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Eleanor took Catherine’s hand before they stepped out of the wood into the field where the outdoor gathering had convened. They’d dallied as long as could reasonably be expected and hesitated on the verge still longer. In the end Eleanor said Enough! and marched almost haughtily out from under the shadows of the overarching branches into the brilliant sunlight of a glorious afternoon.
“Go find your sisters and brother,” Eleanor instructed. “And play with them until I come and fetch you. Your father and I have some business that needs attending to.”
Catherine looked up at her, puzzled.
“Promise, or we shall have to go home.”
Pouting, Catherine nodded, and Eleanor shooed her off. With Cath a promise made is a promise kept, she smiled, proudly. She’s stubborn both ways.
“Who’s that man with Papa and Auntie Phipps?” the girl called back, stopped mid-flight.
Eleanor followed the child’s pointed finger to the upper corner of the field. She could see Franklin and Harriet, their backs turned to her, in conversation with Barnstrum. From where they stood she could barely make out his features, but she would have recognized him at any distance. By some unconscious form of scent, perhaps, the same way a dog smells rotting flesh from afar.
“Remember your promise, now,” she reminded, sternly. “Go, and tell your brother and sisters to keep to the far end of the park, past where the fiddler is scraping. Agreed?”
Catherine nodded solemnly, then set off at a run, her brown hair streaming behind, blue ribbon fluttering, dress jouncing with every stride. Eleanor watched fondly, but turned before their daughter had joined her siblings. She wanted to remember her Catherine in full flight, happy, like an escaped bird feeling its wings and the joy of flying for the first time. Have fun, dearest, Eleanor blessed, wishing for once Catherine would let out a shrill cry of pure glee. I know she feels it, she thought. I’m sure she has it in her.
Then she set off, up the slight incline toward the forbidden conference. As she approached Barnstrum’s squat features came into focus and her anger intensified. Calm, she scolded. Don’t let him gain the upper hand. He saw her before the others and froze, mid-sentence, his mouth gaping like a palsied man’s, struggling to get a forgotten word out. Seeing the change in his demeanour, Harriet and Franklin twisted round, eyes widening in surprise.
Harriet broke away, and marched toward her, shaking her head. “Go back,” she said. “You shouldn’t be here.” She spread her arms to block Eleanor’s way, but Eleanor brushed past, taking her place beside Franklin, who looked grave but accepting, his jaw set. He reached across and drew her to him, squeezing her shoulder then letting go, giving her space.
“What are you doing here?” Eleanor demanded.
For a second, Barnstrum looked confused, as if he didn’t recognize her. He glanced at Franklin, then Harriet, before meeting Eleanor’s glare. “I’ve come, hoping to see our daughter,” he said.
“She’s no daughter of yours,” Eleanor shot back. “It’s too late to confess to infidelity, dishonesty, and the virtual rape of a girl half your age, Frederick Barnstrum… All of which you would have had to do to claim fatherhood of my child.”
“Don’t, dearest,” Franklin begged. Eleanor allowed herself to be swung round until she faced her husband. “He’s not come to interfere. He only wants to see her.”
Enraged, she twisted her head round, fastening her glare once more on Barnstrum. “And you believe him? You would have agreed to that?”
A criminal in the dock, Barnstrum looked back, his features gone flaccid, eyes vacant, like a man staring at his gallows.
“Never without your consent, El,” Franklin was saying. “She’s our daughter; I’d not agree to anything without your knowledge and approval. I was on the point of coming to you.”
“And what would you have advised?”
“That he be allowed to see her. That he not approach her or try to communicate with her in any way. That he leave immediately after an appropriate amount of time, which shall be determined by us. And that he never come here again, without notifying us first and gaining our consent.”
Again, she twisted toward Barnstrum. “And you believe him?”
“I give you my word,” Barnstrum promised in a whisper.
Fresh eyes.
“Does Mrs. Barnstrum know that you are here, and why?”
“She does. And she’s agreed to it.”
“And will she agree to these conditions?”
“I’m the father…” He paused, seeing the flare of denial in Eleanor’s demeanour. “She will not have any say in the matter, if it comes to that.”
“And will it?” she demanded, taken aback by Barnstrum’s puzzled look. “Come to that?” Eleanor pressed.
He shrugged, surrendering to her judgment. Eleanor turned her gaze on Franklin, who met hers with a stern, determined expression. “It’s your decision, now, my dear. Unless we are all agreed, we shall all be opposed.” Easing herself out of his grasp, she face Harriet, who simply nodded, once, in vague assent.
~~~
It wasn’t forgiveness, really, so much as letting go.
Who am I to forgive? How can I possibly forget? Eleanor told herself. The responsibility was too great. Best leave it at that: Remember something new and push back our old memories as far as we can.
They didn’t talk, walking across the field toward the place where the children were playing. They could have been going to a funeral, their pace was so ponderous and grim.
At a distance Catherine, in her blue dress, stood out from the others. But more than clothing, it was her aloof manner that marked her as somehow… special… Eleanor allowed the word, even though she worried about its implications.
Harriet felt the same. Despite being Catherine’s aunt by choice, rather than lineage, she considered Catherine her favourite and couldn’t hide the fact, no matter how practiced she’d become at stone-faced silences.
“Is that her, in the blue dress?” Barnstrum asked, struggling to contain his excitement.
“Yes.”
They walked-on, getting a little closer without speaking, then stopped at what they took to be the periphery of a child’s consciousness. “And are those her siblings, she’s playing with?”
“Yes,” Eleanor confirmed.
“She’s beautiful. They’re beautiful.”
Eleanor nodded, though she knew he wasn’t aware of her, really. She’d become anonymous, a spirit he could commune with, but didn’t expect to respond to his wayward musings.
“How could my crime, my sin, lead to such wonder?” he faltered. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done, but not for the birth of this child. My punishment is to witness her beauty, and know I can have no part in it, that I’ve abrogated any right to a part in it. That is the true meaning of damnation, isn’t it?”
“You are somehow changed, Frederick Barnstrum,” Eleanor found herself saying. “How?”
“Do you really want to know?”
She hesitated. “Yes,” she said. “Tell me.”
“Coward that I am, I truly loved you Eleanor, and have missed you, and regretted every moment the dastardly manoeuvring I employed to conceal my infidelity, dishonesty and abuse of privilege. I’m despicable, and have to begin from there with an apology to you for all the harm I’ve done…
“Can you accept that apology?” he pleaded.
“I don’t reject it, Frederick Barnstrum. Can we leave it at that?”
He bowed. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“Have you seen enough?”
“A moment or two more, if we may?”
Eleanor lapsed back into her ghostly silence, aware of his presence but from a safe distance. She, too, watched Catherine and the others at play, painfully aware how tenuous their lives might prove to be.
Suddenly Catherine looked their way. Curious about the stranger by her mother’s side, she waved, her posture a form of question mark, which Eleanor knew she would have to contend with later.
Barnstrum raised his hand and waved back, a breach of their terms Eleanor couldn’t condemn. “Oh my!” he said. “Oh my! To have been permitted this moment… I cannot thank you enough.”
With that he said goodbye and walked purposefully away, toward the path that led into town and the Lewisville Hotel, where he would be staying the night.
Next: Roadkill