Chapter Eighteen

in which sam reads

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. —Jane Austen, Emma

Knowing that I would likely be up all night and not wanting to disturb anyone, after dinner I changed into my sleepwear and took the manuscript into the night-quiet schoolroom. Besides the cluster of the half dozen chairs we used for our lessons, there was also a wingback chair beside the hearth. It was worn, the leather cracked, but comfortable in the way that only old furniture that’s been molded around the bodies of decades of readers can be. I stoked up the embers, lit the oil lamp on the mantle, put a kettle of water on the rail above the fire to keep the room from getting too dry, and tried to settle.

Excitement had me back out of the chair instantly, pacing between the desks, shaking out my hands as if I could throw off the sparks of gleeful, giggling excitement that tingled along my skin.

This is it, Sammie-bear! History! Being made right in front of you!

I forced myself to take deep breaths, to smooth out my dressing gown, to stop squealing under my breath, and sit again. I lifted back the leather cover and ran my fingers across the words inked on the first page in a bold, sure hand:

Letters Across the Sea

The Welshman’s Daughters

I’d never actually made it to the first page of The Welshman’s Daughters on the airplane, but even I knew that it opened at the end, with the protagonist sitting in a pool of blood in the divination-drenched family chapel in the house on the cliff, musing on her father’s burial at sea and her metamorphosis from Jean Trembley of Montreal to Jane Tremble of T? ar y Bryn Manor. This is what I had read, all those months ago, at Swangale House.

Much had been made in every adaptation of the symbolism of the blood—was it there to evoke transformation? Did it represent the moon, and women’s pain, and the witchcraft of bleeding and yet never dying? Was it Jane’s blood, was it Death’s? Was it real at all? Or was it just simply blood, the thing that happens when a sharp silver knife meets living flesh?

Yet these pages were clean of gore.

They instead began with the correspondence of a brother—whom I recognized as a proto-Kendall ap Hywel, the dashing and tragic sailor with a poet’s heart and Byronic figure that had all the twenty-first century girls, gays, and gentlethey’s hearts a-flutter—and a milquetoast sister I supposed was meant to be Mariana, but who lacked the fierceness that stepping into her mother’s role as head of the household had instilled in her.

In this version there were no other siblings—the dead baby brother was not a plot point, the ennui-laden middle brother entirely absent. In this version, Mariana’s mother was both alive and a snide busybody not unlike Iris. More importantly, the book was entirely devoid of the damp, creeping menace that soaked every scene with roiling fog. Missing was the seductive warning of crashing waves, the easy slip of a smooth slipper on dew-wet rocks beside the deceptive lip of a waterfall, and windows rattling in gales that might actually be the murmur of ghosts.

The letters went on endlessly about the daily toil on a ship that carried mail and passengers between Cardiff, Wales, and St. John’s, Newfoundland. For a gothic romance, the romance happened entirely offstage, as if it was instead a Greek drama. And it was utterly devoid of anything “gothic.”

I read the first dozen pages with confusion, squinting hard, with rolled-in shoulders, mouth tight.

My excitement melted into slow-creeping dread.

It’s just a first draft , I told myself, as I set the leather folder aside. That’s why I don’t recognize it .

Though I really wanted to raid the wine stash, instead, I set the manuscript aside and took my anxiety to the kitchen. Miss Brown hadn’t yet settled in her little trundle bed, so I wasn’t bothering her while I made myself a small pot of weak twice-brewed tea, with leftover squidges of lemon rind from that afternoon’s cake. I walked in circles around the tight schoolroom as I waited for the tea to steep, crossing and uncrossing my arms, picking at a loose thread on my dressing gown, biting my lower lip.

It’s not bad , I thought . The word choices are good, the story is compelling. It’s very well written. It’s just . . . not what it’s supposed to be.

But then how would I know?

I’d only ever seen adaptations, and of course it would be boring if Mariana and Kendall just sat at desks and wrote at one another for a whole film, right? Obviously creative license had to be taken by directors.

It was fine.

It was all fine.

I nearly believed myself.

I returned to the chair, tea in hand, and applied myself to the novel.

The siblings shared stories about travels, romance, marriage, and woe. There was a section about a woman Kendall had met in port, who appeared so suddenly in the book I wondered if it was a new addition Daisy hadn’t managed to go back and insert yet, or if it was meant to be a plot twist. In her return letter, Mariana was irrationally anxious about Kendall falling in love when Mariana wasn’t there to caution him against it.

And then the sister, too, was in romantic danger: an overdressed, controlling terror of a man, only made buffoonish. I saw in him a parody of Lewis, his anger and threat reduced to pathetic self-flattery and childish, entitled ridiculousness instead of the dangerous spider spinning traps for Mariana that I was familiar with from Dahl’s TV series.

Suddenly, at the midpoint of the book, the letters stopped. I flipped a page and the novel was written in the third person. Daisy changed tack, simply telling the story.

Like a clockwork music box, the gears tumbled and the story opened up and sang .

I heaved a sigh of relief, posture loosening.

This, I knew.

Here now were windswept coastlines and dark cottages, the whispered oaths and phantom shawls, scenes that I had watched unfold before, dialogue that I knew in the way that everyone knew famous, quotable lines.

Kendall became the man whose morals saw him refuse to participate in a mutiny and needing to flee his fellow murderous, greedy seamen. The catty Evangeline, Kendall’s mysterious portside lover became vicious, secretive, lusting for power and doing all she could to bring him under her thrall—finally, she was the desperate selkie from the film, whom generations of ap Hywel men had abused, whose pelt lay buried in the foundations of T? ar y Bryn Manor, and whose magic had soaked into the stones and wood, the very soul of the ill-fated house. The man hounding Mariana grew perilous, his desire to discover the secrets of T? ar y Bryn’s riches turned carnal and predatory.

And there, finally , appeared the narrator Jane Tremble.

Mariana’s childhood playmate, orphaned and plain, and of no worth to anyone in the household save to keep the wealthy young miss entertained. Raised alongside Mariana by the now listless mother, who was grieving so strongly for her lost baby that she had abandoned her living children while they still breathed.

Jane, to whom Mariana cleaved. Jane, whose own arranged marriage to the hapless Mr. Cooper ( not very subtle , Daisy ) threatened to tear the two young women apart. Who, in his average, boring, casual misogyny, was the greatest threat to Mariana’s happiness of all of them. Jane, who had looked Death in the face on the crossing and remembered its visage. Jane, whose compassion for the tortured Evangeline saw her free the creature instead of killing her in that final, piteous confrontation with Mariana’s suitor in the blood-slicked chapel.

Jane, who embodied the best of Marigold.

And Mariana, who stood in for the worst of me.

This was, unmistakably, The Welshman’s Daughter s.

But this wasn’t right either.

It was shallow. Pretty, but feckless. It was nothing but page after page of descriptions of dresses, and sunsets, and petty rivalries, women who cried in every other scene and beastly men who ravished, blood that glittered, waves that wailed.

Where were the disguised but shockingly progressive themes that the book was known for? The push for abolition framed as Evangeline’s magical captivity? Where was the feminism hidden in Mariana’s reluctance to become chattel and breeding stock? Where was the discussion of toxic masculinity in the mundane horror of Cooper’s blind faith and the railing against classist social structures that Jane’s self-determination shattered?

All of it just so much sound and fury, all of it meaningless, all of it . . .

Wrong .

I reached the last page, where all the wrong people were punished for all the wrong things, and closed the leather cover carefully. I leaned back and stared up into the darkness that pooled in the corners of the ceiling, shoulders shaking and eyes watering with grief.

All those evenings spent in conversation with Daisy, her thorough and thoughtful questioning, her “recording face,” her mornings coming to breakfast with ink splattered on her fingertips, graphite smudges on her hands and cheeks.

So much work, and for what?

Nothing.

The book wasn’t at all what it was supposed to be.

And it was all my fault.

~

I woke, stiff backed and sore, when Miss Brown came into the schoolroom to start the fire the next morning. Shamefaced, I collected Daisy’s papers—some of which had spilled off of my lap and onto the floor—and tried to put them back in order. Dread pulled at my sternum as my eyes caught on lines, lacerating as fishhooks.

By the time I’d returned the manuscript to Daisy’s writing desk and gone upstairs to freshen up, Iris and Marigold had already had their breakfasts and were on their way to church. I lingered over my breakfast for once, loath to join them. Practically vibrating, Daisy slid into the empty chair beside me as soon as the door had shut on Marigold’s skirts. She wasn’t even trying to pretend that she hadn’t been watching my face for a reaction all morning.

“I can see that you are desperate to speak, yet reluctant to broach the topic,” Daisy said softly. “Was it that terrible?”

I shook my head, unsure what I could—or should—actually say.

“But you are behaving as if . . . you hold yourself stiffly—”

“I fell asleep in the chair. My neck hurts.”

“It put you to sleep?” she asked, ever so slightly distraught.

I can’t do it , I realized. I can’t lie to her . I respect her too much, I respect how much work she’s put into it, I respect what it could be too much to . . .

“Samantha?”

. . . let her keep thinking it’s great. I’m the wrong muse, she shouldn’t be writing about me, she needs the Wealthy Widow.

“Sweet Pea?”

But how on earth can I tell her without it sounding like I’m dictating what the book should be, and—wait , “What did you call me?”

“For the pattern on your dress,” Daisy said, suddenly shy. “I thought . . . a flowerbed of Goodenoughs, and you are one of us now, are you not? Sheltered from the gaze of the world by the garden wall, entwined with the other blooms. My Sweet Pea.”

No, she doesn’t mean it like that , I thought viciously. Hidden, in the shadow, tucked away in the back . . . closeted. I swallowed hard, throat clicking, and downed the rest of my stone-cold tea with a shaking hand. The scar under my arm flared with deep heat, the pain making me gasp.

“Did you dislike it?” Daisy asked, eyes growing wet and worried.

“The pet name? I love it.”

“And the book?

“The writing is beautiful , the setting is so evocative,” I said at once, because that much was true. “But. Babe. The letters.”

“Obviously,” Daisy said, tapping her teeth in distress. “I must rewrite the start, the epistolary nature is too distant. It was too . . . womanish, do you see? It was circuitous and coy and all the things that I thought a woman must be.” Daisy wrung her hands harder, frustrated that she wasn’t articulating herself the way she wanted. I waited her out. “You must understand, epistolary format is very traditional, but why may I not be direct in describing the action? Why must letter-novels be the providence of writers of the fair sex, couched in layers of hidden meaning? Why may I not simply and forthrightly relate the actions and emotions and, and, and feelings of my characters, as male writers may do. As you do.”

“Yes,” I agreed, grateful for the easy step into critique. Unable to sit still, I stood and paced to the windows and back. “But also it’s . . . ”

“It is?” Daisy prompted, looking up at me with such naked, trusting hope.

And I was such a bitch.

But the way I saw it, either I spared her feelings . . . or I destroyed the most seminal work in queer literature to have ever existed.

I had a sudden sense-memory of Dahlia on that hot concrete outside of the airport, the smell of her strawberry-matcha shampoo and the baking garbage, the mascara running down her face, her arm shaking as she held out the book to me. Terrified to be who she was. Begging for connection the only way she knew how. Imploring me to read a tale of desire, lust, repression, fear, and of hiding one’s true self, of having something as essential and vital as your own skin torn from you, and the things you must do to cover up your naked shame at being exposed. To understand Dahlia’s struggles through the lens of Jane Tremble.

Instead, I’d thrown it back in her face.

Thrown it in the trash .

Your way is not the only way, simply because it’s the most modern way, I reminded myself. Dahlia needed this book in a way you’ll never understand. History needs this book. You owe her that much. You owe them all.

“Where’s the heart?” I asked softly, voice crackling and heart stuttering under the fist of my own cruelty.

“The heart?” Daisy breathed.

“It’s beautifully written.” I hated myself for the way her lips flickered up into a relieved smile. “But that’s all it is.”

The smile died.

Murderer , I accused myself, but I went on. The knife was in my hand now, raised in the moonlight, glinting silver. Time to bring down my arm.

“You’re not writing the right book,” I explained, trying to phrase it as gently as possible.

Daisy gasped as if I’d pinched her all the same, eyes sparking with swelling hurt.

“It’s all . . . the motivations are, well, wrong. Shallow, and look, here’s an example,” I leaned on the table so I could meet her gaze earnestly. I tried to take her hand but she sank back into her chair, jerking away from my touch. “Jane falls in love with Mariana because Mariana is clever and selfless, and will not let her father dictate their lives or marriages. Jane loves Mariana because she is sparkling and headstrong and generous. And Mariana loves Jane because—”

“Loves,” Daisy choked. Her eyes narrowed, heavy with unshed tears. “How is it that you presume to find truths in my story that I did not put there? They are friends , they don’t love —”

“Like you and I are just ‘friends’? Come on, Daisy, please—”

“You hated it,” Daisy accused, voice thick now with sorrow and building anger.

“I promise I didn’t. But I don’t know how to explain it,” I said, scrubbing my hands through my hair. “The story isn’t what it becomes.”

“I do not understand—”

I’d call the look on her face the “recording” expression, if it wasn’t so fucking shattered.

“It’s good, but stuff just happens , for no reason . There’s no depth.”

Daisy drew herself up haughtily. “Must every happening have a reason? Can a story simply not be entertaining?”

“It can,” I allowed, too much of a coward to look her full in the face and take in the torment I was putting there. “It can, but this book—”

“Why are you so singularly devoted to this manuscript?” Daisy asks, breathless with confusion and passion. “Why has it become the whole of your focus?”

“No, Daisy, I’m sorry if I made you feel that all I care about is the book. Of course I do care about the book, but it’s not my destiny, it’s your—” I reached for her hands, to reassure, to apologize, but she took a step back, sudden and frightened. “Babe?”

“Do not . . . do not ,” Daisy choked, the color draining from her drawn face. “I cannot listen to this anymore.”

I groaned, “It’s just a book critique, I—”

“It is not about the book! It is about this .” She cut her hand at me, vicious and sudden. “This legacy that you seek to crush me under! Your future strangles me, my darling. I am not some mythical creature, petrified already in the granite walls of history! I can be only myself, my book can only be what it is, newborn and caterwauling and begging the comfort which you now deny me!”

“I’m not—”

Daisy slapped the table so hard the dishes rattled. “You refuse to see me as anything but a symbol of everything you have lost!”

“That’s not fair.” I reeled back under the force of her hurt.

“You have been here for nearly a year but what have you to show for it?” she challenged through gritted teeth. “You ask much of me, my love, but have made no attempts to remedy your plight. Yet you demand that I bend to your will and fulfill your terrifying prophecies? That I simply trust that all you say is in good faith and to help me—”

“It is! I swear it is!”

“—become your ‘most important queer writer in history’!”

“That’s not fair!” I shouted again. “I’m trapped here, Daisy. Don’t you understand, I am trapped. I can’t bend the space-time continuum and magically transport back to 2024. I’m trying to survive!”

“And when do you plan on living ?”

“I am!”

“You live for me, Samantha, but what have you to call your own? Have you acquaintances?”

“Marigold! Miss Brown tells me all the servant’s gossip. I’m doing my best to create a life here. I have a job—a place for myself in this world.”

“And beyond the little boundary of my world?”

“Thomas Cooper.”

Daisy’s nose scrunched up in disgust. “Oh yes , what a kind soul he is, too, giving you a bonnet.”

“You don’t get to tell me I need friends and scoff at the single one I have with the next breath. Baby, I know this is the first time you’ve been given constructive criticism, but you—”

“Constructive?” Daisy gasped, horror crawling over her face. “You think calling my book wrong is helpful? It is cruel!”

“Daisy—”

“Especially in light of my confession! I shared with you my deepest fear, that I was wrong, and now you call—”

“ Fuck , I didn’t think,” I pleaded, horror crawling up my spine. How senselessly callous I’d been. “I’m sorry. Please don’t overreact—”

“I am not overreacting, you are attacking—”

“I’m not! Don’t you see?” I shouted back, the revelation striking in the same instant that the confession tumbled out. “I can’t go burning the whole fucking patriarchy to the ground, because that doesn’t happen yet! I hate living in this world but I don’t dare change it in case I screw it all up and it never changes for the better. So you can’t tell me that I have to go find a hobby or a meaning to life when everything I’ve ever wanted I can’t have .”

Like you .

Like Dahlia .

Daisy hurled her teacup at my head, and I ducked just in time. It sailed into the thick fall of drapery. Instead of shattering, it just thumped impotently to the carpet.

Surprise more than fear of her temper drove me back a few steps.

“I wish you’d said nothing!” Daisy snarled, advancing on me with one sharp finger raised at the level of my eyes. “Do you think I am not entirely aware that this time, this world, me , we are not what you want. But we are all that you have. You wish for me to be someone who exists only in the annals of history. But I am not! I am a living, breathing woman, and I am here .”

As she backed me into the garish wallpaper, I started to wish I’d said nothing too.

“Do you understand how terrified I am? How the weight of a legacy I know nothing of save for the shape of its bulk crushes down upon me, how it is a more lethal gravity than any burden I have ever shouldered before?”

“No, I didn’t, I—”

“It frightens me, Sam. I cannot write for second-guessing myself.” She hiccupped. “I no longer trust my heart and hands. I hate it! I hate you , sometimes!”

“You don’t mean that,” I said.

“I ask you again—why this book? Why me ?” she growled. She shook off my grip and leaned in close, framing my head with her bare forearms against the wall. She loomed over me, making my breath clench in my lungs and a heat flutter to life between my legs. She was flushed and panting with her anger, eyes dark, hair falling in a frazzled halo around her head.

She was magnificent.

“Because there’s two hundred and eighteen years’ worth of queers who need you,” I whispered, voice a tremor, insides quivering.

The truth gripped at my guts like hoarfrost, spreading slow and insidious, through every cell of my body, leaving hollow understanding in its wake.

They did need Margaret.

They needed this book, the right version of this book, more than anyone or anything in history would ever need me .

I had been flippant about it up until now, jokey, too starstruck and lust addled to really understand but I . . .

I was this close to destroying everything .

“No, I need you ,” Daisy gasped. “I swore to myself that I would never . . . but you have broken apart my vow to remain unattached like it was no more substantial than spider-silk I need you.”

“And for you to write, you can’t need me. Don’t you see that?”

“I’m wrong!” Daisy warbled. “Everything I create is wrong, the way I love is wrong , I cannot even please you in so small a thing as my book—”

No, it was me who was wrong, who was screwing everything up. Who was ruining everything.

Who had been wrong from the beginning.

It was me .

Am I at least as meaningful as Finch? she had once asked me.

Yes.

But more meaningful than The Welshman’s Daughters ?

Yes.

No.

I didn’t know.

All I knew was that the book was wrong.

And so was I.

I’ve done it again. I’ve dragged someone else out of the closet before they’re ready, forced them to live their life the way I wanted them to instead of listening to their wants, and fears, and needs. It’s Dahlia all over again, getting out of that taxi, already crying because you’ve forced her into a showdown, you selfish, selfish, selfish—

“I can’t. To be what you need me to be, I can’t be what I need to be,” I sobbed, tears cascading down my cheeks, flooding up from the deepest chambers of my shredded heart. “I can’t suffocate myself like that. Even for you. I can’t go back in the closet. And I’m starting to think that you can’t thrive creatively outside of it. Marigold was right. I ruin everything I touch. Including you.”

“Am I not the one who gets to decide that?”

“No,” I keened.

“Then I hate you,” Daisy snarled, shoving herself away, hands fisted and shaking like she wanted to punch something but had never been taught how. “I wish I’d never met you. I wish you’d never told me about what is to come, I wish I’d never listened to your tales. I wish you’d never infected me with your love!”

And then she stormed out, slamming the door behind her. Understanding careened into my sternum like a shooting star.

I can’t stay here .