What she did not say was that somewhere, quietly, in the part of her mind she had been trying not to listen to, she had been wondering if perhaps this was exactly it. If this was what she had been waiting for without knowing it — for him to come after her. To do something large and unmistakable. It was what happened in her Gothic novels sometimes, and she was not so silly as to be unaware of that. But she also knew that if he had appeared on Clara’s doorstep, the frightened part of her — the part that had been running this whole business since long before she had any say in it — would have experienced it as an intrusion rather than a declaration. She could not win, it seemed, even against herself.
“I do not know what to do,” she said.
“No,” Frances agreed pleasantly. “That much is clear.”
“I miss him.” She said it to Lavinia’s back, mostly. “I miss arguing with him, which is a peculiar thing to miss. He has the most aggravating habit of being right at the worst possible moments.”
Frances smiled. “That does sound like him.”
“We were here once,” Helena said, nodding along the path ahead of them. “In this park. Early on, when we were still — when the arrangement was still new. He had found two young ladies to talk to and was in the middle of telling them the most extraordinary version of a very dull sea voyage I have ever had the misfortune to hear. I had the advantage of already knowing the true account from my father, who had been present and found the whole thing rather less dramatic.”
Frances laughed. “What did you do?”
“I hid behind a tree and listened. Until Lavinia saw him.” She glanced down at her daughter, who was now walking with a leaf held aloft like a small flag of conquest. “She called out to him — she could not manage Gideon, so she called him Gid, which she still does — and he was found out entirely. And then she lunged for him with both arms and called outpap, which as you may know means she wishes to be lifted up. The two young ladies he had been attempting to impress concluded immediately that he was her father and had been hiding the fact, and departed at considerable speed.”
Frances pressed her hand to her mouth.
“He was left standing on a picnic blanket with a small child attached to his lapel and the most extraordinary expression on his face. I laughed until I could not stand up properly.”
“I imagine you did.”
“And then afterward…” Helena paused, still smiling at the path ahead “…he told me I was too formidable. That I should be less opinionated and more agreeable if I ever hoped to attract a suitable husband. And then he made me practice. We stood in my drawing room and he instructed me on how to smile and when to nod and what to say, and he demonstrated by beaming at me in a manner that was entirely ridiculous.”
“And what did you do?”
“I told him his charms were lacking.” She shook her head. “He was most offended.”
Frances was quiet for a moment, watching her carefully, her eyes sparkling.
“You know,” she said, “you have smiled three times since we left the house. All three times you were talking about him.”
Helena looked at her.
“Or about Lavinia. Those are the only two subjects that produce it.” Frances shrugged, very slightly. “I am merely observing.”
“I know what you are observing.”
“I am sure you do.”
Helena looked down at Lavinia, who had abandoned the leaf in favor of a pebble and was examining it with great seriousness.
“I cannot deny that I miss him,” she said. “I would very much like to see him. But I do not know if I will ever be free of this — this fear. I know he is not Huxley. I know it completely. And yet I cannot seem to make the rest of me believe it. Every time I think I have managed it, something happens and it all comes apart again.”
“Perhaps,” Frances said, “you need to confront the past rather than simply trying to move away from it.”
“I would like nothing better. But I cannot very well confront Huxley. He is dead.”
“That does not mean anything,” Frances said. She said it simply, without drama. “Go to his grave. Say what you never said to him while he was alive. You may find it rather more useful than you expect.”
Helena walked on without answering. Lavinia dropped the pebble and raised both arms, and Helena bent and lifted her, settling her on her hip.
She had not been to Huxley’s grave. Not once since his burial. She had told herself it was because she felt nothing for him and therefore had nothing to say there. But perhaps that was precisely the point. Perhaps it was not about grief. Perhaps it was about the other things — the things she had swallowed for three years and never said aloud and had been carrying with her ever since.
“I will think about it,” she said.
Frances nodded, and did not press her further. They turned back along the path, and Lavinia began pointing at the horses on the far side of the park with her usual authority, naming each one something entirely her own.
CHAPTER 36
