The Sealed Letter (20 page)

"You talked a lot of balderdash in there," Fido remarks. "The idea of Harry cruelly thwarting your longing to have more children!"

She purses her lips. "He's said far worse about me."

Well, there's no denying that. "And what was all that mysteriousness about his treatment of me?"

Helen's fork freezes, mid-air. Her eyes have a guarded expression. "Never mind," she says after a moment.

"But—"

"I'm sorry I brought it up, in Few's office. We needn't speak of it if you'd rather not." She makes a show of going on with her cake.

"I'm perfectly willing," says Fido in exasperation.

"Really? You've never spoken of it in all these years. I've had the impression you hid it away in the deepest folds of your memory."

Fido stares at her. "We seem to be talking at cross purposes, now. What
it
have I hidden away?"

"Dearest, let's drop the subject," says Helen, pushing away her plate so suddenly the fork clatters. "Trust me, I wouldn't dream of using it to strengthen my case."

Fido's pulse starts to hammer.

"I only—in there, in the law chambers," says Helen with shiny eyes, "I couldn't quite believe I heard you defending my husband as
perfectly proper!
It breaks my heart to think that you—so independent, so undaunted—that you're the kind of woman who'd blame herself for such an incident."

Fido swallows hard. "My dear," she says, very low, putting her hand over Helen's on the tablecloth, "let's be quite clear: of what incident are we speaking?"

"The incident. The unspeakable one."

A hard pebble in Fido's throat, spots before her eyes. The tea shop seems too full, all at once, though there is only a scattering of customers. "Something involving Harry?"

The blue eyes widen. "You aren't going to claim you don't remember
anything?"

"Tell me exactly what you mean," she snaps.

"Wouldn't you rather wait until we can be private?" Seeing Fido's face, she rushes on. "Very well. If you really can't recall it ... cast your mind back to the autumn before Harry evicted you."

Fido bridles at the word.

"I'm talking about the night you woke up beside me, and he was there."

"Harry, you mean?" Fido frowns in concentration. "I know he used to come into my bedroom sometimes. On occasions when you were sharing it," she adds.

"That's right, and you didn't like it at all. But that particular night..."

"I woke up and saw a white figure, at the door," she says, nodding, and Helen clasps her hands. "I remember you told me afterwards it was Harry in his nightshirt."

"Of course it was him; who else?"

"That's all I saw: a white figure. I'd had bad asthma, I'd taken my medicine."

"That explains it," cries Helen under her breath. "You were in a stupor from the laudanum."

"That explains
what?"

"Why you've forgotten."

Fido strains. A spectral figure, in the doorway: it's a troubling memory, somehow, like a scene of obscure distress from childhood. "I woke up rather agitated."

"I should say you were!"

"I suppose he'd come into my room to ask you something, and found us both asleep?"

Helen taps her fingernails on the edge of the table, and whispers something.

"I beg your pardon?"

Words in her ear, hot breath that makes her jump: "He got in."

"No," says Fido flatly.

"In between us. He clambered over me," Helen whispers.

"I can't believe that."

"Oh, my dear," wails Helen, "I witnessed the whole thing; it's burned on my mind. But if I'd realized how utterly you've managed to erase it from yours, I wouldn't have said a word today. Sometimes it's better to forget."

Fido's chest is tight; her throat makes a high creaking sound. "He climbed into the bed, you say." Very low. "Is there ... worse?"

Helen's face is contorted.

A pair of ladies at the next table is looking at them with frank curiosity. "You may as well lift the veil, now," says Fido.

"Oh, but—"

"Go on."

A rapid whisper: "You were dead to the world. I tried to thrust him out, but I hadn't the force; I think he was the worse for drink. He made a joke about it being a cold bed with two women alone in it. And something coarse about the fire needing poking. He grabbed your nightgown and—"

Fido puts a finger against Helen's lips, quite hard. "No."

"It didn't happen," Helen hisses, "I mean, not the final outrage. He only tried—clumsily attempted—you cried out in pain, and then woke up."

She's dizzy with shock. She tugs at her velvet choker, to stretch it slightly. Harry Codrington, rummaging in her nightdress while she lay comatose? No man's ever laid hands on her before. The very thought—

"When you began to struggle, he lost his nerve—thank heavens—kicked his way out of the bedclothes, and fled from the room."

Fido can see the new version, now, like a ghostly image overlaying the old memory. She's so shaken she can hardly speak. "What kind of animal—to try to, to
violate,
his guest, his wife's—friend."

"One of the family," says Helen in a half-sob.

"But why ever—what possible motive—" Fido presses her knuckles against her lips, very hard. "I'm not the kind of woman that men find irresistibly attractive," she makes herself remark in a tone that would almost pass for humour.

"It was my fault; that's the conclusion I've come to after brooding over it, all these years. I'd maddened him by refusing him his rights for so long," says Helen. "He was drunk, and furious with you for taking my side, I suppose, for being my only succour. I believe it was meant as a punishment of the pair of us. Oh Fido, I'm so very sorry."

Their hands knot like rope on the white tablecloth. All Fido can do is shake her head.

"The truth is, that's why I didn't dare contact you again, from Malta," Helen admitted. "When you didn't write back, I thought you must have cut me off. What kind of a friend had I been, after all? I'd offered you a home, and brought down horror on your head."

"Don't say that." The silence stretches out like a dark pool. "It's you who must forgive me," says Fido hoarsely. "I haven't understood the nature of the beast, not till this moment. What you've had to bear, for so long!"

Helen smiles unevenly; puts Fido's hand to her hot cheek.

Fido makes herself say it: "I shall tell Mr. Few at once."

Her friend jerks upright. "Impossible."

"It's my duty."

"But to stand up in open court, and recount such a narrative—I'd never ask that of you, dearest."

Fido hasn't thought that far ahead; she shrinks at the prospect. "Oh, I didn't mean—I couldn't go into the witness box." Her head's in a sickening whirl. "If only there were a way..."

Helen shakes her head vehemently. "I couldn't put you through that, not though my whole future were to depend on it."

"I wonder—" Fido hesitates. "Few needs to know what he's dealing with; what kind of monster you married. Perhaps the information could be useful, somehow."

"But what—"

"Oh, how little I know of the law," Fido frets. "What if Few—if he were to warn his opposite number, your husband's solicitor—"

"Mr. Bird," Helen supplies.

"If he told Bird that he has knowledge of an attempted rape." Her voice drops; she barely mouths the word. "Surely, if Bird passed this on to his client—Harry would quail at the possibility of the story getting out? He'd realize that although we are women," she goes on, her voice strengthening, "we're ready to put a name to evil, when our backs are to the wall."

"Yes," marvels Helen, "yes. It could work. He'll be shamed into dropping this wretched petition," she goes on, "and he might even send the girls home!"

Fido doubts that very much, but she can't bear to be the one to strip Helen's illusions away: time will do it for her.

***

They lie as tight as spoons, that night, in Fido's hard bed, and talk in whispers till very late. "It's not too early to begin to consider your future," says Fido.

"My future?"

"If worse comes to worst."

"I thought ... you said I could stay here," says Helen like a frightened child.

"Of course you can!" Fido squeezes her, plants a kiss on the back of Helen's hair. "No matter what happens, we'll be together." She waits a moment; Helen doesn't contradict her. "But it'll be a rather different sphere of life," she goes on. No grand rooms to stuff with trinkets, she wants to say; no girls to prepare for presentation at court. But she doesn't spell out any of that, not yet. "Time might hang heavy on your hands at first, without an occupation." Especially as Fido's always hard at work, from six in the morning—but she doesn't say that either. It strikes her, for the first time, that Helen might require constant companionship, at home or out shopping; might raise objections to Fido's commitment to the Cause. The thought gives her a kind of vertigo.
Don't borrow trouble,
she tells herself;
haven't we more than enough on our plates?
She hurries on: "You do have one real asset, Helen: a fine grasp of the English language."

A little giggle, in the dark. "I hope you don't propose I'm to take on Miss Braddon?"

"No no, not writing for publication, but correcting for it, perhaps. For some time now, as it happens," says Fido with a kind of shyness, "I've been looking out for an educated lady, to check proofs at the press."

No answer.

"You could do the work at home, if you preferred—"

"Don't be silly, Fido."

She opens her mouth, and shuts it again.

"I'm not that kind of woman."

Fido stiffens. "You know, for a lady to find respectable employment doesn't lower her to the rank of a fishwife; in fact, it raises her to that of her father or brothers."

"It's a matter of temperament, that's all. The leopard can't change her spots," says Helen, laughing.

"I dare say that's true," says Fido, loosening.
What an odd couple we'll make,
it occurs to her. The divorcee and the spinster. The adulteress and the woman's rights-ist. The leopardess and the ... house cat?

"I'd better let you sleep," says Helen.

Fido snorts. "No chance of that. Every time I think of speaking to Few tomorrow, my stomach bucks like a mule."

"Oh my dear. If only I could take this cup from your lips!"

"No," says Fido, "the truth must out. It's only an absurd sort of squeamishness, on my part; the thought of telling such a story to a man, a virtual stranger."

Helen holds her closer, puts her feet against Fido's cold ones. "I wonder—"

"Yes?"

"Would it help at all if I were to go in first, and give Few the gist of it?"

"Would you really?" Relief floods her veins.

"It's the least I can do. Besides, I'm a married woman," says Helen. "Such language comes rather easier to us."

"Yes, then, yes: it would be so much easier, if you prepared the ground."

"But you have to promise to sleep a little, now," says Helen in motherly tones, "or you'll be in no fit state for anything."

"I promise," says Fido, shutting her eyes, letting out a long breath.

***

Taking Fido's Kashmir shawl, the aged solicitor clears his throat in a melancholy way. "The Codringtons' is a very sad case," he observes. "Well, as the Bard put it, marriage has many pains but celibacy has no pleasures."

"I believe that was Dr. Johnson."

"Was it? Ah, well, you're the woman of letters, Miss Faithfull."

Silence, broken only by the creaking of her lungs.

"I can't say I was entirely surprised by what Mrs. Codrington told me this morning," says Few, eyes on his desk. "I suspected she was hiding something, yesterday, when she spoke of her husband. These military men—whited sepulchres, more often than not—"

Fido traces the seam of her glove.

"I needn't take up much of your time this morning; I already have a statement of the facts from Mrs. Codrington. This is really a formality, Miss Faithfull—and believe me, I wish I didn't have to offend your modesty in the least degree—"

"Whatever's necessary to help my friend."

"Your loyalty does you credit. And it will indeed be immensely helpful. Perhaps the strongest weapon in our arsenal." Few glances down at the topmost paper of his stack and clears his throat. "One night in the autumn of 1856, then, you were occupying the same room and in the same bed as Mrs. Codrington in Eccleston Square, both being asleep, when the petitioner came in—that's the admiral—"

"He was only a captain at the time," Fido says.

"Never mind that."

And in fact Helen was awake.
Fido doesn't suppose that matters either, though it's odd that he formed the impression they were both asleep. Perhaps he assumed it, since it was night? Or perhaps Helen thought it would simplify the story to leave herself out, since she's not permitted to testify; after all, she played no part in events that night, or none that made any real difference.

Few goes on, eyes on the page. "He got in between the two of you, and attempted to behave improperly to you, Miss Faithfull—to treat you, ah, as if you were his wife—but your resistance frightened him and he rushed away. Correct?"

She wheezes; she turns towards the window, but it's shut tight against the late September damp. It's only the difference between her having woken during the attack and her having woken just after it ended: a matter of seconds. When one's taken laudanum, the border between those states of consciousness is never clear. But she doesn't want to sound like an unreliable witness; that would be of no use to Helen's case. Need she mention the laudanum at all, if it would only undermine her account?

"Are you feeling quite well, Miss Faithfull?"

"Habitual asthma," she whispers. "If we could possibly complete this interview at another time—" She's longing for a cigarette. A little time to puzzle this out. On that night—almost eight years ago now—did she half-wake, fight Harry off in her dulled state, and manage to blot the whole thing out of her mind afterwards? Can one be said to have had an experience, if one has only the most fragmentary, uneasy recollection of it?