Chapter 22
Meeting my Daughter
Rebecca didn’t respond for a mere moment, but even that was a while too long. Arthur had to consciously control his breathing. His heart was already beating out of control. Arthur was concerned that if he tried to speak normally, his voice would spiral out of control and a whisper might become a shout.
“Where is my child, Rebecca?” Arthur whispered, managing to control himself.
Her eyes held his in an intense gaze, and she still didn’t speak. There was sadness in her eyes. Arthur shook his head.
What does this mean?
Arthur bent down and traced the grains of the wooden floor of her deck with his index finger. He had to keep his mind on something else. He was scared he would burst with anxiety.
“Is the child dead, Rebecca?”
He raised his gaze again and stared at her. She hadn’t stopped crying and was now backed up against the wall.
“Is my child, our child, is she dead?” Arthur whispered in his voice now hoarse with tension.
Rebecca shook her head.
Thank goodness, she’s not dead.
Arthur still couldn’t manage a smile. He felt a tear drop, a single one, down his right cheek. He cleaned it with his now wet handkerchief and shook his head along with her.
“She isn’t dead. So where is she?”
“I am sorry, Arthur. You don’t deserve this. I was only protecting myself. No man deserves not to know his child,” Rebecca said.
“Deserve to know my child? You are scaring me, Rebecca. What happened?” Arthur asked.
He wasn’t hiding any emotion anymore. He didn’t care about how it looked that a man, an Earl, was pained and showing it so starkly. It didn’t matter. Now he had heard he had a child. And she wasn’t dead.
“You have met her, Arthur. You know her very well,” Rebecca said.
What does she mean by I have met her?
“I don’t understand. I have only met one child with you, Rebecca and that is the child you and the clergyman had, Harriet.”
Arthur looked into her eyes and finally, it dawned on him.
“Except, except if –”
“Harriet is your daughter,” Rebecca completed for him.
It was like a cart pulled by stallions galloping at top speed had run into him. His legs couldn’t take his weight anymore, and they finally gave way. Arthur rested his back on the wall as his body slid down into a sitting position. He couldn’t stop shaking his head.
How could I have been so blind? I have been so close to my child, my own blood, and I was so ignorant. What sort of father am I?
“What kind of father am I? I can’t even tell my own daughter,” Arthur said.
He wasn’t thinking anymore. He just spoke.
“How were you to know, Arthie?” Rebecca asked.
“I don’t know. Does it matter now? I live in a huge house in the centre of Derby while my daughter lives in a forgotten church’s estate, barely getting by,” Arthur said.
“I am sorry,” Rebecca said.
She crept slowly from the wall at the other end of the room till she got to Arthur. She touched his feet gingerly at first, and her eyes were cautious.
“You fear a rebuke,” Arthur said.
He smiled. He didn’t know where it had managed to come from. He had managed to smile.
“There’s no use rebuking you, Rebecca. The deed had been done,” Arthur said.
“No, Arthur, you don’t understand. Please let me explain,” Rebecca said.
Arthur closed his eyes. He had felt too much emotion for one day. The pain had been so tangible it felt concrete. He couldn’t take any more of this. He had enough.
Arthur staggered to his feet, heaving himself up by gripping the wooden edge of the bed.
“Arthur, where are you going?” Rebecca said.
Arthur didn’t respond. He stood up and walked to the door. He released the lock from its latch and opened it.
“Arthur, please let me explain.”
Like a man drunk, Arthur sauntered out of her room and out of the house, going the same way he had come. He walked into the garden and strode towards his horse.
I need to get home to rest and reorganise myself. I need to get out of here.
He got to Sirius and gripped him by the reins. He was about to mount the horse when he heard a child’s laughter. It was Harriet.
My daughter.
Arthur released the horse’s reins once and started to walk in the direction of the laughter. He took the path that Harriet and her governess had taken, walking through bushes until he burst into the foyer of the church’s big hall. There he saw her governess, with her spectacled face, facing Harriet and showing her something in a small book. Arthur felt like running to her, but he held himself in check.
She laughed again. And Arthur had to smile.
At least, my daughter is laughing.
The governess saw him first. She looked to her side when he was just a few metres away from them.
“My Lord,” she said and bowed her head.
Arthur nodded and approached them. He bent down and attained eye level with Harriet.
“Miss Grundy,” he greeted her back without sparing her a look.
He stared at Harriet and started to see all he had missed. He saw the dark Bexley hair. He saw his chin, his slightly dimpled chin. The familiarity he had previously felt rushed back to him, and Arthur didn’t dispel it this time. He embraced it and sought it out until he detected it in the brown pit of her big, absorbing eyes. They weren’t just her eyes. These were his mother’s eyes, big, kind, and endearing.
Arthur placed one hand on Harriet’s head, softly threading his fingers through her hair.
“Lord Bexley,” Miss Grundy said.
Arthur turned to look at the governess. He smiled again. He couldn’t tell how he looked. But he had just wept like a child. He was sure he didn’t look too good.
“Is something wrong, Lord Bexley?” Miss Grundy asked.
Arthur smiled. He shook his head.
“No,” he answered.
His voice was cracked, hoarse and unclear. He cleared his throat and spoke again.
“No, why do you ask?”
Miss Grundy smiled.
“No real reason My Lord, I just felt I needed to ask,” she answered.
Arthur turned back to Harriet. Her brown eyes were arched and stared at him in confusion. She placed an arm on the hand he put on her head. Arthur felt her apply pressure. She was attempting to push his hand off. Arthur rubbed his hand into her hair and removed it.
“Ahh, that hurt,” she said.
Arthur laughed when he saw the face she made. This wasn’t just Harriet anymore. This was Harriet, his daughter, the fruit of his manhood. Arthur wrapped both hands around her waist and lifted her up.
“Lord Bexley?” Miss Grundy said.
This time, her voice showed clear concern. Arthur didn’t care, though. This was the first time he was in real contact with Harriet not just as Harriet but as his daughter.
“Please put me down,” Harriet said.
Arthur heard, but he didn’t hear. He should have put her down, but he was overwhelmed with emotion. He didn’t comprehend.
“She asks that you put her back down, Lord Bexley,” Miss Grundy said.
“I want to go down,” Harriet said, beating his hands with her small hands.
“Put my daughter down,” a voice shouted behind him.
Arthur turned around to see Rebecca. Her eyes were wild, and it looked like she had been running. Seeing her jolted him back to his senses, and he dropped Harriet. Harriet ran immediately to meet her mother who swept her into her arms. Rebecca lifted Harriet, placing her on her arm with her torso resting against her chest. Harriet was obviously shaken by Arthur’s strange behaviour and clutched her mother’s gown tight by the neck. She dug her face into the space between her mother’s busts and didn’t look up. Rebecca met Arthur’s gaze squarely, and Arthur could see a fierce protectiveness in her eyes.
She isn’t going to let anyone come between her and her child, and our child.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt her,” Arthur said, feeling the need to explain himself.
“You should have put her down when she asked.”
Rebecca’s response was curt. Arthur could see that she was angry that he had startled Harriet. This was the love of his life, the only woman he had ever felt anything for, the only woman he had ever had anything real with. And she was standing between him and their child. Arthur shook his head. He started to feel a deep pain again.
Rebecca had just let him know that Harriet wasn’t just that random child that he had mistaken her to be, she was his daughter. And he was still trying to come to terms with that, still trying to touch and see her with now open eyes. But the woman who had opened his eyes was here again to whisk his prize away from him. Arthur felt a trembling start from inside of him.
“I just want to hold her,” Arthur said.
Rebecca looked like she wanted to drop her, then her eyes hardened again.
“No, Arthur, please,” she said.
Arthur started to nod. He had to do something, to react in a particular way; if not, he was scared he would just break down. He looked at the governess and saw the confusion written all over her. He wanted to laugh but couldn’t make it.
I was just as confused.
Arthur started to back away. He couldn’t stop nodding, but he backed away from the three females and only stopped when his leg hooked on the vine of a short shrub. Arthur then turned and started to run.
“Arthur,” he heard Rebecca cry.
But he couldn’t stop now. His heart was pounding hard and painfully. He wasn’t sure he could handle the cocktail of emotions that were swirling inside him.
He was happy, elated that Harriet was his daughter. He was hurt that she had scurried away from him like he was going to harm her. Then Rebecca had come and reinforced the fear in her. He was ashamed that he had been so blind to what had just laid right in front of him.
How did I miss the dark Bexley hair, my mother’s eyes?
Arthur burst into the small space his horse was standing in and managed to trudge to it. He loosened the rope that tied it and mounted the horse. In an almost drunken state, Arthur kicked into the horse and held tight as it galloped out of the estate.
He barely held on as his body bounced up and down along with the topsy-turvy movement of the horse’s body. He embraced the wind as it swept through him.
Maybe it can push away this pain.
It didn’t. He still felt heavy, deep down inside him. But he found that in the rage of the run and the beating down of the wind on the lobes of his ears, he couldn’t concentrate on the pain. He felt it, but he couldn’t fester on it. And for that, he was grateful.