“Then I think we have no need to worry.” Emily tried to sound as if that were a relief, but none of the anxiety was lifted from Cecily’s face. “It isn’t the contract, is it?” she said after another moment or two.
Cecily blinked, and Emily realized with a wave of pity that she was close to tears. She put an arm around Cecily very lightly. “Come and sit down. There is a sort of small sitting room just through here. I remember it from another occasion.”
“It’s really nothing.” Cecily hesitated. “I’m sorry. I must be a little…tired.”
“Perhaps you have a slight chill,” Emily said, not as a serious answer but to fill a silence that seemed to require an explanation. She wanted very much to know what it was that caused Cecily such concern, but it would be clumsy to ask. It would sound more like curiosity than friendship.
They walked into the small room and Emily closed the door. It was, as she had said, a sitting room of sorts. There were three chairs in it, close to one another, and a very small table with a pitcher of water and several glasses. Emily poured two and gave one to Cecily.
“You have children, don’t you?” Cecily asked, more as confirmation than an inquiry.
“Yes, a son and a daughter,” Emily agreed. “And you have a son, Alexander. You’ve spoken of him once or twice. How is he?”
Perhaps that was what Cecily had been waiting for, but she did not look up at Emily as she answered. “He had a terrible accident several years ago. His horse fell on him. It damaged his spine…”
Emily tried to imagine how she would feel if it were Edward, and she could hardly bear it. “I’m so sorry…” What a feeble thing to say. But what could possibly be equal to seeing your child appallingly injured? Most mothers would sooner it were themselves!
“He recovered…quite well,” Cecily said, looking up for the first time. “The doctor thought his spine had healed, even though it took quite a long time. Alex could walk again, quite quickly. Even dance. But we didn’t realize that without the medicine he was still in a lot of pain.”
Emily nodded, but she did not interrupt. What was there to say that could possibly be of use?
Cecily drew in a shaky breath. “I thought that it would lessen, and it seemed to. I didn’t realize he was sheltering me from much of his pain.”
“And his father?” Emily asked. Although Jack was not Edward’s father, he loved Edward as deeply as he did Evangeline, who was his. The idea of either of them being hurt would be unbearable to him, every bit as much as to Emily.
Cecily looked away. “Alexander is…very different from Godfrey. Perverse, some people might say. Godfrey is a good man, extraordinarily gifted and dedicated to the causes he works for. Alexander is a dreamer, creative in his imagination and in the arts.” She turned back to Emily almost as if she had read criticism in her. “And I do not mean he is lazy or impractical, or that he does nothing to realize his visions into form. He has a gift for sculpture. He has made an altarpiece for one of the local churches. And he gets other commissions, too. But…” She stopped.
Emily guessed that the quarrel with his father went deeper than Cecily wished to say, and in truth, it was a very private matter, even though it was not at all uncommon. Jack had to work hard not to quarrel with Edward now and then. If he had been his own son, he might not have restrained himself so much. Emily had not always been entirely at peace with her own mother, Charlotte even less so. Their sister, Sarah, long dead now, had been the only obedient one.
“Alex lives a different way,” Cecily started again. “I don’t approve of it, but he is still my son. He has friends I don’t care for, and I am certain he spends far too much of his time indulging…tastes I dislike.” She said it so quietly Emily did not even think of asking what they were. Cecily’s pain was all she cared about. Perhaps it happened to most mothers. Edward was a little young for her to worry about his having those sorts of troubles, but her own turn could well come, and far sooner than she would ever be prepared for.
“He…he had some very unsuitable friends,” Cecily said again, as though now the floodgates were open on the dam that had held her troubles back, and she needed to deal with it all at once.
“We all do…” Emily responded. “And some of them turn out to be good.”
“Not like Dylan Lezant,” Cecily said softly, her voice catching as if she found it hard to control.
“Dylan Lezant?” Emily echoed.
“He was a young man of passion and charm, but emotionally fragile. ‘Too much imagination,’ Godfrey said. Josiah Abercorn was close to him as well. That’s how Alexander met him, when he was recovering from his accident.”
“He sounds like a good friend,” Emily observed.
“He was…”
“Was?”
“He’s dead.” Cecily gulped, and turned her head away a little, swallowing hard. “They hanged him. I think Alexander has never got over it.” The tears spilled and slid down her cheeks. “He seemed so young! So…so very foolish. But I suppose that is the law, and there was no escaping it.”
“The law?” Emily said, startled.
“He killed a man…shot him.” Cecily met Emily’s eyes at last. “They were buying opium…for pain. The police caught them, and in running away, Dylan shot a man, a Mr. Tyndale, who was just going home by a shortcut. Alexander refused to believe he was guilty, but of course he was.” She swallowed hard and dabbed her cheeks with the handkerchief from her reticule. “He still doesn’t believe it today. You see…Alex escaped without the police identifying him. He thought Dylan was right behind him…but he wasn’t. The police arrested him with the gun in his hand. Poor Tyndale was dead, shot through the heart. That was the worst time in my life. Alexander came forward-did everything he could to prove that Dylan was innocent-but no one believed him. They tried Dylan and found him guilty. I can remember Alexander’s face as if it were days ago, not years. I was terrified he would take his own life, with the grief of it…and the guilt. I thought he would never stop…that he would…damage his heart, quite literally.”
“Guilt?” Emily said slowly, having difficulty with the idea. She ached to help, but what was there anyone could do?
“Because he lived!” Cecily explained. “They both ran, but Dylan was closer and they caught him. And Alexander couldn’t prove Dylan’s innocence. He spent all his money, spent every day and night until he passed out with exhaustion. But he couldn’t even make anyone listen to him.”
“If I said I can even imagine how you feel, it would be a lie,” Emily told her. “But if there is anything I can do in any way at all, please allow me to.”
Cecily was silent for a few moments, as if searching for something to ask of her, then shook her head. “Thank you…”
There were footsteps outside and both of them stood up, not wishing to be caught in what was an acutely private conversation. Gossip could interpret it in too many ways.
Even so, the subject arose in another conversation within the hour, and Emily was determined to turn it to her advantage. She was speaking with Mrs. Hill, a woman she had known for some time, when they were joined by her brother, Mr. Cardon, and his wife, a blunt-faced woman who was wearing rather too many diamonds for the best of taste. However, she had a candor that Emily found a pleasant change from the too common desire to please those considered to be important.
The first reference caught Emily completely by surprise. She hadn’t been paying close attention to the conversation.
“You must mean Lestrange,” Mrs. Cardon was saying to her husband. “Lezant was the poor young man who was hanged for shooting the bystander in the opium sale, or whatever it was.”
Her husband’s eyebrows rose so far they wrinkled his brow right up to the point where his hair was receding. “I don’t know why on earth you need feel pity for such a miserable creature. You really should be more careful of the words you choose, my dear. I’m sure you don’t mean that. You will give Mrs. Radley quite the wrong impression of you.”