Forever and Ever (29 page)

On a raw, sleety, slate-colored morning in early March, as Connor stared out the study window and tried to believe that life or beauty could ever come back to the desolated rose garden, one careless knock sounded at the door and Jack shuffled into the room. Connor had visited him in his rented room in the village, but this was the first time he’d come to the house since he’d moved out of it. Before Connor could get up out of his chair to greet him, he smelled the liquor, stale and sweet, shocking. “You’re drunk,” he said wonderingly. “I’ll be goddamned, Jack, if you aren’t bloody corked.”

“No, I ain’t. Wisht I was, but I ain’t. Not for lack o’ tryin’, neither.”

“The hell you’re not. Sit down before you fall over. How did you get here?”

“On my legs, how else?” He dropped heavily into an armchair and slid down low on his backbone, bony knees bent and spread wide, arms flung over the sides, his hands empty and slack. “I come t’ tell you I’m going away.”

Connor’s wintry heart went a little colder. “Don’t be an ass,” he said, too harshly. “You can’t leave, you’re sick. Why would you want to anyway? What would you use for money?”

“I were hopin’ you’d help me out there wi’ a little something. Like I did fer you in Exeter, when ee were all fer gettin’ married to Sophie. ’Twouldn’t be much, and I’d pay it back onct I got work.” He gave a hoarse laugh that ended in coughing. “Now, that’s a damn lie, ain’t it? I wouldn’t pay it back, and you know it. On account o’ I ain’t going to find work.”

“What’s wrong, Jack? What’s happened?” He looked worse than he had in months, thin and gray again, and his cough sounded so pained, Connor couldn’t stand to hear it.

He let his head drop against the back of the chair. “I’m done for, Con, that’s all.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m glad fer what you and Sophie did, taking me in and whatnot. You tell her thanks for me. And tell ’er good-bye, will ee? I ha’n’t the heart.”

“Jack—”

“Don’t fight wi’ me, Con. Please.”

“Where would you go?”

“Anywheres.”

“But—why? Will you just tell me why you’re doing this?”

The ragged laugh came again. “Look at me. Have ee got eyes? Who do I look like to you? Heh? Whose face do you see in mine?”

He couldn’t answer. Jack’s drawn, wasted features were a mirror of their father’s in his last days, but Connor wouldn’t have seen it if Jack hadn’t forced him to, and he would die himself before acknowledging it in words.

“Yes,” he said grimly. He stood up with an effort and looked around the room. “What’s to drink? ’Aven’t ee a drop fer a weary guest?”

“You shouldn’t be drinking.”

“What the hell difference does it make?”

“I’ll tell Maris to bring tea and something to—”

“Sod it, then,” he said angrily, weaving toward the door.

“Jack, don’t.” He touched his arm. “Let me take care of you. Don’t go like this.”

Jack stood still with his head bent, not looking at him. “I telled Sidony I didn’t care for ’er a’tall,” he said in a low rush of words. “Telled ’er I never had done, and I’d only wanted her for lovemaking. She cried, Con. It tore out my heart.”

“Why did you say it?”

“To let ’er down the right way. Onct I’m gone, she’ll go easier to Holyoake now.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Two nights ago she come to my room. We went to bed, but I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t get it up for ’er. Because I ain’t a man anymore.”

“Jack—”

“Don’t say a word, hear me? Don’t say one word.”

They stood that way, eyes averted, Connor’s hand resting lightly on his brother’s arm. He could feel the same violent aloneness coming toward him, that black emptiness that had struck him down after every other loss he’d suffered. “Don’t leave me,” he muttered under his breath. “Oh, Jack, don’t you leave me, too.”

Jack’s body shook slightly. “If you love me, Con, you won’t ask me t’ stay.”

“I do love you. I’m asking you.”

“But I can’t.”

“Please, Jack.”

They were both weeping now, not able to look at one another. Finally Jack heaved a shallow, unsteady sigh and stepped away. “Go and tell Mrs. B. t’ make me a great cup of ’er godawful beef tea, then, will ee? That’d sober up a dead man. Which I ain’t just yet. After that, I might like t’ lie down on that sofa in the parlor, Con. It still feels like mine, see, and I’m in need of a wink or two after all.”

The terrible dark edge receded. Relief flooded through Connor, making him feel giddy. They weren’t a demonstrative lot, the Pendarvis boys, but he couldn’t help giving Jack a quick, rough embrace. The brittleness of his thin body shocked him, though, tempering the gladness. “I’ll be right back. Your clothes are wet, you idiot. Sit down by the fire and rest. I’ll be back in two minutes.” Jack made a face and fluttered his hand in the air. Connor left him in the study, feeling as if he’d just barely avoided a catastrophe.

Mrs. Bolton wasn’t in her usual domain, the kitchen, nor in her suite of rooms in the basement; he finally located her in the attic, surveying trunks of summer linens in preparation for the annual spring cleaning. He told her what he wanted, then went to find Maris, to tell her to get Jack’s old room ready because, if he had anything to say about it, his brother was moving back into the house. In the end, he was gone much longer than two minutes.

Long enough for Jack to write a note and leave it on his desk.

Dont com after me Con. Im like a old dog going off to dy by myself. I have to go and I think you know it deep down. But I won’t ever leve you in my hart. Your loving brother, Jack.

XXI

Sophie was in her room. A need too strong to resist drew him to her, even though his hopes that she had anything to give him had been dashed a hundred times. She lay on top of the bed, not dressed yet, the half-eaten remains of her breakfast going cold on a tray at the bedside. Her occupations, an unread book, an untouched sewing basket, were strewn about on the unmade bed. She barely glanced at him when he came to stand at the foot, wrapping his arm around the tall bedpost.

“Jack was here. He looks bad. Worse than before.” She watched him, her face neutral, expressionless. “I couldn’t make him stay. He said . . . He said he was going off to die. I don’t even know where he’s gone.” He whispered the last, afraid he might cry in front of her. And yet he wanted her to know how much pain he was in.

She’d been half lying on her side, propped up on an elbow. Now she lay down, head on the pillow, gazing through half-closed eyes at the coverlet. His news had increased her sadness—nothing more.

“He’s dying. Do you hear me? He’s the last one, the last one, and he’s leaving me, Sophie.
Jack’s dying.
”

She crossed her arms over her chest, eyes dull. She was locked inside herself, too full of despair even to see him.

Heat felt like a sickness rising in his chest, making his skin crawl. He kicked at the post again and again with his booted foot, yanked at the tumbled bedclothes until they slid out from under the dead weight of her body. The tray flew off the table when he raked it with his arm, and the crash of plates and cutlery made her cringe. He roared his fury in her stricken face, oaths and accusations, confessing his despair, cursing her helplessness. He was afraid to touch her, afraid he would shake her if he took her by her lifeless shoulders while he shouted out his rage at her. And in the end it didn’t matter: she never spoke, and he couldn’t even make her cry. He’d stunned her, but he hadn’t touched her; she was still dead to him. He cursed her for the last time, not even meaning it now, not even caring, and walked out.

Silence. Sophie got up and dragged herself across the room to the window, careful not to step on any of the broken crockery that littered the floor. She pressed her cheek against the icy windowpane and listened to the whispery ping of sleet as it hit the glass. Her breath steamed the window; she couldn’t see out of it and she couldn’t see her reflection.

What was that funny animal with plates all over its body . . . she felt like that. Slow and lumbering, but safe underneath the armor. Oh—an armadillo. Poor Connor. He’d tried to pierce the armor with his sadness and his anger, but he couldn’t. She wished he had been able to. She wished he had taken a knife and stripped away the scales that covered her from head to toe. Then maybe she could feel something.

She was surprised when he came back, even more so when he took her hand and led her back to bed. He made her sit down, and he sat beside her. She tried to pull her hand away—it felt strange, alien, in his—but he held on. He said, “Listen to me, Sophie. Are you listening?” She nodded. “Darling, I can’t live like this anymore. It hurts too much. If I thought I could help you by staying, I would. But I’m only making it worse for you.”

He bowed his head over her hand, and she noticed how glossy black his hair was. It reminded her of something, but she couldn’t think what. “Are you going away?” she asked, trying to feel a connection with the sound of her own voice. “Are you leaving me?” That helped; those words made her feel something. Loneliness.

He looked up, and the bottomless sorrow in his eyes finally wounded her. She touched his face, heartsick when she saw a tear spill down his cheek. “I thought we could make it,” he said. “So much was against us, and I still believed we’d stay together. But it doesn’t work anymore.”

“No,” she agreed, sighing, resting her cheek against his.

“I don’t blame you for hating me. You’ve never said it, but I know the baby’s dying was my fault.”

“Oh, no. Oh, no, Con. I don’t hate you. It wasn’t your fault, I never thought that.” He didn’t answer. She found the energy to say, “It’s just that I can’t feel anything. I’m empty inside. My womb—my heart. Empty.”

“Sophie, I’ll stay if you want me to. Just say it. I’ll stay.”

She couldn’t speak.

They were quiet for a long time. He took out his handkerchief, and she was careful not to look at him while he wiped his face. “It can be any way that suits you, Sophie. A divorce, a separation, whatever you want. I’ll get a lawyer, make him draw up a legal paper that says Guelder is yours.”

Some kind of new darkness was closing in on her, murkier, heavier than before. “Where will you go?”

“Somewhere.” He shook his head. “I’ll let you know. In case you need me.”

She put her hand on her aching throat. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. I wish . . .”

“I wish . . .” he whispered back. Then he got up, and she watched him pull his old traveling case down from the top of the wardrobe and start to put his clothes in it. She kept trying to rouse herself, but she seemed to be paralyzed; she couldn’t move from the bed, and she couldn’t make herself say any of the words that might keep him.

In no time, he finished packing. He set his case by the door and came back to her. They both tried to smile. He put his hands on her shoulders, looking hard at her hair, her face. She could barely see him through the darkness that kept drifting between her and everything outside herself. When he kissed her, she felt a moment’s warmth, and it was so sweet and shocking, she reached for his hands as they slid off her shoulders. But he straightened and backed away before she could touch him, and the urgency faded under the weight of her inertia.

“Good-bye,” he whispered. “I love you.”

“I love you, Connor.” Would that keep him? No—but it made him smile before he turned from her and went away.

She listened to the sound of his footsteps growing fainter on the stairs, and then a silence, as if he were standing motionless in the hall. Quiet seconds ticked past, and then she heard it—the squeak of the front door opening, and the muffled click of it closing. Then nothing.

Nothing at all. Her clock had run down, and outside, the sleet had stopped falling. She could have been in a coffin, covered with earth—that’s how quiet it was. She lay down on her back, legs hanging over the side of the bed, and listened to the slow, lifeless rhythm of her heartbeat. What was the difference between this and dying? Such a fine line. A vague alarm at the direction of her thoughts made her sit up, put her feet on the floor. She walked out into the hall, went to the top of the staircase. “Maris?” she called. “Maris, where are you?”

Presently the maid appeared in the hall below, holding a dirty cloth. “Here.” She looked up expectantly. “Do you want something?”

Sophie hung on the stair post, empty-headed. “No.”

“Sure? Want anything to eat?”

“What time is it?”

“About one. Do you want some soup?”

“No.”

“The mister went out, did ’e? Will ’e be home for dinner?”

She shook her head.

“Ma’am?”

“No. He won’t be back.”

“Oh.”

They stared at each other, Maris’s homely face creased with concern. Sophie wanted to keep her somehow, didn’t want her to go.

“Well, then. Got my polishin’ t’ do. ’Scuse me.” She peered up at her worriedly.

Talk to me, Maris, don’t leave.
But she couldn’t say the words, and Maris finally moved away, out of the line of her vision.

I’ll get dressed
, she thought.
Look at me. I’ll have a bath, I’ll fix my hair.
She went back to her bedroom, and by the time she got there her resolve had disintegrated. Her feet took her straight to the bed, her old friend. She got under the covers, shivering a little. The sky was clearing, the room brightening. If the sun came out, it would mock her: her mood matched the brown dreariness of the morning, spring at its most treacherous. Yesterday Maris had put a vase of wood sorrel and willow catkins in her room, and she’d made her take them away. Their fresh, light fragrance, almost too faint to notice, had sickened her.

Lying there, staring at the wall, she mused on how much grief felt like fear. She wasn’t afraid—was she?—but that’s what it felt like. She had a breathlessness in her chest; she kept yawning, swallowing, trying to focus her thoughts on everyday things. Why didn’t she feel peaceful now, satisfied? She’d finally driven Connor away. Now she could be truly alone. Wasn’t that what she wanted? This shivery strangeness would wear off soon, surely; it must be the novelty of solitude that was making her feel so peculiar.

Thank God for sleep. It was like a cover you could throw over the cage of a noisy, restless bird. She closed her eyes—and saw Connor’s face. His tears. He was lucky because he could weep. She couldn’t. You had to be alive inside to weep.

She dreamed of a funeral. Christy Morrell was there, but the churchyard was her mother’s rose garden. It was nighttime. People she knew—William Holyoake, Miss Pine and Mrs. Thoroughgood, Tranter Fox—were gathered around an open grave, all of them silently crying. Sophie was there and not there, among the mourners sometimes, other times hovering above them in the air, a witness but not a participant. Whose funeral was it? She could smell the strong odor of the opened earth, dark and loamy. Christy took something out of the folds of his robe, a little velvet box, like a jewelry box. This moment went on forever, Christy taking the box out and holding it on the palm of his hand, extended over the grave. She felt a gentle melancholy, that was all, soft and almost soothing. Then Christy let the box slip through his fingers, and as it floated so slowly down into the deep black hole, it came to her that the little box was her baby’s coffin.
Oh, no
, she cried, while someone’s hands pulled her back from the grave’s slippery edge. Her hair was caught on something behind her, something she couldn’t see. Was it Birdie? She couldn’t turn her head to look.

The mourners began to throw clods of dirt into the grave with their hands, and she screamed at them to
Stop, stop, you’ll smother her.
But they couldn’t hear her, and in no time there was no grave left, and nothing to mark where it had been; the smooth grass covered everything. Panic filled her. She was on her hands and knees, searching for the shape of the grave in the green, flawless grass, weeping, crying,
Help me
, while the mourners backed away from her, receded farther and farther. She saw Connor with them.
Don’t go! Help me, Con!
But he couldn’t see her because his eyes were blind and silver and swimming with tears. She tried to follow him, but he kept moving away; no matter how fast she went, she couldn’t close the gap between them.

When she woke, she couldn’t tell what was real. She had been crying in the dream, and she was crying now, painful, wrenching sobs that frightened her because the harrowing sound was so desperate. She hadn’t been able to weep before, and now she couldn’t stop. She cried for her daughter and her husband, and the loss of her own innocence—the childlike certainty that her life would be smooth and happy, free of darkness, one good thing after another. Tears choked her; she couldn’t stop. Maris found her—held her—grew frantic with worry for her. Sophie wanted to tell her she didn’t need help, that she was beyond consoling, but she couldn’t speak. And her tears weren’t the pitiful torment Maris thought they were. Even while the hard, aching sobs racked her, she could feel something settling, a tight knot inside loosening, untangling. Was the drought in her heart ending, were the ceaseless tears her salvation? She would grieve for her lost child until she died, but she was alive now, and in fleeting breaks in the darkness it was possible to imagine—not tomorrow, not soon, but someday—the dry desert in her soul blooming and flowering again.

The emotional storm left her limp. She fell into a dreamless sleep, and she didn’t wake up until Maris came in with a cup of coffee and a message—that her uncle was downstairs and wanted to see her right away. “Why?” she asked groggily, feeling as if she’d been sleeping for years.

“I don’t know, but he’s riled up something turrible. Says he wants t’ come up and talk
here.
”

“Here?” She glanced down at her rumpled nightgown, ran a hand through the tangles in her hair. At least the room was tidy—Maris must have cleared away the broken dishes while she’d slept.

“You want to get dressed and come down, or should I just send ’im up?”

She took a swallow of hot coffee, trying to clear her head. “I don’t care. Bring him up, I suppose. What could he want?”

Maris shrugged, handing Sophie her velvet night robe. “Better put this on,” she advised, and Sophie thanked her absently, sticking her arms in the sleeves. “I’ve seen you lookin’ better,” she said frankly. “Want yer hairbrush?”

“No, just send him up, Maris. If he says it’s important, it may be something about the mine.”

While she waited, she got out of bed and put on her slippers. The curtains were closed, but the clock was running—Maris must have wound and reset it—and she saw that it was almost ten o’clock in the morning. Good Lord. She also saw, after a quick, depressing glance in the mirror, that she looked awful. No time to worry about that, though: two seconds later her uncle burst into the room, red-faced and windblown, and as upset as she’d ever seen him.

Her appearance stopped him in his tracks. “My God, Sophie! What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong—I just woke up. Tell me what’s happened. Is it something at Guelder?”

He turned around to close the door. “Yes. You’ve been robbed.”

“Robbed!”

“Your safe was burgled last night, and someone took the payroll money, about two hundred pounds. The thief knocked Andrewson unconscious, and no one found him until eight o’clock this morning when the cores changed.”

“Oh, no. Is he hurt?”

“No, he’s fine—he’s the one who rode to my house an hour ago to tell me.”

“Rode to your house? But—why didn’t he come to me?”

Uncle Eustace smoothed his hand up and down the front of his waistcoat. For the first time, he hesitated. “Andrewson says . . .” He looked off past her shoulder. “Sophie, I’m sorry. Andrewson says the man who hit him was your husband.”