“Will you excuse me a moment while I go to the kitchen?” said Thomas. “And please, under no circumstances, devour each other in my absence.”
“It’s all right.” Micha jerked suddenly into motion. “I’ll do it. I actually know where the kitchen is.”
He sounded much as he ever did, harsh and careless, but Thomas could read him better now. Micha’s expression said nothing at all, but there was a sick, greyish tinge to his skin and something that looked like real fear lurking in his eyes.
Thomas wished he could go to him, though Micha rarely allowed himself to be soothed. The intimacy of the past few days had slipped as easily as blossom into a habit, a need, he was loath to abandon. It was a deep, peculiar pain to stand so close to his lover and be unable to touch his hand.
“Thank you.” Helpless and inadequate words.
Micha gave a brief nod and disappeared. The room seemed both emptier and lighter without him.
After a moment, Thomas moved a chair closer to the fire. Water was running freely from Mrs. Clark’s hair, soaking the fabric of her dress, pooling on the floor behind her, and leaving silverish trails upon her neck like a gleam of starlight. “I hope you will not think it presumptuous, but will you tell me what has befallen you to bring you so urgently to Nettlefield in the middle of the night?”
“Presumptuous,” repeated Mrs. Clark, with a rather hollow laugh. “It is I who presume. I must seem like a figure from a melodrama, emerging from the storm like this, but Mr. Mandeville, I am desperately in need of help, and I did not know to whom else I could turn.”
He could not imagine what that admission must have cost her. “Whatever is within my power is yours.”
Her eyes sought his and held them, tight as a hand clutching his. The desperation stood stark upon her face. “It’s not for myself I ask. It is for Hope.” Hope did not look very happy at that. She took in a deep, impulsive breath and would have spoken had not Mrs. Clark continued. “The truth is, I have lost my position, and I ... I do not believe it will be possible to get another like it.”
“You lost your position? At the London house? But why?”
“Because, Mr. Mandeville”—she still did not break from his eyes—“I lied to get it. I lied about my experience. I fabricated a reference. And I prevailed upon your father’s secretary in a manner I”—her gaze flicked momentarily to Hope—“I would prefer not to mention.”
Thomas knew that such things were done, but he was still a little shocked. Positions were correctly earned on merit, were they not? And all had equal need. It was the sort of calculated wrongdoing that hurt only innocent strangers and, as such, perhaps was more difficult to understand than crimes of passion, desperation, or ignorance. But, as a priest, it was not his place to judge. And, as a man, he was as stained by sin as any other. Perhaps more so.
“But why,” he asked again, “would you do that?”
“It was the only way of securing respectable employment. I had to support my family.”
“Could you not have sought assistance from—”
“My name is not Clark,” she interrupted. “There is, and was, no Mr. Clark.”
Thomas stared at her. He felt a little unreal, like a character in a book or a play. “Then, who are you?”
Again, a laugh that reminded him faintly of Micha. “My mother’s name was Abbett, though she did not use it either. She called me Bathsheba. And this does not answer your question, does it?”
It did not. It only created more. Her name, he realised, mattered very little. Who she was—whatever that meant—was the woman before him. A woman who had shown him kindness, who had laughed with him and given him aid when he had needed it. A woman he had, in return, regarded so little that he had not even known she had a daughter. He had been too blinded by Micha, too lost in his own doubts and fears. What did it matter that she’d had a child out of wedlock? What did it matter that she’d lied? She needed his help.
“Mrs. Clark,” he began. “I mean, Miss Abbett, why would you tell me this? What may I do for you?”
Her eyes did not flinch from his. They were like Micha’s eyes, ancient and weary, but there was love there too, some shreds of brightness, a touch of hope. “I did not give myself to an undeserving man, Mr. Mandeville, or fall victim to an uncontrollable passion.Before I was a housekeeper, I was a whore. As was my mother. My daughter will not have that life.”
“I do not wish to be a whore,” explained Hope. “I wish to be an explorer. Or a maharaja. I should like to ride an elephant.” She turned to Thomas and went on helpfully, “They are great, grey four-legged beasts, with a prodigious proboscis. That means ‘big nose.’ I have seen pictures.”
Thomas, once again, had no idea what to say to this.
“You must despise me, I know,” whispered Mrs. Clark wretchedly. “But, whatever my own misdeeds, Hope is innocent of them. Please. I will not lose her to a workhouse, and I will get money, and I will send it. You must help her, Mr. Mandeville, you must.”
“Well.” Thomas spoke slowly, hardly knowing what he was going to say before he said it. “I’m afraid we are rather low on elephants in this part of the world.”
Mrs. Clark dropped her head into her hands and made a strange sound half-laugh, half-sob. “Is this really a time for levity?”
And then Thomas knew exactly what he was to do and say. If he was wrong, the Lord could sort it out later. That was, after all, His job. And Thomas’s was to do what he believed was right in accordance not with the laws of man, but with the conscience he had been given. That little spark of divine love. He reached out and took her hand, his longer fingers and her slender ones interleaving easily, like two halves of a pattern. “How can you expect me to be anything other than ridiculous,” he said gently, “when you are yourself absurd? I have been a poor friend to you, and I could never despise you.”
Micha came into the room with a tray and froze. “There’s not much. Bread and cheese. I’m not cooking.”
At any other time, this little revelation would have diverted Thomas tremendously. Why—and when—had Micha ever learned to cook? During his travels? His hard times? It was such a strange skill for a gentleman to have acquired.And to think,Thomas wanted to say,you claimed to have no accomplishments.Instead, he simply slipped hisfingers free from Mrs. Clark’s and went to take the tray from Micha’s cold, white-knuckled hands. “Thank you.”
