Chapter 32 #2
His secret hadn’t been safe with Benjamin after all.
Harry waved Papa into his rooms. His father eyed the moth collections that had encroached upon the sitting room, but kept a straight face.
Papa had never understood Harry’s fascination with lepidopterology, but he tried his best to be supportive, nodding along while Harry spoke about his specimens.
Knowing Harry had an interest outside of his work had always given Papa some relief.
Harry walked toward the kitchenette. “Mrs. Abbot left some extra biscuits for me yesterday, and I’ll put on the kettle.”
Papa made himself comfortable on the wingback chair, looking around with a gleam in his eye. “You’ve got a nice set of rooms here, Harry. A fine home.”
Harry shrugged. “Thank you.” To him, they were acceptable accommodations for a bachelor.
Not quite a home, though. He had hoped to make that home with Agnes, but these rooms would be all that he had for the foreseeable future.
Besides, his father was just being kind.
All of Papa’s sons were successful men, but compared to his brothers, Harry’s success was rather mediocre.
“No, Harry. Look at me.” Harry faced his father. “I’m serious. I’m proud of you. You are someone special, whether you believe it or not.”
Harry wasn’t sure if he could believe it, but Papa’s pointed stare made him anxious. What would his father think of how badly he had bungled his courtship with Agnes?
“Thanks, Papa.” Harry let his nerves settle as he prepared the tea. He reached for the canister of black tea that had sat in his kitchen since he moved in. Guests were a rarity and he preferred his coffee. But then, he remembered the lemon balm and lavender tea Agnes had gifted him.
He smiled as he added the tea to the pot and smelled its familiar aroma. Was it wrong of him to be proud of her talents? She was no longer his. But her talents were never meant to belong to him. They were hers. Even if she wasn’t his partner, her talent was still a marvel—she was still a marvel.
When he brought the tea tray to the table, he noticed Papa sniffing the air. “Mrs. Abbot has really outdone herself this time, hasn’t she? Are those lemon biscuits?”
“No, it’s not the biscuits. It’s the tea. It’s from . . . a friend.” With time, maybe Agnes and he could be friends again, but he didn’t have too much hope. He wasn’t sure if the pain would always be so consuming. Once the inheritance was settled, she’d have no reason to keep his company.
“Ah.” Papa gave him a wide, knowing grin. “The friend.” But as he studied Harry’s face, his smile dropped. “So that’s the cause of all this . . . melancholy. What did you do?”
“How do you know it was something I did?”
“It’s always the man’s fault, Harry. And if it wasn’t, it’s still the man’s fault for not fixing it.” Papa laughed at his own self-deprecating humor.
Embarrassment crept over Harry. Maybe he had given up too easily.
Over the past few days, he had contemplated Skelton’s proposal often.
Skelton would still get everything he wanted—a majority of the profits with little effort, the Bootham townhouse and apothecary, and Agnes’s expertise.
Agnes had been right not to consider it.
Harry and Skelton deserved to earn nothing, absolutely nothing, from her talents, especially if she was coerced into using them. She was right to be hurt and angry with him. He might be a practical man, but he was a stupid one as well.
But still, he couldn’t see a way out. They were out of options.
He had racked his brain trying to find a better plan, but unless they could prove that Richard had intended for Agnes to inherit the Bootham home, they had nothing.
Agnes refused to show anyone Richard’s letter.
Besides, Oscar’s word would not hold up against Skelton’s, not when the only copy of the will matched Skelton’s account.
“We are stuck between a rock and a hard place, Papa. There’s no future there.”
“Chin up, Harry. If you two love each other, outside circumstances hardly matter.”
Love? Harry froze. Faced with the loss of her, Harry had come to realize that he did, in fact, love Agnes.
Now that she was gone, it was a terrifying notion, a painful one.
What good was it to love someone who had quite literally fled from him?
What he hadn’t considered was whether she loved him too.
He knew they had suited, she had said so herself. But love?
“I don’t think she loves me. If she did, she would have stayed with me.”
Papa sat deep in thought. He held the teacup under his nose and inhaled the fragrant beverage with his eyes closed. “She makes this herself?”
“Yes. She forages some of the herbs and grows others. She makes all kinds of mixtures, tinctures, teas, poultices for so many ailments.”
Papa nodded, as if Harry’s words brought clarity.
“Well, a woman with a purpose like that and the talent to match has other things to protect in addition to her heart. She can’t throw everything away just for some happy feelings.
Sacrificing personal joy and achievement for love, Harry, that doesn’t make a happy marriage.
” Papa took a sip of tea and lifted his cup to Harry.
“I’d say she’s a clever woman to run away, but I don’t doubt that she loves you.
If you think she returned your love, then she did. You’d know.”
Would he? Harry was no expert when it came to women. He still struggled making eye contact with all but a small handful of the female population. “So what you’re saying, Papa, is that I found love, but I’m just not good enough for her?”
His father exhaled, frustrated yet sympathetic. “No, Harry. That’s not what I’m saying. Did I ever tell you about how our marriage almost broke your mother?”
“What? No.” This was news to Harry. He had never suspected his parent’s marriage had been anything but perfect.
“Your mother was a modiste before I met her. And a good one at that. The most fashionable ladies came to her for their trousseaus, clothes for the season, house parties.”
Harry had known his mother was skilled with fabrics and a needle. She had embroidered many of the textiles that were still displayed in his father’s home. But he didn’t know that she had ever worked for a living.
Papa continued, “When we got married, she gave up her business. I made more than enough to provide for a family, and her mother encouraged her to focus on being a wife.” Harry nodded.
He knew that many women gave up their work when they married, especially when married to businessmen such as his father.
“She loved you kids, and she loved me. But still, there was something missing. She was agitated, on edge. Her smile had dimmed. I tried to talk to her about it, but she told me I wouldn’t understand because she didn’t quite understand herself. Told me she had nothing for herself anymore.”
Agnes’s words came back to Harry. “But she had us, she had her family.”
“It took me a few years to understand, Harry, that the women we love need more than just that. It sounds romantic to say that love is all we need, but it’s not true.
Smart, passionate women worth loving need their own purpose and control over that purpose to be happy. Thank God I figured it out in time.
“I rented a room in town and set it up for Martha to keep sewing. Purchased fine fabrics from the best vendors. Set up all the old equipment she had held onto and replaced any she had sold off. Every day when I came home from the office, I watched over you boys and she went off to work on her sewing. I watched the color return to her cheeks and the joy come back to even the little, mundane parts of life. She was the radiant woman I had married again.”
Harry sat in silence, hugged by the aroma of the lavender and lemon balm, processing what his father had said.
From Papa’s stories as a boy, Harry had believed marriage was everything, especially when it was a marriage for love.
Yet even in that union, he would have his identity as the breadwinner.
He would belong to Agnes—he already did—but to the eyes of society, he would never be just her husband.
To expect Agnes to surrender control and work under her husband’s name, embracing the anonymity he himself detested—of course that would dim her light. Resentment would fester.
There had to be another option. One that honored who Agnes was without him, so that she could still be that person when she was with him, if she still wanted him.