Voices were all around me, their disjointed resonance never part of anyone or anything but merely fragmented pieces of time. I saw flashes of light and whirling colors. Capricious reds. Brooding purples. Somber blues. Verdant greens merged with sprightly yellows and blinded me with their brilliance. Melancholy strains of music echoed through empty ballrooms and within combined memories.
“Was she ever happy?” I asked Joshua once we arrived at our destination. “Did anyone care?”
“Someone once compared Anjuli to a pet no one wanted,” Joshua muttered in disgust. “Her mother-in-law.”
“That’s…”
“They were selfish people, Anne. Every one of them. Including her own family. When she left India, her father wrote her off. And when she arrived in England, no one knew what to do with her.”
“But Michael—”
“Just because he was her husband didn’t mean he knew how to care for her.”
“Monsters!” I cried, slowly realizing Anjuli had been abandoned by everyone in her life. Including her own husband. “Then why did Michael marry her? Why not return to England to marry someone his family approved of? Anjuli wouldn’t have—”
“Michael was too arrogant to leave without his Indian bride. He didn’t want to marry the girl his family had chosen and used Anjuli to avoid fulfilling his end of the bargain.”
“But he loved her, didn’t he?”
“No one in that family knew the concept of love, Anne,” Joshua spat. “To this day, Joseph still believes he was the hero of the story.”
“Hero?” I repeated in disbelief. “Did he suffer from a head injury?”
“He may as well have since he has a loose grasp of the events leading to what happened the night… Anjuli ran away.”
“She left him?”
“She did. Or at least she tried.”
We now stood inside the basement flat Anjuli called home. It was dark and reeked of mold. “What happened? I thought they were living on the second floor.”
“Joseph reneged on the rent agreement so many times, his father threw him out and offered to pay for smaller… accommodations.”
I was horrified by the conditions in which Anjuli had been living. Sparsely furnished, there was barely enough room for a table and two chairs. A fireplace at one end of the room provided the only source of warmth and heat for the preparation of food. A sleeping area was hidden by a threadbare blanket used as a curtain. I peered inside, recoiling at the stench of a full chamber pot and soiled bed linens. Two cots pushed together were a poor substitute for a proper bed. “Is this where she slept?” I whispered, watching helplessly as Anjuli wept into her hands. “What’s happened?”
“Michael sent her a letter.”
“Oh, no!”
“Yes,” Joshua grunted, warning me not to interfere. “He finally confessed, sending a large check and cruelly informing his wife he wanted to dissolve their marriage. He said he deserved to be happy. Can you imagine?”
“What about her? Didn’t she deserve happiness?”
“He wasn’t thinking of her.”
I wanted to stomp on Michael’s golden head. “He used her, didn’t he? Just like Joseph!”
Joshua sidestepped his way between the cots, where he stood eyeing Anjuli with a queer mixture of anger and pity. “She had to learn the hard way, Anne. Michael only told her what he told countless others before her. And Joseph—”
“Told her what she wanted to hear?” I finished for him. I approached Anjuli, fighting the urge to comfort the girl. “Her heart is breaking!”
“She’s carrying another, Anne. That’s why she’s crying. Joseph doesn’t know.”
“Another? Dear God, no!”
“It is also the last,” Joshua said with finality. “Watch her, Anne. She’s decided to leave.”
He urged me to stand aside as she rose with a grace that belied her broken spirit. I watched her change into the only other gown she owned, a stained wool number that had once been part of her trousseau. It was ruined now. Just like everything the Havelock men touched. She dressed warmly, layering woolen stockings and petticoats. When she finally reached for a weather-beaten cloak, I realized she did not own a coat. “Where is she going?”
“Don’t speak,” Joshua scolded, as Anjuli packed a bag with the few things that were truly hers. Hairpins. An ivory comb. A small sewing kit. And whatever money she’d managed to find lurking in Joseph’s pockets.
All she had on her were two pounds and a shilling.
It was barely enough for passage… to the end of the street.
When she finished dressing, Anjuli donned a knit cap and took out a sheet of paper. She struggled with what she wanted to say, crumpling her attempts at a farewell note until she gave up and threw all of them into the fireplace. She kept glancing at the clock on the mantel; most likely terrified Joseph would return from another bout of whoring or drinking.
Perhaps a little of both.
In either case, it was enough for Anjuli. She was sick. She was tired. And she just wanted to find a warm place to lay her weary head. She took something from her pocket and held it up, uncertainty in her eyes. “What’s that she’s got?” I asked, nudging Joshua. “Is it from Michael?”
“No,” my brother answered sadly. “It is not from Michael.”
“Who else could it be?”
“Not now, Anne,” Joshua said, suddenly annoyed. “She’s leaving. Come on!” He dragged me outside where Anjuli slowly made her way up the street.
“But—”
Snow fell in heavy drifts that clung to Anjuli’s eyelashes and froze the muffler she held over her nose and mouth. We followed her for several blocks before she came to an abrupt halt. She stood huddling under an anemic streetlamp, blowing into her hands to warm them because Joseph had neglected to buy her gloves. I don’t know how long she stood there shivering and gulping back sobs. I was about to tell Joshua I could bear no more when a large black coach rattled forth.
Joshua held me back as the door opened. Anjuli peered up with inquisitive eyes, addressing the occupant whose voice I could neither discern as male or female. “Come inside from the cold,” the voice beckoned, reaching out with a black leather glove. Once seated, they offered her a lap robe and promised her a warm bed. “What will he do when he discovers you are gone?”
“Nothing,” Anjuli muttered miserably, hanging her head. She rested a trembling hand on her slightly rounding belly. “I have not told him.”
“Then it is his loss,” they said, telling her to bundle up.
The door shut with a resounding click. A night watchman making his rounds glanced up without much interest and went about his duties.
It was the last time anyone ever saw Anjuli Patawar Havelock.
* * *
Joseph returned the next morning, red-eyed and full of cheap beer and ale. He did not even notice Anjuli was missing when he stumbled through the flat and collapsed on his cot. He slept it off, then woke, expecting her to be laboring over the hearth. When he called out in a voice hoarse from smoking cut-rate cigars all night, he was met with silence. “Where’s my supper, woman?” he demanded sullenly, oblivious to the fact Anjuli’s cot had not been slept in. “You better not be sick again!”
When she didn’t answer, he swore and stormed into the kitchen. There was nothing on the hearth, not even a boiling kettle for his coffee. “Damn you, you lazy—” he snarled before his blood-shot eyes settled over a basin full of greasy pans. He was still too addled with drink to realize Anjuli was missing and thought she merely stepped out as she usually did to buy a loaf of bread or a tin of tea.
“She’ll be back,” he muttered before going back to sleep.
“Does he even realize what’s happened?” I hissed to my brother, who stared down at Joseph with undisguised contempt. “Does he even care?”
“You tell me.”
We wandered the flat in its current state, taking in piles of moldering laundry and pots Anjuli had been too ill to wash. Two days passed before Joseph realized Anjuli had left him.
His reaction was unexpected.
He panicked, going from neighbor to neighbor in the hope they had seen or heard something. “Did Anjuli say anything to you?” he asked the woman who lived above their old flat. “She’s gone.”
The woman was a forty-five-year-old seamstress who lived with her husband and had never liked the way Joseph treated the girl. “She went and left you, did she? ’Bout time she stood up for herself.”
She slammed the door in his face.
Reactions were similar from neighbor and merchant alike. All had been fond of Anjuli and despised Joseph. None were willing to help in the search and told him where he could go and how to get there. I certainly felt no sympathy for him when he finally broke down and wept over a pile of broken dishes. Nearly a week passed before he did the unthinkable.
He went to his brother.
Michael was unsympathetic, feeling Anjuli was no longer his responsibility. “Maybe she went to visit a friend,” he said from the comfort of his townhouse. Their father allowed him the use of it when he was in London. “Didn’t you say she had been corresponding with someone?”
“That was you!” Joseph snapped, eyeing the plush sitting room with envy. “I know of no other.”
Unconcerned, Michael inquired if he had notified the authorities. Joseph replied he had not. “Why the hell not? She’s practically your wife, for God’s sake!”
“And she’s yours until death do you part,” Joseph retorted, stalking the fireplace. “She’s left me! She didn’t have any money, Michael!”
“I wonder why.”
“Never mind! She couldn’t have gone far.”
“Then why don’t you go back and find her?”
Joseph stared at his brother as if seeing him for the first time. “You never loved her!” he cried. “Did you?”
Michael sat back calmly, looking as if he couldn’t care less. “I only married her, so I wouldn’t have to marry Gwendolyn.”
“Why you—” Joseph was on him before Michael could react, wrapping both hands around his throat. I reached up to finger my own, knowing the deadly strength he wielded, whether at a score or eighty. “I’ll kill you!”
Michael, the trained soldier, was no match for an enraged younger brother half-mad with grief. He kicked and flailed blindly beneath Joseph, gasping desperately for air. “Let… go!” he wheezed.
“Not until you agree to help me look for her!” Joseph raged, squeezing his brother’s windpipe until tiny blood vessels burst in his eyes. “Well...? Or do I kill you now?”
“You’re… insane!” Michael rasped, reaching to grasp hands that were slowly squeezing the life from him. “St-stop!”
“Not until you agree to help me,” Joseph sang. “Father couldn’t be bothered to leave his pudding. But you…” He gazed down at Michael’s purple face. “I’ll do it, you know. You know I will.”
“Is this how… you… treated… Anjuli?”
“Don’t you dare!” Joseph muttered, squeezing for an agonizing moment before offering his brother a brief respite. “If I struck her, it was because she drove me to it!”
“Bastard!” Michael gasped, banging his fists on the floor. “Release… me!”
“Only if you promise to help me.” Joseph peered down at his brother with a curious expression. “It’s almost as if you don’t care if she lives or dies. Why is that?”
“I… told you… why!”
“Oh, yes. You’ve another sow you wish to breed. Let me guess, she’s ridiculously wealthy and her face wouldn’t break a mirror.”
“Damn… you!”
Joseph continued to torture his brother, sitting on his chest and pressing his knee against his windpipe. “You may know how to wear a uniform and wield a sword, but I know how to kill a man with my bare hands.” He leaned close, whispering in Michael’s ear. “Want to know how I came by such knowledge?”
“NO!”
The torture continued for half an hour before Michael finally yielded. Joseph immediately released him and sat back, thoroughly enjoying seeing his brother cough and gasp for air. “What’ll you do when you find… her?” Michael panted, rolling onto his side. “Think she’ll want to… go back to dirty dishes and day-old… bread?”
“That’s father’s doing. He could have given me an allowance.”
“Why? So you can drink it away while my wife whelps on the… floor?”
“Oh, so she’s your wife now? She wasn’t a minute ago.”
Michael forced himself to sit up and glowered at his brother. “If I help you, I never want to see your face again. Is that understood?”
Joseph smiled. The same evil smile he gave me before I fled Briarwood. “You don’t mean it,” he said, glancing up sheepishly. “You never mean anything you say.”
“Oh, I mean it, dear brother,” Michael assured him, staggering to his feet. He loosened his collar, attempting to swallow through a bruised throat. “And when they bury you, I shall be the first to spit on your grave.”
“Not if you’re dead,” Joseph swore, unaware his words would prove prophetic.
I clasped my brother’s hand, grateful for his quiet reassurance. Joshua leaned down and whispered something in my ear. “Brace yourself,” he said, before the world erupted into madness.
