Susan Speers (23 page)

“Accepted treatment for your cousin’s condition involves enforced exercise, scalding and freezing baths, sometimes electric shock.”

He held up his hand at my dismay. “I don’t condone further torture. My prescription is regular exercise, plain food, kindness. Normal conversation from you, watch for signs of response. Every now and again a word of firm encouragement. But be careful.”

“He won’t harm me,” I said. Rutherford Dane was wrong about that.

“No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t release him to your care if I did. Watch he doesn’t harm himself.”

He pulled his pocket watch from his waistcoat. “I’m late for rounds. Good luck, Mrs. Scard. I’ll read your progress reports, reply when I feel it’s necessary. Six months. Make good use of them. This is unusual procedure for me, but a hero like your cousin deserves every chance.”

Sergeant Gilbert stood outside Jeremy’s room. Jemmy towered over the sergeant but followed us out, docile as a lamb. He carried his kit bag. He made no comment as the heavy hospital doors closed behind us.

My companions sat on one side of our first class train compartment, I on the other. I shared the hotel’s packed lunch with the sergeant and a nondescript gentleman who came to sit beside me. Jeremy took no food or drink.

When we changed trains there was a delay. In the crowded waiting room I saw Rutherford Dane speak with the man who shared our compartment. Rutherford saw me watch them and winked. His acquaintance stayed with us until Sergeant Gilbert and Jeremy and I arrived at our village.

*****

I’d sent a wire to Hethering before leaving the hotel: ‘
Jeremy frail. Won’t eat, sleep or speak. Bringing him home
’

Mr. Pickety met our train. I sat beside him in the front seat of his modest automobile, Jeremy and Sergeant Gilbert behind us. If Jem recognized his old tutor, he did not show it. Mr. Pickety did not press for response.

At Hethering’s door, Sergeant Gilbert shook Henry’s hand. “Major Marchmont can see to his needs, sir.” He shook my hand. “Good-bye, Miss, take good care of him. He’s a right hero.”

He saluted Jeremy and turned to leave with Mr. Pickety.

“Must you leave us so soon?” I wasn’t prepared for this.

“It’s best, Miss. Fresh start and all. I doubt he’ll know I’ve gone, but I’ll miss the honor of serving him.”

I watched the headlamps of Mr. Pickety’s car until they disappeared around a curve in the drive. Henry took Jeremy’s coat and gloves.

“Sherry in the blue sitting room, Miss?” Despite my marriage, Henry, like others, still called me ‘Miss”.

“A very good idea.” The fire was a warm companion, very like a third presence with us. Henry had put two upholstered chairs in front of it. A Chinese table of inlaid wood held a tray with a decanter and two glasses beside a plate of Cook’s wonderful cheese straws.

I poured Jeremy a small glass of sherry. He did not move to take it so I set it down in front of him. I took one smoky, burning sip of the amber liquid in my glass. I don’t drink sherry as a rule, but on this cold, dark night it warmed me. I was famished. I ate and drank. Jeremy sat motionless.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” I said. “I never thought I’d sit with you again. I never thought we’d be together at Hethering again.

He said nothing.

“Welcome home,” I couldn’t stop talking. “You’re safe now. You were born here, you’ll come alive here, I know it. You took me by the hand and taught me everything. I’ll do the same for you, I promise.”

He said nothing.

I had to believe somewhere deep inside his silence, Jeremy still lived and heard me. If I didn’t believe it with every fiber of my being, I couldn’t wake his sleeping soul. Small spaces, regular routines. I would create a world of safety, a haven to entice Jeremy back to me, and then the world.

When Henry announced dinner, I helped Jeremy rise with a hand beneath his elbow, just as I had seen Sergeant Gilbert do. Arm in arm we went to table.

“Serve the food,” I said to Henry. “Tonight it doesn’t matter if he eats or no. Tomorrow it will.”

One dinner course after another was served and removed without Jeremy moving a muscle. His eyes remained fixed on an invisible point between us.

After dinner, we returned to the small sitting room, each to our chairs. Jeremy had a glass of brandy beside him, untouched. I worked at my knitting.

I am a small person compared to my cousin, but my will is strong. I prevailed against Richard Marchmont, I prevailed against Jeremy before. I would prevail again. That is what I told myself over and over in the days to follow.

The next day dawned cold and gray and rainy. I’d prayed for sunshine and got fog for my pains.

Despite this unpromising start, I knocked on Jeremy’s bedroom door at seven in the morning. He was dressed and sitting in a chair by the mullioned window, its distorted panes opaque with moisture.

“This will not do,” I said in a loud, cheerful voice. I put a gentle pressure under his elbow and walked him to the breakfast room.

I pulled the bell and breakfast was served. Butter basted eggs and bacon with grilled tomatoes and mushrooms for me. An invalid’s meal of tea, broth and gelatin was placed in front of Jeremy.

“It occurs to me,” I said, “you’ve refused solid food for a long time. We will begin with things to encourage a delicate digestion.”

He sat at table across from me. He neither moved nor spoke. I might as well have addressed the ormolu clock. At least it chimed a response.

I finished my breakfast and came to his side. His broth still held enough warmth to prevent gagging.

“I’m agent here,” I said, “and my word is law. You will not go out of doors until this food is eaten. Without proper exercise, your health will decline and I won’t permit that. So, you will eat now.”

I picked up his spoon, filled it with broth and held it to his mouth. I can’t swear it, but I thought I saw his lip curl.

I narrowed my eyes, summoned every bit of my will, and borrowing a good bit of Laura’s, brought forth her terrible voice.

“Swallow,” I said.

To my surprise he did. I couldn’t spare a moment to glory in my achievement. Swallow by swallow he consumed his meal just before my voice gave out.

“Good heavens, Miss,” said Henry when he came to clear the table, though he smiled when he saw Jeremy’s empty dishes.

“We have much for which to thank Miss Benes,” I croaked.

“We do indeed,” he replied.

The cold wet day may have been a trial for some, but its moist fog provided balm to my abused larynx.

Jeremy trod the paths of our sleeping rose garden faster and faster without a spark of recognition. Ten times round and then he sat on the stone bench and I collapsed beside him, panting. My one small victory was an ember of hope in my aching body, but it was enough for the first day.

*****

By week’s end my voice was gone, but there was a slight increase of flesh on Jeremy’s gaunt frame. When we sat down to breakfast I did not approach him.

For the briefest moment I saw his eyes fix on me. Then he retreated.

“You know what you must do before we venture outside,” I rasped. “I cannot and I will not shout at you any longer.”

After a pause that lasted only seconds in real time, but forever in my worried soul, Jeremy picked up his spoon and ate his meal. My true victory came when he finished his gelatin and looked at my half empty plate.

I slid a portion of my eggs, all my bacon and two fingers of toast onto his empty charger. I had to lower my eyes to keep him from seeing the shout of triumph I held within as he ate every bit.

Exercise had done its good work. I marched him around Hethering’s grounds until I lost my breath, and then, only then, would I let him sit and stare into nothingness. His regime helped restore my stamina as well.

That morning we left footprints in a light dusting of snow. I led him to the holly grove at the southern border of the Marchgate Wood. Bright red berries glistened with a coat of frost like sugar. I wondered if we would decorate the house or celebrate Christmas at all. I was in mourning for Dickon and Jeremy still clung to his quiet world.

In the bleak December afternoons, when the light failed us, Jeremy withdrew to his room while I reconciled estate accounts and, if any time remained, worked at my next childrens’ story.
Belle’s Rescue
had garnered positive reviews and modest sales. I proposed a story about the day I met Willow, and Archibald Mosely approved its preliminary drawings.

Mr. Mosely’s regular letters hinted at a delicate concern for my widow’s plight. I wondered if he indulged my work in a kind of tangible sympathy he was too reticent to express.

Still, Willow’s story had a fey beauty and magic of its own, just as she had. I could lose myself in memory as I brushed the bright colors of my childhood onto paper. I could dwell in the happy past and emerge refreshed to cope with an uncertain present and an as yet fearful future.

At tea, Jeremy sat, a cup cooling beside him. After two weeks of this behavior, I added generous helpings of sugar and cream to his portion. He’d loved it just that way as a boy.

“Will you drink it down, please,” I said. We’d passed the point where Laura’s exhortations could serve as encouragement. They’d already come within a hair’s breadth of bullying.

Jeremy drank his tea. Perhaps because he was thirsty or feared to lose his fresh air privileges. Perhaps because he remembered its sweet milky taste. Perhaps because he wanted to please me. I don’t know why. He didn’t say.

*****

Was it strange for me to live with Jeremy at Hethering? It was an odd, disjointed existence. His withdrawal and my widowhood made us different people. I tended a kind of three dimensional portrait of the Jem I loved, one that required exquisite care and restoration, a living statue as mute as marble or plaster.

Caroline wrote only once. “
I think about Jerry almost every day and I bless you for your help and your good letters. I cannot respond in kind, it’s too painful. My care is to keep Arthur well and pray he may one day see his father again. I leave it in your hands to do everything you think best in that effort.
”

Dr. Sachs received my weekly reports and replied “
His appetite is a positive sign. Don’t push for response. If he loves his surroundings as you say, I hope his growing awareness of them will give him a new place of safety and tempt him from retreat. I won’t visit yet, I’m part of his unhappy past and we want no setbacks at this delicate time
.”

After tea each day, I brought Jeremy to the west sitting room. He watched the hearth fire while I knitted. I read aloud from
Martin Chuzzlewit
. When young, I could never sit still long enough to enjoy Dickens, but now I was thankful for his longwinded prose. Jeremy didn’t appear to hear me, but once he sighed when Henry interrupted to announce dinner.

After dinner I played the piano. I’d conquered the notes of Chase’s lilting sea elegy and now, as my fingers followed their familiar patterns, I began to appreciate their beautiful progression. Chase had greatness within him. I remembered how handsome he was in the crisp tailoring of his American uniform. Would he live to fulfill the promise of this music?

I played on, day after day, adding Chopin and Mozart to the mix. An ill considered foray into Beethoven’s Germanic thunder made Jeremy’s eyelids twitch and his compressed lips tremble. I stopped and saw his shoulders relax. In spite of this blunder, I took comfort to see music could penetrate the walls he built.

Amalia invited us to dinner on Christmas Eve. “Bring Jeremy with you.”

“He’s not —” I began.

“I know, but it’s Christmas. He’s still our own dear Jeremy. Let him have something of the grace and peace of this night.”

I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat.

“You must come, Clarissa,” she said. “Of course you will think of Dickon. Don’t lock him away in your heart, let’s remember him together.”

She was right. I brought Christmas candy for the children and two of my mufflers for their parents.

“Not so well done as my embroidery,” I said at the mufflers’ knobbly texture.

“They’re lovely,” Amalia stole a licorice drop with sleight of hand that amazed me.

The Picketys’ youngest boy, Thomas, could not stop staring at Jeremy who sat motionless by the fire.

“What’s wrong him?” he asked his mother.

“He’s sad about the war.”

Thomas brought his stuffed rabbit for Jeremy to hold and didn’t leave his side. He opened the Picketys’ gift of ear muffs and put them on Jeremy’s head.

“Thomas is a kind soul,” I remarked to Amalia as we left.

“I hope all my children will be,” she said. “We need kindness in this troubled world.”

Christmas Day was quiet. After dinner I played Christmas hymns and carols. I began with Jeremy’s favorite,
The Snow Lay on the Ground
. He didn’t respond.

Our salon was lit by candles this night. When their flames guttered in pools of wax I gave up on holiday music. In church, I’d prayed for a Christmas miracle, a sign of progress, a step forward for Jeremy, a step toward life. Was he so content within his safe walls he would never venture back into the pain and wonder of the real world?

A vision of the Bardwell Home Hospital made me shudder. Was this Jeremy’s fate? Dangerous, defeated thoughts for Christmas night. I pushed them away. I needed backbone. I looked up at the portrait of the man who raised me. Richard Marchmont would never admit defeat. I wouldn’t either.

The thought of him moved my fingers to familiar notes and I began to play
Für Elise
. I hadn’t played it for Jeremy because its composer was Beethoven, but I’d memorized it the night Richard Marchmont died.

A movement caught my eye. Jeremy’s hand covered his eyes.

“Your mother,” he said, his voice rough from disuse.