Chapter 43
Annabelle
Iunderstand Alfred’s misgivings about courting favor in the parish.
It rankles me too, but I want to believe what Mr. Perry said—that the animosity towards me is partly leftover grievance from years of my father’s tightfisted rule.
I don’t want to fear coming back to Trescott. If I have an estate here, then I will have to return at least periodically. If relations can be normalized, it only makes sense to do so.
I still feel a bit queasy as I walk in the town square with Alfred.
I do not fear casting up my accounts as I did this morning, but I nevertheless feel tired and a bit sick.
When I woke this morning, I briefly felt the return of that nausea. Alfred had looked at me with such concern. He is, unfortunately, so attuned to the little changes in my countenance that hiding anything from him is difficult.
But I am resolute that he should not learn yet the true reason that I feel ill.
And now I want to make sure that the Ludlows will be well cared for in my absence. I provided for the other cottagers out of duty and a desire to see hostilities cease. But when it comes to the Ludlows, it is a matter of affection—and I want them to be exceedingly comfortable.
So we visit the bookshop, the cobbler, the bakery, and everywhere I buy gifts to be delivered tomorrow afternoon after we have departed, so Betsy will have no time to protest.
When we come to the tiny toy shop and candy store, I resolve to go inside to buy Victoria a few presents.
Inside, Alfred and I browse the shop. Most of the toys are cheap things and the candy can all be had for very little.
Being in the small space with Alfred, however, there is an intensity.
The child that we spoke of as a hypothetical feels suddenly much more real, especially given what I believe about my own state.
Then as the shop girl wraps up the few items and package of candy I selected for Victoria, the door opens. I look to see who has entered and my stomach sinks.
There with his young son, a boy of eight or nine, stands Frank Holster.
I haven’t been this close to him in years. Foolishly, my heart beats faster. I avert my gaze immediately.
Wanting very much to leave the shop, I direct the girl to send the packages to the Ludlows, give her the necessary money, and move towards the door.
Alfred guides me through the small shop and I think that I have managed to avoid an encounter—when I hear Frank Holster say, “Mrs. de Lacey.”
I note the use of my married name.
I have no choice but to turn, knowing what is coming.
“I wish you joy,” Frank says, a kind smile spread across his handsome face. His hazel eyes still sparkle.
“Mr. de Lacey,” he nods at Alfred.
Alfred gives a stiff bow.
I say nothing but tip my head just slightly.
Then we leave the shop.
Now, I make my way to the carriage, my arm in Alfred’s.
Does he know about Frank Holster? The gossip in town might have reached him. I hope that he is ignorant of it. That he did not notice my slight discomposure at seeing Frank.
We seat ourselves in the carriage and are soon blessedly free of the town square. But the silence is heavy.
“Will you tell me,” Alfred finally says, his eyes on me even though I won’t take my own off the window, “what happened with him? With Frank Holster?”
I suppress a groan. He heard something then.
“I don’t wish to speak of it.”
“And why is that?”
I look at him. I can’t help it. His voice sounds strange. It has a strangled note.
“It’s not worth discussing.”
“Do you still love him? Is that why you believe you cannot love another?”
I close my eyes, irritated beyond measure. And yet somehow also close to tears.
“That’s the truth, isn’t it?” Alfred says. “I have never seen your face look as it did when he came into the shop.”
The silence that follows his words is awful.
Nothing but that silence could convince me to speak about this subject.
“No,” I say, my eyes still closed. “Once I thought I loved Frank—but that was many years ago now.”
“Then why won’t you speak of him?”
I open my eyes.
“It is embarrassing.”
“And I have never done or said anything to warrant embarrassment in front of you.”
His eyes are warm. He even has the hint of a smile on his face.
“Please tell me,” he says. “I want to understand.”
I do not know if Alfred will judge me. But he must already know the material facts of the matter. There is no use trying to hide the truth, in that case.
“He was my first lover. As I said to you, my father did not disown me for my first transgression—and my first transgression was Frank.”
“You fell in love?”
“I certainly thought so.”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen.”
“And what did he do to win you?”
I scoff. “Very little.”
“How old was he?”
“Really, are these questions necessary?”
“Please,” Alfred says.
“He was eighteen.”
“Why was he your first lover?”
“It is a long story.”
“I want to hear it.”
Our eyes meet again. I cross my arms.
“He was the most handsome young man in Trescott by a mile. Not that that means very much. But he was just a cottager. He had no prospect of being anything more.”
“Did you want to marry him?”
“I suppose. But I didn’t think much of practical considerations. As I said, I was sixteen.”
“He seduced you,” Alfred glowers.
“No. If anything, I seduced him. Some would say I threw myself at him.”
Alfred goes still and I fight a tide of rising shame.
“Like you seduced me?”
It had not occurred to me that he would compare the two situations.
“No,” I say. “Not like that at all.”
“Then how did it happen?”
I sigh and close my eyes again.
“At harvest time, I used to go around with Betsy and give food and water to the laborers—and Frank worked in our fields. He began accompanying me back to the Abbey at the end of the day. The fields are much closer to the Ludlows’ cottage and I wanted to save Betsy the trip. So did Frank. He loves Betsy too.”
“Then how—?”
“I will explain. He didn’t seduce me. He didn’t need to. He could see how I mooned after him. I wasn’t pretty. If I became pretty later—”
“You’re beautiful,” Alfred breaks in.
“Well, if I am now, I wasn’t then. I was too plump and had a face covered in spots. I hadn’t grown up yet. But I was utterly infatuated with Frank. The first time he kissed me—I thought that I was dreaming.”
“He did seduce you.”
“No. As I said, he didn’t need to. At first, it was only kissing. He didn’t want to press any further. He tried to explain that I would be ruined if he bedded me. I would have asked him to run away with me, but he had his mother and little brother—they relied upon him.”
“But he bedded you anyway.”
“I insisted. I begged him. We would meet in the woods and I would beg him to bed me. It took weeks and weeks to convince him. He was always conflicted. I didn’t understand why.
Not fully. I started bringing him presents.
To me they were trifles, but to Frank they were impossible riches.
I insisted that he keep them all of course. ”
“What sorts of presents?”
“Oh, a gold pin, a silver compass—things that were mine, that I had been given or bought, and that were nothing to me. I never thought of their value. I thought if I gave them to him, he would see how I cared for him. I had some childish notion, I suppose, that if he bedded me, we would have to marry.”
I give the little bitter laugh that has recently, around Alfred, grown scarce.
“When he took these things, he worried he would be hung for theft. But I assured him that no one would come looking for these items. That they belonged only to me.”
I look at Alfred. He seems perplexed by the direction of the tale. And I can’t blame him for his confusion.
“But he did, eventually,” he pressed. “Bed you.”
“Yes,” I say. “In the end, he bedded me quite a few times. We kept meeting in the woods for months even when it had grown too cold.”
“Did he hurt you?”
I shake my head.
“No, I was delighted. I didn’t even worry about getting with child, which was foolish. He took pains to avoid it, though, which I was thankful for later.”
“He pleased you? Like I do?”
His hands are clenched over his knees.
“No, of course not,” I say. “We were very young. I understood nothing of my own desires then. I didn’t much enjoy the act itself. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t particularly pleasurable either. You needn’t be jealous. Of Frank, at least.”
I give a teasing smile, but his expression is stormy.
“I am only joking, Alfred.”
“I am sorry,” he says. “I am being—I know I am being ridiculous. To you, perhaps, it seems a long time ago.”
“You just aren’t understanding the story.
But perhaps that is because I haven’t told you the end.
We kept meeting in the woods until one day he didn’t come.
And then I heard that he bought a freeholding, a parcel that had been for sale for years, and that I knew he coveted.
I couldn’t figure out how he had gotten the money. ”
“Your gifts,” Alfred says. “He sold them?”
“I have never confirmed it,” I say. “But I can think of no other way. The parcel was three hundred pounds.”
“You gave him that much in trifles? Without even intending it?”
“I suspect much of what I gave him was not particularly valuable. But I gave him a gold locket with a diamond face that belonged to my father’s grandmother.
It was a hideous old thing. She left it to me in her will.
I pressed it on him. The locket must have been worth far more than I ever considered.
Because I never saw Frank in the woods after that. ”
Alfred exhales. “What a complete bastard.”
“That is not all,” I say, almost afraid of what reaction my revelation will yield from Alfred. “Two weeks later, he married.”
“He married? Another woman?”
I nod. “Miss Cassandra Winch. I believe they were childhood sweethearts.”
“Annabelle, I am so sorry.”
I shrug, not wanting his condolences. It was so long ago and the pain, which for years was sharp, has dulled into almost nothing. Still, where pain subsides, mortification can linger.
“I thought I would die of humiliation. I realized that he hadn’t wanted to bed me, not really—”
Alfred scoffs. “I doubt that. To do it so many times. He must have wanted it.”
“But not really,” I correct. “Not for my own sake. The gifts were nothing to me, but I realized that was why he continued to come back. I gave him a handkerchief on one of our first walks, a little silk thing, for his brow, and told him to keep it. He must have realized then that I had no idea of the value of anything. And perhaps it was not even his idea. I suspect it was Cassandra who realized my worth to them. He showed her the handkerchief perhaps, and she realized my use.”
“Do you think that another woman would really consent to have her sweetheart bed another woman? For pretty presents?”
“If those presents could buy them a freeholding, then yes. And it’s not even their fault,” I say, unfolding to Alfred the reality that dawned on me as I aged.
Long ago the incomprehensible became plain.
“They were doomed to a life of poverty otherwise. With the freeholding, they have some kind of prosperity. Otherwise, they would be cottagers forever, with a dirt floor and no land to call their own.”
“That is no excuse for what they did to you.”
“It might be. And I was so foolish. I threw myself at him. I had no notion of the worth of my little gifts.”
“I can’t believe that the man can look you in the eye.”
“Frank isn’t a malicious fellow. He wrote me a letter.
Two weeks after his marriage. He didn’t say anything about the gifts.
But he apologized for not speaking to me before his marriage.
And he explained that I was meant for a marriage in a different sphere of life—and that my father would have never consented to our union.
That the connection was doomed from the start.
He said he was fond of me and that he didn’t want me heartsick on his account. ”
“He felt guilty. As he should have.”
“After that, I resolved to never not know the price of things again. It started my interest in business in fact. And it turned out that I had a head for it, once I learnt to care about what something was worth.”
Now I know the value of everything. I know how much is spent on the estate down to the farthing. How different I was at sixteen—and I wonder if that girl, the one who hadn’t thought of the price of things but merely felt, still lives in me somewhere.
“Is that why you are so meticulous? With Mr. Perry? About Trescott and your ledgers?”
I shrug. “I suppose.”
But I know—and he knows—the answer is yes.
When I am anxious, looking over the accounts is sometimes the only thing that can soothe me.
Alfred’s brow crinkles. “How did your father find out about Frank? If no one knew?”
I sigh. This part still turns my stomach. The most, in fact, of all of it.
“I think he knew all along that I was meeting him in the woods. He found out, at any rate, at some point. But he waited to speak to me of it. I think his plan was to strike when the affair ended. When I would feel it the most. When I was already bereft. Anyway, the day of Frank’s marriage, he called me into his study and told me that he knew I had ruined myself for ‘that pauper.’ I had been sure he would throw me out of the Abbey, but he didn’t.
He told me that I had a whore’s nature, and that I was a fool, and to never make the same mistake again. ”
“Come here,” Alfred says, taking my hand.
“I am fine, Alfred, really.”
“You might be,” Alfred says. “But I’m not. I must have you in my arms. I cannot bear to think of you being treated in such a way.”
I acquiesce, settling myself on his lap as the carriage winds through the forest.
He strokes my hair and I bury my face into the crook of his neck. I take in as much of his bergamot scent as I can. The smell which has come to be affiliated, for me, with happiness.
To my surprise, my eyes fill with tears.
Had I ever believed a man would hold me in this way back when I was that plump, homely, ruined girl?
To my dismay, I cannot blink the tears back. My cheeks are soon wet.
Alfred’s arms tighten around me.
“Stop,” I murmur. He is making it worse, I am sure. I wouldn’t be crying if he wasn’t holding me.
“Annabelle,” he protests.
I have never told anyone the story of Frank Holster.
I had convinced myself that it wasn’t that bad—that its effect on me had been minimal.
When I begin to cry in earnest, he smooths my hair and pulls me in tighter.
And he doesn’t let me go until I am done. Until we reach the Abbey and I withdraw from him and wipe my eyes.
“Ridiculous,” I say as I do so.
But he merely looks at me, kisses me, and says, “No one will ever hurt you like that again. I won’t allow it. Not now. Not when I am with you. I love you. I will love you all my days.”
And fool that I am, I want to believe him.