by Mia Vincy
“Right. Changes. I’m aware.”
Joshua left soon afterward. They would all carry on fine without him. Just as they would at Sunne Park.
What he sought was not there either.
He headed into the streets, not sure where his legs were taking him. He had a vision of himself, wandering around the streets of Birmingham for years and years, stopping passersby to say, “I need to get to Birmingham” and not understanding when they told him he was already there. They’d call him the Lost Man of Birmingham. “He used to be someone,” they’d say when they saw him stumbling past, along the canals, amid the warehouses and factories, down High St. and Moor St. and Mercer St., asking for directions to the city where he was. “He used to be someone, but then his wife kicked him out and his friend left and his business fell to pieces and he lost everything he had.”
Bloody hell. He was starting by losing his mind.
He shook off the odd vision and made his way home, to find a house full of clutter, with his bed prepared, meal laid out, and the staff gone.
I know your life is in Birmingham, and I’ll go there with you happily if you want. But this is your home too.
He picked up one of Rachel’s clocks. The day he came home, when she was heavily pregnant and thoroughly bored, and he found her in the dining room up to her elbows in cogs and screws and blazes knew what, having pulled apart three clocks and not yet put them back together.
And Samuel’s tiger-skin rug, with its great heavy head and yellowing claws. The little boy cuddling the tiger’s head and telling it his stories, and looking up at him with a solemn frown to ask, “Papa, do tigers dance?”
Then Joshua looked in the tiger’s big glass eyes and he laughed.
He laughed until he wanted to weep, but he could not weep so he laughed some more.
He had been right: He had needed to come back to Birmingham. He needed to come back so he could see that his life was not here anymore. To understand how completely everything had changed, that he was no longer the man he’d been. To understand how thoroughly Cassandra had disrupted his life and colonized his heart.
Ah, Samuel, my boy. And Rachel, my friend. Birmingham, my past.
Cassandra, my love.
He would not undo it. Even knowing what he knew, he would not accept any version of his life or his past that did not have Samuel in it. He had tried to block out the pain, but all he had done was also block out the love and joy.
That’s what Cassandra had been trying to tell him from the start.
He would never find the answer in Birmingham, or Sunne Park, or London or any place on Earth. The answer lay not in metal or roses or baby bonnets or even in a tiger-skin rug.
The answer lay in her, and him, and in their secret world of two.
For a smart man, he could be very bloody stupid.
He dropped the tiger skin, and with the energy borne of excitement, a new excitement powered not by fear or anger, but by joy and love, he left the house and went back to find Das. They had work to do.
Chapter 31
By the third day, Cassandra had accepted that Joshua wasn’t coming back.
The first day had been easy; rage had given her resolve and his departure had given relief.
The second day had been awful; she twitched at every sound, hoping it was him, and hurting every time it wasn’t.
The third day, she was useless. Her body was lethargic, her mind agitated. She blamed the rain, though it had never bothered her before; but Lucy and Emily were in a mood, what with Joshua’s disappearance and her news of an imminent governess, so when the rain eased, she escaped to her garden, to find peace.
No peace. Not here, not for her. She had vowed not to succumb to heartbreak, but heartbreak, it seemed, was a physical thing. Her limbs were tired, her middle heavy and aching, and although she had been mercifully free of nausea today, she had a hollow where her heart should be.
The rain began again. Softly, but enough to trap her here, in her folly, with her flowers and her fountain and her regret.
Good. She could not move anyway. It seemed very important that she did not move.
She closed her eyes and listened to the soft rain falling on the roof. From the bushes came the chattering of birds, indignant about the weather. In this spot, she and Joshua had made love, when she had no words and had tried to hold him with her body.
Stop giving up your space. Fight for what is yours.
Perhaps she should have fought harder for him, but it had been hopeless from the start.
“Cassandra.”
How she loved the way he said her name, his voice rough and husky over the rain, a soft lilt on the middle syllable like he was chanting a refrain.
“Cassandra.”
That hint of urgency, as though she mattered, as though he loved her too. As though any moment now he would scoop her up into his arms and hold her tight and never let her go.
“Cassandra?”
A confused note too. Worried even. She did not like him to be worried. Even a dream could wound her heart, so she opened her eyes to dispel it.
It was not a dream.
Joshua stood on the edge of the folly, the rain falling behind him, watching her with his hot-coffee eyes. She let herself look at him, his whole dynamic length. Hers, yet not hers, and so very real. Droplets of rain clung to his hair and to the wool of his coat, and his beloved face was gentle and told her nothing.
He came back!
He came back?
The horrid fiend left her and then dared to come back? Did he so enjoy breaking her heart that he wished to do it again?
“No,” she said. “You left me, so you can stay left.”
He took one step toward her. Two. Her body wanted to move, but she must not move. Instead, she began to shiver.
“Please, Cassandra. I have so much to tell you.”
She hugged her heavy, aching middle. “You cannot come and go and come and go, and play with me like this.”
“First, know that I do love our child,” he said. “I want and love our baby.”
“No. No!”
Her agitation was too much. It overcame the lethargy and the ache, and she hauled herself to her feet.
Wetness gushed between her legs. Her belly cramped. Her legs failed her.
He caught her before she fell.
Every muscle in her body clenched and she grabbed onto him hard. His face was pale and no longer gentle. His eyes held her: He held her up with the power of his gaze. If he looked away now, they would all fall down.
“There’s blood.” He spoke with no voice. She watched his lips move. “On your skirts.”
Her head began to float away. Then her arms and her torso. Floating away and dissolving into the rain. She felt so light. She had no weight. No, his arms took her weight. Her legs were no use to her now. She could not move. She could not speak. How could she move or speak when she could not even breathe?
I want and love our baby too. He had been afraid to love the baby and now she had lost the baby and he would hurt so much that he would turn away from her and she would lose him too, all over again.
She was losing both of them. She was losing everything. She had to stop this. She had to stop the blood. She had to stop time. She had to stop the sun from setting and the rain from falling and the flowers from growing.
“I can’t stop it,” she said.
Her hand ached. She looked at it, puzzled: a white claw gripping his arm. The arm that held her up. The arm that was all she had left in the world and that would leave her again too.
He scooped her up in his arms and, before she had gotten her bearings, he was striding out into the rain, away from her flowers and her fountain and her peace. She curled up into him and fisted her hands in his coat, while the rain slid down her neck in cold rivulets.
“It’s raining,” she said. “We can’t go in the rain. You’ll get wet.”
But all he did was hold her more tightly and walk more quickly. He looked strai
ght ahead, the rain flattening his hair, sliding over his jaw. She buried her face in his neck so she did not have to watch any of this happening.
It was not good to walk in the rain. They’d get wet. He might slip and they’d all fall down. Or he might catch a chill. She would not like him to catch a chill. Her hair must be a mess and she had only washed it that morning. Because that morning she had not felt nauseous. Because the baby was not making her nauseous any more. They should not go in the rain. The rain would ruin her gown.
Never mind. The blood had already ruined it.
He held her so tightly. He walked so fast. She risked a glance at his face; it was hard and set and angry. She buried her face in his neck again. She did not want to remember him like this. She did not want to remember his face as it looked the day she truly lost him, lost him and their baby, and her hope and her love, lost everything all at once, all over again.
He carried her. His arms ached. His legs ached. No load had ever been this heavy or this precious. No walk had ever been so long.
It was so far. It had never been this far. How did it get so far? Another nightmare then: walking and walking and never getting closer, his shattered wife growing heavier in his arms, clinging to him, and him, helpless, no idea what to do for her, how to help her, only walking, walking, walking.
Then suddenly he was there, in the kitchen garden, muscling through the nearest door into the kitchen, where it was hot and fragrant and abruptly still.
“Get the doctor,” he barked at the first face he saw. “No, the midwife. Get the midwife.” He didn’t stop walking. He could carry her forever. “No, the doctor. The midwife. Get them both. Get everyone you can find.”
And then there was Mrs. Greenway, stoic and sure, and he came to a stop. Cassandra kept pulling on his coat, her eyes closed so no one could see her. Mrs. Greenway touched a light hand to Cassandra’s cheek. A benediction. The housekeeper had been there to help with Lord Charles. She knew what Cassandra had done that day. She knew Cassandra. She would know what to do.
“She’s bleeding,” he said. And then: “I don’t know what to do.” His voice cracked, but she understood. She put together “midwife” and “bleeding” and understood.
“You take her up to her chamber and put her on the bed and we’ll look after her,” she said. “This is women’s business. We know what to do.”
He turned, relieved. Cassandra would get the help she needed and it wouldn’t come from him. He wanted to help her. To do something. But what did he know of this? How had he grown up to be so useless?
Behind him came a barrage of calm, urgent commands: “Sally, get that hot water for Lady Charles’s bath and send it up for Miss Cassandra instead. Mary, get clean linens. Joseph, go now for Mrs. King,” and there was more, but he didn’t hear the rest, because he was heading up the stairs. Still she clutched him, pressing her face to his neck and making a small sound, a keening sound, like a wounded animal.
That was the sound of her heart breaking.
He shouldered into her room and lowered her onto the bed, bloody skirts and all. She kept her eyes closed. He pulled off her half-boots and wrapped a hand around her foot, and he couldn’t ignore the blood. He knew nothing about that kind of blood. He passed right over it to her chin, to fumble with the buttons on her pelisse but she pushed his hand away.
“No.” She kept her eyes closed. “Not you. Not you.”
The words winded him like a kick in the gut. His legs almost collapsed. That’s how severely he had broken them—even now, in her greatest need, she wanted him gone.
Well, too bad for her. He was her husband and he wasn’t leaving.
“You need to get undressed,” he said. “You’ve blood…”
His voice failed him. He didn’t know what to say; it wasn’t blood and they both knew it. He tried again to unbutton her pelisse, but the buttons shrank down and away, too small and slippery for his clumsy, shaking fingers.
And again she pushed his useless hands away. This time she did look at him: stared at him with wild eyes.
“No.” Her voice was forceful now. She raised her head, pushed him away. “Not you. You can’t. You mustn’t. No.”
“Cassandra. I need to help you. Tell me what to do. Oh, sweet mercy, just tell me what to do.”
“I want my mother.” She closed her eyes, dropped her head back on the pillow. Fat tears slid out from under her eyelids and ran down her cheeks. “I want my mother.”
He wiped away her tears with his useless, shaking hands, kissed her forehead, and left the room. He took three steps, stopped, unsure. It was wrong to leave her alone. She should not be alone. But she did not want him. She wanted her mother.
And somehow Lady Charles must have heard, for a moment later, she was there.
“Cassandra,” he said to her. She came forward. Stopped. Wavered. “She’s bleeding,” he said. What a stupid word. Bleeding was what happened when you cut yourself. “Our baby. The baby is…”
“Oh, the dear child.”
She surged forward, toward her daughter’s room, and then stopped. And wavered. He saw it then: her fear. The pain of losing her son was too much; she had let it break her. So she had left her husband and her family and retreated into a world where she was free of pain. He could not judge her; he had used a different method but he had done the same.
No more.
To turn away from his own pain was to turn away from Cassandra: This was what he had discovered in Birmingham. And the one thing he knew, with every inch of his miserable, useless being, was that he would never turn away from Cassandra again.
He wrapped his hands around his mother-in-law’s upper arms, held her steady, and studied her eyes. She was fully aware and present. She looked longingly toward her bedroom, toward the place she hid from her own failures, her shame, her guilt, her grief. She knew what was happening and she couldn’t bear it either.
Well, sod her. If Cassandra had to bear it, they’d all bloody well bear it.
“She needs you,” he said. “She needs you now.”
Lady Charles might well need her drug. She might well need to hide. He understood that. But he knew now it was no solution. It felt like a solution, but it wasn’t. And if he could do nothing else for the woman he loved, he would do this.
“Hold on for a few hours,” he said. He let go of her arms, took her hand. She still wore her wedding ring. “Just a few hours. You can do that. You can do that for her because she needs it and we love her.”
“I let her down.”
“That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she needs you now. Her mother. We’ve both let her down. We will not let her down again.”
He waited. He wanted to scream, Your daughter is alone in there; she does not want me but she must not be alone. But he must be patient. Cassandra would want him to be patient. He waited. And as he waited, Lady Charles took in a deep breath. She let it out. He saw her take control of herself. Her shoulders straightened, her chin rose. She pressed her lips together and nodded rapidly.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
She brushed past him and went into the room. Cassandra was no longer alone.
“Mama?” he heard.
“I’m here, Cassandra, my dear. I’m here.”
The door clicked shut.
Joshua leaned back against the wall and pressed the heels of his hands into his burning eyes and kept them there, even when he heard the shuffle and patter of footsteps. A hand squeezed his arm, briefly.
“She’s going to be all right.” The housekeeper.
He lowered his hands, looked at her caring, concerned face. A convoy of maids hovered behind her, bearing basins and linens and heavens knew what.
“This happens,” Mrs. Greenway added, sure and calm. Comforting him. He wasn’t the one who needed it. “More often than you know. But she’ll be fine.” She turned to the maids, grabbing a bundle of linens that she tucked under her arm and taking the basin of steaming water in both hands. “Wait here,�
�� she said to the maids. “You too, Mr. DeWitt.”
“Tell her…”
She paused. He leaned across to open the door for her. Caught a glimpse of his wife’s skirts, his view of her face blocked by the body of her mother seated at her side. He looked away.
“Tell her I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Not you, she’d said. Just go, she’d said. Not you, she’d said.
“You’ll tell her. Promise me?”
“I’ll tell her. Let us look after her now.”
Chapter 32
Joshua had never known Sunne Park to be so still. Miss Lucy, Miss Emily, and Mr. Isaac had just now left to visit a neighbor, the butler informed him, so he told him to send clothes after them with a message to stay away. He paced through the empty house and the servants faded away from him like ghosts. Finally, a pair of footmen herded him into the main study, where a fire roared and food and drink were laid out, as were a deck of cards and some books. He understood what they wanted him to do, so he obeyed, mildly surprised by his own docility.
Not you. Just go. Not you.
He could not eat. He thought about drinking but he needed a clear head in case she needed him. It was too hot by the fire. Too cold away from it. His legs didn’t work properly but all the chairs felt wrong.
In his roaming, he spied familiar sheets of paper on the desk. The plans she’d shown him, that day she’d sent him away and he could not leave fast enough.
Well, they were good plans and he would consider them now. And according to these plans, as he recalled, this room was to be his study. There it was, right there—“Mr. DeWitt’s study.”
Except that it wasn’t. It had been altered. The ink was a slightly different color, slightly off the line. An extra “s” had been added.
“Mrs. DeWitt’s study.”
With one pen stroke, she had written him out of her life.
And here was a fresh page, with lists for Newell and herself, items to research, requests for shopping catalogues. A query for Miss Sampson, about educating orphans here.