Cain
As we pass into the drawing room, we find the unfamiliar pair of Mary's governess, Miss Pritchett, and Uncle Neil in low conversation. Her face is set in determination; her black hair coiled and curled immaculately at the back of her head. All in all, she appears far older than a woman in her late twenties.
Ar my arrival, she glances at me, all weary politeness. "Good morning, Earl." Her voice has the ring of one who has grown accustomed to being obeyed. "Doctor."
I flash her a grin. Half preparing to take her by the hand and whisper lovely nonsense in her ear. As I frequently do with Mary's governesses. Under his breath, Jezabel mutters something about "lecherous brothers," to my vast amusement.
"Is there nothing I can do to persuade you to try with Mary again?" Uncle Neil asks her, seemingly unaware of us.
She shakes her head. "One cannot teach the unwilling."
Uncle Neil pauses. "Very well," he begins carefully. "I suppose you would like a letter of reference."
She nods, outwardly composed, but uneasy at being watched. "If possible."
"It will be done."
She nods again. "Allow me to take my leave then." She gives me a taut smile, as she rises and exits the room.
Uncle Neil exhales, frustrated, and turns to us. His gaze lingers on Jezabel, as if there is something he wishes to discuss with him, and in return, Jezabel crosses his arms again, uncomfortable, and stares out the window at the meadow. I am deeply puzzled and slightly intrigued at this.
Before either of them can begin what is clearly bothering them, there's a knock at the door. Holding Mary by her upper arm, a flustered maidservant pulls her into the room. Dirt covers Mary's pinafore and marrs her face. Her gingham dress is torn in several places. She must have been hiding this time in the hothouse, when the delicate plants are raised.
"That will do, Gertrude." With a nod, Uncle Neil dismisses the maid.
Before us, Mary fidgets, unconsciously wiping her hands on her pinafore. She then begins to twirl one strand of her long hair.
"Why," Uncle Neil begins in a gentler tone, "have you been hiding from your governess? This is the second one who leaves. Do you want your Aunt Katherine to teach you again?"
Mary shakes her head.
"Then tell me why you keep hiding from them."
She gives me the quick glance of a field mouse, before shaking her head again. Her hands bury themselves in her dress.
Uncle Neil sighs. "You cannot be a great lady without knowing anything."
"I know," she ventures in an uncharacteristically timid voice, unnerved.
"Then, why? Have they been treating you unkindly?"
Another shake of her head, and relief shows on Uncle Neil's face. "Then what is troubling you?"
She stares at the floor, a pained expression on her face. "Anyone can die at any time," she says quietly. "I don't want to be studying if—if—"
I can easily fill in the absence. If one of her loved ones will die soon. Life must be so fragile, so fleeting to her. Guilt comes over me. I did this to her, with my inability to shield her from the harshness of life.
Pity shows on Uncle Neil's face. "I see. Go back to your room. I'll tell your nurse to give you your tea."
Mary nods, her fingers grasping at her dress. And when she leaves, a heavy silence falls among us. Uncle Neil shakes his head in frustration and perhaps even sadness.
And I cannot escape the knowledge that this is all because of me.
"There's nothing for her."
Against the renewed metronome of rain, Father's study seems almost comforting. I lounge at his desk, the wide windows at my back. If I look closely enough, I can see which panes of glass and pieces of wood were replaced after Father's leap into the sea. After all this time, I can still tell. (But will Time? Or will this be another secret it takes for itself?)
Jezabel, however, only continues stroking the dog. "This is news to you?" His fingers curl to scratch under its chin.
I lean forward from the chair. "When I die, she will inherit nothing."
Having its fill of scratching, the dog shakes itself. Jezabel watches it, his face soft and gentle. And then it hardens again, when he returns to me. "She's not the only one," he amends, in a quietly dangerous, bitter tone.
"She'll become part of Oscar's family."
"He has a family?"
"Not precisely. He's been disinherited."
Jezabel rolls his eyes. "Oh, how charming. Your only sister given to a penniless womanizer."
I silence my insistence that she is his sister as well, out of weariness, and settle on a different approach. "Don't you ever worry about what will happen after one is gone?"
"I presume the world will continue on. It's gotten in the habit of that, and habits are such dreadful things to break." He moves to allow the dog to leave and wander the halls, no doubt. A lost look on his face as he watches it go. He seems a little unsteady in his movements.
"I want her taken care of."
"Has it been bothering you, then? What she said to Neil?" he asks lightly, as if he has come to some understanding of human emotions.
"It hasn't bothered you? That our sister lives in mortal terror? That she cannot continue her schooling out of fear that everyone she loves will die?" At my increasing loudness, Jezabel pales a little, and I soften my voice. "She deserves better. Don't you see?"
"They will, though. Everyone will die one day." He gives me a strange look. "You will die, and I will die, and she will die, and Cassian will die. We will all die one day." And with that, he quietly dares me to contradict him.
I wet my lips, my heart clamoring as I pull the words from my mouth. "That's what I'm afraid of," I confess. "What if all she remembers of me is how I let her down. How I stole her childhood. How I couldn't protect her."
"Nonsense. She adores you."
"She doesn't know any better. But when she's older, will she resent me?"
"You sound like Neil." Jezabel is clearly becoming more uncomfortable at comforting me. I suppose such acts do not come easily to him.
"Do you still resent me?"
He exhales, shaking his head in his unwillingness to answer that question. Which is an answer in itself, though what I am uncertain.
I don't know if I want to confront him about the mark, the telltale sign of the animosity and desire that remains between us. That, surely, must be the reason for his reserve towards me. I can try to overlook it, but I know truly that it was his work. But what does it mean? Why did he stop, if obtaining my eyes was his goals?
"You sound like an old man," he says, slightly annoyed. "On his deathbed. Regretting his choices."
"You don't regret your choices?"
He shrugs. "Were they mine?"
"I think so. That's all we have in the end."
"And is this the end?" he asks, carefully, searching my face.
I soften, sensing his hidden question. "I won't leave you."
"That's not a promise you can keep."
"True." I bite my lip in thought. "But I swear it, for as long as it is in my power to do so. However long that might be."
Another long look, before he stares at the flickering wallpaper, clearly wrestling with something. "When I was with Father, I wanted his death so badly, if only because it would be an end to all of this. And now... now, I can only see the inevitable. It's only a matter of who dies first."
"You can't separate love and loss."
"I wouldn't call it love, no," he counters. "It's more familiarity than anything."
"Doesn't matter what you call it." For some reason, I am keenly aware of the distance between us. "Familiarity is a kind of love."
Perhaps it is merely a trick of the light, but for some reason, he looks unspeakably sad. "You're always looking for things that aren't there."
"It's a fault of mine," I concede. "Besides, you have a good nine years on me, so leave the worrying to me."
His face darkens, no doubt at the reminder of his own, closer mortality, and I wish I could take my careless words back. I try not to linger on the prospect of yet another death in my life, but it remains, always a step behind me. Love and death. Perhaps they are inseparable. Now that I know my brother, I fear his death, as he fears mine. But at the end, we are only dust and blood, inevitably erased by the tides. Perhaps, a hundred years from now, they will find our photographs and simply write down unknown. Gazing at our faces, and wondering and surmising, but never knowing.
No, I am an earl, and so my name will be recorded. Another spot on the family tree, another line connecting my name to the woman I will marry, to the children I will have. And in those lines, a thousand moments of joy and fear, longing and loss. Love and death.
My life has been decided, and yet, there is so much that lies undecided. Will I love her, the woman my family will eventually persuade me to marry? Will we have something beyond the politely formal relationships of the nobility? Or will I abandon my familial duties to Mary, and let her carry on the line, if not the accursed name? And when I wear the face of my father, years and years from now, will I recoil from the looking glass, or will I find it within me to make peace with the Lord of the Flies? Not for his sake—never his—but my own.
Jezabel finds some interest in thumbing through a new novella. A fantastic story about time-travel by H.G. Wells. He's already begun to annotate the passages that are either factually incorrect or ludicrous, but I don't tell him that it is absurd of him to say what is impossible, when he has spent years of his life breaking the final law of God. The silence of death.
I return to my task, to amend what may be softened. I cannot pass the title down to Mary; English laws forbid it. Nor can I give her the house and the land after my death. That will be bequeathed to her closest male relative, in keeping with the inheritance laws. When Father inherited, however, he did not sign the paperwork binding him to the family tradition of leaving every scrap of land and paper to the eldest, closest male relative, to the chagrin of the family—something the family immediately rectified with me. I remember being twelve and made to sign heaps of papers for the nodding, looming solicitors.
What that means is that Father had the ability to amend the inheritance in a way that I do not. And it is in Father's voice that I must set this to right. He might not have cared what became of his children, but I can make sure Mary is cared for when I am no longer living. She will receive a considerable pension from the estate in the realm of several thousand pounds per year, which will belong only to her, and not her husband. That way, she will not have to depend on the kindness of the family, nor the competence of Oscar. Of course, I hope she will continue to live at the Cornwall estate after my death, but in any case, I want her provided for. Rather than name Mary outright, which would raise suspicion, I have included her in the ambiguous category of "any children that will not inherit the estate." That should provide for both Mary and Jezabel, and ease the guilt in my heart.
"Is there anything you want from the inheritance?" I ask lightly. "I can't do the impossible, but..." I leave the implications hanging.
Without glancing up from the book, he shakes his head. I frown at this, but say nothing, instead turning my thoughts to how I'll have to forge Father's signature. Comparing my attempts at his characteristic, bombastic scrawl on a scrap, I try again.
Jezabel wanders over, apparently bored now, to inspect my meager attempts. "Father's last will? Do you think that will work on the family?"
"Yes," I reply, stubbornly. "Wicked as he was, he was also not one to submit to their rules. And who is to say that he could not have harbored regret?"
He gives me a skeptical look. "I think that's your wish." Then he shrugs, laughing softly to himself at my perceived foolishness, as he picks up the pen. "Give it here."
"You'll ruin the paper," I protest, unhappy at the notion that I might have to rewrite the document.
He says nothing, laying the paper flat, and before I can voice another objection, he perfectly replicates Father's signature. I stare at him, half bewildered at his secret talent, half amused.
"Father was not in the habit of keeping a well-stocked laboratory," he replies to my unasked question. "Nor was he able to run a household, let alone a secret organization."
"You naughty creature," I remark, unable to contain my astonishment. I suppose, beyond the practicalities of life at Delilah, he must have seized this as a way to be closer to Father. "I suppose, next, you'll tell me that you wrote his letters for him."
He tries to suppress a faint smile at this, and I cannot keep from grinning in return.
As I move to tuck away the unused papers, something in the pile catches my eye. The seams of a thin letter, yellowed with age.
To My Darling Boy.
I frown. This is not Aunt Augusta's writing, for I've seen the frenzied letters she sent Uncle Neil from the asylum. Her words often bleed into each other, and frequently her thoughts simply end in a dash or leap to something unrelated. She writes about seeing Father in the windows, how he tells her to fly. How Father has put a curse on her, and her hair keeps falling out. How she fears the outside world, because it's boundless. How her attendant is in league with Father, and how she loves the peonies Uncle Neil sent her. How she sees God in the flowers and the birds, and plays the pianoforte until her fingers are sore because she cannot tell if it's God's voice or her own. What pains me the most is the closing to a letter in which she begs him to visit her soon, because she's terribly lonely in her head.
I've read all the letters Uncle Neil ever received, translated their dates to my own life, like a foreign language. The language of what came before me. And yet, this unbearable inability to know her beyond the tormented woman who leapt to her death and begged me to escape in her final glimmers of lucidity haunts me still.
I fight back the twinges of jealousy and wonder, as I realize whom its intended recipient must be. Ten years too late, I presume, but perhaps not unwelcome.
"This is for you."
Jezabel averts his gaze from his novel. He coldly studies the handwriting for only a moment, before recognition briefly lights his eyes, and then his face darkens. "I don't want it. Throw it in the fire."
"Are you sure? It's from your mo—"
"I said," he begins in that dangerous, soft tone, "throw it in the fire. What do I care what a dead woman wrote?" He crossed his arms more stiffly than usual, and glares at the fire.
"Are you certain?" I cannot fathom how he could so easily refuse what might be some of the few remaining testaments to his mother's life. That she felt and lived and made choices.
Mute hatred, however, narrows his eyes, and tightens his lips. And that little fear rises in me again, that ever-present fear. I try not to think of the mark near my eye.
"I was thirteen when she died," he begins, stiffly, at last. "It had been raining, and that was the only way I could sleep. Hearing the tap of the rain. It was almost peaceful; it was one of the few nights Father didn't beat me. Rain always made him too tired." He smiles nastily at this, almost a grimace, as he reminds me about one of Father's favorite pastimes. A far-away look comes into his eyes, as he returns to the memory of rain; for a moment, his face softens, and then it hardens again. "I had almost dozed off, when I heard her crying at the door for me. She collapsed in my bedroom, one hand to her throat. Her voice strained, yet she kept shrieking as if she intended for the entire house to hear.
"I watched her spit up blood in front of me, and I was overjoyed." Bitterness distorts his face, and his hands clench into fists. "She pleaded with me, as she died. Please, please, please...," he mocks. "My darling boy, please forgive me. Forgive your poor mother."He shakes his head stiffly."She finally got her comeuppance. She deserved it. If Father hadn't killed her, I might have." He challenges me to say something in her defense. A moment of dangerous anger stretches into a steely stubbornness, before he continues, averting his gaze. The fight slowly leaves, and his shoulders droop.
"What a wicked child, the servants all said. He just watched her die. Good wombs can bear bad fruit. Maybe they were right. Maybe I was a wicked son. But she was a wicked woman. A Medea, who butchered her children to soothe herself." He fidgets slightly, staring at the fire, as if he cannot bear to look at me. "She knew," he says flatly. "It took me almost a year, but I told her about Father's interest." There's a faint pause as he closes his eyes tightly against whatever image resurfaced. I can guess, all too easily, what that might be.
He swallows, as if to hold something back, and directs his attention to the clock on the fireplace mantel. "She set down her embroidery," he continues, even more quietly, his anger and bitterness thinly veiled in the heaving of his chest, "stared at the table set, and told me that Father couldn't have meant anything unfriendly. That I should be grateful he even took an interest in me, given my birth. And didn't I have my studies to return to?" He bites back a harsh laugh. "She wouldn't even look at me."
I can surmise what happened after that. The wreckage must have been terrifying.
I never told anyone about what Father did. Riff was too gentle to inquire, and I couldn't bear the notion that he might think me soiled for it. It's only now, that I realize that he never did. He must have seen it in the way I'd test him with a heady mixture of seduction and vulnerability. Riff, to his eternal credit, only smiled and clothed me all the times I snuck below stairs with a "stomachache." I'd fall asleep in his bed, lavender and soap surrounding me like a blanket as he pretended to doze in a chair, and unfailingly, I would awake in my own bed. Fully clad in the starched nightgown I shed in a vain attempt at control.
But I can guess how easily one can not be so fortunate. London is rife with people who are content to take of what is offered, no matter the intention. I wonder, not for the first time, if that is how he met Lord Gladstone, for I know how that ended, but not how it began.
Jezabel picks a little at the side of his fingernail, unnerved by the silence but also unwilling to break it. It takes me a moment before I realize that his periodic glances at me are his attempts to gauge my reaction. A strange pity comes over me; part of me wants to soothe him, smooth the hair from his forehead and stroke his cheek, the way I would comfort Mary, but the practical rest of me knows that he will refuse it. And so I remain at the desk, a strange weakness in my legs, even as my throat burns with pity and our unspeakable kinship.
I wonder if this blend of fear and kinship, almost-trust and pity and distance, will always color our relationship, or if one day, we will share something beyond a desperation to be understood.
He waits a few more moments, his gaze opaque and unseeing. His back to me, he tells the fire, "I'll be going down now." His voice hollowed with a certain bitterness and melancholy.
I mean to tell him not to do anything foolish, but he's gone before I manage to open my mouth. And I am angry with myself for not being able to speak, to acknowledge what I have been burdened with.
Staring at the thin letter, I turn it over, unsure of what to find in it. The scrawling letters hold no trappings of a malice to rival Father's, but I cannot confess to bearing any goodwill towards this woman. At the same time, I cannot bear to dispose of it, as all the evidence points to the idea that Father never intended for it to be discovered. I turn it over again, before my instincts as London's gentleman detective take over, and I tuck it into my coat for safekeeping.
Notes:
So, this, weirdly enough, became more about mothers than I had intended. One of the great mysteries of the series is when and how Jezabel's mother died, and I think she might have died from poison, given that Alexis really only knows one way to kill off someone. He's actually pretty predictable that way.
Ms. Pritchett finally makes an appearance! Only to leave. Her name directly borrowed from Alice Liddell's governess, who is thought by some to be the model for the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass. Yes, I am that much of a dork. It fit nicely with the Alice in Wonderland reference with the Hargreaves name-which is Alice Liddell's married name. I had to continue the tradition, ok?
Much love and gratitude to my readers. As always, your feedback is loved and cherished.