They’re all questions I don’t have the answers to. I wish I did. Because in the void of an explanation, doubt is now taking root.
“I’m worried about you,” Helen says.
“You have never been worried about me,” I snap. “All my life, you stepped on me.” Helen has the audacity to gasp, as if offended. “You turned me into your servant.”
“To protect you from the world. To ready you for it by hardening you. And you’re deflecting.” Helen wields her words like daggers, knowing just where to strike. “This isn’t about us anymore. If we were so horrible, then congratulations, you escaped us.” Helen wears a thin smile, slightly smug. She knows just how horrible she was, that expression admits it. But she’s also right, it doesn’t matter how they treated me anymore, I’m free of them. I clutch Laura’s hands a little tighter and hope she knows she’s exempt from these harsh truths. “If you want to stay escaped, you should make sure you’re secure in your new home.”
“Is that a threat?” I say.
Helen laughs. “I have no control over you, your marriage, or your new life. All I’m saying is, if your husband is engaged in something illegal and is thrown in irons, you could face destitution or be forced to share in his fate as a co-conspirator. If your husband is dallying with another woman, and decides to replace you with her, then you will be out on the street. If your husband throws his wealth around and wastes it, you will find yourself in a similar position as before…and you know what that position will be?”
My stomach churns. I know where she’s headed with this. Yet she says it anyway.
“You will have to come crawling right back to us,” Helen proclaims as she rises to her feet, lording over me as she always did whenever Joyce wasn’t around to do it herself. She’s a spitting image of her mother. “So if you don’t want that to happen, you should heed my warnings. Make yourself useful to your husband. Know the circumstances you now find yourself in. Be cunning. That’s always been your problem; you never think two steps ahead and it makes you so easy to use.” Helen looks to Laura. “We’re leaving now.”
“But we just got here.” Laura clings to me. “Can’t we at least stay the night?”
“I am not staying in this strange place with her strange husband.”
“Perhaps Oren could bring you back tomorrow?” I suggest to Laura, ignoring the instant guilt I feel for volunteering Oren without asking. But I’ve done my level best to impose on him as little as possible. And I will make all my meals for a month in gratitude for this one thing. I wouldn’t mind some time alone with Laura—to perhaps discuss ideas to get her out of that house faster, before she’s ruined by Joyce and Helen.
“Do not impose yourself,” Helen scolds her.
“It would be no imposition,” I insist.
“Mother would never want you here.”
Ah, Mother, the trump card. The unobjectionable reason. Laura rises reluctantly. Our fingers are still laced together.
“Come and visit soon, yes?” Her eyes are dimmer, duller. I can hear a piece of my heart cracking at her pain. Be strong, I want to say. A little longer and you’ll be out of there, one way or another.
“For you, yes,” I say. I will go back to that house for my sister. And maybe, maybe the next time I leave I’ll take her with me, too.
“Good.” Laura throws her arms around my shoulders and gives a tight squeeze. Helen hardly looks back once as she glides out of the manor. No doubt eager to report her findings back to Joyce.
* * *
“Strangethat your sisters would travel all this way only to turn around and leave,” Oren says as he serves me dinner.
“I’m glad they did. Well, one of them,” I mutter darkly. “If they ever send word that they are coming again, respond immediately that only Laura may come. Never open the gate for Helen or Joyce ever again. They aren’t welcome here.”
Oren stills, pitcher in both hands, my wine glass still empty. “It will be up to you from now on to decide who is or is not permitted in these halls.”
“What?” The strange phrasing snaps me out of my angry trance.
“Nothing.” Oren shakes his head, pours my wine glass. “Oh, the lord of the manor told me to inform you that he will not be able to meet with you this evening.” With that, Oren heads back toward the kitchen. Lord Fenwood hasn’t missed an evening drink in over a week now. This news only feeds my uneasiness.
“Oren.” I stop him. He looks at me with a pitying gaze. He feels sorry for me. Why? I have a few guesses. But I have a nagging feeling that look has nothing to do with my family. “You would tell me if there was something wrong, right?”
“Of course. But don’t worry, everything is as we intended.” He disappears.
All through dinner I replay his strange phrasings and mannerisms in my mind. Something was wrong. Or maybe it wasn’t, and my sisters got to me. I’m looking for excuses to find problems when there aren’t any.
I ready myself for bed, and tuck in. But sleep eludes me. I keep repeating my sisters’ words. Helen’s are cruel, certainly. And she no doubt said those things to tear me down. But that doesn’t make her wrong, either. Even Laura was concerned for me.
Should I be more worried about my situation? What if Helen is right and this freedom and comfort that I’ve found is so fragile that it can be ripped from my grasp and shattered any second? I clutch the duvet. It’s so soft…softer than anything I’ve ever owned before. I can’t give up this bed. I can’t give up my freedoms here. I won’t give up this life.
I’m on my feet. I throw a robe over my sleeping gown and leave my room. It’s a full moon tonight and the hallway is bright. I still briefly as I realize it’s been almost a month since I arrived.
