The Sealed Letter Part 19

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 coa.r.s.e 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, violate, his guest, his wife's-friend." 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 pa.s.s 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 hoa.r.s.ely. "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 pa.s.sed 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 pet.i.tion," 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 companions.h.i.+p, 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, Don't borrow trouble, she tells herself; she tells herself; haven't we more than enough on our plates? haven't we more than enough on our plates? She hurries on: "You do have one real a.s.set, Helen: a fine grasp of the English language." She hurries on: "You do have one real a.s.set, 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, 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? 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 a.r.s.enal." 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 pet.i.tioner 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 a.s.sumed 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. Fido doesn't suppose that matters either, though it's odd that he formed the impression they were both asleep. Perhaps he a.s.sumed 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?

"I'm afraid it must be done today, as tomorrow is Sunday."

If she tries hard enough, she can almost summon up the scene, feel the bed shudder as Harry clambers in between the women; almost see his gigantic silhouette blotting out the candlelight.

"No need to speak, if you'd prefer: simply nod," adds Few after a second. "Was it as Mrs. Codrington told me?"

He seems to understand. There's no objective way to tell a story. But this is the terrible truth of that night, as best as she and Helen can muster it between them. A sort of joint testimony. Helen could witness to it herself were it not for the absurdity of the law that gags the partic.i.p.ants in a divorce. Fido makes herself nod.

"Very good. I regret, again, that this is necessary. I can hardly imagine your distress."

At twenty-one, on that autumn night, is that what he means? Or at twenty-nine, sitting in his chambers?

"Now if you'll be so good as to look over the affidavit, I'll sign it." Few slides the crisp page across the desk.

But Fido has broken out in a sweat, her eyes are swimming. The affidavit: The affidavit: that sounds alarmingly official. She's not sure she can bear to see this story written down in black ink on the long, tombstone shape of a legal doc.u.ment. that sounds alarmingly official. She's not sure she can bear to see this story written down in black ink on the long, tombstone shape of a legal doc.u.ment.

"Would you prefer me to read it to you in full?"

"Oh no." That would be worse. Fido glances through the paragraphs, but they make no sense to her. Her eyes catch on jagged phrases: separate but adjoining, in a nightdress, attempted to have connection, resistance of the said Miss Faithfull. separate but adjoining, in a nightdress, attempted to have connection, resistance of the said Miss Faithfull.

"I wonder, have you any sense of the date of the incident?"

Fido shuts her eyes. She can barely think of her own name. "I really don't ... October. Around the eleventh?" she hazards, just to put an end to it.

"Very good." Few takes the paper back and scratches a few words in.

He walks her to the door and uses a cab whistle to call a growler to take her home.

Mutatis Mutandis (Latin, "the necessary changes having been made"; in law, this refers to the application of an implied, mutually understood set of changes) What should we think of a community of slaves, who betrayed each other's interest? Of a little band of s.h.i.+pwrecked mariners upon a friendless sh.o.r.e, who were false to each other?

Sarah Ellis, The Daughters of England (1845) (1845) In Few's chambers on Monday morning, Helen sits fiddling with the coral-beaded fringe of her bag.

The solicitor shuffles his papers and looks up over his tiny gla.s.ses. "I must observe that for a woman of business-that's what they call themselves, I believe?-your friend's not very businesslike."

Helen stares at him.