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The act of darkness
(King Lear III.iv. 88)
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THE FOLLOWING SEVERAL days passed in much the same way. Edward assiduously avoided Madelyn, but brought himself to speak to Harry with polite civility. It was not, after all, the man’s fault if his sister was a deceiver. And, Edward recollected, despite the terrible pain her lies had caused him, she had acted to save her brother. He could not forgive her, but perhaps the severity of her crime might be somewhat abated by this extenuating circumstance.
Whilst striving to avoid his former beloved, Edward took advantage of pleasant weather to walk along the docks and shoreline, and where permitted, the fortifications that guarded the town and harbour. The ceaseless activity in the water, with fishing and merchant ships coming and going, and the massive works at the naval dockyards, provided more than ample diversion for a man seeking to avoid confronting his nemesis.
He could stare out into the water and watch the men scurrying around the docks, loading and unloading the vessels. He watched the intricate play of ropes and pilings, and would sometimes walk down to converse with the men as they plied their trades. He spoke to the fishermen and asked about the hauls they brought to shore, curious about the prices they could command for their catch, and the nature of the marketplace. He took his breakfast early on these days, and carried food with him for a noontime repast, eschewing the more civilized fare at the inn and the company he would be forced to endure in favour of rough bread and cold meats and cheese to be eaten alone.
It was on one of these days, as he sat near some wooden pilings where new docks were being built, that he heard his name called and Harry Grant came and joined him on the low bench he had fashioned from an errant log.
Enough time had passed now that Harrison was safe being in public in his own clothing. Sir John’s missive to the patrols had been received and disseminated throughout the ranks and he was satisfied that Harry was no longer in any danger. Harry was also now at leisure, his imminent return to England to take up his estate having been announced. He was free, at the pleasure of his king, to enjoy his last few days in Nova Scotia without the encumbrance of clerical duties.
For a while, the two men sat in silence. Edward offered his bag of food, from which Harry took a hunk of bread, and Harry in turn handed Edward an apple from his pocket. They ate without speaking, staring at the blue waves, crested in white, and at the birds that flitted above the water, sometimes travelling across the span of sea, sometimes diving to seek a fish that strayed too near the surface. Despite his continued anger with the man’s sister, Edward found Harry’s presence oddly calming.
After many long minutes Harry spoke, launching into his subject without preamble.
“She loves you. She won’t tell me so, but I have never seen her like this before.”
Edward said nothing, but continued staring at the waves and the gulls.
“If you would speak to her, it would ease her heart.”
The birds floated in the pale blue sky, unbothered by gravity and the weight of the world that sat on Edward’s shoulders. Absently, he wondered if these marvelous new machines, of steel and steam and smoke, might ever allow man to soar like the birds.
“She has confessed to me that she does not wish to return home.”
Edward turned his attention from the birds to the man next to him on the bench.
“She says she cannot abide the thought of being in England with you and having you despise her. She has asked me to help her find a position here.”
“A position?” Edward’s voice rasped in his ears.
“Yes. You are aware, of course, of her prodigious abilities. She reads and writes exceptionally well, and she has a gift with numbers that terrified our tutors as children.” He gave a light chuckle. “One old man left Father’s employ after only a week because he was convinced that Maddy had the devil himself in her. No pure soul, the old crow announced, could work such evil magic.”
“So she scared off men even as a child?” Edward was amused in spite of himself.
“You do not know the first of it, Edward,” Harry smiled. “She is a remarkable girl, and a force of nature in herself. It would be a rare man who could manage her, for he would have to accept her and love her for all her oddities and quirkiness.” He looked meaningfully at his companion on the low seat.
“A rare man indeed.” Edward nodded, returning his gaze to the water, as empty as his soul.
Harry returned to his initial thought. “She has asked your friend Sherrington to advance her some funds to live on until she can find her own employment. I do not know of too many great houses seeking governesses, and whilst she might find work dressed as Matthew, she cannot live all her life as a fourteen-year-old boy.” He paused. Then, in a desperate voice, “Will you ask her, please, to come home with us? I worry for her.”
“Yes. A single woman with no family cannot expect an easy life here. I would worry too.”
Harry thanked Edward for his time and bread and stood to return to the inn. Edward did not divert his gaze from the water until Harry was a far distance off, almost a speck disappearing in the direction of the town. He tried to return his focus on the waves and the clouds, but his mind kept returning to Harry’s conversation.
Could Lynnie... Miss Grant... really wish to remain in the Americas? Surely her heart was not so injured, for after all, she was the perpetrator of the evil scheme, and must have known the consequences to her actions. She must have realized that she could not hold Edward’s heart once her perfidy was known. England was more than large enough for her to live confident that she might never have to encounter Edward again. True, her dear friend Gwen Lancaster was marrying his friend Frederick Dyson, but the couple would understand and would endeavour to keep the former lovers apart.
Of even greater concern was how she might provide for herself. She might, at other times, write to some of the wealthy landowners in Virginia or New York, to establish herself as a companion or governess, but in these troubled times, with war between America and Britain looming on Napoleon’s horizon, that might not be possible. Could she resume Matthew’s disguise? Alastair McFarland or Benjamin Cole could be of assistance, but for how long could she maintain that camouflage? It could not be long before somebody would notice that her beard refused to come in!
Then a horrid image came to his mind. He recalled, with bone-chilling detail, the barmaid in the pub on his first day in Halifax. He recalled her suggestive touch, her revealing dress, her tempting speech. Here was a single woman, using whatever resources she could find to keep body and soul together. She survived by appealing to the basest of human instincts, by selling herself to any man who might have a few minutes and some extra coins. No woman would sink to that level unless necessity demanded it, he reckoned, and whilst the woman had a position at the pub, those wages seemed not to be sufficient for her survival.
He had a terrible vision of Lynnie forced into the same awful lifestyle, compelled by necessity to offer her body for sale, to tempt men to purchase her innocence. He saw her sitting on a low cot in a filthy room, waiting for her next client, or hovering after hours in the pub, hoping to lure drunken men up to her room in the hopes of a few coins to buy food. Her flaxen hair would be dingy and matted, her radiant skin dull and covered in sores. He thought of the tales he heard of dreadful diseases passed on in brothels, of unwanted children with no parents who might claim them. How could her spirit survive the ignominy that must accompany such a dreadful choice? Her spark would die as surely as her hopes.
“That cannot be allowed to happen,” he spoke aloud, surprising himself with the vehemence in his voice. “I will not allow that.” Edward suddenly realized that, as much as he might despise her at this moment, he still loved her as well. Through the pain of his heartbreak, through the dull unrelenting ache of his dashed dreams, he knew that he loved her too much to permit her to destroy herself thus. He could never have her for himself, but he could act to let her live a proper and virtuous life.
He would seek deep within himself to find the strength to address her, to convince her that her future lay in England with her brother and not on these shores. He realized that he owed her that much, at least. She may have broken him, but she deserved more than a half-life of harlotry and destitution. He wrenched himself from his low perch, brushed the sand off his trousers, and followed Harrison’s footsteps back towards town.
Speaking to Miss Grant was more difficult than he supposed it would be. Upon returning to the inn, Edward asked after Miss Grant’s whereabouts, and was informed by Sherrington that she had recently taken herself to her room with a sick headache. These headaches, according to Harry, were not unknown to his poor sister, and usually occurred at times of great distress. An apothecary had been found, who had issued her some powders which helped the pain but also induced sleep, and he did not expect to see her out of her bed until the next morning, or possibly the day after that, should the headache prove to be more stubborn than most.
If Edward’s spirits had been low before, they were now even lower. Having wrestled with himself and having made the decision to renew his association, if not his friendship, with Madelyn, he felt thwarted again, which only served to undermine his prior determination. He picked at his food that evening like a sick child, oblivious to Sherrington’s stares, and spent the evening in the corner chair in his room, hiding behind the pages of a book he had purchased at a bookseller on Barrington Street the previous day.
He imagined that he would be very poor company in the morning, and so took himself off almost immediately upon rising, stopping only for a cup of coffee and to secure provisions for breakfast. He was surprised, therefore, when footfalls soon sounded in his wake. He turned to see Harry walking behind him, keeping pace with him, but not narrowing the distance between them. He slowed his steps to let the younger man catch up, and they walked together in silence for a while.
He was equally surprised to discover that he did not really mind the company. Despite his aborted decision to talk with Madelyn once more, the struggle that had precursed that decision had opened his heart somewhat, and with it his mind, and in this new state of willingness to accept the words of the sister, he found he was also more disposed to enjoy the company of the brother. He greeted Harry in a friendly manner, and the young man responded likewise. Soon they fell into easy conversation about various inconsequential matters, and eventually about more serious ones.
Over the course of the morning, Edward learned much about the Grant family. Harry told him about his father and his love of his land and his care for his tenants. He described the old house, nestled in the hills of Derbyshire, with its patchwork of farms and lattice of hedgerows, dotted with white sheep and blue streams and rivers.
He told tales of his mother, of her penchant for needlework and painting, and of her love for drama. It was she who instilled a passion for theatre in her children, who invited neighbours to stay for the week to read aloud plays by the likes of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Farquhar. He described how Madelyn had loved the plays she was not supposed to hear, and how she would beg to elaborate on the stories she had heard. That, Harry explained, was how his sister began writing stories, for she would decide to relate the next events of tales she had heard and loved.
He wove stories from his childhood, about his adventures in the woods near their house, about his pranks on poor unsuspecting tutors, and about the chore his family had keeping up with his incorrigible younger sister. Young Madelyn, it seemed, had never made things easy for those around her, vexing her parents and governesses alike, until she finally convinced her father to let her join Harry in the school room. She had been a child full of mischief and trickery, and more than one cake had been ruined when the little girl snuck into the kitchen at midnight and switched the containers of salt and sugar.
Edward listened to all this with hungry ears, despite his resolution to wash his hands of the young woman, his heart betraying his rational mind. Although he could not have his Lynnie, he could not get enough of her. Stories would have to substitute for reality. He would not forgive her, he decided, but he could not stop loving her. He could not perceive how, over the course of the day, as Harry talked, his heart was softening ever so slightly towards the lady. And yet, the sketches Harry made of her character were a warm balm that permeated gradually into the cracks in the armour he had constructed around himself, tempering it little by little, until his blind anger had mellowed into disappointment.
Edward also found that he was liking Harry more and more. The young man did not perhaps have his sister’s sharp wit and brilliant mind, but he was intelligent, thoughtful and well-educated, and underneath his serious and cautious manner, he had a keen understanding and a good sense of humour. ‘Tis a pity I can no longer think about taking his sister for my wife, he considered as they walked, for he would be a good man for a brother.
If Edward had been surprised by his thoughts and reactions during that day, even more so did Sherrington look surprised when Edward joined the men for dinner and cigars afterwards, with a smile on his face and a willingness to engage in conversation for the first time in nearly a week. When Sherrington proposed taking their hired horses out for a gallop the next day, and Edward readily agreed, he smiled most gratefully, as if seeing, at last, an end to the cold gloom that surrounded his friend’s heart. After checking on Madelyn, who was sleeping off her headache, the three men retired for the evening in far better spirits than they had begun the day.