I should not have looked at him. His gaze was too gentle—too wor-ried. It made my eyes well up with fresh tears. I could hardly breathe as it was. More tears would suffocate me.
“I overheard what Mr. Pritchard said to you. When you left and didn’t return, I thought he might have upset you. So I looked for you.” He glanced at the bird in its cage. “I should have known you would be here. I don’t know why I didn’t think to come here first.”
96
I traced a gilded iron bar, from bottom to top, watching the dark bird inside as it solemnly watched me. “It doesn’t sing,” I said, almost to myself.
“I know.” I heard the sadness—the compassion—in Henry’s voice.
“That’s why I suggested my grandfather keep it in here, where it could at least hear music, even if it could make none of its own.”
My gaze moved to his face. He was watching me, not the bird. His eyes were dark in the dim light, and his gaze held pain and worry and something else—some pull or temptation or battle that I could not name.
“He should not have spoken to you like that,” he said in a voice threaded with anger. “I don’t agree with your dream of going to India, but nobody should ever treat you with such derision, such . . . dismissal.”
My face burned in remembered embarrassment.
“Should I call him out?” he asked.
I chuckled and blinked at unshed tears.
“I am in earnest.” He rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes. “We’ll have a duel in the morning on the moors. Plenty of fog. It will be quite dramatic, I daresay. And I will shoot him to avenge your honor.”
I laughed again and a little half-smile twisted his lips.
“No?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No. But thank you.” I drew in a rattled breath. “Besides, it was not Mr. Pritchard who upset me. Not really.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then who?”
I immediately wished I could recall my last sentence. I was not pre-pared to admit to Henry my own shameful realization of what I had become. Nor was I willing to share with him the humiliation of my conver-sation with Sylvia. I wished he had never discovered me here. My nose ran, and I wiped it on my sleeve, for lack of a handkerchief.
Good heavens! I was behaving exactly like Maria! I was sitting in a strange place, crying, and letting my nose run and tears stream down my face. I shook my head, disgusted with myself. How had I sunk this low in just a few short days?
97
J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n Pushing my hair back from my face, I said, “It was nobody. It was nothing.”
“Kate, I have never seen you cry like this. Surely it was not nothing. ”
I shook my head. “I can’t . . . I can’t tell you, Henry.” I watched the little dark bird, but all I was aware of was the weight of Henry’s focused gaze on my face.
After a long moment of silence, he said, still in that low, quiet voice, “Do you remember that day in the woods? The day my father died?”
My gaze flew to his face. I caught my breath. I could not believe he was bringing that up, after all of these years of silence on the subject. We had never mentioned it since that day—not to each other. I had not spoken of it to anyone else, either, and I seriously doubted Henry had. And now, after all of this time . . .
“Of course,” I whispered.
His gaze caught mine, and something built between us—some charge of emotion that made the distance between us measurable in movements: a shift, a leaning, an outstretched arm, a bent head. But we sat perfectly still, with only this memory connecting us.
Until he leaned forward and reached out a hand and touched my wrist. His hand moved up my arm, gently, until it rounded the curve of my shoulder. And only when he had anchored me there did he say, “I could never find the words to tell you what that meant to me.” His voice was so soft and husky, like a caress. Something shivered within me. “Even now, after all of these years, I am at a loss. But on that day I promised myself that if I ever found you drowning—if I ever found you in need of saving—that I would do anything in my power to help you.”
A tear slipped down my cheek and hung on the edge of my jaw. Henry moved his hand from my shoulder and brushed the tear away. Then he leaned back, away from me, and sighed. “But you do not confide in me.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “Perhaps I have not earned your confidence?”
My lips trembled, and with a shaky breath I said, “No. You have.”
He sat there, waiting, as if he would wait all night long if he had to.
98
And suddenly, I had to tell him. Not what had happened with Sylvia, but what I was doing here, in front of this cage, crying. I wrapped my fingers around the bars of the cage again, but this time I did not shake it. I did not want to scare the bird again. But the bird took flight anyway, and suddenly words were forcing themselves up my throat and pouring out of my mouth.
“I feel caged. Always. I feel like I am this bird, trapped and stifled and caged, and I keep looking for a way to escape, but I am barred at every turn.” I drew in a breath, and looking at the confusion on Henry’s face, I said, “Perhaps you cannot comprehend—you are a man. Your life is dif-ferent in so many ways. But have you ever . . .” I drew in a deep breath, feeling my heart aching. “Have you ever wanted something so much it hurt? That the wanting actually caused you physical pain?”
He was perfectly still, watching me with those dark eyes. “Yes,” he said in a quiet, solemn voice.
“That is how I feel about India. I want to go so badly the wanting hurts. But I am afraid that I won’t ever go, and I’m afraid that I will never realize this dream, and if I don’t realize this dream, then it’s possible I won’t realize any dream. And I’ll just live a bleak, dreamless life without adventure or joy or choice or—or— living. ” My breath caught. “When I think about it—when I think about how stuck I am, and what is expected of me, and what I am allowed and not allowed to do, and how little power I have or will ever have, simply because I was born a girl—I feel a million wings inside of me, beating so hard it hurts.”
Now my voice wavered as fresh tears spilled out. “And I cannot even play Mozart without Herr Spohr telling me it is wrong for me, and if I cannot have India or Mozart, then what am I left with? How am I going to live inside this cage that is my life?” I shook my head, feeling wild and undone, as tears streamed down my face. “All I can think is that I will end up like this poor bird. I will beat myself against the bars of my cage until I am too exhausted, and then I will give up and live the rest of my life without a song and inside a forgotten room.”
99
J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n My voice cracked, and I pressed my lips together, sealing off any more words that wanted to be set free. I could not look Henry in the eye as I struggled to control my emotions. It was silly—comparing my sorrow at losing my dream of India to Henry’s sorrow at losing his father. It was silly of me to feel so deeply about this. That was what I supposed Henry thought. He had never understood my desire to go to India. And I was suddenly, achingly afraid that he would dismiss my words or fail to understand their sentiment or dismiss my dream as something trivial.
Instead, he said, in a careful voice, “So you are this bird. In this cage.”
I nodded.
“And you see only one option for yourself: to beat yourself against the bars until you are exhausted and give up all your dreams.”
I nodded again, and then dared to look at him. He was watching me with an expression of compassion mixed with affection. After a long moment of looking at me, he looked back at the dark bird in its cage. Then he did something with the cage—some small movement that made the door swing open. He reached inside, and I held my breath as I watched him catch the bird. He was so careful, and so gentle, as he cupped it in his hands and pulled it free of its cage.
Henry turned to me, holding out his hands.
I stared at him and then at the bird, which was fluttering and struggling to be free.