The Abandoned Heart

by Laura Benedict

  “She’s exhausted, and she’s doing very well now. She slept most of the way. I think she found the train soothing.”

  Randolph nodded. “Well, then. That’s good, isn’t it? Wait until she gets to the house. Plenty of room for her. Plenty.”

  To Amelia he sounded as though he were talking about a house pet. A dog. There was no reaction from Tamora, whose blond locks had spilled from the hood of her cloak and hung in her face.

  “We should be getting close.” Randolph poked open the front window. “Where are we, Clayton?”

  The driver’s voice came down to them. “We’re about to go up the drive, Mister Bliss. Mason is behind us with the wagon and the luggage. Right smart he’s coming up.”

  “Look here, Amelia.” Randolph closed the front window and leaned over to open the window nearest Amelia. “Look out there. Before we turn.”

  Knowing better than to try to dampen Randolph’s excitement, Amelia looked out. The sky was cloudless and the moon shone down on a long row of bare trees that were so newly planted as to look like a short, broken fence. Beyond them, she could just make out the outline of the house she recognized from the photographs. Bliss House.

  Amelia stood in the shadow of Bliss House.

  Lonely.

  Bliss House looked lonely. It loomed tall and singular against the night sky, rising over them like a temple in the wilderness. The land around it had been cleared, though there were woods to the west and east. In New York, and, to some extent, North Hempstead, where their Long Island house was, houses had neighbors. Certainly there were a few grand estates, but even they had carriage houses or porters’ lodges nearby that were lighted at night. Here, there was nothing. Stars. The moon. Even the cold, still air felt empty.

  Candlelight glowed behind all the windows of Bliss House’s first two floors and the center windows of the third. Amelia wondered what was in the darkened rooms. Which rooms would be hers? How would they keep Tamora in sight with so many places to hide?

  Though she knew the house was pale yellow brick, it looked white and stark in the moonlight, its mansard roof a pale gray. Where was the dome? Randolph had raved about the dome, but she could not see it. Despite the house’s lonely aspect, it all looked surprisingly . . . ordinary. If Bliss House had been built on a park square in New York, with other houses flanking it, it would not be so remarkable at all. And what about the garden? She had anticipated that, Bliss House being a country house, its approach would be gracious and parklike. But there had only been the march of trees up the lane and a circular drive in front. On the left side of the house, there was what appeared to be a generous landing or patio with some plantings, and the walled garden was off to the right. Beyond the garden’s ironwork entry, she could see a distant wall, but nothing of the maze or flowers in between.

  She felt Randolph’s eyes on her.

  “What say you, Amelia?”

  “It’s very well done, Randolph. I look forward to seeing it in the morning light. You should be very proud.”

  It was enough. Randolph took her by the elbow and kissed her cheek. “Welcome home, my dear.”

  They turned at a sharp cry from the carriage, and they heard Harriet say, “We’ll have some nice warm milk when we go inside, Tamora. It’s time to come out.”

  Randolph let go of Amelia’s arm. “I’ll go inside and see that everything is ready.”

  Amelia nodded and went back to the carriage. “I’ll tend to her, Harriet. Please see that her things are taken to wherever the nursery is.”

  Fifteen minutes passed before Amelia was able to bring Tamora into the house. The child’s eyes were tightly shut, and her arms and legs were locked so tightly around her mother that Amelia could hardly breathe or walk. But they were out of the carriage. That was all that mattered.

  “Come and meet everyone, Amelia.”

  Amelia felt as though she had walked out of the night and into a stage play in some grand theater. The ceiling rose three stories above her, and beyond the chandelier, which was lighted with what must have been a hundred candles within glass hurricanes, was the dome. While it wasn’t nearly as grand as the domes she had seen in churches and various public buildings, it was truly beautiful and sparkled with the stars as they had looked the night Tamora was born. Just as Randolph had promised. As weary as she was, she knew that Randolph had reason to be proud of it.

  From the outside, the house had shown two shallow wings on each side. Inside, there were long, railed galleries that went all around the two upper floors. The second floor gallery was broken only by the top of the hand-carved staircase. It was from these galleries she imagined people standing to watch them acting out their lives below. What had seemed a lonely place from the outside now felt like a public house that might hold hundreds of people. Watching. Judging.

  Randolph, Harriet, and the servants watched her. She smiled.

  “I knew you would like it,” Randolph said. The gathered group made murmurs of pleasure and relief.

  “But of course I like it, Randolph. It’s just a bit overwhelming after the trip. And Tamora . . .” At the sound of her own name, Tamora clutched a handful of Amelia’s hair, which was two shades darker than her own, and twisted it. Amelia gave a little gasp that she tried to cover with another smile. “I should take her upstairs.”

  But Randolph insisted that Amelia at least let the staff greet her, as they had waited so patiently, and Amelia acquiesced, all the while praying that Tamora would relax her grip. By the time she had met each person: a housemaid, a groom, a gardener, and the cook and driver—a married couple named Maud and Clayton Poole—she felt she might faint from pain, and knew she would forget their names as soon as she got to the nursery. She thanked them all and excused herself. Harriet went ahead of her, and the moment Amelia ascended the first stair, Tamora loosened her grip.

  After she had finally settled Tamora and Harriet for the night, she went downstairs and wandered until she found Randolph in his library. It was a comfortable, masculine room, and she recognized his books on the shelves, and the paintings, including the portrait of himself as a young man.

  “You look weary, my dear. Shall I take you up to your room? Or would you like to see more of the house?”

  As much as she would have liked to see more of the house, her head ached where Tamora had pulled her hair, and she felt she might sleep where she stood.

  “Tomorrow. I should like to see it all in the morning.”

  As they went up a nearby set of back stairs, he told her that there was a guest visiting for the winter, but that he wasn’t in the house at that moment. Aaron Fauquier was staying at Missus Green’s Inn and Boardinghouse for a couple of days, until Amelia and Tamora were settled, but he would be coming back.

  “You’ll like Aaron. He worked on the house, and we are planning some new projects for the spring. I think you will like him.”

  Amelia was too tired to think about having a semi-permanent resident in the house, but she said that she would be delighted to meet him.

  They left the staircase at a second-floor hallway that led out to the gallery. “I had hoped to give you a room on the western side of the house with a view of the garden, but I suspected you would rather be close to the nursery and Tamora. There’s a stairway near the nursery that leads down to the kitchen.”

  He showed her into a spacious bedroom that was softly lighted and decorated with sumptuous bouquets of hothouse flowers, despite the cold outside. The walls were covered in an ocean blue fabric with two different intricate mosaic borders of rust and green, and the curtains and bedclothes were embroidered with bouquets of peach, rust, and pale blue flowers nestled in delicate green leaves. A rich carpet that was of a color similar to the blue walls, with twining ribbons of green woven into it, covered most of the wood floor. Their home in North Hempstead was lovely, but it had been decorated some years earlier and was much simpler. Though she might have said she would have preferred the simplicity of that house, she was pleased with the room
and with the thought he had put into it.

  “Randolph, this is beautiful. It hardly seems like it’s mine.”

  “I’m happy it pleases you.” He came close and put his arms about her waist. “You’re tired, I know, my dear. It has been maddening having you so far away for so long.”

  Shifting artfully out of his grasp, she laughed. “New York was not so far away after all. I feel as though we were there only this morning. Would it have been a terrible strain for you to have made the trip home a bit more often? Tamora and I have both missed you.”

  Randolph grunted. “Tamora has more interest in a broken spoon or that damnable stuffed squirrel your father gave her than in me. I had Clayton put all those creatures and dolls in the nursery as you requested, as I’m sure you noticed. Is she really no better?”

  They had traveled this road so many times.

  “Neither the doctor nor I are too hopeful of improvement, but I believe I have seen some. Yes. Harriet has her eating quite well at table. Though it was a long trip.”

  “But you only this moment said that it didn’t seem so far.” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “And you are one of the cleverer women I’ve known. Which is it?”

  Amelia gave a small laugh to imply she had meant to tease him. “I’m just worn out. I must not be thinking clearly.”

  Sitting at the dressing table to take off her hat, she noticed that there were several beautifully crafted perfume bottles and jars for lotions and creams. There was an ivory-handled brush and hand mirror set as well. He had thought of everything. As she took off her hat, she caught his eye in the mirror. His face was more benign than she remembered it. Was it that they had been apart for so long? Or was there something about the house that had changed him?

  At least the house was warm. Randolph had written to explain the unique steam radiator heating, which was much more modern than what they’d had in Long Island, and there was ostensibly a warming pan already in the bed.

  But what was that reflected in the mirror just past him? She turned around on the bench’s velvet cushion. There, beside the bed, was a tall vase full of peacock feathers. She got up to get a closer look. The feathers were particularly colorful and looked new.

  “Who put these in here?”

  “Why, they’re one of the house’s little themes, Amelia. Like the stars in the dome, and the garden paths that mimic the lines of the house.”

  “They bring the worst kind of luck. Of course you had to know that. Why would you put us at such risk?”

  He came close to her.

  “Amelia.” His voice was low and reassuring. “When did you become so superstitious? Do you think I would really put you and Tamora at risk? Everything I do is to protect you both. I’ve told you that since the very beginning. It’s my dearest wish to protect you from the ugly things of the world. People’s unkind words, their vile glances.”

  He stroked her face, running his finger down her cheek and along the side of the nose he knew she hated. Was he reminding her? Certainly he was, but was it an intentional unkindness, or Randolph just being honest?

  “Our poor daughter.” He lightly kissed Amelia’s forehead, and she could smell his scent. “Here, in this house, no one important will see her. In this part of the world they have a tolerance for the strange. For the unfortunate. They love beauty, but they do not shutter away the ugly.” He turned her around so that she was staring at the peacock feathers, lush and menacing in their pretty vase, and began to unbutton her dress. When he reached the bottom, he helped her out of her overdress and crinolette skirt. Letting them fall to the floor, he pushed her firmly toward the bed.

  She had, of course, been a virgin when they married. Their coupling had been painful for her, and Randolph had not been gentle. Her mother had hinted that men in business, ruthless men, could not be trusted to be kind in the bedroom.

  “You will bear it, but see that he doesn’t leave any marks on you. A gentleman never leaves marks. But I suppose it remains to be seen if Randolph is truly a gentleman.” She had been looking frankly into Amelia’s astonished eyes, but then she had turned to the morning room window. “Your father is a gentleman. He is rarely unkind.”

  Had there been a wistfulness in her mother’s voice? Amelia had been deeply embarrassed to have such a glimpse into her parents’ intimacy, but now she wasn’t sure whether she should have envied or pitied her mother.

  No, Randolph never left a visible mark on her. There were other marks, invisible marks, beginning the first month of their marriage, when he began to whisper things to her that at first made her redden and shrink away from him. He bade her do things that embarrassed her deeply. She told herself that if it became too much, if she were truly being degraded, she would make him stop. But she never did.

  Now, knowing that to protest that she was tired would be of little use, Amelia quickly undid her corset. She had been without a personal maid since Tamora was born, and was used to doing and undoing the hooks and eyes that ran up the front of the corset herself. When she was free of it, she wavered a little and took a moment to get her breath. But Randolph took it as a sign of capitulation and he eased her onto the bed and quickly removed his jacket and pants and shoes. Rarely did he bother to remove his shirt. He had many and they were not precious to him. Neither did he appear to desire to press his skin against hers, except for the nether regions. It felt impersonal and strange, given the intimate and often vigorous nature of their coupling. How, she still wondered, did other husbands and wives act?

  As he fiercely squeezed her breasts and her belly (somewhat larger than it had been at their marriage, but then she was forty now, a middle-aged woman), as though he were seeing what she was made of, he started the obscene patter that had so unnerved her as a younger bride.

  He murmured of the strange and horrid things he made other women do. Made other women do to him. It excited him, and, over the years, disgusted as she was, she had found that it began to excite her, too. Whisperings of much younger women, some that he had overpowered or purchased or shared with other women. Young women with no teeth, or a missing limb. Women that he sometimes hurt, but no, never hurt so badly that they were killed.

  Had she been waiting to hear these things? Boring into her, he told her how the girl had screamed in pain and began to cry, but begged him not to stop. She saw the girl in her mind, the fiery red hair, the garish makeup, the tawdry sheets, the other woman in the room. Watching.

  Amelia felt her body approaching the edge of reason, the place that she suspected women like her mother had never gone. The image of Randolph hurting the girl burned in her mind; she felt the girl’s pain, the waning of the girl’s feigned excitement and the way it turned to fear.

  As the orgasm rolled through her body, she could hear the screams, searing screams. But there was something not right about them. She opened her eyes, and the waves in her groin subsided, though Randolph continued, wordless.

  The screams were her daughter’s. Tamora had somehow escaped the nursery. Beyond Randolph’s heated breathing, she could hear Tamora’s quick footsteps running along the gallery. Harriet called after her, trying to keep her voice controlled as though not to disturb anyone.

  They had come so far, yet nothing would be different.

  Randolph finished, and she felt him spasm inside her. There would be no more children. If she were to become pregnant—unlikely at her age—she knew how to end the pregnancy quickly. Tamora had been some kind of punishment, probably for the way she had responded to the filthy words that Randolph had whispered in her ear as the child was conceived.

  She had borne her punishment and would continue to as long as both she and Tamora lived.

  Chapter 17

  AMELIA

  November 1878

  “What a dear cottage that is. Whatever will you do with it?”

  Mary Bliss, the zaftig wife of Randolph’s brother, Douglas, stood at the window of one of the guest rooms that overlooked the garden. She and Douglas had trave
led to spend Thanksgiving at Bliss House without their children. The window bore a film of steam and she had cleared the center with a towel from the bathroom. “I’m sure you couldn’t see it if there were leaves on the trees. It looks almost like a fairy house.”

  Amelia, standing near the bed, smoothed a hand over the coverlet, which was embroidered with flowers that perfectly matched the wallpaper. It seemed very French to her, and was not at all what she might have chosen for the room. But Randolph and Monsieur Hulot had not consulted her.

  Mary was nosy and often tiresome, but she was only twenty-five, the age Randolph had been when he and Amelia were married. She tried to be patient with her. There was only one house to be seen from that particular window.

  “Randolph says it’s to stay a tenant house.” It didn’t house Mason, who was Randolph’s right hand on the estate, and his wife, Odette. Their house was closer to the orchards. But she had chanced to see a woman who she thought was Odette in the clearing in front of the cottage. There had been someone much shorter, and dark-haired, with fair skin, as well. Perhaps a boy? She hadn’t been sure. Randolph had simply said, “A tenant,” and had left it at that. She knew when to stop asking questions. It didn’t mean she didn’t continue to wonder.

  Even before Randolph began whispering about his adventures with other women, her mother had hinted that younger men had stronger appetites. So while she knew that Randolph had been unfaithful to her from the first days of their marriage, she was certain that not even he would go so far as to bed a boy.

  “What a shame. It would make an excellent place to take some solitude, yes? Or have tête-à-têtes with close friends.” The exaggerated way Mary said tête-à-têtes sounded vaguely salacious, and for a moment Amelia wondered if every woman in the world besides her had a lover.

  Mary’s honey complexion and wetly brown doe eyes had worked their magic on Douglas Bliss, who had followed her like a puppy dog from the first day they met at Saratoga Springs. Amelia’s parents considered the festive Saratoga Springs gauche, a word that might have described Mary’s early manners. But Amelia had to concede that she’d developed a modicum of taste, at least in clothing, since giving birth to the first of their two sons, who had, thankfully, stayed behind with Mary’s mother. Her yellow-and-gray suit was tailored to minimize her overly generous bust, though Amelia suspected it would be on full display at dinner.