Chapter Twelve #2
‘Will you tell me of her?’
‘She’s called Helen,’ he began, trying to find the beginning, the end, the middle; the various parts which would answer all the questions contained in Hypatia’s sole spoken one.
‘Her family were involved in all sorts of business—fishing, markets, and so on—and I wouldn’t say we grew up together, but I had a very early awareness of her, as I did of most in our environs.
About a decade ago, after a few years admittedly enjoying myself around town, my best friend Frank—who I had grown up with—and I ran into her and a friend of hers at a fete.
And I think… I fell in love right then, or at least, I had a profound sense she would matter to my life.
We began courting, we met each other’s families…
We made plans, or at least…’ Thorn frowned, leaning back again to draw some inspiration from the passing copper and pink clouds above.
‘I thought we did, but in all honesty, I realise now, I don’t think we ever did.
Not together. It was more a sense of yes, we’d marry someday, and build a life, but looking back, we never truly said or spoke of what we wanted outright.
I suppose… Well, her parents were very successful, and I had built up my business well enough, but I think I worried—despite never hearing them say anything of the sort—that they wished for someone able and willing to take over for them in time.
Or really, just someone worthier. They are also Catholic, and not until a few years ago would marriage have not been complicated, and my father died four years ago, and I took quite a while to grieve, and years passed…
I say all that, but the core truth is, we were together for eight years, and in all that time…
Many things happened except us speaking properly, or me asking what she wanted.
I just thought we were happy. That it would all fall into place or work itself out, or… I don’t know.’
Sighing heavily, Thorn straightened again, shaking his head, and throwing a glance at Hypatia, who merely looked back at him, without judgement, without anything but pure invitation and openness.
‘She left me for Frank,’ he told her, no easy way he supposed to cut to the end of the tale.
‘Rather, I caught them together, about two years ago, and I’ve no idea how long it was going on for, but I imagine that’s telling, that I didn’t ask.
She told me she wanted more, that she wanted commitment, and more than the life she’d had up until then, or that of a blacksmith’s wife.
I’d thought she was happy to be such a wife, to live such a simple life, but then, looking back, I think she was fooled by my ambitions to grow my father’s business and thought, I don’t know, that I’d build a smithing empire or some such. ’
‘I wonder what she thought of your change in fortune,’ Hypatia commented.
‘I’ve no idea, though Frank came to visit when I was back there.
He said they were happy for me, and I wished them well, and in truth, I do.
Their betrayal cut deeply, and I don’t condone it, though I might have forgiven them—I’m not quite certain yet,’ he said with a grin that Hypatia mirrored, understanding in her gaze.
‘I suppose I am coming to realise that though I loved her deeply, there was always a sense of disconnect. Of not being partners.’
The weight of that realisation was compounded by another; that he and Hypatia had learned to communicate and become partners with ease and rapidity.
Whether it was a lack of expectation—of love, of being happy, of their marriage being romantic—or because their characters more readily matched, he wasn’t sure, and didn’t rightly care, so long as they continued as they’d begun.
‘And I suppose, your character hasn’t changed, so there is that,’ Hypatia noted, and he smiled, broadly.
‘It doesn’t bother you, my lack of ambition?’
‘I don’t believe you lack in ambition, only your ambitions are simple, and liable to change with time. Right now, your ambition is to see this place thrive, and that is more than enough.’
‘My ambition is to see all of us thrive.’
‘As I said. More than enough.’
For now. Yet I cannot help but wonder if someday that will not be enough for you.
And I would not blame you. For you deserve more than this world itself.
‘Would you have married? Given the choice? Regardless of expectation? Need?’
‘I don’t know that I would’ve. For myself.
Committing to another…gladly. After…their betrayal, I had no intention of ever doing so, and less of committing in any manner to love.
Risk, choosing wrong again. Learning I had to marry, well, I was not pleased, and I still feared choosing badly, however, it felt like less of a risk. ’
‘You wouldn’t be risking your heart.’
‘Precisely. Only my great fortune. What of you, Hypatia?’ he asked, rather than lose himself in pleasant, but useless meanderings of the mind. Rather than admit: I am glad it was you I married in the end. ‘Has anyone ever captured your heart?’
‘No,’ she smiled gently, paddling her hands and feet softly, moving, but not to distract, to feel the water’s flow around her.
How he knew, well, he didn’t know. ‘But then I never sought it, nor was I open to it. My life was planned for me, and once, when I first came of age, and was told of my dowry, I think I hoped someone might take me away from it. Then I learned what the truth behind the mirage of freedom was, and I accepted my fate, finding pleasure where I could. I’d long read about the promise and wonder of more sensual delights, and was already very much interested in discovering them for myself, and so I found them discreetly where I could—a handsome groom here, an interested party at a gathering there—but I knew I could never have love. ’
‘Your parents didn’t…’
‘There was control to a degree, they read my correspondence, dictated much of what I was to do or not, but it was as much a farcical mirage as the rest. So long as I did what was asked of me, and maintained my role… Like with the streams, and everything else, they would have had to truly care to notice, to mind anything I did. I always knew, however, that love was off the cards as that might’ve taken me from them, as grander dreams might’ve, but as for the rest…
As I said, I was discreet, and it wasn’t as if I was spoiling goods they hoped to sell off. ’
Thorn grimaced, hating the wording as much as Hypatia’s tone told him she did.
Hating much of what she had lacked as concerned her family too, though that was nothing new.
And in the end, it had shaped her, even if only by forcing her to shape herself into something incredible, and so he could not hate it with all his being.
‘I’ve shocked you, Thorn.’
‘Your words are harsh, but the truth as many see it. I am not shocked, merely…’
‘Do not say sorry for my life.’
‘Sorry that you could not even dream of love.’
‘Perhaps it is for the better. I’ve seen too many twisted by such dreams, then disappointed when they do not find it.
When life appears but a sham facsimile of glorious dreams. Too many others twisting themselves into unrecognisable forms in the pursuit of love.
Losing themselves to the duty they feel towards it, whilst never being rewarded by it, for they are no longer themselves at all. ’
‘Is there nothing you dreamt of then? No profession, no far-off land, nothing?’
‘I don’t… I couldn’t imagine myself as something other than I was.
Not specifically. Perhaps I did not know my own mind well enough.
My own self. Perhaps I merely understood my circumstances too well, and so did not wish to be yet another disappointed dreamer.
Or perhaps it was freedom I lacked to do so.
I dreamt of that. Freedom, escape. Not enough to seize my own fate. ’
‘Until we met in a moonlight garden one summer’s eve.’
‘And so I changed my fate,’ she agreed. ‘Or it was changed, if you believe in such stuff.’
‘I like the idea of it,’ he told her, knowing her comment to be somewhat leading.
‘Fate, Destiny, Predestination. I like the idea of a powerful being, or beings, putting order to the world. Believing that what we can’t find in this life, we might find in another, be it justice, or peace.
But as for God as he is described in many books, I don’t think I quite adhere to that.
Good wisdom and lovely poetry though.’ Hypatia nodded, grateful for his words; he didn’t ask, for he knew her thoughts on the question of faith.
‘Why did you decide to take a chance on me that night? Every day since?’
‘The alternative…scared me more than trusting you. If I hadn’t, I would’ve continued to be all everyone said I was. All they tried to make me. I found that a more terrifying prospect than the unknown for once in my life.’
‘And my eyes sparkled,’ he grinned, not diminishing Hypatia’s confession, but giving her some levity he felt she needed then.
‘And your eyes sparkle,’ she nodded, a grin splitting her face. Slowly, it disappeared, and her eyes turned to examine the glinting waves around her. ‘What does it feel like? To be in love?’
Something within Thorn revolted at being asked that question, at having to find words to describe such an ephemeral thing; such tasks were appointed to poets, or artists, or great thinkers, not blacksmiths-cum-pig-farmers in the midst of a pleasant evening stream bath.
But something else inside his heart melted, and twinged at the open, vulnerable, and somewhat heartbreaking question.