by Jane Lark
Yet his desire, the feeling of love inside him, wanted to go to her—to comfort her. To just bloody hold her.
He moved, so his arm slipped loose from Alethea’s clutch. “When you write to her, tell her that I passed on my regard.” I will be thinking of her. Daily. Constantly. I will let her go, but I will not forget.
~
The door into her father’s small library opened wider. Susan looked up. She was painting a picture of a rose which lay on the table before her, trying to recreate it on the paper as the artist had recreated the orchids in Uncle Robert’s book.
When she painted she could often manage not to think of Henry for minutes at a time.
“There is a letter for you, miss.” The footman held it out as he came in.
“Thank you.” She lay down her paintbrush with a sigh as her concentration was once again captured by thoughts of Henry.
She held out her hand to take the letter.
“Do you require anything, Miss Susan?”
“No, thank you.” She glanced down at the address. She knew from the structure of the letters who they’d been written by; she had seen several dozen letters written to Alethea in the same hand. Henry’s.
She turned away from the desk and broke the seal. There was no need to hide anywhere to read it. There was no one here other than the servants. Her father had stayed with her for two days, until she had managed to convince him that she was truly not injured in anyway, and then he’d returned to London.
She walked to the window. Her heartbeat fluttered in a stuttering rhythm. She should not be pleased to hear from him. She should not want to hear from him. Yet as her fingers held the paper that he’d written upon, warmth and longing filling every artery.
And Alethea? “Hush.” She refused to hear the whisper of guilt. To read his letter was not acting upon her desires. They were only words on a page. Yet they were his words.
The paper trembled from the unsteadiness of her hand.
Dearest Susan,
I am trusting that this will reach you unopened as I know your father is here in town so I shall write honestly. I wish you had not run. I miss you.
I miss you too. The words breathed through her soul. But how could she have stayed?
But I understand your reasons. I did not mean to upset you any more than you meant to upset Alethea. Forgive me. And I know I should not write, but I could not help it.
I called the day you left. I had selfishly planned to invite you to view the Egyptian Exhibition Hall only so we could speak. I wanted to persuade you to accept me. But Alethea told me how upset you were, and then I saw what you had asked me to try and see, a view through your eyes. Yes, I see, this is too hard for you, and I expected too much of you to lose your family.
I would rather that you were not a martyr, and yet I love you because you are. It is who you are. And so I must be a martyr too and sacrifice my happiness with yours. But I wish you to know my choice for a wife, is you. If I had a choice.
But as I do not, I will rejoice in the hours we were together too, because I love you. But for that same reason, I will not chase you, I have let you go because I cannot see you hurt.
She took off her spectacles as the tears fell.
Your most sincere admirer,
H
Love…
Alethea had read out many of the letters Henry had written to her. They had been factual accounts of things he’d done with friends. His letters to Alethea had never contained words expressing emotion and he’d never written the words, I love you.
She folded the letter, left her paintbrush un-rinsed on the side, and the painting half complete, and took the letter to her room, where she put it in a drawer out of sight.
She would not write back. It would be utter folly to begin an exchange which could lead them to nothing other than more pain.
Ever since this foolishness had begun, her heart had gone out with a sense of pity to her sister, because she had taken what Alethea wanted—now it reached out to Henry. He sounded as though he hurt as much as she did.
Life was cruel. If only her father and his had not made their stupid agreement!
It was not fair!
When she retired to bed later the letter whispered to her. Before she blew her candle out, she got up, fetched it from its hiding place and re-read it. Then she fell asleep with it in her hand.
In the morning, she watched herself in the mirror as a maid helped her dress. The letter was back in hiding—just like her feelings.
But it had made her realise she could no more stay here than she’d been able to stay in London. Henry would return and their paths would cross again and again. And what then? She would be cut down with embarrassment, longing and guilt for the rest of her life.
She shut her eyes as the maid pulled hard on the lacing of her corset.
The only option she had was to find a teaching position in a school, or to become a governess.
After she’d eaten her breakfast she wrote to her father and proposed the idea that she might find a position, it was better that she did so with his consent.
Then after luncheon another letter arrived from London, from Alethea.
Dearest Susan,
I miss you so, I have no one to share my confidences with and Henry is being his usual distracting self. He dances with me but he never sends me flowers and he has become melancholy. I call him miserable to his face. He merely gives me annoying pretend smiles. I told him I shall choose the Earl of Stourton. He said he did not care.
I think he has changed, but he wrote to me yesterday and asked if I would ride out with him today because we needed to talk. If it is to propose after his behaviour the last few nights I am of a mind to refuse him. It is what he deserves. But in truth I still favour him over Lord Stourton. I shall write more tomorrow before I post this, and tell you what Henry has said.
Susan looked up from the page and glanced out of the window into the distance, to the woodland, on the border of her father’s land.
That woodland would one day be Henry’s.
A sharp little blade pierced through her heart. She took a breath and looked back down. She had to learn to face her guilt, she would not estrange herself from her sister, or her sister’s words, because of her love for Henry. She could not lose her sister as well as him.
It is the next afternoon but I cannot tell you what Henry has said. He cried off. But I will allow him that it was for a good reason, poor William has a fever and Uncle Robert was busy so Henry drove his mother to Eton. They are to bring William home to recover. Of course Henry was not at the ball last night either and so I danced with Lord Stourton, and do not tell Mama, for she was not counting, we danced thrice. I may well come to favour him over Henry yet!
My blessings, dearest sister, I hope that you feel better now you are home.
Alethea
Susan’s heart became a dead weight in her chest as she set down the letter. She had been trying to paint again today but it was too difficult to concentrate. She looked out of the window. It was a cool middling day, the sky was grey and the branches and leaves on the trees were being tossed about on a breeze. Even so, she wished to be outside—to feel. She needed a distraction from thought.
She went upstairs, she’d intended to fetch her cloak and walk outside, but when she reached her room and looked out of the window the open grass meadows beckoned her. She turned and pulled the cord to ring for a maid, and when the maid arrived she asked for help to dress in her riding habit.
She did not send word to the stables, but walked down there, her legs kicking out the skirt of her habit as she hurried.
“Where is my mare? Where is Copper?” she asked as she walked into the stable yard.
“In her stall, miss.” One of the grooms pointed across the yard. Copper’s chestnut head appeared over the lower gate of a stall in the far corner. There was one wonderful thing about being the daughter of a horse breeder, she had a fabulous horse. Papa had given Copper to her three y
ears ago, and Susan was the only one who rode her beyond the grooms.
Susan walked up to the stall and petted her. Copper was all sleek beautiful, muscular lines. She was beautiful.
Like Henry, Susan’s heart whispered.
“Shall I ready her for you miss?”
“Yes, please?”
A groom walked about her and opened the stall, then walked in as Copper backed up a couple of steps, the straw on the floor of the stall rustled beneath the mare’s hooves.
Susan followed him in. He took Copper’s bridle from a hook on the side of the stall, Susan patted the mare’s neck, then she took the bridle from the groom and slipped it on. “Hello, girl.” She’d ridden since she was four, she was entirely at home around horses. Her father treated them like children, the horses on the stud farm were a part of their family. Perhaps it was why she’d become attached to all animals. She thought of Samson, at Farnborough, and wondered if he was still sitting near the door in the hall.
The groom set Susan’s saddle on Copper’s back, and leant to buckle the girth strap as Susan patted Copper’s neck .
She would always feel as though she was sitting before a door waiting. Perhaps she should ride over to Farnborough and commiserate with Samson.
The scents of the horse, of the straw and leather, had always reassured her before, but even that did not settle the pain or ease her loss.
“There you are, miss.” The groom slapped Copper’s rump gently.
“Thank you.”
He bowed and lifted his cap.
Susan led Copper out into the yard and walked her to a mounting block. The grooms carried on about their business. She usually rode out with Alethea, they were both confident riders, but her mother still preferred them to be accompanied by a groom. Yet they preferred to ride alone, so unless their mother knew, they did.
She hooked her knee over the pommel of the side saddle, then settled the skirt of her habit about her. The sharp beat of her heart was now from the expectation of a gallop over the meadows.
Copper sidestepped, sensing Susan’s energy.
She gripped the reins tighter, so they held against the bit in Copper’s mouth, then she tapped her heel to urge Copper into a trot.
“Have a good ride, miss!” One of the grooms called out as she rode out of the yard.
As soon as she was away from the house she set Copper into a canter, and then into a gallop as she leaned low against the mare’s neck. The wind blew at her face and whipped the loose strands of her hair from beneath her hat. Energy filled her up, capturing her senses. She would conquer her feelings and she would make a life for herself somewhere away from Alethea and Henry.
She’d ride out to where her father’s land joined Uncle Robert’s, to the abbey ruins. She had an urge to stand amongst them and feel the passage of time, and her own smallness within it.
The walls became visible above a hedge when Copper jumped a narrow stream. The plants before it had been pruned to frame what was left of the abbey like a picture.
She rode on, slowing Copper to a trot, then ducked down and rode beneath a low arch into the ruins.
She looked up. The walls were still as high as the ceiling must have been in this part, but the sky above them had become almost as dark a grey as the stone, and the clouds swirled about in an argument with the wind.
The arches of an old passageway, ran along near the top of the wall.
The haste of the clouds, blown by the wind, the passage to nowhere… Everything spoke of time, just as she’d known it would, of how quickly it passed, of how tiny her own perspective of it was.
She dismounted, sliding off the saddle.
Life did not centre and revolve around her or Henry. The world was much larger than the two of them and their insensitive infatuation. Love… There were a hundred books on love being won and lost, and hearts warmed and broken.
She let go of Copper’s reins, leaving the mare to graze on the grass which covered what had once been floors full of ornamental tiles.
The grass was wet from an earlier rain shower. The damp darkened the hem of her habit. She walked towards the abbey’s minster, passing beneath a giant arch which had retained some of its ornate decoration and faced the remnants of the stone altar.
She should set her love for Henry there as a sacrifice. She had given up the thing she wanted most in her life.
She missed him. There was a hole within her that ached as though she had been shot through with a bullet. How did such feelings pass? How did anyone survive a broken heart?
She walked on, not really knowing in which direction she was walking. Her fingers clasped the skirt of her dress, lifting it away from the damp grass.
There was a low wall before her.
Many of the stones from the walls in the ruins had been taken to build houses, and so there were some walls as low as her hip, and some she could step over.
When Susan reached the wall she could see over the top; a view of the woodland that would become Henry’s as the ruins would become Henry’s.
Bitterness, jealousy and… loss, whirled through her. Someone would marry him. He was the heir, he would take someone, if not her or Alethea.
Tears made the valley a shimmering mass of green. She sobbed as the tears ran on to her cheeks, crying noisily with a childlike release of pain. It echoed back from the high walls. But there was no one to hear. “I love him!” She shouted out the words that fate, and their father’s plans, had forced her to keep silent, yelling them at the walls. “I want him! I want to be cruel and selfish! I want to keep you Henry!”
She breathed steadily. Letting the words echo into silence. “But I can’t,” she said in a low whisper.
A raindrop fell on to her shoulder. She looked up. Another dropped on to her chin. She opened her lips as the rain fell harder, and let the raindrops fall into her mouth and dampen her face, mingling with her tears.
She kept her face turned up to the sky and her hands on the coarse stone wall, as the rain fell in earnest, and prayed it would wash her pain away.
~
Henry’s elbows rested on his thighs. He was sitting on an upturned bucket near his brother’s narrow bed. While his mother was sitting in the only chair, close enough that she might hold William’s hand. William lay unmoving and silent. The only sound in the room was his breathing.
Henry sighed out a breath and reached out to hold his brother’s arm. William was burning up. He’d lain in a stupor ever since they’d arrived, exhausted by his battle with the fever. He’d not even opened his eyes. He shivered, even though his skin bore the heat of a poker in a fire. Henry let him go.
This, was not right.
God, Henry’s chest hurt from the lump of pain in his throat that longed to scream out his anger and frustration. It was torture sitting here and watching his little brother suffer when there was nothing he might do.
The doctor had warned them three hours ago that William was not well enough to be moved. He’d said the fever could yet increase and so it was better to let William remain at the school to ride the fever out. But fever was not always a journey that was passed through, sometimes it claimed its rider.
William could not die.
The words of denial breathed through Henry over and over as he saw a hundred images of William in his thoughts. William was thirteen. They were not close but he looked up to Henry as all his younger brothers did.
Responsibility hung like a heavy weight from Henry’s shoulders. He had been battling with a need to become responsible, but here there was no battle nor choice; it gripped him about the neck, and its grip was tightening, closing off his throat so he could not breathe.
William had been playing a reckless prank. He’d been climbing up to one of his masters’ rooms to fulfil some dare. He’d fallen. Apparently the school had thought him well but two days after the fall, after he’d been shut into a room in isolation for punishment, they’d discovered that he’d collapsed with a fever.
There were
cuts on William’s feet where the doctor had bled him to release the bad humours in his blood—whatever that meant.
Henry looked at his mother. “Mama, shall I have someone find you a meal? You look pale, you must be hungry.”
“No, I could not stomach food, Henry. I just wish you would open your eyes, William, and speak to me, then I shall feel more certain you are recovering.”
Henry wished for it too, a part of him wanted to shake William, and yell at him, wake up!
His brother’s cheeks held red roses, where the fever had bloomed so high, and his skin glistened with sweat, even as he shivered again.
Henry gripped William’s hand. He would not let his brother die. He squeezed his fingers to tell William not to be afraid.
The sense of responsibility clung on. Only days ago, he’d made the most painful decision of his life, to let Susan go, he’d praised himself for doing so, for being so damned responsible and caring that he would crack his own heart. The whole thing, the whole sense of his growth from a careless youth to a caring man who knew how to love, paled to a watery bland shade in this room.
This was responsibility. He had his mother and his brother to protect. But how could he make William better?
Henry wanted to speak, to encourage William to fight and yet his mother had returned to silence and so he stayed silent.
William was too young to face this.
It was half past the hour of ten when the doctor next came to the room. It was dark outside.
Henry had lit candles a couple of hours before.
He stood up, moving out of the way, so the physician might feel William’s forehead.
“He is no better.”
The man was stating the bloody obvious. Henry’s teeth gritted against sharing those words, as he stared down at William.
How could William be both pale and flushed? But he was. He was an odd colour. He did not look well at all—and he had still not opened his eyes.
The doctor looked at Henry. “I would suggest you send for The Earl of Barrington.”
A frown clasped at Henry’s brow. No.
The man would only propose sending for Henry’s father if he thought there was little hope.
