The mood was jubilant. The government had promised to quash the demonstration with all its might; the people had promised to quash the government’s quashing of their demonstration.
The people, it was generally agreed, had won. Decisively.
Free’s friends relinquished her to Oliver’s care with reluctance. The cabs were overrun; the streets crowded with foot traffic. There was no chance of taking a carriage.
Instead, they walked. For the first fifteen minutes, Free was cheerful, burbling about the crowd, the mood, how much fun she’d had and how she couldn’t wait to do it again. All her energy made him feel old and weary.
“Where are you taking me?” Free finally asked after they’d traipsed through a handful of dingy streets. “It looks like we’re going to Freddy’s.”
Oliver blinked and turned to his sister. “I thought you liked Aunt Freddy. You write to her every week. You’re her namesake.”
Free rolled her eyes. “For the last four years, Oliver, I have only been writing her angry letters, and she has been answering them with just as much vituperation. You never pay attention to anything. We are arguing.”
Had it been four years since he’d last spent any significant time at home? Oliver totted up the time…and then swallowed.
“You argue with everyone,” he finally said. “I didn’t pay that any mind.”
“She’s going to lecture me. Do you know what Freddy will say when you tell her what I was doing?” Free’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you’re bringing me to her? Because you want her to say—”
“Honestly, Free.” Oliver looked skyward. “I was bringing you to Freddy’s because I thought you would like to see her. I can take you back to Clermont House, if you’d prefer, but the last time you were there you complained that you didn’t know anyone and there was nothing to do. I hadn’t thought about Freddy’s lectures, and if I had, I wouldn’t have brought you. I don’t know what it is about Aunt Freddy, but the instant she tells me not to do something, I find myself most wishing to do it.”
Free’s lips twitched up reluctantly.
“And she never used to lecture you, in any event. Not like she did the rest of us.”
Free sighed. “That’s changed. I told you, we are arguing. We’ve spent the last Christmases pointedly talking about each other, loudly, to other people so that we can be overheard. How did you not notice?”
Aunt Freddy was so prickly that it was difficult to tell when she was actually upset and when she was just making noise about something or other to try to make some ridiculous point. She’d been making dire predictions of gloom as long as Oliver had known her. None of them had ever come true.
“What did you argue about?” Oliver said. “Or do I want to know?”
“She needs to go outside.”
Oliver took a deep breath. “Oh.”
If Freddy knew what they were doing now—walking on regular city streets—she would have complained of palpitations of the heart. If she’d known they were doing it with crowds about, she would have fainted.
When he was younger, he’d accepted as fact that his Aunt Freddy refused to leave the tiny flat that she inhabited. His mother said that she had once gone out—briefly—to the market, but even that had ended once she’d found someone to deliver the necessities of life. It had just been the way of things, an immutable characteristic inherent to Freddy.
“She didn’t like my manner of telling her to go outside,” Free said, “and she told me to apologize. So I told her that I was very sorry for my hasty words, and what I had meant to say was that she should be going outside every day.”
“Oh,” Oliver repeated, shaking his head. “You know, our aunt is the one person who is too stubborn to be bullied by you.”
Free shrugged. “She told me I was an impertinent little baggage, and so I told her that if she could lecture us on how we should be living our lives, I would lecture her on what she was doing. That if she could sniff and say, ‘it’s only for your own good,’ I could do the same.”
Oliver let out a sigh. “Free,” he said quietly, “I don’t really understand what is wrong with Aunt Freddy. But I really don’t think she can go outside. If she could, she would have done it years ago. Spending three decades cloistered in one tiny room is not something someone chooses to do in a fit of pique.”
Free looked even more rebellious. “Maybe she can and maybe she can’t, but she should. And even if you’re right, why can she not just tell me that? Instead, she refuses to talk about it—always by pointing out my flaws. It’s not fair that she can tell me how I need to use lemon juice to get rid of my freckles, and I can’t even tell her to get some fresh air.”
Oliver shook his head as they came to the building where his aunt lived. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s not fair. I suspect it’s even less fair that Freddy can’t go outside. Have a little compassion for your aunt, Free. Since we’re here, maybe this is a good time to apologize to her.”
“Why would I apologize? I’m not wrong.”
Oliver sighed again. “Then you can come up and say absolutely nothing. That will be fun for you both.”
Oliver passed a few pennies to a flower girl on the corner in exchange for a bouquet, and they marched up the stairs of the building. There was a bit of rubbish nestled in the corner of one landing—weeks-old rubbish, by the looks of it. Oliver made a note to talk to the owner once again. If his aunt was going to spend all her time here, it should be as nice as possible.
He knocked on the door and waited.
“Who’s there?” Freddy’s voice sounded a little more quavering than Oliver remembered.
“It’s Oliver.”
The door opened a crack, and he caught a glimpse of his aunt peering at him. “Are you alone?” she said. “Has the city erupted in flame? Are there riots?”
“No,” Oliver said. “The gathering was orderly.”
She opened the door wider. “Then come along in. It’s so good to see you, love.” She began to motion him inside. But as she did, her eyes landed on Free, standing a foot behind Oliver.
For a second, Freddy’s face transformed. Her eyebrows lifted; her eyes lit. She swallowed, and her hand twitched out to Free. But then she seemed to catch herself back, and that transmutation happened in reverse—happiness turned into obstinate denial.
Argued, indeed. They were two of the most stubborn women that he knew—possibly why they cared for each other so much, and certainly why they’d been “arguing” for four years when they clearly loved each other. Oliver shook his head. “Can we come in, Aunt Freddy?”
“Everyone respectful can come in,” Freddy said, her eyes darting to her niece.
“Well, then,” Free said. “That settles it. I suppose I’ll just wait here in the hall while you finish up with her.”
“You can’t—” Freddy’s mouth pinched, and in that moment Oliver realized that his aunt looked awful.
Her skin was sallow and sagging. There was a slight tremor to her hand. And there was something else about her, something that made her seem thin and fragile. She was only a few years older than his mother, and yet anyone seeing them together would have imagined Freddy to be the elder by decades.
Freddy took a deep breath. “Oliver, tell your sister that she can’t wait in the hall. Laborers live above me now, and heaven knows what they would do if they found her here. They’re likely all excited from whatever it was they’ve done today.” She said the word laborer in a low voice, as if it were somehow filthy, and then frowned. “You weren’t at that…thing, were you?” She glanced at Free as she spoke. “Even you would not be so foolhardy.”
Free tossed back her head. “If you hear me screaming, Oliver, I hope you can come to my aid. I know Freddy won’t, as I’ll be out in the hall, and that’s two feet too far for her to bestir herself.”
Freddy’s eyes flashed.
“Maybe,” Free tossed off, “I’ll go outside. There’s a park two streets away. I might sit on a bench. It’s not t
hat dark.”
“Free,” Oliver said, “can you manage to be civil for a few moments?”
Her nose twitched.
“You might as well have her come in,” Freddy muttered. “I can’t have her death on my hands. She’d make the most uncivil shade ever, and I refuse to have her haunting my hallway.”
Free actually smiled at that—as if the thought of being an extremely rude ghost pleased her—and she came in. Freddy closed the door behind them and locked it carefully. Then she did up a second lock. Oliver and Free took seats at her tiny table.
“Oliver,” she said. “It’s good to see you. Would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you.”
“I don’t want to hear ‘no’ for an answer. You’re a—” She paused. “You’re not a growing boy, are you? But other people here might still be growing, and there’s nothing like tea with milk for retaining one’s health.” She glanced over at Free. “Even if some people here don’t care for their own health. And clearly have not been wearing their bonnets, no matter how often they are told of the danger.”
“Oh, yes. In my future, a man will control all my possessions if I marry him, I shan’t be allowed to vote, and I won’t be given the opportunity to earn a living by any means except on my back—but by all means, the most dire threat I face is freckles. Maybe I should just spend all my time locked in a room. That way, I won’t freckle at all. It will be lovely for my health.”
Freddy’s lips tightened. “Tell your sister I take my exercise,” she snapped. “I do twenty circuits of my room every day. I’m fitter than she is.”
Free looked Freddy up and down. She probably hadn’t seen her since Christmas, and the changes were even more dramatic, Oliver supposed, spaced out over that many months. Free was no doubt cataloging the stoop in their aunt’s shoulders, the shallowness of her breath, the thin bones of her wrist.
Her eyes glistened, and she sniffed. “Tell my aunt that I’m so glad that she’s in such formidable health.” Free’s voice shook. “That I see that her choices are excellent.”
“Tell your sister that it’s none of her business if I die early.”
Free jumped to her feet. Her eyes glittered. “It’s none of my business if you die early? How hard is it for you to accept that we love you, that you’re killing yourself like this?”
Freddy folded her arms and looked away. “Remind your sister,” she repeated, “that I’m not speaking to her until she talks to me civilly. Until she apologizes for every harsh word she’s spoken.”
“What, like telling you that I hate seeing you like this? You want me to apologize for saying that you need to bestir yourself? You want me to apologize for caring about you? Never. I am never going to apologize. You are wrong, wrong, wrong, and I hate you for it!”
“Tell your sister,” Freddy said, even more cuttingly, “that if she cannot speak to me civilly—as I required when I opened the door—that she’s no longer welcome here.”
“Very well! Don’t stop me.” Free strode to the door. Her grand exit from the room was only partially foiled by the intricate locks—she fumbled with them—but she still slammed the door behind her once she’d worked them open.
Oliver stood.
“You’d better go after her,” Freddy said. Her eyes darted to the locks, now hanging uselessly. She didn’t say a word, but her breathing accelerated. “You don’t know—what’s out there.” She swallowed. “It’s dark. She really shouldn’t be alone.”
“She’ll be all right for a few moments.” Oliver went to the door and redid the locks. “She won’t go outside. She really does have more sense than that.”
All the ire went out of Freddy, but none of the unease. She slumped in a seat. That, in and of itself, tugged at Oliver. He sat down again, reached across the table, and took her hand. “Freddy,” he said, “if it’s making you so miserable, why do you keep fighting with her? I know she loves you. All you would have to say was that you miss her, that you love her, and you could end all of this.”
Freddy stared straight ahead. “I know,” she whispered.
“Why do you persist?”
“Because she’s right.”
Oliver jumped. In all his life, he’d never heard Freddy utter those words about anyone other than herself—or, on rare occasion, people who agreed with her.
“She’s right,” Freddy whispered. “She’s right. I’m trapped in here.” Her eyes glittered. “I’m too terrified to go out, and yet here I’m stuck. Without anyone at all, with nothing to do. I don’t even know who I am some days.”
“Oh, Freddy.”
“I opened the door yesterday,” Freddy said. “I put one toe out before I had such palpitations of the heart that I had to stop.”
Oliver put an arm around his aunt. “I’m so sorry. Why can’t you tell her that, though? She’d understand, if you’d just tell her that you’re trying.”
“What, and admit that she’s right?” Freddy snapped. “Not likely. I know exactly how I’m going to end this. One day, I’m going to open my door. I’m going to walk down the stairs, just like I’ve always been doing it. I’m going to open the front door…” Her voice paused; her hands were shaking. “And I’m going for a walk in the park.” She gave a nod. “And then I’m going to write to her and tell her that she’s wrong. That I can go outside, that I did, and that I’ll take no more of her impertinence.”
“Freddy.”
She sighed. “Very well. You tell her I’m trying,” Freddy said, and then before Oliver could promise that he would, a mulish look crossed her face. “No,” she said. “Don’t tell her. I want it to be a surprise. I want it all to be a surprise. I’ll show her. I’ll show her everything.”
He patted her hand. “I’m sure you will. Would it help if I came over to assist you?”
“You’re a sweet boy, Oliver. Don’t have much of your mother in you at all.”
Oliver stilled. “You think so?”
“Of course I think so,” Freddy replied. Her gaze abstracted. “Some people, when they’re hurt…they remember the challenge. They grab hold of the fire once, and when they’re burned, they make plans, trying to figure out how to hold live coals. That’s your mother. But some of us remember the pain.” She reached out and patted Oliver’s hand. “You’re like that. You remember the pain, and you flinch. When you were young, I thought you were like your mother—a regular coal-grabber. But no. Now I see more clearly.” She smiled sadly. “You’re like me.”
He let out his breath and looked at his aunt. She probably intended that as a compliment. But the flesh under her eyes had darkened. Her skin hung loosely on a too-thin frame. He’d never known what she feared, what had made her this way. His mother said that Freddy had never offered an explanation. Maybe, at this point, she didn’t even remember it.
“I can come over more often,” he repeated.
“No.” She shook her head. “Our monthly visits will do, dear. Other people just make me nervous. Even you.” Her chin went up. “But don’t worry about me. In another week…or so…I’ll be in that park. Just you wait.”
He looked at her. Her jaw was set in place, firm and yet quivering. Her eyes flashed with defiance.
“One day,” she said, “one day, I will walk out that door and march around that park. One day soon.”
“I love you, Freddy,” Oliver said, and then, because he knew it was true, he added, “Free loves you, too. You know she does.”
“I know.” Freddy paused, bit her lip. “And she’s out there all by herself.” Her hands shook. “You’d better go after her, Oliver.”
Chapter Eighteen
Some hundred miles to the north of London in Nottingham.
“She wasn’t here.”
The little grove Jane was in shielded her from view. At the sound of that too-familiar voice, she rested her head against the trunk of the tree. Better that than banging her head against the rough bark in frustration. Not that she cared about the damage to her forehead, but the noise m
ight draw attention, and that was the last thing she needed.
That last few months had been…difficult. Annabel Lewis had warned her of this—that her aunt and Lord Dorling had seemed a little too friendly when Jane wasn’t about. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, but…
Jane looked up. The leaves on the trees were no longer young; they waved in the morning breeze, rustling. And her aunt, Mrs. Lily Shefton, harrumphed in the clearing behind her.
It was still early—an odd time to be out, in fact, but her aunt had insisted that this morning would do nicely for a walk in this woodsy park on the outskirts of Nottingham. They had come here, and her aunt had promptly absconded, leaving Jane alone.
She had been trying to throw Jane together with Dorling. Jane rolled her eyes. Whatever did she imagine would happen?
“You’d think,” her aunt was saying from the clearing, “that a little thing like a woman’s affection would be a simple thing to capture. I’ve given you every opportunity, Dorling, and you haven’t yet managed to pull the thing off. What is wrong with you?”
“It’s not me. It’s your blee—your recalcitrant niece.”
Jane couldn’t see Dorling’s expression, but she could imagine it. The Honorable George Dorling thought a great deal of himself. He’d importuned Annabel before Jane had arrived and had presented a wealthier target. He had the usual rumors attached to him—a baron’s second son, sent down from London for raking and gambling.
“Well, hurry it up,” her aunt advised. “This whole thing makes me feel dirty as it is. I told my brother I’d see her married, and so I shall. If you can’t help, I’ll find someone who can.”
“Yes, yes,” Dorling said lazily. “Do have a little patience. It’s a delicate matter courting your niece. Is it any surprise that she thinks I’m after her money? She has so much of it to recommend her, and so little of anything else.”
Jane’s mouth curled in a reluctant smile.
Dorling wanted her money. Her aunt wanted her gone. It was hardly a surprise that they’d formed an alliance. It wouldn’t do any good, of course—Jane had no intention of marrying anyone—but at least it gave her aunt a purpose. She was thankful for small favors.