Across Captive Seas

by Michele du Barry

  “I know. It’s all right. Did she open the door for you?”

  “No!”

  “I’ll go upstairs and get Angela to open—” began Owen.

  “What makes you think that you can do what everyone else has failed to do?” Keith burst out angrily. “I have known Angela for years and if anyone can break down her resistance it’s me not you!”

  “There are some things,” replied Owen, his voice like ice, “that are better done by friends, not ex-lovers!”

  He left the room but could hear Jane and Keith arguing over his last statement. That didn’t matter. Angela was the only concern of the whole household now and he would concentrate all his attention on her. He took the stairs two at a time and then stood hesitantly outside Angela’s room. Pressing his ear against the door he listened but could hear nothing. Owen turned the doorknob but it was still locked so he knocked gently, a far cry from the pounding Keith had indulged in a few minutes ago.

  “Angela,” he called determinedly, “it’s Owen. I must talk to you. Please open the door.” Silence.

  Angela, I, above all people, know exactly how you feel. I have been there before and I want to help you. If you care anything at all about your children and about our friendship you will open the door. I won’t talk if you don’t want to, just let me be with you and share your grief.”

  He held his breath as the minutes ticked by and then he heard soft footsteps in the room, hesitating on the other side of the door. The key tinned in the lock and Owen opened it. All the draperies were drawn and it was almost as dark as night in her bedroom. Angela herself was a slight shadow wrapped in a dark-colored robe with her hair in tumbled disorder.

  She went and sat down in a chair, curling her feet beneath her, in front of the cold fireplace. Owen closed the door and went to the windows, one after another drawing the draperies and letting the light into the cold room. Still without a word he bent and started a fire until it leaped and crackled merrily on the hearth. Only then did he turn to Angela.

  Her hair was a wild tangle framing her drawn white face. Her eyes were black-circled and bloodshot like wounds in her face and Owen wondered if she had slept in the past two days. She certainly hadn’t eaten and the hollows beneath her high cheekbones were cavernous. She stared straight back at him not caring that he saw her in such a state. Nothing mattered anymore. Absolutely nothing!

  Owen pulled another chair up close to hers and took Angela’s hand. He didn’t say anything, just sat quietly watching her blank eyes stare into the fire while the afternoon waned. At one time the door opened just a crack and Jane anxiously peeked in only to leave quickly at Owen’s frown of disapproval.

  As the day faded from the sky Owen got up and crossed the room, tugging on the embroidered bell pull. “Angela,” he said repeating her name several times before she looked at him, her eyes like pale ice on a frozen winter day. “I’m going to order dinner for both of us, to be sent up.” And he waited while his words slowly penetrated her foggy brain.

  “No,” she said, her voice husky with unshed tears and sleeplessness. “I can’t eat anything.”

  “Very well,” Owen told her calmly, “then I won’t eat either. When you decide to eat again, so will I.” But when a tentative knock sounded on the door he ordered dinner anyway and then went back to his chair.

  “I know that this is harder on you than Beth’s death was on me,” Owen began now that he had Angela’s attention. “In my case I was there, I saw her lifeless form and was forced to accept the inevitability of what had happened. But with Scott—he was so far away and the report of his death reached you like a rumor. You weren’t with him, didn’t see what happened. At first it seemed impossible. You couldn’t believe it, could you?”

  Angela stared at him unblinkingly, wondering at his grasp of how she felt.

  “I read the letter, Angela. It was from Captain Carew himself. I read it a dozen times and what he wrote rings true. Besides he has no reason to lie. You must accept it, Angela. Only then can your heart start to heal itself.”

  “They talked to me through the door—Jane, Molly, Keith—saying the same things over and over. That I am young and will get over it, that I will go on and love again. But the words don’t mean anything! I feel as if I have received a death stroke and will never recover! Life is meaningless without Scott. I can’t go on, I don’t want to!”

  “I know,” said Owen in a hushed tone. “What they said is wrong. Loves like we have had, you can never recover from. The wound heals but the scar remains for life. It always hurts, Angela, to think about it and look back. The pain lessens but never fully disappears. But you learn to live with it.

  “Our pasts are part of us, the good and the bad and that can’t be changed. But we are alive here and now. We live in the present and can never go back. I know the future seems bleak and stretches in front of you endlessly empty, but don’t look so far ahead! Just get through the next hour, this evening, and tomorrow will take care of itself.”

  Owen gave a great sigh. “I envy you, Angela, because part of your husband and your love for each other lives on in Robert and Lorna. You have two living testimonies of your marriage with Scott and I have nothing—nothing of Beth but my faded memories.”

  He said no more and neither did Angela but he could tell she was thinking about what he had said.

  Dinner arrived hot and smelling delicious and Molly set the dishes on a small table in front of their chairs. Angela looked away from the food steaming in front of her. It was repulsive and she couldn’t possibly eat even a mouthful. Owen poured the wine into cut crystal goblets and sat back in his chair waiting.

  “Please, Angela,” he groaned. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast and since I’ve vowed not to touch a bite until you do, I’m afraid I may very well starve to death!”

  Her aqua eyes fastened on Owen with just a hint of a smile and she picked up her spoon and dipped it into the soup. Bringing it to her lips she sipped delicately and said, “Very well, my knight in shining armor. You came to my rescue when I needed you, so I will take pity on you now.”

  Owen urged her to drink far too much wine, keeping her goblet constantly filled and by the time the meal was over Angela was practically nodding over the remains of dinner.

  “Time for bed,” Owen announced helping Angela out of her chair.

  She swayed and he caught her, picking up her frail body and striding to the bed he put her down. He covered her up, stroking the hair out of her face.

  “Don’t go,” cried Angela catching both of his hands. “I haven’t slept in so long—stay with me. I’m so tired.”

  “I know,” Owen soothed, “but you will sleep tonight—all night, with no dreams. You will sleep like a little girl with no problems in the world except what dress to wear tomorrow. Close your eyes—that’s right. I love you, Angela, not the passionate kind that comes and goes but the caring deeply about another person. You are my very best friend, and friendship can last forever.”

  When her breathing became deep and even, Owen kissed her very lightly on the cheek, extinguished the candles and went downstairs. Jane pounced on him eagerly, her eyes questioning, and drew him into the sitting room.

  “She’s all right, I think. She ate and now she is sleeping.”

  “You are a miracle worker!” said Jane. “You accomplished what none of us could.”

  “Only because I understood,” murmured Owen wearily. “We will have to handle Angela with kid gloves for the next few months. She will need our friendship more than ever before.”

  Angela made a supreme effort and tried very hard for the next few weeks and so did everyone else. The house returned almost to normal except that Angela made no long-range plans. She did everything on the spur of the moment, living only for the present as Owen had instructed. She spent a great deal of time with the children and riding Pegasus in Hyde Park. Keith was only too happy to accompany her but was apprehensive about her wild gallops and her recklessness. When he commented on it
she only replied, “What difference does it make if I do break my neck? Then I will be exactly where I long to be—in the grave!” And he never broached the subject again.

  She had been devastated by her parents’ deaths but the news of Scott’s had utterly destroyed her. In spite of her good intentions Angela longed for death, though she knew herself too much of a coward to take her own life. One night when everyone was asleep she had actually cleaned and loaded a pistol and put the cold muzzle against her temple. She had stood there for a very long time and finally put it down. For some reason she couldn’t squeeze the trigger.

  Angela threw open her bedroom window and stuck her head out breathing in the glorious scents of a spring lay. Even the soot of London couldn’t mask the smell of new buds, flowers, leaves, and grass as it sprouted forth in profusion. The sun was just visible over the rooftops turning them a glistening red. It was going to be a wonderfully warm day and Angela felt more alive than she had since she heard of Scott’s death.

  To be in the country in April! Yes, she would make all the arrangements today after her morning ride, pack everyone off to Windy Arbor for a few weeks and then back to Brightling Castle. The snow was probably still on the ground at Seafield, maybe she would go there for the last of the summer and autumn.

  Fortified with the perfumed air and with good intentions in hand Angela looked through the closet to choose a riding habit that was cool enough for the day.

  None of them was quite right and as she pulled a promising one out another garment fell to the floor. She picked it up. It was the dove-gray riding costume she had worn the day she had met Clyde Macdonald on the Isle of Skye. It was soiled and torn from the last time she had worn it, on the day Scott had been arrested. The dragoons had ruined it in their fight but she had kept it and now it was haunting her.

  Scott had stripped it off her the last time they had truly been together and now all her good intentions flew out the open window. Angela hugged the velvet close to her, burying her face in its softness. Bands of steel tightened around her heart until she thought she would never draw another breath, or else her heart would break in half spilling out her lifeblood.

  There was a slight crackling sound, almost a rustle and Angela looked up wondering what it was. There was something in the pocket of the skirt and she tentatively inserted her hand feeling something dry and stiff. She pulled out a brittle autumn leaf that immediately broke into several pieces and that day came back to her with such intensity she could see Scott’s gold-speckled brown eyes; hear him speaking as she stood naked before him. “You are autumn. . .! and you are mine!”

  Gasping for breath she closed her eyes and put a hand against her wet cheek. His voice was so close, whispering in her ear, the words of eternal love as they lay together totally one: “I will love you till I die.”

  Scott was dead. Her beloved husband, lover, father of her children, the man that meant more to her than her own life. The leaf crackled and turned to dry dust, disintegrating in her clenched hand—gone like their love, dead!

  She fell to the floor as if she had been pierced with an arrow and lay unmoving, with her aqua eyes wide and staring; unblinking. Angela was neither conscious nor unconscious but in a world in between where pain, sorrow, and the terrible realities of life and death didn’t exist.

  Molly found her an hour later and her frightened shouts brought Jane bolting up the stairs from the breakfast table. Owen arrived in the midst of the pandemonium and took charge dismissing the frightened servants and sending for the doctor. He put her on the bed and Jane hovered nervously as she had done just weeks before. But this was different. Angela stared at her, right through her, as if she wasn’t there. She didn’t speak or react in any way even when Owen waved his hand in front of her eyes.

  “Oh lord, Owen,” Jane whispered clutching his arm. “I have never been so frightened in my life! What can be wrong with her? I have never seen anything like that before!”

  “Something must have happened,” he mused, “but what?”

  Owen went to the dressing room where Angela had seen found and picked up the wrecked gown. It had been clutched in her arms when they arrived. Part of a leaf fell to the floor from the folds of velvet and he stooped to pick it up, examining it.

  “Jane,” he called walking back into the bedroom, do you have any idea what this might have meant to Angela?”

  “A leaf and a riding habit,” she said softly shaking her head. “I have never seen either before—and look at those tears—it’s ruined. I wonder how that happened?”

  The doctor arrived and examined Angela and could find nothing wrong with her. Baffled he muttered under his breath and announced that it must be some sort of nervous disorder. After all, the duchess had just lost her husband, not to mention her parents, and there was the recent miscarriage. He could offer no advice other than to keep her warm and quiet and he would return tomorrow. He gave her a sleeping draught and left.

  The long months of summer dragged out into a dreadful nightmare for the inhabitants of Harrington House. There was no change in Angela’s condition. She ate when spoonfed and sat or stood like a dressmaker’s dummy, all the while staring vacantly with absolutely no expression on her face.

  Jane talked to her for hours on end about the children, the gossip; anything she could think of. And when she could think of nothing else she read to her, hoping against hope that something would get through to Angela and penetrate the barrier that shut them out. They all tried, to no avail, and Keith grew more depressed and morose every day. Often he sat beside her bed holding Angela’s hand and gazing at her as if he too was about to go off into another world.

  Time seemed to stand still and even the tentative relationship between Jane and Owen was suspended. The day the doctor had decided Angela was in a decline, Owen walked out of the house and Jane didn’t see him again for three days even though Lorna was supposed to have her lessons. His only explanation was that he had known someone that went into a decline and had never recovered. After that he redoubled his efforts to somehow bring Angela out of her half-living state.

  On a windy autumn day Keith stormed into Angela’s room, startling Jane so that she dropped her book. There was a determined set to his jaw as he ordered Jane out of the room.

  “Why?” she inquired protectively beside the bed.

  “Because I’m sick and tired of standing by and doing nothing, of seeing Angela slowly fade away until someday she will be gone.” Keith was practically shouting. “I love her and this situation is intolerable. I have to do something, anything to bring her out of this!”

  “And just what do you propose to do, Keith? We have tried everything!”

  “Not everything,” he said grimly. “Get out and no matter what you hear, let no one near this room!” “What. . .”

  “I’m going to do the only thing I can,” Keith said. “I’m going to do what he would have done!”

  He put her out of the room and locked the door and Jane stood trembling in the hall, fluctuating between wild hope and the depths of despair. He might be right but then again. . .

  Jane found herself in the school room interrupting Lorna’s lessons, and Owen thought she was quite mad when she insisted that Molly take the children for a carriage ride. She had to get them out of the house, somehow she was sure of it, but Owen refused to go with them. He stood in the library eyeing her agitation suspiciously, until Jane flung herself into his arms, shaking and clinging tightly to him. Whatever happened today was sure to be a turning point.

  Keith looked down at Angela lying like a pale lifeless doll on the bed, her hold on life as tenuous as a spider web on a stormy day. He had decided against it a dozen times and always swung back full circle to the realization of what he should do. Scott would never have put up with such a situation and would have brought Angela around long ago. So for once Keith was going to take a lesson from him—no matter if it hurt him or Angela in the process.

  Keith raised his hand and slapped Angela across
the face, wincing at the sound his palm made against her cheek. His blow stood out red on her face, but there was no reaction, not even an increase in her breathing. He struck her again and then sank down on the bed grasping her shoulders, shaking her and calling her name. With his face twisted with pain Keith groaned. Please, sweetheart, forgive me. I'm only doing this because I love you!”

  It was useless, she didn’t hear him and with cold determination he continued with his plan. Everything else had failed so maybe violence would work.

  Keith undid the robe she wore and opened it revealing the nightgown beneath. Grasping the neck with both lands he ripped it down to her waist and another tug completed the job. As he slowly undressed himself Keith’s gaze roamed over Angela’s perfect body, much too slender but still beautiful. Her round, pink-tipped breasts rose and fell gently with each breath and her wide aqua eyes were emotionless, staring right through him with a look that made him shiver. Better get it over with.

  Keith fell onto the bed and removed her arms from the sleeves of the garments. There were no barriers to her flesh, only the emotional walls. Taking her in his arms he pressed the length of her inert body against the burning flesh of his and buried his face in her black, outflung hair.

  They had indulged in this sweet pastime so often before but never when she was insensible. He had longed for Angela for two years with no fulfillment and now that she was in his power the flame of desire was dead in him. It was all wrong. She should be kissing him and laughing, letting her fingers tease him beyond endurance or even fighting him—anything but this!

  He couldn’t think about it or he wouldn’t be able to do it. So Keith let his hands wander over her soft flesh and thought of all the other times. He kissed her slack lips and thought for an instant that she shrank from the intimate appraisal of his fingers. He could have been mistaken, but if she had that was a good sign and made him more determined to continue.

  He couldn’t be gentle as he would have wished, for he must shock her out of her condition by the brutality of his attack. Closing his eyes he fell on Angela, shaking the whole bed like an earthquake. Her breathing quickened and Keith only increased the ferocity of his assault.