Page 17 of A Delicate Deception
And then he came across a too-familiar shape. Even covered in dust and cobwebs he would have known Andrew’s trunk anywhere—it had accompanied them from Liverpool to Flanders to Durham to London and back again. And when Andrew had decided to stay in Derbyshire to marry Penny, his trunk had stayed with him. Sydney thought it had been destroyed in the fire along with everything else Andrew had owned. He was on his knees before he could think twice, throwing the lid open, staring down into its depths.
There was Andrew’s hairbrush, his shaving kit, a few pairs of moth-eaten waistcoats that Sydney could still imagine his brother wearing. No, he couldn’t quite cope with any of that, couldn’t quite accept that this hairbrush existed when its owner did not. He shoved them aside, feeling for what he couldn’t see in the faint light that made its way through the single small, dirty window. His fingers brushed against a smooth leather surface, and he knew he had it. He lifted the book out and looked at the cover. It was too dim to read but he knew the volume by heart, even after all those years:Moral Tales for Young Peopleby Hannah Goddard. It was Andrew’s copy of their mother’s book. Andrew hadn’t thought it even slightly embarrassing to carry around a book of children’s stories written by his own mother, and hadn’t cared who knew about it. He hadn’t cared what anyone thought about anything, come to that. He had effortlessly managed to make everyone love him, and Sydney might have resented it if he hadn’t loved Andrew as well.
When he opened the book, the pages fell open to the story of little Sally Cartwright who decides to learn the science behind exploding puddings and winds up boycotting sugar. That had been Andrew’s favorite—the story of a child who isn’t punished for her curiosity, but rewarded with both puddings and righteousness.
For a moment he was overwhelmed by how much he missed his brother, how much he wished Andrew had lived to know that he had a daughter. They could have dismantled every clock in the house together. Andrew had been rash and sometimes irresponsible, but he had never been stingy with his affections. He had been the sort of man who seemed to have a bottomless well of kindness and love, while Sydney only had duty. His caring for people did sometimes feel about as joyful as emptying a chamber pot, and he resented Lex for having got that right. Lex, a man who had certainly never emptied such a thing in his life.
He ran his fingers over the worn cover of his mother’s book. He wished she were here, to ask for advice, to help raise Leontine, but also as living proof that Sydney was capable of affection, of loving and being loved. All he ever had from her were increasingly rare letters from America. All his connections seemed to deteriorate into unanswered letters—first Lex, now his mother, and he had always suspected that if he hadn’t spent every day working alongside Andrew, his brother would have forgotten he existed. That would happen with Amelia as well. Perhaps he wasn’t the sort of person one developed deeper feelings for. That was, he supposed, fine. He could still do what was right.
Chapter Six
5 August, 1824
Dear Amelia,
I meant to ask you about your father. I suppose that’s just the sort of opening guaranteed to have you toss the entire letter into the fire, which is no more than what I deserve, but the fact is that I did mean to ask you about your father, and now it’s too late to come up with a more graceful way to ask. You probably think I ought to start the letter afresh on a new sheet of paper, but this single sheet was all I could persuade the innkeeper at the King’s Arms in Peak Dale to part with. Why, you may well ask, am I at Peak Dale instead of Manchester? A sink hole opened in the middle of the road, caused the stagecoach to tip, and its passengers to undergo an adventure. If for some reason you’ve read this far (why, Amelia?) please note never to ask me about the condition of the roads from Bakewell to Manchester (for now I will confine myself to noting that a certain turnpike trust ought to have hired me when presented with a chance).
So, your father. When you mentioned that you would have died in his place, do you mean that you felt like it was your fault for having lived when he died? That your family would have been better off if he had survived? That, I’m afraid, is the sort of deranged notion that passes for thought in my mind these days. (But truly, my brother was a better man than I, and the world would have been a better place had he lived. He had a family—)
Please note that over the course of writing the last paragraph, I’ve muttered so many imprecations under my breath at my own presumptuousness that the respectable matron at the next table has pointedly found a new seat. You may well sympathize.
But you spoke of the matter with such perfect frankness and even humor that I think I’m not grossly overstepping, but I trust you’ll put me in my place if I’m wrong.
Glancing out the window, I can see that it’s pouring rain, which means you’re going to be done out of your walk. Are you trapped inside as you read this? Do you get restless when you can’t get out?
Sincerely yours,
Sydney [illegible]
P.S. If you take leave of your senses and wish to write me back, my address is 12 Booth Street, Manchester.
7 August, 1824
Dear Sydney,
I thoroughly sympathize with the respectable matron at the King’s Arms in Peak Dale, if only because your apologies are excessive and wear upon my patience. I will proceed to cheerfully talk your ear off about the earnest longing for the grave that ensued upon my father’s death, but first let me point out that most human beings would have begun such a letter as yours not with a gentle request about the nature of grief, but with the news that they had recently had a narrow escape from their own death. May I assume that you were uninjured, as that single sheet of paper is not blotted with your own blood?
I suspect that for those of us who are accustomed to find ourselves lacking in some capacity, especially by comparison with those around us, our minds find self-recrimination a very comfortable and familiar place. So when confronted with a new and terrible sensation, such as grief, our idiot brains retreat to the homely comfort of self-loathing. That, at least, is how I think my own poor mind manages. It is, of course, balderdash, and I know that now, but try telling that to my brain.
It has been raining for two days straight. I’ve been pacing the length of my sitting room for about an hour, earning pitying glances from long-suffering Georgiana and glares from the cat.
I cannot read your signature, so will take my chances and address this letter to Sydney Gibberish and hope for the best.
Sincerely yours,
Amelia Allenby
9 August, 1824
Dear Amelia,
It occurred to me in the middle of the night (in my own bed in Manchester now, thank heavens) that women do not tend to write to men. Or perhaps the rule is that unmarried women do not write to men. There is quite literally nobody I could ask about this except my landlady, who is already very cross with me for planning to move out on short notice. In any event, our previous interactions have given me reason to suppose that you may not take such strictures very much to heart.
The second paragraph of your letter rings uncomfortably true. A pox on you for being so correct. The truth is that my brother was everything I am not—generous, open-hearted, humorous. He was also impulsive, reckless, and absentminded, and I would feel disloyal for committing those thoughts to paper, but for how I am the inverse of those as well, but still manage to make it come out a flaw: I’m afraid I’m a bit of a bore.
Yours,
Sydney
