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Aunt Phillips prattles on. “The family may be a bit down in the coffers, so to speak, but he comes with a good name, and after, well...everything—” she politely clears her throat “—you really can’t expect to do much better. Besides,” she says as she helps herself to a heaping plop of eggs and poached ham, “he’s young and not too hard on the eyes, eh?”
I pick at my own food, doing my best to look like I’m listening to her, that I’m taking her seriously. I wish I could tell her that the young man in question is a weasel, a blackmailing scoundrel. I wish I could tell her that there’s a man a thousand times better, handsomer, kinder, back in New Oldbury.
She’s going on about some suitor she had back when she was a young woman, who had eyes “the color of morning dew and a smile that would melt the halo right off an angel,” when Blake comes in bearing a tray with two letters on it.
My heart leaps. Mr. Barrett’s written back. He understands why I went away, that it wasn’t my choice and had nothing to do with him. But before I can reach for it, Aunt Phillips is plucking the letters from the tray and tearing one open.
“I wondered when that wicked husband of mine would write,” she says, putting on her spectacles.
Just as fast my heart sinks. “And the other letter?”
She’s in her own world, smiling to herself as she reads.
“Aunt Phillips,” I say, trying to keep the exasperation from my voice, “who’s the other letter from? Is it possibly for me?”
She looks surprised, but picks it up and squints at the envelope. “It’s from Catherine, though it’s addressed to me. Shall I read it?”
Of course it is. I give a half-hearted shrug as she starts reading. I wrote Mr. Barrett again last night. It took hours of crumpling up false starts and crossing out tear-stained passages before I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath and poured out six double-sided pages of everything that I’ve been holding inside me since the day I met him. Propriety and convention be damned. Before I could even look over what I wrote, I sprinkled the ink dry, folded up the envelope and in a moment of dramatic flourish, sealed it with wax. Now all I can do is wait.
“Wait, what did you say?” I sit up in my chair.
Aunt Phillips stops, and looks up from the letter. “Hmm?”
“You just said something about a Mr. Barrett, can you go back and reread that bit?”
Aunt Phillips furrows her brows, scanning back over the last few lines. “‘Father’s business partner, Mr. Barrett, has surprised us all by announcing his engagement to a young lady of the town. Of course we are all very glad for him, but Father is concerned that the wedding preparations and subsequent trip abroad will impact the upcoming construction of the new mill.’”
I swallow. “Can you... That is, does it say the name of the lady?”
“Let’s see here... Abigail Tidewell.” She looks up when I take in a sharp breath. “Do you know her?”
“Just in passing,” I say faintly.
“Mr. Barrett,” muses Aunt Phillips, leaning back in her chair. “The name is familiar. Though of course it would be if he’s your father’s business partner. Well, there will be a wedding in New Oldbury then. That must be something to look forward to, eh, my dear?”
My lips are numb but I think I agree, my voice faraway.
After sword fights and duels, succumbing to a broken heart is the most common way to die in all the novels. Ladies in towers languish and slip away from the affliction after refusing to marry their father’s choice of suitors. Roguish highwaymen, taken by surprise for their feelings toward their virginal marks, find themselves stricken and helpless to go on without the pale face in the carriage that so captivated them. I always thought it terribly romantic, even though it’s only a literary device and not an actual phenomenon.
But in this moment I know, I know it’s real. My heart twists, a dull, tingling pain that pulses through my body leaving me choked for breath. It feels like the moment when I realized Emeline wasn’t going to open her eyes again. It feels like death.
Aunt Phillips is still prattling on, blissfully unaware of the devastation she’s just wrought. “Oh dear, and it seems your mother has come down with something. Nothing serious, Catherine assures us, but the doctor came and ordered that she stay in bed until she can get her strength back up, the poor thing.”
I hardly hear her.
* * *
The days drag on, and with them comes the raw chill of winter that settles in my bones. Aunt Phillips continues to improve, though I don’t think she ever really needed someone to help her so much as she was just lonely. I read to her in the evenings—always from the gazettes, never books as she doesn’t have the patience for them—and she takes calls in the afternoon, staying abreast of every word of gossip that circulates Boston.
I exist in a liminal state of nothingness; New Oldbury is where Mr. Barrett is, and I don’t think I could bear to be back so close to him, knowing that there is no future for us. If I must live without him than I would rather it be somewhere that I’m not constantly reminded of what might have been. And yet, in Boston I walk with my shoulders hunched forward, my eyes constantly darting about, afraid that Cyrus might spring out from the least likely places, demanding my answer or harassing me with fresh accusations.
My thoughts often turn to Emeline and her grave. Does anyone go to keep it cleared of weeds and place a flower there? Or is the stone buried in snow now, just another nameless, jutting marker in a field of forgotten souls? Does Emeline roam Willow Hall, looking for me only to find me gone? Oh, Emeline, I feel as restless and homeless as you must.
* * *
I’m sitting in the parlor, losing myself inIvanhoeas the early December evening draws close around the city. I know that I’m supposed to want the lady Rowena to win Wilfred of Ivanhoe’s heart, but I can’t help but feel for Rebecca, who heals and cares for him after he’s injured in the joust. As promised, I returned to buy the second volume from Mr. Brown, at once desperate to know what happens to Rebecca when she’s put on trial for witchcraft, but also afraid to find out lest Ivanhoe isn’t in time to save her from being put to the stake.
Putting down the book, I gaze out the window at the dusky winter street below. The witchcraft trial in the story draws my mind to that other book. I’ve been putting off opening it, hoping that if I ignore it long enough it might simply melt away into the shawl I wrapped around it. But I bought it for a reason, and I can either keep fretting about it, or face my fears. So I fetch it from my trunk and, taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, open it on my lap.