The Widow's Fire Read online

  But this, according to Nurse Rooke, was about to change. Anne’s appearance in Bath, it seemed, coincided with news of a particularly urgent and surprising nature. Said to have grown rather pale and thin before her time, Anne had recently returned to her full bloom. The likely cause of such change was the subject of much whispering around the parlours and drawing rooms of Bath. A certain Mr. Elliot, a cousin of Anne’s and the heir to her father’s baronetcy, was in town and paying his addresses to Anne most ardently. What extraordinary luck! For Anne, for her whole family! Such a circumstance was sure, I felt, to be seen as the best possible outcome for everyone and would gain the approval even of her exacting friend, Lady Russell. And, as you will soon discover, it was also extraordinary luck for me.

  But for the moment, with the fire crackling between us, I struggled to move her from the subject of myself.

  Her brow furrowed when I told her the stairs were not a concern. “But, Adeline,” she said, “I thought you said you let the rooms from the sister of your companion, Nurse Rooke. Surely something might be arranged.”

  Nurse Rooke at that moment came into the room and bent to retrieve the kettle on the hearth. I caught Nurse Rooke’s eye and smiled. “Yes, Anne, but the thing is that Nurse Rooke’s sister is as thoroughly strict as Nurse Rooke herself. No doubt she thinks it does me good to hobble up two flights of stairs.”

  Nurse Rooke scoffed jokingly as she poured some tea and handed the cup to my guest. After some initial surprise, Anne understood the tone of sparring between us. In a moment, she was laughing unreservedly along with us.

  “Tea, my dear Anne, that precious leaf from China, this is my one luxury. I would climb not only three but seven, eight, nine stories if it meant my purse would stretch far enough to continue enjoying it.”

  Anne smiled pleasantly and sipped, though I knew the floor scrapings Nurse Rooke had used for the brew must be catching in her throat. A few more exchanges, wistful on Anne’s part but jovial on mine, brought us to the matter in hand: Mr. Elliot.

  “I hear from a very reliable source, my dear Anne, that your own life may be about to change.”

  Anne lowered her cup and I thought I saw her lip tremble.

  “What source could you mean, my dear Adeline? And what change?”

  Nurse Rooke slipped from the room. I nodded to the door as it closed. “Nurse Rooke is presently seeing to the needs of a certain Mrs. Wallis. Her husband is a close friend of your cousin, Mr. Elliot.” I gave her what I hoped was a mischievous look.

  Immediately, I saw a hesitation in Anne. A woman happily in love, even one as modest as Anne Elliot, would have smiled at mention of the loved one’s name. But Anne seemed merely perplexed.

  I leaned closer towards her. “There is not the slightest doubt as to his intentions, Anne, you can be sure.”

  But again, a small sigh, one of discomfort, and then a silence.

  This was a delicate operation. Even before I hinted it to you, dear reader, you may have been told that I had a selfish interest in the match. Mr. Elliot, as a former close friend of my late husband, Charles, might be willing and able to reclaim some business interests of mine in the West Indies, and would be more likely to do so with Anne to plead for me. There was nothing shameful in any of this, so with only a slight shift in tone I now confessed to Anne that this had been my excuse for pressing her upon the subject of her cousin.

  She gave me a rather rueful smile and nodded, and a worry that had begun with her hesitation a few moments ago began to gnaw at me more painfully.

  This is where my story deviates from the one you have been told. You see, there was far more at stake than Charles’s West Indies investment. At the base of the hearth between Anne and me were four loose bricks, behind which lay a large recess in the wall containing, at the present count, four strong-boxes. One of these had letters from Mr. Elliot addressed to my husband in which he spoke most disparagingly of the Elliots, so disparagingly in fact as to almost make it assured that any engagement between Anne and Mr. Elliot would be on tremulous ground indeed were any of these letters to find their way into Anne’s hands.

  Five for silver. Six for gold.

  I could not conceive of a better business opportunity. I personally disliked Mr. Elliot, it was true. My husband had been weak and easily influenced, and Mr. Elliot with his persuasive charm and endless sense of adventure, had been a poor companion. Did I hold him responsible for my wayward Charles’s ruin? It is fashionable enough to blame others for the downfall of those close to us, so why not blame Mr. Elliot? If I wanted revenge there could scarcely be a better method than to hold an axe over a man’s head and drain by slow and agonizing increments his purse day after day, week after week during the long months of an engagement.

  But it was money, not emotion — least of all a second-rate emotion like revenge — that interested me, and I was teetering on the edge now, sensing a truly grand scheme slipping from me. Then I committed the kind of error for which I have no patience: I spoke without thinking. “He is no hypocrite,” I said. Heat rose to my face and I traced the crooked river on the wall as I spoke. “He truly wants to marry you, Anne.”

  Anne demurred with a shy shake of the head. “My dear Adeline, I assure you there is no more between Mr. Elliot and myself than is usual between cousins, but I will be more than happy to help in any way I can within the limited bounds of such a relationship. “

  “I have been a little premature,” I said. “I beg your pardon. I ought to have waited for the official information.” A little balled-up spider dropped from the ceiling, its thread seeming to catch the flames as I spoke. “But do give me a hint as to when I may speak. Next week?”

  “No,” replied Anne, “nor next week, nor next, nor next.”

  Shyness had given away to something else — a kind of conviction. A few more exchanges proved what had been quite obvious from the start: she did not love him and they would not under any circumstances marry. The spider landed in a groove between the hearth tiles, its little body glowing orange under the flame.

  This was bad. Mr. Elliot was building up to a proposal; Nurse Rooke was certain of this. And now I was certain Anne would refuse him. How such an event might sting his pride and unleash his tongue! I had urged his suit before Anne, and had even attested to the strength of his character. But the truth would out soon enough. Anne would begin to hear rumours confirming how correct her instincts had been. She would have reason neither to shield her eyes from the truth about Mr. Elliot nor to forgive me, her friend who had lobbied in his favour.

  I cast my eyes to the side table against which I had lodged the cross-stitch I had started. At present this was mainly blank gauze but it was destined to become a charming country scene depicting a cottage with a neatly thatched roof, several geese, a few hens, and, for spice, the head of a fox watching from behind some greenery. On top of the table lay an array of pincushions and other such knickknacks; these, I told Anne, were to be sold to friends to raise money for a few poor families in the district. Women of rank and wealth like nothing more than to hear how members of the gentile poor, such as I, try to shoulder the greater burden of those in even more straightened situations. Such efforts confirm that the stars are in their rightful place in the heavens, and that poverty — when it was someone else’s poverty, of course — does not corrupt the noble soul.

  The bright little cushions with their sense of hope and order gave me an idea. I thought again of the soft touch of my hand upon her arm all those years ago, the grateful tears as she turned to me from the glass after my promise of spring. I was in perpetual credit as far as Anne Elliot was concerned. I did not need to appear blameless before her. She merely needed to think I was struggling, despite my suffering and my temptations, to be a good friend. If she ended up feeling a little superior to me, so much the better; her fondness would only increase. A swift and immediate admission to all I knew about Mr. Elliot’s true ch
aracter; this is what the situation demanded. Only this could in the long term preserve Anne’s good opinion of me. And Anne, the daughter of a baronet, and likely — judging from the sense of promise about her cheek and the shine about her dark eyes — to make an advantageous match of some sort, was too good an ally to lose.

  Heaving a great sigh of relief, I turned back to Anne and moved closer to her. “I am so glad you do not care for him after all, my dear Anne,” I whispered. “He is not, after all, an honourable man.” I watched the wince of surprise, the hurt in her dark eyes. “Forgive me, Anne, my dear, but there really was nothing else to be done. I considered your marrying him as certain.” I reached towards her slender wrist as I spoke, wrapped it in my fingers, giving her my best elder sister smile. “To have warned you against him if you had meant to accept him would have been as unforgiveable as speaking to a wife against her husband. My heart bled for you, even as I talked of happiness. But with such a woman as you it was not absolutely hopeless.” I held her astonished gaze for a moment. “His character might well have changed so much for the better under your sweet influence.”

  Giving her wrist one more squeeze, I let go, and I saw hurt turn to mere disappointment, and almost as quickly — as she was so used to thinking of me as a dear and reliable friend — disappointment soften to understanding. Anne had obviously considered and accepted what I told her: that I was honour-bound to support a union I thought inevitable, and that my love for my friend, by duty, must extend to her betrothed. In such circumstances, she accepted that I was also quite at liberty to press my own application and harness what help I could for my own material comfort. Within days of this meeting, I thought, I might even show Anne some of those letters with which I had meant to torment Mr. Elliot. The more indignation I fanned in his direction, the less she would scrutinize my own behaviour.

  There are advantages indeed to being the object of pity. Virtue and pragmatism meet in an impoverished widow such as I; to many, I am the acceptable space between truthfulness and self-interest. You, dear reader, are perhaps more sentimental, more prone to believe women and men might do a thing because it represents beauty and truth, that they may entirely disregard the financial consequences. For me, however, no examination of morals is complete without a realistic appraisal of how one intends to pay for them.

  My reverses of fortune have taught me one thing above all others: There is only one sin that is universally condemned; this is the sin of poverty. It is quite impossible to get too far from this most egregious of conditions. The means by which we do so are far more likely to be forgiven than the state of poverty itself. Our generation knows this only too well though I sense the lesson will be forgotten soon enough.

  Anne continued to hold my gaze long after I let go of her wrist, and from her expression, she seemed to be struggling with something new. “Nothing would have given me greater pleasure, dear Adeline, than to act on your behalf.” She glanced at the pincushions once more and then her eyes dropped with a desperate kind of regret to my meagre looking cross-stitch. “And perhaps one day it may be possible.”

  This was more than I expected. Understanding had softened even further to pity and perhaps even a kind of love. She was thinking perhaps of her lost mother and the kind girl, three years her senior, who had come closest to filling the void. Opportunities stirred afresh.

  2. MRS. SMITH

  I CAN WELL UNDERSTAND, dear reader, why you so like Anne Elliot. She is trusting without being naïve. She is decided without being conceited. We are attracted to conviction in others, to people who know themselves well and Anne has that sense of balance and quiet poise that many of us secretly envy and admire.

  Still, despite all this, I remained most curious as to how she could be so very confident in turning down Mr. Elliot. I listened to her footsteps descending to the street and thought over the reasons. Despite the return of her bloom, Anne was twenty-eight years old, long past her prime. Even in the wavering candlelight of my rooms I could detect the faintest of crows’ feet growing from her smile. It was getting very late for Anne and even the firmest of minds cannot live on poise and self-knowledge, especially when one’s father is assiduously digging the family into debt. Mr. Elliot had been left quite wealthy after the death of his wife and even the virtuous Anne Elliot would need an alternative before barring off the most obvious route to comfort and consequence. As I picked up my cross-stitch and laid it upon my knee, I became ever more certain of one point: This other suitor paying his attentions to Anne had both capital and income. The fact that I did not already know his identity was a failure of intelligence.

  Nurse Rooke knew she was in trouble when she re-entered the room. “It was not, then, as you thought, Mrs. Smith?” Her candle wavered in her hand, its unsteady flame catching the apprehension in her eyes.

  “No, Mrs. Rooke, not at all.”

  The little spider that had been secure in its groove found its legs once more and scuttled towards the seat Anne had occupied. I watched it disappear under the chair’s tattered fringe before raising my eyes to meet Nurse Rooke’s.

  “But all the signs were there, Mrs. Smith, I assure you.” She made a helpless motion towards the door with her free hand as though expecting corroboration from the person who had just left. “Mrs. Wallis was quite certain he was about to propose. And his attentions to her at the Octagon Room concert last night, the way they stood together, his eyes fixed constantly upon Miss Elliot.”

  “Your sources — other than Mrs. Wallis?”

  “Mr. Barker, Mr. Elliot’s temporary valet, and Plato, who took Mr. Elliot’s hat.” She moved a step closer and lowered her voice. “The African even heard the gentleman express a wish to Miss Elliot that she would never have to change her name. He whispered several such things beyond the hearing of any but the attendants.” She raised her free hand again in the aimless manner that reminded me of the puppets in the fairground stalls at market day.

  “Compelling evidence, compelling indeed … but these examples are all about his intentions, not hers.” My eyes fixed her calmly and I waited for the realization to descend. “How long have you been with me, Nurse Rooke?”

  She shielded her candle flame as it wobbled and I saw that her eyes became moist.

  Enough, I thought. “Nurse Rooke,” I said kindly, “my husband was a gambler, but I never cared for it. I never act on half a certainty. You know that.”

  Her lip quivered but she responded to my smile. “What can we do now?” she asked.

  Leaning back in my chair, drawing the shawl around me, I felt the wool’s static — little fires of dissatisfaction against my shoulders. I lay aside my cross-stitch, untouched. My old nurse watched me carefully, her eyes alive with some hope of finding a way to escape my displeasure. I turned to the hearth. “My old friend is about to make a fine match for herself, this much is certain.”

  Rooke frowned as though missing a riddle. Her eyes met mine, pleading.

  “But not to Mr. Elliot. We have been misled there. She has been among naval officers for some while, I believe?”

  Rooke nodded, and took a step forward.

  “This is where our answer undoubtedly lies. I had been so certain of Mr. Elliot, I had overlooked the possibility. As heir to Anne’s father, he would have united two fortunes, his own and theirs. He would have raised the whole family from debt and without resorting to the vulgarity of a career. So many faults corrected in one sweep, I could not have conceived of a reason powerful enough to refuse him.”

  “Indeed, Madam,” Rooke chipped in eagerly. “Mr. Elliot is quite the gentlemen with no interest in career.”

  “So Miss Elliot is defying expectation, Nurse Rooke. But perhaps not so much. The navy has never been held in so high regard since Napoleon’s defeat. Even royalty are said to nod their heads at a passing bicorn. Still, he must be wealthy and well-connected to be worthy of her notice. We must find out who he is.”

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nbsp; The flames behind the grate crackled through a long pause. My old nurse seemed galvanized now, eager for some errand that would help her make amends. She fluttered, restless on her feet, touching her apron. “I could go to Plato.”

  “That would be a start, Mrs. Rooke.”

  She waited for a few moments longer as though for further instruction, then, realizing I was done, she bit her lip, curtsied, and left the room. I heard her footsteps clattering down the staircase.

  ***

  Nurse Rooke never asked about my plans, the purposes behind my orders. Perhaps she had learned to fear what these may be. And she had just cause. Finding the identity of Anne Elliot’s real suitor was only the beginning. When one seeks to influence the actions of another, one must possess oneself of as many inducements as one can find. A little work always releases tidbits. However pristine a man or woman’s reputation might seem, there is always something to be found out. Secrets, dear reader, comprise the most valuable currency of all. They rarely fail to exchange for gold. Unlike gold, however, the value of secrets can peak quite unexpectedly when one of them has the power to mar the good name of someone flying high in public esteem, or when a delicious slice of gossip threatens to un-wheel an almost assured alliance between families.

  A town like Bath is particularly useful in this respect. It draws society to its waters and its concerts. At its most relaxed and unguarded, the swelling populace exchanges stories and weaves conversations on topics of the recent and distant past. The holiday atmosphere acts like an opiate, rendering all talk “inconsequential,” and while those in the thick of it might refrain from passing on damaging information for fear of gaining the reputation of gossip, much is overheard by those who are beneath the notice of fashion. This too would be harmless enough were there no one person to gather all these fragments together to see what useful patterns they made. As you might have guessed, dear reader, I am that person, and those who are beneath notice work for me. The trusted, if uninspired, lieutenant of this secret army is Nurse Rooke.