Shadows of the Past
Margaret Edwards was carefully dusting the spines of ancient Dickens volumes when the postman knocked on the glass door of her small bookshop on Charing Cross Road. The rainy October morning outside London seemed particularly dreary that dayexactly three months since Arthurs funeral.
Youve got a letter, the postman said, handing her a crisp white envelope with no return address. Sign here, please.
Margaret raised her eyebrows in surprise. In an era of emails, paper letters were rare, and anonymous ones even less so. She slipped on her reading glasses and opened the envelope right there at the counter.
Dear Margaret Edwards, Im sorry to trouble you while you grieve, but my conscience wont let me be silent any longer. Your late husband, Arthur Edwards, lived a double life for the past twenty years. If you wish to know the truth, meet me tomorrow at two oclock at the Café Ponder on Dean Street. Ill be wearing a red scarf. Forgive me for the pain.
Margarets hands trembled. The letter dropped to the floor, and she sat heavily behind the till, feeling the room spin around her. Arthur? Her Arthur, who kissed her forehead every morning before leaving for the university? Who read her poetry aloud at night? Who died of a heart attack during his lecture on Shakespeare?
This must be a mistake, she whispered to the empty shop. Or someones cruel joke.
But the seed of doubt had been planted. All night, Margaret tossed and turned, recalling oddities from recent years: Arthurs frequent academic conferences, about which he spoke little, the phone calls that sent him onto the balcony, the bank statements he always collected before she could see them
The next day, precisely at two, Margaret entered Café Ponder. Seated at a corner table was a young woman, perhaps thirty, beautiful, with high cheekbones and sorrowful grey eyes. Around her neck was a scarlet cashmere scarf.
Mrs. Edwards? the woman stood. My name is Emily. Thank you for coming.
Who are you? Margarets voice quivered with barely contained anger. How dare you write such things about my husband?
Emily pulled from her bag a creased photograph. It showed Arthur, about fifteen years younger, embracing a woman with a small child in her arms.
Thats my mother, Emily spoke softly. And the childthats me. Arthur Edwards he was my father. Not by blood, but he raised me from the age of five. My mother died last year of cancer. Before she passed, she begged me to find you and tell you everything, but I couldnt not while he lived.
Margaret felt the ground slip away beneath her. A waitress brought water, but she couldnt drinkher hands shook too fiercely.
This cant be, she breathed. We were married forty-five years. There were no secrets.
He loved you, Emily leaned forward. He always spoke of you with such tenderness. But my mothershe needed him. She was ill, mentally After my real father abandoned us, she tried to take her own life. Arthur was her supervisor in graduate school. He saved her, and then couldnt walk away.
Twenty years, Margaret shook her head. Twenty years of lies.
Not lies, Emily protested. He was torn between duty and love. He paid for Mums treatment, my education. But he always came home to you. Mum knew he was married. She never asked for more.
Margaret rose abruptly, knocking over her glass.
I need to think. Dont try to contact me again.
She left the café without looking back. Raindrops mingled with tears on her face. Were forty-five years of marriage just an illusion? Or not?
At home, Margaret began searching. She rifled through Arthurs drawers and papers. In an old briefcase, behind the lining, she found a key to a bank safe and a receipt under the name P. S. Warrena name she knew as his mothers maiden name, which Arthur never used.
At the bank, presenting her husbands death certificate and inheritance papers, she gained access to the safe. Inside lay documents: a rental contract for a flat in Clapham, medical records for Helen Emily Warrens bipolar disorder, photos of Emily through the yearsfrom nursery to university diploma. And Arthurs diary.
Margaret sat on the bank vault’s cold floor and began to read.
Im a scoundrel. I know it. But I cant do otherwise. Maggie is my light, my anchor, my real life. But Helen and Emilythey would perish without me. Helen tries to cut her wrists again whenever I speak of leaving. Emily that girl looks at me as her father. How can I abandon her?
Today Emily was accepted to Oxford to study English Literature. She wants to teach, like me. Im proud of her and I hate myself. Maggie asked why I was crying. I told her Dickens moved me. And that was trueI wept for my own double life.
Helen is dying. Cancer. The doctors say months, at most. All she asks is that I explain everything to Maggie after her death. I promised, but I know I wontam too cowardly. Always have been.
The final entry was dated a week before Arthurs death:
My heart cant cope any longer. Literally. The cardiologist says surgery, but I know its punishment. I led two lives, and now my heart is splitting. Maggie, if you ever read thisforgive me. I loved you every second of our time together. But I could not abandon a sick woman and a child. Forgive this feeble old fool.
Margaret closed the diary. She sat in the chilly vault, thinking over forty-five years. Were they a lie? Or had Arthur truly loved her, just caught in an impossible bind?
She remembered his eyestired, yet always gentle when watching her. How he held her hand in hospital when she had pneumonia. How he recited poetry, laughed at her jokes.
That evening, Margaret phoned Paul StevensArthurs old university friend.
Paul, did you know?
A long silence.
Maggie I yes, I knew. He asked me to witness the secret lease signing. Forgive me.
Why didnt he leave me? Margarets voice was shaky.
Because he loved you. I swear, Maggie, he adored you. But Helen she tried to take her own life several times. Arthur couldnt bear the thought of causing someones death. And then the little girl she called him Dad.
Margaret set the phone down. She went to the window and gazed at the evening cityLondon, beautiful in the lights reflected on wet pavement.
A week later she met Emily again, this time in her bookshop.
Tell me about him, Margaret asked. About the life I never knew.
Emily spoke for hours: how Arthur taught her to ride a bicycle, helped with homework, comforted her mother during depressive spells, and cried at her graduation.
He often spoke of you, Emily confessed. Called you his angel. Said he wasnt worthy of a woman like you.
He was wrong, Margaret wiped away tears. I was not worthy of a man who could hold himself together between duty and love for twenty years and not break.
Arent you angry?
I am. Very angry. But I understand. Life is rarely simple, darling. Especially with love and responsibility.
Margaret took down a volume of Chekhov.
He loved The Lady with the Little Dog. Now I see why. Take itit was his personal copy.
Emily took it, hands trembling.
Mrs. Edwards I Im so sorry.
Dont be, Margaret touched her hand. Youre not at fault. None of us are. Not even Arthur. He only tried to be a good man in an impossible circumstance.
After Emily left, Margaret sat alone in the quiet shop. She thought of Arthur, his divided life, the burden he carried, and lovestrange, complicated, imperfect, but real.
She opened Arthurs diary to the last page and added:
Arthur, my love. I have learned all and understood all. And I forgive you. In fact, I am proud of you. You bore a cross that would break most. Sleep peacefully, my dear. Your secrets are safe with me, and your memory clean. I will look after Emily. She is part of you, and so part of my life.
Margaret closed the diary and locked it away. Tomorrow would be a new day. She would carry on, keep her husbands memory, and perhaps find in Emily the daughter she and Arthur could never have.
Life continuedcomplex, full of secrets and revelations, but genuine. As was love, stronger than deceit, stronger than death, stronger than anything.
