The Sealed Letter Read Online Free PDF Page B

ago, when we founded it in a surge of zeal, that seemed a trivial consideration."
    "Tell me, which of these ladies—" Helen breaks off. "You're all ladies, I suppose?"
    The question makes Fido uncomfortable. "By education, if not by birth. Miss Boucherett rides to hounds, whereas Miss Craig's a glover's daughter," she says a little defiantly.
    "But what I want to know is, which of them is your real friend?"
    Fido doesn't know how to answer.
    "Who's supplanted me?"
    For all its mocking tone, the question hits Fido like a crowbar. "Helen! You should know me better than to think I'd sacrifice old attachments for new."
    Helen's face blooms, dazzles. "How it relieves me to hear you say that."
    "There are certainly bonds of affection between us all at Langham Place, but—Isa Craig is very sympathetic, for instance, but I don't know that I could count her as a real friend. And since the death of Miss Procter—"
    "You knew the poet, personally?" asks Helen, audibly impressed. "Adelaide was our hardest worker, and our wittiest," says Fido sadly. "Since that loss, old ties have frayed somewhat, and differences loom larger. But our work still unites us," she adds, afraid she's giving the wrong impression. "There's a great spirit of love at bottom."
    Helen snorts. "I've run charity bazaars with women I'd happily see dead at my feet. But carina," she laughs, resting her fingertips on the brown satin of Fido's skirt, "if you haven't found one true intimate among the whole coven—that's a crying shame. You've such a genius for friendship, such an adhesive disposition—"
    When I was young, thinks Fido with a stab. Perhaps it's rusted up.
    "I had a sort of friend, in Malta," volunteers Helen.
    "A sort of friend?"
    "Quite a bit older; the wife of a local clergyman. The Watsons had a French governess for their wards, you see, and invited Nell and Nan over there to share lessons, which seemed harmless," says Helen bleakly. "We were all great mates till she began to turn Harry against me."
    Fido's eyebrows shoot up. "Surely he didn't—he wasn't—"
    "Oh, her attractions weren't of that kind," says Helen, "but she gained a strange ascendancy over him. Prigs are the worst of women; all that prudery hides a lust for power."
    It strikes Fido that this is her chance to enquire into the state of the Codrington marriage. She wonders if the admiral is downstairs in his study. Has Harry been told she's in the house, for the first time since the day he—regretfully, impeccably—asked her to leave?
    But she's hesitated too long, and Helen's rattling on again. "Well, my dear, if you really haven't one kindred spirit among this gang of black and midnight hags —then I intend to reinstate myself at once."
    They're both grinning at her cheek. "There are no hags at Langham Place," Fido tells her. "Bessie Parkes, for one, is so small-boned and lovely that I feel like a bull beside her. In fact, there was a comical incident last spring when some Swedish professor called and mistook me for Miss Parkes; he described her in his travel memoir as an independent, strapping female who went outside and called a cab for herself—much to Bessie's horror!"
    When Helen has stopped laughing, she remarks, "Reading about your career, in Malta—I used to wonder if you might end up marrying some earnest reformer, a lecturer on hygiene or some such. Or a vicar perhaps, like your sisters."
    Fido smiles slightly. "You know, the old maid of today is not an object of pity."
    "I've never pitied you for an instant."
    "Independence, a home of one's own, travel..." She marks them off on her fingers. "Liberty's been a better husband to many of us than love."
    "I've not a word to say against the single life," Helen protests, "I just can't quite imagine how it's done. But you'll hear no hymns to matrimony from me," she adds darkly.
    There, the subject's been laid squarely on the table. Fido speaks before she can lose her nerve. "Are you ... may I ask, are you and your husband any