An Hour Unspent, page 27
Basil had been in Gallipoli? All the horrific stories she’d read and heard came rushing down upon her, blurring her vision. “No.”
“This must be shocking news to receive like this. I am sorry. Perhaps since the wedding was postponed and you were not listed officially as his wife . . . I can return at another time, if you’d prefer to deal with his estate later.”
“His estate?” She blinked, pressed her hand against the hard arm of the chair, and tried to feel something. Anything. But her insides had gone hollow and full of echoes. Gallipoli. Papa. Basil. Thief. Estate. The words pinged back and forth, knocking against one another and leaving her head feeling as though a gong had been rung between her ears. “Forgive me, sir, but I don’t see what his estate would have to do with me. We weren’t, as you mentioned, married.”
“Which would have affected your status in the eyes of the War Office but has little effect here.” He reached for a stack of papers, clipped together, and held them out to her. “Mr. Philibert altered his will some three months ago to name you as his sole beneficiary, in anticipation of your nuptials.”
“But . . .” She took the papers automatically. Glanced down at them. But only because those were the actions she was expected to perform. She saw nothing of the words upon the page, couldn’t even feel the weight of the papers between her fingers. “But he ended the betrothal. Before he left for the war.”
That gave the man pause. For a moment. But then he lifted his brows and cleared his throat. “Be that as it may, he did not then alter his will, so the results just now are the same. As I am certain you are aware, Mr. Philibert had no other living family aside from some very distant cousins. His estate, inherited from his parents, was without entail. He could legally leave it to whomever he chose, and he chose you, Miss Manning.”
Impossible. She shook her head. “But that makes no sense. Not given—he was quite clear, Mr. Cavendish, when he ended things. He didn’t want me to be part of his future. I cannot fathom that he didn’t alter his will before he left to exclude me from it, even if he had named me as an inheritor beforehand.”
And he would have thought about it. He must have. A man who’d given it such consideration months ago wouldn’t have just neglected to make alterations when leaving for a war, when thoughts of death must by nature come into one’s mind.
The barrister shuffled a few of the papers and came up with an envelope. “The only thing he changed before he left for Europe, miss, was to give me this, with instruction that if he were killed in action and I had received no other instruction, to deliver it to you along with the will and testament.”
He held out the pale grey rectangle, brows raised in the expectation that she would take it.
She couldn’t convince her arms to lift again. She could barely convince her throat to swallow. “And you received no other instruction?”
“No.” He gave her a kind yet cool smile that made her think he was no stranger to uncomfortable conversations and leaned forward to slide the envelope onto the pile of clipped papers.
She stared at it. Did he expect her to open it now? To wait? What was the appropriate thing? She didn’t know. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t act. Couldn’t think. Barclay was a thief—it seemed he was the reason Papa had left. Basil was dead—it seemed he had left her his entire estate. The world made no sense.
Mr. Cavendish cleared his throat. “You understandably need time to absorb all this. I’ll leave you with the simple facts, my information, and my sincere condolences. In short, everything Mr. Philibert possessed is now yours. The houses, both in Westminster and Shropshire, the automobile, and approximately . . .” He paused, reached for another stack of papers, flipped through them. Nodded. “Approximately eighty thousand pounds—much of which must be held for upkeep and maintenance of the properties, of course, and payment of employees. But we can review those details at a later date. For now you need only to know that his estates are running smoothly, are in good order, and are now yours.”
Eighty thousand pounds. Evelina couldn’t breathe. Two houses. An automobile. At least one hundred servants at the country house, she knew. She’d visited it right after he’d proposed, so she could be introduced as the future mistress and see what her duties would be.
But all that had become the past, she’d thought. A chapter edited from her life. What never would be.
So how had it become fact?
An hour ago, she’d wondered how long she and her mother would be able to afford to put food on the table if Papa didn’t soon return. Five minutes ago, she’d been ready to charge from the house and demand answers from a thief. Now . . .
Mr. Cavendish shuffled the papers back into a stack and slid them toward the end of the table nearest her. “These copies are yours—review them at your convenience and please do drop into my office with any questions. I am at your disposal.” With another of those sad but confident smiles, he stood. “I realize Mr. Philibert has left you with questions and sorrow—but he has also left you a wealthy woman, Miss Manning. Perhaps you can take some solace in the knowledge that he wanted to be sure you were provided for, even given your recent estrangement.”
Evelina’s fingers contracted, pressing wrinkles into the papers she clutched. “Thank you. I . . . I cannot quite . . .”
Mr. Cavendish nodded. “You needn’t. Take some time to absorb all this shocking news. Again, my condolences. I’ll show myself out.”
She may have nodded. May have even muttered something that resembled a farewell. She couldn’t quite be sure. She could only stare at the space where he’d been and wonder if it were all a dream. If she’d wake up and come down the stairs and find the kitchen still cool and dark and Lucy waiting outside the door to teach her how to combine flour and yeast and water into a sticky mixture that would magically rise into a loaf. If she’d wonder at Mother’s smiles and sigh all over again at Aunt Beatrice’s appearance. If all questions about Barclay Pearce were part of one more nightmare, easily dismissed in morning’s light.
Her gaze drifted down, to the evidence of this strange reality. That stack of papers that read Final Will and Testament at their head. That envelope that had her name scrawled across it in Basil’s familiar hand.
Her fingers shook as she set the stack upon her lap and picked up the letter. Its paper was heavy, expensive—the type Basil always used for his personal correspondence, as it would proclaim to its recipients at first touch that he was a man of worth. The first time he’d sent a letter here, Mother and Aunt Beatrice had exclaimed for five full minutes over the paper.
She traced the letters of her name. His hand was elegant but without any flourish—educated but efficient. As he had always been—or as she’d always thought him, anyway. But he’d shown a different side that night he ended things, hadn’t he?
When he’d written to her during their courtship and betrothal, his letters were always exactly what a girl would hope. A bit of news, a bit of flattery, a bit of hope. A few times he’d even included a verse of poetry that he said reminded him of her.
Somehow she suspected this letter would be different. Sucking in a breath, she slipped her finger under the flap and tore it open. Pulled out the sheet of stationery that matched the envelope.
Evelina,
I hope to heaven you never read this. If you do, it’s because I’ve been killed in the war. Ideally, I’ll come home in a few months or years, have Cavendish destroy this letter, and reclaim my life. If you’re reading this, then the worst has happened.
I’ll be honest. Part of me still hopes that something will change while I’m gone. That you’ll realize you loved me all along, and that when I come home, you’ll rush into my arms and declare that life was empty without me. I hope it, and yet I can’t quite believe it. As I pen this letter after telling you of my decision, I think it far more likely that you’ll just file away our time together and move on. You’ll find someone else, perhaps someone who can inspire feeling in you as I never could—or perhaps just someone who won’t mind that they can’t. And I’ll eventually come home and find another girl, one who will make me forget this hollow ache inside.
I loved you. Perhaps you won’t believe me. But I did. Do. There’s a reason I chose you out of all the young ladies I met. Not to be rude, but we both know I could have made a match that was better in the eyes of society. Your aunt’s connections were all you had to recommend you socially. I could have chosen an heiress or even a lady from a titled family. But I chose you. I chose you because I saw something in you that was unlike anything to be found in other girls. That determination that made you walk again after your illness as a child. That desire for justice that drew you to the suffragette cause and to champion the working women. That precision that you inherited from your father. Even that rebellion your mother inspires. I thought those things would equate to passion. I thought they would make us pair perfectly.
I was wrong.
If you’re reading this, then you know I’ve left you everything. Because at this moment, I still love you. And if I can make you happy in my death as I couldn’t in life, then I will be glad to do so. If you’re reading this, then I’ve given you the one thing you ever wanted from me, Evelina: your independence. You can live where you please, make your own choices, your own decisions. Marry or not marry. You can spend my wealth to further your causes.
I pray I make it home and that we can both find happiness—together, if possible, apart if necessary. But failing that, I pray you live knowing that you’re a remarkable young woman, and I’m sorry I could not be what you wanted. Sorry I could not make you love me.
Live well, Evelina. Live fully. Live as you’ve always wanted to do.
Yours,
Basil
Evelina tried to breathe, but the air knotted up in her chest, heaved its way up, and came out a sob. The tears she couldn’t shed that night he’d ended things—the tears to prove her a girl and not a machine—scalded her eyes and burned her cheeks.
She doubled over until the cool paper soothed her forehead, until the muscles in her back and neck strained to match her heart. Until all the questions twisted into one.
Was anything she thought she’d found real, trustworthy, honest . . . or just a reaction to his leaving, inspired by a lie from the tongue of a thief?
Twenty-Four
Barclay cast his gaze one last time over the flat that had once been his in Poplar. He’d let V know that he was setting his mother up in it, so they’d have to use another place as a drop. He’d paid the rent a month in advance rather than his usual week. He’d handed over every coin he’d managed to squirrel away to Pauly—save one tuppence—to cover a tab for his mother.
She’d be moving in here tomorrow.
Part of him doubted she’d show. Part of him knew she would—no street thief turned down free food and lodging.
Free. It made him shake his head. She’d look at this place, compare it to the house in Hammersmith, and think he was giving her crumbs when he had a feast set before him. But the salary V gave him only stretched so far, and with so many children to feed . . .
He didn’t want to regret this decision. But he feared he would within a fortnight.
A worry for tomorrow. He latched the door behind him and strode down the hallway, the stairs, out onto the street. Walked for a minute and then paused at the familiar figure hunched in the familiar alleyway. “Afternoon, Mags.”
She peeked up from her tin cup and obliged him by turning her face into the precious web of wrinkles with one of her smiles. “There’s our lad. Word on the street is that you’re bringing your mother to the neighborhood.”
Word sure did travel fast. Barclay grinned and crouched down. “That’s right. Tomorrow. Can you keep an eye on her for me?”
That earned him a cackle. “Leave it to Old Mags. I’ll see no one bothers her.”
“I know. And see . . . if she bothers anyone, I hear about it quickly, will you?”
Maggie’s web collapsed into a frown. “’Course I will. But why you have to worry so ’bout your own mum?”
He just shook his head, pulled out the one tuppence he’d held in reserve for this purpose, and dropped it into Maggie’s tin cup. “Let’s hope I don’t. But . . .”
“But.” She nodded and reached to pat his cheek. “You’re a good lad, Barclay. You can count on me.”
“I know I can.” He covered her gnarled fingers with his for a moment and then let her go, standing again. The nights were warm enough now that Maggie would be sleeping right here rather than finding a more sheltered place to hunker, at least if it held off raining.
He shot a glance up at the clear sky as he turned back onto the street. No clouds would be good for those on the streets. Unless they lured another zeppelin their way.
A concern he shook off because he could do nothing about it regardless. Nothing but pray.
His prayers had felt a bit tense the last week though, ever since he’d seen his brother at the factory.
He’d prayed so earnestly, so long. For his family, for a reunion, for their care. Why was the reality of it all so much less than what he’d dreamed of?
He hurried to the tube stop. Hurried so he could sit on the rocking train for an hour as it wound its way back to Hammersmith, sit and worry and try to toss those worries heavenward only to feel as though they landed again at his feet.
He was a fool to put her in Poplar. He knew it, even as he knew he’d had little choice. He couldn’t leave her without care, not when he had something to provide. Not when he had so many years to make up for.
Afternoon had yawned its way into evening when he debarked again in Hammersmith. It smelled different here, more hopeful.
Less honest. How long would he be able to pretend he belonged in a place like this?
“Like your father’s people,” Mum had said the other day. He wished he remembered more of them. Wished that the remembering would give him some claim to legitimacy. As if knowing whether his father’s people were respectable would make him any more deserving of what he’d built for himself here.
No, he hadn’t built it. He’d stolen it. Stolen his way into V’s confidence, and that was what had gotten him this home.
He turned down his street and glanced again at the sun, where it sank below the buildings. Would he have time to call on Evelina after he grabbed a bite? Perhaps, if he hurried. He would try.
He jogged up the steps to his door, opened it, and smiled at the scents of food that greeted him. Lucy had been doing her magic again, and he’d be more than happy to taste her current creation so he could praise her for it.
“Barclay!” Jory came barreling toward him, unusual thunder marring her features. “He took it, and it’s mine, and I told him he could read it when I was done, but I’m not and—”
“I told her I’d give it back tomorrow!” Fergus was hot on their sister’s heels, his face red. “I need to read a book for school, and it’s the only one we have that would be good enough. I didn’t take it, I just borrowed it.”
“You pinched it right from my hands!”
Barclay pressed his lips against a smile. A book. His little brother and sister were fighting over a book. For school. It was so incredibly normal a fight for a family that it warmed the place inside that his mother’s appearance had chilled. They weren’t fighting over the last scrap of food or the only blanket. Just a book.
He cleared his throat. “Jory, let Fergus borrow the book. After”—he raised a hand to ward off both their reactions—“you finish the chapter you were on. Fair?”
The irritation melted off her face. Mostly. She was a stickler for finishing her chapter, was Jory. But she never minded sharing in general. She nodded.
Fergus huffed. “She reads too slow.”
“Slowly.” Jory paired the correction with a stuck-out tongue. “You’d think your fancy school would have taught you grammar.”
“Enough, you two.” Chuckling, Barclay shooed them away so he could get more than a step in the door. He took off his hat and tossed it toward the coatrack. It missed, but Fergus snagged it on his way by and righted it.
Commotion outside the front door drew his attention before he could follow his nose to the kitchen. Wailing, quick footsteps, a masculine voice. With a frown, Barclay spun back to the door and tugged it open.
Charlie and their mother were even then mounting the steps. His little brother pushed past him without so much as a hello, half carrying Mum as he hobbled with his cane. Their mother’s face was lined with agony. And it was white as cream—a marked contrast to the red-stained rag encircling her hand.
Barclay closed the door behind them and shouted, “Bandages! Somebody bring bandages and whatever medicinals we have! Hurry!” He touched a hand to Charlie’s shoulder. “There, to the right. The drawing room. What happened?”
Charlie, his face as hard as granite—though Barclay couldn’t tell if it was from frustration or pain—uncovered their mother’s hand.
The appendage was swollen, bruised, mangled, with a gash scored deep in the top of it. Mum turned her face away from the sight and choked out, “It was Claw that done it. I told him I didn’t take the blighted thing, but he didn’t believe me.”
Claw. Barclay shook his head. “You ought to have known he’d be looking to punish you if he caught wind that I was your son.”
His sisters had been charging into the room—Elinor, Retta, even Rosie was here—but all stopped short at that.
He let his eyes slide shut for a moment. He should have told them yesterday, he supposed. But they were all so tired after the wedding, it had been easier to put it off. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Ellie, Rosie, Ret—my mum. And my little brother, Charlie. I only just found them again. And apparently I ought to have taken you to Poplar sooner, Mum. Then you’d have no reason to venture back into his turf, but to visit Charlie.”
Charlie snorted. “As if she ever just visits. She only comes round when she needs money—or when she shows up like this. And I can’t afford a doctor, Barclay. I just can’t, but look at it. She needs one.”
