by Death
"But, it's frightening, too. Is that how you felt about Nora?"
"It depends on what sort of fear you mean." Nora had inspired several kinds in me during our relationship.
"I mean the sort of fear that comes when you stand on the edge of what you know to be a cliff. You have to step off, not knowing whether you'll fall into a stack of straw or dash to pieces on a pile of rocks."
"Yes," I said with a sigh of remembrance. "I've been through that."
"What did you do?"
"I stepped off, of course. I didn't have much choice. I just went, because any other choice would have hurt worse than landing on the rocks."
"That's what I want to do, but how can I do it without being truthful to him about things?"
"You really think it's necessary to tell him about last night?"
"It's... been preying on my mind. Coming between us. I want to tell him, but I'm not sure. He'll probably tell his sister and she might mention it to Anne or-"
"Just ask him to pledge on his honor to keep it to himself."
"Is it just that simple? I hate secrets unless they're happy ones, like a surprise present. Those are the only ones I'm comfortable keeping."
"A man like Lord James would probably be delighted to have your confidence and a pledge on his honor would be safe with him. It would make him feel quite the hero with you confiding such privileged knowledge to him."
"The point is not to impress him, but to be honest."
"He will be impressed, anyway."
"But the knowledge itself is so sordid. It might put him off me."
"I can't advise you on what to do in this, or how he might react, but if he really loves you, nothing will keep him from you."
"I suppose I'll have to think about it some more. It's just that sitting there with Mother behind us and playing cards as though nothing were wrong... my God, if Rapelji hadn't been with Father we might be weeping around a coffin right now."
Time to give her a hug. Past time. I put my arms around her and told her everything was all right. I'd been saying that a lot lately. I hoped with all my heart that it was true.
Footsteps. I recognized their purposeful clack and broke away from Elizabeth.
"What is it?" she asked.
I put a finger to my lips and faded away as fast as I could. And that was very fast. Elizabeth gave out with a little "oh" of surprise as she suddenly found herself alone in the room.
The steps, muffled for me by my present condition, halted, probably at the doorway.
"What are you doing here?" Mother demanded.
The reply was slow in coming. It might have been caused by my disappearance or by the fact this was the first time in ages that Mother had directly spoken to her, or by both.
"Nothing. I just wanted to find a book to show to Lord James."
"Where's your brother?"
"I last saw him in the music room."
"He's not there now." Mother stepped forward and around and circled the library. Assuring herself that Elizabeth was indeed alone and that I wasn't hiding behind a curtain or crouched under the desk.
Elizabeth remained silent. So did Mother. Eventually, she left. When I was sure she was far enough along not to hear, I returned.
My sister jumped when she saw me.
"Sorry. I thought it would avoid trouble if I-"
"My God." She put her hand to her heart and breathed out a laughing sigh of relief. "My God."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I was just wishing that / could do that, too." She went to the door and looked out. "Gone back to her game, I think. You saved us from considerable unpleasantness just now."
"That was the idea."
"And a good one. Thank you, little brother."
I bowed good-naturedly. "She spoke to you."
She'd been smiling; now it faded. "Yes. I hope she won't make a habit of it. I... don't think so."
"Why is that?"
"Just a feeling. In the past she's never failed to find some fault with me and make some kind of disparaging comment over it. She had the opportunity now and did not use it."
"Perhaps she wants to maintain as much distance from you as you do from her and knows that talking to you would diminish it."
" 'Though this be madness'... ?"
"She knows 'a hawk from a handsaw.' "
We fell silent a moment and stared out the empty door. Distantly, Beldon drew a few notes from his fiddle, then sawed out a few others, but with more confidence. The spinet followed his lead, then passed him.
"Lord James will be missing you," I said.
"I'm missing him."
"What will you tell him?"
"I'm not sure. Talking to you about it... well... I have to think some more."
"Will you tell him about me?"
She was startled. "Why should I?"
"In the interest of honesty. Why not? It's a secret as well."
"But not an awful one. It's not the same."
"It's been pretty awful to me, at times."
"This must not have been one of them. You should have seen your face when you came back after she left."
"I wish I could."
Elizabeth knew all about my problem with mirrors. "Feeling sorry for yourself?"
I made myself smile and shook my head.
I wandered back into the music room some while later. Lady Caroline had relinquished the spinet to Elizabeth and was now sitting next to Norwood, but nothing else had changed. I listened as she and Beldon played through a few songs they both liked, nodded at anyone looking my way, and eventually wandered out again.
The mood was a familiar one: I was too restless to sit, or read, or do much of anything. I hated this kind of waiting, of not knowing exactly when it would end.
It was very cold when I finally thought to go outside. I had no cloak or hat, but the chill would not affect me for a goodly time, despite the high wind. The noise of it bothered me more than the low temperature. It hissed and snarled through the bare tree branches and sent loose crystals of snow skittering over the drifts. I plunged my bare hands into a thick white pile and dug out the makings of a sizable snowball. Packing it down solidly, I smoothed it, rounded it, slapped more snow in where it lacked.
There was ice mixed in and it cut me. I regarded the stinging slice in my finger for a moment, vanished, and returned. The cut was gone.
I liked that, and laughed at myself. Then I hefted my snowball and threw it as high and as far as I could over the trees. Couldn't tell where it landed. Couldn't hear. The wind carried the sound away.
Elizabeth had been right to question whether I was feeling sorry for myself, but my pity was for our family in general, not just for me.
Well... maybe some of it was for me... but I wasn't giving in to it, not for now.
I made more snowballs and threw them out into the pale winter night until my fingers grew stiff and blue, then went inside to thaw them by the library fire. Around me the house was gradually settling down for the evening. The last bit of cleaning was being seen to in the kitchen, along with preparations for tomorrow's cooking tasks. I heard Archimedes's stately tread going up the stairs to see if Father wanted anything more before retiring. Jericho made a last round to see that the doors and windows were locked, then went up to my room to set out my things as usual. He and his father came down together, their voices soft in the liquid sound of some African tongue. Jericho understood his father's language, but rarely spoke it where a white person might hear. He said it made them nervous.
The music had stopped and conversation had ceased. Norwood escorted his sister to her room. Beldon saw to the other ladies, then came to the library.
He did not see me as he cast about for a book for this evening's reading. I made sure of that. Only when he was gone did I return. I didn't usually vanish to avoid people, but tonight I didn't feel like having further conversation.
Beldon trudged up to his room, and one by one people upstairs and down retired to their beds. If I
listened very carefully, I could just hear Mrs. Hardinbrook's first snores.
Other than that and the wind outside, all was quiet. When I was busy with clerking for Father or absorbed in a book, 1 hardly paid mind to any of it; now it all seemed to shout at me, "You're alone, alone, alone."
Indeed, I was. More so than most. Even Mother.
When the silence went on for an hour, I shifted myself from before the dying fire and quietly padded upstairs, carrying a candle. My shoes were on the hearth, still drying out from the snow, but I'd have left them off anyway.
On the landing I went left instead of right and paused outside Mother's door to listen. She was asleep. My hand dropped lightly on the handle and pushed, and I slipped inside.
In all her time here, I'd never been in her room. I'd never had an interest in seeing it since she'd moved back with us, nor had she ever invited her children to visit. Only Mrs. Hardinbrook had been welcomed here, and Beldon, when a doctor was needed. It had all the usual furnishings, including a very large mirror. I could ignore that for now.
She was buried under a thick layer of coverlets, the sheets made comfortable when one of the maids had passed a bed warmer between them earlier. Mother lay on her back, her carefully dressed hair wrapped up for protection against disarray in her sleep. Her face was thick with powder and paint, the feeble tools used to retain some ghost of her former beauty. She looked like a ghost, a very still one, with its mouth slightly open.
My throat was tinder dry and I knew I was afraid. I could back out even now and no one would be the wiser.
Mother grumbled uneasily and turned a little. The lines on her face that should have been smoothed by sleep deepened into a scowl. If she dreamed, then it was an uneasy one.
Elizabeth was right, there was hatred in this woman, but was it enough to inspire her to poison a husband she had ceased to love decades ago? The more I looked at her the more likely it seemed. And the more pressing my need to do something about it.
I glided to a bedside table and lighted the candle there from the one in my hand. The room had been too dark for what I needed to do. I found another candle and brought it over. Their three lights still seemed too feeble, that, or my fear was making them so. It was that skewed perception again.
Unhappily giving in to it, I turned up one more candle, just to be sure. Plenty of light now, no chance for failure... unless someone walking past in the hall noticed the golden gleam escaping under the door and...
No. None of that. I'd hear anyone walking past first. With my hearing, I'd know when they first set foot to floor from their beds.
Get on with it.
I had to work my mouth a bit to get enough spit in it to talk. Then I wavered and cursed myself for my hesitation.
Taking a deep breath, I leaned over Mother and gently shook her shoulder. It felt strange to touch her. She never encouraged it. The last time I'd touched her had been at my homecoming from England. It had been a very perfunctory embrace, no more than what was needed for show. After that, nothing.
I expected iron, or something equally hard and cold, but this shoulder was soft and flaccid under my fingers and I drew them back as soon as she stirred. She mumbled and shifted.
"Wake up," I whispered. I could barely hear myself.
Have to do better than this.
I shook her again, more firmly. "Wake up, now."
Her mumbie turned into a whimper. I worried that she might have taken one of Beldon's sleeping draughts. Damnation if she had.
"Wake up!" A more fierce whisper.
"No," she moaned, drawing it out into a near whine. "No, Papa."
"Come on." I shook her again, trying to break her from her dream.
"Please, no, Papa. Don't."
"Mother... wake up!"
Her eyes flew wide and she gasped and shrank from me. I hadn't known what to expect when I woke her, but not this. Not this kind of shock, not this kind of naked fear. My God, what had she been dreaming about?
"What?" The last shreds of sleep tore away from her puffy eyes. They sharpened, cutting into me. "What are you doing here?"
Such was the force of her question and my ingrained habit of obedience that I nearly wasted time answering her. But I caught myself and said, "Quiet. You will be quiet, Mother."
Our eyes were locked together. That was what was important.
"You-"
"Quiet... and listen to me. You will listen to me..."
The fear, anger, hatred, outrage-whatever it was that drove her-eased instantly. It was frightening to see just how swiftly the change came over her, almost like one of her fits, but reversed.
No wonder Father had thought of this acquired talent of mine as both a gift and a curse and had asked me to use it sparingly, and so I had. For the most part. Nora had used it often enough to protect herself, letting her conscience guide her, and I'd taken that as a wise example to follow. Bullying Nash into a more compassionate behavior did not seem to be an abuse of power, after all, but what I was about to try now might be thought...
No. I would not start worrying about what people might think. Do that, and I'd end up like Mother.
I'd once agreed with Father that to enforce my will and thoughts upon others was not only ungentlemanly, but dishonorable. It had seemed so simple then to do so. The right thing. One of the first ideas to occur to him was that I might be tempted to influence Mother into better behavior, and I'd all but given him my word that I would take no such action. Now as I stood here and stared down at her empty eyes I felt shamed over having to betray his trust.
But what I was doing was right. It had to be right.
The agreement we'd made so easily last summer did not cover this threat, had never even considered it. I wasn't doing this for any other reason than to protect him, but then I wasn't planning to tell him about it, either. Out of considerations of honor, he might forbid me to do anything.
Damnation, again. I was becoming like Mother: for I was doing this for Father's own good, without his permission.
So be it, I thought wearily. For peace in the family and out of love for my father, so be it.
I straightened, resumed looking into Mother's eyes, and began to speak.
Days-and nights-passed and nothing happened, thank God. Responding unknowingly to my influence, Mother did what was asked of her, which was to do nothing.
I'd kept it to the absolute minimum, making the brief and simple request that she should not attempt to hurt or harm Father ever again. Once assured that she understood completely, I suggested that she forget my intrusion, but not her promise, and to go to back to sleep. After a moment, when I stopped feeling so unsettled, I put out the candles, carefully returned them to where I'd found them, picked up the one I'd brought, and left.
Without, the hall, rooms, the whole house had been as silent after as before. A listening silence, said my guilty fancy, but I was safe enough from discovery.
Depending on one's conscience, guilt can be eased by the passage of time, and to my surprise, I found my conscience to be rather more flexible than I'd thought-at least in this matter. As one night succeeded another without further incident, I began to see that what I'd done had been the right action to take. The only drawback was not being able to speak of it to the others.
It would have helped them to know that their worries were over, but it seemed best to let things run on as usual. Not that I was indifferent to their concern; I offered reassurance when it was needed, but kept my mouth shut the rest of the time. After a while, life gradually relaxed back to normal. Or something close to it. Father resumed taking tea with us and ceased looking so dubious when presented with his evening meal. Elizabeth, distracted by Norwood, left off drifting along in Mother's wake whenever the woman left a room alone. Jericho and Archimedes stopped their searches for laudanum, though they continued to keep a sharp eye on Mother during any gatherings with food or drink.
Beldon remained watchful, though. Frustrated perhaps by Father forbidding him to ask qu
estions, he'd continued to keep an eye on Mother as much as he could.
"I feel badly about this, Mr. Barrett," he confided to me one night not long after. "My carelessness was inexcusable. It shall not be repeated."
"Hardly your fault, sir. How could you have known? Or even anticipated?"
"But I should have." He touched the pocket where he kept the new keys to his medicine box and room. "Nevermore."
"Then surely there's no reason to feel bad."
He offered me a bleak look. "There is should your Mother decide to make another attempt, by another means."
