Chapter 24 #2
“You could start with I miss you. That would not be the worst thing to say to your wife, perhaps,” Peter said. “You could end with I was wrong.”
“I wasn’t wrong.” The words came too quickly. “I meant every syllable of that vow. I made it with full understanding, and I’ve lived by it all these years. Breaking it because I’m lonely, that would make me no better than him.”
“Your father’s ghost isn’t sitting here, Stephen. You are.”
“He sits everywhere I do,” Stephen said quietly. “That’s the problem.”
He pushed to his feet, pacing to the fire. The flames had burned low, leaving little more than a red breath of coals.
“I thought the vow was strength,” he went on. “That by ending the line, I ended his reach. But it’s only another chain, isn’t it? One I built myself.”
“Then break it.”
Stephen turned, shoulders tight. “And betray the girl who died because I couldn’t save her? The one he sold off like land? The vow was for her, Peter.”
“And Maria is not her,” Peter said. “Your sister’s pain doesn’t vanish if you suffer longer. It doesn’t reverse itself because you’ve denied happiness.”
Stephen’s gaze dropped. “I can’t convince myself of that.”
Peter stood and came to him. “Then at least stop convincing yourself that misery is virtue.”
“I don’t want to be virtuous,” Stephen said. “I just don’t want to be cruel. Maria deserves joy, and I can’t give it. Not when every time I close my eyes, I see the past staring back.”
Peter folded his arms. “You’re not the only man haunted by memory. The trick is to stop making the ghosts comfortable. You feed yours.”
“No need for theatrics,” Stephen muttered.
“I also think you need to decide whether the vow serves you or whether you serve it.”
“It’s all I have left of her.”
“It’s also the one thing standing between you and the living woman who loves you,” Peter’s voice gentled. “Would you wish to have children of your own?”
“It is terrifying,” Stephen said quickly and then wished to take back his words. “I do not know.”
But the mere question had given him a haunting image of Maria and their kids running down the corridors of the estate. It was a beautiful image at first, and then when his fears took over, it transformed into a haunting one.
For a long time, neither spoke. Outside, a carriage rattled past, the sound fading into the muffled hum of the city.
“Do you think she hates me?”
“I think she’s hurt,” Peter said. “And I think she’ll forgive you faster than you’ll forgive yourself.”
“She shouldn’t have to forgive me at all.”
Stephen sighed.
“Violet wrote,” he admitted. “She didn’t give details, only that Maria is safe and that she’s quiet, and that her brother is worried for her. But I am not to come unless you intend to make things right.”
“So will you?”
“I’m not to come.”
“You’re going to waste away out of stubbornness?” Peter’s patience thinned.
“I’m going to let her live,” Stephen said. “I’ve already taken enough from her. If I ask her to return, she’ll say yes out of love, and then she’ll watch me make her miserable again. I’d rather be miserable alone than make her miserable with me.”
Peter exhaled, long and tired.
“You talk as though she’s a saint and you’re a contagion.”
“It feels that way,” Stephen admitted, bitterly.
She was perfect, perhaps. And he could not give her the things that she needed to be happy.
“You’re simply a man who is upholding a ridiculous promise that should have no bearing on your future happiness.”
Stephen sank back into his chair. “Perhaps. But the promise was mine to keep.”
Peter poured two fingers of brandy into a glass and set it before him. “At least drink something human.”
Stephen took the glass, turning it absently in his hands. “Do you ever wonder,” he said, “if love is meant only for those unmarked by the past?”
“No,” Peter said. “I think it’s meant for precisely us. Half-healed and foolish enough to try again.”
Stephen stared at the brandy’s surface. How oddly optimistic.
“I tried, Peter. I tried to believe I could begin again, that I could build something different. But when she spoke of children, I saw graves. I can’t make her carry that.”
“She doesn’t want to carry it,” Peter said. “She wants to walk beside you.”
Stephen gave a faint shake of his head. “And I can’t let her.”
For a moment, Peter said nothing. Then, quietly, “You’ll lose her.”
“I already have.”
“You’ll lose yourself next.”
“Perhaps that’s fair,” Stephen said.
Peter stared at him, jaw working.
“Do you remember when we were twenty? You used to talk about what sort of man you’d be. You said you wanted to live differently from him. To be better.”
“I’ve failed that,” Stephen murmured.
“You haven’t failed until you stop trying,” Peter said.
Stephen looked at him then, and for the first time in days, the haze in his eyes cleared. He looked hollow but present. “You mean well,” he said softly.
“I always do.”
“It rarely works.”
Peter allowed a faint grin. “True. But it’s worth the attempt.” He straightened his coat. “I’ll tell Violet you’re alive. She’ll send soup whether you want it or not. Eat it. Sleep. Think. And for God’s sake, stop feeding your father’s portrait all the victories.”
When he reached the door, Stephen’s voice stopped him. “Peter.”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For reminding me I’m still the one choosing this.”
Peter’s expression gentled. “Then choose something that hurts less.”
He left.
Stephen sat alone again, the fire reduced to faint light. He set the brandy aside untouched and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Let her be happy.”
“Are you certain you’re well enough for this?” Nicholas asked, offering his arm as they stepped into the street.
Violet and Nicholas had convinced her to step out of the house. It was annoying, at first. But she was trying to convince herself that it was the right thing to do.
“I am perfectly capable of walking,” Maria said. “You’ll see.”
Violet tucked her hand into Nicholas’s other arm with a bright, determined smile.
“And we shall all see the festival by the river and purchase something ridiculous we don’t need. That is the point of festivals.”
“I have never been to one,” Maria admitted. Such things were not encouraged at the nunnery.
“Never been to a festival?” Violet sounded appalled, but then quickly controlled her reaction. “Well, this is a rather lovely first one to go to.”
Maria wished that she could get herself to sound more excited about everything, but in earnest, everything felt like a horrible chore, and she would much rather lock herself in the privacy of her room.
And not speak to anyone.
Or think.
Or eat.
Or just simply spend all of her days sleeping.
“What is the point of them, anyway?” she found herself questioning in a dull voice.
Nicholas frowned. “The point is cheerful diversion.”
“The point is ribbons,” Violet corrected. “It is the distraction that Maria needs.”
They moved with the morning traffic, the city shrugging itself awake. As they turned into the square by the river, the noise rose happily around them: fiddles trilling, children shrieking with laughter, the pop of a toy seller’s string of flags catching wind.
Violet’s eyes lit.
“Look at the ribbons! I haven’t seen that shade of blue since Penelope’s dreadful spring ball.”
“It was not dreadful,” Nicholas said automatically. “See, now you are the one who is being a pessimist.”
“It was,” Violet said, already tugging him toward a stall striped in red-and-white. “Do keep up, both of you. We do not wish to be late.”
Maria hung back a pace, letting them lead. The square was all movement, and she tried to let the cheerfulness rub off on her, but it slid away.
Perhaps she was too far gone to be saved after all.
Nicholas noticed, of course. He had been keeping a careful eye on her all this time.
“You’re quiet,” he said, falling into step beside her.
“Am I?” she asked lightly.
“Yes,” he said, “I would finally like to ask you why.”
“It’s very loud for the morning,” she gave an excuse for an answer.
“It will be less loud if you answer me.”
“Will it,” she murmured.
“Maria,” he said softly, “I am only trying to help.”
“I know,” she said, careful. “But please, let’s walk.”
They walked. Violet bartered for ribbons with seriousness, then pressed a length of deep blue into Maria’s hands.
“This,” Violet decreed, “for your hair. It will look devastating.”
“That seems ambitious for a ribbon,” Maria observed the fabric.
“Ambition is essential to fashion,” Violet said. “Nicholas, pay the nice woman.”
Nicholas paid, and Maria drifted toward the edge of the square. A boy with a wooden hoop reeled past, his laughter a golden thing that did a complicated hurt in her chest.
Nicholas reappeared with a paper bag and a harried expression. “I bought four by accident.”
“Accident,” Violet said, taking two. “How convenient.”
Nicholas offered the bag.
“Maria?”
“Not just now,” she said.
“Do you want to sit?”
“I want to walk,” she said, “Please.”
Violet lifted her brows at Nicholas: Careful. Nicholas nodded, his jaw working.
They moved again, embroidery of sound and color wrapping and unwrapping around them.
“Maria,” he said, “did Stephen… do something?”
She looked straight ahead. “He spoke.”
It was clear that her brother had finally run out of all patience, and there was no hiding the truth from him now.
“Then I shall ride to the estate and ask him why his words sent my sister from her home,” Nicholas’s mouth thinned.
“You will not,” Maria said with a sudden panic in her voice, “You will not go anywhere.”
“I will not stand still while you are unhappy.”
“Then stand still for one morning,” she said. “That will help more.”
“Tell me what he said,” Nicholas urged. “I am not asking to be cruel. I’m asking because I am your brother, and I care about you. It bothers me greatly to see you hurt in this manner, and then not even telling me if there is anything that I could do to help.”
“And I am your sister,” she said, “and I am asking you not to ask.”
He flinched, “I don’t know how to do nothing.”