The Sealed Letter Part 7

"Leave it to me," Helen tells him.

"You said she understood," he complains.

"She does, more than most women would." Besides, whom else can Helen rely on in this stiff-faced city?

"I still don't understand why you fed her that rigmarole about intending to give me the brush-off-"

"Men understand nothing about female friends.h.i.+p. These things take time; don't forget, she's a vicar's daughter. In a little while," says Helen, "I'm sure I can get her to pa.s.s on our letters, perhaps let us meet at her house again..."

"Time is just what we're short of," mutters Anderson.

Helen can't bear to ask whether he knows the date of his recall. Will her hold on her lover survive the distance? It strikes her that there are other lively, discontented wives in Valetta. The air carries a waft of reeking straw from the Carnivora Terrace, and she feels as if she might choke; she pulls her veil down. "You're a grumpy bear today." Entwining her gloved hand with his bare one.

"Am I?" asks Anderson, scratching one of his floppy side whiskers. "It's deuced hard on a fellow, all this hanging about for the post three times a day. Never knowing when he'll get a glimpse of his inamorata, inamorata, not even allowed to write to her in case her husband sees the letter..." not even allowed to write to her in case her husband sees the letter..."

She smiles silkily to hide her irritation: "Well, we're together now." They pace. "Remember what you whispered in my ear on the docks?"

A blank look.

"When I was about to get on the s.h.i.+p, in Valetta," she reminds him caressingly. "You told me that until you joined me in London, I'd be held in your thoughts like a jewel, all day and all night..."

His smile is boyish. "But now I'm here, thoughts aren't enough; I need to hold you in my arms."

She wants to snap, it's only been four days since you got a lot more than that on Fido's sofa. it's only been four days since you got a lot more than that on Fido's sofa. "Oh, for the balmy skies of our dear island," she sighs, instead. "Oh, for the balmy skies of our dear island," she sighs, instead.

In her mind, steel cogs are turning. She knows she holds this man by the thinnest of threads. In Malta, military society allowed a certain leeway, and Harry practically lived in his office; if there was gossip about his pretty wife and her constant escort, it never reached the pitch of accusation-that she knows of. But in England, Harry has too much time on his hands, which makes her nervous. He's beginning to poke his nose in: just think of his suggesting she instruct the girls in the supervision of servants! Here in the home country, Helen's never felt less safe, less at home.

Anderson, arms crossed, is considering the languid lions. "Apparently these poor beasts used to last only a year or two in their cages, but when the terrace was added, their life expectancy increased greatly."

"I sense a moral to this story."

"Well, yes: a little freedom does wonders." He grabs her hand, raises it to his hot mouth.

Helen s.n.a.t.c.hes it back. "Don't."

"You think we'll be seen by someone who matters, in a herd of two thousand visitors?"

"The girls' governess sometimes brings them here."

"Your maternal side charms me," says Anderson. "It flashes out on occasion, like a comet."

Helen glares. "My daughters are everything to me."

"Sorry. You've teased me out of my manners," he tells her, turning his broad back to the odorous breeze to light one of his clove-scented cigarettes.

The Crimean left its thumbprint on the gentlemen of England, Helen thinks; they all went off smooth-cheeked, and came back grimly bearded and stinking of tobacco. "The least one can do, as a parent, is lie to one's children," she remarks. "I mean to protect mine from the truth till they marry, and discover it for themselves."

"Lucky girls," says Anderson wryly. "Would you care to see the rattlesnakes now?"

The last time she brought the girls here, they saw a boa constrictor seize a duck; Nell had nightmares for a week. "I believe you just want to get me in a dark room," she says, making herself loosen into a smile.

"Well, to bring me where every species can nuzzle or mount, and I mayn't so much as steal a kiss, seems peculiarly cruel."

Helen laughs.

His sigh is guttural. "Before my trip to Scotland, if we could only find somewhere to be at peace for an hour-"

"I'm perfectly at peace," she lies. He's going back to Scotland for his grandmother's hundredth birthday, when he could be staying in London to be near Helen.

"You witch! I can imagine you visiting convicts, tantalizing them, leaving a trace of perfume on the dungeon air..."

She smiles, peering into a cage where a large black cat appears to be sleeping.

"Couldn't I find a hansom and tell the man to go round and round the park?"

"London cabbies are notorious tattletales."

"I miss the admiralty gondola. Those moonlit nights, the sway of the waves..."

"You shocking man," she says pleasurably.

"My landlady's such a busybody," Anderson complains, "but I do happen to know a very nice, quiet hotel..."

Helen gives him a chilly look. "The notion has something soiled about it."

"Don't get your dander up."

Anderson sounds so crushed, she puts her mouth close up against his blond, rumpled head. "Patience," she breathes. "You know I'd risk my life for you and thank heaven for the chance."

"Darling brave girl," he groans. "Beautiful Helen, whose face launched the thousand s.h.i.+ps..."

She moves away again, before he can kiss her. "When will your leave be up?" she asks, then wishes she hadn't.

His face flattens. "I expect to hear from my superiors any day now."

"You could always try to exchange into a home unit, couldn't you?" Oh, she shouldn't have started this; she's das.h.i.+ng across quicksand. "Officers do that, very often, I believe, if their regiments are sent to perform garrison duty in Canada, or the West Indies-"

"I rather like Malta, as you know."

She turns her head so he won't see the tears in her eyes.

"Officers often sell out, too," he points out. "Is that what you want of me?"

"Of course not," she says hoa.r.s.ely. "I'd miss your scarlet regimentals."

Anderson manages a chuckle. After a short silence, he flicks open his watch. "The eagles are due to be fed, shall we watch?"

"I really had better be going," says Helen, to punish him.

In the next morning's note to Fido, Helen drops her pretence that nothing's wrong between them. After all, her old friend-with her radical notions and almost Bohemian way of life-is not like other women. The usual techniques of flattery, euphemism, and circ.u.mlocution won't work here. Helen's decided it's best to fling herself at Fido's feet.

I have no other ally in the world, she improvises, she improvises, and so in fear and trembling I beg you to hear the whole narrative from my own lips before you pa.s.s irrevocable judgement. Did you not tell me only the other day that sister-souls must stand by each other through all trials?

Hour after hour, she waits for a reply. The time for calls is almost over. Her husband, who's spent the day down at Deptford ogling some new armour-plated sloop or screw (Helen's always refused to learn these distinctions), comes in for a speechless cup of tea. He studies a report on naval reform; Helen reads the latest installment of Our Mutual Friend, Our Mutual Friend, but she keeps forgetting who's who. It feels as he and she are in a honeycomb; walls of wax keep them apart. but she keeps forgetting who's who. It feels as he and she are in a honeycomb; walls of wax keep them apart.

The bell, at last. The maid pops her head in to announce Miss Faithfull, and relief floods through Helen's veins like sugar.

Harry's face is neutral. "Show her up."

He's holding out his cup; she registers that he'd like more tea. Why won't the man make himself scarce?

Fido comes in looking tired. Helen's ribs feel bruised. She gives Fido an apologetic grimace, to say if only we were alone! if only we were alone!-but Fido stares back like a stranger.

Harry stands up to greet the visitor, all unbending six foot five of him. Glimpsing him through Fido's eyes, Helen finds his height almost freakish. Not an aristocratic Norman, no, some older race: he rears up like some implacable, axe-wielding Hun.

They all sit down and pa.s.s round the rolled-up bread and b.u.t.ter. Harry asks after one of Fido's brothers, who's recently been promoted to the rank of captain. Soon they've moved on to her precious Cause. "But you see, Admiral, already a full fifty per cent of British women work for their bread," Fido is telling Harry, "and often at gruelling, repet.i.tive tasks such as chain-making or mining at the pit brow."

"Ah, poor men's wives and daughters, that's quite another thing," says Harry. "But when it comes to women of the middling or upper orders-"

She interrupts him. "At our Employment Register, I'm constantly meeting the pathetic dependents of gentlemen whose fortunes have dwindled in the stocks, or who've otherwise failed to make provision."

"Girls like Nan and Nell?" asks Helen. She can see her husband's shoulders rise, and she almost giggles.

"Of course your daughters are charmingly accomplished," Fido says hastily. Then, after a moment, she goes on: "But to what profession could they turn their untrained hands if by any chance that dark day came? I suggest that it's no natural incapacity, but only custom and law that would prevent them from working in shops or offices, administering inst.i.tutions or estates..."

Harry lets out a huff of breath. "I don't think I'll have much trouble finding my girls husbands."

My girls, says he, Helen thinks, fuming, Helen thinks, fuming, as if they sprang from his thigh! as if they sprang from his thigh!

"Forty-three per cent of Englishwomen over the age of twenty are single," Fido announces.

The statistic makes him stare.

"I declare, Fido, you're a regular Blue Book," murmurs Helen.

"Ah," says Harry, holding up one ma.s.sive finger, "but if you and your fellow Utopians were to train up well born girls, to render them independent of my s.e.x-if you succeeded in turning single life into a pleasant highway, and marriage just one th.o.r.n.y path opening off it-then why would they marry at all?"

A pause. Fido chews her lip. "Matrimony is the special and honourable calling of most women, Admiral, but from lack of personal experience, I can hardly discourse on its allure."

Harry holds her gaze for a moment, then lets out a laugh.

Helen's been forgetting how much these two liked each other, in the old days. He's always respected her mind more than mine, He's always respected her mind more than mine, she thinks, a little rueful. she thinks, a little rueful.

"It's been a pleasure, Miss Faithfull. After all this time. Now I'm afraid I have letters to write," he says, rising.

As soon as the two women are alone, the silence clots like blood. Helen makes herself set down her cup and begin her speech. "The other day at your house, my dearest, in a moment of frailty for which I've been excoriating myself-"

"It was a long moment. moment."

Helen's cheeks are flaming; she's lost control of this scene already.

"Your conscience is your own affair, I suppose." Fido speaks with a rigid throat. "But I'd have expected more of your manners."

Manners? Is this what it comes down to-an offence against English etiquette? Then she looks hard at Fido-the averted eyes, the compressed lips-and understands. The offence is against friends.h.i.+p. Is this what it comes down to-an offence against English etiquette? Then she looks hard at Fido-the averted eyes, the compressed lips-and understands. The offence is against friends.h.i.+p. She's hurt that I didn't tell her everything before, She's hurt that I didn't tell her everything before, she realizes; she realizes; she can't bear the fact that it was she can't bear the fact that it was her her sofa. sofa. On impulse, she falls to her knees. On impulse, she falls to her knees.

"Whatever are you doing?" Fido barks.

For a second, Helen doubts her strategy-and then decides that too much is better than too little. "Begging your pardon most humbly and sorrowfully," she answers, very low. Like some scolded dog, she lays her head on Fido's navy-blue skirt. "You do right to cast coals," she whispers. "But let me just say that the thing was not ... premeditated."

A pause. "Really?"

Aha, thinks Helen: she wants nothing more than to forgive me. She's been longing to let herself take me back! she wants nothing more than to forgive me. She's been longing to let herself take me back! She sits on her heels, wipes one dry eye. She sits on her heels, wipes one dry eye.

"Get up, Little One. Come sit by me. I blame myself, in some ways," says Fido into her handkerchief.

Helen stares: whatever can she mean?

"After all, it was I who urged you to make the decisive break," says Fido in a low whisper. "Perhaps I was naive; perhaps my ignorance of the other s.e.x blinded me to the dangers. When a battle-hardened veteran sees all he longs for about to be s.n.a.t.c.hed away-"

She thinks it was all Anderson. She's as gullible as a child, on certain subjects, Helen marvels. She starts nodding. "He was very fierce..." Helen marvels. She starts nodding. "He was very fierce..."

Fido seizes her by the wrist. "And I was stupid enough to leave you alone with him, in my own drawing-room. My darling-did he hurt you?"

"No, no." Helen's gone too far. What, does Fido know so little of men that she thinks them all savages? Helen looks into her satin lap. How much can she risk admitting? "Perhaps it's not the male heart that's your blind spot, Fido, but the female." A pause. "When I said I meant to put a stop to this pa.s.sion: it was not just his his pa.s.sion I meant." pa.s.sion I meant."

A terrible silence. Her friend's plump cheeks cave in. Has Helen blundered? "I've always needed you to protect me from my weaker self," she pleads, "but never more than now."

"Oh my poor girl." Fido wraps her in a hard embrace.

Helen's head is crushed against her friend's ribs; she smells ink. She feels weirdly at peace.

"If you've surrendered your heart to this man ... then I won't bother with stern plat.i.tudes, after the fact. But you must see that you've lost your way," says Fido, pulling back and fixing Helen with her doggish brown eyes. "It's not a question of conventional morality, so much as truth. Authenticity. Self-respect, as I've said before."

Helen isn't listening; she's preparing her next line. "Sometimes I fear my feelings for him will master me," she says in a tiny voice. "That he'll drag me from my husband, my children, even..."

"Don't say it! Don't even speak those terrible words. My love is as strong as his," says Fido, "and I mean to save you."

The woman looks magnificent, Helen observes curiously; those plain features are transfigured. "Oh Fido, you're all that stands between me and the pit!" The two are silent, for a few moments, and their hands knot together like the roots of trees.

Fido clears her throat. "On a horridly practical note ... what if there were to be an accident?"

Thinking of crashed cabs or falls from balconies, Helen is bewildered, but then she understands her friend's awkward tone. She almost giggles. "Ah, no, set your mind at rest," she murmurs. How revolted Fido would be to learn of my sponges and douches! How revolted Fido would be to learn of my sponges and douches!