Chapter Twenty-One #2
‘Och, Helene. Surely ye ken I care about ye and yer welfare. It’s nae secret something troubles ye and that ye carry a burden ye’re unwilling to share. I wish to help ye, if ye’ll let me. I promise to listen, and I’ll not judge ye, as ye’ve judged me.’
She deserved his reproof, but her heart broke listening to his softly spoken words, rich with understanding.
Guilt formed a lump in her throat, preventing Helene from speaking.
He turned away, no doubt because of her silence.
Her gaze followed his retreating back as he seated himself in front of the fire, arms drawn around bent knees, head slightly bowed.
He’d left his family and clan to accommodate her needs, to go above and beyond for her, and without question.
She’d given him nothing in return. She at least owed him an explanation.
They were in God’s house, despite its state of ruin and disrepair, and so it seemed fitting that, if she was going to bare her soul to Lachlan, then here, now, was the right place to repent the unvarnished truth.
Helene moved forward, each step heavy with guilt. She settled down beside Lachlan, her body and limbs concealed beneath her shirt and the blanket. She stared into the fire, inhaled a deep breath, and finally found her voice.
‘I have a younger sister,’ she began. ‘Her name is Prudence.’
A pause and another deep breath. ‘I was ten years old, and she eight. We quarrelled over a doll. Prudence grabbed it from me and ran from my bedchamber. I gave chase and caught her on the landing just beyond the staircase.’ Another long pause.
‘I prised open her hands and took from her the doll. She hit me.’ Helene heard the quaver in her voice.
‘I retaliated with a shove and . . . and turned my back on her to walk away.’
Helene’s stomach churned with gut-wrenching remorse, tears banking behind her eyes. ‘Prudence screamed. I glanced over my shoulder to see her tumble down the stairs. I heard her head smack the floor below and saw her lying in a little crumpled heap. Unmoving. Lifeless.’
Her voice cracked with the pain of reliving the past, and her trembling shoulders curled over her chest. Lachlan’s arms came about her, drawing her to his side.
‘It all happened so quickly,’ she said, her voice rising with the panic of that fateful day. ‘I never meant to be so cruel to my sister.’ Her pitch rose another degree. ‘I never meant to harm her!’
‘There now, lass. ’Tis not in yer nature to harm anyone or anything.’
‘But I did harm her, and she’s never been the same since.’
‘She lives?’
‘Yes, but the accident caused irreversible damage.’
‘How so?’
‘Without warning, her body convulses. Her arms and legs jerk uncontrollably, after which she is left tired and confused. The condition deprived her of a normal childhood and has completely ruined her life. She has no real friends to speak of, and no prospects of marriage and bearing children of her own.’
Helene’s body quaked with repressed sobs after having purged from herself the dark stain of her unforgivable deed.
‘Take yer time, lass. Nae need to rush the telling of it all.’
Helene accepted a cup of water from Lachlan and took two swallows.
She was grateful for his steadying arms about her.
No one, not even her mother when she was alive, had sought to console the distress of her guilt and suffering the way Lachlan did now.
Helene had accepted full blame for her actions.
It was her burden. Her cross to bear for the rest of her life.
She pulled herself together, ready to divulge further details.
‘After the accident, friends and polite society were ignorant as to the cause and severity of her condition. They were led to believe Prudence was born with a weak constitution and that it was the family’s physician who recommended her condition was best suited to fresh air and a quiet life with a distant cousin residing in the country.
‘In truth, Prudence was removed to the country to be cared for by a childless couple who raised her as their own. Not only did my father pay them handsomely to keep quiet about my sister’s identity, but he provided them ample financial support to care for and raise Prudence.
As the years went by, my sister became the forgotten child.
Society stopped asking about her, and the family never mentioned her to others.
My father believed it was for the best. Out of sight, out of mind as it were. ’
‘Did ye not visit yer sister? I ask with nae censure, but rather, curiosity.’
‘Yes, but after my mother died, those visits became less frequent. Father always claimed business matters consumed his time, and it was a trial to get my brother to chaperone me.’
Helene took another sip of water. ‘I’ve written to Prudence almost every day since she first relocated to the country. Her letters weren’t as forthcoming as mine. I’d plead in my letters for her to reply, but I sometimes wondered if her silence was deliberate.’
‘Why would ye think that?’
‘Perhaps it was her way of punishing me for what I did to her. For ruining her life. If that was her only reason, then I cannot blame her.’ Helene drank the last of the water and set the cup down.
‘The last eight months have seen her condition worsen. Her episodes have become more frequent and severe in nature. It reached a point where the aging couple could no longer provide the proper care and attention for my sister, and so Father was forced to seek alternate accommodation.’
‘I ken ’tis not my place to say, but yer sister should be with family. Surely yer father could arrange for qualified and discreet carers to be always with her. Like a lady’s companion.’
Helene made a snort of disgust. ‘I begged him to do exactly as you suggest. I begged him to let me learn how to deal with and manage her condition. After all, I am her sister, and the cause of her affliction. I argued it was only right I be the one to devote my life to her.’
‘And he wouldnae hear of it?’
She shook her head. ‘Neither would my brother.
They said if anyone, including servants—because they spread gossip faster than the Great Fire of London—were to encounter Prudence during one of her episodes, it would bring such shame and disgrace upon the family as to risk all of us being ostracized by society and the beau monde.
‘My father is of the opinion that no one of sound mind would choose to associate with—let alone marry and breed with—myself or my brother if they knew we have a sister who is afflicted with the falling sickness. It’s a condition whereby others, in their ignorance, believe that person to be insane and possessed by the devil.
Better Prudence remain forgotten, he said, and out of sight.
‘I even suggested I reside with Prudence and her foster parents. My father quashed that idea too. He’s determined to marry me off, but I’ve refused every suitor he’s pushed my way. I’ll dedicate my life to no one but Prudence.’
‘Might I ask where yer sister resides now?’
The heat of anger and stomach-dropping nausea thickened Helene’s throat. If those parting images of Prudence traumatised Helene now as they had done at the time, how must poor Prudence be feeling? Helene could not begin to fathom her sister’s condition and state of mind.
‘The day before I left for Scotland, Prudence was taken to Bethlem Royal Hospital in London.’
Helene felt every muscle in Lachlan’s body lock. Did he share her outrage at the injustice of her sister’s plight?
‘She’s neither mentally nor criminally unwell,’ Helene explained. ‘She suffers from a brain disfunction that occurs at random, but she is not dangerous, nor would she harm anyone.’
Whatever Lachlan thought of Helene, her wrongdoing towards Prudence, or the situation at hand, he did not pull away, but instead continued to hold her close. For that, Helene was eternally grateful, for if ever she needed his strength and moral support, it was now.
‘And what do ye surmise from yer father’s missive about wanting ye home?’
Helene swallowed. ‘I fear something terrible has befallen Prudence. Or worse.’ She sniffed back more tears and choked out, ‘I promised her I’d return and free her from that madhouse.
I promised her we’d make a life somewhere together, no matter how quiet or simple a life it might be.
I must fulfil that promise. I will not abandon her to live out her days in that madhouse! ’
Lachlan dropped a kiss on the crown of her head.
‘Ken ye this, lass. With or without yer father’s permission, I’ll ensure yer sister is released forthwith from that hell-hole of an asylum.
And if yer father will not have Prudence cared for in her rightful home, then ye and yer sister have a home at Drumocher. ’
His unexpected words, spoken with promise and steely determination, were Helene’s humble undoing. She buried her face in her hands and wept.
‘Dinnae cry, mo chridhe. All will be well.’
She looked up at him and shook her head vigorously. If she was going to confess all her sins, then she must tell Lachlan about the bargain she’d struck with Cuthbert. ‘There’s more,’ she blurted. ‘I’ve used and deceived you and your family in the worst possible way.’
‘Hush now, mo ghràdh.’ Lachlan turned his body towards her, cupping her face between his palms.
Helene tried again to speak the truth, only to be silenced with his thumb pressed gently to her lips.
Soft kisses rained down on her head, her forehead, and her temples.
Her eyelids fluttered closed. She revelled in his touch as his lips, like the soft beat of a butterfly’s wings, kissed her tear-stained cheeks.
His mouth shifted to where a teardrop collected in the groove between her nose and the downward arch of her cupid’s bow. There, he paused for the space of several heartbeats before brushing his lips over hers in a chaste kiss.