The Stargazer's Sister (30 page)

“I
gave
my life,” she says. “William, I gave it. Without you I would have had no life at all. You know what I escaped. And you have given me so much in return.
More
—much more—than I have given you.”

She remembers the day they left Hanover, how he had not hesitated when handing over a purse to free Hilda from her servitude to their mother. She remembers Hilda weeping, foolishly holding her apron over her face. The trees had been heavy with apples that day, the mud deep underfoot, and the morning sky full of clouds as fragile as lace. She remembers it clearly, that moment when her life divided, her past left behind as if it had died and been buried.

Their brother Alexander joined his younger brothers, Dietrich and Leonard, at the vineyard eventually, when their uncle passed on. They’d written to William after their mother’s death that Jacob, after decades of silence, had surprised everyone by returning to claim the house. No one knew where he had been, or how he’d heard of his mother’s last, fatal illness. He had said not a word of explanation to anyone, apparently, about all his years of absence, though Alexander reported that he looked badly used, and that he kept to himself. Whatever money Jacob had, Alexander wrote, apparently came from gambling.

Lina wonders what the old house looks like now, whether Jacob has kept up the orchard. She imagines disarray, rats in the corners, Jacob with his devil’s face and dark teeth before a dying fire, cinders on the kitchen floor. She knows that Jacob wrote once asking William for money, and that William sent it, without question. Perhaps there have been other entreaties, other payments. She doesn’t know. She hasn’t wanted to think about him. It comes to her suddenly that had William not taken her away so many years before, she might have been first her mother’s slave, and then Jacob’s.

“William,” she says now. “
Please.
I shall be well in no time.”

But there is fear in her. He will
not
send her away—he must not, he
must
not
!—because he imagines her unhappy or now unsuited for their labors together, lame or otherwise incapable.

He will
not
banish her from the life—the
work
—she has come to love. She delights in her hours alone on the laundry roof, her contributions to the catalogs of stars on which William works. She does not want to abandon her own investigations, any more than she wants to abandon his.

“I can manage without you, Lina, I feel certain,” he says. “You must take as much time for yourself as you like, as much time as you need to be well. You must enjoy yourself.”

“I am
fine,
William,” she says. “It is only a little wound, after all. I will heal quickly, I am sure.”

She feels her panic subside a little—he means only for her to rest, she thinks—but she is hurt by his remark that he can make do without her. She had thought herself indispensable. Indeed, she knows she
has
been indispensable.

“Truly,” she repeats. “A matter of a few days. Or less,” she goes on. “I am sure of it, William.”

He bows his head lower. He brings her knuckles to his mouth, and his hands tremble. When a cold tear falls on the back of her hand, she is shocked.

“I am worried about
you,
William,” she says. “This is not like you!”

He looks up at her then. He withdraws his hands from hers and wipes his eyes and mouth with his handkerchief.

“I know that you have been practicing economies,” he says. “Your stipend from the queen, mine from the king…allow us no luxuries.”

She does not like the look on his face. Something is there beyond his worry over money. These are old familiar troubles. “Surely Sir Joseph will help you, or Dr. Maskelyne,” she says, but she knows even as she says it that William cannot be truly concerned about this. Though it is always a challenge, finding enough money, eventually it comes from somewhere. And William could spend more time with his music, as he once did. She could sing, perform again. They could easily work up a program for the season. It has been many years, of course, but…

“He is such an admirer, Sir Joseph,” she says. “Of course he will—”

The fire has died down. One of the candles on the mantel gutters. William should call for Stanley, she thinks, or soon they will be in darkness.

William looks away from her. “I have met someone,” he says.

In the bed, Lina moves swiftly, involuntarily, shifting her body away from his. The pain in her leg is shocking, and she stifles a cry.

William coughs again, wipes his nose, still without meeting her eyes. Instead he gets to his feet and goes to the window.

“She is a widow,” he says. “She has a sizable fortune.”

The night has been long, but now she sees that the palest light has arrived at the window, a fragile light, low on the pane. Lina does not want to see it, does not want what is coming toward her, this new day.

“She is quite young,” he goes on. “You know her family; she is a Pitt, now—a brief marriage, unfortunate. She was married for only a year. An accident. Her husband suffered a riding accident. Her family…they are the Baldwins.”

Lina cannot speak. All the years she worried that a wife would replace her in William’s affections…and yet it had never happened, not even during all his visits to London. Eventually she had ceased to think of it. They would grow old together, she and William. They would be enough for each other.

She is acquainted with the Baldwin family from church, where they must come in two carriages, there are so many of them. Their house commands a fine view of Windsor Castle, she knows, and is very grand. Has she ever seen this young woman? She must have, in church.

“She is very kind,” William says. “Very sweet-natured. A lovely girl. A lovely woman.”

“You will take a
girl
as your wife? You are an
old man,
William,” Lina says. “How old is she? Surely, you have no—”

She raises herself in the bed. She feels her pulse thrashing in her sore throat, matching the throbbing in her leg.

“You mean—” she says. “Now I understand you. You mean to take her to solve your difficulties over…
money.
”

He continues to stand at the window.

“That is not why,” he says quietly.

“Then what? What
is
it?” She hears that her voice has become angry.

He is silent.

“I have not made up my mind,” he says finally. “I do not know if she would even have me. Indeed it is true that I am her elder by several years.”

“William,”
she says. “What can she do that
I
cannot do for you, except to give you
money
?”

But she hears herself then, hears the horrible nature of her question.

She feels how dry her lips are, cracked from the cold.

“I
worried
you would respond like this,” he says. His tone is weary.

She is shocked. William is
never
weary.

“Have I not been excellent company for you, Lina?” he says. “My wanting to marry now, finally, is not the same as wanting to hurt you. I have
never
wanted to hurt you. Mary believes in our investigations. She has the resources to assist me. I believe she would like to be of use.”

He coughs again into the handkerchief, as if this speech has brought it on.

“I hope you will be
happy
for me,” he says finally, “if happiness with Mary is to be mine.”

“William!” she says. She can feel how big her eyes have become, as if her face has been stretched tight over the bones. She can feel the old pressure in her chest, her
Überangst,
feel her mother’s hands, pushing her away.
Don’t do that.

“I shall go find Stanley,” he says, “to build up the fire.” And then he has left the room.

—

AFTER SOME TIME,
Stanley appears at the door carrying a tray with tea and a boiled egg. Steam rises from the pot. He sets down the tray beside the bed. “You’re all right? I’m going to get more wood,” he says.

Lina has been staring at the day rising outside the window.

“I wish to go to my own room,” she says. She begins to sit up.

“There’s no need for that,” Stanley says. “You’re fine here. Your brother said so. Dr. Onslow wants you to rest.”

“I can rest in my own room,” she says. “I will be happier there.”

Stanley regards her for a moment. “Eat, first.” He sets the tray on her lap.

Obediently she drinks the tea, eats the egg. She has no appetite, but the hot tea feels good against her swollen throat. Stanley sits down on the bed beside her. She is afraid to look at him, afraid of what her face will reveal. He says nothing. It is like him, she thinks, to be sensitive to her. Surely he knows nothing of William’s intentions, but he knows something beyond her accident has transpired.

“Why not stay here for now?” he says gently. “You’ve had a bad fall. Rest yourself.”

She looks up at him. “Help me. Please. Truly, I want to be in my own bed.”

He does not argue further with her. He takes the tray away, and she begins to try to move, but the pain in her leg is awful, and despite herself she cries out.

Stanley looks down on her.

“You are determined on this,” he says. “I don’t know why. But you can’t walk. You can hardly move.”

She looks at her leg, the bandage there.

“If I lift you,” he says, “it will hurt you.”

She nods. “Yes, I know it. Thank you, Stanley.
Danke schön.
”

He leans down then after a moment and slips his arms beneath her carefully, picking her up and holding her as he would a baby. She closes her eyes against the pain. She puts her arms around his neck.

She remembers the laughing, brown-eyed man who carried her to shore so many years ago.

Stanley makes a sound of sympathy; she knows it is his love for her that makes him sad now.

“It’s a mystery,” he says, “how someone so strong could weigh so little, in the end. If one was to judge only by your behavior, anyone would think you must be made of iron and weigh a ton.”

In her room, when he lays her in bed, she is panting from the pain.

“I wish you hadn’t made me do that,” he says.

“Sorry,” she says. And again she thanks him.

“I’ll make you a fire,” he says. “And then you must have tea and broth. Or wine. Dr. Onslow said so. Sarah has come, with the babies. Shall I ask her to come up and help you now?”

How tactful and considerate he is, she thinks. Someone must help her with her clothes and to wash, and she must empty her bladder, which aches.

The babies. It is how he always refers to his boys. She loves that about him.

“Sarah will stay until you’re on your feet,” he says. “She’s a good nurse, and it’s no bother to us. The boys love to be here. You know that.”

She speaks from the pillow. “I never could have managed all these years, Stanley. Never without you.”

“I’d say you were a match for him.” Stanley stands up from the fire. “You’d have done all right.” But his face shows his pity for her.

She manages a smile, but what she feels is that somehow she has begun to die a little, will die a little more every day now.

“Where is my
Bruder
?” she says, using the old German.

“He’s in the laundry,” Stanley says. “I think he went in there to work, but he’s fallen fast asleep over his papers.”

He wipes his hands free of dirt from the logs. “What do you know? He’s mortal like the rest of us after all, the old man.”

—

WILLIAM COMES TO HER ROOM
that evening, after Sarah has taken away her supper tray. He has washed, and he wears a fresh shirt. Sarah must be busy downstairs with their filthy clothes, washing and drying, as well as cooking, Lina assumes, and managing the children, too. Earlier Stanley had brought the little boys up to say hello, reminding them to be careful of her bad leg. The eldest boy, Anthony—as sweet-tempered as his father—said, “Poor Missus Caroline. She is hurting very, very badly,” and he kissed her hand again and again instead.

William’s sleep—however little he intended to take it—has done him good. He looks better.

He has a bottle of sherry, and he pours her a glass.

“Is the pain any better?”

She nods.

He looks out the window. A hard rain sounds against the glass.

He goes to the mantel and takes up the clock, another of Henry’s gifts. It’s a lovely thing, bronze and ormolu. A female figure seated at a desk with an open birdcage before her is mounted on the top. The pendulum swings behind the frieze, a blur of gold like a bird’s wing. It must have stopped, she realizes, just before dawn.

She does not want William to touch the clock, but he winds it, sets it back.

She knows he is at a loss, unable to sit at the telescope tonight.

“Have you everything you need?” he asks.

She nods again.

“Now you are not speaking to me.” He sighs. “It was my fault, your accident. If it were not for me, you would have been safely inside last night, asleep in your bed like all the other ladies in England.”

“I do not
wish
to be
safely inside,
William,” she says.

He comes and sits on her bed. “What can I do?” he says.

“Nothing,” she says. “I’m fine.”

“Caroline.”

“If you think I am unhappy, William, you are mistaken,” she says.

He colors.

“I will go on,” she says. “As usual.” It is what she has decided. He may take a wife, but she will do as she has always done for William. He will love her no less, and perhaps there even will be happiness in it for her as well. “I shall stay here in my place and do as I have always done.”

At this he does not meet her gaze. He looks down at her legs beneath the quilt.

“We are friends, Lina?” he says. “As usual?”

“Do you know what I have remembered?” she says. “From long ago. I read it in a book you gave me. I wrote it down.
If you must love, oh, then, love solitude, for solitude alone is true and kind.
But I do not think it is true.”