Chapter 14 #2
‘To avoid you, to not see you.’ Martha blinked hard and looked out over the Thames. Thea saw her set her jaw in the way she did when she was trying her utmost to control her emotion.
‘I don’t understand why you would do that,’ said Thea, tears now dangerously close. Martha only shook her head. ‘Are you not even going to tell me?’ asked Thea. ‘Surely I deserve that courtesy?’
Martha’s eyes now met hers, a hard edge in them that had never been directed at Thea before.
She stepped closer, her voice low. ‘I was avoiding you as I wasn’t sure that I could cope,’ a brief exhalation through her nose, ‘and now I see that I was right. I had flattered myself that you might be similarly affected, but it seems that you are not.’
‘That was your choice,’ said Thea quietly. ‘You didn’t have to avoid me.’
‘Of course I did.’ Martha’s eyes were harsh.
‘It is all I have been doing, Thea, it is the only way I have been able to exist while I have to stay in this godforsaken city between voyages. You are everywhere in society and so I can be nowhere.’ She looked back towards the Thames, tense and strained.
‘You could have been with me,’ said Thea, ‘and yet you chose a new life.’
Martha now looked back towards her. ‘What choice did I have?’ There was accusation in her tone, but also the hint of a question. ‘You got on with your life.’
‘I had little option,’ said Thea, ‘I have a husband and children, but you could choose. If you chose a different life, you could at least have had the courtesy to tell me, Martha.’
‘The courtesy?’ asked Martha, shaking her head. ‘After you took that choice out of my hands?’
Thea was getting more confused. ‘By marrying? But that’s what we agreed. That was our arrangement.’
‘Of course it was.’ Martha’s voice was high and raw now and she threw up her hands in frustration.
‘But I thought… I thought you would still want me. But of course, you are quite within your rights to choose. I should have known that once you started to build a family of your own, I would become a memory.’
Thea didn’t understand at all. ‘How could you think that?’
Martha’s eyes darkened. ‘You have been very clear,’ she said. ‘Numerous times. And you couldn’t even tell me to my face.’
‘When?’ Thea was becoming desperate now.
‘Your letters were perfectly eloquent,’ snapped back Martha.
‘My letters?’ It had been impossible to write what she wanted to say in a letter, but Thea couldn’t think of anything she had said that would have even suggested to Martha that her feelings had changed. ‘What could possibly be in my letters that made you think–’
Martha cut her off by stepping closer, but her voice was suddenly small.
‘Thea, why are you doing this? I understand your position but if that is the case then you cannot expect me to be around you. I cannot bear it, really, I cannot.’ Her voice raised and she took a moment to compose herself.
‘You wished me to leave you to your family, you wished me to not see you, and you were abundantly clear. Please. You cannot expect to dance with me like you did not write to me and break my heart.’
Thea stared at her. She had no idea what to say. What words had she penned that Martha could have misconstrued? The rain was beginning to quicken, and she pulled them into the lee of a hedge.
‘What did I write, Martha?’
Martha crossed her arms over her chest, but her voice was a little calmer. ‘You wrote to me that you wished to give me up and concentrate on your new life. That you wished me to keep away from your house.’ Her face crinkled in confusion. ‘For god’s sake are you set on me reliving it?’
Thea put out a hand to try and dispel Martha’s rising anger. ‘Martha – when was this?’
‘Two years ago, maybe a little more. You must know, Thea, they are in your hand.’ A pucker in the brow. ‘Have you been drinking?’
‘No,’ said Thea, but then considered. ‘At least not that much.’ Her eyes ticked between Martha, the garden and the Thames, trying to think. ‘Martha if you have letters to that effect they are not in my hand. How many were there?’
Martha still looked like she didn’t believe it. ‘Two,’ she said harshly. ‘The first saying you must give me up, the second refusing a meeting after I had written back to you to request it.’
Thea shook her head. ‘I didn’t receive any such letter.
’ They stared at one another for long seconds, each one clearly trying to think.
‘Why would you not just come?’ asked Thea.
‘If you have been back and avoiding me as you said, why did you not try to visit?’ If Martha was telling the truth, something did not add up.
Martha’s eyes were intense. ‘I did. I came to Whitehall when I knew George was at parliament.’
‘And?’ said Thea, when Martha paused for too long.
‘And I was sent away,’ she said weakly. ‘Your footman informed me of your message that it was too risky for us to see one another, and that you were sure I would understand, given the letters you had sent.’ Tears welled in her eyes.
‘The humiliation, Thea, being rejected by a footman and him clearly knowing it all.’
Thea’s mind raced. ‘That was not on my orders,’ she said, trying to remain calm. Martha gave a disbelieving laugh and turned away. ‘It wasn’t,’ said Thea, her volume rising now. Why did Martha not believe her?
‘And yet you had no trouble moving on,’ said Martha. She looked like she was about to say something else, and then swallowed instead.
‘You know I have a duty to George–’ said Thea, but Martha silenced her with a raised hand and stepped in closer.
‘If you must demand my last shred of dignity.’ She fished around inside her breeches and extracted a small drawstring purse. Its contents clinked, and Thea instantly recognised it as her dummy purse. Martha stared at her with an eyebrow raised and lips pressed into a thin line.
‘How do you have that?’ Thea was at a loss as to how Martha would be in possession of the purse she had given to a robber in an alleyway months before. Had Martha had her followed? Had she had her robbed? This conversation was so perplexing that she thought almost anything was possible.
‘I am sure you remember, Thea,’ said Martha. ‘Unless you were so drunk you can’t recall that night either. You gave it to me yourself. Right after you had kissed another girl down an alleyway.’
Thea felt her eyes widen with the shock. ‘That was you?’
‘Of course it was me,’ said Martha, but doubt had started to seep into her tone.
‘That day you had called at the house and Mrs Jenkins had sent you away. The fact that you came made me dare to hope. I disguised myself and came to your usual lecture to see if I could at least talk to you when you came out.’
‘And why didn’t you?’ asked Thea.
Martha stared at her. Her voice was flat.
‘Because before I could get to you, you were in an alleyway kissing someone else, and then when I rescued you from the robbers you looked right into my eyes and told me yourself that it was time to move on.’ Now she started to look concerned.
‘You were drunk that day. Please tell me this whole thing is not to do with drink. Or laudanum?’
Thea shook her head. ‘I had been drinking that night but only because of you. And when I talked about moving on, I was talking to myself.’ Thea’s voice raised in frustration.
‘I had visited your house and been sent away by your housekeeper, and then robbed twice in one day. I had a pistol pointed at me. I had waited for you for so long and thought about the fact that I could die and my children would be left and I knew it was time I had to stop pining for you and move on.’
Martha faltered. ‘But… I was there. You looked right at me.’
‘I stared at the terrifying face of a robber!’ Thea almost shouted. ‘You had a scarf over your face and a hat pulled down and you were in the shadow of the alley.’ Then a thought occurred to her. ‘Were you going to shoot me?’
Martha looked incredulous. ‘Of course I wasn’t going to shoot you.’ Then she paused. ‘I thought about shooting her though. God, Thea, when you kissed her…’
By now Thea was sure that things were very different than she had thought, but the full picture was still going to take a little piecing together. ‘That kiss was awful,’ she said gently, and then dared to take Martha’s hand. Martha didn’t pull away. ‘Because it wasn’t you.’
Martha’s eyes closed. ‘Please don’t, if you don’t mean it.’ She opened them again and the emotion was raw. ‘Please.’
‘Someone was pushing you away from me,’ said Thea, trying to reassure her. ‘That much seems clear. Martha, I did not send those letters. Somebody clearly did, and they sent you away from the house, but you have my word that it wasn’t me.’
‘Then how could it be in your hand?’ asked Martha quietly, but now it was more of a question than an accusation.
‘I don’t know.’ Thea thought for a moment. ‘What did he look like?’ she asked, trying to fit scant pieces of a puzzle together in her addled brain. ‘The footman who sent you away?’
Martha gave a small shrug. ‘Tall, blonde, quite gangly with a bit of a limp.’
‘James,’ said Thea, furrowing her brow. ‘I always liked him.’
‘We should speak to him,’ said Martha definitely.
Thea shook her head. ‘He’s dead. Coach accident.’
‘Unfortunate,’ said Martha. ‘I didn’t write after that. I went straight off on a voyage to South America, and only just returned at the end of last year. I couldn’t bear for you to push me away. That’s why I didn’t see you when you came to the house.’
‘You were there?’ asked Thea.
Martha nodded, and her eyes filled with tears.
‘I watched from behind the curtain. To see you there was too much. I had seen your carriage and told Mrs Jenkins to send you away. If you had come to ask me to be your friend I could not have borne it.’ Her voice broke on the last words and Thea stepped in towards her, taking her hands.
The rain came hard now, but she barely noticed.
The only thing that mattered was Martha, and that the rejection of the past two years may have been a lie.
‘But you changed your mind, and came after me?’
‘You looked so dejected,’ said Martha. ‘It roused a little hope, and I had to find out. But then you kissed her.’ Her face fell at the memory.
‘And then you robbed me and tried to shoot her.’ Thea allowed herself a little teasing smile and was delighted with the shadow of amusement it caused on Martha’s lips. She had missed that hard-earned smile most desperately.
‘I guess neither of us is without blame,’ said Martha.
‘Someone is very much to blame,’ said Thea, ‘and we will find out in time, but for now, are you…’ she paused, not even sure she wanted to ask. She pulled them into the shelter of a clipped oak and kept Martha’s hands. ‘Martha, are you saying that you still feel the same. As you once did?’
‘Of course I do,’ said Martha softly, cupping Thea’s wet cheek in her hand. ‘God, Thea, when I thought you had given me up…’
‘Never,’ Thea said quietly as Martha trailed off. ‘Nothing could change how I feel about you.’ She looked down to their feet. ‘But I admit I almost wished it to be so. I imagined you disappointed in me, or that you had someone else. I could hardly bear it.’
‘Oh Thea,’ Martha drew them even closer.
‘That could never be. Even when I thought I could never have you, I spent years at sea only to escape the pain of being here without you. I would do anything for you and that includes walking away when I thought you wished to forget me. I just knew I couldn’t be around you and so I have prevented our meeting – with success, until tonight. ’
Thea tugged Martha closer and dropped her voice. ‘Tonight, when I danced with a pirate, and she got all cross.’
A breath hitched in Martha’s throat. ‘When I heard your voice…’ she trailed off and her eyes closed, then her head dropped and to Thea’s horror she saw her bottom lip start to tremble.
She placed an urgent index finger under Martha’s chin and lifted her face, brushing a thumb over that quivering lip.
‘Martha, I love you,’ she said, just to ensure there was no doubt.
A small, wet laugh erupted from Martha. ‘I love you too,’ she whispered, gripping Thea’s waist with both hands as if she thought she might flee.
Thea couldn’t stop herself; she grasped the collar of Martha’s waistcoat and pulled her in, their lips meeting roughly.
Martha didn’t hesitate for a second. She took Thea’s face in her hands and kissed her hard, her lips hot against the cool rain.
Someone whistled from the river, but neither of them cared.
In the melee of illicit activity in the gardens tonight, a kiss between a pirate and a goddess was inconsequential.
When Thea ran out of breath she pulled back, grasping Martha’s neck with one hand and looking into her eyes.
It was difficult to believe after so long, and there seemed to be too many unanswered questions.
‘I can hardly believe it,’ she said, doubt creeping in. ‘You really hadn’t given me up?’ Emotion surged and she gripped Martha tighter.
She thought there might be tears in Martha’s eyes, but they were indistinguishable from the rain. ‘Come home with me,’ she said gently. ‘Now or whenever you can get away. There are things I need to show you.’