Free How Do I Love Thee? by Nancy Moser Page B

require being caged. Though, Ba, as your identity comes out, your readers are fascinated with the notion that you are a nightingale, kept hidden from the world in your Wimpole Street cage.”
    “My readers need to concentrate on the worth of my work, not the details of my personal life.” Just as my anger began its rise, Arabel appeared at the doorway. “Hello, Miss Mitford, Cousin John.” Her eyes strayed to Flush. “Would you enjoy a walk, young man? Shall we escape this stifling heat to find the fresh air in Regent’s Park?”
    Flush sprang to his feet, his wagging tail his answer.
    John stood. “It is incredibly warm up here. Perhaps we should all join you.”
    Arabel glanced in my direction. “I could get your wheelchair, Ba.”
    “No, no, you go. I am fine here.” I pushed myself to standing. “In fact, if I could presume on Miss Mitford, I should like to retire to my bed.”
    “We will wait for you to join us, Miss Mitford?” John said.
    She looked at me, asking permission. I answered for her, “Yes, by all means wait for her. We will be just a moment.”
    As they left, Mary took my arm and helped me into bed. “You have made great strides, Ba,” she said in my ear as she adjusted a pillow behind me. “Venturing out-of-doors for an outing would be the next step.”
    A step I was still unable—or unwilling—to take. “I must not strain myself,” I said, falling back to my usual excuses. “I know the results of becoming overtaxed.”
    “You know best,” Mary said. “I suppose.”
    I was not certain she was right, but only certain I could not go out. I just couldn’t. It was as though there were a wall erected at the front door, prohibiting me from egress.
    Mary kissed my forehead and descended to the foyer, her voice adding to that of Arabel and John. Then the door clicked shut and I heard Flush’s excited barks fading. Fading into the distance.
    Crow returned with a tray of tea and scones. “They have left.”
    “To seek the cooler air outside.”
    “Would you like to go with them?”
    Like? Yes, I would like to go with them. But could I? I shook my head and waved her away, to leave me.
    John had accused me of being caged. Was I? I looked across the room at the dove I kept caged there, the dove I had nurtured when it was but an egg. Its mother gone, I had warmed its shell, rolling it over and over in my fingers until the bird had broken free.
    No longer free. For I had rewarded its birth by placing it in a cage for my own enjoyment. Its soft coo-coo was a lullaby that often accompanied my descent into sleep.
    I looked to the window, open as an invitation to the summer breezes. What I should have done was stride across the room, fling open the dove’s cage, and carry him to the windowsill where he could fly away, soaring into the freedom of the sky.
    I waited a moment. Then two. My body did not respond but lay fixed. Rebellious.
    Or was I giving it undue blame? For I was better—better than I had been in years. I could have gone for a walk in Regent’s Park with my sister and friends, or at least been taken for a walk in my wheelchair. That I had decided not to do so, when able . . .
    “Am I a recluse?” I asked the air.
    As if in answer to my question, I heard feet upon the stairs. Heavy feet. A man’s feet.
    Father’s feet.
    I sat upright, prepared to greet him. He knocked on the doorjamb.
    “Come in, Papa.”
    He stepped inside and greeted me with a smile I knew was mine alone. “Ba. How are you?” His smile left him and he came to my bedside. He put a hand upon my forehead. “You are flushed. Are you feeling unwell?”
    For once, I, who always enjoyed his kind attention, wanted none of it. I took his hand and removed it. “I am fine, Papa. Just fine.”
    He sat on the edge of the bed, his countenance heavy with concern. “You say the words, but I do not believe them.”
    I sighed. He could always read me too well. “It is not a physical ailment that plagues me, but one of