The Halifax Connection (57 page)

But by the time he reached home, his anger, never very strong, was mostly spent. It was the housemaid’s duty to deal with callers, to receive the welcome and send away the inopportune. Even the Danners had to confide in her to that extent. A poor chambermaid who wished to be left alone could hardly do otherwise. Besides, she had told him Aggie Breault was her friend.

Her only friend, now.

He lay awake for a long time, staring at the darkness. He wondered what options he might have left, and discovered none. He could appeal to Mrs. Danner, but anything he said would only be his word. She did not know him personally; she had no reason to
be confident that his heart was generous or his intentions pure. What kind of creature would she be if she overruled the wishes of a defenceless servant girl and allowed a rejected suitor to pursue her in her own home?

No, he told himself, Sylvie was gone. He should just accept it. They were terribly ill matched, after all. And perhaps she had never loved him very much. Perhaps the ferocity of her rejection was not grief, as he had imagined, but self-contempt, anger at herself for being seduced, for being deluded by the charms of a lying aristocrat, when she, if anyone, should have known better.
Let it go, Erryn Shaw. It was a mistake from the beginning.

And if it was such a bad mistake, then why were we always so happy?

Maybe the housemaid had lied.

He did not think so, not really, but it was a possibility. Aggie Breault was a Northerner, a staunch Unionist, one of several Matt suspected of passing information, at least occasionally, to consular officials or to agents such as Jabin Romney. If this were the case, then a link between Sylvie and a known Confederate like Erryn Shaw would seem to her not merely objectionable, but dangerous.

So maybe she lied. Maybe Sylvie
had
changed her mind, at least a little bit; maybe she was willing to see him. Maybe, come Friday, she would let him walk with her again. Maybe they could find a bit of ground to stand on till the war was over. Till he could tell her the truth.

It was a lean hope, small and skinny as a wing bone from a sparrow, but it was all he had.

Friday did not come for a very long time. The hours went on for days, and the days for decades. When Friday finally dawned, he was, for a while, absurdly happy. Sylvie usually left the Den around two. Just before one he arrived at Boone’s Tavern, about half a block down Barrington, where he got himself a small glass of beer
and a table by the window. Now and then a male guest strolled away from the boarding house; now and then a delivery wagon pulled up at the service entrance. Two o’clock came and passed, then three. He told himself there must be some reasonable explanation, and waited. It quietly turned four, but Sylvie did not appear.

At five he went into the street. He could no longer delude himself: she was not coming out. Perhaps she had guessed what he meant to do and traded her half day for another. Or else she had simply stayed inside, spending the afternoon curled up with a book.

He stared at the Den’s graceless facade, at the tiny lower windows that allowed scraps of light into the basement kitchen where the servants passed their free time. Sunlight burned warm on his sleeves and spilled like water through the streets. White gulls wheeled above the harbour, shimmering. On the Common, he knew, the first early flowers played. It was an exceptional spring day, the sort they rarely saw even in April. Nothing on earth would keep Sylvie Bowen shut inside on a day like this … nothing, perhaps, except himself.

Dear God, he thought, if she was so weary of him, so bitter, then in truth it was over. Then he had no hope at all.

Maybe it’s something else entirely. Maybe it’s just a case of the grippe.

He considered this quietly, because he knew he should, but the thought had no more power to persuade. If it was not over between them already, it would be soon. Not merely the evidence convinced him, but also something inside himself, a darkness, a sense of closing finality. This was not a separation he was going to repair.

You can still tell her the truth.

And he might have done it right then. He might have marched into the Den and made whatever outrageous demands he had to make to see her … only what if it was already too late? What if she handed his little piece of paper back to him, her eyes bitter and empty, and asked him: “Why now, Erryn Shaw? Why are you showing me this
now
?”

He took a carriage home. He would have preferred to walk, but he had no wish to meet or speak with anyone he knew. He offered a mumbled greeting to Gideon Winslow and fled to his room. He barely stirred from it the next day, pleading illness. By Sunday noontime he was hungry—no less unhappy, but very hungry—and wonderful smells of roasting chicken were drifting through the house. Gideon had probably cooked the bird to tempt him—he was a sly old cove, that one—but Erryn knew it was only decent of him to come out and eat it.

They were lingering over tea when the old man asked very casually, “Is there anything I can do for you, lad?”

“Do? No, not at all. Why?”

“Erryn, I may not be the smartest man God ever made, nor the most worldly, but even I can recognize a broken heart when it’s sitting at my dinner table. You’re grieving hard over something, lad. If there’s aught I can do for you, I will.”

“Thanks, Gideon, but no. I am troubled, I won’t deny it. But it’s all my own fault, and there’s nothing anyone can do.”

They might have said more on the matter, but they could hear steps coming up the walk and then a rapping at the door. It would be some flaming Grey Tory, no doubt, and right now he wished every last one of them packed off to Greenland and left on the ice.

If it’s for me, I don’t want to see them.
The words formed in his mind, but he said nothing. When the bastards wanted him, he would come out. And God help them when he did.

Gideon came back with Jack Murray at his side.

“Erryn, how are you? MacNab says you’ve been back for days. Have you been sick?”

“Under the weather a bit. Nothing serious. Good to see you.”

They shook hands, and Gideon said cheerfully, “Sit down, lad, sit down. Have some chicken.”

Jack said he had eaten, but he accepted a glass of wine. He exchanged a few pleasantries with his host and then turned to Erryn.

“I’ve got Ames and the coach outside, Erryn. We’re off to the yacht club—thought maybe you’d like to come along. Collier’s got himself a fancy new skiff he wants to try, and there’s a party at his uncle’s place after. Most of the lads’ll be there.”

“I’d like that,” Erryn said. “Thanks.” Perhaps it would help, he thought, a bit of sailing, wind and water and not too much on his mind for a while.

But they had hardly settled into the Murray family’s classy carriage when Jack said quietly, “Have you been over to the Den since you got back?”

Erryn shot him a quick, hard glance, but Jack’s face was serious and thoughtful. He was not, it seemed, making any sort of sport.

“No, why?”

“Well, I thought … when we talked before, I thought you seemed rather fond of the lass there … Miss Bowen … and seeing you haven’t been out at all since you got back, I wondered if you’d heard.”

“Heard what?” It was appalling how many dark things could flash through a man’s mind in the fragment of time between a question and its answering. She had sailed for parts unknown. She was marrying another. She was dead.

Please God, no …

“She’s been sick,” Jack said. “I mean, really sick—close to dying, I guess. Will Danner says her lungs are wrecked from the mills. I don’t think he’d have mentioned it, except now his brother might be needing a new chambermaid. It’s the worst time of the year, of course, with all the country folk going back to their farms, so he’s been asking all of us, don’t we know anybody, can’t we help? That’s how I found out.”

There were a thousand sounds coming through the open windows, dogs and children playing, carriage wheels and hooves, a quickening wind. It was, nonetheless, as silent as a grave.

“You didn’t know, did you?” Jack murmured.

“No.”

“I’m sorry, mate. I thought … I thought you’d prefer to hear it from me rather than over a punch bowl.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes. Drop me at South Park Road. I won’t … I can’t come with you to the club. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t think you would. South Park it is, then. And by the way, if there’s anything we can do for you, just ask. Christ knows my father and I are scrapping all the time now, over the war, but if I told him there was a poor lass without family needing help, he’d be the first man out the door.”

“Yes, I know. And you’d be right behind him. Thank you.”

He saw nothing of what he passed, walking to the house on South Park Road. He knew what he would do, and beyond that he thought of nothing except Sylvie and what Jack had said of her.
She’s been sick … close to dying, I guess … her lungs are wrecked from the mills …

Back in England, through all their years of friendship, he had never feared for Cuyler. He knew the world was filled with peril, but he had been too young, too sheltered, too damn fool cocky to fear for Cuyler. They were best mates, smart, talented, ambitious; the whole world was their oyster. He would stage the plays and Cuyler would play the leading roles. They would take London by storm.

Instead, a rain-soaked grave and a brigantine to Canada.

And now here, with all of that behind him, he had not feared for Sylvie either. Even when his own instincts warned him of a terrible finality, a separation he would not repair, he had not feared for her—oh, no, he had been far too busy fearing for himself, his sad exile’s life, his poor broken heart, poor, poor Erryn. And all the while, dear God, she had been lying on a fever bed, coughing her life out, alone.

T
HE FIRST THING
Sylvie noticed when she wakened properly was bright daylight; the second was the soft, cuddly warmth of her bed. It took a moment to realize where she was—not in the attic, but in the sickroom on the first floor, just next to the family quarters. It was a small room, but wonderfully pleasant. It had gay wallpaper flecked with orchids, and a hearth and a window—not the tiny, dormered mouse hole they had in the attic, but a real window, with real sunshine spilling in, catching flecks of dust in a beam beside her bed, and lying in a small bright, puddle on the floor.

I’m still alive
, she thought in wonder, and promptly fell asleep again.

A whole week went by in the bright little room. The fever diminished, but the cough remained, deep and harsh. Her strength crept back by inches, by halves of inches; and sometimes, when the
coughing grew worse, it crept away again. Aggie brought her food and looked after her needs, and offered sometimes to read to her. No matter what Aggie read, it always made her sad.