The Sealed Letter Part 8

"Well, at any rate, you mustn't see him again; don't you feel that?" asks Fido fondly. "I imagine it's like giving up opium; they say 'cold turkey' is best."

Helen sits bolt upright. This isn't how the conversation is meant to go; her elaborations have led her astray. "On the contrary," she improvises, "if I were to cut Anderson off now-that would be the most dangerous thing I could do. Why, it could make him desperate enough to tell my husband."

"He wouldn't dare!"

"Can I risk it?"

Fido writhes. "You could deny everything, if it came to that."

Oho, thinks Helen with silent mirth, what price truth now? what price truth now?

"What proof could Anderson-"

"Letters," Helen interrupts, squirming, "gifts: a locket of my hair." Her friend covers her mouth. "Worse and worse."

"No, I must teach him how to give me up, step by step, little by little," insists Helen.

"But delay is so dangerous..."

"You mean we might be discovered?"

"Spiritually dangerous," snaps Fido. "Corroding your very self, day by day."

Helen resists the impulse to roll her eyes. "You must help me," she says. "Help us both."

"Both?" cries Fido, disgustedly.

"Anderson means me no harm."

"How can you say that? The blackguard's already treated you like a..." She doesn't say the word. "In my drawing-room!"

"Half the fault was mine," Helen reminds her. "You must be our friend now."

"Yours, only yours."

"His too, if you would be mine. Our confessor. Our saviour."

Fido's face twists like a sail in the wind. Helen, watching, can see the moment of surrender. "Anything I can do which is consistent with-"

"Bless you, bless you," Helen interrupts, pressing her mouth to Fido's fiery cheek.

September 15Destroy after openingLittle One, As promised I have forwarded yours of yesterday to the person in question, and enclose one in reply. You'll see I'm not using my own seal on the envelope, for discretion's sake.

I loathe these sneaking measures, but having weighed them in my heart I believe they can be justified for the sake of a greater good, i.e., preserving you-and your whole family-from disaster. For all / I've said in critique of marriage, the fact remains that when you accepted your husband fifteen years ago, you set sail in this particular vessel, and your whole future depends on averting a s.h.i.+pwreck.

It still seems to me that further encounters with the person in question will only lead him to maintain false hopes, but I give way: the breach is yours to accomplish, the safest way you can manage (and after all, what do I know of the opaque workings of the male heart?). His imminent departure from these sh.o.r.es will I trust ring down the curtain on this dangerous drama, and tho' I realize you will suffer, when he is gone, I can promise you all the consolation stored up in my heart.

I have not slept at all well since you entrusted your awful story to me, but sleep, my dearest, is the least I'd sacrifice to a friends.h.i.+p I thought extinct but which a merciful and mysterious providence has seen fit to return to us, like bread that was cast on the waters. I am at your back: remember that. Don't say you're "unworthy," my sweet girl; it brings tears to my eyes. Your heart is a wayward one, but there's no evil in it. Besides, when has "worthiness" ever been the criterion for friends.h.i.+p? The love of women is like the pull of magnets. Since the first day I met you on that beach in Kent, I've belonged to you, and always will.

If as you say it's absolutely imperative for you two to meet in a safe place, then I relent: I have told him to come to my house at half past five tomorrow (the sixteenth) and will expect you half an hour earlier. I need hardly say that I will remain in the room throughout, and I trust you not to allow him to take any further advantage of my hospitality.

Yours as ever- ***

In Fido's austere drawing-room at Taviton Street, Helen avoids the sofa's a.s.sociations and picks an old straight-legged chair near the fire.

Fido draws her own chair closer. "Prepare yourself, my darling. You must be very strong."

"Oh yes?" says Helen, irked by Fido's sepulchral tone, and wondering why there's no cake on the tea table.

"You believe you know this man, for whom you've risked ruin?"

Ruin, echoes Helen scornfully in her head; echoes Helen scornfully in her head; really, she's read too many potboilers. really, she's read too many potboilers.

"Well. I took it on myself to make enquiries among my Scottish relations, for any insight into Anderson's character, and this morning I received some alarming information."

Helen smiles. "What have the detectives discovered, that he once lost a hundred pounds at cards?"

Fido's eyes rebuke her. "He's been linked to one of his cousins."

Helen waits. "Linked?"

"With a view to marriage."

The word makes her mouth curl up. "Whose view? view? Every eligible bachelor home on leave has the old hens of his family plotting to marry him off." Every eligible bachelor home on leave has the old hens of his family plotting to marry him off."

Fido shakes her head. "My informants were quite specific. This cousin, if you can believe it, has been linked formerly with the colonel's brother."

She's enjoying this, thinks Helen with a vast irritation, but she laughs. "That coda seems to explode the story entirely. So this girl makes eyes at his brother one summer, and Anderson the next, and means equally little on both occasions." thinks Helen with a vast irritation, but she laughs. "That coda seems to explode the story entirely. So this girl makes eyes at his brother one summer, and Anderson the next, and means equally little on both occasions."

Fido sits back, sucking her lips. "Very well, if you don't tremble at having placed yourself in the shopsoiled hands of the kind of man who dallies with prospective brides-"

"I have no need to look as far as Scotland for imaginary bogeys," snaps Helen. "What makes me tremble tremble is his imminent return to Malta, abandoning me to several more decades of misery with a corpse of a husband." is his imminent return to Malta, abandoning me to several more decades of misery with a corpse of a husband."

Water erupts in Fido's cocoa-brown eyes. "I didn't mean-" She puts a hand on Helen's magenta overskirt.

A distant doorbell: thank G.o.d. thank G.o.d.

Colonel Anderson is announced. He's only a little awkward. Fido, very much on her dignity, gives him a cup of coffee.

Helen considers various possible tones and plumps for light satire. "Well, Colonel, you're very good to spare us an afternoon before you take an express train north again. The Scotch climate must have special charms."

The gold moustache wobbles; a half-smile. "Not sure I catch your drift, Mrs. C."

"Oh, was I misinformed? Haven't the dowagers of the Anderson line taken to matchmaking?"

He relaxes into a laugh. (It's this face she loves, Helen realizes: a lad's loose grin.) "What can I say? It would be cruel to stop up their mouths."

Something in her unwinds. "But spare a thought for the poor coz who may be getting her hopes up."

"She's a very sensible sort, I wouldn't worry," says Anderson, leaving his chair and sitting down beside Helen, so close that his knee touches hers, through the layers of silk and linen and steel-framed crinoline.

Fido has moved to the round table and is looking through the Times. Times. Her broad shoulders speak volumes. Her broad shoulders speak volumes.

"Look here, in all earnest," says Anderson under his breath, "I want to speak to you alone."

"You always want that," Helen murmurs silkily.

"Couldn't you persuade your faithful hound to allow us a momentary tete-a-tete?"

Helen raises her eyes to heaven. "I've had to swear to her that I'm cutting you off by degrees, like an opium habit."

Anderson tugs at his moustache. "How's Harry, these days?"

She makes a face. "An inert, brooding spider. He implies I'm a gadabout; complains I'm spending too much on modernizing the house."

"What a dashed bore." He slips his hand over hers. "But I suppose a husband must hold the reins."

Helen p.r.i.c.kles. "You speak like my late mother. Must he hold the reins even when he's knuckleheadedly wrong?"

"That's neither here nor there, I'm afraid. A lieutenant may be wiser than his major, but the chain of command still applies," says Anderson.

She pulls her fingertips out of his grasp. She glances at the round table, and meets their hostess's reproachful eyes. Fido has pulled out her watch and taps it solemnly. Helen puts on a tragedy face, looks into her lap.

"This is absurd, we can't do anything here," says Anderson in a very low growl.

"We can talk."

"Not at ease. I'll tell you what: why don't I head off, and wait around the corner on Gordon Street, then in ten minutes you have a cab called and pick me up?"

"Because-" She hesitates. And changes her mind as quick as a blink, because why does the woman always have to be the careful one? And given the risks Helen's already run, is running now, for this man's sake, why hold back?

Anderson doesn't wait for her yes. "Miss Faithfull-" He rises to his feet.

"Look crushed," she breathes.

His face falls obediently. "I'm going to take my leave now," he says in hollow tones.

"Very well, Colonel," says Fido, rising like some stern but not ungentle schoolmistress.

"You've been immensely kind. I can't..." Anderson breaks off there, to Helen's relief. (He doesn't share her talents for invention.) Fido rings for his coat, cane, and hat, and walks him to the stairs.

When she comes back into the room, Helen's arranged herself in a frail position on the sofa, face in one hand. Fido sits down beside her, very quietly, and asks "Is it-by any chance-over?"

"I tried," says Helen through her fingers. "I marshalled all my arguments. I gave him no hope. But the insane persistence of the man-"

"He must be eaten up with love for you," says Fido in a choked tone.

She nods. "I don't know why."

"Oh Helen..."

After a minute, she adds, "Little by little, he will realize I mean what I say. You must bear with me, Fido. Keep on being my rock."

The woman's solid arms wrap around her, and for a moment Helen feels dizzy, because both versions are true: in the back of her head she's laughing at the spinster's naivete, and yet she'd like nothing better than for Fido to sort out her life for her, somehow. Helen's acting and she's sincere, at the very same moment; she wants to summon a cab and rush around the corner to join her lover, and she wants to stay here all evening, rocked like a baby in these strong arms. "I'd better go," she says at last, rousing herself, pressing the back of her hands to her eyes. "Harry likes dinner at seven on the dot," she adds. "He claims, a quarter-hour later and he's afflicted by heartburn!"

When Anderson climbs into the cab on Gordon Street, the warm September breeze rushes against their faces. He reaches out with one hand to draw the pleated leather curtains that close off the front of the hansom.

Helen restrains his arm. "What are you doing? On such a beautiful evening too-we may as well hang a banner from the roof."

He chuckles, and leaves the leather half-closed. "Where to?"

"Anywhere but home," she finds herself saying.

His grin is that of a child surprised with a present.

"I can't bear to go into that mausoleum and shut the door. Take me somewhere entertaining, won't you?"

"Somewhere sensational, sensational, as your girls are always saying?" as your girls are always saying?"

But she doesn't want to think about Nan and Nell, already putting on their white pantaloons and short crinolines for dinner with their parents. She'll have to send a telegram to explain her absence.

Anderson flips open the little trapdoor in the roof. "Driver, to the moon!"

"What's that, sir?" the man behind them calls over the clatter of hooves.

"Seems the lady doesn't want to go to Belgravia, after all," Anderson tells him.

"What about the Cremorne Pleasure Gardens?" Helen asks in a low voice. "I've never been. Unless it's not the thing?"

"No, no, this early in the evening it should be perfectly all right," says Anderson. "Chelsea, driver: the Cremorne, if you please."

Belatedly, Helen wonders whether the Cremorne has other a.s.sociations for her lover. Has he gone before, with other ladies? She tells herself to stop fretting. If she's to risk Harry's temper by missing dinner, by G.o.d she means to enjoy the escapade.

There's a telegraph station in the Gardens, for receiving bookings. Helen sips a sherry while Anderson goes in with her message: Miss F has begged me to stay and dine with Rev & Mrs F. Miss F has begged me to stay and dine with Rev & Mrs F. She congratulates herself on its brilliance and brevity: now Harry will picture her discussing the state of the Church with Fido's stout, unsmiling parents, up from their Surrey parish in all their tedious glory. She congratulates herself on its brilliance and brevity: now Harry will picture her discussing the state of the Church with Fido's stout, unsmiling parents, up from their Surrey parish in all their tedious glory.

The day's generous light is cooling; the trees throw down long shadows. A steamboat emerges from Battersea Bridge and draws up at the landing station; Helen watches black coats, salmon skirts, turquoise wraps spill from its crammed decks. The Cremorne seems to attract all sorts: she notices some swells in evening capes, but also country families (the females in their red petticoats) and, of course, the clerk brigade. At the Chinese bandstand, the orchestra's playing Tales from the Vienna Woods, Tales from the Vienna Woods, rather too fast for Helen's taste. Her eyes pick out Swiss chalets, miniature temples, and a marionette theatre scattered among the trees; even something marked rather too fast for Helen's taste. Her eyes pick out Swiss chalets, miniature temples, and a marionette theatre scattered among the trees; even something marked American Bowling Saloon. American Bowling Saloon.

In a clearing, an aeronaut in form-fitting yellow leotards is checking her rigging while five men hold her basket to the ground; the gas flare roars like a monster, and high above, the vast silk balloon is swelling and rolling. Helen wonders what it must be like to trust yourself, night after night, to a sack of hot air. She thinks of the famous Madame Genvieve, swollen in pregnancy, toppling from her tightrope.

Anderson, appearing at her shoulder, makes her jump. "I've managed to secure the last booth at the Crystal Platform," he says with that hint of sheepish pride common to gentlemen who've just had to hand over an outrageous tip.

"How marvellous." She slides her hand into the crook of his arm.

The orchestra's struck up a scottische, but no one's dancing yet; in the faint pre-dusk the Crystal Platform has the shoddy air of some Christmas decoration lost behind a sofa. But the booths are crowded with revellers. While Helen and Anderson are beginning supper at their tiny table, reminiscing about a masked party they once attended in Valetta, the "thousand lamps" come on all at once, to a general oooh, oooh, and Helen puts her chicken wing down so she can clap. Arches and festoons of gaslights; globes and cut-gla.s.s drops in garnet, topaz, emerald. However is it done? Spangled strings carry the radiance off in every direction through the trees, making the sky dark behind them. The Cremorne scintillates like some fairy fort sprung up on the banks of the Thames. For a moment Helen wishes her daughters were here to see this, then tells herself not to be a fool. (Perhaps she'll find them a slide of the scene, sometime.) and Helen puts her chicken wing down so she can clap. Arches and festoons of gaslights; globes and cut-gla.s.s drops in garnet, topaz, emerald. However is it done? Spangled strings carry the radiance off in every direction through the trees, making the sky dark behind them. The Cremorne scintillates like some fairy fort sprung up on the banks of the Thames. For a moment Helen wishes her daughters were here to see this, then tells herself not to be a fool. (Perhaps she'll find them a slide of the scene, sometime.) And now the firework display begins, and Helen can't eat a bite more, only sip her cold wine and grip Anderson's hand under the tablecloth. When there's a particularly loud crack or boom she digs her nails into his palm. The music is louder, now-a thumping polka, followed by a gallop-and the platform's come alive with couples. There are few families left in the Gardens, she notices; the crowd's changing, and young bucks roam the outskirts.