by Susanna Ives
Emily told Helena to forgive. But where did she start? At her own birth which she knew nothing about, to the mother who hardly noticed her, the father who deceived her, a society that cast her out, or the man who lied because he loved her so much? Her rage was too much to carry anymore. She was breaking her back lugging it around, and, most heartrending of all, her fury wanted to push away those who tried to love her and crack apart this small family.
Jonathan said he would hide her away. But could he hide her from herself?
Helena gazed at Little Emily again. The infant yawned and drew her little balled hands about her chin, sinking back into sleep.
∞∞∞
As the fingers of dawn broke the night, Little Emily awoke and began crying.
“Poor dear,” Mrs. Gordon said, rousing from her sleep. “Take her to Betry to suckle.”
Helena carefully lifted the child, who was seemed terribly angry that Helena wasn’t her mother. Betry had heard the sounds of her wailing infant and sat up in bed. Helena carefully snuggled Little Emily into Betry’s arms. The child calmed in her mother’s embrace and sought a breast to nurse. Helena lingered, watching the beautiful picture of the mother cradling her newborn, caressing her cheek and tiny ear. Then she quietly left the room and tiptoed through the house so as not to disturb anyone.
In her bedchamber, she slowly washed her limbs with yesterday’s water—sloughing away layers and layers of sweat and grime. She donned a fresh gown. All her gowns were black except for her white wedding dress. But soon, with Emily’s help, she would sew a new morning gown of light lilac or purple. In the mirror, her complexion was the waxy pale of exhaustion, her eyes red-rimmed and shiny. Her bun had drifted almost to the nape of her neck. She released the pins and brushed out the locks, leaving them flowing. She placed her bonnet on her head, paused a beat, and then removed it. She wanted to feel the cool breeze on her tired skin, streaming through her hair.
She met Emily and Megan, both in their morning robes, at the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m going to him,” Helena said, and hurried on before they could say anything more. She slipped through the front door. The sky was striped with the jewel tones of sunrise: amber orange and sapphire blue.
She latched the gate behind her and headed up the hill.
∞∞∞
Helena pulled the bell at Castell Bach yr Anwylyd. She could hear Branwen’s muffled and desperate yelps coming from the outbuildings where she was kept.
Gordon flung open the carved doors. His usual cold, standoffish manner had vanished. He exuded anxious energy. Tiny red veins netted his functional eye and sandy stubble roughed his jaw.
“Oh, bless you, good woman,” he said. “Theo’s weakening. His father has been carrying on through the night about physicians and asylums.”
“Those can’t help him! All he needs is here.”
“I know.” Gordon clamped a muscled hand on her wrist. “Don’t desert him, ma’am. Don’t. He needs you. I know what he’s seen in the war. It breaks a man’s mind.”
“Take me to him, please.”
She jogged to keep up with Gordon’s long, hurried strides as they ascended the stairs and headed down the corridor to Theo’s library.
Gordon stepped aside, letting her enter the chamber before him. The shutters were drawn. The only light came from the flames burning off the coals in the grate. She could see Theo in the chair by the fire, cast in shadows and gold light. He was motionless, his head propped on his knuckles, a rifle across his lap.
Helena stifled her gasp. She felt the terror as she did six months ago, finding her father dead on his study floor, a pistol clenched in his stiff fingers.
“Theo,” she whispered.
He turned sharply at the sound of her voice and looked straight at her, but his vacant, empty eyes showed no recognition.
She started for him, but a woman—Theo’s stepmother—intercepted her, drawing her into an embrace. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice choked. “I’m sorry.” The earl laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder. He wore the same broken expression as when Helena had seen him at the London ball months before.
Their sadness and condolences only irritated her. She had to get Theo out of this dim place and into the light of his garden. She pulled free from Lady Staswick’s arms and approached Theo.
She knelt down and gently tugged at the rifle. He relinquished it without a fight. She slid the rifle from his lap and pushed it safely away. All the while, he continued to watch her, in that eerie disconnected manner.
She expected her rage or hurt to return, but his broken face chased those emotions way. As gingerly as she had touched Little Emily, she took his hand and stroked it with her cheek to let him know she was here with love and not anger.
“Walk with me in the tulip garden,” she whispered, not wanting to share her words with his parents.
His throat was so tight she could hear his swallow. He couldn’t make a reply but nodded.
∞∞∞
In the front hall, out of the earshot of the others, he spoke in a flat, mechanical manner. “Thank you for calling. It appears I shall be leaving tomorrow. Gordon and Efa can take care—”
“Hush.” She brushed her lips against his. “No one is leaving.”
She watched his features slowly focus. His lips and cheeks hardened; a light appeared beneath the surface of his eyes.
“Helena?” His voice was barely audible. He leaned his forehead against hers and lost his fingers in her hair. “Oh, Helena,” he cried.
She kissed him again. Their lips caressed but with none of the fever of their previous kisses. This was fragile and scared.
Helena broke away. She couldn’t say what she wanted to here. She laced her fingers through his. Quietly they exited the carved doors, walking past the asters they had planted, and then along the ancient stone wing.
The orange of sunrise was giving way to a lovely cerulean. Sheer clouds brushed mountains. The chattering finches flitted between the tree branches and the window ledges. Helena could feel Theo’s nervousness. His eyes searched her face anxiously, seeking her verdict. She squeezed his hand. There would be no more hurt today.
At the labyrinth, the tulips that had blossomed at her arrival now drooped, the blooms spent and brown. Around them fresh tulips broke to the surface, their petals squeezed in tight buds.
Her attention drifted to the path in the woods they had taken the night of the dinner party. She had seized at the love he offered, so sure it could save her, and so ignorant of what it entailed. He followed the line of her gaze. She knew he, too, thought of those first, trembling moments and the secret deceit flowing beneath them.
“No, Theo, don’t,” she whispered. Although he had said nothing, she could feel his shame.
“I understand why.” Her voice threatened to crack, but she struggled on. “You lied because you love me, but my father lied because he didn’t. Yet I love you both.” She dug her fingernails into her chest. “So much useless anger and hurt rage inside of me. I can’t make it go away. Every day it churns in my heart. It makes me say such cruel things that I don’t mean. That I wished you had died in Crimea. No. God, no.” Tears broke her up. “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
“Hush,” he said. “I know, my love.” He tried to draw her close, but she stepped back, determined to finish.
“I want to forgive you, my father… and myself. I don’t know how… but… but I’ve got to learn so we can have a life together. A good, peaceful life. I want to marry you so much and spend my life with you. Here. With Emily, Megan, and everyone. I can’t let my rage, my sorrow, destroy this hope. Our love. It has taken so much already. Say you will be patient with me. Give me a chance.”
“Oh, Helena.” He softly kissed her eyelids. “I’m mad. I’m truly mad. You ask for patience and love from me. Anything you want, I will give you. Please give me the same patience. I don’t know if I’ll get better; all I know is to dig and plant. But I’ll give you gardens. I
’ll give you trees and flowers.”
Spring 1862
Helena clasped Theo’s hand under her woolen cloak ass their carriage, loaded down with the “mule-headed invalids” as Theo referred to Helena, now very pregnant, Emily, and his father, as they drove the painfully long distance from the fountain, under the ancient arch, to the spring garden.
“Well, we are here. I hope you are happy with yourself,” Theo groused to annoy Emily. She had been on a campaign to see the garden since Megan had mentioned it was blooming. The Sunday picnic had been her idea.
“Quite.” She smiled, refusing to be cowed. “Pray, Theo, don’t glower at me so. Helena’s infant won’t come if you have her lying in bed all day. Even Efa told you as much. Let us enjoy the day without fretting.”
“All will be well,” Helena whispered to her husband and caressed his gloved hand. “It will.”
Outside the carriage window, sharp green shoots with tight yellow, blue, and pink buds riffled in the wind. The fruits of their winter’s labor were bursting forth.
Sara and Betry, under Efa’s direction, were setting plates upon a long cloth anchored with stones in the corners. The linens, secured under forks and knives, flapped in the breeze. Reverend Jeffries removed meats and biscuits from a basket, helping himself to a sample and then placing them in a line down the center of the picnic cloth.
Amid the labyrinth paths, Megan held Little Emily’s leading strings, keeping the toddling child from shoving clumps of soil or flowers into her wet, curious mouth. Lady Staswick walked beside Megan, engaging her in conversation. Mr. Gordon rested under a tree with Branwen in his lap, restraining her from toppling Little Emily or stealing food.
Helena smiled to herself, happy that spring had finally arrived and her family had survived the trying winter.
Her poor husband. Throughout the fall, he had been repeatedly summoned to London to testify before the Bank of England and the courts. Theo refused to let Helena, who suffered the sickness of early pregnancy, join him. She feared for him without her there so that he might use her body and lips to sooth away his fears and bring him back to the gentleness of their bed when he was lost in nightmares of Crimea.
Mr. Gordon accompanied Theo to London.
Helena had given him her blessings to testify and every day wrote of her love and the mundane details happening at Castell Bach yr Anwylyd. She had grown numb to her father’s crimes, but she knew these London interviews ripped her husband apart. And being in town, he couldn’t escape the sensational storm their union had ignited. England’s villainess married to their hero. The feared madman now working to recover the lost funds of hundreds of people. The wild lady redeemed by love. The conjecture was more lurid and bombastic than the truth.
The furor grew so loud that Theo’s father and his wife repaired to Wales to protect their new daughter whose love seemed to heal their errant son. Lady Staswick, who had never formed close bonds with the ladies in London, warmed to the easiness between Helena, Emily, and Megan and quickly became one of their intimates.
Theo would return to Wales exhausted and brittle. Helena would take him to their chamber and caress him and whisper her love until the buzz in his mind silenced and the anger drained from his heart.
Forgiveness came easier then she had expected. The mind desires to hold tenacious grudges, demands understanding, lays out its logical arguments for justice, but the body truly absolves. Day to day, the trickle of ordinary kisses, small touches with kind words, and nights of laying bare to each other wore smooth the jagged hurt. Her forgiveness was born of commonplace, domestic things.
Theo helped the “mule-headed invalids” from their carriage. Winter hadn’t fully receded, leaving a small chill in the air. But the vivid sun was glorious, shining off the new leaves, grass, and ancient Roman stone rising from the middle of the garden.
Her husband led his waddling wife to the stone bench sheltered by the oak. He kissed her cheek and gingerly touched her protruding belly. “The infant is well,” she assured him, covering his hand with hers. She had learned to read his thoughts by the subtle changes of his face. The constriction of the lines around his eyes, the tiniest tightening of his jaw, and she knew to reach for him. They held each other’s gaze for several long seconds.
“I shall return shortly,” he whispered.
“You must. I fear I can’t lift myself up anymore.”
“I shall merely roll you over to the picnic,” he teased and then crossed to Efa.
Helena shifted about, unable to get comfortable. The infant seemed to be resting on her lungs today.
Megan left Little Emily with her mother and Lady Staswick and crossed to Helena. She had grown two inches in the last year. A lady-like grace replaced her fast, girlish motions.
“Lady Staswick is quite enamored of you,” Helena said as Megan joined her on the bench and smoothed her skirts
“She desires me to be her companion in London and study under a music master.”
Helena considered Megan. “But you don’t want to go.”
She gazed toward her mother, now taking a smashed yellow tulip from Little Emily’s hand. “No.”
“Perhaps for a few months,” Helena suggested. “I shall take excellent care of Cousin Emily. You know I will. It might do you well to venture into the great world.”
Megan stared off at the mountains. “I shouldn’t like London at all.”
Helena saw no reason to push the matter, so remained quiet. Megan would find her own path.
Her cousin reached into her sleeve, drawing out a folded newspaper cutting. “I know you don’t read the papers, and Mama believes a lady should never mention her old suitors, but I thought you might care to read this article.”
She handed the torn paper to Helena and then walked away, leaving her cousin to read in solitude.
She unfolded the page and found an engagement announcement between a baron’s daughter and a Mr. Jonathan Ainley.
She ran her finger along the ink. His name summoned forth her years in London, those ugly months after her father’s death, and the pain on his face when she had turned him away. Now all she had left were snatches of memories as torn and incomplete as the paper she held. The sting was gone. What remained was sadness for a confused girl who only wanted her father to love her. The wind soughed through the trees and batted her bonnet ribbons. She whispered a small prayer for Jonathan’s happiness and released the slip, watching it whirl in the wind and then float away.
“What was that?” Theo asked, returning with a cup of tea.
She didn’t answer his question. “Ah, mint. Thank you, my love.”
“It’s mint and something Efa concocted for you.” He winked. “She claims it helps with lady ailments.”
Helena sipped, letting the steam warm her lips and chin. “The garden is even more beautiful than last year.”
“I had great inspiration,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “After all, I promised my lovely wife flowers.”
“But you have given me so much more.”
She gazed up at the vaulting Welsh mountains that sheltered the people she called her family in this paradise. Her home.
Y Diwedd
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt thanks go to Katrina Murphy, Lori Avirett-Mackenzie, Virginia Hall, Heather Kenimer, Louisa Cornell, and Tina Whittle. These amazing women brought their great expertise to the project. My former agent, Paige Wheeler, deserves a special thanks for her enthusiastic support of Frail through its various incarnations. Much of the story’s depth and characters’ evolutions owe to Paige’s insights.
Dear Reader
Dear reader,
I hope you enjoyed Frail. I would love to hear your thoughts on the book. Please send me an email at [email protected].
You can learn more about my books or sign up for my newsletter at www.susannaives.com.
Sincerely,
Susanna Ives
anna Ives, Frail
