Loving Helen

by Michele Paige Holmes

  “I know.” Her quick response had him glancing at her again and noting her rosy cheeks. He wondered if they were attributable only to the cold.

  He reached for her hand, and she allowed him to take it. He tucked it into the crook of his arm as they started off on the path once more. “We shall work to overcome your concerns then, shall we?” Perhaps this exercise would benefit both sisters.

  “We shall work to reunite Grace and Lord Sutherland,” Helen corrected in a tone that suggested she did not wish to speak of herself any longer.

  “Agreed,” Samuel said. “But look, we are halfway to the house and haven’t discussed a single item on Christopher’s list. It would seem I am as hopeless as your brother believes me to be.” Samuel glanced at the paper again. “Ready to begin?”

  Helen nodded and looked at him expectantly.

  Samuel cleared his throat and attempted seriousness, though he found the paper and questions on it an annoyance. Surely he and Helen could carry on a conversation based on more important things than the trivial subjects before him. “What is your favorite color?”

  She hesitated a moment, then spoke quietly. “Red.”

  “That is somewhat surprising,” he said. “I would not have guessed.”

  “I realize it is not an appropriate color for a lady to favor,” Helen said.

  “You may prefer whichever color you like,” Samuel hurried to assure her. “Red is simply bold. I would have guessed that you prefer something calm, perhaps pink, like the gown you wore to the Christmas ball.”

  “You remember what I wore that night?” Her fingers fluttered on his arm.

  “Why does that so astonish you?” Samuel asked. “I guarantee that every man, excepting perhaps the near-blind Mr. Phillips, took notice of you. You were easily the most beautiful woman in attendance.”

  She stopped walking but did not release his arm, so he was forced to stop too. “Remember, we are not pretending to each other, only to my sister and Lord Sutherland.” She looked at him reproachfully. “You cannot tell me I was the prettiest girl there when you had eyes only for Grace.” She pulled away from him and took a step back.

  True enough. He’d been focused on forcing Grace — and Nicholas — to a decision that night. Until now it had never occurred to him that in doing so he might have hurt Helen. “I spoke the truth about your beauty. But I am also guilty with regard to your sister.” Samuel held his hands out, palms up. “I did allow myself to care for Grace — more than I should have,” he admitted. “In my defense, I had other motives that night as well. Nicholas had made his feelings for Grace abundantly clear with their waltz, but I wanted him to act on those feelings and to come to a decision about his future with Grace. I believed that if I presented myself as competing for her affection he might finally take action. And they were engaged — in a manner beyond the betrothal forced upon them — the very next afternoon.”

  “Only after Grace refused your proposal,” Helen said, her brow wrinkling as if trying to puzzle it all out. “Were you not sincere in your offer, then?”

  “Very much so,” Samuel said, feeling again the sting of the moments following Grace’s rejection. “I care for your sister, and I’m sure we could have been quite happy together. But before I asked the question, I knew what her answer would be. No one who saw Nicholas and Grace dancing could have mistaken the feelings of either. Whether she was ready to admit it to herself or not, she was already in love with him. My proposal forced her to examine her feelings and make a choice.”

  “I think you are proving to be very good at this game we are playing,” Helen said. “You’ve already been manipulating the circumstances for months. This is merely a continuation.”

  Samuel frowned. “Manipulate is a rather harsh word. I have never forced anyone to do anything, nor do I intend to now. I merely helped provide conditions where two people, whom I believed would be a good match, might have the opportunity to get to know each other and fall in love.”

  “I am rather stunned at the trouble you went to for my sister,” Helen said. She searched his eyes. “Why? And why continue helping us now? We were complete strangers to you.”

  “And what a pity that was.” Samuel found himself wanting to reach for her and hold her hands as he had held Grace’s so many times in a gesture of friendship, but he was not at all certain Helen would be comfortable with such a touch. Instead, he clasped his hands behind his back. “I watched your family at the theatre — your sister and brother, your grandfather …”

  Samuel realized that he hadn’t seen Helen on those occasions. In truth, she’d never been a part of their outings. By choice? He both hoped so and hoped it was not so. Did she dread going out so much that’s she’d voluntarily missed out on the opportunities her grandfather had been able to provide? What other explanation could there be? Surely they had not excluded her deliberately.

  “I’d never seen a trio more loving or concerned for one another,” he said. “I had determined to attempt to meet your family, but they quite suddenly stopped coming to the theatre. Shortly thereafter, I learned of your grandfather’s death, followed by word of your father’s intention to marry off your sister. So I made my interest known.”

  “He intended to see me married,” Helen said, her voice quiet again. She looked down. “Grace persuaded Father that she was not too old to marry, and he sent her in my place. Once again, she saved me.”

  “And so we shall save her now,” Samuel said. He looked at Helen a long moment, her golden curls hanging on both sides of her face as she studied the ground. Had Grace stepped in and protected her, sheltered her so many times that this extreme shyness and lack of confidence was the result? The idea bothered him. Helen needn’t be this way, needn’t miss the joys of life, whether that meant not attending the theatre or a ball, or being able to have a conversation with a man.

  Or realizing her worth.

  “I was in earnest about your being the most beautiful woman at Lord Sutherland’s ball.” He nodded slowly as she at last looked up at him. “In the short time I was there, I heard both ladies and gentlemen commenting on your beauty. The latter were quite smitten with you, while several ladies sounded as if they wished to smite you.” He grinned. “Envy never lies.”

  “And beauty is not always a blessing,” Helen said.

  “True,” Samuel said, guessing that she referred to difficulties with other women being envious. He doubted her sister was among those. “Grace is beautiful too, though her features are not as striking as yours. Her personality was what I found myself attracted to. She exudes confidence, speaks her mind, and is always up to some mischief. Life around her will never be boring — one reason why she is so good for Nicholas. He tends toward the boring and serious.”

  “Grace and I are complete opposites in that regard,” Helen said with a sigh of dejection.

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Samuel held his arm out, and she placed her hand upon it. “You’ve agreed to this conspiracy of Christopher’s — something very Grace-like of you to do. Plus, your favorite color is red.” Samuel silently congratulated himself on directing the conversation back to the list. He was beginning to suspect that before this exercise ended, he would grow quite appreciative of Christopher’s paper and the safe topics it suggested.

  “Is there a particular reason you prefer red?” he asked.

  “Because of a dress I had — a long time ago, when I was seven.”

  “Did your father buy it for you?” Knowing what he did of the deceased Mr. Thatcher, Samuel found that possibility highly doubtful but could think of no other reason why a dress would be so long remembered.

  “Has Grace not told you of our father?” Helen asked, turning her head to look at him. “He never bought us anything. If it had been up to him to clothe us, we would have been — cold.”

  Samuel worked to hide a smile. But their circumstance growing up was nothing to smile about. He cleared his throat again, something he feared he’d do a lot around her as tried to avoi
d hurting her feelings. Conversing with Grace was much easier; he’d always felt like he could tell her anything and be anything around her, rather like family. He missed that freedom. “Where did you get the dress, then? If it has determined something so very important as your favorite color, there must be a good story behind it.”

  “Yes,” Helen said, a wistful smile on her lips.

  “Will you not share it?” Samuel asked, wishing he needn’t pry words from her. Patience, he thought, giving himself the same advice he’d given Grace. He could not expect Helen to confide in him the very first day of their pretended relationship.

  “You wish to hear it?” She glanced at him, wariness apparent in the lines creasing her forehead.

  “I do.” They were nearly to the house and would soon part company for a few hours, at least. If their plan was to work, they would of necessity spend much of their time together in the coming days.

  “All right. I will attempt to explain.” Helen bit her lip and appeared to consider a moment before beginning her tale. “Grace never let me help with the wash. Have you noticed her hands?”

  “I have,” he said solemnly. “Her scars speak of years of love and sacrifice.”

  “They do,” Helen said, her eyes bright. “And she did not want me to have similar scars. So I was never allowed to wash clothes. I hung them, folded them, and, when I was seven, she taught me to iron. By then, Christopher helped with deliveries and did other odd work to earn money.”

  “Go on,” Samuel said, still uncertain how any of this related to a red dress.

  “One day I was ironing what I thought to be a beautiful red gown.” Her face flushed as if embarrassed. “You may well guess that some of the customers we had were not of the type that polite society associates with.”

  Or at least they don’t admit it, Samuel thought ruefully, remembering how it had been suggested by a few well-meaning, but off-the-mark acquaintances that his feelings of loneliness might be abated with a visit or two with women of loose morals. “I understand,” he said. “Continue your story.”

  Helen’s eyes reflected appreciation for his lack of censure. “The red gown had several layers. Each had to be pressed, then carefully hung over the side of the board so as not to wrinkle while the next section was ironed.”

  “Sounds like tedious work.”

  “It was. I hated it. I complained to Grace. I thought her job more fun — after all, she got to play in the water, or so I thought.”

  Samuel smiled. “Exactly something like Beth would think. No wonder the two of you are such great friends.”

  “Beth is adorable,” Helen said. “Do not ever let her get near an iron or a laundry tub.”

  “I intend to keep her safe from all such dangers,” Samuel said in mock seriousness.

  “Good.” Helen offered him a tiny smile. “My hands haven’t the scars of Grace’s, but many a time, I suffered burns from the iron.”

  “Were you burned while ironing the red gown?” Samuel guessed.

  Helen nodded. “Worse, I burned a hole in the dress. One corner of one of the outer layers caught on the board. I didn’t notice, so I ironed it with the other layers, over and over. When I shook the gown out at the end, there was a hole, right in the front. Oh, how I cried.”

  “Was Grace very upset with you?” Samuel asked, even more perplexed as to how red could possibly be Helen’s favorite color when it had to do with such disaster.

  “She never scolded me. She just looked at the dress and said, ‘Oh, Helen.’ Then she took Christopher with her and left to make the deliveries. They brought the gown with them, and they were gone for hours. I fretted, worried that something terrible had become of Grace, that she was being punished for my mistake, that no one would pay her to do laundry anymore. And if that happened, I didn’t know what would become of us.” Helen’s forehead and nose bunched with worry as she recounted the anxiety of that afternoon.

  Samuel could imagine the scene all too well. He’d seen how many ladies of the upper class mistreated their servants and could imagine that those working in a brothel might treat a young wash girl even worse — and that when she hadn’t made a disastrous mistake.

  “It was dark when they finally returned. Grace had a basket with new laundry to be washed, and Christopher carried a large bag of potatoes. We hid them all over the house — never more than two in the same location, lest Father find them. Grace said they were what we had to eat for the next month, so we had to be careful to make them last.”

  “Did they last?” Samuel asked, imagining the three children near starvation. Grace would have been only thirteen at the time, and Christopher nine. And at seven, Helen would have been far too young to be charged with the task of ironing women’s gowns. They’d all had to grow up so quickly.

  “The potatoes almost lasted the month,” Helen said. “We went only a day or two without, and that happened most months anyway.”

  “And you love the color red because it reminds you of this dreadful time?”

  Helen laughed. “Of course not. I love red because of what came next.” Her eyes sparkled. “That Christmas was the one year I received a present — a beautiful red dress Grace had made from the ruined gown. The woman it had belonged to had been furious and demanded that Grace pay for it. Of course, we couldn’t begin to do that, but Grace had given the woman an entire week’s worth of pay — except what Christopher had taken to buy the potatoes — and agreed to pay her most of the rest of our earnings for the month, as well as doing her laundry for free for several months beyond that. In doing so, Grace was able to keep the gown — and kept it hidden from me. When I slept at night, she stayed up, sewing the dress for me from the very gown that had caused so much trouble.” Helen smiled, a faraway look on her face. “I’d never had any new clothes before, or even anything that wasn’t mostly rags. I felt like a princess when I put that red dress on.”

  “If you were half as beautiful as you are now, I am sure you looked like one too.” Samuel imagined a younger, smaller Helen twirling about in the made-over gown.

  “Grace sewed Christopher a pair of fancy knee pants from one of the layers, though he never seemed to care for them quite as much as I cared for the dress.”

  “I should think not,” Samuel said. “Most nine-year-old boys wouldn’t wear such breeches, preferring to be — as you said before — cold.”

  Helen pressed her lips together and attempted a stern look, though he suspected she wished to laugh, however inappropriate the topic was.

  “Grace used every scrap of that fabric,” Helen continued. “She tied strips of it onto a string, which she wound all around the house for Christmas. We thought it very festive. And we had sweet potatoes — instead of regular — for Christmas supper. Father wasn’t home, so we stayed up late and danced and played. It was glorious. How I loved that dress — and Grace.”

  Samuel loved the look of rapture Helen wore as she finished the story. He could sense the depth of her love for her sister and was beginning to understand why Helen had agreed to pretending a relationship with him if it meant Grace’s happiness. His affection and admiration for the Thatcher family swelled at hearing the story of the red dress, and he thought that red might be his favorite color now too.

  “Whatever became of the dress?” he asked.

  “I outgrew it,” Helen said sadly. “Twice Grace altered it and then lengthened it as much as possible. Still, I loved it and kept it hidden safely away, beneath our mattress, so Father couldn’t gamble it away.”

  “Where is it now?” Samuel asked. Perhaps Helen still had the gown, or maybe it had been left behind when the siblings fled their grandfather’s house.

  “I don’t know where it is, exactly.” Her wistful smile returned. “I was eleven when Grace began taking me on deliveries. Some of the places we passed were worse than our own little hovel, and one day I saw a girl wearing only a large shirt with a rope tied around the waist.”

  “You gave your red dress away.” Of course. Wha
t else would generous, kindhearted Helen do? He recalled the way she had jumped in to help with Beth that first morning at breakfast and the many hours she’d spent making things for his daughter’s Christmas present. He remembered her kind words at Elizabeth’s grave and the empathy she had shown him whenever he had bad days.

  “It made the girl so happy that I became happy doing it,” Helen said. “Peculiar how that works, isn’t it?”

  “One of life’s more curious phenomena,” he agreed. “You are fortunate to have experienced it when you were so young. You’ve more wisdom than many people twice your age.”

  “I am not so young now,” Helen insisted, her annoyance apparent from the way her curls shook as she tossed her head. “But I am fortunate to have Grace as a sister. She deserves to be happy.”

  “And she shall be,” Samuel predicted. “We will succeed. Nicholas will want her back, and he will know that nothing is in his way.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Helen said. “I have never seen Grace so miserable, and that is saying something.”

  He was certain it was, given their upbringing — or lack of one.

  They reached the house, and the butler appeared to open front doors as if he’d been there waiting for their arrival.

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” Beth launched herself at Helen the moment she’d crossed the threshold. Samuel caught them both from careening back out the doors.

  “Beth, that is no way to treat a guest,” he scolded, but only half-heartedly. He loved seeing his daughter so happy, though he knew he needed to curb her wild ways. Strong-willed though Elizabeth had been, she was a lady in every sense of the word. Each morning on his walk, he mulled the problem over.

  “Miss Helen isn’t a guest,” Beth declared, laying claim to Helen’s hand and towing her toward the staircase. “She’s my friend.”

  “Thank you for walking with me,” Helen called to Samuel over her shoulder.