Chapter 25
Edward
USAT America (Atlantic Crossing) – October, 1919
Against his every wish, Edward bends double once more, spewing nothing but stomach bile into the metal bowl clutched in his hands. He hates vomiting. Loathes it. A thousand horrid wounds he witnessed during his short stint as an ambulance driver in the war seem preferable at this pitiful moment when wracked with incessant sea-sickness. Again and again, his stomach muscles clench, leaving him retching. A pitiful moan escapes him as he falls back onto his bed. What a daisy I am, he thinks, having yet to outgrow his habit of self-flagellation at any hint of weakness.
They had been making excellent time, this steamship packed with US soldiers and government officials, until they hit a rough patch of weather, tossing them about for the last twenty-six hours. Most of the passengers are tucked away in their sardine-can berths, and many of those, like Edward, are not straying too far from their bunks. The rough seas and illness leave Edward miserable, trying to stave off the pathetic wish that his mother were near. Self-pity seems to be riding the unruly swells around him, threatening to capsize his emotional boat.
Eyes closed, stomach quiet for a moment, his fingers play gently over the rough little canvas lying beside him. Like a blind man, he can read the brush strokes already, can feel his way along her profile. Giuseppe Innocenti had been disinclined to part with his last remaining piece of his grandfather's artwork, but he had generously allowed Edward to hire an artist to paint him a copy. This is Edward's proof. This is his evidence when he thinks perhaps he is going mad. She is more. Vampire. Angel. He's not sure, but more certainly.
The building nausea that he prays will subside only increases in strength until he is folded in half, expelling the emptiness within him. He can feel tiny capillaries across his eyes breaking with the strain, and tears squeeze through in spite of his best efforts. He gags on the vile taste in his mouth, and, wrung out, flops back down. Unconsciously, his hand reaches out to her, traces her face, seeks a connection.
One of the ship's nurses bustles in, all business as she takes Edward's temperature, empties his bedpan, swaps a clean spittle bucket for his used one, and commands that he imbibe more fluids. He can barely see her, his misery has turned his vision inward, but he's convinced that she has never experienced seasickness if she's able to issue such cold directives without an ounce of compassion. Just the thought of drinking the metallic tasting water onboard has him christening this new bowl with vomit. Gah. He cracks an eyelid open and sees her scowling at him, but he can't bring himself to care. Alright, he cares, but only because it pinches a memory of his mother's sweet face, leaning over him and tenderly bathing his brow with cool water when he was ill as a child. The thought hurts too much, and he hides from it with his fingertips, which gently follow the curve of Miss Cullen's hair, nose, chin, and breast. He wishes he could conjure her like Aladdin with his oil lamp, but he recognizes that illness has left him with a thousand impossible wishes tonight. Eventually, sleep takes him.
In his dream, Edward stares at a shiny brass doorknob. It's familiar; he's turned it a thousand times, but now he feels equal parts anticipation and dread. The knob turns without his assistance, and the anxiety spikes to panic for a moment before he feels lulled into a trancelike state. The door opens incredibly slowly, as though the air is thick and resistant; nevertheless, it draws him forward, and he looks around the parlor in his home in Chicago, accepts the odd assortment of people as one can only do in dreams.
His buddy from France is sitting near the fireplace sipping tea from a china cup, talking with his mother. She has not noticed Edward's appearance, her attention is so rapt. Even from the door, Edward can hear their conversation: Marty is describing in detail a soldier he transported before the war's end, a young man whose leg had been torn apart by an explosive. "You should have seen it, Mrs. Masen," he says, "I had to drive with a mask on – the air was so thick and yellow with gas – and the whole time, this poor boy is screaming his head off behind the mask his pal had shoved on him. My poor meatwagon couldn't go fast enough!" By the rapture painted on Elizabeth Masen's face, you'd think Martin was describing a picturesque view of Paris. The juxtaposition of Martin's wartime reality alongside his mother's softness is too much for Edward, who turns away to continue his search.
Edward's father is reading aloud from the Bible. This is odd enough, but stranger still is the host of worshippers kneeling before him as if to receive a blessing: all the young debutantes that Edward's mother foisted upon him in the months preceding his enlistment. It's a crowd of proper, pious young ladies, weeping silently as his father, who usually must be prodded awake throughout a Sunday sermon, intones: "'Then said Martha unto Jesus, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee." Jesus saith unto her, "Thy brother shall rise again." This is the Word of the Lord.'"
Gently, Edward pushes past this strange congregation to find Her. He's known she was present from the moment he stared at that doorknob, though he would not have been able to explain the certainty. She is perched on his piano bench, flanked on both sides by people he knows, but in his mind's eye, their faces are blurry; he concentrates solely on hers. Her fingers dance across the keys of his piano, caress them in a way that stirs his passion for her. Her head tilts just slightly, and she looks up at him from beneath her lovely lashes. He's terrified, just as he was the night they first met, terrified and intrigued and utterly lost.
He takes a slow step towards her, and a smile begins to form on her exquisite face. Each step he takes develops it further, so that by the time he is standing with only the piano between them, she dazzles him with her radiant glow and honey soft eyes. The scent of her wafts over him, fills his lungs, and he feels his lust grow stronger as his body responds to her nearness. All he can see is her perfect alabaster skin set in contrast to the deep blue dress, her dark hair long and tied into a knot at the nape of her neck. He's close enough now to see the smudge of orange paint on the back of her hand, and that detail provides a moment of clarity for him to recognize that he has never met this incarnation of Miss Cullen before: she's sprung whole from the canvas he sleeps beside.
His gaze shifts to those who frame her perfect face. On her right, Edward recognizes his cousin Evangeline's late husband, Richard Dorset. Miss Cullen's posture stiffens as Edward's focus slides from her to the corpse she's been entertaining. Dorset may be ambulatory, but his skin is a disturbing grey color, and his clothing is soiled and wet from the river in which his body was found. The surreal sparkle of the dream drains away, replaced by a sinister intensity that causes Edward's heart to speed. Staring at Richard's ashen face, nausea again threatens, and Edward just barely beats it back. Dorset has no such luck, however, and turns his head to spew water and blood all over the fine carpet.
A completely inappropriate giggle swerves Edward's focus to the little maiden perched at Isabella Cullen's left side. Though the girl's hair drapes over her face as she leans over Miss Cullen to watch poor Dorset's misery, Edward knows that it's Meg: Meg, whom he has abandoned, Meg, whom he cannot imagine facing, feeling that he ought to have been home, by her side, suffering alongside all of them.
As though she can read his thoughts, she swings her golden head around and stares at him in silence. His heart breaks: this is not the Meg he has known. His rosy cherub of a cousin has disappeared, and in her place sits a disturbingly beautiful little imp with sunken cheeks and dark bruises below her eyes, eyes that are dark with malice and wrath. And then a wicked smile grows on Meg's sweet red lips. Her hand, resting until now in her lap, lazily trails up her wine red bodice, runs fingers seductively along the top of her budding breasts, and finally caresses her long yellow curls. So slowly, she pushes them over her shoulder and fondles her own neck, upon which Edward stares at two bloody puncture marks.
He gasps. Startled awake in terror, Edward vomits violently into the dish beside him. Covered in sweat, his body shakes uncontrollably, and he wishes he could gouge that horrible vision from his mind. Misery blankets him, leaving him weak, and now that damned painting feels more like an albatross about his neck than a holy relic. The seas around the ship have gentled, but Edward can find no peace.
Peace continues to elude him as he disembarks in New York. The crowds of people jostle him, and though he has the wealth necessary to smooth his journey considerably, Edward prefers anonymity to comfort. Plus, he isn't particularly eager to arrive at his destination, so it is easier to travel burdened with all the delays and inconveniences he encounters than to face Chicago. But all the missed trains and waiting for hacks can't postpone the inevitable, and that is when he truly discovers that silence and peace are worlds apart.
Edward did not inform anyone of his imminent arrival, and so the house is especially stark and cold. Mrs. Tysdale, the family's housekeeper, cannot seem to decide whether to kiss him or paddle him, though as he is now the man of the house, his bottom's not in much danger. Still, her expression is tight with emotion as she scolds Edward for not giving her proper warning that he was headed home then quickly busies herself, snapping ghostly linens off the furniture. He is all she has left now, and Edward studiously ignores the few tears that she can neither hold back nor acknowledge. The Prodigal has returned, and all that. No fatted calf or jaunty celebration for him, though-just the jarring sound of Mrs. Tysdale winding a grandfather clock that no one has needed to read for almost precisely a year.
En route to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin - November 1919
It takes Edward nearly two weeks to find the courage to make the trip out to see Meg. Mr. Nash, their solicitor, had informed him of Meg's determination to leave her family's home in the city, retire to a quieter location. Her health had been severely compromised by the influenza, and the doctors had proscribed a lengthy convalescence. She has been staying in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, at the summer house of the Seipps, old family friends. Edward can't help but smile at the association of the sleepy town's name with the writing of Shelley's Frankenstein. It is unfair of him, but he needs Meg to remain constant, to still be an idealistic romantic despite the suffering she has endured and the death she has witnessed. It is a selfish need, but recognizing that fact doesn't diminish its intensity.
Having spent the majority of his time behind the wheel of an automobile transporting self-important generals or writhing wounded from place to place, Edward finds the freedom to sit alone in his newly purchased Model T, cold wind blowing in the open windows, a small slice of heaven. Nothing has made him feel this good in recent memory, so it shouldn't surprise Edward that the burst of joy brings with it a whiplash of emotion. He pulls the car to the side of the road, walks out into a fallow field and lets himself weep. Edward doesn't wish for the numbness back, but he doesn't know what to do now that it is gone. Fisting his eyes and tucking away his handkerchief, he returns to the car and breathes in the cold sunshine and freedom, revels in the speed and independence.
With few of the wealthiest residents remaining year round, it is particularly quiet in Lake Geneva when Edward finally arrives. He arranges for a boat to take him to Black Point, the Seipp's home, in the morning. Early the next day, they land at the dock just as the fog is lifting, folding back like a lace curtain from the graceful lines of the widow's perch. The romance of the summer home is palpable, as is the feeling of isolation as the boat ties up only long enough to deposit Edward and his luggage on the dock before heading back across Geneva Lake. It is intimidating – this house, and a wave of dread crashes over him, slowing Edward's steps. However much he longs for the Meggie of bygone days, he is fairly certain that she is gone. Who dwells in her place is a question he has put off answering long enough.
Edward's admission to the house does nothing to allay his anxiety, though, as the poor old housekeeper seems to exude the same emotion. Timidity is one thing, but this woman looks as though she expects him to strike her at any moment. Even Edward's easy smile and careful attention as she shows him to his room are insufficient to coax a bit of warmth from her, and he cannot help but wonder at the sort of people the Seipps are, that their servants should appear so nervous. As Edward makes his way to the exquisite solar overlooking the lake, his fears are realized. Behind closed doors, he hears a shrill voice raised in anger, followed by the sound of shattering crockery. He can hardly swallow down the lump of apprehension rising from his gullet, but he does so manfully and enters the room to survey the scene. Shards of china are scattered on the floor, and the housekeeper is stooped to retrieve the largest bits. Her hands shake. Propped in a chaise lounge, staring haughtily at the lake lies Edward's cousin.
"Are you just going to stand there, staring?" She doesn't turn to acknowledge him directly, and her tone is icy cold.
For a moment, the housekeeper is about to panic, but her saucer-big eyes catch him out, and Edward can see she's relieved a bit to be out of Meg's sights. Right, let him bear the brunt of it for a bit, her face telegraphs. That his little cousin has cowed this poor woman into such a state straightens Edward's posture, and he bites back, "Perhaps. It's not as though you could stop me, unless you've more tea cups to use as ammunition." He raises an eyebrow in her direction, but it's wasted on her profile because she still hasn't turned to look at him.
"Fine. I can wait you out," she responds with bitter resignation, "no doubt you'll be running off soon enough."
Driving an ambulance in the war, being in and out of the hospital tents so often, Edward had occasionally struck up a friendship of sorts with some of the guys who were stuck there for a spell. One gregarious fellow in particular used to beg cigarettes off him and shoot the breeze whenever Edward passed through. He'd had both legs amputated, and Edward thought it strange that he'd get antsy sometimes, feeling an ache in his phantom limbs. In this moment, Edward's mind flashes to his face – cigarette handing out of his mouth, lopsided grimace as he rubs the empty bed below his kneecap where his shins should have been.
Something has been severed, and it aches where love has gone missing.
At some point, the housekeeper has made a silent exit, so there are no witnesses to this painful scene, for which Edward is grateful because he is honestly more terrified facing his fifteen year-old towheaded cousin than he ever felt dodging shells over in France. But not more terrified than you feel about Miss Isabella Cullen a voice whispers, but it is quickly locked it away. One thing at a time.
He starts to walk closer to where she is seated, but he's at a loss as to how to proceed. He could kneel before her and beg her forgiveness: she was left to bear a burden that he feels he ought to have shouldered. However, Edward is equally inclined to stand resolutely before her, take the reins of this conversation, and lecture her on her poor manners. In the end, he just stands there, mute.
True to her word, Meg stubbornly stares out at the water, does not look at or speak to Edward in all that time.
He tries one more time. "Meg," the name is both a plea and admonishment, but with the exception of a slight tightening in her shoulders and a clenching of her jaw, she makes no response. Defeated, at least temporarily, he turns and exits the room.
The frigid silence is also present in the dining room when Edward makes his appearance that evening. The sound of a scraping knife, her expressionless face as she slowly chews the minuscule portions of food she'd allowed to be served to her: these are Edward's dinner companions. When Meg rises, rudely exiting before he finishes his repast, he gets his first good look at her. Meg may have always been slight, much to her chagrin when they were racing or mucking about, but the sight before him twinges in that phantom limb way. Bones, really, are all she is now – it's as though she's taking up as little space as possible. Appetite gone, Edward pushes himself away from the table and spends the remainder of the evening pacing, strategizing.
Early the next day, he enters the solar where she is, once again, sitting and staring out at the water. He notices, warily, that she's armed with a tea cup and saucer this time. It's odd, really, the bifurcation that has taken place. Because every time Edward is in her presence, it's as though he is watching two Megs – the Meg he knows—knew—and trusted, the Meg who might laughingly threaten to chuck her tea cup at his head, but would never do it, and the Meg who has replaced her, who seems entirely capable of inflicting a concussion with nary a feeling of compunction. Need I tell you which Meg Edward prefers?
Today, his strategy is obdurate optimism. Edward will meet her persistent silence with a forced cheerfulness. He spends the morning regaling her with items from newspapers, to which she shows no response. He sticks to the insipid columns focused on the social calendar of Chicago's elite, all of which Edward delivers with a whimsy that grates. In the afternoon, he gushes about his new love for the automobile. In the evening, Edward spins wild tales about the secret adventures lived out by the meek little housekeeper. Not once does Meg speak directly to him. Edward retires for the night with a newfound respect for his cousin's intractability.
Rising the following morning, he recommits himself to battle. Good generals alter their tactics if they find them unsuccessful, and Edward can see that his attempts to draw her out with humor only hardened her resolve to punish him for his desertion. Fine, then. Perhaps a frontal assault will at least draw her into a confrontation. Edward wants to think that she needs the catharsis of spitting in his face, but there is a small part of him that suspects it is his own need for martyrdom that is so hell-bent on provoking this fight.
Just like yesterday, Edward draws a chair beside her in the solar, but today he too stares out at the writhing waves and building clouds. He pitches his voice low, appropriate for a confessional. "I kept waiting for a letter, you know. Sent three or four, each more desperate than the last, for good news, a bit of home. I liked thinking of you when I was over there – could imagine you at your desk, reading books, cooking up some wild interpretation and grinning at yourself while you wrote it out to me." He pauses, sneaks a glance, and though her face remains closed, Edward knows she's listening. "I never thought—I couldn't have imagined, back when I enlisted—I mean, I keep thinking back, going over that decision, wondering if it would have made a difference—I'm sorry-"
Meg stands as abruptly as her withered frame allows, walks silently from the room. She does not come down for the afternoon meal. Edward is on his way up to inquire about her when the housekeeper exits Meg's room, shutting the door with care. She whispers that "Miss is indisposed" and hurries on her way. He eats dinner alone that night; however, Meg makes an unexpected appearance on the balcony of the widow's walk where he has retired to smoke cigarettes. The cold mask is gone and a brilliant rage makes her incandescent.
Before Edward can speak, her eyes flay him alive. Childishly, he has a split second where he can't help but gloat at his success before her voice slices him open. "Mother was ill, consulted a doctor, took the medicines he prescribed, but she didn't get better. It was only a few days later that Evangeline started feeling poorly. Headache, joint pain, stuffy head, typical really, except that it kept getting worse. Father. Your mother. Your father. Like dominos I watched them fall, Edward. I sat beside sick bed after sick bed, wore myself to the bone rushing from one room to the next, trying to keep them alive. Trying to be strong enough, caring enough, good enough. All the while, naively hoping that you'd come home, make things better somehow, as only you could. But I was alone, terrified when my own body began to fail, certain it was a death sentence. I was delirious with fever, had terrible dreams—" she cuts herself off as something other than hostility tries to claw its way to the surface. "It was weeks before I began to recover, woke to find myself in the hospital, an orphan. Alone. The damage done to my lungs, Edward, it can't be undone. All day long, it hurts – to breathe. Every breath, every single one is a reminder. I am alive, while all of them are dead. My life will never be the same. So I don't need you here, reminding me of all that I have lost. And I certainly don't need you here to remind me of what a fool I was, thinking your presence could somehow solve every problem and right every wrong. You can't save me; you can't even save yourself."
Her steps as she walks away are resolute, far more adult than Edward feels. A satisfying pain shivers through his head as he thumps it against the post. A pyrrhic victory, then, or maybe Edward got exactly what he wanted.
His bags are packed and lying at the front door, waiting for the ferryboat to come and collect him. The housekeeper assures him that it will be by around ten with the post. Sure enough, Edward hears her at the door, and arrives to find the boat's captain handing over a box that looks too heavy for the poor woman to carry comfortably. Though she fusses, Edward insists on taking it from her while his things are loaded onto the boat.
"Oh, Sir, I'm sure I would have managed just fine. It's only going into the cupboard in the hall here."
Edward glances down at the weighty parcel and sees that it is addressed to Meg. "Are you certain?" he inquires, "Oughtn't you to bring it to my cousin? It might be important if it has been shipped all the way here, rather than sent to her home in town."
A little shudder goes through the poor woman as Edward suggests she bring the box to Meg, and she contradicts him as politely as possible, "Oh no, Sir, Miss made it clear as day that I was to keep any more of these parcels out of her sight. You can just place it here, with the rest," she says as she opens the cupboard door. Sure enough, Edward sees that there are five other boxes already stashed away, only one of which (presumably the first?) has been opened.
Curiosity piqued, as Edward stoops to set this newest arrival in its hiding place, he nudge the opened box, displacing its lid, and freezes. It is full of books. Novels. His eyes sweep over the titles and authors. Wollstonecraft. Alcott. Bronte. Austen.
He tries so very hard to keep his voice normal as he turns to the housekeeper and asks, "And how often does my cousin receive these packages?"
"Oh, every week, Sir. Seems a shame to me, hiding away all these lovely books, as that's what they are, but I nearly got beheaded with one when I took it to Miss thinking she might like to distract herself from her woes with it. I don't make the same mistake twice, that's for certain. If she wants to keep them out of sight, then so it shall be. You do think I'm doing right, don't you, Sir?"
Edward hastens to assure her that she has executed her duty in all things, though his mind is spinning in a hundred directions, all of which keep dragging him back to one thought: Isabella.
"Sir? Perhaps you ought to write to the person and ask them not to send them?" she suggests, and Edward considers kissing the old woman.
In the end, he simply replies, "Well, yes, perhaps I ought."
A/N: I just want to say thank you a million times over to all of you who have joined me in this journey, most of whom are here because of jennyfly, who has so generously recommended this story. I'd love to hear what you think.
On a side note, Black Point mansion on Lake Geneva is real and gorgeous. Google it to see images - I can't do it justice in the short space it's been given in this story.
Finally, if you need a break from my unremitting angst, I suggest ShortHappyLife's "Room With a View," which I beta. It's adorable.
