Chapter Five
“Dear Mama and Papa…”
Serena paused in the doorway of the schoolroom, her hand lifted to knock upon the frame. She had come in search of Samuel, who had wandered off during the afternoon interval, but what she found rooted her in place.
The boy sat at the writing desk by the window, his back to the door, a single sheet of paper spread before him. His pen lay beside it, the ink not yet dry. He drew a careful breath, as though gathering his courage, and began to read.
“I hope you are well up in the sky,” Samuel said softly. “Miss Collard says it is very pleasant there, and that you have everything you need. She says you can see us, even though we cannot see you. I hope that is true. I hope you can see how hard I am trying to be good.”
Serena’s throat tightened. She ought to announce herself. She ought to step away. It was not right to overhear something so private.
But she remained.
“Ella is still bossy,” Samuel continued, his voice steadier now. “But Miss Collard says it is because she worries about us and does not know how else to show it. I think she may be right. Ella cries at night sometimes. She thinks we do not hear, but I do.”
Serena pressed her hand to her mouth, determined not to betray herself.
“Rosie is getting better. She does not ask for you as often now, but I do not think that means she has forgotten. I think she is only learning to miss you more quietly. Like I am.”
He paused; his gaze fixed upon the page. When he spoke again, his voice was smaller.
“Uncle Nate came to luncheon yesterday. He spoke to us. Truly spoke, not only the polite questions that do not mean anything. He told us you were proud of us, Papa. He said you wrote to him about us.” His voice faltered. “I did not know you wrote letters about us. I wish I could read them.”
Serena’s sight blurred. She blinked hard against it.
“I miss you,” Samuel said, and now there was no disguising the tears.
“I miss you every day. Sometimes I forget what your voices sounded like, and then I remember again, and it hurts even more because I forgot. Miss Collard says it is all right to forget sometimes. She says it does not mean I love you less. But it feels as though it does.”
He set the letter down and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, quick and furtive, as though even alone he felt ashamed of being seen.
“I must go now,” he said to the page. “Miss Collard will be looking for me, and I do not wish her to worry. I love you. I hope you know that. I hope you can hear me.”
Only then did he fold the paper, carefully and with exactness, and slip it into the pocket of his jacket. He remained seated for a long moment afterwards, gazing out at the grey Derbyshire sky beyond the window.
Serena retreated before he could turn and discover her. She moved swiftly along the corridor and did not stop until she reached a window alcove far enough away to be unheard.
There, hidden from view, she rested her forehead against the cold glass for a brief moment.
She had thought she understood grief. She had thought that her own losses—her mother, her father, the parade of families who had come and gone through her life—had taught her everything there was to know about the weight of absence.
But this was different.
This was a child’s grief, raw and unguarded, set down in letters that would never be read. This was an eight-year-old boy attempting to make sense of a world that had taken everything from him and offered nothing in recompense.
And she could not mend it. That was the hardest part. She could not bring his parents back. She could not undo the accident, could not rewrite history, could not give him the one thing he most needed.
All she could do was remain. Listen. Comfort. Help him bear a burden no child ought to carry.
It was not enough.
But it was all she could give.
***
She found Samuel in the garden a quarter of an hour later, seated upon a bench beneath an old oak. He looked up as she approached, his expression guarded, but not unwelcoming.
“Miss Collard,” he said, his tone carefully even. “I am sorry I wandered off. I know I am meant to inform you before I go anywhere.”
“It is quite all right.” Serena seated herself beside him, leaving a respectful distance. “I suspected you might require some time alone. Everyone does, now and then.”
Samuel was silent for a moment. “Do you ever require time alone, Miss Collard?”
“Often. I am not nearly so sociable as I appear.”
That earned her the faintest hint of a smile. “You seem very sociable.”
“That is because I have learned to appear so. It is a useful skill for a governess. One must converse with employers, manage children, and navigate households, all while remaining agreeable.” She paused. “But beneath the performance, I am rather private.”
Samuel considered this gravely. “Why?”
“Because thoughts are valuable things. Not everyone is entitled to them.”
He turned to look at her directly then—a rare occurrence, she had noticed, for a boy who spent most of his time avoiding eye contact. “Miss Collard, do you think I’m too quiet?”
“I think you are precisely as quiet as you need to be. And I believe that when you have something to say, you will say it.”
He studied her as though searching for falsehood, then relaxed.
“Miss Pearson said I was disturbed,” he stated. “She told Mrs McConnor that a child who does not speak is a child with something wrong in his head.”
Serena felt a flash of anger toward the old governess.
“Miss Pearson,” she said carefully, “was mistaken. Being quiet does not mean there is anything wrong with you. And if she could not see that, then it is as well that she did not remain.”
Samuel’s eyes widened slightly. “Miss Collard, I do not think you are meant to criticise other governesses.”
“Quite true,” Serena replied, lowering her voice. “In that case, I suggest we keep the matter between ourselves.”
The ghost of a smile returned, slightly stronger this time.
They sat in companionable silence for a moment, listening to the wind rustle through the oak leaves overhead. Then Samuel reached into his pocket and withdrew the folded letter Serena had seen him read aloud.
“I write to them,” he said quietly. “I know they cannot read the letters. But it helps. To imagine that they can.”
“That seems to me a very sensible way of keeping them near.”
“Ella says it is childish.”
“Ella is trying very hard to be grown, and sometimes in doing so, one forgets that certain childish things are, in fact, very wise.” Serena spoke gently. “There is nothing wrong in writing to your parents. That is not childish. It is love.”
Samuel nodded. “Sometimes I picture them reading the letters. Papa at his desk. Mama by the fire.” His voice wavered. “It makes me feel less alone.”
“Then it has served its purpose.”
She laid her hand upon his shoulder, slow and deliberate. “You are not alone, Samuel. You have your sisters, your uncle—and you have me, for as long as I am here.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, so softly she almost missed it: “And how long will that be?”
There it was. The question she had been dreading.
“I cannot say,” she answered honestly. “But I can promise you this: I will not leave without explanation. Or without—”
“—without saying goodbye?”
“Yes.”
He shifted closer, and her arm settled more fully around him.
“Thank you,” he said. “For saying there is nothing wrong with me.”
“I mean it,” she replied. “There is nothing wrong with grieving.”
They remained beneath the oak as the afternoon waned, and Serena allowed herself, for just a moment, a dangerous thought.
That perhaps, in this quiet house and among these wounded hearts, she had finally found something that would endure.