Susan Speers (21 page)

“If I’ve time to reply,” she said, “I won’t be doing my job.”

Because I was better, the solicitors arrived and Dickon’s will was read. I sat closeted with Henry Putnam and Abel Hicks and Dora and Ash Cooper who represented Dickon’s family of birth. I signed over all Scard land to his brothers and sisters in equal portions, as Dora advised.

“All but one parcel,” she said. “He spoke to me quite plain about this, Clarry. It’s his legacy for you.” She pushed forward an envelope with a single deed. It was the forested hill adjoining Willow’s cottage. It was the fifth folly. That was when my sorrow found me.

I fought it with the hour of work the doctor allowed me, with Laura’s regimen of meals and walks. I knit ten rows every day, weeping into the soggy mess in my lap.

“I want my mother,” I said aloud, “I want her.” Then I wept again at the thought of Jeremy alone behind the line, starved or beaten, without a memory of his mother for solace. I hoped he thought of me.

I climbed the stairs to my mother’s sitting room every day and sat for hours. I dusted her china figurines, I looked over her albums of pressed flowers. I sat at her piano, my cheek laid against the smooth wood of its cover.

Daisy sent a note, a brief scrawl on overscented primrose paper. It seemed oddly appropriate to read her words in my mother’s room. “I’m sorry,” she wrote. “I haven’t behaved well, but I know what it is to lose a beloved husband and I pity you.”

I thought of her life now. Would mine be so empty?

*****

One afternoon I lay drowsing on my mother’s chaise, exhausted from weeping. I dreamed she sat at her piano, her long cool fingers moving over the keys. Not
Für Elise
, not Beethoven, but Chopin. Not Chopin, but…

I came awake, my mouth dry, my head pulsing. I still heard music. I sprang up and ran from the room, down the stairs.

Chase Gordon sat at the piano, his eyes closed until he heard my footsteps.

“There you are,” he said.

Henry brought us tea, and I ate with real appetite for the first time since Laura left.

“More cream and sugar,” he said, flooding my cup. “Don’t fade away on me.” He put his head to one side. “But you’re still the loveliest girl I know.”

“What was that music you played?” I wanted to know and I wanted to turn the subject.

“Mine, all mine,” he said. “It’s about the sea. Claude Debussey, I have you in my sights.”

I laughed, delighted at Chase’s ambition to top Debussey’s
La Mer
, so optimistic in the face of this terrible war, so American. Then I took a closer look at his uniform.

“Yes, we’re in it now. Let’s see if we can get it done forthwith.”

“What brought you here?” I was so glad to see him.

“Daisy told me about your husband. I’m sorry.”

“There was to be a baby as well,” I said. “But that’s over, too.”

“You’ve had a rough go, little one,” he said.

“You know about Jeremy, don’t you?”

“Over the hill, behind the line and disappeared. Don’t give him up, Clarry. He never surrenders, does he?”

Jeremy surrendered me. I put down my rock cake half eaten. “Are you on leave, Chase?”

“Due back tomorrow, but I had to see you. I brought you this.” A hand written score, rolled and tied with ribbon. ‘
Landsdowne’
. “My first serious piece. Play it for me when I return.”

“I don’t know.” The page was black with notes.

“You can do this, you have to. Look again.” Under the title was a dedication “for my best and favorite pupil.”

“Me?”

“Of course. You had a late start, but I taught you first.” He looked through the window at the shadows spilling across Hethering’s lawn. “I must go. Work hard, there’s a dear. It will help.”

He was right. I worked my way measure by measure through music far too advanced for my skills, but as the weeks passed and I buried myself in its mastery, my sorrow eased from a hard, crushing mass to a presence I could carry. I wrote to Laura every now and then, not expecting reply, but I received one scrawled note.

‘
I don’t know who this Chase Gordon is, but I’d like to shake his hand
.’

The doctor allowed me more hours at my desk as long as I spent an equal time out of doors. As the flowers bloomed, I brought armfuls of each new variety to Dickon’s grave. I often met Dora there. She brought her children to plant and tidy all the Scard graves.

She liked me to hold baby Dougie, saying, “You’ll have your own one day, I know it.” She nodded at May, her eldest, playing with the others. “I lost two babies before I had my May and look at me now.”

It was easier to tend my husband’s grave with the Coopers nearby. I felt less alone and less guilty. For losing our baby. For not loving him enough. For allowing him to know that.

*****

When I was stronger, Amalia helped me remove my things from the house I shared with Dickon. Because of our amendments, the landlord rented it again to another young couple whose child played in the garden under a twisted apple tree. I saw him now and then as I passed on my way to the vicarage. I tried not to be jealous or downhearted, to remember Dora’s encouragement. One day I would have a child of my own.

I brought my kittens, now lanky adolescents, back to Hethering, where they soon took command. Henry pretended they were the plague of his life, but he secretly doted on them and they rewarded his kindness with sinuous movements around our ornaments.

Henry appeared at my study door one morning. His expression mingled curiosity with apprehension.

“Mrs. Marchmont is on the telephone.”

I followed him to the little morning room that housed our instrument and stared at it with dismay. Caroline had written to express her condolences on Dickon’s death, I was certain she’d wire should Jeremy be injured or captured or killed.

I claimed the receiver, and Henry left me to it, closing the door behind him with a soft thud.

“This is Clarissa.”

“Caroline here. Jerry’s wife.” Her voice was calm, ordinary. “I’ve a favor to ask.” These words were halting.

“Yes, of course.” What could she want?

“Arthur and I are in Crofton for a family celebration. My brother, you remember Chris? He and Miss Willis are engaged to be married.”

“I remember your brother.” How could I forget Christopher Fforde? He brought Caroline to Hethering. “Please give him my good wishes.”

“Arthur wants to see Hethering. He’s quite insistent. May we stop on our return journey?”

“Will you want to stay —”

“No, no. Tea will do, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” I said. I did mind. I minded meeting the child that should have been mine. I minded giving Caroline tea. I minded her peremptory tone, her not quite disguised superiority.

“You’re very kind.” Her voice was pinched.

“Not at all.” After all, I was the caretaker, she the lady of the manor.

They arrived two days later, an hour before tea. I sat waiting in the salon, forgetting to breathe, then gasping. Henry’s face was blank when he announced them.

I shook Caroline’s gloved hand. Her hat had a spotted veil that hid her eyes. I turned to the small figure at her side and my heart skipped a beat.

Arthur was a few months past his third birthday, but his slender body was tall, his eyes wise beyond his years. He was Jeremy reborn.

I blinked away my tears. “A walk in the garden?”

I lined a wheelbarrow with sacking to spare him exertion. I sent for serving spoons so he could turn the sun warmed soil.

“Your roses are magnificent,” Carline ventured.

“Have a care, Arthur, there are thorns.” I was too late. He’d pierced his finger reaching for a bloom. He didn’t cry, but narrowed his eyes, the picture of his father.

Caroline watched my face. “Yes, he is very like his father, but you, of course, would know that best.”

I moved away from her to show Arthur another planting without thorns.

“A yellow rose,” he said.

“A Chinese rose, a
banksiae lutea
,” I said.

“It smells like lemons,” he said.

Closing that circle eased my heart, and I was able to turn back to Caroline with kindness. “Let’s bring some with us to tea.”

*

After our refreshment, made brief by Arthur’s anxious demands to go outside again, we walked to the nearest folly — the pagoda.

“This looks well,” Caroline commented. A carpenter’s skilled labor and fresh paint had restored its piquant glory. Arthur was enchanted by a dwelling his own size. He jumped from platform to platform without coming to grief. After a while, though, I heard his breath whistle.

“Will you show Cousin Clarissa your statues, dear?” Caroline called.

Arthur paused to affect various postures. His breathing quieted.

“That’s clever,” I said.

“Simon assures me he will outgrow his asthma,” Caroline said. “Until then, I cope as best I can.”

“Simon?”

“Dr. Redstone. A pulmonary specialist. A family friend. I quite despaired until he took Arthur’s case. A child with asthma is a constant worry. Every chill poses danger to his lungs.”

She removed her hat and I saw the small lines gathered in the corners of her eyes, the lavender shadows beneath them.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m not. He’s my consolation.”

The tension eased between us. Richard Marchmont’s mischief created more than one victim, but this small boy was consolation for all of us.

“Help Arthur if you can,” Jeremy had charged me. I would do it.

As I stood on Hethering’s steps to wave them off, I sighed with relief. I’d done my best in a ticklish situation. I doubted Caroline would ask another favor soon.

I was wrong.

Summer came to its peak. Variable weather threatened Hethering’s tenant farms again and again, but our valiant families prevailed despite uncertain labor. Now we watched the skies and waited, gauging the advantage of a few more days of clement weather against the damage of a violent storm.

I travelled from farm to farm, greeting the old men, the young boys, the stalwart women determined to feed their families and the soldiers.

“We’ll harvest next week,” I told them. “We mustn’t wait any longer.”

They poured me cups of homemade wine and fed me fresh baked scones dripping with new butter. They shared their family stories good and bad. My relinquishment of Dickon’s property to his family made them like me well, but they always asked for news of Jeremy. I could tell them very little.

Harvest week was dawn to dusk and beyond. Even the Picketys came to lend a hand. In the midst of it all came a summons from Hethering.

I ran into the hall, my face red with sun and exertion, my old dress covered in hay and soaked with perspiration. Henry followed me into the blue sitting room, a wire on a tray. A chill like death came over me.

“May I wait?” Henry asked.

“Yes.” I fumbled with the envelope until he slit it for me.

Caroline’s name was the first word I made out. Then the message:

‘Jeremy returned alive, ill, in hospital. Details to follow. Caroline.’

I gave the cable to Henry, who sat down quite suddenly after he read it. His eyes brightened and he cleared his throat again and again. He rose to pour me a tot of brandy.

“And you.” I pointed to the other glass.

“To the master’s health,” he said before he drank.

“Amen,” I said.

*****

The harvest was well away, measured and requisitioned before I heard from Caroline again. I spent every spare hour walking the estate, putting it in order as best I could. A slow pulse beat within me, but I tried to ignore it. Jeremy was in England, and he was alive.

I could not imagine what it meant, I would not let my heart or my mind dwell on possibility. He was in Caroline’s care, not mine. When it all grew too much, I sat at the piano, the rippling notes of Chase’s music driving everything from me but a memory of the sea long ago.

Twice a week I brought fresh flowers to Dickon’s grave and I stole time from my duties for quick visits too. Sometimes I spoke to him.

“You must know Jeremy is back,” I whispered. “I wonder what you would say to that.” I dug viciously at weeds who dared to encroach on his resting place. “I promised God if he spared Jem, we would honor our marriages. I never thought you would die, Dickon. You were so alive! I never thought you would break my heart.”

*

One such evening, when the light faded around me and the night air held a touch of frost, Dora came.

“So the other one was spared?” She wrapped her shawl tight around her.

“That’s all I know, except he’s ill, in hospital.”

“What will you do?”

“Nothing. He’s married, he has a son.” I took a shallow breath. “I’m still married to Dickon in my heart, if not on this earth.”

She took my hand and squeezed it.

“I suppose, when Jeremy returns,” I refused to think ‘if’, “I’ll go back to Cornwall.” Thérèse was older now. Her spidery handwriting was shaky.

“I don’t want to lose touch with you.” Dora’s generous mouth trembled. “When I see you, I can still see Dickon.”

“I might take a flat in London. You’ll come for visits.”

“What of the little cottage, and your other land?”

“I’ll visit too.” Did she know about the folly? “When it’s convenient.” When Jeremy was away. It was all too complicated.

I waited for another wire, a letter, a telephone call. Henry waited too. One evening as I sat at the piano, I flexed my weary fingers and waited to be summoned for dinner.

Henry appeared. “Mrs. Marchmont is here,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“May I show her —” She was already in the room. Her clothes were as neat as ever, her face composed, but her eyes were wild, filled with shadows. Her gaze flitted about, she could not focus on any one thing.

“Henry, you will excuse us,” I said. “Tell Cook there are two to dine.”