“Yes, ma’am.”
“Nothing you ever say could offend me, that’s how much I respect you. That’s what Jonathan Martin said to me.” A satisfied expression crossed her face. “So I told him that’s precisely how I feel about him. And then he congratulated me on my notable career. And I did the same for him. And then”—Helen’s words slowed—“he said what a pity it was that I wouldn’t be able to work on the Richmond documents through the completion of the project, given my retirement and my health issues, which, if I didn’t mind him saying so, seemed to dictate that I’d be slowing down altogether from here forward.” For a moment Helen was silent. Then, shrugging, she let out a little laugh. Her face looked thinner, older, yet somehow lighter. Washed clean of something. “He’ll be chuckling about it over cognac with his mistress by now, I’m sure.”
“His mistress?”
“Yes,” Helen said simply. “Penelope Babcock is Jonathan Martin’s mistress. There, now you know a faculty secret.”
“Well, he’s a little bastard,” shot Aaron.
“Stop being protective of me, Mr. Levy. Jonathan Martin might or might not be a little bastard.”
“You’d actually defend him?”
“I care neither to defend nor attack him. Much as I detest the man, I’ll never know the full circumstances behind his choices. Life is muddy. Denying that—thinking there’s only one noble path above the fray—can be a poisonous approach to life.”
She’d spoken vehemently; now she stared at him as though insisting that he grant her point. She’d gone somewhere he didn’t understand. He gave her a moment, then reeled them back to daylight. “He’s still a little bastard.”
She nodded, conceding.
“Now will you please tell me why we’re here?”
Helen set her briefcase on the sidewalk and carefully extracted three pages of notebook paper. They were covered with penciled script, the writing tremulous and hurried.
“What is this?” he said.
“What we’ve been missing.” She raised a shaking finger—and for an irrational moment, he felt certain she was pointing in accusation at his heart, rather than at the page in his hand. But Helen wasn’t accusing; she was smiling—a smile of such simple elation he felt he was looking at the girl she might once have been. “This is the last document from underneath the Eastons’ staircase. The ivy letter—the one that was sealed and positioned at the end of the shelf. I copied out the text this afternoon in the conservation lab.”
She was looking straight into his eyes, still smiling. He had no idea how to respond to such an expression coming from Helen Watt.
She continued, her voice hoarse. “Read it, and you’ll understand. We haven’t been wrong about her, Aaron.”
With difficulty, he began reading the shakily penciled lines—the text of a poem. After the second couplet, he looked up. “There’s no way Ester wrote this clumsy stuff.”
“She didn’t,” Helen said. “But don’t sound so indignant. Read it all, Aaron. It improves as it goes.”
May 26, 1691
An Apologie for That Denied the Fyre
A thief I never once have been
In all the days I e’er have seen
Yet from the flames I have purloin’d
That given by she to whom I’m join’d
One mayde I’ve loved and one alone
To she I’m wed and to she alone
She’s fathomed my heart all my days
I’ve trembled e’er before her gaze
Though worship I with holy love
He who set the cherubim above
Still with sacred joy I call her wife
Who lent to me renewed life
I’ve made no impress on her heart
Which loves none yet loved me from my start
If read you this and think me horn’d
I say my heart has not been scorned
And though she fathomed not my desire
She blessed it with her spirit’s fire
And so I bless hers ever.
Now each one of her pained breaths
Does hasten the hour of her death
Yet whilst that mayd lyes on her bed
Her illness heavy and her dread
In one thing does she rest content
For she her husband has sent
To set these pages to the pyre
And damn her secret to the fyre
I ne’er will her thoughts divine
Her understanding passes mine
It pains my soul to disobey
To deny her aught is my dismay
Her merest shadow I adore
Yet this I shall not do.
She bore no child, did not her duty
Kept house for none, tended not her beauty
Yet I her very soul do cherish
And will not suffer her word to perish
Let others mock my love for she
That gave not of her heart to me
For love be not a jeweler’s pans
Gems’ worth is oft misread by man
Now Death to that same mayde draws near
And in her eyes uncustom’d fear
Her soul’s accounting now she does attend
Yet I, wretch, refuse to so embrace her end
For her to linger I do plead
For God to spare her! Physick bleed!
Yet even as death’s tread does tremble the path
And she, content, believes these pages ash
She jealous guards with life’s last sparks
The trace of treasured hands’ marks
And for her pleasure does secretly preserve
Some letters to comfort as she does deserve
When sleep eludes and falters health
Her rest be eased by her inked wealth
Which she still reads and to them doth still reply
With quill and ink her sex she yet defies.
Though I fear she’ll burn her treasures at the last
Till Death call her she will yet hold them fast
And through habits long of secrecy
She hydes this work from even I
And thinks I do not see.
Dare not condemn her, you who read
This trail of these, her fiercest deeds
And should you she past mercy deem
Her every thought a heresy seem
Recall she saved this poor wretch
From life of blackest dreams.
But seal I now these words. I’ve overstay’d
And dry my eyes, for weeping’s debt’s past paid
I would she’d know that by her side I stay’d
As I hold fast to her, my only mayde
And set her harvest ’neath ever-rising stair
And keep her spirit safe from all life’s care
For never in her life could it exult
Redeemed at last from all the world’s tumult
As did mine on that morn my Blessed Love
Arrayed the wise-eyed cherubim above.
At the bottom of the final page, Helen had copied the writer’s signature in wide, loose letters: Alvaro HaLevy.
Aaron lowered the pages. “She—”
A high, glad laugh escaped Helen. She almost sang the words. “She married him.”
“I thought he . . .”
“Apparently he didn’t. Apparently he made it home to England. And they lived a long life together, they did.”
The Richmond traffic furled around the curb where they stood. He reread the ungainly lines, the signature. The answer had been awaiting all along. He’d been outsmarted by a three-hundred-year-old woman and her homosexual husband. “I don’t understand half of what he says here.” His voice was ranging wide with incredulity and he didn’t care. “I don’t get the last bit at all. But I get enough.”
The foolish wonder on her face mirrored his. He was certain her voice quaked as she said, “I’m glad for them.”
A strange gladness ballooned in him. He’d never in his life felt this way: as though the safe landing of another human being could substitute for his own. “Do you think the other papers he refers to are still in the house?”
“If they are, they’re going to be upstairs. Did you reach Bridgette to tell her we’re coming?”
Aaron hesitated. “I need to tell you something,” he said.
She looked at him. “No,” she said. “You don’t.” She let out a slow breath. “I’m not blind, you know. Though I do wonder about your judgment. Let me manage her.”
“Yes,” he said. “I think that would be best. Do you want me to stay away?”
She snorted. “Are you mad? This is yours too, Aaron Levy.”