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Since George left, Bertha has been dreaming of blood.
Every night has been the same wretched dream. First an instant-by-instant sense memory of the moments after he was shot – his clammy face in her hands, the agonized sound of his groans as the doctor dug the bullet out, his chest spurting crimson as his lifeblood poured out of him and he slipped closer and closer to death. Then he opens his eyes and looks straight at her and speaks, and he feels more distant than if he’d stolen over its border after all and left her alone. “Ruthless with those you love,” he says, and “I don’t like what I see.” There’s that sickening drop as she realizes that she is what he sees, what he is speaking of in those passionless, measured tones of utter rejection. And then, just like that, he is gone, and she wakes up with a cry lodged in her throat, reaching out to no one. During the day she flits through huge, lavishly appointed rooms like a restless spirit, passing by servants who seem likewise as insubstantial as ghosts, ghosts trapped in some separate dimension parallel to hers.
The first time she feels herself in the company of flesh and blood and a pulse that beats alongside hers is when Aurora Fane stops by for a visit.
“Bertha.” Aurora is shown into the drawing room where Bertha sits, staring blankly at the wall. She presses a brief kiss against Bertha’s cheek, and Bertha is startled by the warmth of her touch, the touch of a living human being. “My dear. How are you?”
Bertha attempts to say that she’s fine, to brush off the question, but something in her rises up against the lie. “Well enough, I suppose,” she says, already fighting to keep her voice steady.
Aurora looks at her curiously. “Are you sure? You sound troubled.”
“I –” Bertha swallows fiercely against a sob. She’s been this way ever since George left, constantly on the brink of tears, never sure when they’ll spill out. “Of course,” she says, but there's a catch in her voice.
Aurora pauses for a moment. “Well,” she says eventually, “I only wanted to thank you again for the invitation to your party. For rescuing me from the hell Charles had consigned me to.”
Bertha lets out a laugh that she hopes sounds natural enough. “Well, if I can rescue a soul from hell by the mere addressing of an invitation, I certainly hope I should take the opportunity to do so.”
“It’s no joke.” Aurora’s eyes are intent on hers now. “And it’s no simple matter, either. There was no ‘mere addressing of an invitation’ about what you did. It took real bravery.” Bertha smiles wanly. “More than that,” Aurora adds. “It took real kindness.”
Bertha is rocked back in her chair by this.
“Funny,” she says, fighting to keep her voice even. “I don’t think I’ve ever in my life been accused of being kind.”
“Well,” Aurora says, and her voice is so gentle. “I’m honored to be among those permitted to see it.”
And just like that, Bertha’s sobs have taken over.
“My dear!” Aurora leans forward, shocked, taking Bertha’s hands in her own. “Whatever is the matter?”
“It’s –” Bertha looks into Aurora’s blue eyes and feels a sudden spurt of something akin to hope. It’s less that Aurora is in the process of surviving a divorce, that she might understand something of the experience that Bertha is so terribly afraid is coming her way, and more that Bertha simply trusts her to respond with compassion. Somehow, she gets her mouth open and manages a garbled version of her story.
“I’ve been so lost,” she says at last. “Every time I think of George’s face, his voice, as he accused me of ruthlessness – more than that, as he made it sound as though my ruthlessness is solely in service of myself, of my own selfish aims. I’ve fought for my family every day for the last twenty-five years. Fought for him, for the life we were building together. Or that I thought we were building together. And now to be blamed for that ‘ruthlessness’” –
“He said it himself, my dear. If there is ruthlessness he can’t forgive, it is his own. Gladys is happy in her marriage, is she not?”
“I believe so. Now.”
“And how much did he have to do with that?”
Bertha’s surprised at the hard edge in Aurora’s eyes and voice. “I… suppose –”
“When she wrote to explain the difficulties she was experiencing, you sailed across the ocean to set things right for her. And you succeeded. What did George do?”
There’s a glint of an almost-smile in Bertha’s eyes now. “‘Nothing’ seems to be the response you are steering me towards.”
“He walked her down the aisle, then stewed in his own guilt without lifting a finger to expiate it. And he has the gall to leave you with a charge of ruthlessness? ‘First cast out the beam out of thine own eye.’”
“In this area, I rather suspect he and I are equally blinded by our own beams.”
“Bertha.” Aurora leans forward and takes Bertha’s hands again. Her fingers are slender and surprisingly warm against Bertha’s cold, knotted ones. She begins to massage the tension out of Bertha’s knuckles. “I will never forget what you did for me, saving my place in society. That was not the act of a woman blinded by selfishness. It was not the act of a woman who does not see others than herself. You have an ability to see through society’s endless pretense and folderol, to see people for who they are, but also to care deeply for them. I fear the latter trait is lost on many, perhaps even on your husband. But it’s not lost on me.”
“Aurora –” Bertha is searching Aurora’s face now, wanting so desperately to believe in Aurora’s vision of her, this person who is strong but not callous, not emotionless. Generous rather than self-serving. Her gaze travels over Aurora’s face – cheeks slightly rose-hued now in her passion, china-blue eyes wide and sincere. Bertha knows that Aurora is innocent of many of the darker instincts which lie within Bertha’s own soul, instincts which have always found their twin within George. She’s always felt that George is the one person who understands her. There’s a shock, now, in realizing for the first time that there may be parts of her that George does not see. That perhaps she shares traits with Aurora that she doesn’t share with George. A kindness. An ability to care for those against whom society has barred its doors. More than that – an ability to care for individual people, even those to whom she is not tied by bonds of marriage or kin.
An ability – as an example – to care for Aurora.
Bertha studies Aurora’s features closely, feeling her pulse beat more quickly in her fingertips. A single wheaten curl has slipped down just a bit near her left ear, unnoticeable to the casual eye. Her earrings, simple pearl drops, glimmer subtly in the fading light, setting off the sparkle in her eyes. Eyes that shine with simple goodness of a kind that Bertha had always assumed was anathema to her own soul, and yet they look at Bertha, and see her, and do not shy away. Bertha finds herself leaning in closer, breath held. There’s a look of wonderment in Aurora’s blue eyes now, but still, they don’t close. It’s Bertha’s eyes that flutter shut as their lips meet in a shock of heat.
They kiss: greedily, hungrily on Bertha’s side; first shyly, then with growing confidence on Aurora’s. Bertha’s hand slips to Aurora’s waist. She smells faintly of lavender sachet and of the roses she wears.
Eventually the kiss breaks. “What was that?” Aurora asks, her voice full of marvel.
Bertha shrugs, some of her customary practicality having returned to her eyes. “Thank you,” she says. “For believing the best of me.”
“For knowing the best of you,” Aurora corrects. Her blue eyes are still round with astonishment. She hesitates a moment. Then, gently, she leans in again.
They kiss as the shadows grow longer in the room – slowly, softly. Aurora has never felt so alive. Bertha has never felt so at peace. They kiss and the moment is enough in itself.
Tomorrow Bertha will figure out what to do about George. Tomorrow she will find a way to move forward, with George or without him. Tomorrow she will seek to discover what this means, what she and Aurora could be, what path they might walk together. For today, there is this respite. And for today, this is enough.