Serial Monogamy by Kate Taylor

Strachan?”
    “Mary, who plays the maid, her brother.”
    “Oh, yes, the little Scot. But I don’t suppose the fellow has only come to the theatre to see his sister.”
    “I have no reason to believe otherwise.”
    “No? Really?” He turned and studied her face for a minute and seemed to find the answer he wanted there. “Well then, that’s a relief.”
    “Why so?” She taunted him now.
    But he wasn’t to be teased out of his jealousy and replied sadly, “Because it allows me to hope.”
    She pouted a moment at that, and then said lightly, as though there were no connection, “My mother was honoured to receive a visit from Mrs. Dickens on Tuesday.” She paused before adding, “Perhaps it is me who has to wonder if I can hope.”
    “Oh my dear child. Yes. Let us both hope.”
    —
    He suggested they might keep walking as far as The Spaniards Inn and take some refreshment there before finding her a cab. She knew it would be unwise to enter a public house alone with him, but only said that she was already a little footsore and thought they should turn back. In truth, she was tired, but it was the conversation as much as the walking that she found taxing. She was previously unacquainted with the game she now found herself playing and unsure of what outcome might be expected or desired. She knew, as she laughed at a good joke, basked in a compliment or admired a new trinket, that she did not want this excitement to end, but she also found it difficult to achieve the right balance ofencouragement and discretion. She had only the barest advice from her mother, who had said on the occasion of this second walk, “He can do much for you, Nelly, but make no promises as to what you might do for him.”
    —
    They were walking back downhill toward the entrance to the heath, admiring the view of the city laid out before them, when Nelly felt her companion stiffen and heard him suck in a short, tight little breath of unpleasant surprise. He said nothing and kept walking the same path without pausing; she looked ahead wondering what might have alarmed him and saw only a young man, his head bent, his gaze concentrated on the ground at his feet, walking straight toward them. As he came closer, Nelly recognized him although his head was still down; she had, after all, rehearsed with him in London and appeared on stage with him in Manchester; it was Charley Dickens, his father’s eldest son. Neither father nor son deviated from the path and now Nelly wondered, as he still did not look up, if Charley had not actually seen them but was choosing to avoid eye contact until the last possible moment. That area of the heath was open; neither party could change route without making it apparent that was what he was about and so, with an agonizing inevitability, they came up to each other. As he approached, Charley stepped off the path they were walking, a tract worn into the sandy soil of the heath,and paused to let them pass. He raised his hat as they did so, saying, “Miss Ellen. Father,” without any intonation whatsoever. His father, meanwhile, grunted slightly but said nothing, neither then nor afterwards as he and Nelly continued downhill. He chatted amiably enough as he found a cab for her, and exchanged some final pleasantries in a friendly tone as he handed her in. He gave the driver precise instructions as to the route he was to follow to Islington and paid him handsomely before stepping back and raising his hat to Nelly, waving discreetly from the cab window. The moment he was out of sight, she leant back thankfully on the hansom’s stiff, narrow seat. In a way, she thought with some bitterness, it had been a family walk after all.

I n all my life, I had never known anger like this. A passerby drops a cigarette butt into your front garden. Your spouse forgets the teacher’s name again. Your sister-in-law makes one of her little remarks. Brief annoyances; simmering resentments, they blend together and leave you