Free Emma Barry by Brave in Heart Page A

doesn’t have to recommend him? He claims to love her — ”
    Theo shook his head. “That, actually, I doubt. Can a man love where his devotion is not returned?” Even as he spoke the words, there was a pull in his stomach. He hadn’t told Margaret he loved her, but every day as they fell into a routine he would abandon all too soon, he felt it. That meant she must feel it too. He was waiting for the right moment to confess it all, hoping against rationality she might do so first.
    Mother interjected at that. “You don’t believe in unrequited love, Theo?”
    “Not as such,” he explained. “That seems like indulgence and idolatry, not love. The poets have that one wrong.”
    Mother’s eyes flashed. Perhaps she had made the connection between the present conversation and the drama playing out within his marriage. But if she did, she wisely said nothing.
    Margaret sighed. “Without love, I find Carton more confusing still.”
    Theo bent over her hand and brushed his mouth over it, tracing the words he could not voice onto her skin.
    “See, when you’re losing an argument, you turn toward affection as an escape,” Margaret chided, squeezing his fingers. “It won’t work. Admit Sydney Carton makes sense only if we accept Mr. Dickens’ somewhat bizarre motivation for him.”
    “Never,” Theo responded with a small laugh. Mother and Josiah groaned, but Margaret only shook her head with a smile.
    Realizing this conversation had ceased to be productive, he asked his wife, “Will you play?”
    “Only if you will turn the pages.”
    Margaret sat at the spinet and began to pick out some lovely tune while Josiah and Mother chatted. Theo moved some wisps of hair that had escaped their confines over his wife’s ear and then turned the page of her music. No one could accuse him of not being content at this moment. There was none of Sydney Carton’s melancholy complexity in him.
    “Are you well?” he said.
    Margaret made a quiet noise in her throat in assent. It was an unspoken agreement that they did not speak of the war or of current events. There was little news in any case, only much speculation. But for the sake of his domestic tranquility, Theo would rather discuss literature, music, and his wife’s beauty than anything that might cause real conflict. They had fought enough.
    Theo turned another page and closed his eyes, trying to imprint the moment in his memory so he could take it out for inspection in the future.
    “Are
you
well?” Margaret whispered.
    “Blissful.”
    • • •
    Margaret’s fingers moved over the keys of the instrument by rote, her training too strong to fail her now. Inside, she was a rushing tumult of discordant emotions and memories. The Ward parlor still felt like a foreign place. All these warm people who liked and were connected to one another — who seemed to think she was part of the family too. She didn’t know how to respond.
    The only home Margaret had ever known belonged to her sister Emily, who had married a Virginia doctor after her stint at the seminary. With seven children now, not to mention a pack of dogs and her husband’s family, it felt less like a home than a wild, over-stuffed boarding house. Margaret had always felt like an interloper there. A dependent guest who had to provide entertainment and instruction in order to justify her inclusion. The message was unspoken but clear: she might be welcome, particularly if she would help with the children, but she did not belong.
    She had always wondered what it might be like to have a relationship in which nothing was required of her. In which affection and respect were guaranteed. Theo seemed to like her in spite of herself, even when she told him difficult truths. Sarah’s chill was melting. Josiah was kind and fatherly. Mrs. Ruskin … had to come around eventually. Was this the home for which she had waited for so long?
    She sounded the final chord and scattered applause broke out. Theo was sifting through a