PlotlumeIn my third winter writing letters for strangers on the street, I met Edmund Wexford again.
He was helping his delicate new wife choose coral hair ornaments. The sight of me made him pause.
Before leaving, he tossed a gold sovereign onto my battered wooden table.
The heavy clunk as it struck my inkstone was followed by a sigh.
“Stop disgracing yourself out here. Buy some coal, and get Gideon’s illness treated.”
I said nothing, merely pushed the sovereign back into the snow.
His expression stiffened, his brows drawing together.
“Why are you still so stubborn and ungrateful? If you’d only swallow your pride, would you have sunk this low?”
“Think it over. If you bring Gideon to kneel and serve Henrietta tea, I might let you return to the house as a bedchamber maid.”
I only looked at him coldly, without a word.
Did he really not know? A month ago, on a snowy night, his own servants had driven us from his gate, and our Gideon had died in the snow.
1
“Cecily Fairfax, my patience has limits.”
Edmund looked down at me, adjusting his white fox-fur collar with slender fingers.
“This sovereign is worth ten years of the wretched verses you write out here in the cold.”
“Take it. Get Gideon some proper medicine. Tomorrow, wash yourself, put on something presentable, and wait at the back gate of the house.”
His voice was level, dispensing charity to the homeless woman before him.
Leaning against him, Henrietta covered her lips with a handkerchief and gently intervened.
“Husband, she simply needs time to come around. Please don’t lose your temper with her.”
“It pains me too, seeing her and the child freezing on the street.”
“If she agrees to return, I’d even give up my place as your lawful wife.”
Edmund tightened his arm around her waist, his eyes brimming with tenderness.
“Nonsense. You are the lawfully wedded Marchioness Wexford.”
“How could someone so coarse ever compare with you?”
When he turned back to me, the tenderness vanished, leaving only impatience.
“Henrietta is kind enough to overlook your past behavior.”
“Keep putting on airs, and Gideon’s consumption may drag on until he fails to survive the winter.”
“Consider that carefully.”
Without another glance, Edmund took Henrietta’s hand and led her into the carriage.
Its wheels crunched over the snow.
I sat on my little folding stool, looking at the sovereign in the snow, and never reached to pick it up.
The older woman selling hot tea beside me poked her head out, glanced around, and leaned close, conspiratorial.
“Good heavens, Mrs. Fairfax. You know Lord Wexford?”
“They say he’s utterly devoted to his new wife.”
“To marry her, he even defied his mother and insisted on divorcing the wife who’d shared his poverty.”
“I hear he bought the whole of prosperous Bond Street just to set off fireworks for his new bride.”
She clicked her tongue, her face full of envy.
“Such a devoted man. You scarcely find his like.”
I lowered my head and sorted the frozen brushes on my table, my voice flat.
“Is that so?”
“If he’s so devoted, why would his first wife be homeless, writing letters to survive?”
The woman froze and rubbed her hands awkwardly.
“Well… everyone says the first wife was jealous. She poisoned the new lady out of envy and mistreated the house’s servants.”
“They say the marquis sent her away, though it broke his heart, to save her life.”
“And that he secretly gave her enough money to live comfortably for several lifetimes.”
I raised my numb fingers to my lips and breathed white mist over them.
“All he left her was a divorce letter and a body covered in wounds.”
Her eyes widened as she seemed to realize something.
“Mrs. Fairfax, you…”
I paid her no further attention and quietly packed my brushes and inkstone into my wicker basket.
When I stood, a piercing pain shot through my right knee.
Leaning on my crutch, I could only limp toward the ruined chapel outside London.
Watching my retreating back, the woman opened her mouth, but ultimately said nothing.
The snow grew heavier.
A hole gaped in the ruined chapel’s roof, letting the bitter wind howl through.
Beneath the altar table stood a small mound of earth.
Gideon’s grave.
I took a hardened heel of bread from inside my cloak and set it before the mound.
“Gideon, Mama’s home.”
“No one needed a letter today. I could only afford one roll.”