by Georgie Lee
‘I don’t care about their opinions and neither should you. As for the Foundation, with the Baltimore Southern, the foundry and the new engine, I’ll have enough money so my mother never has to rely on donations again.’
‘But what about Millie? Society will scorn her when they realise I’m related to her by marriage. Things must be difficult enough for her already because she’s an outsider. My being a fallen woman with a reputation will make it even worse.’
‘Millie has dealt with far worse things than a few old matrons looking askance at her and she can handle this.’ Silas stepped up to her, taking her by the arms and making her face him. ‘It’s you who has to stop referring to yourself like you’re no better than a gutter rat. You’re not that woman any more. That time is behind you.’
‘It will never be behind me, not in England. You didn’t grow up in that world. You don’t realise how cruel it can to be. You’ve been in America where a man who pulls himself up by the bootstraps is admired by other men, fêted and cheered. Here they’ll look down on your achievements, even more so because of me, and I don’t know what kind of repercussions that will have for you and your family.’
‘There won’t be any repercussions because I won’t allow them. The men I deal with in business don’t care about the goings on of the hoi polloi and neither do I.’
She shook out of his grasp, frustrated at his unwillingness to see the truth. ‘You can’t control this like you do your railroad.’
‘And you can’t allow others’ opinions to dominate you.’
‘Don’t dismiss my concerns as if they’re nothing when you know better. Your father lost contact with his father because of what he chose to do just like I lost contact with mine when I did the same. The consequences of our actions are real, no matter how much you attempt to ignore them.’
‘They’re only real if you let them be real. Those people can only judge you if you let them. If you come to the ball and show them that they can’t harm you, that their opinions mean nothing to you, that you have succeeded despite all of their attempts to humiliate and dismiss you, then you will win.’
‘It isn’t about winning or losing or pretending that their scorn isn’t real because it is, you simply haven’t felt it hard enough to realise it and I can’t have that.’ She couldn’t risk him or his family facing the full brunt of society’s disapproval and have him turn away from her in disgust the way Preston had, to look at her not as he did now as a woman of possibility and worth, but as a damaged one who had dragged him down into the mire with her. She couldn’t do that to him, not after everything he’d done for her. ‘Don’t pretend that we can change the minds of London society through determination. We can’t, any more than you can make this bank-draft affair clear up simply by insisting it be done or force your mother to see your side of things. Not every problem can be overcome by willing yourself to overcome it.’
* * *
Silas stood in the middle of the train platform, staring at Mary, at a loss for words. He couldn’t force her to go to the ball, not with the anguish marring her face and the irrefutable facts she’d thrown at him, but the resignation swathing her was more than he could bear, especially since everything she said was true. Not every problem could be willed away or pushed through. Some could never be overcome as he’d discovered the night his father had died. Nothing he did, no words he uttered or belief in himself or his ability to succeed, could ever give him the few moments he’d needed with his father to ask for his forgiveness, to assure him that he did love him and that his loss was more than he could bear.
No, that opportunity might have passed him by, but it didn’t mean every other trouble was a lost cause. ‘There’s always a solution for every problem, a way to work around any difficulty, even this. One simply has to find it.’
‘There is and it’s my not going to the wedding ball.’
‘I don’t accept that.’
‘You don’t have a choice.’ Mary marched past him and out of the station. Silas followed silently behind her before catching up to walk by her side.
‘I won’t let you give up, Mary.’
‘I’m not going to the ball, Silas. Maybe you can’t see it now, but eventually you’ll see the wisdom behind that decision.’
Surrender wasn’t his habit and that’s what she was doing, surrendering to what others wanted of her, to their vision of her and her life, and he refused to allow it. ‘What I see is a woman giving in to her fears.’
Mary jerked to a stop to face him, a fire burning in her eyes she’d never turned on him before and it wasn’t one of determination. ‘Don’t you dare call me a coward, not after everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve endured. They all tried to crush me and they didn’t, but it doesn’t mean I have to subject myself to more of their hate and venom. No person, not even you, is capable of bearing that much derision.’
She whirled around and marched off down the street, storming past hawkers and other people enjoying the last of the cloudless but cold winter day. Silas wanted to turn around in disgust and walk back to the train station, to sit and watch the steam engines hurling down the tracks while he thought of a thousand reasons why she was wrong, a hundred ways he could convince her that this could all be overcome, but he didn’t move.
Failure crept over him like the coming evening darkness. He’d been naive to believe he could banish her fears, reservations and heartache about being home simply by reminding her that she was no longer her past. He’d been too enraptured by the idea of their future together to realise how much her mistakes truly haunted her the same way his bothered him. He didn’t want her to dwell in it—he knew the danger of residing in old hurts and regret, he’d spent the years since his father’s death and his escape to America doing that—but he also knew one couldn’t be forced to shrug off blame and sorrow. One simple had to bear it.
Silas walked slowly towards home, staying far enough behind Mary to keep her in his sights and make sure that she was safe, but giving them both some time alone. What she’d said was right. He’d tried to dismiss her past with flippant words about it not mattering and that the future was the only thing she should concentrate on. He wouldn’t have appreciated it if she’d told him that what had happened with his father and then his mother didn’t matter and that he should simply dismiss it. Her wounds, like his, were too deep to just set aside. In America, they could be ignored, but not here where her ghosts and his were too present and real. All he could do was protect her as much as he could, to shield her from the malicious tongues and opinions of others instead of forcing her to endure them, even if giving in to the petty will of others felt like capitulation at a time when he wanted to fight.
When they reached the busy corner, he caught up to her with quick strides. She didn’t look at him, but kept walking straight ahead.
‘You don’t have to attend the ball. I’ll make your excuses to Mother and Millie.’ The words rolled across his tongue like the pit of a cherry. He hated to say them, but he couldn’t force her to go, to face all those biddies who felt themselves morally superior because they trod on women who were already down and tried to kick them back in the gutter when they dared to step out of it to better themselves. The thought of not having her by his side stung. He’d wanted to show her off and help instil in her more of the confidence she’d shown at the head of Richard’s table and at the Christmastime Ball, the confidence that failed her in the gloom and fog of London.
‘Thank you.’ She didn’t take his arm, but walked beside him as they made their way home, a strange quiet settling between them. She was next to him and yet he felt the distance. He wanted to reach out to her, but he couldn’t, not tonight. All his prior assurances and promises had failed to make her realise that she was more than her past and more than what people here wanted her to be.
He wondered if she blamed him for her current heartache, for his having wanted her to return to
England instead of remaining behind. That she’d chosen to come at Richard’s urging didn’t ease his guilt. Silas had been the one who’d arranged for her passage originally, who’d concocted this idea that she join him, forcing this heartache on her the way his having cowardly fled England years ago had forced heartache on his mother. He wasn’t sure how he’d make this right, but he would find a way.
* * *
Mary stood over the young woman seated at the Foundation’s dining table and corrected the way she held the needle. ‘Like this. It will make your stitches more even.’
‘Thank you, Lady Mary,’ the girl said before scrunching her face in concentration as she executed a few more stitches, all them more even than the last.
‘There, that’s much better.’
It was the second week of February and Mary had spent most of today, as she had the last few days, helping the Foundation women while Silas met with Jasper King to arrange their dinner with Mr Williams and discuss how they would win him over. She was glad he was thinking of something other than her and Millie’s wedding ball tonight. After they’d come home from the train station last week, the subject had not been broached again, but it had hung unspoken between them throughout dinner and afterwards when they had lain in bed together, each of them far off in their own thoughts. She hadn’t asked Silas what his were. Hers were still torturing her. Thankfully, the business of reviewing new steam inventions at the Royal Society had occupied his time the last few days while lectures by prominent engineers meant he’d come home long after she’d retired for the night.
Mary continued around the table to inspect the other women’s sewing, trying to concentrate on them and not the words she’d flung at Silas at the train station. She enjoyed this work and the time she’d spent here with the women over the last week, but it wasn’t enough to calm her worries about the lingering tension between her and her husband. Mary had told Silas to continue being brave in the face of the setbacks with the money and Mr Williams while Mary ran in fear from her ghosts. She was allowing the past to make her ashamed of herself instead of believing in who she was the way Silas always encouraged. He’d been doing all he could to raise up her opinion of herself and all she’d done was tear him down for his efforts, the way her father used to tear down her mother whenever she’d show even a little spirit. It wasn’t kind of her, but she’d had to make him see why she could not go to the ball tonight. He had, but still it left her feeling no better. She was the coward he’d accused her of being, afraid to show her face in society for fear of what people who no longer mattered to her, who would never be in her life again once she and Silas returned to Baltimore, might say to her. She should face them and fling their derision right back in their faces, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t only her they would attack if she dared to walk among them with even a tenth of the pride Silas had tried to instil in her, there was also Silas’s family. Maybe he couldn’t see the way she was trying to protect him and his sisters, but she could and that’s what had made his inability to understand her concerns hurt all the more.
She rounded the table to look at another young woman’s work and give her some guidance on her stitches. The clock on the mantel at the far end of the room chimed five times and the women set down their sewing with a mixture of relief and disappointment depending on their skill with the needle and how much they truly enjoyed the task. As they filed out of the room to help prepare the dinner in the kitchen, Mary cleaned up the scraps of fabric and carefully arranged any errant spools of thread or envelopes of needles in the sewing boxes, anything to avoid going next door to face the fact that she was not dressing for the ball. Lilian was already upstairs doing her hair in anticipation of tonight, having accepted Silas and Mary’s excuse for Mary not attending without question or comment.
When the dining room was finally tidied and there was nothing left to keep Mary here, she made her way back to the Fairclough home. Silas wasn’t there, having sent word for Tibbs to deliver his evening clothes to Mr King’s house where Silas would dress before coming here in a hired carriage to collect his mother and go to the ball. For Mary it would be a quiet evening at home like the many others she’d endured over the last four years.
It’ll all be different when we’re back home.
There would be balls and dinners, some of them hosted in her and Silas’s home.
‘Mary, would you mind helping me dress?’ Lilian asked when Mary reached the top of the stairs, before she could slip into the solitude of her and Silas’s bedroom where her blue ball gown, the one the modiste in Baltimore had made for her, hung limp and unused in the wardrobe.
‘Of course.’ Mary wondered what Lilian needed help with. The maid had arranged her wavy dark brown hair into fetching ringlets appropriate for her age. Her gown was a deep crimson shot with silver thread. It was of an older style, but it flattered her slender figure and softened the mature angles of her face.
Mary was stunned when she entered Lilian’s room to find her blue-silk ball gown laid out across the bed.
‘I couldn’t help but notice the tension between you and Silas this last week,’ Lilian said at Mary’s look of astonishment. ‘And then you not going tonight.’
‘Did he explain to you why? The real reason?’ Mary fingered her watch, wanting to confess her past so Lilian might better understand but she didn’t want this kind woman’s face to turn to horror the way Mary’s mother had when she’d told her everything.
‘He didn’t tell me all of it, but I’ve had enough years of experience with the women here to guess.’
‘Then you see why I can’t go?’
‘I also recognise how important it is that you do.’
Lilian spoke like Richard had when he’d encouraged her to come to England. She’d followed her friend’s advice and she still wasn’t sure if it had been the right choice. ‘I can’t. I don’t want you or Millie or Silas to suffer for my mistakes.’
‘We won’t. I called on Millie this afternoon and explained the situation. She and her husband will stand by you.’
‘How can you be sure of him?’ She had little faith in those of her former class who had disappointed her more than she was disappointing Silas and Lilian tonight.
‘Because in the short time that Lord Falconmore has been my son-in-law, I’ve seen how generous and kind a man he is. He has a great deal of influence that he can use to sway others in your favour or at least blunt their sharp tongues if you’re brave enough to face them.’ She approached Mary and laid her hands on her shoulders. ‘I understand your fears, Mary, but don’t allow them to rule your life. Use the advantages you have and rely on the people who care about you to help you. Silas adores you as much as you adore him and you complement each other well. Be by his side tonight, where you belong.’
It was one thing for Richard to ask Mary to face a host of possibilities that might never occur by joining Silas in England. Lilian was asking Mary to risk a near certainty to be with Silas tonight. In America there might be whispers about her one day but here they would be overt remarks and well-timed cuts. She’d endured them once, she didn’t wish to endure them again. She also didn’t want to sit home in an empty house in fear and sad regret the way she’d spent so many evenings doing at Ruth’s while reading Jane’s letters about the life she’d been meant to lead. It didn’t have to be like that again. There were people who cared about her who were willing to stand beside her in spite of her past and to help her bear the burden of her mistakes, people like Silas, her husband. She couldn’t disappoint him or his family, Richard or herself by giving in to fear. She’d married Silas to reclaim something of her old life and a future and place in the world as his wife. She touched the blue-silk ball gown and imagined what it would be like to walk into Lord Falconmore’s house wearing it, a married woman holding her head up high instead of allowing others to define and demean her. There would be whispers and stares, but there would be Silas, too, believing i
n her in a way very few people ever had before. If he didn’t fear her past, if Millie and Lilian didn’t fear it either, but were willing to support her and see her redeemed as they had seen a hundred other women who’d once been in her place, then she could summon the courage to face it, too.
* * *
Silas paced at the bottom of the stairs, the hired carriage waiting for him and his mother outside. He adjusted the time on his pocket watch, expecting his mother to come down any moment and wishing it was Mary he was about to greet. They’d barely seen each other since their exchange at the railway station. Even when they’d slept together in the same bed, they’d barely touched, each of them too involved in their own troubles to reach out to the other. He should have set aside his concerns and grudges to hold her and comfort her in her worries, but he’d been too involved in mulling over one solution after another, all of which had come to nothing. He wished Richard were here to discuss it with him the way he’d been so many times before, but he wasn’t. Mary’s concerns were valid and real and he shouldn’t have dismissed them so lightly, but once again he’d been too wrapped up in his ambitions to reach out to those he cared for. He was failing her and it bothered him. He tucked the watch back in his waistcoat pocket, ready to start for upstairs to repair the damage he’d allowed to fester over the last week when the sight at the top of the landing took his breath away.
Mary stood there in her blue-silk ball gown, her blonde hair swept up off her neck to reveal the graceful line of it. The strand of pearls he’d bought her lay against the smooth skin of her chest above the beautiful mounds of her breasts. She glided down the stairs to him like a dream, her captivating smile drawing him to her until he held out his hand and she took it to step into the entryway and join him.
‘You’re stunning.’ She’d changed her mind. There weren’t words to tell her how much it meant to him and how proud he was of her because of it. She would be beside him tonight, just as he’d longed for and imagined.
