Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Mark, for the second time in two days, knocked on his father-in-law’s door.
This time, Meeks didn’t answer the door. A footman, blinking in the bright Thursday morning sunlight, ushered him inside. “Are you here for Mrs. Glenfall? She stepped out.”
Irritation flooded Mark. He sucked in a breath.
Is she avoiding me? Going back on her word?
“Mrs. Glenfall told me to be here this morning. It’s eight o’clock, and here I am.
” Punctuality was important, he’d never show up late to a meeting with his sailors, nor they him.
Duty was important, too. He owed the barony heirs.
Which meant Ellen owed him children. It was his responsibility to the family and the estate, and he’d do what he must for her to willingly return to his bed.
Memories of her fierce glare, the hatpin, and her hair gleaming in the lamplight flickered to the forefront of his mind. She wasn’t the childish heiress he remembered. It wouldn’t be nearly as large a sacrifice on his part as he’d thought two days ago.
The footman fidgeted, clearly knowing he was in the middle of a marital spat and uncomfortable with it. “Perhaps she hoped you would come a little later, sir.”
“Where is she?” Mark demanded, gripping his cane in one hand. He had slept little, between the secret jaunt to Marylebone and the tossing and turning he’d done afterward in his bed.
“Where she always is on Thursday mornings, sir,” the young man stammered.
Mark sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose while gathering the shreds of his patience. “And where might that be?”
“Grosvenor Chapel, sir.”
Mark turned, opening the door himself, and stepped outside.
Grosvenor Chapel. Do I know that place? We didn’t get married there, I don’t think. Mark frowned.
He remembered the significance of the church. His chest hollowed, as if someone had reached in and scooped out his heart. Mark turned and walked up the street toward a chapel he’d never been to, but read about in one of his mother’s letters.
He reached the old Georgian church fifteen minutes later.
The red brick building with white stone accents, perfectly proportional and symmetrical as all good Georgian buildings, sat cheerfully beside the street.
Mark, uneasy, peered around the corner to find a small cemetery.
Mark didn’t want to be here. For some reason, his feet wouldn’t carry him away.
They stuck to the street. He blinked, and somehow he was leaning against the wrought iron fence, gazing into the old cemetery.
Worn and bleached headstones dotted the grass, interspersed with smaller and newer ones.
And there, in the back, under the shade of an elm tree, was Ellen. His wife.
Mark couldn’t move. If the church had been on fire, he didn’t think he would’ve reacted. Mark held his hat in one hand, cane in the other, and swallowed the lump in his throat.
Ellen, clad in her gray cloak, knelt at the foot of a small headstone. She reached over and caressed the top of the stone. It was unbearably intimate, yet Mark couldn’t look away. She leaned forward and kissed the tombstone, holding it tight with one ungloved hand.
Mark didn’t know what to think. Or feel. Or say.
A girl selling flowers shrieked behind him, causing Ellen to look up. Mark knew the second she laid eyes on him, because she froze. Then her head came upright, her hand dropped from the stone, and she gracefully rose to her feet. Ellen walked toward him, as slow and regal as a queen.
Mark suddenly realized that not only did he have no idea who his wife was, he also absolutely, undoubtedly, didn’t deserve her.
“What are you doing here?” Ellen stood on the other side of the fence, her face pale with shadows under her eyes.
“I came to find you.” Mark swallowed. “A servant told me you were here. He said you come every Thursday morning.”
Ellen stared at him, unblinking. “I do.”
Mark forced a laugh, embarrassed. “I’m afraid I thought you had reneged on our deal, and I was trying to track you down.”
“I was visiting our daughter.” If she knew those words hit him like a punch in the gut, she gave no sign.
Mark licked his lips. “So this is where you buried her.”
“My parents buried her here. I was...not well enough to be a part of the funeral arrangements.”
Silence fell between them, so thick and clinging Mark felt he might suffocate. If he opened his mouth the silence would pour in, coating his tongue and throat, choking all life out of him. And still. “I’m sorry.”
Ellen arched a brow. “For what?”
Mark had no idea what he was sorry for. “Everything?” That sounded right. She clearly thought he had a lot to be sorry for.
Ellen just stared at him, and he felt like the dirt beneath their feet.
“I didn’t get your father’s letter until two months after,” he rushed to say. “We were in the middle of the Atlantic. If he wanted word to reach me quickly, he should’ve telegraphed.”
Ellen was statuesque, like a goddess condemning him.
“I didn’t mean to leave you alone like this,” Mark said.
“Didn’t you?”
He sighed. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have dealt with this alone. It was unconscionable of me to not ask for leave as soon as I heard and come to visit.”
Ellen sighed and looked human again. She glanced away, as if she couldn’t bear the sight of him. “If you’re here, we might as well talk and be done.”
Oh, this was the complete worst time to talk to her about having more children. Even Mark could realize that much. He shook his head. “It’s not that important. It can keep.”
She frowned. “I have a busy day planned, so I’ll leave now.”
“I can escort you back to your father’s house,” Mark offered.
Ellen shook her head, as he knew she would.
“I don’t need your help.” She met his gaze.
“You destroyed my heart. And when our daughter died and my soul was destroyed, you didn’t even lift a finger.
I rebuilt my life, piece by piece, moment by moment.
And I like the life I have now. I don’t want to change a single thing about it.
” She jutted her chin, daring him to contradict her.
He’d nothing to say to that. He stood stock still as Ellen left him, walking down the fence line until she came to the gate and stepped out. Mark waited until she left before breathing again.
His feet dragged him forward, even though he didn’t want to go. Mark walked through the gate, into the small, old cemetery. His feet led him to the elm tree. Stomach churning, Mark faced the slate gray headstone.
Constance Persephone Glenfall
May 24, 1880
Beloved daughter
Born at rest
Mark sat. He stared at the headstone. His daughter lay beneath him, resting in the ground. He was a bastard. He was a spawn of Satan. He had left Ellen alone to bear and grieve their child, and had only sent her flowers and a note when he got the news. Mark cringed, thinking back to it.
Guilt sagged his shoulders. “I didn’t know she was expecting.” His excuses didn’t matter.
When he woke up one morning and realized he’d fallen out of love with his wife, a mere three months after their marriage, he hadn’t known what to do. It had happened suddenly. Just as quickly as falling in love with her.
One morning Mark had been at Hyde Park, newly arrived on the Marriage Mart and looking for a rich and pretty bride.
He’d caught sight of a vision in pink, a lovely, brown-haired girl laughing at two birds fighting in front of her as she walked down the path with her mother.
And Mark had fallen madly in love in that moment, seeing joy etched across those laughing features.
When he’d discovered she was the daughter of a rich steel manufacturer, he realized he had to marry her.
And then, one year and one month later, Mark was sitting at their breakfast table, trying to find the best English word to translate his own version of The Iliad, when she had giggled at something silly their cat had done. Fallen off his perch, or something stupid.
Three days previously, he’d taken her to a dinner party with friends from Oxford. His old professor, Duncap, and his wife were there. The few women at the table were used to philosophical discussions and linguistics dominating the conversation. Ellen hadn’t been.
“Word has it that the English faculty are considering opening spots to women,” one friend had remarked. The young men glanced at one another and chuckled at the absurdity.
“English has always been full of soft-minded men,” another former classmate said. “The women will likely fit right in there. It’s the poor man’s Classics, after all. It’ll never amount to much.”
Edward, Mark’s closest classmate from the program, snorted. “Gods, do you remember, Mark, when we saw that burlesque here in London?”
Mark racked his brain. “We attended several.”
Edward’s lip curled with disdain. “They had the gall to advertise it as part of the Iliad!”
“Oh, that’s right.” Mark chuckled. “They had Homer orating from the corner of the stage as a street sweeper. And wasn’t Ajax a…?”
“Butcher,” Edward sneered. “I was horrified. It was sacrilege.”
Mark hadn’t been horrified. Amused, even curious, to see how the masses had interpreted and adapted the Classics. He opened his mouth to say so when Duncap cut in.
Duncap leaned back in his seat, stroking his thick mustache. “Sounds like an enthusiastic yet ultimately pathetic attempt to understand the Classics.”
“They seemed to understand the themes of the Iliad,” Mark said uncertainly. Duncap was his favorite lecturer, the professor of the department.
Duncap smiled affectionately. “My dear boy. Clearly the lower orders keep trying to understand the Classics, as we can see by the Cockney Classics movement sixty years ago. But you’ll notice that while they might champion a playwright every twenty years or so, none have ever been good enough to join us at Oxford. ”
Mark wasn’t sure about that. The Cockney Classics had spawned some truly intelligent men, like the Shoemaker’s Poet, who’d taught himself Greek and Latin.