct amount.’ Calcourt’s expression gathered a hint of wryness. ‘In truth, I was going to suggest marriage.’
Peterson forced himself to keep a straight face. If he started telling the Reverend about the only woman he’d ever considered marrying—a do-gooder who had assailed him in a pleasure-house, and didn’t want to be seen in public with him—the conversation would rapidly become most unfit for church.
‘Perhaps a discussion for a later time, if your face is anything to go by.’ Calcourt shook his head. ‘Go on, now. Go and ask Sir Marcus for leave.’
Peterson rose, obscurely relieved. For someone he rarely spoke to, the vicar had offered sound advice. Perhaps being a vicar was like being a valet—one could study the rules all one wanted, but there was no book as valuable as years of experience. ‘Don’t think I’m obeying your orders. I only have one master, and even he knows what tone to take.’
‘Your master is a mortal man. Mine is a little more exacting.’ Reverend Calcourt gestured to the altar with a smile. ‘And I would never dream of telling you what to do, Mr. Peterson. I have too much good sense for that.’
If only she was a romantic sort of person—a dramatic woman. The kind that could throw herself into a river, or wear black to mourn a union that had never truly occurred. Rebecca, practical to her core when it came to matters of the heart, thought of such women with wistful melancholy as she sat in Catherine Hildebrande’s townhouse.
Devoting any time to misery felt like an unspeakable indulgence in a city where people died of hunger every day. Finding solutions to problems was what she had always been good at—and even if this particular problem concerned the thorny regions of the human heart, rather than the straightforward issue of food in a hungry stomach, Rebecca knew she would find a way to make everything alright.
She had to prove to Peterson that she was serious. Prove to him, and herself, that she could overcome her fear of making human choices. That meant, at least in Rebecca’s opinion, making amends to the people she had wronged thanks to judgmental blindness.
What better place to start than the wives of the men who owned the Cappadene Club? The men had a portion of censure still, in Rebecca’s opinion, for partaking in the ownership of a house of pleasure—but the woman they had married had never deserved her ire. There had always been a question mark hanging over Elsie Bennington, and exactly how she had come into contact with Sir Marcus—but really, all such mysteries seemed immaterial now. Rebecca, bringing her hand to her mouth to nibble worriedly at her thumbnail, knew that she was undoubtedly the most hypocritical of all of them.
She jumped to her feet, hurriedly curtseying as the door opened. To Rebecca’s unpleasant surprise, all three of the Cappadene Club wives entered the room: Catherine Hildebrande, Lydia Weeks, and Elsie Bennington.
She had been planning to visit the women separately. Rebecca, a cold quiver running through her, wondered how on earth she was going to explain herself to their shocked, guarded faces.
She had always viewed the women in front of her with near-pathological disdain. It was only now, with the experiences of the past weeks at the forefront of her mind, that Rebecca realised with a rush of embarassment just how much of her disdain had sprung from jealousy.
‘I must say, Miss Westbrook—your visit is something of a surprise.’ Catherine Hildebrande’s voice was as soft and cold as snow. ‘Forgive my lack of preparation.’
‘Forgive our presence as well.’ Lydia Weeks didn’t sound as if she required forgiveness—her tone was as acid as Catherine’s was cold. ‘Lady Bennington and I will leave, if her birth and my marriage offend your delicate sensibilities.’
This was rudeness of the most forthright kind, but Rebecca knew she deserved it. Lowering her gaze, examining the carpet with a blush, she took a steadying breath before replying.
‘You have never been offensive to me. I apologise if my behaviour suggested such a state. I—I still take offence at the nature of the trade your husbands are engaged in, but I am willing and prepared to see the nuances behind the—the establishment in question. Nuances that I was not prepared to see before. My… my myopia has led me to a very miserable place.’
A shocked silence greeted her words. Rebecca eventually gathered up enough courage to lift her head, where three surprised expressions greeted her.
‘Really?’ Elsie Bennington spoke first, her slightly country-tinged accent still strange to hear in a room of such splendour. ‘Forgive my forthrightness, Miss Westbrook, but—but that’s something of a change. From what my husband has told me, you’ve been most… well, most…’
‘Most unpleasant.’ Lydia raised an eyebrow. ‘What on earth has caused such a difference in attitude?’
‘I would suspect a sudden flowering of religious passion, but Miss Westbrook’s conduct in terms of her faith has always put the rest of us to shame.’ Catherine leaned forward, her brow furrowed. ‘Tell us, Miss Westbrook— what has changed? And why has this change warranted a visit to my house?’
Their curiosity was unexpected, but oddly welcome. Rebecca, taking a deep breath, began to tell them the bare facts of what had occurred. It was only as she mentioned John Peterson’s name, watching Elsie’s eyes widen, that she realised this was the first time she had unburdened her soul since the whole business began.
It felt… comforting. Like a warm bath. Like being a real person, capable of both failure and redemption, in the company of women who had experienced both. The story slowly became more than a mere retelling of the facts; Rebecca, hunc
hed in her chair as her feelings overwhelmed her, began to include small but important pieces of her heart.
She had never had such a rapt audience. Even the most welcoming crowds of listeners at the Vice Prevention meetings had only received her public self for their trouble. Now, painfully retelling the secrets of her innermost self, Rebecca watched the three women consider her story.
‘... And so that is why I am here. To apologise, and to explain. I have apologised, and explained, in considerably more detail than I ever imagined I would.’ She felt lighter, cleaner, as if she had purged herself of something. ‘I know I am in no position to ask you for any kind of aid. Speaking through my current state has been aid in itself—I apologise for wasting your time with it.’
‘Time spent talking is rarely wasted, however many serious gentlemen say otherwise.’ Catherine’s face was inscrutable; Rebecca felt as if she were a puzzle, slowly being solved. ‘You have not wasted your time. I, and I speak for both Mrs. Weeks and Lady Bennington, appreciate your apology.’
From the look of Lydia Weeks’s face, the apology had been by no means universally accepted. Rebecca nodded gratefully all the same, slowly rising to her feet. ‘I shall impress upon you no longer.’
‘There is tea and seed-cake in the dining room.’ Catherine’s tone was softer still. ‘Refresh yourself, please, before you go.’
As peace offerings went, it was a pleasant one. Rebecca curtseyed again, leaving the room with a small, relieved smile.
‘Good Lord. That poor woman.’ Catherine Hildebrande softly shook her head, leaning back into her chair with a sigh. ‘I do not envy her.’
‘I cannot help but feel that such a punishment is fitting. I know this makes me the worst sort of harridan, but it is how I feel—it cannot be denied.’ Lydia clicked her tongue, rolling her eyes at Catherine’s mildly disapproving look. ‘Such an unexpected, devastating passion is no more than she deserves—and if I am to be very wicked, I am glad that it has gone badly.’
‘That is very cruel.’ Elsie looked warningly at Lydia, who sighed with irritation. ‘You heard the poor creature. I think this must be tearing her to pieces.’
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