The Sealed Letter Part 16

The visitor's tiny eyebrows shoot up.

Fido sucks in her lips, gives Emily Davies a shake of the head. "Ladies, good day." And Emily Davies is gone, shutting the door quietly behind her, thinking G.o.d knows what about the kind of lunatics Fido Faithfull harbours among her intimates.

But through her fog of mortification, Fido has registered something. "Anderson's abducted the girls?" girls?"

A violent shake of the head. "Their father has. I came home, I was shopping," she sobs, "when I walked in the door the house was empty. He's sent all the servants away too."

"Where's he taken them? Not the servants: Nan and Nell," she clarifies. "If I knew, do you think I'd be here?" shrieks Helen. "I'd crawl to China on my knees for my babies."

"Sh," hisses Fido, casting a desperate glance at the door that separates them from her typos. "Sit down, won't you? A gla.s.s of water-"

"I'll never sit down again!"

Exasperation, like a wave engulfing Fido. This kind of behaviour is why no one wants to employ women, This kind of behaviour is why no one wants to employ women, she finds herself thinking nastily. "What was that about your desk?" she asks after a moment. she finds herself thinking nastily. "What was that about your desk?" she asks after a moment.

"It's broken open, it's in splinters. Everything's gone."

"Everything, what everything?" She waits. "Don't tell me there were letters."

"I-"

"Helen!"

"Nothing from Anderson, I burn them all as soon as I read them, or nearly," Helen a.s.sures her. "What then? Not a diary?"

The beautiful cheeks are sunken. "Just an appointment book."

Fido clenches her fists.

"And there might have been ... scribbles. A few drafts of letters."

"This is dreadful."

"Do you think I need you to tell me that?"

Fido tries to gather her thoughts. "So all the staff are gone?"

"Except for Mrs. Nichols. She claims to know nothing," says Helen, scrabbling in her bag, "but this wasn't sealed, so I'd lay money she's read it." She slaps down a piece of paper.

Fido picks it up warily. "Eau de toilette," "Eau de toilette," she reads aloud, she reads aloud, "gateleg table, chintz samples, nerve tonic..." "gateleg table, chintz samples, nerve tonic..."

Helen s.n.a.t.c.hes it back from her and digs in her bag again. "Here."

The note is unsigned; the admiral must know his wife will recognize his hand. Dated today, Tuesday the twenty-fifth. A single line: You will be hearing from a Mr. Bird, my solicitor, with respect to a pet.i.tion for divorce. You will be hearing from a Mr. Bird, my solicitor, with respect to a pet.i.tion for divorce. Fido covers her mouth. Fido covers her mouth.

At Tavtton Square, after some laudanum, Helen's a little calmer. She lies stretched out on Fido's bed, staring at the gaudy sunset that fills the window. "To think," she marvels, "all these years, ever since I made that rash request for a private separation, he's been plotting to punish me."

"You can't be sure of that," says Fido. "It could be a sudden impulse on Harry's part."

"He must have guessed the whole story, on Sunday when he b.u.mped into Anderson on Eccleston Square. Funny," says Helen, her voice cracking, "the price of a single carelessness. I only asked Anderson to come to me at home because you'd barred the door to yours."

Fido feels a stab. "I was acting in accordance with my conscience," she says in a small voice.

"Oh, I know," wails Helen. "I've no right to come here after all the tarradiddles I told you. Why didn't I trust you with the whole truth from the start? I've no right to ask you to have a woman's heart towards me-and yet I do."

Fido puts her finger against Helen's lips to hush her.

"Divorce would rob me of everything. Reputation, name, my daily bread..." Helen lists them bleakly.

The girls, thinks Fido, but doesn't dare say so. "I'm only glad you didn't run to Anderson," she says softly. "So often, I believe, a woman in this kind of thinks Fido, but doesn't dare say so. "I'm only glad you didn't run to Anderson," she says softly. "So often, I believe, a woman in this kind of debacle debacle sees no other way out. She throws herself on the man's mercy-and what once was romance slips into squalor, as he learns to rate her on the world's polluted terms." sees no other way out. She throws herself on the man's mercy-and what once was romance slips into squalor, as he learns to rate her on the world's polluted terms."

Helen's smile is a distorted one. "I saw him yesterday evening, at a hotel." Fido stiffens. "I don't want to hear anything said or done in any hotel." For the first time, it hits her that a divorce may mean a trial, in open court, with witnesses saying appalling things out loud.

"He gave me the impression that his feelings for me were quite ... unquenched," says Helen. "But then, it seems I'm the worst judge of men's hearts. This morning he sent a little note to say he was returning to Scotland and we wouldn't be meeting again."

"Oh, my darling girl!"

"Regrets, it said. it said. Regrets, D.A." Regrets, D.A."

Fido doesn't say anything for a moment, because if she tries she'll be in tears, and one of the two women must be strong. One of them must remember the way through this nightmarish maze. Finally she speaks, decisive. "You must put this scoundrel out of your mind, Helen. You've wasted quite enough of your time and spirit on him."

Helen shuts her eyes. Her hair, half out of its chignon, looks like blood spilled across the pillow.

"You were right to come to me." Fido's voice vibrates very low, like a cello. "You must have known you'd find safe haven here."

Eyes flicker open, almost turquoise in this strange evening light. "I couldn't be sure. After the way you flew into a rage in the cab-"

"That's all in the past. There must be no more evasions between us, no more falsehoods," she says, seizing one of Helen's hands.

Helen squeezes back. "I've nothing left to hide from you. My heart's split open as if on the vivisector's table!"

Fido winces at the image. She bends over Helen. "Lean on me, my own one. I'll stand by you."

"Through everything?"

"Everything!"

"I can stay?"

"For as long as you need." Forever, Forever, Fido's thinking, though she doesn't dare say it, not yet. Fido's thinking, though she doesn't dare say it, not yet.

"Oh Fido, how did I ever manage without you, all those lonely years!"

Her mind is leaping into the future. Why not? Women do live together, sometimes, if they have the means and are free from other obligations. It's eccentric, but not improper. She's known several examples in the Reform movement: Miss Power Cobbe and her "partner" Miss Lloyd, for instance. It can be done. It would be a change of life for Helen-but hasn't her life been utterly changed, without her consent, already? Can't the caterpillar shrug off its cramped case and emerge with tremulous wings?

As if reading Fido's mind, Helen clings to her hand like a drowning woman. "If you cast me off or betray me like these men have, I'll perish."

"I never will." There'll be some discomfort, some embarra.s.sment consequent on setting up house with a divorcee, but nothing Fido can't weather for her friend's sake.

"Swear."

"There's no need-"

"Swear it!"

"I swear, then." In the ragged silence, Fido plants a hot kiss on that smooth face.

Later that night, when darkness has drawn a merciful cloak over the lurid sky, Helen's fast asleep, on her front, as still as a baby. Beside her, Fido, propped up on four pillows, strains for breath and represses a nagging cough. Emotion always goes to her lungs.

How long does a divorce take? she wonders. The thing is rare in English fiction. In East Lynne, East Lynne, she recalls with effort, the husband seems to obtain one without much trouble-but by then, the deluded Lady Isabel has already eloped to France, which makes the case clearer. Abandoned by her seducer, unrecognizably scarred, Lady Isabel comes home and takes a position as governess to her own children. Doesn't one of them then die in her arms? she recalls with effort, the husband seems to obtain one without much trouble-but by then, the deluded Lady Isabel has already eloped to France, which makes the case clearer. Abandoned by her seducer, unrecognizably scarred, Lady Isabel comes home and takes a position as governess to her own children. Doesn't one of them then die in her arms? Wake up. This is real life, Wake up. This is real life, Fido reminds herself sternly. Fido reminds herself sternly.

If Helen were to admit the charges-casting the lion's share of blame on Anderson, for his ceaseless solicitations and threats that induced her to break her vows-then perhaps the thing needn't take very long at all. It could all be resolved before the winter, thinks Fido giddily. She pictures Helen and herself celebrating Christmas in the drawing-room below.

In the faint gaslight from the street that comes through the crack in the curtains, she watches the infinitesimal rise and fall of Helen's shoulder blades under the white muslin of the borrowed nightdress. Some lines from Lord Tennyson repeat themselves in her head.

Strange friend, past, present, and to be, Loved deeplier, darker understood.

It's too late for qualms. In one turn of the planet, everything has changed. While Helen was out shopping today, she was, all unknowing, robbed of everything. The whole establishment of her life has fluttered to the ground like a pack of cards. At a moment like this, Fido can only follow her nature, which is to hold, to save, to love.

The grandfather clock on the landing chimes two. If she'd known what a storm was brewingjust over the horizon, Fido wonders, would she have turned away, that parched afternoon on Farringdon Street, on the last day of August?

Fido?

You're mistaken.

But you're my long-lost friend, my faithful Fido!

Not I.

The very thought of it makes her despise herself, for lack of nerve, parsimony of heart. No, she can't wish that day-not the whole last chaotic month-undone. In the past, Fido's never come quite first for Helen; she's always known that. But now Helen's been shaken awake; she's learned that men's flattery isn't enough to live on. She's come to treasure the one true friend she possesses, the one soul that speaks to her soul. Helen's going to survive these horrors, somehow, and it's Fido who will pull her through. There could be long years of happiness ahead, waiting for them just around the corner.

On impulse she gets out of bed, very softly so as not to disturb the sleeper, and searches in the back of her bureau drawer. She doesn't need a light to find the roll of linen. There's the choker Helen gave her all those years ago, in memory of the beach in Kent where they met in the year 1854: sh.e.l.ls, amber drops, mother-of-pearl scattered along the velvet. Fido puts it round her throat now and fastens the clasp. It's tighter than it used to be, but not too tight to bear.

Wheezing a little, she stands beside the bed and pulls the blankets up to Helen's nape, to where the dark hair breaks over pale skin.

She wakes to find Helen standing at the window in the grey morning, fully dressed. "My dear-"

"The girls are terrified, I can feel it," says Helen, without turning. "We must find where he's hidden them."

Fido rubs dust from her eyes. "You're in no fit state, my dear. Why not wait till tomorrow, at least?"

"Tomorrow means one more day without my darlings," says Helen in a guttural voice.

She struggles up on the pillows, suppressing a sigh. She's known Helen to travel for weeks-months-without her children. But she supposes it's different when they've been s.n.a.t.c.hed away. After all, what does Fido know of a mother's feelings?

For the best part of the morning, they hunt Nan and Nell all over town. It's a peculiarly mortifying sort of business.

Helen begins by leaving a pleading note for Harry (drafted by Fido, on a writing tablet on her knee in the waiting cab) at his club. The Rag Club-properly, the Army and Navy Club-stands on Pall Mall, a modern, impregnable fortress, with a crossed sword and anchor over the great arch, and the motto, Unitate Fortior. Unitate Fortior. The doorkeeper's face is marble; he won't give the ladies any clue as to whether Admiral Codrington is in residence. The doorkeeper's face is marble; he won't give the ladies any clue as to whether Admiral Codrington is in residence.

Then they try the houses of several of the Codringtons' long-time acquaintances. They're met with soaring eyebrows, startled denials. How can any decent mother possibly mislay two daughters, eleven and twelve? There's nothing like a little mysteriousness to make word spread. Really, thinks Fido with a private groan, Helen may as well put a small advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Times Times to announce the eruption of her domestic hearth. to announce the eruption of her domestic hearth.

At the marble-fronted townhouse of the Bourchiers, Helen sends the driver in with her card bearing a scribbled message, and receives a curt reply that her Ladyship has nothing to communicate to her brother's wife.

Helen falls back into the corner of the growler. "He must have told her. He's probably told everyone by now," she snarls. "Do you think she has my girls locked up in there?"

"It's possible."

"You try, won't you, and this time don't ask for her, just find out from the footman whether the Misses Codrington are staying with their aunt."

"Helen, I-"

"Please! You have a winning face."

Fido burst out laughing. (It must be the strain.) "I've never heard it called that before."

"Strangers like it at once."

"Especially the lower orders, you mean?"

"They a.s.sume the worst of mine," says Helen instead of answering.

It's true, Fido thinks; Helen's brand of ostentatious loveliness puts people's backs up. She gets down and goes up to the door; it's starting to rain. By wearing her most benign, parish-visitor expression she manages to extract from the boy in livery the information that the admiral's daughters haven't visited in some weeks.

"Well, at least we know that much," she tells Helen, wiping wet hair out of her eyes.

"We know nothing," Helen corrects her with a groan. "They could be floating in the Thames, as we speak!"

Fido shuts her eyes for a moment, then opens them. "Don't let's give way to melodrama," she says lightly. "No doubt I'm very stupid, but ... what possible motive could Harry have for throwing the girls in the river?"

A silence, and Fido holds her breath: is Helen going to fly into hysterics again?

No: a small, grudging smile. "Their resemblance to their mother?"

"Ah, but they have the Codrington stature. No, it would surely be simpler for him to hire some thug to throw you you in the river." in the river."

Helen giggles. "Harry would hate to spend the money."

"When he could do the job himself, you mean? An excellent point."

"Of course, you may be driven to such lengths yourself, Fido, before he gets a chance."

"Very likely. If you annoy me, I dare say these arms have force enough to manhandle you over Westminster Bridge," says Fido, holding them out to examine them in their tight brown sleeves. "If we're to live together, no doubt you'll discover all sorts of brutish qualities in me."

But the moment of humour has gone by; Helen's staring out the window at the Bourchiers' house again. Fido pulls out her watch, and tuts. "I really ought to be at the press by now," she tells Helen. "I must arrange a meeting with Mr. Gunning, about the finances of my new magazine."