“You aren’t running your house!” The words were out of me before I could consider, and I regretted them immediately. I tried walking them back, but it was too late. They’d struck at Charles’ center, as intended.
“Everyone in my care is in need of something,” he said, voice ominously steady. I’d rarely seen Charles in any burst of emotion, and the few times I had, he was in ecstasy. The day he and Catherine were engaged, at their wedding, when they announced they were expecting. Never before had I seen him livid. Until now. “My wife needs constant attention, as does my newborn daughter, and my sister is grieving a loss I cannot fully understand. So, if two of those people are able to care for one another in ways I can’t, how am I supposed to refuse them one another?”
“You are Hazel’s father. You can care for her better than anyone else who is not her parent.”
“I can’t nurse her,” Charles snapped.
Wet nurses were not unheard of, especially when a mother was ill, but the confirmation that Camellia was nursing my sister’s child as her own made me even more uneasy.
We sat in silence for a moment, letting the tensions in the room abate slightly. My intention was not to upset Charles, but to open his eyes to the possible issues with his current solution. He appeared to want to stand back and allow the women in his life to heal themselves, but I believed he would be better off with a more active approach.
He wanted me to speak sense to Catherine, but who could understand and appeal to her more than her husband? If he would try to understand where she was coming from, perhaps he would see she was not insane. And that she certainly did not need to be tended to by Nurse Gray, who seemed to want to do nothing more than send her into unconsciousness.
With Camellia, I did not have a perfect solution for that, but I knew the hole in her heart could not be filled with another child. It needed to be mended with time and compassion.
“I see you are trying, and I appreciate that,” I said softly. “You have always loved my sister well, and my family loves you for it. You know that. However—”
“Must there be a however, Alice? I’m tired, and I think—”
“However,” I continued, holding up a hand for him to allow me to finish. “I just wonder whether Camellia is healed enough from her trauma to be trusted with Hazel’s care?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do you think my sister unwell?”
“Isn’t she? Any person in her position would be unwell, don’t you think?” I pressed a hand to my heart. “I do not have a husband or child to lose, but I’ve lost a brother. I’ve seen people die before my eyes, and…it is a wound not easily healed. I just worry what spending so much time with Hazel is doing to your sister. You would hate for her to become confused.”
I saw Charles’ face shift, his eyes go flat, shuttering themselves against any more of my appeals. He shook his head. “She is not confused. She is distracting herself from her troubles, and I do not think that is a bad thing. It does not do to dwell on situations like the one my sister endured. There is nothing to be done about it, so one might as well carry on as best as possible.”
My brother-in-law walked around his desk and extended an arm, ready to lead me from the room. I remained in my chair, determined for my point to be heard.
“She cannot simply carry on. This isn’t like a rainy day ruining a picnic, Charles. Your sister’s family died in a horrible way, and she needs to deal with those feelings before she throws herself into mothering again.”
“Thank you for your thoughts, Alice. I’ll keep them in mind.” He laid a hand on my shoulder and all but forced me from the chair. “But I need to attend to some business.”
He ushered me towards the door, pulled it open, and I stopped short.
Standing just on the other side was Camellia.
I felt Charles stiffen next to me, and I went wide-eyed, not sure what to expect. Would she rage at me for doubting her ability to care for Hazel? Would she be angry with Charles for sharing such a personal part of her history with me? Had she overheard our conversation at all?
A second later, Camellia smiled and stood aside. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was in here with you, brother. I can come back.”
“No, no.” I gave her a shaky smile and stepped aside. “Please, come in. I was just leaving. I think I’m going to go see my sister.”
“She’s sleeping.” Camellia smiled so big her eyes crinkled at the corners, and I couldn’t remember her ever looking so cheerful.
It looked forced.
“Maybe later, then.” I nodded my head at the siblings and headed for the stairs, desperate to be alone in my own room.
As soon as I got there, I locked the door behind me, as if Camellia would charge up the stairs and into my room, ready for an altercation.
Maybe she would. I didn’t know. To my mind, no one did.
The kind of trauma Camellia had endured could manifest in many different ways. Maybe it already had.
Catherine confided in me that she’d been attacked on the moors. Nurse Gray and Charles insisted it was a fall, but what if it hadn’t been?
I’d been dismissive of Catherine’s claims from the start just like everyone else, but now I knew there
