The Sealed Letter Read online

  Helen nods, eyes down.

  "Since it was addressed to you, my first notion was to send it straight on here. But then I thought, who could know that you'd been at Taviton Street in the afternoon? Only—Anderson," she says, her voice dropping to a whisper as she names him. "So I could hardly take the risk of forwarding some urgent message from him, when it might be your husband who'd open it! I felt the best thing to do was to open it myself."

  "Of course," murmurs Helen.

  "I assumed at first that you and the telegram had crossed paths," says Fido, her voice hardening, "that Harry had sent it just before you'd got home for dinner, and its delivery had been delayed somehow. But in my experience the London telegraph office is entirely reliable." Not like the Maltese post, she thinks irrelevantly. "So I could only deduce that you hadn't gone home at all. Now your daughter was ill, but I had no way of telling you, having no idea where you were—though a pretty good idea with whom."

  "Oh, carina," Helen groans, "it seems hardly necessary to heap coals on my head. There's no punishment worse than the terror of losing a child." Fido frowns at her. "But didn't the doctor say—"

  "Doctors!" Helen says the word with scorn. "Can you imagine how long a night lasts, when a mother spends it by the bedside of her unconscious daughter, hanging on every strained breath? All the time cursing myself, and knowing that if she didn't live till morning, it would be my doing?"

  "Oh, come now—"

  "Yes, I went for a little drive with him, with the man whose heart I'm in the process of breaking," sobs Helen. "I was weak in the way of women. I took pity on him, and on myself. And for the sake of that single hour's drive on a warm evening, a vengeful providence has smited my child."

  Fido lets out an exasperated breath. Smited, indeed! "Compose yourself," she says. "The fever will break soon, hasn't the doctor assured you of that? Nell should be perfectly well in a few days."

  Helen, face buried in her handkerchief, shakes her head.

  "I'm not accusing you of imperilling your daughter's life. I just don't like being put in such an uncomfortable position. Being misled. Told what's not true," Fido says bluntly.

  No answer.

  "You say you rely on me, Helen, you say I'm the only one you can trust—but then you go to these ridiculous lengths to obfuscate!" She drops her voice to a whisper. "Do you take me for a fool, I wonder? You tell me you're going home to dinner, but instead you sneak off to meet your—" She leaves the word unsaid. "You keep insisting you'll break off with him, but your actions suggest otherwise—that you're planning to keep it up to the sordid end."

  "Planning?" repeats Helen, staring at her with wet eyes. A small, bitter laugh. "My dear, I'm not managing to plan anything: I'm running and leaping and tripping like some hunted rabbit!"

  Fido sighs.

  "How I wish you could inoculate me with even a fraction of your force, your coolness, your imperviousness..."

  That pricks. I sound like some statue.

  "If ever I give you ... misleading impressions, it's because I don't know what I'm doing from one minute to the next, or I'm ashamed to admit even to myself how far I've slipped. When I love, I can't hold back. I can't help myself," says Helen in a choking voice. "You know that about me, don't you? You've always known."

  Fido looks away, at the china-crammed shelves, the patterned walls of the drawing-room that seem to be closing in. She couldn't bear to live this life. Helen's had no job or cause to absorb her, to bear her up; passion has been her sole preoccupation, and look what damage it's done. If Fido can't find it in her heart to make allowances for Helen's frailties, and forgive the untruths Helen convinces herself it's necessary to tell—then how can she call herself by the holy name offriend?

  "Pity me!"

  "I do," says Fido, finally meeting Helen's eyes, "I do. I don't condemn you for this affair. But I believe it's poisoning you by degrees." She gets to her feet, takes a long breath. "I won't aid and abet it any longer; I don't even want to hear about it."

  "Oh, but—"

  "Sh," she says, finger to her lips, looking at Helen with eyes that brim with scalding love.

  ***

  The Reform Firm's been summoned to Langham Place by a mysterious message from Bessie Parkes, "to discuss matters of grave importance to the future of the Journal."

  Rereading the note, Fido thinks, how strange: a month ago, she'd have been hard pressed to name anything of more importance to her than the future of the English Woman's Journal. Now she finds all her thoughts are of Helen Codrington. At moments, she catches herself wishing she hadn't run into her on Farringdon Street; that she'd been anywhere else in London on the last day of August, walking along, sufficient unto herself.

  "This is a sorry mess," comments Emily Davies, taking her seat at the committee table.

  Their secretary's all aquiver. "It has emerged—it seems that the Journal's finances are in much worse shape than they seemed."

  "Tell them what the subscribers said," says Bessie Parkes with a tragic empress's nod.

  "I spoke in confidence to a dozen or so who've supported us for the past six years but don't mean to renew," says Sarah Lewin in her whispery voice. "In several cases, I was informed that the Journal, in their view, has never quite been able to shake off certain unsavoury associations."

  "God knows we've tried," says Jessie Boucherett.

  "Indeed," says Isa Craig sorrowfully. "Forcing poor Max to resign the editorship..."

  Fido grimaces. She still feels obscurely guilty about the role she played in the purge of Matilda "Max" Hays, their fieriest campaigner, who was publishing demands for women's emancipation when the rest of them were still in short skirts.

  "We didn't force her," Bessie Parkes protests.

  "Obliged her, then," says Fido. "Induced."

  "We had no choice: shadows clung about Max's name," says Bessie Parkes, looking into the distance. "Her reputation for Bloomerism, wild outbursts, that household of women in Rome..."

  "But you were friends with her and Miss Cushman, you stayed there yourself," Jessie Boucherett points out.

  "Yes, and Max will always be very dear to me," says Bessie Parkes in a shaking voice, "but reputation is such an insidiously lingering phenomenon. Desperate measures were called for."

  Such a curious mixture of the soft and the diamond-hard about Bessie Parkes, Fido thinks. She finds herself gripping the bevelled edge of the table with her fingertips. A headache's started up behind her right eye. "I never saw her in bloomers," she bursts out, "only shirts and jackets of a tailored cut."

  "Any eccentricity, even in dress, gives succour to our enemies," says Bessie Parkes.

  "Besides," cries Fido, "it's so unfair that the Journal still has a reputation for laxity, when its content is of the tamest kind."

  "You've put your finger on it," says Emily Davies, very crisp. "I believe this issue of reputation is a red herring; our readers have simply had enough of carrying a lame dog."

  Isa Craig is looking distressed. "Now Miss Davies, you mustn't take things personally. Our readership was in decline from its peak of one thousand long before you took over the editorship."

  "Oh I'm quite aware of that, and I believe I do a competent job with the resources available to me," says Emily Davies. "But the fact is that the English Woman's Journal has never been known for intellectual or literary excellence."

  The women of the Reform Firm aren't meeting each other's eyes.

  "Our friends buy it out of duty, and for the most part, I suspect, shelve it unread."

  "Not so!"

  "Surely—"

  "Yes, yes, yes," says Fido, nodding at Emily Davies. "The problem is timidity. If we're too nervous to include any topic which could be considered remotely controversial, we're left with pedestrian exhortations to our readers to use their talents while making sure to fulfill their womanly duties!"

  "May I ask," breathes Sarah Lewin, "what sort of topic—"

  Jessie Boucherett interrupts her. "I rather
agree with Fido. For instance, why have we never pointed out the many injustices to women that linger in the Matrimonial Causes Act?"

  Bessie Parkes purses her lips. "Divorce is a dangerous subject. We could seem to be associating ourselves with women of doubtful reputation."

  "But what about a blameless wife," asks Isa Craig, "whose husband takes half a dozen mistresses? As the law stands, she can only free herself of him if she proves him guilty of a compounding offence, such as desertion, cruelty—"

  "Rape," contributes Fido, "incest—"

  "Bestiality or buggery," finishes Emily Davies.

  Bessie Parkes's lovely face is pale. "Words which will never be printed in the English Woman's Journal as long as I have any say in the matter."

  "Oh come," Fido objects, "we're veteran journalists, we can raise these questions without verbal impropriety; there's always a way to say something without naming it."

  "The divorce law is flawed and unequal, but I for one would not support liberalizing it further," Emily Davies puts in. "In my experience, divorce leaves women not merely ruined but penniless, and bereft of their children."

  "Well, that's true. Without some legal barrier," jokes Jessie Boucherett, "I believe most men would roam like apes from female to female!"

  "Divorce is only one example of the kind of subject we've been skirting for six years," says Fido. "Which reminds me of the chief who parted from his second wife at the recommendation of a missionary. When asked how he'd provided for the cast-off, he replied—" she waits till she has everyone's full attention "—'Me eat her.'"

  Laughter eases the atmosphere in the room.

  "What about married women's property, instead?" suggests Jessie Boucherett. "I agree with Miss Davies, that as marriage is the lot of the majority of women, our priority should be to ameliorate its conditions."

  "Mm. On the property issue, it struck me the other night," says Fido, "that the possessions of the woman who commits murder, and those of the woman who commits matrimony, are both dealt with alike: by confiscation."

  "You're in form today, Fido," says Isa Craig, grinning. "Oh, what about an article on the suffrage?"

  "Come now, Miss Craig, you know Britain's not ready," Bessie Parkes scolds her gently. "I for one would rather dismantle that wall gradually, brick by brick, than smash our hearts—and my beloved Bar's money, may I add!—against it."

  Emily Davies is nodding. "We need to get access to higher education first, to prove we're intelligent enough to vote. Let's fight one fight at a time, so that the tainting associations of one don't rub off on the others."

  "But getting back to the Journal—" says Fido.

  "I know it's very dear to all of us here," says Bessie Parkes. "It's the beating heart at the centre of all our endeavours to uplift our sex, the moral engine that powers the whole Cause."

  Emily Davies plays a silent piano on the table. "But given the state of accounts, it seems unlikely to limp on till Christmas."

  "Defeatist thinking," says Bessie Parkes in awful tones, "and from the editor too!"

  "I don't think I'm known for giving up easily," says Emily Davies with a mildness that snaps like a whip. "But I have grave doubts about carrying on editing a small-scale publication that speaks only—and not eloquently—to the converted. In six years, what laws has it changed?"

  "You know," says Fido, "perhaps what's needed is an altogether different kind of magazine." She's surprised herself; these are only half-formed notions.

  Bessie Parkes looks at her hard. "A radical diatribe that won't be let into respectable houses even as kindling?"

  Fido takes a long breath, to keep her temper. "In fact, I was thinking of a well-funded periodical of general interest, written by the most talented male and female authors, which discusses the Cause among a broad range of other topics. One that looks outward, not inward. A magazine that readers actually want to read!"

  Emily Davies has her head on one side, like a curious squirrel.

  "My own view," snaps Bessie Parkes, "is that if a change must come, the Journal should become more practical, less theoretical. Cheaper, for instance, to appeal to the masses of working women."

  This raises a few eyebrows.

  "But at any rate, none of you need fear its demise by Christmas. What I should perhaps have announced before this interesting discussion ran away with itself is that the immediate pecuniary crisis has been averted by our guardian angel: Bar has sent a cheque for the rent from Algiers."

  Little cries of relief and gratitude go round the circle. Fido, teeth set, tries to look pleased.

  "As she's the major shareholder of the Journal, you understand that I'd prefer not to make any dramatic changes until I've had a chance to consult her."

  No one can do anything but agree with Bessie Parkes.

  First among equals, thinks Fido bitterly, on her way down the stairs. We are divided. The machine rolls on but squeals, the little screws are starting to loosen and pop out.

  ***

  The blue wax seal is unfamiliar to Fido, when she cracks it at her desk at Taviton Street, but she's guessed from the Scottish postmark that the letter's from Colonel David Anderson. She's bristling already. Let him make his own assignations: she won't play gullible hostess and go-between any more. Two lines into the note, she starts to wheeze.

  Dear Miss F.,

  You can imagine, I believe, with what difficulty I write today to inform you that I am engaged to be married.

  She gasps for breath. Oh Helen. The scoundrel, the blackguard, the brute! Not content with destroying one woman's peace of mind, he takes a whim, a mere fortnight later, to marry another.

  Let me begin by assuring you that at your house on the sixteenth, where youwere kind enough to allow me to meet our friend for a private discussion, this was not yet the case. As your correspondents rightly informed you, a cousin of mine, who cares for me with a devotion that I cannot claim to deserve, has had reason to believe that I would make her an offer, but I did not in fact commit myself until I reached Scotland on the eighteenth, when I was lucky enough to be accepted by that young lady.

  I am aware that my recent behaviour towards our mutual friend has been in certain respects unbecoming to a gentleman as well as to an officer of Her Majesty's armed forces. All I can say to mitigate if not excuse my offence is that the situation has become intolerable and seems to offer no prospect of ease on either side. As I know you disapprove in the sternest terms of the connection, and rightly so, I hope it will be with some measure of relief admixed with concern for the lady that you will hear now that it is at an end.

  It's true: behind her outrage, Fido's aware of a surge of gladness. This will be a blade to hack through the coils in which Helen's tangled, as perhaps nothing else could. But how dare Anderson offer that as an excuse! For him not to give the woman who's compromised herself for him as much as a moment's warning of this cataclysm—

  Despite the short period of our acquaintance, Miss F., my respect for your intellectual as well as sympathetic capacities has grown to the point that in my current state of discomfort I can see no better—less cruel, rather—way to break the news to our friend than by asking you to do it as my proxy. At such times man is but a blunt instrument, and I feel sure that you will be better able than I to offer comfort and counsel to a lady of whose unhappiness I confess I took advantage, and whose future life can only be improved by the voluntary though sorrowful departure from it of

  D. A.

  (I will count it as the last of your many kindnesses to me if you'll destroy this letter and any other record of an episode that should never have been begun.)

  Fido folds it up with shaking fingers. The blue wax is breaking into fragments: cheap stuff.

  ***

  The next day, as soon as she can get away from the press (and a tiresome mix-up about the reprinting of a miscellany celebrating last year's marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra), Fido hails a cab to Eccleston Square. But instead of going in, she se
nds the driver to ask if Mrs. Codrington would be so good as to come down for a few minutes. It's occurred to her that this news should be broken where none of the family or servants could possibly overhear a word of it.

  "Fido! What's all this hugger-mugger?" Helen, leaning in the cab window, is looking very stylish in flamingo silk.

  "Climb in, won't you? I've something very particular to say."

  She waits till her friend is sitting down beside her, and then she tells her. Helen's eyes shut and her head sags back against the greasy upholstery. Fido takes her by the shoulders and pushes her face down onto her skirt. Helen, doubled up, lets out a moan. Fido uncorks a small bottle of salts and holds it close to the sharp little nose; the pungency makes Helen rear up. "Oh you poor creature," cries Fido, "if I could have thought of any kinder means—"

  Helen blinks at her like some small, stunned animal.

  Fido hesitates. "But his letter does contain one truth, and in time I hope you'll come to see it: this awful blow is for the best."

  Helen pulls back so hard, she bangs her shoulder against the window frame. "How dare you!"

  Fido presses on. "Anderson's been a brute, yes, but perhaps ... a rational one. Whatever could you have hoped for, what future could there have been, in your connection with this man?"

  She speaks through closed teeth. "It's been keeping me alive."

  "But tainting your relation to your husband, your children, your own heart," says Fido pleadingly. "This way it's over with one sharp cut, and you're saved."

  "Saved?" Helen's eyes narrow.

  Fido starts to stammer. "It's my, I wouldn't speak this way if I didn't feel it to be my duty—"

  "Damn your duty," says Helen in a voice that comes out as deep as a man's. "Are you my vicar or my friend? I can't bear preaching, today of all days."

  "My dearest, I'm only fearful for your welfare. For your—"

  "My what? My soul, or my reputation?" asks Helen, sardonic.

  "All of you!"