Born of Persuasion

by Jessica Dotta

  “Perhaps it was one of the Wilsons,” Mrs. Windham suggested when silence filled the room. “The more I consider it, the more convinced I am it must have been them. For I am certain we stumbled upon Mr. Wilson and Henry quarrelling only last Tuesday. Did we not, Elizabeth?”

  Elizabeth merely gave her mother a flippant look.

  “You must tell your parents it was the Wilsons.” Mrs. Windham took Edward’s arm and motioned him to the door. “Make certain they know I would never condone such behavior. No, indeed, even should he call in person, I would not open my door to Henry, but refuse him on the grounds of . . . your . . . parents’ . . .”

  Head bent, I waited to hear Edward’s departing footsteps, but as Mrs. Windham’s babble died, I slowly drew my eyes upwards.

  Edward stood regarding me, his fingers crushing the brim of his hat. The tendons in his neck stood out as he spoke. “Forgive the bold inquiry, Miss Elliston. You’re here. Why?”

  Even had the thickness in my throat not forbidden speech, I should not have answered him. He had betrayed me, but that he should glower at me as if I were the traitor was unbearable. I returned his withering stare, then returned my focus to my sewing.

  It was Mrs. Windham who finally filled the void. “Ah, I see you remember Miss Elliston. Did I neglect to mention her parents’ passing and that she was coming to visit?”

  I grew cold and then hot in succession. Her words were salt to a raw wound, for it wouldn’t take him long to guess the reason why I’d come. But he seemed to scarcely note that I was now alone in the world.

  “Yes, you did fail to mention it.” His tone became stern as he looked at Elizabeth. “As did your daughter. Did you likewise forget?”

  “No.” Elizabeth sounded obstinate as she moved her gaze from her handiwork to him. “No. Henry forbade me to tell you.”

  “Henry!” Mrs. Windham spun in her direction. “When did you last see Master Henry?”

  Elizabeth shrugged, still silently challenging Edward with a sullen look.

  For a moment, he only mashed his hat between his fingers. When he finally spoke, his vocal cords were strained. “I am late. My errands are urgent.” He kept his singular glare on Elizabeth. “Yet you and Henry would willfully conspire to cast extra burdens upon me?”

  Elizabeth yanked her thread so hard, the fabric pulled.

  Edward waited for comment, but when none came, he turned to me. He bowed his eyes, both guarded and apologetic. “I pray you will forgive my misguided brother. You have my word, I shall not disturb your visit by calling upon Am Meer again.”

  Glaring once more at Elizabeth, he shoved his crumpled hat onto his head, turned, and left.

  “When did you last see Master Henry?” Mrs. Windham demanded again in an angry whisper as the door shut. “You know you’re not supposed to. If Lord Auburn and—”

  “Oh, Mama, hush!” Elizabeth threw her sewing down. Tears filled her eyes. “Who cares about them?” Her face sympathetic, she turned toward me. “Julia, I am so sorry. I had not an idea that Henry would . . . No, you mustn’t leave. Dearest, we must talk; I must explain.”

  But I would have none of it. I shook my head, dumping the contents of my lap to the floor. My self-restraint had left with Edward.

  That night, I sat empty of faith, staring at the fire. My only comfort was one of the dogs I’d coaxed into my chamber an hour or two after Elizabeth stopped pounding on my door, demanding I come out.

  Ordained, my mind said over and again. Edward is ordained. The bulldog soughed and stretched in his sleep as I ran my fingers over his bristled fur. It was all just too horrible to believe.

  Edward was now one of those churlish men who thought nothing of crushing others from their man-made pulpits. It was unthinkable. Nearly as unthinkable as Edward’s standing before me callous and impervious.

  I envisioned him walking about in that ridiculous-looking cassock, visiting his parishioners while I’d been lectured and bullied by his brethren. I picked up the nearby poker and jabbed the fire with vigor, then when the dog jumped to attention at my motion, I rubbed his ears.

  No vicar could wed William Elliston’s daughter. Edward had to have known that when he took his orders. He had known he was discarding me.

  And what of Elizabeth?

  I hugged my knees and stared at the ceiling lost to the dark, feeling a roiling of emotion. Her betrayal was beyond belief. How could she have remained silent all those years, allowing me to think my future was set, when in reality, it was falling apart? Her actions were unconscionable. Unforgivable.

  A warm tongue licked my hand. Looking down I realized I’d ceased petting the dog. Red-rimmed eyes looked soulfully upon me.

  “Et tu Brute?” I hugged my knees tighter as my voice choked. “Are you just waiting around in hopes of seeing me cry?”

  A long tongue and happy panting met my question.

  No longer caring that it wasn’t proper, I lay on my side and accepted the dog’s warm kisses and energetic wagging of his tail. With nudges of his wet nose and high whines, he invited me to take consolation in his company and to have a good cry.

  “Eh. Thou’ll have fleas now if thou didn’t before.”

  I opened my eyes to find the girl from yesterday leaning over me, her nose inches from mine. Her red curls hung like curtains on either side of her face. When she moved, sunlight flooded my face, forcing me to shield my eyes.

  “Thou’ll smell, too.” Nancy wrinkled her nose before reaching down and grabbing the bulldog by the scruff of the neck. “Ga on, off with thee.”

  As I struggled to a sitting position, the events of yesterday flooded back. I glowered at the maid, displeased she’d found me in yesterday’s wrinkled dress, lying brokenhearted on the floor with a bulldog.

  Nor did she seem pleased with me. With the tone of a martyr, she planted her hand on her hip, saying, “And just this morn I gats permission to see me mam.” She stamped her foot. “Now look at thee. I need to wash your dress before I can ga.”

  I opened my mouth to apologize but then clamped it shut, too forlorn to care. At least she was going to remain at Am Meer, while I’d soon be sent to Scotland.

  Scowling, she opened the cedar wardrobe and gathered my second-best dress in her arms, but then to my surprise, her face softened as she turned and studied me. “Ye might as well be hearing th’ gossip from me first.” She nudged the door shut with her hip.

  I wrapped my arms about my knees, looking toward the window, where sunlight streamed into the room.

  “Th’ butcher boy tells me Lord Auburn’s sons gat in a row last night ’bout thee. Th’ reverend was hot ’cause Master Henry knew about thy mam and didn’t tell him. Chased Master Henry about the stable with a crop, he did.” The maid’s voice brightened. “Even though he’s the younger of th’ two, he whipped his brother soundly.”

  I felt like crying as I tried to picture Edward so stern and angry he’d punish someone in such a manner. Then I groaned. If this maid knew as much, likely enough other servants also gossiped about it as they emptied chamber pots and stirred porridge.

  Hot anger tingled through me. For three years, I’d taken care never to mention Edward’s name aloud, never to give Mama or Sarah the slightest hint that we were betrothed. And now, when marriage was no longer a possibility, when I’d be snickered at behind my back for entertaining such a great hope, Edward had made a spectacle of us!

  Nancy cocked her head, waiting for a response as my fingers closed in fists. If I wasn’t careful, even my sleeping with the dogs in the ashes would soon be common knowledge.

  “I don’t care for servants’ gossip,” I said, rising.

  I ignored her scowl, then stood and brushed off my skirt, resolved to add no more fuel to the fire. At the washstand, I damped my face, careful to soak my eyes on a cool cloth to reduce the redness, then scrubbed hard to give my cheeks bloom and to make certain no trace of ash remained.

  Being the daughter of William Elliston had its advantages. The role of
outcast was familiar enough. While I did not relish the hard look that would settle upon my face, nor hearing whispers as I passed vendors, at least it wouldn’t break me. I knew better than most how to maintain a frost around my heart. Only until that day, I’d never needed its protection at Am Meer.

  In the mirror, my green eyes glinted with steely determination. I recognized the girl staring back, but disliked her. She was the girl my parish vicar had termed “shockingly wicked and hard-hearted.”

  I turned from the looking glass, determined that no one would see how crushed and how deadened I felt.

  It was difficult, however, to remain aloof at breakfast.

  Mrs. Windham said nothing about Edward’s strange visit yesterday, but instead chatted about a thick letter she’d received from her cousin who was visiting London. She read aloud the bits concerning the latest fashion of bonnets and shawls, then moodily declared that had it been Elizabeth in London, she would have managed to find more dance partners than her cousin’s daughter. Elizabeth waited for my acknowledgment, wearing a bruised look upon her face.

  With a growing sense of shame, I kept my gaze as far away from her as possible.

  “Mama,” Elizabeth interrupted Mrs. Windham midspeech. “After breakfast, will you excuse Julia and me so we can walk?”

  Mrs. Windham didn’t stop reading her letter. “To be sure. Now, where was I? Listen to this part. . . .”

  But Elizabeth, with her own brand of communicating, silently demanded I acknowledge her. I finally turned. She wasn’t laughing. She looked as anguished as I felt. My wall crumbled.

  Once I became willing to speak with Elizabeth, breakfast stretched long.

  Mrs. Windham continued to read from her pile of mail, well after the dishes had been cleared. She finally collected her posts, declaring her morning would be spent answering them.

  In the hall, Elizabeth selected two heavy shawls from pegs, one of which she handed to me.

  “Are you not wearing a bonnet?” I asked as she opened the door to a swirl of wind.

  “No. We shall not be seen. We’ll go over the hillock by the oak.”

  I grabbed mine regardless and hastily tied it beneath my chin, then draped my black crepe mourning veil over it. A young widow in my parish had trimmed her gown with color a fortnight early and had been shunned for months. I would not risk my reputation, not with servants’ gossip on my heels.

  With heavy feet, I followed Elizabeth to the top of the knoll and gazed at the vast farmlands sprawling in every direction. Brown cows picked their way across the fields. Sheep clustered near haystacks, like ships at harbor amidst a sea of grass.

  “It’s my fault. I debated telling you yesterday afternoon when you arrived.” Elizabeth’s shawl fluttered in the wind. “I should have warned you, only I hadn’t the heart. I saw you’d been through an ordeal and needed at least one night’s rest. Edward hasn’t come to Am Meer in over a year. I swear it. I never would have allowed that to happen. I thought Henry had more sense than that.”

  Weary, I leaned against the boulder and twisted to observe Am Meer. The brim of my bonnet blocked the view of the lovely gardens I should soon have to leave. “Why did you not write me about it long ago?”

  She faced me, her voice and face pleading. “Because you never would have come back here if you knew. Because you are our only hope of bringing Edward to his senses. You have no idea. He’s completely absurd now. He can deny Henry and me, but he can’t deny you.”

  I frowned, for the situation sounded like one of Henry’s harebrained schemes. “You honestly think I have no more pride than that? That I wish to force myself upon Edward?”

  “Force yourself? Ha! Surely even you could not have missed his great joy at seeing you yesterday.”

  I gasped. “Joy? If that was joy, then you’ve all gone mad during my absence. I saw only anger. Someone who no longer wants—” The rest of my words were choked.

  “Julia, I swear it’s not you, dearest.” As gentle as her voice, Elizabeth’s hand came to rest upon my shoulder. “I swear on my life. There are scarcely words to describe Edward’s . . . his . . . well, fanaticism.”

  I pinched my mouth shut, wishing I had never come to Am Meer, wishing I’d never learned this. It would have been better if I’d believed Edward had died. Then at least I could have comforted myself with the thoughts of what could have been.

  “You must believe me.” A gust of wind freed wisps of hair, which she pushed back with determination. “Dearest, he’s not, well . . . simply put, he’s not normal anymore.”

  “Are you saying he’s softheaded?”

  Elizabeth frowned. “Soft? If only. He’s harder than nails nowadays, but he’s miserable. You’ve not been here to see for yourself. There’s no explaining.” She jerked her head and stared moodily at the landscape. “One Sunday Edward commanded the upper crust move to the back of the church and give their seats to the poor. Had you seen him when we refused . . . well, he wept, calling upon the mercy of God for our hard-heartedness.”

  I stiffened at that particular word, but Elizabeth failed to note it.

  Her face and neck turned scarlet as she admitted the next part. “He tore his robes when we refused, claiming he’d set the example himself. It’s why he never visits the upper class anymore, why I could not have fathomed that he’d call on us yesterday. The next week, he’d removed the dividers from the pews.”

  I tried to imagine Edward—the boy who’d swung me in circles and tormented the local butcher by setting his pigs loose in the garden—rending his garments. “Did anyone sit anywhere different?”

  She recoiled. “Of course not. But you can imagine the stir it created. His parents are at a loss and have forbidden him to dine with them unless he wears the clothing of a gentleman, but he clings to that dreadful cassock; thus he only eats with the cottagers or at the workhouse. Even Henry is at a loss as to how to communicate with him. Edward listens to no one, never speaks to us now, unless it’s to lecture us.” She fell silent, waiting.

  Her words wrought different results in me than she intended. Instead of softening my outlook toward Edward, they hardened it. I’d encountered his type before and seen their converts. Edward belonged to the sort that had persecuted me. He had become my worst enemy. Even friendship between us was now impossible.

  On my right, the leaves enshrouding the sprawling branches of the ancient oak tree rustled in the wind—covering the very place where he asked me to become his wife. I wanted nothing more than to fade back in time, to speak to the Edward that I remembered, to seek his solace and advice.

  “Well?” Elizabeth leaned forward.

  I found my clarity. “Well, what? What do you expect? I have my own troubles now. I warrant he has no wish to see me again either.”

  Elizabeth’s nose scrunched like a hare’s. “Have you not heard one word? Not a day passes that he does not fear for your health, or worry about your environment. There are entire nights he can’t sleep for thought of you. Every day, every single day, he struggles with this desire to go to your village himself, to ensure for himself that you are being cared for. Without fail, every day your name appears in his journals as he agonizes—”

  “Journals? Elizabeth!”

  “Well, I don’t read them. Henry does. It’s for Edward’s own good.”

  I stopped my ears, starting toward the cottage. Edward’s privacy—at least when I knew him—was sacred. To listen further was treachery.

  “Julia, listen.” Elizabeth grabbed my arm. “Please.”

  I stopped. “And will you be reading my diaries next?”

  “That’s harsh. How can you ask me that?”

  I picked up my heavy skirts and started downhill. “What other conclusion am I to draw? You’re reading his journals!”

  With hurried, small steps Elizabeth managed to overtake me. “You must aid us. You owe it to Edward. This is nothing more than a fever he suffers from. He wasn’t the only one infected at university. But it will pass. He’s your
betrothed. You can still compel him to acknowledge you. When this fades, would you rather be his wife, or have lost him forever?”

  I gave an empty, bitter laugh to the wind. Elizabeth’s shoulders drooped with disappointment. She would never understand, for it was to Edward’s ears alone that I’d confessed what I’d suffered at the hands of the church. Well, let him rot there now.

  Yet my throat ached with tears as I hastened down the grassy slope.

  “Julia!” Elizabeth lost no time in stumbling after me. “He’s going to have to confront you sooner or later. I tell you, you still hold power over his heart. Oh, don’t run, for heaven’s sake—you know I can’t keep up. I—”

  Thankfully Elizabeth had never been a good sprinter. I managed to escape her—and the madness that seemed to be affecting her and Henry, as well as Edward.

  MINE WEREN’T THE ONLY HOPES blighted that August. While cottagers and farmers scrambled to salvage a few baskets of their produce, left stringy and tasteless by the early frost, dark clouds congregated and released incessant rain.

  Handfuls of ripening corn were sole survivors of entire fields. Wheat lay flattened and drowned. The poor and desperate gleaned what they could despite the icy rain and their painfully numb fingers, yet their harvest amounted to little more than lingering coughs and cellars filled with moldy vegetables.

  Mrs. Windham also suffered loss. She bemoaned her garden, often walking from window to window lamenting her dead vines and barren flowers, speculating how many years it would take to recover the damage. It being too wet and cold for venturing outdoors, Elizabeth and I endured hours listening to her endless tirades, which inevitably concluded in tearful outbursts.

  It was, therefore, with relief that I entered the drawing room one afternoon to find a merry fire crackling against the cold and an elaborate set upon the tea table. Mrs. Windham’s best china, brown transferware, sat adorned with frilly lace napkins and matching tablecloth. A fourth cup promised a guest.