Until then, I remain—
Your loving Edward
XII
There was no choice for him. He sent the hansom driver home with a message for his grandfather saying he was meeting Charles Griffith that night, and then, turning and wincing from the lie, he watched the driver round the corner before he began running, not caring about the spectacle he made. His potential embarrassment now meant nothing against the promise of seeing Edward once more.
At the boardinghouse, he was let in by the same whey-faced maid, and hurried up the flights of stairs. It was only at the final landing that he hesitated, aware that beneath his excitement lurked another set of sensations as well: doubt, confusion, anger. But it was not enough to deter him, and even before he’d finished knocking, the door was opening, and Edward was in his arms, kissing him wherever he could, as eager as a pup, and David in turn felt his earlier misgivings disappear, swept away by happiness and relief.
But when he managed to hold Edward at arm’s length, he noticed his face: his right eye blackened, his bottom lip split and seamed with dried blood. “Edward,” he said, “my dear Edward! Whatever is this?”
“This,” said Edward, almost pertly, “is one of the reasons I was unable to write you,” and after they were able to calm themselves, he began to explain what had happened on his ill-fated visit to his sisters.
In the beginning, Edward said, all went well. His trip was uneventful, if bitterly cold, and he detoured to Boston to spend three nights visiting some old family friends before continuing onward to Burlington. There, he was greeted by his three sisters: Laura, who was soon to deliver her baby; Margaret; and of course Belle, visiting from New Hampshire. Laura and Margaret, who were close in age and in everything else, shared a large wooden house, with each sister and her respective husband occupying a different floor, and Belle was settled in Laura’s section and Edward in Margaret’s.
Margaret left in the mornings to her schoolhouse, but Laura and Belle and Edward spent the days talking and laughing, admiring the tiny sweaters and blankets and socks Laura and Margaret and their husbands had knitted, and when Margaret returned in the afternoon, they sat before the fire and talked of their parents, and their memories of growing up together, while Laura’s and Margaret’s husbands—Laura’s husband, a teacher as well; Margaret’s, an accountant—completed the chores the sisters would normally have done themselves so that they might have more time with one another.
（“I of course told them about you,” Edward said.
“Oh?” he asked, flattered. “What did you say?”
“I said I had met a beautiful, brilliant man, and that I missed him already.”
David found himself blushing with pleasure, but said only, “Go on.”）
Six days into this blissful visit, Laura gave birth to a healthy baby, a boy, whom she named Francis, after their father. This was the first child born to the Bishop siblings, and they all rejoiced as if he were their own. It had been planned that Edward and Belle would stay for an additional two or so weeks, and despite Laura’s exhaustion, they were content: There were six adults to dote on one baby. But being together, the four of them, after such a long time, made them think as well of their parents, and on more than one occasion there were tears as they discussed how much their mother and father had sacrificed on their behalf to give them better lives in the Free States, and how, whatever their disappointments, they would be so pleased to see their children together.
（“We were all so busy that I scarcely had time to do anything else,” said Edward, before David could ask him why he’d not written. “I thought of you always; I began a hundred letters to you in my head. And then the baby would cry, or there would be milk to heat, or I would need to help my brothers-in-law with the chores—I’d no idea how much labor one small baby could generate!—and any time in which I might have set pen to paper would vanish.”
“But why did you not write me with your sisters’ address, at least?” he asked, hating himself for the tremor in his voice.
“Well! That I can only attribute to my idiocy—I was certain, certain that I had given it to you before I left. In fact, I thought it very peculiar that you hadn’t written me at all; every day, when one of my sisters came in with the post, I would ask if there was something from you, but there never was. I cannot tell you how sorrowful it made me: I feared you had forgotten me.”
“As you can see, I had not,” he murmured, trying to keep the petulance from his voice as he indicated the embarrassingly fat bundle of letters that the maid had tied with twine and which now sat, unread, on the trunk at the foot of Edward’s bed. But Edward, once again anticipating David’s injury, put his arms around him. “I saved them in hopes I might see you and be able to explain my absence in person,” he said. “And then, after you had forgiven me—as I so desperately hoped, and hope, you will—that we might read them together, and you could tell me everything you were feeling and thinking when you wrote them, and it would be as if our time apart had never happened, and we had been together always.”）
After almost a fortnight, Edward and Belle prepared to leave; they would go to Manchester, where Edward would stay with his sister for several days before finally making his way back to New York. But when they reached Belle’s home, Belle calling out for her husband as they entered the front door, they were greeted only with silence.
At first, they were unconcerned. “He must still be at the clinic,” Belle said, cheerfully, and sent Edward up to the spare room while she went to the kitchen to make them something to eat. But when Edward came back downstairs, he found her standing immobile in the middle of the room, looking at the table, and when she turned to look at him, her face was very white.
“He is gone,” she said.
“What do you mean, he is gone?” Edward asked her, but as he looked about him, he noticed that the kitchen had not been occupied for at least a week: The hearth was blackened and cold, the dishes and kettles and pots dry and traced with a light layer of dust. He seized the note Belle held and saw it was in his brother-in-law’s hand, apologizing to her and telling her he was unworthy, but he had left to make a life with another.
“Sylvie,” Belle whispered. “Our maid. She’s not here, either.” She swooned, and Edward caught her before she could fall, and helped her into bed.
How upsetting the next few days were! Poor Belle vacillated between silence and weeping, and Edward sent word to their sisters to inform them of the unhappy news. He stormed down to his brother-in-law Mason’s clinic, but both of his nurses claimed ignorance; he even went to report Mason’s absence to the police, but they said they were unable to involve themselves in domestic affairs. “But this is no mere domestic affair,” Edward cried. “This man has abandoned his wife, my sister, a good and faithful woman and spouse, stealing away while she was attending to her pregnant sister in Vermont. He must be found and brought to justice!” The police were sympathetic but claimed powerlessness, and with each day, Edward felt his anger rise, along with his sense of despair—seeing his sister staring mutely into the empty hearth, her hair twisted sloppily into a bun, kneading her hands and wearing the same wool dress she’d worn for the past four days, made him ever-more aware of his impotence, and ever-more determined to, if not recover his beloved little sister’s husband, then to at least avenge her.