“He pleased you? Like I do?”
His hands are clenched over his knees.
“No, of course not,” I say. “We were very young. I understood nothing of my own desires then. I didn’t muchenjoy the act itself. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t particularly pleasurable either. You needn’t be jealous. Of Frank, at least.”
I give a teasing smile, but his expression is stormy.
“I am only joking, Alfred.”
“I am sorry,” he says. “I am being—I know I am being ridiculous. To you, perhaps, it seems a long time ago.”
“You just aren’t understanding the story. But perhaps that is because I haven’t told you the end. We kept meeting in the woods until one day he didn’t come. And then I heard that he bought a freeholding, a parcel that had been for sale for years, and that I knew he coveted. I couldn’t figure out how he had gotten the money.”
“Your gifts,” Alfred says. “He sold them?”
“I have never confirmed it,” I say. “But I can think of no other way. The parcel was three hundred pounds.”
“You gave himthatmuch in trifles? Without even intending it?”
“I suspect much of what I gave him was not particularly valuable. But I gave him a gold locket with a diamond face that belonged to my father’s grandmother. It was a hideous old thing. She left it to me in her will. I pressed it on him. The locket must have been worth far more than I ever considered. Because I never saw Frank in the woods after that.”
Alfred exhales. “What a complete bastard.”
“That is not all,” I say, almost afraid of what reaction my revelation will yield from Alfred. “Two weeks later, he married.”
“Hemarried? Another woman?”
I nod. “Miss Cassandra Winch. I believe they were childhood sweethearts.”
“Annabelle, I am so sorry.”
I shrug, not wanting his condolences. It was so long ago and the pain, which for years was sharp, has dulled into almost nothing. Still, where pain subsides, mortification can linger.
“I thought I would die of humiliation. I realized that he hadn’t wanted to bed me, not really?—”
Alfred scoffs. “I doubt that. To do it so many times. He must have wanted it.”
“But notreally,” I correct. “Not for my own sake. The gifts were nothing to me, but I realized that was why he continued to come back. I gave him a handkerchief on one of our first walks, a little silk thing, for his brow, and told him to keep it. He must have realized then that I had no idea of the value of anything. And perhaps it was not even his idea. I suspect it was Cassandra who realized my worth to them. He showed her the handkerchief perhaps, and she realized my use.”
“Do you think that another woman would really consent to have her sweetheart bed another woman? For pretty presents?”
“If those presents could buy them a freeholding, then yes. And it’s not even their fault,” I say, unfolding to Alfred the reality that dawned on me as I aged. Long ago the incomprehensible became plain. “They were doomed to a life of poverty otherwise. With the freeholding, they have some kind of prosperity. Otherwise, they would be cottagers forever, with a dirt floor and no land to call their own.”
“That is no excuse for what they did to you.”
“It might be. And I was so foolish. I threw myself at him. I had no notion of the worth of my little gifts.”
“I can’t believe that the man can look you in the eye.”
“Frank isn’t a malicious fellow. He wrote me a letter.Two weeks after his marriage. He didn’t say anything about the gifts. But he apologized for not speaking to me before his marriage. And he explained that I was meant for a marriage in a different sphere of life—and that my father would have never consented to our union. That the connection was doomed from the start. He said he was fond of me and that he didn’t want me heartsick on his account.”
“He felt guilty. As he should have.”
“After that, I resolved to never not know the price of things again. It started my interest in business in fact. And it turned out that I had a head for it, once I learnt to care about what something was worth.”
Now I know the value of everything. I know how much is spent on the estate down to the farthing. How different I was at sixteen—and I wonder if that girl, the one who hadn’t thought of the price of things but merely felt, still lives in me somewhere.
“Is that why you are so meticulous? With Mr. Perry? About Trescott and your ledgers?”
