COnvoluted Love
By: Meghan Coley
Before she found herself in the empty parlor with William, awestruck by her inability to truly see what had been in front of her all along, Ada had stood in a large, stuffy room and watched her older sister dance with the man she had loved for the past five months.
She felt terrible for wishing that Vera weren’t so beautiful. Her pale blue satin gown and ringlets of blonde hair pulled back in an elegant bun were almost as radiant as the smile on her glowing face. She had tipped her delicate chin up towards her dance partner, and the way the pair had gazed into each others’ eyes made Ada’s insides twist with a guilt she didn’t know could physically hurt.
She was supposed to be happy that her eldest sister had found a man she could imagine spending the rest of her life with. The prospects of their coming marriage was supposed to put Ada’s mind at ease and lay her largest worry to rest.
Oliver had changed all of Vera’s misgivings about abandoning her childhood and stepping into society as a married woman. This was quite a mighty feat, considering that Vera had always been the free-spirited sister. Rebellious, even, while Ada had always been the level-headed, responsible daughter.
The family had been overjoyed at Vera’s change of mind. The unbridled young mare had been willingly saddled. It was a genuine miracle.
She would have a husband who could provide for her, a husband who could provide for their whole family. Vera would be happy, and Ada could stop shouldering the burden of worrying over their family’s affairs that her sister lacked.
Or so she thought.
Ada had smiled alongside her father and mother when Vera had told them about her hopes of a coming proposal. It had been strange to see her blushing and giggling. It was even stranger to know that her giddy behavior meant that Oliver loved her.
Despite her best efforts, Ada couldn’t bring herself to smile as she stood in a dim corner of the ballroom and watched the couple dance. It was more than just their palpable chemistry that left her feeling short for breath. It was what Oliver was hiding behind his perfect smile: a secret that Ada had discovered. A creeping sense of desperate fear worked its way up her throat.
It was the kind of fear that bubbled up obtrusively, consuming every thought. Oliver’s choice to keep hidden something that Vera had every right to know hadn’t kept Ada from loving him. She felt like she should be doing something -- anything -- to get Oliver to stop looking at Vera with his clear blue eyes. But what could she have done? It’s rather difficult to win the heart of someone who has already given theirs away. And her sister’s happiness was too delicate of a thing to break. Not that she had any desire to break it in the first place.
She just wanted to know when Oliver Holmwood’s secret -- the entire Holmwood family’s secret -- would make itself known, and if it would shatter the happiness of her sister in what had become an inevitably messy affair.
She also wanted to sit on the ground and hug her knees to her chest like a child attempting to stifle internal pain with a good squeeze to the kneecaps. Surely pretending that her heart wasn’t breaking was better than watching it fall into too many pieces to count.
But instead she stood up straighter so as to find her father in the crowd. Her eyes roved over smiling faces pressed against the walls. It didn’t take her long to find his rosy-cheeks and thinning grey hair. He looked almost as merry as the woman who stood next to him. Mother’s thin face rarely betrayed her true emotions, but in that moment, it was obvious that the sight of Vera in Oliver’s arms brought her joy.
Ada’s eyes were stinging as she shifted her attention to her sister. She attempted to read between the lines of her face. She was spinning to and fro, linking arms with the other women in the line of the dance before swinging around to swap lines with the men who stood across from them. Every gleaming flash of her white teeth, dimples, and bright blue-green eyes told Ada that Oliver had already proposed.
She wondered how long it would take Vera to find her to share the wonderful news.
As she let herself wonder, she scanned the room of faces again, looking for the person she knew she had to speak to before the night came to an end.
The dance ended moments later. People clapped politely and moved to take their places for the next dance. For a split second Ada considered finding someone to dance with who could spin her close enough to Oliver to catch his eye. She shook her head, ashamed of her heart for holding onto such ridiculous hope.
“Ada,” a voice said in her ear.
She tensed and turned to look into a set of dark blue eyes. It seemed as if the person had found her before she could find them.
“William,” she said through a forced curtsy.
The name seemed to stick in her throat which had been burning uncomfortably ever since Vera and Oliver had stepped into the center of the room. She coughed lightly and prepared herself for a conversation she knew would result in the truth she already knew if she pushed hard enough.
“You seem a bit preoccupied,” William said as he looked at her. His hands were resting behind his back.
“I guess I am.” She looked pointedly at Vera and Oliver, standing across from each other in the dancers’ rows.
William’s head bobbed in the corner of her eye. He was looking at them too, a pleasant smile plastered to his face.
“Do you know if he’s asked her yet?” he murmured softly. Ada turned to look at him fully. He was already looking at her, a challenging glint in his eye. She wondered how he had managed to sound so innocent, as if he had no idea of Oliver’s intentions.
“I would have thought that your own brother would inform you of the precise time when he planned to do so.”
He leaned towards her, hands still resting behind his back.
“You sound as if my question offended you.”
Something about the glint in his eye made her breath hitch. For a moment, she thought that perhaps she had not done a good enough job of hiding her infatuation with his older brother, though she was sure that she had hid her feelings well. She kept a straight face as her mind attempted to jump to conclusions.
“Please don’t play dumb with me, William,” she said as she regained her composure. “I’m really not able to put up a charming front tonight. I just need you to be honest with me.”
He opened his mouth and shook his head nearly imperceptibly.
“Honest about --”
“I know, William. I know about your family, why… why you’re here.” She gestured vaguely at their surroundings. “I need to know why you didn’t tell me. Why Oliver hasn’t told Vera.”
He had shut his mouth as she began to speak. His eyes grew cold and his brows had set themselves in a thin, unsuspecting line.
She wanted to say something, to egg him on as her face began to flush. But she remained silent.
“Come with me. I’ll explain everything.”
He said it quickly and was turning to walk towards the room’s nearest exit before she could get a word in edgewise. He nodded to a few people as he walked towards the large house’s front rooms. She hesitated before picking up the skirts of her gown and following him.
He stopped in an empty hallway and turned to face her. She led him through her home to the private parlor: a room where they wouldn’t be disturbed or overheard. William’s boots echoed on the tile as they left the hum of conversation behind them.
He shut the door as Ada busied herself with lighting a candle on one of the small tables that sat next to the room’s upholstered armchairs.
A strange sort of silence settled over them. Ada’s fingers fumbled with the candle as she thought about all of the times the two of them had read books and played chess in the quiet room. The kind of silence that had settled over those lazy afternoons hadn’t felt like this silence. They normally had no trouble coming up with things to say to each other, and when they didn’t, the silence wasn’t strange. But everything about the space between them in that moment felt wrong.
“I’ve had my suspicions for a while now, William,” Ada whispered, breaking the silence. She lightly set the candle back down on the table. “I need you to tell me if they’re correct so that I can stop looking at you as if I don’t know you.”
Ada knew he had heard her despite his stillness by the door. He was examining the knob as if it was the most interesting item in the world. He eventually looked up and met her eyes in the soft light. But he didn’t say a word.
“Did your father ever have the money that he said he did?” Ada asked.
William remained silent for several moments before answering.
“Yes. At one point, he did. But… it’s all gone now.”
Ada nodded. “Were you eventually going to tell me?
William began to answer, but Ada cut him off.
“Was Oliver going to tell Vera?”
William shut his mouth as quickly as he had opened it.
“I was going to tell you. I swear, I was,” he added as Ada crossed her arms. “As for my brother… I don’t know. All I know is that I didn’t expect him to propose as quickly as he did.”
Ada stared at him wordlessly, unsatisfied with the answer.
“At least tell me what led you to find out,” he asked quietly.
She looked at the flickering candle before sitting down in one of the chairs.
“I remember that conversation between our fathers, the day that we first came to call. My father wanted to know about the coal mining companies.”
As she spoke, Ada found herself transported back to the moment in which she had first seen Oliver. The topic of conversation before he had entered the room was what she remembered now.
Her father had asked Mr. Holmwood why they had moved from the city to the country when urban living was the current fashion.
“Everyone’s rushing to the cities to invest in all sorts of industries and completely ignoring the fact that this beautiful countryside is becoming more affordable to live in with each passing day,” Mr. Holmwood had said with a faint smile. Ada’s father had nodded knowingly.
At the time, Ada had thought nothing of the exchange. Now, it was everything.
The conversation had turned to Mr. Holmwood’s current investments in two coal mining companies that tied the family to the thriving hub that was London. Ada had grown bored and could feel Vera shifting from her place on the velvet sofa beside her.
Then, Oliver.
He had glanced in the direction of the sofa and Ada could have sworn his eyes had settled on her. But the memory had since become clearer. He had been looking at Vera. William had walked in a moment later, but Ada had hardly registered his presence.
She had spoken to William after the group collectively moved to the terrace to get some fresh air.
“I asked you what the names of the companies were,” Ada said, looking at the parlor’s dark carpet as the memories faded into the background of her mind. “You said they were Smithson and Highlandton Mines.”
William had moved away from the door to stand near the room’s only window. He was running his hand along its thick curtains.
“I didn’t lie about that,” he said.
“I know you didn’t. But you did lie by telling me that he was doing business with them when both of the companies went bankrupt.”
When William remained silent, she continued.
“I heard some women gossiping on my way to town a week ago. I heard the company names and then they started talking about a lawsuit that had just been filed. Something about inadequate working conditions and the like.”
She looked from the carpet to her nail beds to the door to William’s pale face. He looked tired.
“I assure you that at one time he did do business with them. And it was before the lawsuit.” He paused and she could see him swallow. “But his loans were written off months ago.”
Ada tensed as the brevity of William’s confession settled upon her. She had been waiting to hear him either deny or confirm that what she had heard were more than rumors.
So it was true. The Holmwoods’ connection to London had disappeared along with their loans. They had no capital in what Ada had been told was the most successful industry at the present time. No money to afford the terrace they had claimed to be renting to some relatives from America.
“So were you going to tell me before or after my sister married into your family?”
The statement hurt him. She could see it in the way his jaw clenched. But Ada was too upset to feel guilty. She had no way of knowing what else William had been hiding from her. The urge to jump up and fix everything, to act as the responsible daughter she was destined to always be, pulsed in the pit of her stomach as William shook his head.
“You have to promise not to interrupt me when I tell you everything I need to tell you.” His jaw was still clenched as he stared at her. She opened her mouth and he raised his hand.
“Just be quiet for a minute, Ada,” he murmured, his tone a mixture of nervous aggravation. She shut her mouth and leaned back in her chair.
“There was a time when we were doing fine. More than fine, in fact.” He was still running his hands over the curtains. His face was cast in shadow as he stared through the window’s smudged glass.
“But my mother grew very sick. I know she doesn’t look it now, but… she was very sick.”
Some of the annoyance that had coiled up in Ada’s shoulders dissipated.
“Father had to pay a lofty sum for her medical bills. Thank God she recovered, but… I guess you could say our accounts didn’t.” He looked at her through the shadows of the room and the memories and chuckled softly. His eyes made her terribly sad. She leaned forward in her chair.
“It’s hard to keep doing business with men that know you don’t have collateral,” he continued. “Especially when you can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to keep your end of bargains.”
He pulled one of the other chairs up to sit across from her. He rubbed at the sides of his thumbs. She waited for him to go on. She had anticipated having a harder time keeping silent, but she had no idea what she could say in light of what she had learned about his mother.
“I have loved these six months in the country,” he said in a lowered voice. He gave her a small smile. “There are worse places to have to relocate. But what my father said about choosing to live here… that was a lie. We had no other choice.”
Ada waited a moment before hesitantly speaking.
“Have you sold your other property?”
He nodded, head bent to look at his shoes.
“Yes. We sold everything we could afford to part with.”
Another strange sort of silence settled over them. But it was strange in a different kind of way. It was a quietness that reminded Ada of another time where they had sat knee to knee in the parlor’s cushioned chairs. A time several weeks ago when she had caught William staring at her over the top of a book. The curiously soft look in his eye had scared her. He had never looked at her that way before, and he hadn’t looked at her that way since. It had scared her because it made her cheeks blush and stomach flutter with butterflies she had only felt when Oliver looked at her. Ada felt the familiar sensations as she let herself recall the memory. She was glad that he was looking at his shoes rather than her face.
She needed to break the silence. But she had no idea what to make of what she had been told or why the particular memory had popped into her head at that particular moment.
She waited for William to go on, to somehow justify the fact that both he and Oliver had concealed the true state of their affairs. They were not the prestigious eligible bachelors that the whole countryside hadn’t been able to stop talking about for the past half year.
“Oliver loves her more than I think he’s loved anyone,” William said unexpectedly. Ada’s heart jumped before rushing down to the tips of her toes.
“How do you know?”
“He told me that he’s working on finding a carpentry job to bring in some sort of income. I don’t think he ever expected the childhood hobby to become anything more than a pastime, but he’s thinking about raising a family now. He’s been a man for a long time, but now I’m really beginning to see it.” He paused and looked at Ada.
“He wants to be able to provide for her,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“He wants to marry her, and he’s not the sort of man to take a woman he can’t feed.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that he was,” Ada said as she shook her head. “I just want to know if my sister knew any of what you’ve told me before he asked her to be his wife. I want to know if Oliver intends to find a solid job before their wedding.”
William stood up and walked away from her instead of answering. It was quite annoying. She had been doing her very best to remain silent, and when she had asked her questions, she had asked them calmly.
“Don’t pretend that his proposal isn’t hurting you the way I know it is.” His words were short and clipped.
She stared at his back, speechless.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I know you love him.” He turned around to look at her and she wished she could go back to looking at the back of his suit. It would have been much easier than trying to decide if he looked angry or hurt. She couldn’t understand why either emotion was playing across his face until she remembered the curiously soft look from the memory that seemed to take pleasure in returning at the most inopportune times.
She thought that perhaps she should deny what he had correctly deduced. But he had already answered all of her questions. She opened her mouth to speak, but William was rushing on, his voice tight.
“How did you love him despite the fact that you knew he couldn’t provide for you?”
Ada could have sworn that he was holding back tears. She had never seen him get anywhere close to crying before. Not even when she’d sliced his thumb with a runaway arrow during their weekly hour of archery on the lawn.
“I fell in love with him before I found out about the lawsuit. And… I stayed in love,” she said, unsure of the sudden shyness that overtook her.
William was looking out the window again.
“Is it that obvious? That I love him?” she finally asked, unsure of what else to say.
“Only to me,” he said. His jaw clenched again.
“No one else can know, William. He’s not… mine to love,” she murmured. William nodded.
“Like I said, it was obvious only to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Ada murmured.
“You know what I’m trying to say.”
It was her turn to look down at her shoes. She had an inkling of an idea, and it made the butterflies she thought she’d reserved for Oliver take flight in her stomach.
“I didn’t tell you about any of my family's business because it would ruin us if anyone found out, Ada.” His voice had somehow grown even tighter. “You have no idea how much strain this has put on my father.”
She stood up and looked at him closely, sifting through the sentences for hidden clues as to what he was really trying to say.
“I think too highly of you,” he whispered. Ada blinked, at a loss for a response that seemed sufficient.
“I think too highly of you to want you to know that my family is bereft. That my father’s sons can’t provide for the women they… the women they love.”
One of his hands brushed against her cheek. Her heart was still beating in her toes. It fluttered in warning as his fingers danced lightly over her skin.
Love. He had said love.
Suddenly Ada was thinking about the stuffy carriage ride she had taken with Father, Mother, and Vera when they had first gone to call on the Holmwoods. Ada had already known that first impressions were everything, but Mother insisted on reminding them repeatedly on the way there. The Holmwoods were from London, after all. Ada could only assume that London was as high end as it sounded -- she’d never been herself. Her father had once said that it was “a center of all action” after returning from a meeting with one of his railway clients. Perhaps this sense of foreignness surrounding the respectable family had been what intrigued the sisters most.
Now, under his soft touch, Ada wondered what William’s first impression of her had been. She also wondered why he was looking at her lips. It scared her even more than the curiously soft look from two weeks ago.
“I know that you love him, Ada.” His voice was unaccusing and had lost its tightness, releasing like a spring. It left her feeling like she had been stripped of all of her clothing, standing vulnerable against the truth of his words and the shame that welled up in her throat.
“William, I --”
“I know that you’ve loved him for a long time.” He had pulled his hand away and put it in his pocket as if the phrase was something he said everyday.
“I can explain --”
“There’s nothing to explain. Matters of the heart can rarely be understood.”
Her mouth became terribly dry. The word love echoed in her mind.
Snippets of words began to float through her subconscious, prompting her to string together coherent sentences and attempt to at least make William understand.
“I do love him,” she began. She paused to prepare herself to say the next sentence out loud. “But he’s marrying Vera.”
Laughter echoed from far away in the ballroom.
Some sort of night creature sounded somewhere outside.
Ada sniffled against her will.
“Oliver,” William said under his breath. Ada shut her eyes against the name. Against the shame she could feel in the heat rushing up her neck. Everything felt like it was falling apart.
“You love Oliver.” It wasn’t a question. Ada couldn’t bring herself to lie, but she couldn’t nod her head or form the word “Yes” either. She just stood there.
“Was there ever a moment when you loved me?”
She felt like she could be physically sick as she continued to stand mutely before him. Her silence was enough of an answer. He gripped the back of the nearest chair and stayed silent for a very long time. Ada had begun to cry at some point as the seconds dragged by. She shut her eyes against her naivety of the past six months and the miserable irony of how obvious it was to her now. She opened and closed her mouth like an indecisive nutcracker, unable to produce any words that wouldn’t hurt William any more than she already had.
When he finally spoke, it was as if she were a child in need of clarification. She was wounded with every syllable.
“Oliver is marrying Vera, Ada.”
It hurt much more to hear someone else say the words she had spoken mere minutes ago.
“I know he is.” Her eyes stung. “I know he is.”
“And even if he weren’t --” His hand was on her cheek again. “I would have still fallen in love with you.”
Her eyes continued to sting as the tears came hot and fast. She felt like she was swelling with joy while simultaneously being ripped like a loose thread. Nothing about this was right. Being loved in this way, at this time, was perfectly imperfect.
“I don’t know how to stop loving him,” Ada sobbed. “And he’s marrying my sister.”
Both of his hands were wiping away her tears. She pulled away, shaking his kindness off like a loose shawl. She couldn’t stand his selfless sympathy. She turned and wiped at the rest of her tears with her own hands.
“Let me love you, Ada,” William was saying as she failed to control her breathing. “You’ve never given me the chance.”
She thought back to all of the time they had spent together, time that had turned acquaintanceship to friendship. Had she really been so preoccupied with his brother that she hadn’t detected his desire to be more than mere friends?
“I know I don’t have any money right now, but… I just need some time.” The same nervous aggravation from earlier had sneaked its way into his tone.
“I’ve been speaking with my father about visiting a relative from America, a cousin who knows his way around the coal trade in the states to help us actually secure some sort of loan. It’s just… taking some time. But it’s happening.” He stepped towards her and took her hands in his.
She wished she could fully appreciate the way he was looking at her. But Oliver was still dancing at the edges of her vision even as she imagined him dancing with her sister. She squeezed his fingers and held back a sob.
“You are the woman I love, Ada. And I want you to be able to be proud of saying that you’re loved by me. That… you love me too.”
“I want to love you, William.” The sob was choking her. “But I don’t. I… can’t right now.”
He let go of her hands with trepidation. The sob was wrapping its tight hand around her throat. She imagined him walking away, leaving her in the empty parlor to sort through the fact that she had been chasing after something she could not have while simultaneously pushing away what could have been hers all along.
But William did not leave. Instead, he locked eyes with her and asked a question.
“What must I do?” His voice was low. Ada could see determination hiding in the shadows that haunted his face.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what must I do to be worthy of you?”
She brushed at a stray tear.
“Go to America? Speak with my cousin? I’ll do it, Ada. I’ll do it.”
“William, I --”
“You don’t love me.”
She shut her eyes and tried to tell herself that that wasn’t true. She let images of times past play behind her eyelids and attempted to detect signs of William’s affection that her lovesick, guileless self hadn’t been looking for. All she could see was how she had reacted after her arrow had created a long, red line down William’s finger. The way she had cradled his hand in hers and wrapped the raw skin in the kitchen. The way he had stared at her in what she had thought was shock from the pain.
As she remembered that gentle stare, put it up next to the memory of the curiously soft look in the picture gallery of her mind, she thought that maybe she could love him. But she knew that she did not now.
“You don’t love me now,” he said when Ada’s eyes remained closed and the silence became stifling. “But believe me when I tell you that I won’t rest until I can be sure that you could love me someday. I will dig my family out of its hole.”
The mention of his entire family reawoke Ada’s urge to fix everything. Her eyes flew open as heat flashed up her neck again.
“Your family… Vera can’t… I just want her to be able to marry Oliver. I want him to be able to provide for her.” She said it and realized that she meant it.
“Then what can I do to make that happen?”
She started to cry again. At the beautifully twisted certainty of William’s love and dedication to her sister’s welfare in addition to her own. And at the even more twisted certainty that she didn’t deserve his love, not when she couldn’t reciprocate it.
“I don’t know, I don’t…” Ada turned away from him again and went to peer at the bushes that sat below the window. “I don’t know how to answer that question. I don’t know what to do about anything right now.”
She wanted to run outside to the garden at the base of the window and find the bench she used to sit and read on as a child. But then William’s hands were on her waist and all she could think about was the fact that no young man had ever touched her there before.
“You don’t need to know now. Can you just tell me one thing?”
She hesitated, still sensitive to his light touch. He spun her slowly, like they were back in the ballroom dancing one of the waltzes.
“Do you trust me?”
She really thought about the question. How many opportunities had he had to tell her that every one of his family’s balls and garden parties and outings had been bricks in their facade to satisfy their image in society? How many days had he spent concealing rather than revealing his endearment that could have potentially allowed Ada to move on from Oliver?
The longer she pondered, the more she thought that she did trust him. That he was able to look at her and see a woman who might love him one day had to have said insurmountable things about the kind of man he was and could be.
“Yes,” she whispered as his lips parted. She was sure that he was going to kiss her, and she was sure that she would have melted into him if he did.
But he didn’t. He let go of her waist and took the tingling sensation she had just been getting accustomed to with him.
“Alright,” was all he said before he strode to the door and left her alone with too many questions to count.
~~~
It took several minutes of simply standing in the heavy darkness of the room before Ada was sure she could step back into the ballroom with composure.
Vera found her moments after she had shut the parlor door with a quiet click.
“There you are! I’ve been running all over looking for you!” she said in a rush of breath. She hesitated and looked at the door. “Why were you in the parlor?”
“Needed some air,” Ada said with a casual wave of her hand.
Her voice had wavered but Vera took no notice.
“Well, I have the most wonderful news to share with you.”
“Yes. Yes, you do,” Ada thought.
“Oliver proposed. He proposed, Ada! Isn’t that wonderful?”
She was taking Ada’s hands like William had and bringing them close to her heart.
Ada paused, well aware that she had a decision to make.
She could tell Vera everything Oliver should have told her. Or she could trust that he would tell her all of it the next opportunity he got.
She could also choose to trust William to keep his word. To actually care about the welfare of her sister as well as her own.
“Go to America? Speak with my cousin? I’ll do it, Ada. I’ll do it.”
He’ll do it.
She concluded that regardless of what it looked like, trusting William was the only way to keep Vera’s happiness unblemished. And didn’t she owe him the opportunity to prove himself to her?
Ada could see Vera and Oliver hand in hand, walking across a lawn towards a quaint house. Sitting together in a parlor with more than a single flickering candle to see by. Putting children to bed. Taking their places around a great table for Christmas dinners.
“That’s the most wonderful news, Vera,” she said after what had surely been more than a few seconds. “It was only a matter of time.”
“Honestly, I don’t think I could be any happier,” she whispered, looking shy now. In that moment, Ada knew that she would never tell her of her love for Oliver.
“I couldn’t be any happier for you.” The sentence was as close as Ada could get to the truth. Knowing where William had gone would have made her substantially more settled.
There was a pause in which she contemplated telling Vera everything William had told her after all. An urge to take matters into her own hands almost prevailed. But Vera’s next words held her back.
“Let’s go back in. William’s talking with his father and I haven’t had the chance to say hello yet.”
He was speaking with his father. She didn’t know why the simple fact made her stomach flip.
She nodded her head and let Vera lead her back to the hustle and bustle of the main room.
Ada caught herself smoothing down the front of her gown as they stepped into the crowd thronged near the door. A fast paced waltz filled the room with laughter and the shrill notes of violins. The thick smell of champagne hung in the air.
He was standing directly across the room in what looked like deep and fervent conversation with his father. Mr. Holmwood was standing up tall to compensate for the look of drawn contemplation on his face. Ada could tell William was keeping himself from talking with his hands.
She watched them for quite some time as Vera slipped away to speak with someone else, completely forgetting her intentions to greet William and his father. When William eventually looked her way, he caught Ada’s eye and stopped speaking. Mr. Holmwood looked over at her as well. She took note of the way his eyes narrowed, as if her presence were somehow threatening. If William was telling him about what she knew, then perhaps she was. She stood, arms hanging limply at her sides, shoes frozen to the floor.
She analyzed the look William gave her well into the night, after the ball had ended and the house had grown dark and quiet.
He had looked cheeky when he noticed her staring. The most subtle of winks had been thrown. Then he’d rested his hand on his father’s shoulder and steered him deeper into the room, but not before giving Ada a small nod.
She liked the butterflies in her stomach and the uncertain way in which she believed that everything would come to pass in the best of ways. She again thought that she should find Vera, but pushed the idea to the back of her head.
She took a deep breath and pushed all thoughts of coal mining companies, collateral, and heartbreak out of her mind. It was hard to focus on such things when a boy with a smile she had never realized she could come to love was working to make a future she had never thought to imagine.
Before she found herself in the empty parlor with William, awestruck by her inability to truly see what had been in front of her all along, Ada had stood in a large, stuffy room and watched her older sister dance with the man she had loved for the past five months.
She felt terrible for wishing that Vera weren’t so beautiful. Her pale blue satin gown and ringlets of blonde hair pulled back in an elegant bun were almost as radiant as the smile on her glowing face. She had tipped her delicate chin up towards her dance partner, and the way the pair had gazed into each others’ eyes made Ada’s insides twist with a guilt she didn’t know could physically hurt.
She was supposed to be happy that her eldest sister had found a man she could imagine spending the rest of her life with. The prospects of their coming marriage was supposed to put Ada’s mind at ease and lay her largest worry to rest.
Oliver had changed all of Vera’s misgivings about abandoning her childhood and stepping into society as a married woman. This was quite a mighty feat, considering that Vera had always been the free-spirited sister. Rebellious, even, while Ada had always been the level-headed, responsible daughter.
The family had been overjoyed at Vera’s change of mind. The unbridled young mare had been willingly saddled. It was a genuine miracle.
She would have a husband who could provide for her, a husband who could provide for their whole family. Vera would be happy, and Ada could stop shouldering the burden of worrying over their family’s affairs that her sister lacked.
Or so she thought.
Ada had smiled alongside her father and mother when Vera had told them about her hopes of a coming proposal. It had been strange to see her blushing and giggling. It was even stranger to know that her giddy behavior meant that Oliver loved her.
Despite her best efforts, Ada couldn’t bring herself to smile as she stood in a dim corner of the ballroom and watched the couple dance. It was more than just their palpable chemistry that left her feeling short for breath. It was what Oliver was hiding behind his perfect smile: a secret that Ada had discovered. A creeping sense of desperate fear worked its way up her throat.
It was the kind of fear that bubbled up obtrusively, consuming every thought. Oliver’s choice to keep hidden something that Vera had every right to know hadn’t kept Ada from loving him. She felt like she should be doing something -- anything -- to get Oliver to stop looking at Vera with his clear blue eyes. But what could she have done? It’s rather difficult to win the heart of someone who has already given theirs away. And her sister’s happiness was too delicate of a thing to break. Not that she had any desire to break it in the first place.
She just wanted to know when Oliver Holmwood’s secret -- the entire Holmwood family’s secret -- would make itself known, and if it would shatter the happiness of her sister in what had become an inevitably messy affair.
She also wanted to sit on the ground and hug her knees to her chest like a child attempting to stifle internal pain with a good squeeze to the kneecaps. Surely pretending that her heart wasn’t breaking was better than watching it fall into too many pieces to count.
But instead she stood up straighter so as to find her father in the crowd. Her eyes roved over smiling faces pressed against the walls. It didn’t take her long to find his rosy-cheeks and thinning grey hair. He looked almost as merry as the woman who stood next to him. Mother’s thin face rarely betrayed her true emotions, but in that moment, it was obvious that the sight of Vera in Oliver’s arms brought her joy.
Ada’s eyes were stinging as she shifted her attention to her sister. She attempted to read between the lines of her face. She was spinning to and fro, linking arms with the other women in the line of the dance before swinging around to swap lines with the men who stood across from them. Every gleaming flash of her white teeth, dimples, and bright blue-green eyes told Ada that Oliver had already proposed.
She wondered how long it would take Vera to find her to share the wonderful news.
As she let herself wonder, she scanned the room of faces again, looking for the person she knew she had to speak to before the night came to an end.
The dance ended moments later. People clapped politely and moved to take their places for the next dance. For a split second Ada considered finding someone to dance with who could spin her close enough to Oliver to catch his eye. She shook her head, ashamed of her heart for holding onto such ridiculous hope.
“Ada,” a voice said in her ear.
She tensed and turned to look into a set of dark blue eyes. It seemed as if the person had found her before she could find them.
“William,” she said through a forced curtsy.
The name seemed to stick in her throat which had been burning uncomfortably ever since Vera and Oliver had stepped into the center of the room. She coughed lightly and prepared herself for a conversation she knew would result in the truth she already knew if she pushed hard enough.
“You seem a bit preoccupied,” William said as he looked at her. His hands were resting behind his back.
“I guess I am.” She looked pointedly at Vera and Oliver, standing across from each other in the dancers’ rows.
William’s head bobbed in the corner of her eye. He was looking at them too, a pleasant smile plastered to his face.
“Do you know if he’s asked her yet?” he murmured softly. Ada turned to look at him fully. He was already looking at her, a challenging glint in his eye. She wondered how he had managed to sound so innocent, as if he had no idea of Oliver’s intentions.
“I would have thought that your own brother would inform you of the precise time when he planned to do so.”
He leaned towards her, hands still resting behind his back.
“You sound as if my question offended you.”
Something about the glint in his eye made her breath hitch. For a moment, she thought that perhaps she had not done a good enough job of hiding her infatuation with his older brother, though she was sure that she had hid her feelings well. She kept a straight face as her mind attempted to jump to conclusions.
“Please don’t play dumb with me, William,” she said as she regained her composure. “I’m really not able to put up a charming front tonight. I just need you to be honest with me.”
He opened his mouth and shook his head nearly imperceptibly.
“Honest about --”
“I know, William. I know about your family, why… why you’re here.” She gestured vaguely at their surroundings. “I need to know why you didn’t tell me. Why Oliver hasn’t told Vera.”
He had shut his mouth as she began to speak. His eyes grew cold and his brows had set themselves in a thin, unsuspecting line.
She wanted to say something, to egg him on as her face began to flush. But she remained silent.
“Come with me. I’ll explain everything.”
He said it quickly and was turning to walk towards the room’s nearest exit before she could get a word in edgewise. He nodded to a few people as he walked towards the large house’s front rooms. She hesitated before picking up the skirts of her gown and following him.
He stopped in an empty hallway and turned to face her. She led him through her home to the private parlor: a room where they wouldn’t be disturbed or overheard. William’s boots echoed on the tile as they left the hum of conversation behind them.
He shut the door as Ada busied herself with lighting a candle on one of the small tables that sat next to the room’s upholstered armchairs.
A strange sort of silence settled over them. Ada’s fingers fumbled with the candle as she thought about all of the times the two of them had read books and played chess in the quiet room. The kind of silence that had settled over those lazy afternoons hadn’t felt like this silence. They normally had no trouble coming up with things to say to each other, and when they didn’t, the silence wasn’t strange. But everything about the space between them in that moment felt wrong.
“I’ve had my suspicions for a while now, William,” Ada whispered, breaking the silence. She lightly set the candle back down on the table. “I need you to tell me if they’re correct so that I can stop looking at you as if I don’t know you.”
Ada knew he had heard her despite his stillness by the door. He was examining the knob as if it was the most interesting item in the world. He eventually looked up and met her eyes in the soft light. But he didn’t say a word.
“Did your father ever have the money that he said he did?” Ada asked.
William remained silent for several moments before answering.
“Yes. At one point, he did. But… it’s all gone now.”
Ada nodded. “Were you eventually going to tell me?
William began to answer, but Ada cut him off.
“Was Oliver going to tell Vera?”
William shut his mouth as quickly as he had opened it.
“I was going to tell you. I swear, I was,” he added as Ada crossed her arms. “As for my brother… I don’t know. All I know is that I didn’t expect him to propose as quickly as he did.”
Ada stared at him wordlessly, unsatisfied with the answer.
“At least tell me what led you to find out,” he asked quietly.
She looked at the flickering candle before sitting down in one of the chairs.
“I remember that conversation between our fathers, the day that we first came to call. My father wanted to know about the coal mining companies.”
As she spoke, Ada found herself transported back to the moment in which she had first seen Oliver. The topic of conversation before he had entered the room was what she remembered now.
Her father had asked Mr. Holmwood why they had moved from the city to the country when urban living was the current fashion.
“Everyone’s rushing to the cities to invest in all sorts of industries and completely ignoring the fact that this beautiful countryside is becoming more affordable to live in with each passing day,” Mr. Holmwood had said with a faint smile. Ada’s father had nodded knowingly.
At the time, Ada had thought nothing of the exchange. Now, it was everything.
The conversation had turned to Mr. Holmwood’s current investments in two coal mining companies that tied the family to the thriving hub that was London. Ada had grown bored and could feel Vera shifting from her place on the velvet sofa beside her.
Then, Oliver.
He had glanced in the direction of the sofa and Ada could have sworn his eyes had settled on her. But the memory had since become clearer. He had been looking at Vera. William had walked in a moment later, but Ada had hardly registered his presence.
She had spoken to William after the group collectively moved to the terrace to get some fresh air.
“I asked you what the names of the companies were,” Ada said, looking at the parlor’s dark carpet as the memories faded into the background of her mind. “You said they were Smithson and Highlandton Mines.”
William had moved away from the door to stand near the room’s only window. He was running his hand along its thick curtains.
“I didn’t lie about that,” he said.
“I know you didn’t. But you did lie by telling me that he was doing business with them when both of the companies went bankrupt.”
When William remained silent, she continued.
“I heard some women gossiping on my way to town a week ago. I heard the company names and then they started talking about a lawsuit that had just been filed. Something about inadequate working conditions and the like.”
She looked from the carpet to her nail beds to the door to William’s pale face. He looked tired.
“I assure you that at one time he did do business with them. And it was before the lawsuit.” He paused and she could see him swallow. “But his loans were written off months ago.”
Ada tensed as the brevity of William’s confession settled upon her. She had been waiting to hear him either deny or confirm that what she had heard were more than rumors.
So it was true. The Holmwoods’ connection to London had disappeared along with their loans. They had no capital in what Ada had been told was the most successful industry at the present time. No money to afford the terrace they had claimed to be renting to some relatives from America.
“So were you going to tell me before or after my sister married into your family?”
The statement hurt him. She could see it in the way his jaw clenched. But Ada was too upset to feel guilty. She had no way of knowing what else William had been hiding from her. The urge to jump up and fix everything, to act as the responsible daughter she was destined to always be, pulsed in the pit of her stomach as William shook his head.
“You have to promise not to interrupt me when I tell you everything I need to tell you.” His jaw was still clenched as he stared at her. She opened her mouth and he raised his hand.
“Just be quiet for a minute, Ada,” he murmured, his tone a mixture of nervous aggravation. She shut her mouth and leaned back in her chair.
“There was a time when we were doing fine. More than fine, in fact.” He was still running his hands over the curtains. His face was cast in shadow as he stared through the window’s smudged glass.
“But my mother grew very sick. I know she doesn’t look it now, but… she was very sick.”
Some of the annoyance that had coiled up in Ada’s shoulders dissipated.
“Father had to pay a lofty sum for her medical bills. Thank God she recovered, but… I guess you could say our accounts didn’t.” He looked at her through the shadows of the room and the memories and chuckled softly. His eyes made her terribly sad. She leaned forward in her chair.
“It’s hard to keep doing business with men that know you don’t have collateral,” he continued. “Especially when you can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to keep your end of bargains.”
He pulled one of the other chairs up to sit across from her. He rubbed at the sides of his thumbs. She waited for him to go on. She had anticipated having a harder time keeping silent, but she had no idea what she could say in light of what she had learned about his mother.
“I have loved these six months in the country,” he said in a lowered voice. He gave her a small smile. “There are worse places to have to relocate. But what my father said about choosing to live here… that was a lie. We had no other choice.”
Ada waited a moment before hesitantly speaking.
“Have you sold your other property?”
He nodded, head bent to look at his shoes.
“Yes. We sold everything we could afford to part with.”
Another strange sort of silence settled over them. But it was strange in a different kind of way. It was a quietness that reminded Ada of another time where they had sat knee to knee in the parlor’s cushioned chairs. A time several weeks ago when she had caught William staring at her over the top of a book. The curiously soft look in his eye had scared her. He had never looked at her that way before, and he hadn’t looked at her that way since. It had scared her because it made her cheeks blush and stomach flutter with butterflies she had only felt when Oliver looked at her. Ada felt the familiar sensations as she let herself recall the memory. She was glad that he was looking at his shoes rather than her face.
She needed to break the silence. But she had no idea what to make of what she had been told or why the particular memory had popped into her head at that particular moment.
She waited for William to go on, to somehow justify the fact that both he and Oliver had concealed the true state of their affairs. They were not the prestigious eligible bachelors that the whole countryside hadn’t been able to stop talking about for the past half year.
“Oliver loves her more than I think he’s loved anyone,” William said unexpectedly. Ada’s heart jumped before rushing down to the tips of her toes.
“How do you know?”
“He told me that he’s working on finding a carpentry job to bring in some sort of income. I don’t think he ever expected the childhood hobby to become anything more than a pastime, but he’s thinking about raising a family now. He’s been a man for a long time, but now I’m really beginning to see it.” He paused and looked at Ada.
“He wants to be able to provide for her,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“He wants to marry her, and he’s not the sort of man to take a woman he can’t feed.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that he was,” Ada said as she shook her head. “I just want to know if my sister knew any of what you’ve told me before he asked her to be his wife. I want to know if Oliver intends to find a solid job before their wedding.”
William stood up and walked away from her instead of answering. It was quite annoying. She had been doing her very best to remain silent, and when she had asked her questions, she had asked them calmly.
“Don’t pretend that his proposal isn’t hurting you the way I know it is.” His words were short and clipped.
She stared at his back, speechless.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I know you love him.” He turned around to look at her and she wished she could go back to looking at the back of his suit. It would have been much easier than trying to decide if he looked angry or hurt. She couldn’t understand why either emotion was playing across his face until she remembered the curiously soft look from the memory that seemed to take pleasure in returning at the most inopportune times.
She thought that perhaps she should deny what he had correctly deduced. But he had already answered all of her questions. She opened her mouth to speak, but William was rushing on, his voice tight.
“How did you love him despite the fact that you knew he couldn’t provide for you?”
Ada could have sworn that he was holding back tears. She had never seen him get anywhere close to crying before. Not even when she’d sliced his thumb with a runaway arrow during their weekly hour of archery on the lawn.
“I fell in love with him before I found out about the lawsuit. And… I stayed in love,” she said, unsure of the sudden shyness that overtook her.
William was looking out the window again.
“Is it that obvious? That I love him?” she finally asked, unsure of what else to say.
“Only to me,” he said. His jaw clenched again.
“No one else can know, William. He’s not… mine to love,” she murmured. William nodded.
“Like I said, it was obvious only to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Ada murmured.
“You know what I’m trying to say.”
It was her turn to look down at her shoes. She had an inkling of an idea, and it made the butterflies she thought she’d reserved for Oliver take flight in her stomach.
“I didn’t tell you about any of my family's business because it would ruin us if anyone found out, Ada.” His voice had somehow grown even tighter. “You have no idea how much strain this has put on my father.”
She stood up and looked at him closely, sifting through the sentences for hidden clues as to what he was really trying to say.
“I think too highly of you,” he whispered. Ada blinked, at a loss for a response that seemed sufficient.
“I think too highly of you to want you to know that my family is bereft. That my father’s sons can’t provide for the women they… the women they love.”
One of his hands brushed against her cheek. Her heart was still beating in her toes. It fluttered in warning as his fingers danced lightly over her skin.
Love. He had said love.
Suddenly Ada was thinking about the stuffy carriage ride she had taken with Father, Mother, and Vera when they had first gone to call on the Holmwoods. Ada had already known that first impressions were everything, but Mother insisted on reminding them repeatedly on the way there. The Holmwoods were from London, after all. Ada could only assume that London was as high end as it sounded -- she’d never been herself. Her father had once said that it was “a center of all action” after returning from a meeting with one of his railway clients. Perhaps this sense of foreignness surrounding the respectable family had been what intrigued the sisters most.
Now, under his soft touch, Ada wondered what William’s first impression of her had been. She also wondered why he was looking at her lips. It scared her even more than the curiously soft look from two weeks ago.
“I know that you love him, Ada.” His voice was unaccusing and had lost its tightness, releasing like a spring. It left her feeling like she had been stripped of all of her clothing, standing vulnerable against the truth of his words and the shame that welled up in her throat.
“William, I --”
“I know that you’ve loved him for a long time.” He had pulled his hand away and put it in his pocket as if the phrase was something he said everyday.
“I can explain --”
“There’s nothing to explain. Matters of the heart can rarely be understood.”
Her mouth became terribly dry. The word love echoed in her mind.
Snippets of words began to float through her subconscious, prompting her to string together coherent sentences and attempt to at least make William understand.
“I do love him,” she began. She paused to prepare herself to say the next sentence out loud. “But he’s marrying Vera.”
Laughter echoed from far away in the ballroom.
Some sort of night creature sounded somewhere outside.
Ada sniffled against her will.
“Oliver,” William said under his breath. Ada shut her eyes against the name. Against the shame she could feel in the heat rushing up her neck. Everything felt like it was falling apart.
“You love Oliver.” It wasn’t a question. Ada couldn’t bring herself to lie, but she couldn’t nod her head or form the word “Yes” either. She just stood there.
“Was there ever a moment when you loved me?”
She felt like she could be physically sick as she continued to stand mutely before him. Her silence was enough of an answer. He gripped the back of the nearest chair and stayed silent for a very long time. Ada had begun to cry at some point as the seconds dragged by. She shut her eyes against her naivety of the past six months and the miserable irony of how obvious it was to her now. She opened and closed her mouth like an indecisive nutcracker, unable to produce any words that wouldn’t hurt William any more than she already had.
When he finally spoke, it was as if she were a child in need of clarification. She was wounded with every syllable.
“Oliver is marrying Vera, Ada.”
It hurt much more to hear someone else say the words she had spoken mere minutes ago.
“I know he is.” Her eyes stung. “I know he is.”
“And even if he weren’t --” His hand was on her cheek again. “I would have still fallen in love with you.”
Her eyes continued to sting as the tears came hot and fast. She felt like she was swelling with joy while simultaneously being ripped like a loose thread. Nothing about this was right. Being loved in this way, at this time, was perfectly imperfect.
“I don’t know how to stop loving him,” Ada sobbed. “And he’s marrying my sister.”
Both of his hands were wiping away her tears. She pulled away, shaking his kindness off like a loose shawl. She couldn’t stand his selfless sympathy. She turned and wiped at the rest of her tears with her own hands.
“Let me love you, Ada,” William was saying as she failed to control her breathing. “You’ve never given me the chance.”
She thought back to all of the time they had spent together, time that had turned acquaintanceship to friendship. Had she really been so preoccupied with his brother that she hadn’t detected his desire to be more than mere friends?
“I know I don’t have any money right now, but… I just need some time.” The same nervous aggravation from earlier had sneaked its way into his tone.
“I’ve been speaking with my father about visiting a relative from America, a cousin who knows his way around the coal trade in the states to help us actually secure some sort of loan. It’s just… taking some time. But it’s happening.” He stepped towards her and took her hands in his.
She wished she could fully appreciate the way he was looking at her. But Oliver was still dancing at the edges of her vision even as she imagined him dancing with her sister. She squeezed his fingers and held back a sob.
“You are the woman I love, Ada. And I want you to be able to be proud of saying that you’re loved by me. That… you love me too.”
“I want to love you, William.” The sob was choking her. “But I don’t. I… can’t right now.”
He let go of her hands with trepidation. The sob was wrapping its tight hand around her throat. She imagined him walking away, leaving her in the empty parlor to sort through the fact that she had been chasing after something she could not have while simultaneously pushing away what could have been hers all along.
But William did not leave. Instead, he locked eyes with her and asked a question.
“What must I do?” His voice was low. Ada could see determination hiding in the shadows that haunted his face.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what must I do to be worthy of you?”
She brushed at a stray tear.
“Go to America? Speak with my cousin? I’ll do it, Ada. I’ll do it.”
“William, I --”
“You don’t love me.”
She shut her eyes and tried to tell herself that that wasn’t true. She let images of times past play behind her eyelids and attempted to detect signs of William’s affection that her lovesick, guileless self hadn’t been looking for. All she could see was how she had reacted after her arrow had created a long, red line down William’s finger. The way she had cradled his hand in hers and wrapped the raw skin in the kitchen. The way he had stared at her in what she had thought was shock from the pain.
As she remembered that gentle stare, put it up next to the memory of the curiously soft look in the picture gallery of her mind, she thought that maybe she could love him. But she knew that she did not now.
“You don’t love me now,” he said when Ada’s eyes remained closed and the silence became stifling. “But believe me when I tell you that I won’t rest until I can be sure that you could love me someday. I will dig my family out of its hole.”
The mention of his entire family reawoke Ada’s urge to fix everything. Her eyes flew open as heat flashed up her neck again.
“Your family… Vera can’t… I just want her to be able to marry Oliver. I want him to be able to provide for her.” She said it and realized that she meant it.
“Then what can I do to make that happen?”
She started to cry again. At the beautifully twisted certainty of William’s love and dedication to her sister’s welfare in addition to her own. And at the even more twisted certainty that she didn’t deserve his love, not when she couldn’t reciprocate it.
“I don’t know, I don’t…” Ada turned away from him again and went to peer at the bushes that sat below the window. “I don’t know how to answer that question. I don’t know what to do about anything right now.”
She wanted to run outside to the garden at the base of the window and find the bench she used to sit and read on as a child. But then William’s hands were on her waist and all she could think about was the fact that no young man had ever touched her there before.
“You don’t need to know now. Can you just tell me one thing?”
She hesitated, still sensitive to his light touch. He spun her slowly, like they were back in the ballroom dancing one of the waltzes.
“Do you trust me?”
She really thought about the question. How many opportunities had he had to tell her that every one of his family’s balls and garden parties and outings had been bricks in their facade to satisfy their image in society? How many days had he spent concealing rather than revealing his endearment that could have potentially allowed Ada to move on from Oliver?
The longer she pondered, the more she thought that she did trust him. That he was able to look at her and see a woman who might love him one day had to have said insurmountable things about the kind of man he was and could be.
“Yes,” she whispered as his lips parted. She was sure that he was going to kiss her, and she was sure that she would have melted into him if he did.
But he didn’t. He let go of her waist and took the tingling sensation she had just been getting accustomed to with him.
“Alright,” was all he said before he strode to the door and left her alone with too many questions to count.
~~~
It took several minutes of simply standing in the heavy darkness of the room before Ada was sure she could step back into the ballroom with composure.
Vera found her moments after she had shut the parlor door with a quiet click.
“There you are! I’ve been running all over looking for you!” she said in a rush of breath. She hesitated and looked at the door. “Why were you in the parlor?”
“Needed some air,” Ada said with a casual wave of her hand.
Her voice had wavered but Vera took no notice.
“Well, I have the most wonderful news to share with you.”
“Yes. Yes, you do,” Ada thought.
“Oliver proposed. He proposed, Ada! Isn’t that wonderful?”
She was taking Ada’s hands like William had and bringing them close to her heart.
Ada paused, well aware that she had a decision to make.
She could tell Vera everything Oliver should have told her. Or she could trust that he would tell her all of it the next opportunity he got.
She could also choose to trust William to keep his word. To actually care about the welfare of her sister as well as her own.
“Go to America? Speak with my cousin? I’ll do it, Ada. I’ll do it.”
He’ll do it.
She concluded that regardless of what it looked like, trusting William was the only way to keep Vera’s happiness unblemished. And didn’t she owe him the opportunity to prove himself to her?
Ada could see Vera and Oliver hand in hand, walking across a lawn towards a quaint house. Sitting together in a parlor with more than a single flickering candle to see by. Putting children to bed. Taking their places around a great table for Christmas dinners.
“That’s the most wonderful news, Vera,” she said after what had surely been more than a few seconds. “It was only a matter of time.”
“Honestly, I don’t think I could be any happier,” she whispered, looking shy now. In that moment, Ada knew that she would never tell her of her love for Oliver.
“I couldn’t be any happier for you.” The sentence was as close as Ada could get to the truth. Knowing where William had gone would have made her substantially more settled.
There was a pause in which she contemplated telling Vera everything William had told her after all. An urge to take matters into her own hands almost prevailed. But Vera’s next words held her back.
“Let’s go back in. William’s talking with his father and I haven’t had the chance to say hello yet.”
He was speaking with his father. She didn’t know why the simple fact made her stomach flip.
She nodded her head and let Vera lead her back to the hustle and bustle of the main room.
Ada caught herself smoothing down the front of her gown as they stepped into the crowd thronged near the door. A fast paced waltz filled the room with laughter and the shrill notes of violins. The thick smell of champagne hung in the air.
He was standing directly across the room in what looked like deep and fervent conversation with his father. Mr. Holmwood was standing up tall to compensate for the look of drawn contemplation on his face. Ada could tell William was keeping himself from talking with his hands.
She watched them for quite some time as Vera slipped away to speak with someone else, completely forgetting her intentions to greet William and his father. When William eventually looked her way, he caught Ada’s eye and stopped speaking. Mr. Holmwood looked over at her as well. She took note of the way his eyes narrowed, as if her presence were somehow threatening. If William was telling him about what she knew, then perhaps she was. She stood, arms hanging limply at her sides, shoes frozen to the floor.
She analyzed the look William gave her well into the night, after the ball had ended and the house had grown dark and quiet.
He had looked cheeky when he noticed her staring. The most subtle of winks had been thrown. Then he’d rested his hand on his father’s shoulder and steered him deeper into the room, but not before giving Ada a small nod.
She liked the butterflies in her stomach and the uncertain way in which she believed that everything would come to pass in the best of ways. She again thought that she should find Vera, but pushed the idea to the back of her head.
She took a deep breath and pushed all thoughts of coal mining companies, collateral, and heartbreak out of her mind. It was hard to focus on such things when a boy with a smile she had never realized she could come to love was working to make a future she had never thought to imagine.
All Text Copyright (C) 2023 Meghan Coley