Frail

by Susanna Ives

  He slicked his hands down his face and blew out a deep breath. He turned on his heel and walked with a deliberate stride back to the parlor. There, he slid off his coat, undid his necktie, letting the ends hang loose around his neck, and unbuttoned his collar. He removed a decanter and glass from the mantle. His fingers were shaking as he poured the brandy, sloshing the liquid over the side of the glass. He took a long mouthful and clenched his teeth as the spirits burned his tongue.

  He slumped down in a chair and rubbed his eyelids. He was beginning to understand her. She was lost—like he once had been—not knowing herself or having a place to moor. In London, Helena was a performer in the circus, dressed in her beautiful gowns, turning pirouettes while she tried to keep seven, eight, nine, ten flaming, spinning batons in the air. That is, until he knocked her feet out from under her.

  An hour later, rain and wind were pelting the windows. With his mind numbed from alcohol, he fumbled his way along the dark stairwell and corridor to his bedchamber, which adjoined the back tower. The walls, mantle, massive canopied bed, and dresser were all original to the whimsical house, stained almost black and carved with savage scenes of hunters, stags, and boars taken from the medieval Welsh work the Mabinogion. He spent little time here, for all his previous chambers were neat, undecorated rooms or cots in tents. He felt uncomfortable in this Gothic fantasia. Efa had started a fire, but it did little to assuage the dimness of the room. He flipped open a box beside the lamp on the bedside table and drew out a match. The naked flame illuminated white bedcovers. He paused for a moment, seeing a vision of Helena with her dark hair loose and spread across his pillow, her pale body waiting for him under the piles of quilts.

  “Damn me,” he whispered.

  ∞∞∞

  Helena couldn’t see the clock, but knew several hours had ticked away since Megan had untied the strings of Helena’s corset, hugged her, and gone off to bed, yawning a “Good night.” Her bedchamber was dark and frigid as the rainy night outside.

  She thought back to the afternoon when the sunlight glowed on Emily’s and Megan’s faces under the spreading tree by the tulip garden. Helena was jealous of their love. She wanted it for herself. She wanted to belong to them. But Mr. Mallory was painfully right. She couldn’t stay here if every time she set foot in the village she started a battle. So her choices were to remove to Mr. Mallory’s parents’ estate, to people she hardly knew, or hope that Jonathan would take her as a mistress.

  As the rain pinged on the window, she forced herself to remember each detail of the tulip labyrinth—the rows of color, the scrape of her shoes on the pavers, and the worn down carving on the center stone. Whenever her fear flared, she fastened to the memory of that winding path amid the tulips.

  She didn’t know when she dozed off, but in her dreams, she approached a war-torn trench such as Mr. Mallory had described. Huddled in the sludge were her father and little Eustace, reaching for her, their faces bloody, pulpy holes. She awoke with a cry in the early hours, her body drenched under her shift, her pounding heart audible in the room. She gazed about, unsure of where she was. Then the memories of the last days started collating.

  She turned onto her side and gazed at the window. The rain had stopped, but air keened from the cracks in the casement, rattling the panes. As her nightmare receded, the thoughts of the previous evening returned. The laughing dance, and then Mr. Mallory’s cold snub. Jonathan had made it clear that no respectable man would have her, but must Mr. Mallory cut her to her face to make his point?

  A warm wetness dripped between her legs. Oh no! Didn’t she have enough to contend with already?

  She flipped off the blankets and patted about the floor with her toes until she found her slippers. She lit the lamp and examined her shift. Dark red menstrual blood stained the muslin. Since her father’s death, her menses had become irregular. She hadn’t bled in two months. With a groan, she opened her trunk and dug about for some napkins, bandages, and pins. She folded and refolded a napkin, secured it to the bandage and buttoned it around her waist. Then she put two petticoats over her shift and donned her robe.

  Now she was too awake and restless to go back to sleep, so she tiptoed downstairs, using her hands to guide her. The house was silent except for the low, steady tick-tock of the clock pendulum in the parlor. Light glowed under the door leading to the left wing.

  She followed the light to the kitchen where the heat from the iron stove warmed the stone floor and infused the air with the rich smell of bread and sugar. Betry's head jerked up from the table where she had fallen asleep. Her face was ashen except for red pimples splattered across her forehead. Before her were a wooden bowl, dripping cracked egg shells, and three open blue clay jars.

  “I'm sorry, miss.” She struggled to her feet. “Should I light your fi… the scones!” She snatched a cloth from the table and used it to open one of the doors on the oven. Lovely, buttery heat flowed forth. She pulled out a flat tin of scones that were beginning to burn on the bottom.

  “Now look what I’ve done,” the servant wailed.

  Surprised at Betry’s use of English, Helena said, “They are fine.” She touched the servant’s arm to try to soothe her, accidentally brushing against the bulge of Betry’s unborn child. Helena was shocked by the jealousy that seized her, as if she wanted to steal the servant’s infant and put it in her own belly. She wanted to feel an infant moving inside of her. She wanted someone who was completely hers.

  “Do you know when you will have the child?” Helena asked.

  “Mrs. Pengwern thinks the time is soon. Maybe a few weeks.” Betry set the tin atop a trivet on the table. With her bare fingers, she quickly picked up a hot scone and dropped it on a plate. “She thinks it’s a girl because I’m not carrying it low like a boy.” She set the plate before Helena. “What I am going to do with a girl?”

  Helena studied the steaming scone and pushed the plate toward Betry. “I’m not really hungry these days. Why don’t you eat?”

  “I shouldn’t.” Betry sat again on the bench. “I’ll—I’ll become ill.” Still, she eyed the confection until finally she took a tentative nibble.

  “Is every lady ill when she increases?”

  Betry finished chewing and swallowed. “My grandmother used to say each birth is different. Some ladies feel well for their entire confinement, but their babies are born sickly. Other ladies are sick the whole time and their babies are fat and happy.”

  “I wonder if I shall ever have a child,” Helena said aloud. She shouldn’t be talking about these matters with a servant, but for months she had kept her words to herself. Now they were bursting forth, wanting to be heard. And Betry was a calm and sympathetic young woman, who didn’t appear to judge.

  “My grandmother could have told you. She knew things. Ladies would come to her and she would put tea leaves in their cups. They would talk and talk, and she would just listen, quietly. Then she would look at the leaves and tell them what they needed to hear.”

  “I wish someone would tell me what I needed to hear.” Or maybe they had and she didn’t desire to listen.

  ∞∞∞

  Theo made Gordon hold Branwen as he walked out of his estate. He could hear Branwen yelping as he closed the gate behind him and headed down the mountain. Dew dampened his boots and the hem of his long coat. As he passed Emily’s, smoke streamed from the chimneystacks. He glanced in the window. The curtains in the dining room were closed but for a small gap through which he could see Helena sitting at the breakfast table. Unaware of him, she smiled and spoke to someone hidden behind the curtains. He hunched his shoulders, sinking deeper into his collar, and continued to Reverend Jeffries’ home.

  The reverend lived a quarter of a mile outside the main square of the village in a whitewashed home. Theo let himself in the gate into the small front garden. The man’s goat, which was chewing on a holly plant growing on the side of the home, stared at Theo. Theo knocked on the door, and the reverend’s harried housekeeper let him in
side.

  The house was stuffed with so much furniture, visitors had to step around the numerous hutches and tables and chairs packed into each room. Books, overflowing the shelves, were stacked on every available surface. The walls were barely visible for the numerous paintings, illustrations, maps, barometers, plates, friezes, and other curiosities hanging about.

  “Bring Mr. Mallory in here,” the reverend’s voice boomed through the house.

  Theo was taken from the parlor to the cramped dining room where the reverend was seated. The morning sun illuminated the curtains behind him and silhouetted his bulk. Beside his plate was the newspaper, folded to the front page. On the table were platters filled with steaming fried eggs, mushrooms, pickled herring, sausages, and toasted bread. There were various jams, a bowl of butter, and a huge jar of honey set around the plates.

  The reverend rose and edged around the table, his linen still tucked in his collar. “Mr. Mallory, Mr. Mallory.” He gave a curt bow and extended his hand, giving Theo’s a hearty shake. “Join me for breakfast.” He nodded to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Molder, can you fetch my friend a plate?”

  She retrieved a plate from one of the sideboards and withdrew some silverware from a drawer as the reverend drew up a chair for his guest.

  “Now, now, I love company in the morning,” Reverend Jeffries said. “My mind is always buzzing in the morning, and I bore Mrs. Molder with my talk.”

  The reverend lifted a sausage between a fork and spoon and placed it on Theo’s plate. “Here. Mr. Riley made these. Simply delicious!” Theo noticed the reverend followed Mrs. Molder from under his thick, silvery brows as she left the room. When he spoke again, he hushed his voice. “I have a suspicion this call is about Helena Gillingham,” he said, sitting down. “I’ve been thinking about Miss Gillingham since I saw you last. You seemed rather well-acquainted with her yesterday.”

  Reverend Jeffries studied Theo. Theo knew that below the man’s bumbling and overly enthusiastic demeanor waited a wily mind. Theo reached for the pot and poured black tea into his cup. “Not at all, she was upset and I was there.”

  “I thought you might have known her in London.”

  “We met once at a ball,” Theo said, his throat turning dry. He cleared his voice. “We danced.”

  Reverend Jeffries sliced into a sausage. “It’s a very small world, indeed.”

  “Are you going to visit Mrs. Pengwern today?”

  The man swallowed his sausage with a gulp of tea. “I was planning on calling this morning.”

  Theo fingered the handle of his cup. “I desire to keep what happened between the villagers and Helena from Emily.”

  The reverend’s face shadowed. “You are too protective of Mrs. Pengwern.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be? I saw what she suffered.”

  “She welcomed Miss Gillingham into her home. Surely she had an inkling of the lady’s notoriety.”

  “She knew it, but I don’t think she understood the degree of animosity.”

  The reverend stared at Theo, but his eyes seemed to gaze at something unseen. “I don’t think protecting Mrs. Pengwern will help Miss Gillingham. These emotions in the community are natural given the extent of her father’s crimes. But these feelings must be brought forward to be alleviated, like a sore that must be lanced to heal. Else Miss Gillingham will find no rest here.”

  “I don’t think the villagers will give her peace. Mrs. Pengwern is already weak; she doesn’t need the aggravation Miss Gillingham brings.”

  “Aye, but Mrs. Pengwern’s soul and heart are strong and feisty.”

  “I want to remove Miss Gillingham to my parents’ estate. It’s large enough she can be safe there, never having to venture out unless she wants to. She would have everything she desires within reasonable means and the pleasing companionship of my stepmother.”

  “Is this what Miss Gillingham wants? It seems to be a rather extraordinary gesture to a lady you admit to hardly knowing.”

  “I’m thinking only of Mrs. Pengwern. I’m convincing her of its merits. I think you would agree it would be a better arrangement for everyone.”

  Reverend Jeffries whirled a wooden spoon in the honey jar and then drizzled a long string of honey onto his bun. “I have a suspicion, Mr. Mallory, you are not disclosing all the details.” He lifted a brow. “I certainly hope you are not protecting me.”

  “Not at all, I merely wanted you to understand the situation before you visited Mrs. Pengwern.”

  “No doubt you want me to champion your plan to move Miss Gillingham.”

  Theo opened his mouth to protest, but the reverend continued talking. “You never ate any of the sausage. Try it. Try it.”

  Theo cut the edge and tasted it. Salt, sage, fennel, pork, and fat filled his mouth.

  “Now, isn’t that delightful sausage?”

  “Quite good,” Theo agreed.

  “Mr. Riley tells me it’s the grass and feed he gives his swine. He runs such a lovely farm. I often stroll through his grounds in the afternoon. It’s fascinating how an animal becomes what it feasts upon and the lands that nurtures it. I wonder if it is the same for people? Can our reasoning processes, our being, be influenced by our environs? I reflect upon these matters.” Reverend Jeffries chuckled and sliced another piece of pork. “I don’t know what to do regarding Miss Gillingham. The poor child. I’ve prayed about her, and I’m awaiting His guidance. Have you ever been lost in Wanderings?”

  “Wanderings?”

  “It’s the land east of Eden. Cain was exiled there for murdering his brother Abel. Cain bore a mark from God, so no man could do harm unto him. But no crops would grow for Cain—he would forever be a homeless wanderer. Why do you think God marked him thus?”

  Theo shifted in his seat. He didn’t remember the story well enough to answer.

  “I believe the Lord still loved Cain even after his terrible sin. Of course, Miss Gillingham didn’t kill anyone, but she bears the mark of her father and thus will find a home nowhere.” The man turned silent as some thought ticked in his mind that he didn’t voice. He shook his head, returning to the present. He lifted his fork and pointed to another platter. “Have a poached egg. Mrs. Molder’s sauce is exceptional. Later we shall wait on Mrs. Pengwern together. I always enjoy your stimulating company.”

  ∞∞∞

  Helena and Megan carried the discarded vegetable stalks and stale bread in a bucket to feed to the geese.

  Outside, the tree limbs swayed and the grass slanted with the wind blowing off the mountains. Theo’s tower was silhouetted against the pale, almost white, sky. Helena’s belly knotted at the prospect of their future meeting.

  “You let out the geese,” Megan said, flinging scraps onto the grass.

  Helen lifted the wooden latch to the pen, and the door opened with a low creak. The four adult birds and six fuzzy gray goslings gazed up with pebble-like black eyes from the cramped, smelly pen padded with hay. They flapped their wings and waddled out.

  “That’s the mama and the one with the thick neck is the papa,” Megan said, pointing to the birds. “The other big ones are sisters from last year. The goslings hatched a month ago.”

  Helena watched the goslings pecking about their parents’ feet and reflected back on her conversation with Betry, which had been circling in Helena’s brain all morning. Where did Betry come from? What was her story until this point?

  When Helena was a child, her increasing nurse had been removed from the household. She remembered asking the housekeeper, “Where has nurse gone?”

  “Somewhere the wicked likes of her belongs,” was the unhelpful answer. She wondered what happened to her old nurse. Did her father give her any money to help? Was she cast into the street? So many things had happened in her life that she had accepted without questioning.

  “What shall become of Betry when she has her child?” she asked.

  “I suppose she will remain here, and we shall take care of it,” Megan said. “Mama adores infants.”

/>   “Your mother is very kind and loves you so much. You are blessed, Megan.”

  The girl tossed a piece of rye to a baby goose that wasn’t as fast as its siblings. “I don’t think so. If I were blessed, my brother and father would still be here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Helena said, wondering if she should hug Megan, but unsure how the girl would respond. Instead, they silently watched the geese searching about the lawn for food.

  “What about your mother?” Megan finally asked. “Did she die when you were very young?”

  “She died when I was eleven.” Helena shrugged. “I didn’t know her very well. I was raised by a parade of nurses and nannies.”

  Megan pulled strands of loose hair away from her face and tucked them back in her bonnet. “Were you happy in London when you were wealthy?”

  “I thought I was. But…” Helena gazed off. The wind stung her eyes. “It could have been much different.”

  Megan nodded. And then surprised Helena by putting her arms around her. Megan was stiff and uncertain. Even so, the warmth relaxed Helena’s taxed nerves, and she squeezed Megan to her.

  “Good day there, my fair ladies,” a deep voice boomed.

  Helena glanced over her shoulder to see Mr. Mallory and the reverend coming around the hedges. She sucked in a breath, her chest rising at the sight of Mr. Mallory.

  Megan scampered to the reverend, letting him enwrap her in his arms. After she had escaped his embrace, she demanded of Mr. Mallory, “Where’s Branwen?”

  “I had to leave her at home.”

  Megan crossed her arms and let little pleats form between her eyebrows, showing her displeasure with Mr. Mallory.

  “But you can go see her later this afternoon,” Mr. Mallory placated her.

  “Good morning, Miss Gillingham,” the reverend called. “You are looking especially beautiful this morning.”