by Abigail Agar
“What else can you describe to me?” the Duke asked.
“Well. Let’s see …” Marina said, playacting thoughtfulness. She clucked her tongue. “I can describe to you how Lottie’s about to go wild with laughter. She’s got her hands all over her stomach and mouth, trying to hold it in. What is it, Lottie? Are you going absolutely mental?”
Lottie shrieked with the pleasure of being noticed. She hopped from her chair, rushing toward the Duke himself. Then, she snapped her hands around his chest, drawing her cheek towards his chest. The gesture was so genuine, so strange to the Duke (in this current state), that he felt tears immediately spring to his eyes. He placed his hand over Lottie’s shoulder, tapping it until she drew back. In some respects, her breath still smelled like a baby’s. He felt a wave of nostalgia. Lottie: he and Marybeth’s last.
Marina was finished with the marmalade and butter. She placed them back on the plate and told him so. “And let me know if you need help with anything else, Duke. There’s no use pretending that we aren’t all here, together. I’m to help you, too. Remember that.”
The Duke remained in stunned silence for a long time. His head was bowed forward, inhaling the cooling breakfast. But within moments, he found his voice again.
“Claudia. What about Christopher? Describe him to me,” he murmured.
“He’s all battered and bruised,” Claudia said, finding her voice. “But of course, up to his usual mischief. While you’ve been sitting there, he’s eaten more than half his sausages. Just slurping them down!”
“Hey! Don’t tell on me,” Christopher said.
“It’s the truth. And when Father can see again, you won’t get away with it anymore. Now, will you?”
“Well, you should see how much marmalade is on Claudia’s biscuit,” Christopher grumbled.
“Hey!” Marina laughed. “I don’t think your father wants you to throw each other into trouble. I just think he wants … to see. And you’re his eyes.”
“Fine. Fine,” Christopher grumbled. “You should know, then, that Lottie lost another tooth. It just popped right out the other day, between governesses. I had to help her get it the rest of the way,” he offered.
“Great! Great,” the Duke said, shocked at his own excitement. “I mean, that’s remarkable. Really, Christopher. Thank you for helping …”
“And Christopher’s leg is all banged up, sure. But he’s wearing one of your old shirts,” Claudia continued. “One of the old red and black plaid ones that Mother found and gave to him. He always wears them. And I guess you never know.”
“What of Max? What of him?” the Duke asked, marvelling at how, it seemed, suddenly he had a palate through which to see the world.
“He’s grown a few inches since you went blind, I think,” Claudia murmured. “And his curls have gotten out of control. Probably he needs a chopping. But they’re so adorable, I can’t possibly …”
The Duke pressed his hands against his cheeks. He felt like he might begin to shake. Somehow, that morning, he’d been given eyes through the words of the people who cared for him most. And, for whatever reason, this governess, Marina Blackwater, had brought this into his world. He wanted to tell her thank you. But the words didn’t feel like enough.
“And what of Marina?” the Duke asked, tilting his head.
At this, Christopher snickered. “She’s just a girl, Father.”
“She’s a bit pretty,” Lottie said. Afterwards, she seemed to slurp down a sausage, chewing quickly.
“Is she?” the Duke asked. This went completely against what Sally Hodgins had affirmed to him. That Marina Blackwater was absolutely nothing to look at, despite her youth.
“Decently,” Claudia stammered. She, too, turned her attention to her food. The Duke knew it from the soft chewing sounds that could only be Claudia’s.
Max didn’t speak on Marina’s behalf. The Duke patted his napkin against his lips, trying to draw a portrait of this invisible woman who’d taken such charge over his life. He wanted to order her to describe herself. Brown hair? Blonde? Eyes, what colour? But he pressed his lips together, waiting. Perhaps she would speak for herself. Perhaps she sensed this was her opportunity to present her portrait, in words.
But instead, Marina just sighed. “It’s so terribly wonderful to be described so lushly,” she tittered. “Any woman would be grateful to hear it. ‘A bit pretty,’ or ‘decently.’ My, children. You really do have a way with words!” She spoke with sarcasm, again turning the children to endless giggles.
How easily she turned their attention back to joy. The Duke leaned back in his chair, overwhelmed with the shift in the house. It seemed that a cloud had been lifted up, that their collective posture was growing taller and stronger.
Perhaps Marina Blackwater’s arrival was a necessary step on the wellness of his family. But of course, it was far too early to tell.
As the breakfast was cleared away, the children grew more vibrant, with Lottie even leaping up from her chair. The Duke’s initial thought—to reprimand her—was eliminated almost instantly, with Marina grabbing her and, it appeared, placing her on her lap. “Now, Lottie. You don’t want to spoil what we have planned after this by getting yourself in trouble, do you?”
“No …” Lottie stuttered, straining against Marina’s grip.
“Good. Get yourself back in your chair, my little lady,” Marina said.
“What is it we have planned?” Claudia asked.
“Surely a bit of schooling, I would imagine.” These words echoed out from the far doorway. It was the voice of Sally Hodgins, seemingly reproaching all of them. She stepped into the dining room, a heavy force. “Duke. Don’t you agree? We’ve hired this new governess for reasons beyond play. At least, that’s what I had assumed …”
The Duke grunted, rising up from his chair. He gripped his cane, spinning his body towards the door. He hated that he’d been spotted during this overly sunny tete-a-tete, as if he’d betrayed his very sense of self and loss. “Marina Blackwater, if, before this ‘plan,’ I could speak to you …”
He heard something rather like Ms Hodgins’ snickering, although he couldn’t be certain. Marina’s light steps scampered up behind him.
She turned back towards the children, speaking in a mocking voice—one that seemed to poke fun at Sally Hodgins herself. “Children, clean yourselves up and wait for me in the upstairs play—I mean, study room.”
The Duke gave no pause. Rather, he strutted forward, down the hall, knowing only that Marina Blackwater remained beside him. He hadn’t yet gathered his thoughts. Yet, for whatever reason, his heart beat with frenetic energy as they drew further from the rest of the family, as they walked side by side.
He couldn’t possibly be sure of why.
Chapter 16
Marina knew she was an excitable person. It was something she liked most about herself: that the sight of the moon, cast over the moor, could fill her with a bursting heart of promise and hope and dreams. For what kind of God or creator could gift such beauty, if there wasn’t some sort of gorgeous plan set forth for her? Why would the trees sway just so, casting delicious shadows across the flickering grass; why would the sight of morning flowers on a Sunday morning fill her eyes with such tears? “Always so quick to FEEL,” her brother had once said to her, scolding, when she’d fallen to her knees on a bunch of gravel, immediately bursting into tears. It was impossible for her to reel in that emotion. It was like a river, preparing to surge forth over a busting dam.
She felt more in tune with this side of herself than ever as she escorted the Duke towards the front door of the mansion, watching as he kicked his cane out across the bricks of the mighty staircase that led towards the garden path. There was heaviness in his movements, that foretold that he was, indeed, on the other side of adulthood. Perhaps mid-40s, his beard lined with black and grey strands. His handsomeness wasn’t the dapper, youthful kind. Rather: it was one of stories not yet told, of a life already lived. Marina yearned to part his
heart like a favourite book, to dive between the pages and discover the truth of him …
For how could he have created such intelligent, life-giving children, without a bit of heart of his own?
When they reached the tip-top of the staircase, the Duke’s shoes teetered slightly. Marina sprung forward, gripping his upper arm to ensure he didn’t fall. Immediately, he flashed his head to the right, so that his nose was inches from hers, his lips close and hot, heavy with the smell of biscuit and syrup and something else, something inextricably masculine. Marina had never kissed before. Why, suddenly, did her stomach stir with such desire to lean forward and kiss this blind man’s face? Was it because he couldn’t possibly know how plain she was—that this could be her first and only chance to translate her emotion, without the horrific package of her own face?
“I’m—I’m sorry,” Marina whispered, drawing back. But she kept her hand wrapped around his upper arm, keeping him upright. “I was so afraid that you were going to …”
“It’s all right, Marina Blackwater,” the Duke said. “Shall we proceed, now that I have my bearings?”
“Certainly.”
Marina walked just inches to the right of him, watching his feet as they inched along the staircase, towards the path below. The October wind rushed in from the open moor, blasting over her curls. She inhaled a sharp breath, willing them to tuck along the garden wall soon, for protection.
“It’s strange, to feel that wind when you can’t see the earth around you,” the Duke said when they finally reached the path. He prodded his cane across the stones of the garden wall, so that it clunk-clunk-clunked. Marina smiled to herself, watching this. It was an action that seemed incredibly Christopher.
“I would think that it would feel like this impossible wind tunnel,” Marina offered. “Without context.”
“I never really imagined what it might mean to be blind,” the Duke said. “But it is very much this way. Like the world is just existing against you, and you’re forced to just push yourself through it. My children, I …”
He paused, yet continued his march along the garden. Marina waited, her tongue drawing fast against her teeth. Should she speak, to fill this hole? Far from the garden, a dog gave a ravenous bark across the moor. It was the loneliest sound in the world.
“You said that the blindness is only temporary,” Marina whispered, unable to stand the barking a moment more.
“Yes. That’s what the doctor informs me.” The Duke sighed. “Although I can’t help thinking this tragedy that’s befallen me could be anything but permanent. Things continue to blast against this family. When, at once, it seemed we had everything. All the love in the world. Horses. Land. Plentiful food to eat. Even Sally Hodgins laughed, frequently, if you can imagine that …”
Marina couldn’t. But she chose not to utter a laugh, or a reply, knowing better to pit herself against long-standing members of the house.
“Regardless of what happens, Duke …” Marina began, largely unsure where her words would land her. “Regardless, you must know that your children are extraordinary. Before you opened the door last night, when they listened to you play, their faces were absolutely rapt with attention. Do you know how unlikely it is for children to feel how important what you were playing truly was?”
The Duke sniffed, turning his head towards the left side of the path. He strutted towards an open gate (Marina was amazed at the quick manner in which he moved through the opening, as if he really had eyes to see). She followed behind, feeling foolish for uttering such poetry to this man. Within the garden, the grass remained dewy and wet from the morning, and the water dampened Marina’s stockings above her little shoes.
The garden was tiny, perhaps the size of a traditional courtyard in the city, and was lined with two-storey stone walls. The walls were heavy with ivy, with thick, glossy leaves. But the Duke made straight towards the far wall, with a vibrant, still-living line of dark purple flowers. He paused, dropping his chin to the top of his cane, and inhaled once more.
“I could smell them from all the way on the path,” he whispered when Marina finally joined beside him. “That’s one benefit, I suppose, of this strange new life. I can smell everything. The bad things and the good. And this—this is sinfully good. Close your eyes. Try to imagine it.”
Marina did as she was told. She abandoned all sight of the deep purple arrangement, diving instead into the blackness. And she inhaled with the strength of the Duke, keeping her lips pressed tightly closed.
“Wow,” she whispered, suddenly lost in it. Her heart hammered in her chest, in her throat.
“It’s something else, isn’t it? I have to say, I didn’t recognise it as anything more than a flower in one of the gardens before this illness …” the Duke explained. “But then, one day, as I walked along here speaking with Claudia—I stopped. And realised that, perhaps, this was a gift … Noticing this.”
Marina’s head spun. Before she chickened out, she blurted: “I feel that it was a gift that I was allowed to hear what you played last night, regardless if it nearly got me evicted from your home. It was absolutely marvellous, Duke. I have to say, if you don’t have your sight for the rest of your life—but you can play like that … then the world has received more than enough from you. And perhaps you have received more than enough from the world.”
She blinked several times, her head still echoing with the words she’d just uttered. She stared into the faces of the massive purple flowers, waiting. The silence from the Duke felt heavier than before. It felt as if he were sifting through her words. Perhaps he found her completely foolish, completely young. Perhaps he regretted bringing her to the garden at all! There was still time to send her on her way, march her down to the carriage house and point out the gates of the massive estate.
“I’m terribly sorry. I’m always talking out of turn,” Marina whispered. She clung to her ratty skirts, taking a small step away from the flowers.
The Duke clucked his tongue once, then turned so that his dark eyes peered out towards her—so unseeing, yet seemingly revealing the softness just behind them. “If that is what smelling my flowers makes you feel, then I have to accept it,” he said. “I can’t possibly reveal something so beautiful, without getting something back.”
The Duke brought his fingers towards Marina’s face. They sprung near her skin, inching towards her cheek. She blinked wildly, wondering if he was going to touch her. Would he, in touching her, truly see her? She waited, feeling that strange, aching desire within her again. His touch would surely be akin to feeling fire. It would ignite pain and excitement.
But just before his finger reached her cheek, he dropped his hand to his side. Marina let a small sigh escape her lips. She prayed he couldn’t quite hear it. Her heart fluttered in her throat, a butterfly with anxious wings. But he took a step back, arching his head back towards the mansion, which seemed to tower over them, now. Watching them, with its dark and foreboding windows. It felt impossible that four tiny children waited within, bubbling with giggles.
“I’ll be travelling to the palace soon, to sell a selection of musical instruments for the Queen’s grandson’s birth. They’re celebrating with a ball,” the Duke told her as they evened out their gait and trod back down the path towards the mansion. “It would be a delight to me to have my children attend the festivities. In fact, it’s high time for me to begin presenting my family back to society once more. It seems horrific, keeping them cooped up at the estate like this. Like they’re animals at a zoo.”
Marina, who’d spent the majority of her youth feeling similarly cooped, nearly leapt into the air with excitement. For why in the world would he be telling her this, if not …
“And for this excursion, I would require your attendance,” the Duke continued. “Of course, Jeffrey will be directly beside me, assisting me with all affairs of the business. And perhaps I’ll bring Sally Hodgins, as well, as she’s been a dutiful—if at times overly so—maid for several years. But any extra e
yes, in the case of my current ailment, would be appropriate. You would, of course, attend to the children as well. Perhaps taking them on day trips around London, whilst I’m held up with business meetings at the palace.”
