Of Moths and Butterflies

CHAPTER thirty-eight





MOGEN AWOKE AS the sun was descending. Her head rested on her folded arms, they in turn resting on the coverlet as she sat beside Charlie’s bed. She turned to avoid the glaring light and, blinking, looked to the boy who still lay motionless. Her awkward rest, her anxiety, combined with the heat of the sun’s rays—both diffused and magnified through the waved glass of the windows—left her with a headache. She needed some air, and not daring to cause a draught by opening the window, she elected to take a few minutes’ walk out of doors. The most indirect way proved also the most convenient, as the cloister staircase was used rarely by anyone, and by it she might exit the house within the more private environs of the immediate grounds.

Upon arriving there, she took a turn about the gardens to observe the progress the new gardeners had already made. A great deal of clearing and marking off had been done, and the beginnings of an intricately patterned plan were now discernible.

Leaning against the edge of a disused fountain, she rubbed the evening’s chill from her arms. It had been so close in Charlie’s room that she had not thought to bring any wrappings, but the evening’s descent was quickly robbing the day of what little warmth it had dared to possess.

“Miss Shaw,” she heard a voice. A woman’s voice. “You are Miss Shaw, I believe?”

“Yes,” she said, turning to find Bess Mason emerging from within a grove of overgrown boxwoods. “Or was.”

“Was?”

“Yes. I’m Mrs. Hamilton now.”

Bess’ face flushed for half a moment. “He married you? He was allowed to marry you?” She seemed indignant, certainly confused.

“I’m not sure how much… Yes,” Imogen said, determining that the simplest answer was likely the best. She could not couch the fact by vain explanations.

“I’ve come to see my son.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll take you to him.” Imogen prepared to lead the way, though Bess did not follow.

“I’m not welcome here,” she said.

Imogen turned to face her but did not answer right away.

“I worked here once like you, you know.”

“Yes. So I understand.”

“Marriage was not to be thought of then.”

Imogen felt the ice in her veins, the squeezing of her heart, but stood firm. “Will you follow me?” she said. “No one need know you’ve come.” She turned and led the way.

Upon entering the room, Imogen placed herself in a quiet corner, while Bess took the chair beside the bed. She passed a tender hand through her son’s hair and across his cheek, and then down his arm as it rested atop the coverlet.

“Will he be all right?”

“He has a concussion. So long as we can keep him from fever, there is no danger.”

“And you will?” Bess asked, nearly pleading as she looked up at Imogen.

“I’ll do my best.”

“You won’t leave him alone?”

“I promise.”

She turned away to stifle a sob. Or perhaps a cough—or both—and then, recovering, she turned back. “How did it happen?”

Imogen told her.

“They work him too hard, you know. They expect so much of him, filling his head with ideas and then quashing them in the same instant. They all know he can never be what he ought to be.”

“Why?” Imogen dared to ask.

“Do you know what it means to grow up a bastard, Miss Shaw? Excuse me, Mrs. Hamilton; it’s a bit of a shock.”

“Don’t apologise. But if Mr. Hamilton has done it…”

“Yes. For some reason he has been chosen as the representative of all Sir Edmund’s lofty ambitions.” Bess spoke the elder gentleman’s name with such derision it surprised and frightened her. “That’s why it’s so difficult for me to understand, you see. It’s not my intention to cause offence, but you are the embodiment of all my own dashed hopes. The hypocrisy… It’s too much at times. Some are chosen, lifted up, given every opportunity, while others are left to scrape by on their own.”

“I’m very sorry,” Imogen answered.

By now all of Miss Mason’s allusions had added up to prove what she had all along feared. Before she could think what she was saying, or what she would do with the knowledge, the question was out. “Will you tell me, Miss Mason, is Charlie Mr. Hamilton’s son?”

Bess’s eyes narrowed. “No,” she said icily, and only after a long and contemplative pause. “No. He’s mine.”

“I’m afraid that doesn’t answer my question,” Imogen returned, trying to sound brave.

“My son was nearly killed today, Miss Shaw. Mrs. Hamilton. I’m not the one to give explanations. How you were so fortunate, I cannot guess, but whatever you traded for this, I hope you find it worth it.”

Miss Mason turned to Charlie once more, her eyes bright and sparkling in the near darkness. Imogen raised herself and approached her, but stopped as the woman, pale and worn, raised a hand to stay her.

“If there is anything I can do for your son, Miss Mason, anything at all. I would gladly do it.”

Miss Mason looked at Imogen for a long, hard minute.

“I’m not sure just what I might accomplish,” she continued. “I’m not sure how much influence I have. Little, I fear. I’m allowed a little money, for my own personal needs. You are welcome to it if it will help Charlie. If it will help you.”

Miss Mason looked at her son and did not answer.

But Imogen was not yet prepared to relent. “It’s not right that he should want simply because those who ought to provide for him refuse to do it. If there’s anything I can do to make up for what neglect he’s been so far made to suffer... You will remember?”

At last and quietly, the woman answered. “Yes.” She examined Imogen for a moment, studied her. “I may hold you to your word, Mrs. Hamilton.”

Imogen was pleased, relieved, even, to have her offer accepted, but the look Miss Mason gave her was a menacing one.

Miss Mason stood. “You will watch over him? I have your word?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ll see myself out,” the woman said and left the room, and the house as well.

With her thoughts once more to herself, the horrible truth began to wash over her, that which had been creeping upon her this past hour. She knew it, somehow had always known it—had expected it. Half wanted it, even. She had been wise to hold herself in reserve from her husband. Yet she could not hate him for doing what countless others before him had done. It was no more than what she had been prepared to forgive Roger of, after all. But then Roger had never lied to her. Not ever. And here was this boy, lying here, injured. Though she felt betrayed by Archer’s duplicity, by his hypocrisy, she loved the boy, very nearly as her own.

She turned to Charlie, resting quietly. She knelt beside his bed and offered a prayer. If the boy should recover… If God would only show her how she might do it, she would make whatever sacrifices necessary to provide for him a future as bright as his father had been allowed to have. Then some good might come out of this whole abominable affair.

Her eyes, now open, rested on the threadbare counterpane, examining the centre-sewn sheets that enfolded the boy. How much better he deserved than this! The jets were burning low, but even still she could see the soot-stained walls, the peeling flocking of the papers, the blackened ceiling. This neglect was not for Charlie, for no preparations had been made to have him here. But they might. Archer no longer needed this room. Why should it not be made over for another? Her mind began to work. It was far better that it should, for when she calmed and had time to recall the evening’s events, she would be once more brought to face the magnitude of her folly and the hopelessness of her circumstances. No. Not quite hopeless, for if she provided a place for Charlie, a home of sorts, would she not be making a place for herself as well? The love of a family was all she had ever wanted. Perhaps this was a start toward better things.

With the faint light of hope burning through the darkness of her despair, Imogen went to her room to retrieve her drawing supplies and to prepare herself to spend the night with Charlie.

She was just leaving her room once more, when it occurred to her to close the curtains. She crossed to the nearest window and, upon taking hold of the drawing rod, she glanced without. It was nearly dark now, but not so dark that she could not distinguish Archer’s silhouette standing below in the yard. The sight of him recalled Miss Mason’s words, and she found herself angry with him. Angry with his lies. Angry with herself for believing in them. She threw the curtain closed, and left the window to return to Charlie’s room.

Quietly she entered and found him resting as he had been when she had left. She sat down at the table and, spreading her work before her, began to draw, and to plan, and to avoid all other thought. She succeeded for a time. Until, exhausted, she laid down her pencil. She examined her renderings and her notes, and compared these to the room. She saw it now for what it might be. She looked once more to Charlie, seeing him too for what he might one day become. What she might make of him. She smiled. And then remembered. The smile faded, the tears came, and she arose from her place to lay herself down beside the boy, where she buried her head in her pillow and attempted to stifle the sobs she could no longer hold back.

* * *

It was there that Archer found her the next morning.

He stood beside the bed and watched them both for a long while before at last brushing from her face a stray lock of hair. She opened her eyes, and seeing him, tried to blink away the remnants of sleep. She looked, for a moment, pleased to see him, and then, suddenly, pained and angry. Perhaps she had a right to be. Of course she had a right to be. It was his fault what had happened to the boy.

“How is he?” he asked.

Hastily, as if recalling herself, she sat up. She felt Charlie’s forehead with her hand and brushed the hair from his face, nearly the way Archer had done for her, and then looked up.

“No fever,” she said, her relief apparent. “With any luck he’ll awake this morning.”

Archer offered a hopeful smile. “I’m certain of it,” he said. “You needn’t have slept here, though. Someone else might have been engaged to relieve you.”

“Who?” she asked, and, drawing herself up, wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders. “There is no one. Besides, I promised Miss Mason I’d remain with him.”

Her words shocked him. “You spoke to her? She was here?”

“Yes. You sent for her?”

“I sent word to her, yes, but she was not to come.”

“You would keep her from her child? Why?”

Archer exhaled hard and sat down upon the bed. Imogen drew herself up further, almost protectively. He pretended not to notice.

“Sir Edmund will not permit it,” he said. “She was a servant here once, did you know?”

“Yes. Like me. Yet here I am.”

“It’s not at all the same. You cannot compare yourself to her. It’s absurd.”

“It’s not absurd. She had no money to make up for the difference in station, to absolve her from her disgrace. That is the only difference I can see between Bess Mason and myself.”

“I did not marry one of my uncle’s servants,” he said as if the idea was repellent. “I married a woman who, for a short time, found herself in desperate circumstances. You may have worked here, yes, but you lowered yourself unnaturally in doing so. She has no money, but neither does she have family, or connections, or even a character to recommend her.”

Imogen seemed yet unconvinced. “Was it because of Charlie she was banished?”

Archer didn’t answer this. That story would have to wait for another time. He turned to go.

“You will tell me at least…” she said, rising and stepping toward him as if to follow. She stopped again when he turned to face her. “Can you tell me there are no others, that you do not presently have…?”

He saw a look in her eye, a hopeful, desperate look that made him weak. She wanted assurance, and he might give it. He approached her. She took a step back from him but he caught her head in one hand, holding her still and forcing her to look at him. He was not rough, only determined.

“There is no other but you,” he said. He saw the ice in her hard stare melt. He felt her relax. His fingers were entwined in her sleep tousled hair and he drew her to him. She did not resist. But as he bent to kiss her, to offer her the only and truest reassurance he had to give, she placed her hand on his mouth. He stopped. Her fingers, cold and trembling, slid across his lips and then to his jaw, and the moment they dropped from his face, he placed that halted kiss, rather harder than he had intended, on its intended target. His lips pressed against hers, lingered for a mere instant. He wanted more, but this was not the time or place. He drew away.

Imogen blinked hard, her eyes flashing with conflicting emotions. Her breath came quickly, but whether she was aroused to anger or to something more congenial, he could not quite tell. Perhaps neither could she, and he prayed the latter would win out.

He waited. No words of rebuke or rejection came. Nothing either to encourage or inspire. His heart, pounding hard, ached with disappointment and a yearning yet unfulfilled. But there was nothing further he could hope to achieve here. Not now. He turned once more to go.

And once more, she stopped him. Not, this time, with a question, but with a request.

“I want this room made up for Charlie. I think he should have a room here. Your room.”

He hesitated for a moment, and then, slowly he answered. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? I don’t see why not,” she said becoming excited, her face flushed still from a moment before. “We must have some natural responsibility for him. A responsibility so far largely neglected.”

“Which is?”

“He is family, is he not?”

“Yes. Of a sort.”

“What does that mean, ‘of a sort’?”

“He knows me as his uncle. That isn’t quite the case.”

“No, it’s not. He’s your…”

“Say it.”

She remained silent.

“You still believe he’s my son?”

She glanced at Charlie, still resting unmoved. “I just want to know the truth. He wants to know his father. Really know him, Archer. And be loved by him.”

He crossed the room and was once more directly before her. He saw fear in her eyes, though it quickly hardened. His proffered gesture, for all his good intentions, seemed to have worked against him. He’d convinced her of nothing.

“I have never lied to you.”

“No but you’ve kept the truth back often enough. You are doing it now. You did it the day you offered to me.”

His jaw tightened as he exhaled through his nose.

“I asked her,” she said.

“She wouldn’t have told you.”

“She didn’t.”

“I wish she had. It would make all our lives so much simpler.”

He left then, and in a combination of frustration and resentful anger, he went down to his uncle’s study. The place, without its books, and maps, and furnishings seemed to him alien, strange and barren. Perhaps it was this that inspired Sir Edmund’s choice of topic.

“Any progress?” his uncle asked.

“He has rested well through the night,” Archer answered. “There is no fever.”

Sir Edmund turned to him, his gaze evaluating, measuring. “It’s Mrs. Hamilton I was enquiring about.”

He was uncertain how to answer this, uncertain what it was his uncle hoped to gain by the question. “She slept in the boy’s room last night.”

“Well that’s certainly not progress, is it!”

“She wanted to be sure of him. She did not wish to leave him when there was still some risk.”

“Yes, well. She’s no nursemaid now, is she?”

“There’s no one else to see to him. What choice does she have?”

“So long as she’s out of my way, and remembers her place, I don’t care how she occupies her time.”

“And what is her place?” Archer asked, stepping forward. “Do you mind telling me? I think she’s under the impression she’s returned here to work.”

“I’m not sure she hasn’t, if you want to know the truth. If her station has improved so greatly, why is she not then observing her duty to it?”

“How can you ask such a question? Have you not seen the improvements? Have you not seen what neat work she’s made of it all? And with as little bother to you as can conceivably be arranged.”

“It’s not the house I’m referring to, Archer. It’s her duties to you as your wife. You ought to have taken her in hand already. If you wait much longer, the chance may get beyond you.”

“I’m not sure it hasn’t,” he said, recalling the look of shock on her face, the flash of anger he had seen when he had left her but a few moments ago. “She spoke to Miss Mason.”

“Did she, now! And she thinks she’s got it all figured out, does she?”

“No. Not hardly, but she knows I owe her some explanations, and so far I have none to give, save that Charlie’s not my son. There’s no convincing her, it seems, and such can only serve as further obstacle to your desires.”

“Which are no different from yours, unless I’m very much mistaken. The longer you wait, you know, the harder it will get. If you want her loyalty, I’m afraid you’re going to have to demand it.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Archer said, turning away. “It’s unthinkable.”

Not quite unimaginable, though. And to avoid lingering on such thoughts, he left the house and took himself for a long cooling walk. Alone.

* * *

Imogen, after Archer had left, sat down to consider that morning’s interview. Why was it she always believed every word he spoke? What power did he have to cast such spells that she could not think when he was in the same room with her? What was the truth? Was he truly in love with her? It seemed impossible to deny completely. Yet love is not demanding. Nor is it deceitful. Whatever he might say to the contrary on any other subject, the fact that their marriage had been arranged and that he had known all along what he had been asking her to do, made it impossible for her to believe in his integrity on any other subject.

Imogen turned to find Charlie looking at her, a pained expression on his face.

“Do you hurt, Charlie?”

He shook his head in answer.

“Are you hungry?”

He shook his head once more, but Imogen pulled the bell anyway and then returned and sat herself beside him.

“Your mother came to see you while you were sleeping.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You know?”

“I heard you talking. You and Mr. Hamilton.”

“Oh,” was her only answer. What else had he heard?

“This is to be my room now?”

“Yes, Charlie. If you want it.”

He offered a grateful, if rather sad, smile.

“Charlie. I’m sorry if—”

“Mr. Hamilton is not my father.”

“He said he is not, but…”

“You don’t believe him.”

“I don’t know what to believe, truly.”

“I don’t think he would lie. Not to you.”

He looked away, his eyes suddenly full and brilliant.

“I’m sorry,” she tried again. “I would not mind should it prove to be so.”

“I just…” he began and stopped, in the very same manner she had once or twice seen Archer do. In that moment she saw him in the boy’s eyes, in the boy’s countenance. In his confusion and longing. “I want…” And he stopped again.

“I know. It’s all right.”

“Even if he’s not my father, he might learn to care for me.”

Imogen was confused. “You would prefer that over knowing for certain?”

“I don’t want to be a burden. For everyone else to whom I might belong, that’s all I am. At least when I cannot find a way to be useful. I want to belong. To someone.”

She saw that longing hope once more and she felt his pain. She understood it too well. “I think I want that too,” she said in what was little more than a whisper.

His eyes flashed to meet hers. “But you do belong.”

“No. Not really.”

“He loves you. I can tell.”

“Charlie, you’re so young.”

“Not too young. Not too young to understand that there is love and there is duty, and then there is something else low and cheap.”

She was shocked by his speech. An eight year old boy should not understand such things. What manner of circumstances would have educated him so? She hated to think of it.

She arose. “This house is pitiably staffed, Charlie. I can ring that bell all day and nothing will come of it,” she said, hoping to change the subject. Or at least to lighten the mood.

“You can do something about that now, can’t you?”

“I think I may have to. I’m just not sure quite how to go about it.”

“Mrs. Hartup?”

“Yes.”

“What of her? If she doesn’t like it she can go somewhere else, can’t she? If she wanted to run the place, maybe she ought to have married Mr. Hamilton herself.”

“Charlie!” But she laughed in spite of her reproof. “Rest, will you? I’m going to go find you something to eat.”





Not too young to understand.