It sounded like freedom and flight, and at the same time it sounded like death—like bruised feathers and a limp body at the bottom of a cage. It sounded like Blackmoore to me—low and high and high and low again.
The bird sang again and again, and every time those high notes rang, I knew the song would end in a low note. It would always end in sorrow. It would always die. The fall would always come, no matter how beautiful the high notes of its song.
I brushed my hand across my eyes, then cleared my throat and said, “You know, the heat is a bit overwhelming. I think I’m finished with bird watching for the day.”
Aunt Charlotte glanced at me with a sharp look. Her keen eyes missed nothing. I was afraid she would ask me a question I did not want to answer, but today she did not. Today she simply smiled kindly and said, “It is unbearably hot. Let’s go find some cool refreshment, shall we?”
Our chilled lemonade was served to us in the shade of a large um-brella on the veranda, where many of our new friends were also enjoying some afternoon refreshment. I sipped on my lemonade and tried not to think of my dark bird or Blackmoore or Henry, but the more I tried not to think of it all, the more I did. This had been my great struggle over the past year. It had not been difficult to be relieved and happy to be free of Mama’s influence. It had not been difficult to enjoy my aunt’s company and to delight in the foreign land we were discovering. But it had proved immensely difficult quieting the constant ache of loss.
So pervasively did thoughts of Blackmoore plague me this day that at first I thought I had imagined the mustached gentleman who was walking toward me.
“Miss Worthington. I thought that was you. So you did come to India, after all.”
I stared at him, shocked beyond words, and only found my voice when Aunt Charlotte nudged me with her elbow.
“M-Mr. Pritchard! What a surprise!”
“Indeed. I didn’t think you would actually follow through with your 268
scheme.” He looked no more happy than when I had last seen him. He certainly didn’t look excited to see me. At his pointed look I recalled my manners and introduced him to my aunt. He gave her a curt nod, then said, “I have something to give you. It’s in my quarters. I never thought I would actually see you here, but I promised him that if I did, I would deliver it. I will have a servant bring it to you. Good day,” he said abruptly, and walked away before I could collect my wits.
“Well. He is quite lacking in social graces,” Aunt Charlotte declared, sipping her lemonade as she watched him walk away.
But all I could think about was what he had to give me and who it might be from. I stood and paced the length of the veranda, in and out of shade, and felt every part of me tremble with nervousness. When a servant finally approached me holding a salver I nearly tripped over my own feet in my eagerness to take the letter he carried.
I hurriedly thanked him, my heart leaping in my chest at the fa-miliar handwriting declaring that this sealed letter was for Miss Kate Worthington. Aunt Charlotte stood with an indulgent air and said, “I suppose you will want to read your letter in private. Come. I will accom-pany you back to our rooms.”
I was too full of dread and hope and nervousness and fear and pained excitement to do more than nod and hurry ahead of her. Once inside my room with the door shut, I sat at my writing desk and examined the letter. My gaze traced the elegant slope of the letters composing my name.
Henry had been the only person to call me by my chosen name. In this moment, holding a sealed letter, everything was possible. And nothing in the entire world looked more beautiful to me than that elegant K-a-t-e.
My hands shook as I broke the wax seal and carefully unfolded the paper. My heart fell with disappointment as my eyes skimmed over the page. It was a very short letter. But it was something. I closed my eyes and tried to calm my racing heart and finally I could bear the suspense no longer. I opened my eyes and read:
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J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n
My dearest Kate,
How long did it take Icarus to fall to his death? I feel I am still falling, and I fear I always will. I will never reach the end of this grief, this longing for you, this suffering. Others may change, but I never shall. I have loved you for as long as I can remember, and I shall keep loving you and wanting you and missing you, forever.
Henry
My heart was lurching about in my chest like a crazed thing. I could hardly see the writing through the tears that welled up. Blinking hard, I looked frantically for a date. October 12, 1820. October! That was nine months ago! That meant he wrote this letter four months after I left. He had loved me for four months, at least. He had loved me even after I left him.
I read the letter over and over and let my tears splash onto my gown without bothering to try to wipe them. Nine months ago he had written this and sent this to me. Oh, to know what he thought and felt this instant!
“Is it good news? Or bad?” Aunt Charlotte stood in the doorway.
I wiped my cheeks. “I hardly know.”
L
I went through the rest of the day and evening in a distracted daze. I couldn’t stop repeating the words of Henry’s letter to me. I couldn’t sit still for more than a few minutes. I couldn’t have a conversation with Aunt Charlotte. And when evening came, I lit two candles and placed them on the pianoforte and spread out the music that Herr Spohr had given me. I played it until darkness enveloped the room, and Aunt Charlotte bade me goodnight, and the moonlight splashed through the tall windows. Then 270
I sat on a chair and looked at the moon, and I thought very hard about choices and freedom and exactly what I had given up to come here.
It had been the right decision for me to run away. I knew that with even greater surety than I had known it one year ago. But, oh, the sac-rifice! It was a burden I carried with me always. India had not disappointed me—not in the way I had feared it would. It had granted me the freedom and the power of independence I had longed for so fiercely.
Aunt Charlotte had granted me that. But life in this world disappointed me—the life that required giving up my heart for the sake of my soul.
Sleep eluded me all night, and at breakfast Aunt Charlotte peered at me over her cup of tea.
“You look terrible, my dear,” she stated.
I grimaced. “I didn’t sleep all night.”
She set her cup down carefully. “Hm.” Resting her chin on her hand, she gazed at me over the table with a keen look that made me feel very transparent. “It might help to turn your attention to other men. Fill up your heart with someone else.”
I shook my head. There was no question of that. If I couldn’t have Henry, I didn’t want anyone. Besides, I had left my heart with him. It was not that my heart was empty and needed filling up—it was that my heart was absent. It had been thoroughly, irreversibly claimed.
“Well, then, let us think of something else to amuse us,” she said.
“I have heard a ship has docked recently. I wonder it there will be letters from home. Perhaps Oliver will have written? Or perhaps we may make new friends of the passengers. Somebody might even arrive today!”
I offered a small smile for her sake. “I am not depressed, Aunt Charlotte. Simply . . . contemplative.”
Her compassionate smile told me she did not believe me. But she was kind enough to let the subject drop. After breakfast I returned to the pianoforte and played more of Herr Spohr’s piece. It did something to the demon within me every time I played it. And this time the demon told 271
J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n
me to write. So I abandoned the music for paper and ink. I sat at the writing table in the parlor and wrote a letter of my own.