Chapter 13 #2
"Perhaps she is merely still adjusting. I am new to the family, after all, and to the place I now hold within the household," Helena said thoughtfully.
"Only, I do not know how I ought to proceed.
I have considered speaking with her, to ask whether I have unknowingly given offense, but I fear that may only irritate her further. "
Charlotte shook her head. "No," she said with quiet certainty.
"The matter was addressed this morning, and I would not encourage you to reward such poor behavior with further attention.
If something else should arise, then by all means ask her what troubles her.
But until then, I would not have you bend yourself to every passing humor. "
Moving her cup closer, Helena took another sip of tea and considered Charlotte's advice.
"And I would not have you withdrawing from the family merely because she has chosen to be out of humor with you.
The silly girl ought to be grateful for all the assistance you have given her this Season, not make you feel unwelcome in your own home.
" Charlotte paused, a hint of amusement touching her expression.
"Besides, you are Lady Blackmere now. If Georgiana chooses to sulk in her chambers, that is entirely her affair. "
“Oh, Charlotte, thank you.” Helena laughed.
“I believe I have devoted far too much thought to the matter. It is only that I care for each of the Wycliffes. They are my family now, and I am not one to leave disagreements unresolved.” She placed her teacup on the table.
“I suppose I merely wish to fulfil my part of the agreement and be a good wife.”
“Well then,” Charlotte replied with a teasing smile, “I have a volume you may find worth revisiting, though I distinctly remember you declaring it was not at all to your liking.”
Helena searched her friend's expression for a moment before understanding dawned on her. It was the very book the baron had urged her to read during their engagement.
“‘...her highest ambition was to render home agreeable, and to fulfil with cheerfulness every domestic obligation,’” Helena recited, rolling her eyes as she reached the end of the sentence.
Charlotte laughed, and Helena could not help joining her.
When Helena returned home, she found Tristan still absent with Nathaniel, Georgiana absorbed in a letter while drafting her reply, and Beatrice upstairs with Oliver and his tutor. With everyone otherwise occupied, Helena decided to return to the drawing she had left unfinished in her sitting room.
The room was still, and Helena was grateful for the corner of the house that felt like her own. As she crossed to her usual armchair, her sketchbook waiting on the table beside it, her gaze caught on Elinor's writing box resting upon the bookcase and she paused.
There had been more than one night when she had lain awake wondering what Elinor had been trying to say, and why the handwriting became so increasingly frantic toward the end.
She remained standing for another moment, her eyes fixed upon the box.
Then, as though afraid she might lose her resolve, she left the room and went down to her chamber.
The brass key lay in the small porcelain box where she kept her pearls. After retrieving it, she returned to the sitting room and closed the door quietly behind her.
She stood with the key resting in her palm and reasoned with herself as she looked at the box.
It felt strangely intrusive, as though she were about to trespass upon a confidence never meant for another's eyes.
Yet, Elinor had hidden the key rather than destroying the letters.
Helena could not persuade herself that had been done without purpose.
Taking a slow breath, she crossed the room, lifted the box from the bookcase, and rested it upon her lap as she lowered herself into the armchair.
She glanced toward the door, listening to the muffled sounds of the household beyond it and straining to hear any approaching footsteps.
Satisfied that she would not be disturbed, Helena turned the key in the lock and lifted the lid.
For a moment, she did nothing more than look down at the neatly folded letters before her, absently biting her lower lip.
There had never been a single word of Elinor losing her senses before her death.
Helena had always been told she had succumbed to an untreatable illness, and she wondered whether, if her mind had begun to fail, it had simply never been spoken of out of respect for her dignity.
Yet she could not dismiss the feeling that Elinor had intended those pages to be found; that she had left behind something she believed needed to be read.
Helena did not believe she ought to be the one reading them.
But she could hardly place the box in Tristan's hands and ask him to revisit the private thoughts of his late wife.
Their marriage, for all its growing comfort, still rested more upon practicality than complete openness, and she could not bring herself to ask such a thing of him.
She lifted the first page once more; the same one she had read before.
The fear within Elinor's careful words was as unmistakable as she remembered.
There was the mention of a scheme, another guarded reference to protecting someone, yet no explanation of either.
Helena decided to read on, determined to understand why Elinor had been so afraid, what danger she had uncovered, and whom she had been trying so desperately to protect.
She folded the page carefully and rested it against the side of the box before reaching for the next letter.
As her eyes moved over the neat lines of ink, her brow drew together.
Elinor continued to write as though circling the truth, hinting at it without ever allowing herself to set it plainly upon the page.
The feeling of helplessness overwhelms me.
Whenever I begin to mention my concerns, I am told I am delirious, which, I confess, I oftentimes am.
The fevers steal whole hours from me, and there are moments I scarcely trust my own recollection.
Yet I know what I have seen. I do not know what illness plagues me, but it robs me of the strength to bring this dreadful scheme into the light, or to protect a brother whom I have come to love as my own.
She keeps asking to whom I am writing, and I tell her only that it is to a dear friend. It is easier than admitting these pages are meant for no one's eyes but my own. Yet I must set my thoughts somewhere, if only to quiet the fears that refuse to leave me.
What am I to do? If I confess all I know, what danger might I bring upon this family? And if I remain silent, what greater danger may yet come of it?
Helena felt a wave of nausea pass through her. She folded the page with care, placing it back in the box beneath the first before closing the lid and turning the key once more. Yet she made no move to return it to the bookcase, instead leaning back in the armchair with her gaze fixed upon it.
"What in Heaven's name?" she murmured.
She wanted to continue reading, to uncover what Elinor had been so afraid to commit plainly to paper. Yet she was no longer certain she was prepared for what the remaining pages might reveal.
One thought, however, refused to leave her. Elinor could hardly have meant anyone but Frederick. Tristan's younger brother had died only a short time before his wife, and if Elinor had indeed been writing of him, then she had feared for him before his carriage accident ever occurred.