Chapter 25
Thea met Papa’s eyes, that hollow stillness within her hardening into something solid. “He has already ended it.”
Straightening, his brows rose, but it was Mama who spoke.
“Oh,” she breathed, a smile on her lips. “Well, that is something, at least. Sensible of him, though it must have been painful. You see, dear? This is the better course, and you will thank him when you are comfortably settled in a proper home of your own, your children amply clothed and fed.”
Thea shook her head slowly. “I said he ended it. I did not say I accept it.”
“Thea,” Papa warned, his tone flat, final. “You will not pursue him. The matter is finished.”
“No,” she said, the word breaking from her before she could stop it. “It isn’t. I shan’t give him up.”
Mama let out a strangled sound, somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. “You are being ridiculous!”
“Perhaps,” Thea said, her voice steady now, her pulse pounding in her ears. “But I love him. And I would rather be ridiculous than faithless.”
“This is your livelihood, Thea. Just as I would not allow my sons to choose useless professions, I will not allow my daughters to throw themselves after men who are unable to provide for them.” Papa exhaled, long and weary, and leaned forward, resting his weight on his forearms. “Be sensible. Affection is well and good, but it cannot keep a roof over your head or food on the table. Mr. Voss is bankrupt. Penniless. Without a home or income. How can he possibly provide for you?”
“He will find a way,” Thea said, lifting her chin. “Frederick is capable and industrious. Rather than avoiding his responsibilities, he is doing his utmost to find a new path in the world, and I know he will succeed.”
“By being a clerk?” said Papa, his frown deepening. “There are few of those positions nearby, and even if he can secure a reputable one, it will be years—decades, even—before he can provide for a wife. If ever.”
“Better to wait than to cast him off when he needs me most,” Thea said, her voice trembling despite herself.
“You have no idea what you are saying,” said Mama, rising to her feet and pacing to the fireplace.
“Mrs. Keats,” chided Papa, though his eyes never left Thea, and for a fleeting instant, something shifted in his gaze, breaking through the wall that stood between him and the world; she couldn’t name the emotion, no matter how she tried, but the sight of it unsettled her more than any raised voice or threat, for it hinted at depths she had never seen before.
With that impenetrable stare, he said, “Consider this: you do not have the skills to survive such a life. You cannot cook or clean, and although you embroider beautifully, you do not know how to make clothes for yourself or your children. You cannot even light a fire or boil a teakettle. How can you possibly manage?”
Thea’s lips parted, but no answer came. Something in the words felt familiar.
Had Frederick said something of that sort?
In truth, she couldn’t recall his arguments clearly as her attention had been fixed upon her own more than his, but as her father’s voice filled the room, she heard echoes of Frederick’s concerns.
Looking down at her smooth and uncalloused hands, the full shape of Frederick’s future began to form in her mind.
Labor wasn’t a frightening thing—difficulties and strain were a part of life—but no amount of determination could make up for a lack of training.
How could a pampered young lady manage in that world?
Surely boiling a teakettle wasn’t a monumental effort, but nothing about her education and upbringing had prepared her for the practicalities of living in any class but her own.
“That may be, but I wish to try. I will not turn my back on him,” whispered Thea.
Silence fell, thick and impenetrable. Papa’s mouth tightened, and Mama’s eyes glistened with hot tears, but Thea straightened as the decision settled like a cloak about her shoulders; for the first time since that terrible moment beneath the tree, she felt a flicker of hope cutting through the haze of grief.
Papa did not speak. His gaze remained fixed upon her, steady yet strangely distant, as though he were looking past her and seeing something else entirely.
A tightness gathered about his eyes, subtle enough that she might have missed it had she not been watching so closely, but attempting to read his expression was like deciphering a foreign tongue.
“You have no right to make that choice,” said Papa in a low tone.
“I am one and twenty,” she replied, forcing her voice to remain firm whilst lifting her chin. “By law, I am free to choose.”
Mama scoffed. “‘Choose?’ What a ridiculously modern notion. What do love and choice have to do with marriage? No one I know would’ve dared suggest such a thing to our parents, and even if we had, I can assure you their response would not have been as benevolent.”
“Frederick is not in such a dire position as you believe, Mama,” said Thea, glancing between her parents, her brows drawing ever closer together. “With my dowry, we can be comfortable whilst he establishes himself—”
“Dowry?” asked Papa, straightening. “By law, we cannot compel or restrict you, but know this: we shan’t support you in this foolish alliance. If you marry Frederick Voss, you will be cut off from us, and you will be forced to accept the consequences of your poor decision alone.”
Thea’s wide eyes darted to her mother, but the lady rose from her seat and came to stand beside her husband, her hands clasped before her.
“You are the eldest,” added Mama. “We cannot have you set a poor example for your younger siblings, and we will not allow your rebellion to taint our name.”
For a long moment, Thea could only stare at them, her mind refusing to shape the meaning of those words. Cut off. The phrase echoed through her, hollow and cold. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t anticipated difficulties from her parents, but this?
Her hands grew cold in her lap as though ice buried itself into her very bones. Must she fight Frederick and her family?
Mama pressed a hand to her throat, her face pinched with distress.
“I do not understand what madness has taken hold of you, Thea. Have we not given you everything? Raised you to know your duty and to comport yourself as a lady? And now you would throw it all away for a ruined man with no prospects? To subject yourself to being an impoverished outcast? For your family to be tainted by your husband’s scandal and ruin? ”
Her voice trembled at the end, and she turned toward her husband as though seeking strength in his resolve. But Papa hadn’t moved. Hadn’t looked at her. His attention remained fixed upon his daughter, searching her face with an intensity she hadn’t known him capable of, and her breath caught.
A faint sheen glimmered in his eyes, so slight she might have imagined it, and his jaw worked once as though he were bracing against words that refused to be spoken.
The restraint in him was almost a violent thing, and whatever surged within him was beaten down and locked away, leaving her to face the unfamiliar truth that something in this conversation had struck far deeper than she had ever believed possible.
“This matter is finished, Thea,” he said, his voice as emotionless as ever. “Clearly, you do not care about your future, but I will not allow you to throw it away. Think me a villain, if you wish, but I will protect you from yourself.”
Heat prickled behind her eyes, yet she could not draw breath enough to dispel it whilst the air sat thick and heavy in the room.
A wild, desperate rhythm thumped in her chest, drowning out all reason, and as much as she yearned to cry out and make them see sense, her voice betrayed her, leaving her mute and aching with the knowledge that she was utterly alone in this battle.
Papa rose, his chair scraping against the carpet. “Go to your room. We will not speak of this again.”
Mama gave a watery sigh, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “It is for the best, my dear. You will see that in time.”
Thea stood slowly, her limbs stiff, but she curtsied out of habit, scarcely aware of the door closing behind her when she left.
The corridor distended before her like something from a dream, stretching impossibly long, and the paintings along the wall were little more than smudges of color as she passed.
Her steps made no sound on the carpet runner, and she could not have said whether she moved quickly or slowly; only that she was moving because instinct commanded it.
The afternoon light slanted through the windows, dull and gray but filling the house with that peculiar hush that came between the bustle of day and the quiet of night.
Dust motes drifted lazily in the beams, their unhurried dance a strange contrast to the storm that churned within her.
Every breath felt too shallow, every heartbeat too loud.
Opening her bedchamber door, Thea paused on the threshold, her hand upon the latch as she spied Mina seated in a small chair by the window.
Her cousin’s expression betrayed all the curiosity and concern swelling within her heart, but Thea’s words abandoned her as she crossed the room.
Reaching for the coverlet, she mechanically brushed the edge, straightening it before sinking onto the bed as though her body had finally given up the effort of holding itself upright.
The faint creak of a floorboard warned that Mina was moving around behind her, but the hush between them stretched long and heavy, the kind that words could not reach.
Thea felt Mina’s gaze upon her, steady and piercing, but she couldn’t look at her.
The world felt distant now—its colors dimmed, its sounds muffled—as though she were watching life through a dirty pane of glass, unable to touch it or bask in its beauty.
A scrape of wood against wood, and then Mina appeared before her, setting the chair at the bedside. For a long while, they simply sat facing one another.
Then the tight, aching pressure in Thea’s chest gave way.
A single, broken sound escaped her—half sob, half gasp—and once loosed, the rest spilled forth in a flood.
Burying her head into the pillow, Thea pressed her hands to her face, but the tears spilled through her fingers, hot and relentless, wracking her body with trembling sobs.
“Oh, Thea,” whispered Mina, her hand hesitating before coming to rest lightly on Thea’s arm.
When the tears grew stronger, Mina shifted closer and ran her hand down Thea’s arm in slow, soothing strokes.
The motion was simple, rhythmic, the kind one used to calm a frightened child.
At last, Thea’s hand slipped from her face, falling limp onto the coverlet, and Mina caught it gently, holding it between both of hers.
The two sat that way for a long while as tears stole her breath. Thea could not look at Mina, but she felt the small, anchoring warmth of the lady’s fingers around hers, the quiet proof that someone still held fast while everything else was falling away.
Once the tears were spent (or as much as they could be, for they replenished at an alarming rate), Thea quietly recounted the goings-on of the day. Terrible though they were.
“I am certain it will all work out in the end,” said Mina, though her lips pulled into a grimace as she spoke it. “That is silly to say, I know. But I have seen you and Mr. Voss together. There is no doubt that you two are meant for each other.”
“What does that even mean?” asked Thea with a shuddering breath, and she felt all the poorer for the question as Mina’s expression fell ever more.
“I do not mean to be flippant,” she said. “Simply that I cannot imagine anyone better for you than Mr. Voss. I feel certain that all will turn out right in the end. It must.”
For all that Thea had held fast to that belief in the face of Frederick’s rejection and her parents’ disapproval, she couldn’t help but feel just how hopeless it all was.
“And how can it turn out right if even he turns his back on me?” she whispered.
“He is doing what he feels is right. He said he cannot marry you, not that he doesn’t wish it, and in time, he will soften.
Just as your parents will,” said Mina, her hand holding fast to Thea’s.
“They are angry now because they are afraid for you and your family. That is all. I cannot imagine they would truly prefer you to marry another when it would make you so unhappy.”
Mina squeezed her hand, her thumb tracing a slow, reassuring line across Thea’s knuckles. “Even if it takes time, these things have a way of mending themselves. Perhaps not in the manner we wish, nor as quickly as we’d like, but hearts are stubborn things. They do not surrender easily.”
Thea stared at their joined hands, a faint tremor running through her fingers. A part of her wanted to scoff and tell Mina she was being na?ve—the world was far less forgiving than she believed—yet the earnestness in her cousin’s voice kindled a fragile warmth inside her chest.
“Do you truly think so?” she asked at last, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Mina smiled faintly, though her eyes glistened. “I do not know what will come, but I know you, Althea Keats. You are not one to surrender without a fight.”
The words settled deep within her, quiet but firm, and something within Thea stirred.
Not hope. This sentiment was far too determined a thing to be something so delicate and fragile.
No, this was the familiar spark of resistance that had carried her through every argument today.
Her throat still ached from weeping, her eyes burned, but beneath the exhaustion lay a stubborn pulse that refused to dim.
Thea’s fingers tightened around Mina’s hand, the gesture small but certain. Perhaps Mina was wrong. Perhaps the world would not right itself. But even if it didn’t, Thea could not abandon her feelings and let them die. She would not.
Nothing was final until Frederick married another.