The Linnet Bird: A Novel (28 page)

“The British men in India outnumber women three to one,” she went on. “And there are all sorts of events—luncheons and dinner parties and balls and soirees—it would be impossible not to find someone. And although India might not be the place one wants to live out one’s life, there are all sorts of reasons to come home again. Oh, say you’ll think about it, please, Linny.” She reached across the table and I took her hand.

She lowered her voice. “I don’t want to insult you,” she said, “so please don’t be offended. It’s not difficult to understand your situation, and I know that if you were to say you’d come with me, my father would pay for a round-trip ticket as well as a suitable wardrobe and anything else needed. He would, of course, clear it with your cousin, as he is your guardian. And once we’re there we would stay as guests in the home of the Watertons, who are more than happy to entertain young women from home, full of the English news they’ve been missing.” She stopped to take a breath, then rattled on.

“I’ve been finding out everything about it. The journey can take anywhere from four to five months, depending on the weather. It would be terribly exciting, sailing away, around the African cape. The sights one sees! Sometimes the ships have to drop anchor at strange places, if the ship is blown off course. And the last port of call before Calcutta is Aden. Did you know that the natives at Aden have shocks of red or yellow hair? Why is that, do you think?” Her voice rose again. She appeared unable to control herself, throwing her hands about. Diners at other tables were once more surreptitiously watching, and I saw several speak behind their hands, their eyes on Faith.

“And in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean there are whales and porpoises that leap alongside the boat, as if performing for the passengers. Imagine, Linny!” In the next instant she slapped her hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry,” she said from behind her palm. “I can tell by your expression that I
have
insulted you with my overly forward offers with regards to finances. I’m too impossibly brash, I know that. Father suggests that’s why no—” She stopped.

But Faith had misinterpreted my expression.

Unexpectedly, and for the first time in my life, I understood the meaning of seduction. For if Faith Vespry was attempting to seduce me with her words, she had succeeded.

Over our soup, she touched the dead dream, the one I had so carefully buried all those months ago along with my wee Frances. She had touched it, and it left me weak and trembling. It wasn’t offense Faith was seeing on my face, but awakening and hunger.

T
HE MOST DIFFICULT ASPECT
of leaving Liverpool—no, perhaps the most difficult thing I had done in my adult life—was telling Shaker I was leaving. I asked him to walk with me, a sunny Sunday a few days after my final discussion with Faith on our plans. Shaker and I wandered along a wide dusty road lined with hedgerows just outside of Everton. A large spreading elder grew near the side of the road, and I stopped there, in its shade, and told Shaker about Faith’s invitation and how I wished to go. I told him that Mr. Vespry, after receiving Shaker’s permission for me to accompany his daughter, would make every necessary arrangement for me to travel to India with Faith, and to be hosted while there.

He was stunned. It took a full moment for him to digest this, and then respond. “You’re leaving?” he finally said. “Leaving Liverpool? Leaving England?”
Leaving me?
I thought I heard, although he didn’t speak those words.

“Yes. There’s a ship, the
Margery Ellen,
sailing in just over three weeks’ time. It will take us around Africa, all the way to Calcutta.”

“But that journey takes months. And it’s dangerous. India itself is dangerous. What will you do once you’re there? When do you plan to return?”

“I don’t know, Shaker. I don’t know what will happen when I’m there. I only know I can’t let this opportunity pass. Thinking about it has given me the old feeling, the one I had about leaving here and traveling on a sailing ship, as I told you I planned since I was first on the street.”

There was silence, and then something in Shaker’s face shifted. “The Fishing Fleet, is it?” he asked, his jaw clenched.

“I don’t understand.” I found it difficult to look at him; emotions were openly playing across his face. It was as if I were seeing him naked.

“Nobody speaks of it, but it’s well known, Linny. Desperate women making the long voyage in the hopes of finding someone to marry them.”

I shrugged. “Well, you’re right, then. That’s what Faith is doing, without saying as much. I’m simply accompanying her.”

“And you, Linny? You won’t be putting on your best airs—the new airs, the ones you’ve learned while living with me—to find a husband as well?” His voice carried an undertone of cruelty I didn’t know he possessed.

“Shaker. Can you really think that of me?”

He half turned so that only his profile was visible. “What else am I to think? Isn’t your life here comfortable? Do you want for anything?”

I realized it wasn’t cruelty at all. It was pain. “No.” I was ashamed. “No, you’ve given me more than I ever thought I would have. A home, a position that I enjoy, security. And you ask for nothing in return. I know I’m selfish, Shaker, but I want to go. I’m sorry. You’ve given me everything, and yet—”

“I could give you more, Linny.” He turned to face me suddenly, his voice rising, and my heart plummeted, for I knew what his next words would be. “Marry me,” he said. “Please. You make me feel like I’ve never felt before, like I never dreamed possible.” He took my hand, and his was damp. “I do love you, Linny. You must know that.”

I looked down at our hands, joined and trembling.

“I don’t think you love me, Shaker. I think I . . . perhaps I excite you, perhaps because of what I was. Of how you’ve seen me, and of what you know I’ve done.” I was choosing my words carefully, trying to make him see that if he had taken me, as many times as he needed to, he would have burned me out of his dreams and imaginings. How could a man who had only done good love me, dirtied as I was by my past?

“What you were has nothing to do with it,” he argued. “It’s the way you make me feel. You brought me back from self-hatred. You showed me I could feel like a man.” Then, as suddenly as he had taken my hand, he dropped it and stepped away. Now his face was ashen. “Oh. Of course. All I’ve spoken of is the way you’ve made
me
feel. I’ve completely ignored how I might have made you feel. But now I see. All I inspire in you is pity.”

“How can you say that? I may have pitied you, for the briefest of hours at the beginning of our time together, but that was gone when I watched you and listened to you—not only your compassion toward me, but with your mother. I see you with your friends, and the members of the library, and at social events—and even with shopkeepers. I have nothing but admiration for the honest and truly caring person you are.”

He shook his head in annoyance. “How could I not have seen, all this time, that the way you smiled at me, your many small kindnesses to me—they all meant nothing more than gratitude edged with pity?” He backed away.

Of course he saw it clearly, and I had no argument.

“I was so lost in my own discovery of joy, Linny, that I didn’t even stop to consider yours. Forgive me.” And he turned and walked stiffly toward the thick copse of trees along the side of the dusty road, and I had to admire the proud set of his shoulders.

He didn’t come home until long after his mother and I had gone to bed. I couldn’t sleep, worrying about him out in the dark somewhere, but eventually heard him coming up the stairs. His footsteps were slow and heavy. They stopped on the landing and I held my breath, thinking he would open our door, unsure of what he would say or do, or how I would respond. But then there was the quiet sound of his own door opening and closing, and nothing more.

S
HAKER DIDN
’
T COME TO WORK
with me the next day. His mother came downstairs, telling me that Shaker had asked me to report to Mr. Ebbington that he’d caught a fever. “He’s never missed a day of work. Never,” she told me, her eyes and mouth softened with concern, and at that new look I caught a glimpse of the person she might have once been.

“Shall I go to see if he needs anything?” I asked, rising from my breakfast.

“No. He asked not to be disturbed,” she told me, and I sat down again, pushing away the plate Nan set in front of me, suddenly unable to swallow.

I spent an anxious day at work, but when I returned Shaker was waiting for me in the street when I departed from the carriage. My heart beat harder at the sight of him—relief and anxiety. The sky was low and gray. It had rained earlier, and now the eaves of the buildings around us dripped with a steady rhythm. “Are you feeling better?” I asked, although of course I knew that his reported illness had not been physical.

“Walk with me,” he said, and boldly took my hand and put it on his arm with a firmness that I had never felt before. He looked pale but resolute as we went to a nearby sweet shop with a few tables in one corner. It was a well-scrubbed place, its floors gleaming and brass polished. It was empty of customers. We ordered tea and slices of hazelnut cake.

“I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours sorting this out,” he said, as soon as we were seated. “I’m sorry for my behavior yesterday. I’m quite ashamed.”

I had to close my eyes for a second before I could trust my voice. “Please, Shaker. It’s not you who should be ashamed. It’s me. I’m sorry. I just . . . I don’t feel anything, and don’t think I ever will. Not for a man.” I tried to think of a way to describe what had happened to me, inside, but I didn’t know the right words.

“People rarely marry for love, Linny. They marry for companionship, for financial convenience, for security. For convention. I’m not convinced love plays that large a role for most.”

I waited, in case he had more to tell me, but his mouth closed in a firm line. The only sound in the shop was the quiet
clink
of a wooden spoon beating something in a bowl behind a curtained doorway.

“I’m going to India, Shaker,” I finally said, quietly. “And I believe I do love you. But not as a wife for a husband. I also believe that if I
were
able to love a man in that way, you would be that person.”

His Adam’s apple moved in his throat. “Then I must accept that, and be satisfied with it, mustn’t I?”

We sat in silence across from each other, our tea growing cool.

“But will you promise me something? That if things don’t go as you hope in India, and you have to return to England, will you come back here, to me?”

“I’ve told you, Shaker, I can’t—”

Shaker didn’t let me finish. “Not to marry me. I understand that, Linny. You made your feelings clear, and I will never ask you again. But if you ever need a place to stay, or you simply need a friend, I’ll be here, always, and I’ll help you in any way I can.”

I reached across the table and laid my hand against his cheek. “How do I deserve you?” I asked. “Someday you’ll find someone far better than I, someone who can love you in the way I can’t. And you’ll forget about me, as you should.”

The cake lay untouched between us. We sipped at our tepid tea, but before we finished it we rose, as if by agreement, and went out onto the street. The sky had cleared, the clouds lifted, and the summer air was heavy and fragrant. The sound of children playing in the distance floated toward us. I put my arm through Shaker’s and he put his hand on mine and we went slowly, surely, with no more words, toward the house on Whitefield Lane.