by Abby Ayles
“We’ve kept you here so long. You must be tired,” Arabella suggested when she saw the time had passed.
Helena had quite forgotten it all, she was enjoying herself so much. It was the first time in months that she'd found a reason to smile. Before that, she had only Elias, but his presence was no longer a source of respite for her.
“I am quite well. I’m not tired in the least.”
“Come, let me see you to your room. You would at least like to freshen up before the guests arrive,” Arabella stated as she got to her feet.
“Guests?” Helena questioned as she joined her.
“Did Mother forget to tell you? We are having a few people over for dinner tonight. It’s to welcome them to Shropshire. They’ve arrived early before the wedding to help us.”
“I see,” Helena replied with as much eagerness as she could muster. She hadn’t expected company so soon. She thought she would at least have the time before the wedding day to prepare.
“Follow me,” Arabella said eagerly as she took Helena’s hand and led her from the room.
She followed Arabella through the corridor. Helena wondered how many people in the party might be aware of her family’s situation. How far had the news spread? She knew there was a chance of some being aware, but the hope was that it would be a minimal number.
“Oh dear,” Arabella said suddenly as they were halfway up the stair. “I forgot something in the parlor. Wait for me here.”
Helena nodded her agreement as Arabella quickly descended the stair. She stood on the landing, looking down at the main entry hall. Her aunt had married very well. Her husband’s income was less than Helena’s father’s, but his title and inheritance far surpassed what her father had ever been able to accumulate.
“She’s here you say?” an unfamiliar voice spoke from below.
“Yes. The mistress’s niece from London. Her family has some trouble,” another voice answered.
“What kind of trouble?” questioned the first.
“Well, as I heard it, her father stole money from the company he was working for and got himself arrested. What’s more, I heard he took money from a great number of important people before that and got himself into some trouble. The ones he stole from now, are the ones who helped him out of the first mess.”
“He stole from the ones who helped him?” the second voice questioned further.
“Despicable. You have to not have a thread of shame to do such a thing.”
The voices continued their discourse until they were silenced by the closing of a door. Tears brimmed Helena’s eyes, but she refused to shed them. When she heard them greet Arabella, she immediately wiped them from her eyes.
“Sorry to have kept you,” Arabella replied when she returned to her.
“It was nothing.”
“Let’s get you settled.”
Helena and Arabella made their way to the guest rooms on the second floor. Her room was warm and comfortable. Though not as ornately decorated as the family rooms, it was enough for her.
“I’m sorry we didn't have a room downstairs with us,” Arabella apologized as she sat on the corner of the bed.
“There is no need to apologize,” Helena chuckled as she opened the trunk their footman had placed at the foot of her bed. “This room suits me well. After all, I’m only staying a short while.”
“Yes, but you’re family. You should be with us,” Arabella protested. “If only my father’s brother wasn’t visiting, then you would’ve had his room.”
“Arabella, do not concern yourself with my comfort,” Helena insisted. “I am here to celebrate with you, not to have you worry unnecessarily about me.”
“I know, but I can’t help it. After all you've been through at home, I want you to have the best time here,” her cousin insisted.
Helena moved to sit beside her. “I am. Arabella, I promise you that I will have the best time if I see you at ease concerning me. If you worry, I will only feel guilty for bringing you distress. You would not want that on my conscience, would you?”
Her cousin smirked. “No, I would not want that.”
“So, let us put the whole bedroom and comfort matter to an end. Agreed?”
“Agreed, but only if you promise to sit beside me at dinner tonight. I want to show off my beautiful cousin,” Arabella answered.
“I am hardly beautiful when compared to you,” Helena protested.
Arabella had thick golden hair, a clean and bright complexion, large blue eyes and delicate features. She was neither too tall nor too short, and her frame was petite. She wore the best dresses, and always adorned everything she wore with a smile.
“That is not the truth. You have grown to be quite beautiful, Helena. Has no one told you this?"
Helena’s mind immediately returned to Balwell and the day that Elias saw her again, not as a child, but as a woman. The expression on his face and his words filled her mind and made her smile.
Arabella chuckled. “I see I am not the first,” she commented at Helena’s noticeable grin.
“Why do you say that?” Helena answered as she got to her feet and immediately returned to unpacking her trunk.
“Because one does not smile so if the words are not associated with some pleasant event. Or if the person from whom they were spoken did not have some meaning,” Arabella replied. She came to stand beside Helena. “Does my cousin have a secret?”
“A secret? What secret could I have?” Helena protested. “My life is open to the world now.”
“Not always,” Arabella answered. “Before now it was your own, and no one was the wiser what you did or did not do. Is it that my cousin has an admirer who flatters her with compliments?”
Helena shook her head. “I have no such admirer.”
“There. You smiled again,” her cousin commented. “Therefore, your words are untrue and there is truth to mine. You must tell me.”
Arabella was as giddy as a child with her favorite toy. Clearly being an engaged person had made her eager to see others matched. Helena hated to disappoint her but there was no match to be made on her behalf. The only heart she wanted was the one that was separated from her. It would do no good to dwell on it.
“Arabella, I promise you that, when I do have such an admirer, I will be the first to tell you,” Helena replied. “Until then, I think it best we remain focused on your handsome fiancé whom I haven’t met.”
“How do you know he is handsome?” Arabella mused. She was playing with a lace shawl Helena had just laid on the bed.
“None but a handsome man could catch my cousin’s eye,” Helena chuckled.
Arabella smirked. “He is handsome,” she replied. “Do you think me shallow?”
“Shallow for wanting a handsome husband? We are all shallow if that is a fault. Who would not want a husband who was pleasant to look upon?”
“Is your young man handsome?” her cousin questioned. Helena could see her peeking up at her from where she sat. She pretended not to.
“I told you already, Arabella. I have no young man,” Helena protested. “Now stop pestering me and help me pick something to wear for this evening.”
Chapter 20
Balwell was quiet. Elias walked from his father’s room and closed the door behind him.
In the past weeks, the Earl's health had declined. Elias believed it due to the stress of the situation with Mr. Leeson and his family. His father had taken on the entire ordeal heavily. Thankfully, he was recovering.
“Maisie?” he called to the passing maid.
"Yes, my lord?"
“My father is resting for a while. See to it he is not disturbed. When he wakes, have some broth brought to him,” Elias instructed.
“Yes, my lord,” the woman said with a bow of her head before she turned and left.
Elias found himself wandering the house when he wasn’t by his father’s side. In the first week of his visit, he’d spent nearly every moment with him, praying for his recovery. Now, his fath
er was weak but able to function on his own. Dr. Burroughs assured him his father would make a full recovery.
The house felt empty. Elias had never known it to feel this way but now it did. Something was missing. Someone.
He could see Helena wherever he looked. Each time it brought him pain that he could not see her now when she needed him most. He went outside to escape her, but it was a mistake. Under the trees, she was even more present than she had been in the house.
Elias looked up at the branches that hung low above the bench where he and Helena would sit as children. He pulled one of the leaves down and studied the veins on it. It was a brilliant green, like Helena’s eyes.
Inside or out he could not escape her. At least inside he could find some tea to refresh him.
Elias strolled back to the house. Helena still had not left his mind, and he did not want her to. He wished he could pluck her from the clouds of memories in his head and bring her to life before him.
He walked the house, speaking to those he had not when he was last there. He was so preoccupied when he first returned, that he hadn’t been able to offer more than a cursory greeting to them. Now, he did better. He talked to them each in turn, including those whom he didn’t know.
A man should know his household, Helena had always told him. A good master had to know his men and women. He smirked at the thought. She was always wiser than her years.
“My lord?” Mrs. Ruskin called as she encountered him in the hall.
“Mrs. Ruskin.”
“You have been wandering the house, so I’ve been told,” the older woman commented as she folded her hands in front of her. “A strange exercise.”
“I had a lot to reacquaint myself with,” he explained. “I thought today was as good a day as any.”
“Is that so? What were the results?” she questioned with a smile.
“I learned that we have six new maids I have never seen and all of them are quite nervous,” he mused. “They could barely keep their words straight.”
Mrs. Ruskin chuckled. “Yes, they’re still getting used to the house.”
“The others are all as I left. Though George is a mite bigger, and Alfred and John have gotten grey.”
“The house is almost as you left it,” Mrs. Ruskin replied. “The Earl wanted to ensure that when you returned, you returned to a home you knew.”
He sighed as he looked about him. “You have done a wonderful job of it, Mrs. Ruskin.”
“I’ve been doing it for thirty years, young man,” she said as she fixed the collar of his shirt.
He smiled at her as she did so. “You haven’t called me young man since before I left for school.”
“It’s because you were one then. Now you are a man of purpose,” she commented. “Who shouldn’t have crocked collars.”
He smiled at her. “I will try my best to remember that.”
“So you should.”
Mrs. Ruskin had been there his entire life. Elias couldn’t remember her ever taking a day to herself. She was always there, from morning to night, and her entire life seemed to revolve around the household.
“Mrs. Ruskin, why did you never leave us?” Elias asked.
Surprise painted her face in a faint shade of pink as she hesitated on her reply.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked such a personal question,” Elias apologized the moment he realized that it may not have been the right thing. After all, he’d never asked her personal questions. Though she was a maternal figure, she wasn’t his mother, neither was Mrs. Leeson. Mrs. Leeson had been the nurturing figure, while Mrs. Ruskin had been the discipline.
“It’s quite alright. It’s just you never asked me anything like that before,” she answered. “It took me by surprise.”
“You don’t have to answer,” Elias said quickly. The last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable.
“No, I will answer you.”
The two began to walk slowly through the great hall where the paintings of the Repington family ancestors adorned the walls.
“I wasn't a young woman when I first joined this house,” she said slowly. “I had never been married and never had any prospects. I came here to make a way for myself in an established home. It was a blessing, really. I could never have hoped for a more wonderful place.”
“But why did you never marry? Did you not want to?”
She smiled at him. “I loved a man once when I was young. He passed away at sea before we could marry. I never could get my heart to forget him. Despite my best efforts.”
“I’m sorry,” Elias replied somewhat uncomfortably. He hadn’t expected that heartbreak would be at the center of the answer to his question. If he had, he wouldn’t have asked.
“Don’t be. It was a long time ago and I have since moved past it.” She smiled at him. “I am in wonder that you would ask at all. You were never the one who questioned me about myself. Helena did that.”
“Did she?” Elias asked. “I suppose she would. She never withheld anything. She always spoke her mind.”
“With clarity and conciseness,” Mrs. Ruskin mused. “I always enjoyed that about her. The way she saw the world so clearly and unblemished by circumstances. I was very sorry to hear that she had lost that.”
His heart was heavy again. “As am I.”
She looked around the room. “Did you know she’d make me tell her the names of every single person who adorns these walls? She said she never wanted to forget them, so by memorizing them she could take them with her until her next visit.”
“I did not,” Elias answered with a smile. “What else did she do? You seem to have had a different experience of Helena than I. She constantly had me out of doors running after her.”
“She would sit with me, when you were at school, and ask me questions. Lots of questions. She said she wanted to know how to manage a household as well as I did.”
“Why didn’t she ask her mother?” Elias questioned with a smirk. “I’m sure she would’ve been happy to tell her.”
“She did. But Helena wanted to know how to manage a household of this size. Which, as you know, is considerably more than what she would’ve been accustomed to.”
“Why is that?”
“She said one day she wanted to be the mistress of a grand house like Balwell. She wanted to have a place that made her feel as happy as she did here.”
Her words sent a strange sensation through Elias’s chest. A warmth.
“Did she really say that? A house like this one?” he questioned.
“You should know better than any that Helena loves this house and always has. How many times has she professed it to anyone who would listen?” Mrs. Ruskin mused.
It was true, Helena always stated her love of Balwell and all concerning it. She had since they were children. At the time, it was just a childish fancy. Now, the statement had more meaning.
Did Helena desire to be mistress of Balwell? Would she accept the offer if it were made to her? Would she want the real thing and not a replacement? Would she want him?
Mrs. Ruskin's words had suddenly shed new light on many things that Elias had taken for granted. Things Helena would have said to them on their walks and in her letters. Things he took for just a young girl's wishful thinking. Perhaps they had been more all along.
“I miss her,” Mrs. Ruskin added suddenly. “I always miss her when she is gone and long for her return. I think the entire household would agree.”
“Father certainly would. He has a fondness for her that is unexpected,” Elias confessed. “I hadn’t realized it until I returned.”
“The Earl has always been fond of Miss Helena. She makes him smile,” Mrs. Ruskin commented. “The older she got, the more he began to dote on her. He was like a proud father.”
“Are you saying I’m not enough of a child for him?” Elias mused.
“Certainly not,” Mrs. Ruskin replied immediately. “The Earl is the proudest man to call you his son and all know it.”
“Do not trifle with the emotions of others. Did I not teach you this?” she asked sternly.
“Yes, my dear Mrs. Ruskin, and the lessons were taken to heart. However, you must allow me a little amusement from time to time. It’s good for the nerves I believe.” He was enjoying teasing her.
“Nerves or not, do not ever doubt the Earl’s pride in you. He may see Miss Helena as a daughter of sorts, but you are his son."
