“Believe me, I dreaded this moment as well,” Henry said softly. “I feel the same and can clearly see myself falling in love with you again, too; although, I have never really stopped loving you, Sarah.”
“I have never stopped loving you either, Henry...” Sarah whispered.
He could see that her eyes, vacant and bleary, got moist.
Finally, Henry walked over to her, slowly, expectantly. But when he noticed that she made no further inclination to run away from him, he rushed towards her and flung his arms around her. And suddenly, she didnʼt seem to fight her feelings anymore. She let him embrace her and hold her, buried her head at his chest, and began to weep.
“God, Sarah... my Sarah...” Henry said again and again while he was rocking and stroking her, still unable to believe that he was really standing there, holding her close. He took her face in his hands and bent to kiss her, and immediately he felt his whole body react to the sensation of her mouth on his, felt his desire grow for her warmth, her nearness, her laughter—everything that he had missed for the past months. And suddenly it seemed to him as if there had never really been a departure, as if they were simply about to resume where they had stopped back then on that blissful weekend that they had spent together while the Partridges had been in Norwich.
“I missed you so much, Henry...” Sarah whispered, her voice breaking.
“God knows, I missed you too...” Henry replied breathlessly.
“How did you find out that I am here?”
“Oscar told me. He is in London, too.”
“Oh...” Sarah remarked with a faint smile. “Thatʼs why he so desperately wanted me to spend the morning in the restaurant. He is always secretly pulling the strings, isnʼt he?”
“He is indeed,” Henry said with a grin.
Sarah appeared so fragile and feeble that he worried she might faint and sink to the floor. He pulled her even closer to him, his arms flung around her tiny waist, his face buried in her hair.
Suddenly he noticed something.
He carefully freed himself out of her embrace and looked down at her belly. There wasnʼt really anything to see, but he had definitely felt it.
A tiny bulk.
“Sarah… can… can it be that you... you are... pregnant...?” Henry stammered incredulously.
A slightly bashful expression on her face, Sarah looked up to him and nodded.
Henry swallowed hard. The whole range of emotions—disgust, anger, sympathy—he felt it all at the same time; disgust and anger because of the fact that Damian had slept with Sarah, that he had laid his greasy hands on her and had been inside of her. He also felt sympathy for Sarah for the same reasons.
What were you thinking? Of course, he slept with her. He had all the right to do it. She is his wife...
Still, he felt his stomach turn at the thought of the fruit of his arch-enemy growing in Sarahʼs womb. He wondered how he would come to terms with this new situation. After all, he was here to ask Sarah if she wanted to go with him to America. And just in case she really decided to come after this conversation, that child would be reminding him of Damian forever.
But it is just a little baby, he then thought, feeling slightly ashamed. It is not the childʼs fault that it is the offspring of an arrogant madman…
Henry decided not to let his inner conflict show too much. He wanted Sarah, and if she wanted him too, he would take her with him and try to be a good father for the baby; no matter whose baby it was.
Still, he felt his vanity hurt.
“That was quick...” he said, angry at the fact that Damianʼs very first attempts to make Sarah pregnant had been so successful.
Sarahʼs hand lovingly stroked her belly.
“It is not Damianʼs child, Henry,” she whispered.
Henry looked at Sarah uncomprehendingly as she continued speaking.
“The night when Damian and I... when we... when...”
Henry got aware that she struggled to find an alternative to saying “when we were making love” because there obviously had not been any love involved.
“Well, when we did what Meggie and Baxter do, I was already over two weeks late. So I called for Uncle Oscar because I was in panic and did not know what was happening to me. He told me to wait a couple of weeks, and then we would see. Well, and then we saw...”
“But that means that you were already pregnant on your wedding night...!”
“Yes,” Sarah answered.
“But… but whose child is it then?” Henry stammered.
“How can you ask such a question?!” Sarah looked at him sadly. “Who else do you think touched me except for Damian and... and...”
She broke off.
“...Me,” Henry whispered.
“Yes, Henry. You,” Sarah answered, a blissful smile on her lips. “You are the father. There is no doubt about it. Oscar and I checked it thoroughly. It must have happened on that weekend when Aunt Priscilla and Uncle Horatio were in Norwich. Initially I was shocked, Henry. But then I was so glad about it; one of the rare moments I was actually happy...”
Henry was at a loss of words. He was staring blankly at Sarah, unable to speak, overwhelmed by the news.
I will be a father…
Suddenly, he recalled that particular Sunday morning when he had made love to Sarah in the boathouse, when she had been so unexpectedly fierce and wild. He had already had a sinister feeling back then because he had noticed that he had not been able to pull out of her quite on time. But deep inside, he had not really believed that this could have such consequences.
And then he suddenly remembered something else. Back then, when Oscar had visited him in his new home at Mrs. Potterʼs place, he had already believed that Oscar withheld some information from him.
He has known it all along...
He couldnʼt help but feel annoyed and disappointed by the fact that nobody had cared to tell him. He felt left out.
“Oscar has never told me,” he remarked sadly.
“Henry, believe me, he desperately wanted to tell you, but he promised me to never ever mention it to you. I forbade him to do so. Please donʼt be angry at him and try to understand…” Sarah explained, a beseeching tone to her voice.
Henry frowned.
“Would you have ever told me, Sarah?”
“When I found out about it, I so much wanted to let some time pass first, hoping that during that time your emotions for me would cool down. You had appeared so devastated that dreadful night of our parting, and I was so utterly worried that once you would know about the baby you would come back and try to fetch me.”
“I would have done so indeed.”
“But I did not want you to!” Sarah exclaimed, giving Henry a tortured glance. “Donʼt you understand that it would have put you and me in great danger! Can you imagine how I felt on the day of the wedding when I learnt that you had been lingering outside the mansion?! I was devastated because Damian lied to me and told me that his men had shot you and... and... that you were dead!”
Sarah broke out into sobs. Henry carefully put his arms around her and pressed her against his chest while she kept on talking, her fingers clutching his coat.
“I only found out that you were actually alive when Uncle Oscar brought me the news that you had written a letter to him again. But the days in between which I spent in uncertainty were a terrible nightmare for me... After two months, when you had not written to me anymore because I had not wanted you to do so, and when Oscar told me he got the feeling that you were sort of getting by, I felt it was time to send you a note and tell you about the child. But then... I do not know what happened, Henry... I simply lost all my willpower to be strong and go after my daily tasks… I had pulled myself together all the time, had tried to bear everything as good as I possibly could—and God knows I was an exemplary wife—but it obviously had all been too much. It felt as if I was burning inside out. I didnʼt want to live anymore, Henry... I was so sure that I would die one way or the other. I
didnʼt know why and how. I was simply certain about it. It was then that I made a new decision; the decision of not telling you, because I thought if you heard about my death, and if you then found out that I had been carrying your child, it would make you suffer from so much grief... Please forgive me, Henry. All I wanted is for you to live a normal life again. I never meant to hurt you. I am still very young and make mistakes...”
Henry, who had been listening to Sarahʼs story with anguish, raised his hand and gingerly brushed the tears out of her face with his thumb. He sensed that she was speaking the truth, sensed that she had been through her own little hell and came to the conclusion that she had not deserved it that he tortured her by being mad at her. And how could he truly be angry if that little secret she had spilt to him was the sweetest secret of all secrets that had ever been revealed to him in his entire life.
He would be a father!
Apart from that, she had been right. If she or Oscar had told him about the baby, he would, of course, have come back and risked his life by trying to steal her away from Damian. Not that his own life would have mattered much to him, but he would also have contributed to Sarahʼs distress by making her worry about him again. Yes, he had to admit that she was right in every single point she had mentioned; even if it hurt.
“You didnʼt make a mistake, Sarah,” he whispered. “And of course I forgive you, my sweetheart... I am sorry for suggesting that you could have been with someone else except for Damian and me. But your words have just completely taken me by surprise. I still can hardly believe it. I mean, I am becoming a father... But, please, tell me just one more thing: How did Damian react when he found out about your pregnancy?”
“He was overly delighted because he was and is of the belief that it is his child.”
Henry noticed a certain bitterness in Sarah`s voice, and in her eyes too; a bitterness which had not been there before and which he didnʼt like, as it somehow reminded him of Lady Partridge on one of those days when she had been in her depressed mood again.
As if she has already succumbed to resignation...
“He believes that it is his child because, after all, the wedding night took place only a few weeks after you and I had been together. So in terms of time, it could easily have happened on the wedding night, the baby-making, I mean,” Sarah added. “Apart from that, I had assured him that you and I had only exchanged kisses. He had been suspicious in the beginning, but ultimately it was Uncle Oscar who did everything to make him believe me. He is a genius.”
“What did he say?” Henry asked, casting Sarah a suspicious look.
She blushed a little and hesitated.
“Come on, tell me. What did he say?” Henry pressed.
“Well, he... please do not be angry at Oscar, all right?”
Henry let out a sigh.
What has he said or done now, that little rascal?
“Well, Oscar said that you were... I forgot the word... it is something with ʻiʼ... well, that you were biologically unable to make babies...”
Sarah sheepishly lowered her gaze.
“Holy mother of Christ...” Henry rolled his eyes and shook his head in disbelief.
“Uncle Oscar told Damian that you had mentioned it when you and Oscar had been in London together. He claimed that both of you had been drunk back then, and that you had told each other all kinds of things. Are you mad now?”
Sarah looked at Henry uncertainly.
“No, it is alright, believe me,” Henry answered and tried hard to swallow his anger because of the fact that Damian now believed, surely to his utter merriment, that Henry was impotent. But Henryʼs anger soon gave way to utter relief at the fact that Sarah had not been harmed by Damian. He didnʼt dare to imagine what this man would have been capable of after finding out that the baby was not his own.
“Henry,” Sarah suddenly asked, “are you happy? About the baby, I mean…”
A wide smile spread across Henryʼs face.
“I have never been so happy in my entire life…”
Sarah beamed at him. Henry wanted to kiss her again and enjoy this moment of their bliss when he suddenly remembered that there still lay a task ahead of him, the task of confronting her with the facts about his departure and of asking her if she would like to join him now. He felt that he shouldnʼt keep the news from her any longer although he shuddered at the thought of a possible negative reaction of hers.
“Sarah, I need tell you something, too,” he began carefully.
Sarah frowned, confused by his sudden seriousness.
“What is it you need to tell me?”
“I am leaving tonight.”
Sarahʼs face fell. Her breathing accelerated and Henry could see that she was about to panic. He quickly took her by the hands and held her tight as she threatened to back away from him.
“W... where are you going?” she stammered.
“Where I always wanted to go, Sarah: America.”
Her hands slipped out of his grasp, and her eyes began to fill with tears again.
“Is that the only reason you have come here?” she whimpered. “To tell me that you do not want to be with me anymore? And all of this now that you know that I am carrying your child?!”
Henry pricked his ears.
...that you donʼt want to be with me anymore...
Had she changed her mind?
“Sarah, listen to me, please,” Henry quickly tried to soothen her concern. “Of course, I have not only come to tell you that I am leaving you. I have come to ask you for the very last time if you want to join me. But I want you to know that if you say no this time, I will actually force you to go with me because I canʼt possibly leave you behind; not in the state that you are in. It does not have to be America. We can go to any other country if you like. But wherever we will go, it will be for your own good. I promise that you will be in good hands if you come with me. I will not disappoint you.”
Sarah pensively looked at him.
“Sarah, donʼt make the same mistake again...” Henry whispered beseechingly.
“You know,” she said, “I was imagining this moment so many times during the past months, imagined what it would be like if fate should grant me the luck that you would ask me again; what it would be like if I wasnʼt so scared, and what would happen if you and I really—”
She broke off.
Henry was staring at her intently, expectantly, trying to read her enigmatic expression. As she didnʼt continue speaking, he bent down and kissed her.
It was a very soft and tender kiss. He hardly touched her lips, and still, the electricity between him and her was so intense that he felt as if the whole room would burst in flames.
When he let go of Sarah, she leaned her forehead against his and closed her eyes, an angelic smile on her lips.
“Your kisses feel exactly the same as back in summer, still passionate, still full of love...” she breathed.
“Of course, they do, Sarah,” Henry whispered, “because my feelings for you havenʼt changed a bit.”
“You still want me, Henry, after all this time, even though I have given you the cold shoulder, and have never replied to your letters...”
“God, I do, Sarah!”
Sarah looked at him again for another while, thinking hard.
“Well, if it is really like that, then... then you do not need to force me,” she said.
Henry stared at her incredulously.
“What did you just say…?” he asked puzzled.
“I said I will come with you to America. I am scared, but I will go with you if I still may.”
Henry could hardly breathe with excitement.
All the time he had waited for that answer. And now that he had actually heard what he had always wanted to hear, he could hardly trust his ears. He wondered if he was still under the influence of the alcohol that he had consumed excessively during the past weeks.
Hallucinations. The pink elephants. I have finally begun to see them. I have fina
lly begun to go insane.
“Would you please pinch me, Sarah?” Henry asked flatly.
Sarah chuckled and gave him a peck on the nose.
“Henry, there is one thing I want you to know,” she added more seriously. “The reason I want to come with you now is not just because the alternatives are so dreadful. It is not because otherwise I would have to go to India. No, it is because I can clearly feel now that you still want me. Maybe I needed this proof, needed to be certain... Three months is a long time. I never believed that someone would be capable of carrying the torch for me for that long. I know now that I made a mistake back then. I should have come with you right from the start. I know I made you suffer, but believe me, I made myself suffer, too...”
Henry & Sarah Page 34
