She grinned. Her dimpled cheeks, still rosy from the cold outside, swelled like little apples. She didn’t seem to know it, but her ordeals hadn’t cost her a drop of her great beauty. If anything, it had deepened. “You really were listening, weren’t you?”
“Of course. I listen to everything you say. And I know you didn’t actually mean me.”
“But I did.” When he opened his mouth to object, she added, “As part of the whole. I think when you’re part of a group that oppresses another, if you take benefit from the actions of that group, then you must also take responsibility for its oppressions.” She reached across the table and grasped his hand. “Of course I know that you’re on my side. It was the first thing I loved about you. But also, you seek to explain men not on my side. Like Christopher. You behave as if I don’t see him. I see him differently to you, but I see him clearly, through my own eyes. It’s not that I can’t understand. It’s that I’m tired of being expected to understand. Always, I’ve been expected to shape myself to what others see. Well, I say no more. What I’ve experienced—you called me ignorant once, do you remember?”
He remembered every moment of that night, but she was twisting his words again, as she had then. “I didn’t mean—”
Her free hand shot up between them. “Do you remember, William?”
“I do.”
“You were right. But you neglected an important point. I was kept ignorant. Expected to be ignorant. It was demanded of me, lest I cause scandal to my family. So when you call me ignorant as if it’s a simple fact, it’s like you’ve tightened the bonds others have placed on me.” She sagged and went quiet for a few seconds, seeming to play the conversation over behind her eyes. “I don’t know if I’m saying things as well as I should.”
Her words had lashed at him, but they’d struck true. She was right. The very reason she’d endured all she had was that he was a man like any other, and he’d thought it his job to protect her. They all had. He’d had the same thoughts, from a different perspective, over and over since he’d landed back in England and heard what Chris had to say.
“You make perfect sense, Nora. And you’re right. I’m sorry.” He lifted her hand and kissed her leather-clad fingers. “You’ve thought deeply about this.”
“Of course I have. It’s my life. And I have to make sense of the things that happened to me. I’m not nearly so ignorant anymore.”
“No. You have far more experience than you should have to make sense of.” Pulling off her glove, easing it up, he kissed her bare palm, and then each finger. “I love you. I’m in awe of your strength. I know that the question I asked in the garden at Tarrindale is too long past, and too much has happened in the interim for your answer to carry. But Nora, I want to marry you. I want to bring you home to California, but I will stay with you wherever you are.”
She watched him love her hand, but she didn’t respond.
“Will you marry me, Nora?” he asked, because he hadn’t phrased the question outright.
Her eyes came up and met his. “I love you, William. With all my heart and soul. You are my dream. My unicorn.” He heard the ‘but’ before she said it, and his heart went slack. “But I’m not ready to say yes. I need to have all of myself back. My name, too. I’ve never wanted to sneak and steal something that should be my right to claim outright, and I’ll not do it now. I don’t care any longer about my father’s blessing, but he will know who I am, all of me, before I claim what I want.” She sighed. “I’m not ready yet for that. Can you be patient, and wait for my answer until I’m ready to say yes?”
He grinned and said what he’d said the last time she’d asked him to be patient.
“That’s the easiest thing anyone’s ever asked of me.”
TWENTY-THREE
At the end of February, on her twentieth birthday, Nora stood at the fireplace as the door of the cottage opened and Aunt Martha stepped in. William followed right after, carrying her aunt’s bags.
“Hello, dove.”
“Auntie.” She’d invited Aunt Martha to the cottage, but now that she was here, Nora didn’t know how to feel. Rationally, her aunt was probably the least culpable in the events that had so overturned Nora’s life, but still, in some ways, she felt more betrayed by Aunt Martha than by anyone. If anyone should have understood, it should have been her. In fact, Nora thought her aunt understood very well—and that was where the great betrayal lay. To understand and still stand back? Her father thought he was helping her; Nora could believe that was true. Her brother thought he was saving her; Nora could believe that as well. Not forgive it, but believe it.
Her aunt knew her pain, or one akin to it, and yet she’d stood back.
But it was that knowing which made Aunt Martha the best conduit for Nora’s reclaiming of her name and return to the world—a return she meant to control entirely. When Lady Nora Tate came back to light, she would be the woman Nora truly was, and no other—and she’d sorted out a way to do it.
She’d been in Bath nearly two months. Her body was almost fully recovered, except for more weight she needed to gain and the yellow horror on her head. Her mind, too, was fully her own again, except for the nightmares. She’d made some decisions about the course of the rest of her life. This visit was the first step on that path.
But she couldn’t seem to move or speak, now that her aunt was here.
William set the bags against the wall near the stairs and took Aunt Martha’s hat and coat.
“Oh, Nora. How I’ve missed you. May I hold you?”
Nora nodded but didn’t come forward.
Aunt Martha crossed the full distance between them and wrapped her in her arms. “Happy birthday, little dove. Thank you for calling me here.”
All Nora managed was another nod. Her plan would collapse before she’d started, if she didn’t find her voice. She tried again. “We have much to talk about, Auntie.”
Aunt Martha stepped back and smiled sadly. “Yes, we do.”
“I’ll put on the tea,” William offered, standing a respectful distance back.
Nora laughed a little and offered him a smile that showed her gratitude and her humor. William had developed some strong feelings about tea. He’d taken to requesting that Nell keep a pot of coffee brewing all day as well. But he understood the importance of tea to Britons.
He also understood the importance of this visit. They’d spoken daily, at great length, as Nora sorted out what she needed and why she needed it. She’d spoken, and he’d listened. He’d answered the questions she’d asked, and asked questions of her, but he’d never tried to tell her what he thought she needed. Sometimes, she’d seen him struggle with that, want to say something and work his jaw as if he were truly biting his tongue to hold back. But he’d held back and let her sort it out in her own way.
She knew now, and he was there to help her, but not to direct her.
So he went off to put the kettle on. They’d both learned to use the stove on Nell’s days off—like today, when they’d given her an extra day off so that the cottage would be fully private for this visit.
“Let’s sit, Auntie.” She gestured to the sofa. When her aunt sat there, Nora took up the armchair nearby.
“You look very well, Nora. I’m so glad to see it. How do you feel?”
“I’m well. Stronger every day. Did you find out about Kate and Maude?”
William’s private detective had warned against continuing the search for the women who’d first saved Nora. Once they’d found her, continuing the search for her friends might have revealed her widely, and might have put Kate and Maude at greater risk as well. But she didn’t know at all what had happened to them after the very first days at Holloway, when they’d all been separated and locked into the individual boxes they called cells.
It finally occurred to her, as her mind cleared and she could think of more than her own struggles, that Aunt Martha could use her Kensington Rose Club connections for information. And thus had her aunt been the first pe
rson in her family to earn a reprieve.
“I have some news. Some good, and some not. Kate is safe and well. She was released from Holloway after ten days, and, after some time in hiding, she’s back with her family in Okehampton. I was able to send word to her that you, too, are well.”
Ten days was less time than Nora served. She wondered what Kate had done differently to be treated more gently, but in the end, it didn’t matter. She sighed a great heave of teary relief. “Oh, that’s wonderful. And she’s content?”
“She is, I think. She’ll not work in service again, but away from London, she’s safe, and her family forgives her.”
“There’s nothing for them to forgive.”
“Others see it differently, dove. You know I agree with you, but not all do. That’s the struggle, after all.”
“Do you agree with me, Auntie? Truly?” Taking this tangent could tear open resentments Nora had decided to close up, and derail her plan, but the words came nevertheless.
“Of course I do, Nora. You know I do.”
There was nothing to be gained in circling that argument. Nora focused and returned to her point. “And Maude?”
Aunt Martha’s mouth set in a grim line. “The news is less happy there. I did find her, though she’s been in hiding for some time. She was released from Holloway with Kate, but arrested again in December, and held for two weeks. She’s lost her job and her flat.”
“And her children? She has two daughters.” Nora thought of serious Amy, four years old and helping her learn to care for children, and portly little baby Pauline.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I don’t have news about them. But … but they’re not with her, dove. It’s likely they’ve been taken from her.”
William came in with the tea tray. He’d brought a plate of biscuits as well, laid out in a circle, and Nora might have been charmed by his efforts, if she hadn’t been reeling from the thought of children being made virtual orphans because their mother wanted them to have a claim to their own destiny.
“Is everything all right?” he asked as he set the tray on the table before them.
“Maude’s in hiding. She’s lost everything. They took Amy and Pauline from her.” Nora leaned forward to pour the tea.
“Damn.” He came and stood beside Nora’s chair. “Is there anything we can do, Martha?”
“No, I think not. I can’t think how we could intervene, and any attempt would expose you both too much.”
“Yes, but I’m done hiding. That’s what else I want to talk with you about, Auntie.” Now that it was time to put the plan in motion, Nora faltered. What she meant to do, it would very likely make her the centre of the biggest scandal in England. It would certainly tell her father, and anyone else who might wish to know, where she was.
In her hesitation, William must have sensed her turmoil. His hand settled on her shoulder and squeezed gently. That was all—a show of support, and an offer of his strength if she needed it.
Rooted in her hesitation was the same fear that had kept her aunt on the sidelines of the fight. Understanding that, she set her fear aside. “I want to speak with the press. Is there a reporter that you know to whom I might tell my story? A woman, perhaps, but one whose work has reach?”
Aunt Martha sat with her teacup hovering between its saucer and her mouth. She took a long, very slow breath and cleared her throat. “Nora, are you certain? Do you understand what such a move would do?”
She thought she understood very well. She’d worked it out with William over days of long talks. “Do you remember the night we rode to the Howsend house?” The night she’d ruined their daughter’s dinner by speaking her mind, and had fallen off a cliff into manufactured madness.
“Vividly.” Her aunt set her tea on the table.
“I told you that night that I believed until women of name and means risked themselves for the cause, no one of name and means would care. Well, I didn’t set out to risk what I risked, but those things happened to me. They happened to me because no one knew who I was, so people in power thought I was no one. They thought I didn’t matter. But as Eve Frazier or Nora Tate, I am the same woman. I feel the same pain, and have the same thoughts. I matter the same, no more, and no less. Now that I’ve experienced what I have, I know more than ever how right I was. I need to stand up and say that this happened to me. To Lady Nora Tate, the daughter of the Earl of Tarrin, descended from Dunstan, who sacrificed himself to save his king and speed the birth of England.”
In saying the words, Nora found strength and righteousness. More than simply an example from the noble class to shock the people awake to the abuses against suffragettes, she was the descendant of heroes. Her father spoke often of their long and storied lineage. In it, he saw his responsibility to preserve the honourable reputation of the title of Tarrin, and from that place, he’d done what he’d done to Nora.
But he was wrong. It wasn’t in the reputation that their family’s honour lay. It was in acts of heroism, in risking everything for what they believed in. Fighting the valiant fight.
“Florence Miller,” her aunt said. “She’s a sister in the cause. She edited The Woman’s Signal during its heyday, and she contributes to the Daily News now. I know her; I can arrange for her to come to Bath.” She reached over and set her hand on Nora’s knee. “If you’re certain, dove. Once you take this step, there’s no turning back.”
“I know. I’m certain.” Certain, but terrified. William’s hand slid from her shoulder to caress her arm. He knew her fears.
“You’re very brave, Nora. I’m a bit in awe of you. I … I’ve brought you something. Not a gift, though I’ve one of those as well.” She stood and went to the bags William had set aside. Rummaging in one, she came up with a small package wrapped in brown paper and twine. She sat again on the sofa and handed the package to Nora.
“You’ve earned these, little dove. As much as any who’ve worn them.”
Nora untied the twine and folded open the paper. Inside lay two items that made her eyes itch with sudden tears. Both were pins. The first was a white silk rose. A Kensington Rose.
The second was a violet, white, and green striped grosgrain ribbon. A silver banner across its top was engraved with the words FOR VALOUR. Another silver piece had been slid onto the ribbon. It read: 21st November 1911, SEVEN WEEKS. A silver disk at its bottom bore the words HUNGER STRIKE on one side.
On the other side was her name: LADY NORA TATE.
That night, after Aunt Martha had gone up to bed without lifting even a single eyebrow at the news that William and Nora shared a bedroom, Nora sat in bed with the rosewood box that had been her aunt’s birthday gift and studied the pins she’d set inside it. It was a bitter honour, to have that ribbon. A true honour, and momentous, but commemorating a horror. The rose, too. Sometimes, Nora wondered whether she truly had deserved it, whether she truly was a warrior in this battle. She’d fallen into her circumstances, or been pushed. Few choices, in the light of retrospection, had been her own.
The next choice, however, and every one thereafter, would be hers alone.
Having closed up the cottage for the night, William came in and shut the door. As he began changing into bedclothes, Nora shifted her attention to him.
They weren’t physically intimate yet, though they slept together every night and Nora was fully aware that he desired her. It was often difficult not to notice his desire. She felt desire of her own, and remembered how wonderful it was to feel his body inside hers. But she wasn’t yet ready, and not because of the treatments she’d had in the hospital or any rough abuse in prison. Her relationship with William, consummating it in every way, seemed like the final piece of her puzzle, the one that wouldn’t have a place until all the other pieces were locked together.
But sleeping in his arms kept the nightmares at bay, so they slept together every night. Truly, here in Bath, they’d begun something not so far from a marriage, and Nora loved everything about it.
He settled bes
ide her and looked into the box in her hands. “May I?” At her nod, he picked up the grosgrain ribbon. “I hope you’ll understand what I mean when I say that I hate that you have this.”
“So do I. But I’m honoured to have it, also.”
“Yes. It’s a war medal. No one wants to be in the situation to earn one.”
“Yes. This is a war, of a sort. Christopher would probably disagree.” He’d fought a real war, after all, and been badly wounded.
“I don’t think he would, darling. But you’d have to ask him.”
Nora cast a sidelong glance and made her displeasure known; William replied with a tilt of his head and a shrug. She’d brought her brother up, not him, and he wasn’t going to apologise for using the opportunity. That was fair, she supposed. But her new puzzle had no piece for forgiving her brother.
He set the hunger strike medal back in the box. “Now that you’ve started your plan, how do you feel?”
“Terrified. Aunt Martha called me brave, but I don’t feel brave at all. I simply feel in my heart that it’s the right thing.”
“That is bravery, Nora—to act despite your fear.”
“I suppose.” She closed the box and set it on the bedside table. William turned off the lamp, and they settled into their nighttime embrace.
He kissed her head, nuzzling through the short curls that would become waves if the damned mop would finally grow out. “How was it being with your aunt again?”
“Good, I think. I missed her. It’s easier not to be so hurt and angry when I can remember how much I enjoy her company.” She felt an odd tension in William’s arms, as if he were holding something back. “Don’t say it, William. You’ve already advocated for your friend once tonight.”
He chuckled. She loved that sound, especially when her head lay on his chest. “You keep opening doors for me to say something.”
“Fine, then we’ll not speak. Let’s go to sleep.”
“Not just yet. You know I do have a gift for you today. More than the music box. But I’m holding onto it until you’re ready to say yes.”
Nothing on Earth & Nothing in Heaven Page 32
