She was standing at the desk, she realized, running her hand over the leather-edged blotter while Theodore watched her silently. She looked up at him and half smiled.
“It is strange revisiting a portion of one’s life one had thought long gone,” she said.
“It is cold in here,” Theodore said after regarding her for a few moments. “I will find the letter and you can go somewhere warm to read it.”
“Thank you,” she said. She supposed itwascold in here since there was no fire in the hearth and she could hear the wind rattling the windows, beyond which the sky was a leaden gray. But even if she had not been wearing a winter dress and the soft wool shawl Claudia had given her as an early Christmas gift, she did not believe she would really have felt it this morning. “But I want to read the letter here. May I, please, Theodore?”
This was where the letter must have been written, she realized—on this very desk. Just before…
Theodore did not argue. He stooped down on his haunches to light the fire, and then he stepped up to the safe and opened it. He turned with a folded, sealed sheet of paper in his hand. Susanna could see that it was somewhat yellowed about the edges.
“I will leave you for a while, then,” he said, “and then come back to answer any questions you may have—ifI can answer them, that is. I was away at school at the time, and I was not told much. But I have read my father’s letter, and I have spoken with my mother.”
“Thank you,” she said, but as he handed her the letter, she realized that in fact there were two. Her hand closed about them, and she shut her eyes until she heard the quiet click of the door as he left.
She seated herself carefully behind the desk and looked down at the papers in her hand.
Her own letter was on top. The wordsMiss Susanna Osbournewere written in the firm, sloping, elegant hand that she recognized instantly as her father’s. His hand had not even shaken at the end, she thought as she set the other letter down on the desk, but her own was shaking as she held it. She slid her thumb beneath the seal and broke it before opening out the sheet.
“My dearest Susanna,” she read, “you will feel that I have abandoned you, that I did not love you enough to live for you. When you are older, perhaps you will understand that this is not true. My life, if I were to live on, would suddenly change quite drastically, and therefore so would yours. Perhaps I would face that change if I were alone as I faced another when I was much younger. Who knows? But I cannot subject you to it. I have been accused of two dreadful crimes, one of which I committed, one of which I did not. But my innocence in the second case does not matter. It will not be believed in light of the first.
“I am ruined, as perhaps I deserve to be. Your mother has already paid the ultimate price. It is time I did too. And I do it—or so I tell myself, trying to give my life some touch of nobility at the end—so that you may live. You have family, Susanna—mine and your mother’s. And either one will be happy enough to take you in once I am gone. They would have taken you at your birth, but I was too selfish to give you up. You were all I had left. I have given instructions to Sir Charles, and you will be united with your family. They will be good to you—they are good people. They will love you. You will have a secure, happy girlhood with them and a bright future. I promise you this though life will probably seem very bleak to you now as you read. I will take my leave of you, then, my dearest child. Believe that I do love you and always have. Papa.”
Susanna rubbed the side of her thumb over that final word.Papa.Had she really called him that? But of course she had. It was only afterward that she had changed his name tomy father.
I do it so that you may live.
Must she bear that burden too?
Perhaps I would face that change if I were alone.
There was no mention of Viscountess Whitleaf or of choosing death rather than life without the woman he loved. But would a father admit such a thing to his twelve-year-old child anyway?
Hehadloved the viscountess. She had seen them together one afternoon just before his death. She had been hiding under a hedgerow close to the road that led from Fincham to the village, about to come out because it had become obvious to her that Edith must have tired of the game when she could not find Susanna and had gone home to wait for her to put in an appearance. But then along had come Susanna’s father, walking beside Lady Whitleaf’s horse until they both stopped a mere stone’s throw away. Susanna had stayed where she was, too embarrassed to be seen crawling out of a hedgerow. She had even been able to see them, though she had hoped they would not see her.
“Do you think Icare?” Lady Whitleaf had said, her voice filled with scorn as she tossed her head so that the pink feathered plume in her riding hat nodded against her ear. “I do not care the snap of my fingers for you and never have.”
It had struck Susanna that she was very beautiful.
“I am sorry,” her father had said, possessing himself of her hand and carrying it to his lips. “I truly am sorry.”
“You will be very sorry indeed for having set your sights so high,” she had said, snatching back her hand. “And for having molested me.”
“Molested?”He had taken a step back. “I am sorry if you see my actions that way.”
“I do.” She had looked down on him as if he were a worm beneath her feet. “That I should have deigned to take even a moment’s notice of a mere government secretary! I hope your heartisbroken. It deserves to be. I hope it drives you to your death.”
And she had driven her spurs into the horse’s side and gone cantering off down the lane.
While Susanna had sat paralyzed in her hiding place, biting her knee through the cotton fabric of her dress, she had watched her father pass a hand wearily over his face before turning and trudging off back in the direction of the house.
Her mind returned to the present and the letter in her hand. She could hear the fire crackling to life in the fireplace. She could even feel a thread of warmth from its direction.
She hadfamily—or had had eleven years ago, on both her mother’s and father’s side. They would have taken her in—but not her father. What had he done to offend them so?
I have been accused of two dreadful crimes, one of which I committed…
Her mother had paid the ultimate price, and now it was his turn.
