Frail

by Susanna Ives

  Megan possessed her mother’s features, but her father’s coloring. Her glossy dark hair was very fine and always escaping its braids. She gazed frankly at the world with eyes that were almost black.

  “Come,” he said, clasping onto her mother’s elbow. “I’m escorting you inside where Efa will lecture you properly. And then I’ll lecture you again before I take you home in the carriage.”

  Theo’s home had once been a stone fortress standing imposingly on the hill, but Cromwell’s armies had destroyed all but four rooms, a tower, and sections of the original outer walls. In the early 1700s, an English family had bought the property to banish a scandalous son and his embarrassing new bride, a family servant. The son had built a smaller, castle-like cottage complete with turrets and arched stained glass windows to match the tower.

  Theo escorted his neighbors through two massive wooden doors carved with a large dragon and into the entrance hall where he called out to his housekeeper, Efa, Gordon’s wife. “Mrs. Pengwern walked here. Smartly scold her for me.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Emily tried to call, but her voice was too weak to carry. Theo hid his panic, hurrying her into the parlor.

  A wood fire blazed, burning the damp from the air and making the dark room feel like a cozy night no matter what the hour. The carpet, singed from embers, had been pulled near the hearth where Branwen slept. Around the rug, three armchairs were arranged in a semi-circle with thick fur pelts hanging on the backs.

  “Now, you sit here,” he said, pulling up his own chair beside a round marble table holding a gardening reference book, a bound copy of The Pickwick Papers cracked open at the last page he’d read, several folded London newspapers, and a pendulum clock which softly ticked away the seconds.

  Efa rushed in with a wool blanket across her arm, the rich scent of simmering broth and dried rosemary wafting in her wake. “Mrs. Pengwern, that physician from Chester made me promise you wouldn’t exert yourself,” she said. “Now you’re making a liar out of me.”

  Efa was in her late twenties and possessed the energy of a steam train. Her fine brown hair was always escaping her bun and falling about her face. Tiny freckles sprayed the bridge of her nose and tops of her cheeks. Her dark, alert eyes slightly bulged and she kept her soft lips pursed in a hard line. Florence Nightingale had hand selected Efa to assist her in Crimea. Now, Efa exacted the same order and efficiency she had learned under the famed nurse on Theo’s tiny household.

  She tucked the edges of the quilt around Emily. Without looking at her husband, she motioned to him. “Gordon, stoke the fire while I fetch some tea.” She turned and hurried out, her skirt flapping behind her. “I’ll be back shortly,” she warned.

  Megan plopped down cross-legged by the edge of the hearth. Branwen tried to curl into a small enough ball to fit in her lap.

  “Now what is so important you had to risk your health to call?” Theo asked Emily more sharply than he had intended. He sat on the armrest of a neighboring chair and crossed his arms.

  “I am quite fine,” Emily said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You and Megan worry too much about me. But I refuse to spend my life trapped in my house sewing and reading until my eyes droop and hands fall off. ” She laughed as she reached beneath the blanket, brought out a letter and held it out to him. “The truth is I desire your advice on a family matter.”

  “My advice?” Theo quipped, taking the envelope. “But you never heed anything I tell you.”

  “I believe you have met my relation Miss Helena Gillingham,” she continued, unfazed.

  Theo’s eyes cut to Gordon. The man’s hard face didn’t twitch as he stabbed at the burning wood with a poker. Theo never told Emily of his true dealings with Mr. Gillingham. Only Gordon knew the entire story.

  “Once, at a dance,” Theo replied damply.

  “She wants to live with us,” Megan said, her screwed face displaying her feelings on the matter.

  “What?” Theo carried the missive to the window. The red and blue stained glass tinted the light that spread over the lavish handwriting on the thick-bordered mourning stationary.

  My dear Cousin Emily,

  Thank you so very much for your gracious letter of condolence for my father’s passing. Your kindness has meant so much to me at this sad time. No doubt, you have read the unfortunate news concerning my father’s business. I have been quite devastated by the recent turn of events. I still love and mourn my father as I try to reconcile the terrible reports I have continued to receive from the police.

  Sadly, the crown has confiscated our home and all our belongings. It is my desire to remove to the country, away from the memories here. I recall from our previous correspondences you have a darling young daughter and adorable boy. I would very much enjoy educating them on the refinements of society such as dance or music. I would also endeavor to be an enjoyable and useful companion to you. Please let me know if these arrangements might suit you.

  Your affectionate cousin,

  Miss Helena Gillingham

  “Oh God,” he whispered under his breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

  The oblivious woman hadn’t even realized Emily’s boy had died. And he had told her Emily was poor and sick. If Helena was soliciting help from Emily, she must have been turned away by everyone else.

  “Mama, she needn’t come,” Megan cried, echoing Theo’s thought. “I don’t require finishing.”

  “Quiet, dear,” her mother whispered.

  Theo swallowed, folded the letter back, and stared out at his garden, all wavy and red through the thick stained glass. He knew he had inadvertently brought Helena to this desperate turn and to that end he felt responsible. Still, Megan was right: Helena couldn’t come. Spoiled and accustomed to being waited on, she would only be a drain on Emily’s weak health and, perhaps, even put the woman in her grave.

  “Helena doesn’t belong here,” he said, slowly.

  “I told you,” Megan said.

  “I don’t believe she has anywhere else to go,” Emily continued. “I’ve read what they’ve been writing about her in those vicious English papers. As if she is to be blamed for her father’s crimes.” She ran her fingers over a frayed thread in the blanket. “One ought not turn away family.”

  Theo could hear the compassion in her voice. He felt a masculine protectiveness towards his fragile neighbor. “I don’t think you understand the life Helena is accustomed to living—the degree of wealth her father had accumulated.” Theo knelt before Emily and lowered his voice to an intimate tone. “He ignored the death of your husband and son, as well as your own illness. He was worth a little under a million pounds at the height of his fraud. And you saw none of it. Not a single farthing.”

  Emily smiled, ruefully. “I think I ought to be grateful not to have received stolen money.”

  He took her fingers and gently squeezed them between his palms. “The material point is that he never helped you and now his daughter is pleading for your charity when you have none to give.”

  Emily yanked her hands back, sensitive of her reduced condition. Without her husband to run the small farm, she had to let the lands out, living upon the small rents she collected and whatever money Theo managed to slip her.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. In the corner, he heard Gordon shift on his feet. Several seconds ticked on the clock. He remained kneeling—impotent and embarrassed. He had to say something. “Perhaps, I could—”

  “I saw how he treated her,” Emily said. “I was fourteen when she came to visit. A little older than Megan is now. She was maybe five and always trying to get her parents’ attention—singing, dancing, making up little stories to tell them. I was supposed to be attending her when she fell from the castle walls at Conwy.” Emily’s eyes became unfocused. “I remember the irritation in her parents’ eyes when she came sobbing to them. They didn’t care that she was hurt; they were just vexed she had interrupted them.”

  Theo’s belly tightened; he moved to fetch his
tobacco pouch from the mantle, but stopped, thinking better of it with Emily present. He clamped his hands behind his back.

  “Helena hugged me as I cleaned up her scrapes. So tight and desperate was her little embrace. I realized she hadn’t known much affection.”

  “I can assure you she enjoys a great deal of affection now,” Theo said, gruffer than he intended. “She was quite the rage in London with the gentlemen.”

  “I know,” Emily said quietly, keeping her eyes down. “I thought she could help Megan. I sometimes feel…I feel I can’t be the mother she needs.”

  Megan bolted up, sending poor Branwen rolling onto the floor. “That’s not true!” the girl shouted. “You’re all I need.” She beseeched Theo, “Tell her Helena mustn’t come. Tell her…” Her voice tightened to a squeak, fear quivering beneath the veneer of toughness.

  “There, Megan,” Emily said, “You are no longer a girl and will have to marry sooner than later. And, perhaps, Helena can help you with the finer points. That is all I meant.”

  “Well, if she knew anything of finishing, she would be married and not begging to come live with us,” Megan pointed out.

  Theo chortled quietly at Megan’s apt logic. Emily flashed him a squelching look.

  “I feel I must strongly impress upon you that this is not a good idea,” he said. “People in this village have lost money or know people who have lost money to her father. She will not receive a sympathetic reception in this or the neighboring villages.”

  Emily studied him and then tilted her head. “Or anywhere else it seems.” She kept those penetrating eyes fixed on his face. “How long must she be punished? How long until all this anger burns away? Will no one offer her compassion?”

  His jaw tightened. “You don’t understand. She… she…” He couldn’t finish. Emily’s words weren’t about Helena, but him. She and this village had taken him in—an Englishman with a fractured mind and empty soul—and accepted him as their own. They respected him, invited him into their homes, and tolerated his odd compulsive need to garden. Here, he wasn’t the cracked one, the bedlamite he was in London.

  Emily opened the letter again and ran her fingers over the words. “Her father committed the crime, not her.” Resolve hardened her words. Theo knew that once again Emily wasn’t going to listen to his advice but behave as rashly as ever.

  Emily and Megan stayed for dinner, speaking of local gossip and Theo’s gardens. Although no one mentioned Helena, she remained present like an unseen guest at their table.

  Later Theo drove them home as rain started to fall. Again he expressed his disapproval of having the spoiled girl come to live with Emily. Again he was rebuffed.

  ∞∞∞

  A little before one in the morning, Theo awoke shouting, “You don’t belong here!” and reached for his rifle. But all he felt was a soft mattress. His heart thundered in the darkness.

  He had dreamed he was coming to Castell Bach yr Anwylyd for the first time. Except all the green, lush forests and gardens were gone. Scoured, darkened dry earth surrounded the house. He had opened the double entrance doors to find the floors strewn with the bloated, rotting corpses of the Russian soldiers abandoned in Sevastopol. Feces, urine, and blood caked the Welsh carvings. Men with shattered bodies crawled out with twisted limbs from under the dusty furniture. A hand grabbed for his ankle. He glanced down. “Water,” a soldier with a cracked, bloody mouth rasped. “Water.” Then the man’s face transformed into Helena’s beautiful one.

  Theo knew there would be no more sleep tonight. He rose and poured a brandy. He stared out his window. Outside, the downpour drowned out the moon and stars. He drained his glass of brandy and leaned his head against the cold glass, listening to the soft roar of rain and feeling the alcohol numb his mind.

  What had he done? Emily still thought of Helena as a sad five-year-old. She had no idea the human gale she would bring upon them. Here, hidden in the hills, Theo had found something true. This was his church, his sanctuary. Helena, with her reckless laughter and bold, witless conversation, represented everything he had fled: undeserved wealth, pretense, arrogance and a willful ignorance of the suffering of others. She would destroy everything sacred about this place.

  “You don’t belong here,” he said again, this time as a whisper.

  Four

  Somehow the papers learned of Helena’s eminent departure, and on her last day in London, angry people again lined the iron gates outside her home. Their jeers and shouts echoed in the empty rooms.

  For the first weeks after her father’s death, people had gathered en masse by the gate. “Hang her! Hang her!” they had chanted. Their anger permeated the air; she breathed their hate in and out of her lungs. Every day brought another story of her father’s treacherous dealings, fueling the public outrage higher. She felt she was being lynched by words thrown from papers and journals. She tried not to read the articles but couldn’t stop. Aside from articles lambasting her person, there were caricatures portraying her as a grotesque young lady sporting a diamond crown like a princess and walking on the backs of the poor lying at her feet.

  Hour after hour, she had paced, unable to sleep or eat, turning over what she had read. She deserved to see her sins and to know how truly atrocious she was.

  She dissected her memories, unraveling their threads, seeing every little sign or portent she had missed. Or had she? In some dark place in her heart, had she known all along about her father’s crimes and lied to herself about them? Was she as guilty as her father?

  She tried to hate her father with the vitriol of the masses outside. But she couldn’t. Her love for him was stuck inside her like a kite gnarled in a tree, slapping in the wind, trying to fly away. How could she mourn a monster? What was she supposed to do with her memories? Her love? Her sorrow? Her entire life had been built on lies. She didn’t know what was real or unreal anymore. She only knew that she hurt.

  The only regularity in her life had been Officer Wilson. He arrived every day at half past seven in the morning with his notebook. He was emotionless and relentless in doing his duty. He asked question after question, the same ones she asked herself. How long had she known of her father’s crimes? Had she helped him? Was she aware of the numerous non-existent companies he fabricated? She didn’t know. Or did she? No. Yes. Her answers changed every day.

  He controlled everything coming in and out of her home. All the furnishings were removed, save for her bed and a writing desk that Wilson allowed her to keep. She had to prove her mother’s necklace and bracelet were left to Helena in her will, else he would snatch them up. Wilson recommended she pawn the jewelry to pay the rent and bills until she found a new living arrangement. Even though all her belongings were taken from her, her name shredded in the newspapers, she couldn't see her mother's jewels in a dirty pawn shop.

  She assured Wilson it would only be a matter of days before one of her friends would take her in. But months passed and the beloved jewelry was pawned for rent, coal, a maid servant and her father's creditors. She had never seen an actual bill before, never knew the true cost of things, until Wilson laid the cold numbers before her in lines she couldn't reconcile. He gave a patronizing laugh as she tried to move the figures around to no avail. She loathed herself. In all her years on this earth, all she had managed to become was a useless, ignorant, blind ornament of a human being.

  She wrote letters to friends, begging for a home in the most polite, but urgent tones. Daily she sent a letter to Jonathan and Emmaguard asking why they hadn’t responded to her. Every morning and afternoon, Officer Wilson brought in the post and watched as she opened each letter.

  “Any word from your society friends?” Wilson would ask, a smirk on his mouth and in his voice. He wanted to hear her say “No,” as if he derived pleasure from her tiny humiliations. He knew she hadn’t received any correspondences aside those from strangers, infused with vituperation and hate. The only kind letter Helena received came from her cousin Mrs. Pengwern in Wales, the one H
elena’s father had callously ignored when she sought help for her dying husband. The cousin wrote of her condolences and sympathy for the passing of Helena’s father. The words, while obligatory and polite, caused Helena’s eyes to burn with tears. The smallest kindnesses could undo her now.

  She couldn’t ask for her cousin’s help, not the woman who had her own request for assistance for her dying husband rejected. Helena had folded the letter, shoved it deep into her desk, and cried. Her past felt like a large wave rolling on the ocean for years, foaming, sucking more water into its vortex before it finally crashed on her. She ought to stop fighting and drown.

  After five months of writing, she had exhausted everyone she knew in society. She was down to her last pounds. Wilson warned her to go to a boarding house before she ended up in a workhouse. But the idea terrified her. She couldn’t even leave her home for fear of being insulted or even injured on the street. She couldn’t imagine living unprotected in a squalid boarding house, sharing her meals with people who loathed her. And how would she find work? She had no skills. No means to make money except to sell herself.

  In desperation, she dug out the letter from her cousin and shamelessly begged for help.

  “Wales?” Office Wilson said when he looked at the address of her reply. “Who do you know in Wales?”

  “My cousin.”

  He eyed her before speaking in a gruff bark. “The likes of you won’t last a week in Wales. The Welsh are different than the English. They’re filthy people with crass minds. It’s a harsh life in the mountains. Now I told you to get to a boarding house. You ought to listen when people are trying to help you.”

  Helena had turned and strode from the hall, biting back a sardonic response that her life was so very easy now and she doubted the Welsh could be as crass as any London paper. But she knew Wilson was right. She couldn't see herself in the rough, rustic Welsh land. In truth, she couldn't see herself anywhere. Her future was a hazy, murky nebulousness in her mind. She couldn't help but think her father had made the correct choice in taking his life. A moment of bright pain and then silence. Nothingness. Relief.