Susan Speers (16 page)

As shadows lengthened around us, he laid me back on the bed and touched my body with reverence and wonder. He made love to me so slowly, every touch brought its own spark of pleasure. He whispered endearments held back for years and I spoke my own without shyness. The love we’d shared in Geneva’s moonlight faded to a quicksilver dream. This was burnished, everlasting gold, the treasure of a lifetime.

*

We didn’t sleep, only lay quiet, our limbs entwined, our mouths still pressed against each other’s heated flesh. I reached to pull Willow’s embroidered coverlet over our cooling bodies.

Jeremy put his mouth to my ear. “I’ve not made love since our night in Geneva.” His lips traced a line to the soft place between my neck and my shoulder.

I moved my hips to feel him firm against me. “I don’t want you to worry —”

“About a child?” he asked. “I’d rejoice in our child.”

“I will too,” I said. “I’ll defy the world.” He pushed my hair out of my eyes and kissed me with lingering sweetness.

“But I want you to know,” I said when I could. “There’s little danger —”

He kissed me again with such intimacy and intent I almost forgot what I had to tell him. I tried to speak again, but he kept his smiling mouth against mine to stop me.

“There’s something you have to know,” I managed, twisting away.

“It’s all right, Clarry, I do know,” he said. “Our baby isn’t in danger. Daisy told me.”

“Daisy told you?” I looked hard at his loving face. “Daisy told you — what?”

“I should have said ‘Daisy sold me’,” his smile turned wry. “She needed money. She’s desperate to go to America.”

“But Ronald was wealthy.”

“He had little of his own money,” Jeremy said. “I would have given her what she needed, had she only asked, but her wits are addled. She taunted me, she said she knew something shocking about you. She said Uncle Richard wasn’t your father.”

“How could she know that?”

He reached one long arm to his discarded uniform tunic and brought out a yellowed letter. “It’s addressed to your mother. It’s signed ‘Edward Dane’.”

I took it from him and scanned the pages. Here was my father’s confession. Here he told my mother their connection was more than an arrangement, that he loved her, that he wanted me, that when he returned he would come to claim us. Daisy stole the letter the day we opened the safe, hid it when we picked up the fallen letters. She read the most private facts about my life and then used them to her advantage. I was shocked and then angry.

Jemmy watched my face. “Try to forgive her Clarry. She’s miserable and frantic to leave England. She sees America as a kind of safe haven from war. She wants to visit Ronald’s family. She thinks she will find something of him there.”

“She took something precious from me. She taunted me and blackmailed you.” It wasn’t easy for me to look past Daisy’s latest perfidy.

“Clarry, she didn’t mean to help us, but she did. I was afraid to come to you before I left for France. I knew what would happen between us, I wanted it more than my life. But I feared the consequences.”

“You’re a strong, independent woman,” he tapped my chin with his forefinger, “you’ve told me that in no uncertain terms. But, I feared to leave you alone with a damaged child. Edward Dane’s letter freed me to say goodbye.”

I forgot Daisy and her bad behavior. “Not good-bye,” I said. “Not ever.”

We made love again and slept and woke just before midnight, hungry as wolves.

I brought the picnic basket back to bed with a bottle of Willow’s elderberry wine and two glasses. “They will wonder about me at Hethering.”

“I told Henry not to worry, you were with me. He favors our cause, you know, all the servants do.”

I did know. Dickon’s suit was foiled by Henry’s timely interference, but I pushed thoughts of Dickon away.

Jeremy rescued the letter from the floor and tucked it into my folded blouse. “The world has had its way with us too long,” he said.

“Not anymore.” I was done with intrusion.

Exhausted and sated we slept until lark song woke us at dawn.

“When must you—”

“This morning.” These were his final hours of leave. We made love one last time, the gravity of the moment making every movement precious.

“I want your child,” I said.

“A little girl just like you, please.” He smiled and rubbed his nose against mine. “Clarry, if I die —”

“You won’t die.”

“But if I do, dearest, if I do, you mustn’t grieve too much for me. I tell you I’ll feel at home in heaven because I’ve known it here on earth with you.”

I watched him climb the hill, every step taking him farther away from me and closer to the war. He turned back once, at the crest of the hill, and waved. I lifted my hand in reply, and only when his dear form disappeared from sight did I let my tears fall.

Henry said nothing when I returned to Hethering with an empty basket and a face ravaged by weeping. As I turned around the bend in our staircase, I saw him hold the back of his wrist to his eyes.

Jeremy’s leave taking bound me and freed me. I was free to love him in a way I never had before. I was free to think about him every day, to revel in the memories of our lovemaking, to pray for him every night, begging God for the chance of more days together.

But I was bound by a fear that grew every hour. Jeremy was the most precious thing in my life, I had told him so, I would tell the world if need be. We’d sinned without a moment of remorse. Did that doom our love? Did that condemn him to die in battle?

I walked through my days half elated, half despairing. I spent Christmas with the Picketys, feasting on roast goose and playing with their mischievous children. I allowed myself the barest glimmer of hope that a child might be born of the passion Jeremy and I found at the last hour.

When the babies were in bed and Mr. Pickety retired to his study, Amalia and I sat by the fire, she mending, I embroidering handkerchiefs for Jemmy.

“Will you tell me about Jeremy’s last visit?” Amalia asked with a casual air that didn’t fool me. I’m sure there were rumors in the village.

“He came to say good-bye.” I hope she attributed the pink in my face to the fire’s heat. “It was difficult.” I took a slow breath. “But it was wonderful, too.”

She nodded. “The war. It makes everything, every moment so important. You will be careful, Clarry?” Her eyes, bright with sympathy pleaded with me.

“I’ll try,” I said. “But all my caution, all restraint falls away when he —” I couldn’t go on and she was blushing too.

“Your father did you a great injury, you and Jeremy both,” she said. “And now there’s his wife and a little baby who may suffer.”

“Yes,” I said. I wasn’t proud of that.

“And there’s another person in harm’s way, isn’t there?”

She knew about Dickon. How many others knew?

“What do they say about that in the village?” My threads were tangled and I fixed my eyes on them.

“They say the pair of you were a match until Hethering’s master put an end to it.”

“I told Jeremy I would make my own choice,” I told her. “But that was before —”

“Before his last visit.” Her voice was kind, the look on her face was compassionate, but I saw her regret, too. She had traditional wishes for my happiness, she too would suffer if I chose a dishonorable life.

I walked home over the frozen fields, leaving Mr. Pickety to doze in his study, his finger stuck in a book of sermons. He was too old to fight. I was glad of that for his hopeful family.

I’d thought of Jeremy all day long, but now, as the moon rose, thoughts of Dickon filled my head. Could he sense me turn from him to Jeremy? If he did, would he despair? Be careless with his life?

His Christmas letter lay on my desk unanswered. I would have to choose every word of my reply with care.

*****

Winter melted into spring, my days a dull repetition of estate duties, visits to the Picketys and waiting for the post. Henry always placed Jeremy’s letters on top of the salver, I had to search for Dickon’s. No word came from Daisy, who disappeared into New York society like a duck in a marsh.

One by one my gardeners were piped away by the siren song of war, but Hethering’s gardens defied their neglect to produce a glorious show of color, the best in years. I spent hours beside our head gardener, Blum, pruning, weeding, culling and planting. His gnarled body suffered in the damp, but he tried to teach me everything he could, fearing as I did that his years out of doors were numbered.

I made no headway with my latest set of illustrations for my publisher, Archibald Mosely. In the evenings my hands were too stiff and tired to practice the piano. Chase Gordon wouldn’t praise my playing now.

One morning, I shut my account book with a bang, eager to meet Blum in our fern garden. Right then I heard Henry’s polite tap on the study door.

“There is a — person who asks to see you.” His nostrils pinched in distaste.

“Does this person have a name?” Henry required careful management.

“Dora Cooper.” Each innocent syllable was intoned with scorn.

“A lady then.” He hesitated to agree. “Show her in,” I said.

Dora Cooper was a youngish woman, a matron judging by the broad gold band on her left hand. She wasn’t one of my tenants, nor did I know her from the village. Her clothes were plain, cut from good cloth. Her complexion had a familiar ruddy freshness, but her crooked smile confirmed my suspicion.

“You’re Dickon’s sister,” I said with delight. I ignored Henry’s audible sniff. “May I offer you refreshment?”

“No thank you, Miss.” She took the chair I indicated. She looked a little nervous.

“Thank you, Henry.” His absence could only improve things.

“Thank you for seeing me, Miss. That man said you were too busy to be disturbed.”

“Nonsense, he’s just overprotective. You must call me Clarissa, or Clarry as Dickon does. He’s mentioned you to me a number of times. You live in the next village?”

“Outside it. My man and I have a dairy farm.”

“You’re the mother of his nieces and nephews, I think. He’s a proud uncle.”

“He’d be a good Da to his own young ones. I mind he has none, ‘specially now.”

“Yes, of course.”

“His letters are fanciful that way sometimes. He wants a large family like ours was.”

Dickon had never said a word of this to me, but then our engagement was ended before it began. Remembering our kiss, with his sister sitting before me made me blush scarlet.

This gave Dora a bit of courage. “I have to ask this, Miss, and I’m sorry to trouble you, but do you love my brother? Do you love Dickon?”

“Oh dear,” I said.

“Do you worry he’s not fine enough?” Her color was rising steadily. The question was hard for her, but I admired her a lot for pressing on to help her brother.

“Oh, no,” I wanted to assure her beyond any doubt. “I think Dickon is one of the finest men I know.”

“Do you grieve he’s not t’other one?” So the sorry details of my life had spread further than our village boundary. I couldn’t answer her question because I never let myself dwell on it.

“I don’t want to cause Dickon any unhappiness,” I said at last, but I already had done that, and from the look on Dora Cooper’s face she knew all about it.

“I don’t neither, I shouldn’t have come, but I had to.”

“I understand,” I said.

“No, I don’t think you do,” she said. Her voice was sweet, almost musical. “Dickon has leave, you see. He’ll be home in a fortnight.”

“He didn’t mention it in his last letter to me.”

“He’s not sure, you know, if you truly want to see him. That’s what I think, anyway. He won’t make plans. He says things are uncertain.”

“Of course I want to see him. Of course I do.” I got up from my chair and went to the window, averting my face from Dora’s honest eyes, so like Dickon’s. I could just see Blum in the distance, bent over an unruly shrub.

“We had a misunderstanding.” I said, sitting down again. “But I will always be happy to see him.”

“Don’t do it, Miss,” she said, he eyes pleading. “Don’t do it,
Clarry
, unless you mean it the way he does.”

“Ahh.” I dropped my face in my hands.

“I couldn’t bear him to go back to the front disappointed-like. Morale is everything when the bullets are whizzing, when men volunteer for hopeless missions.”

“You’re right, Dora,” I said. But I had no answer for her. “When does he come home?”

“In a fortnight.”

“I’ll send word well before that, I promise.”

“Thank you, Miss.”

“Clarry,” I prompted, playing for time.

“I hope so.” Her crooked smile was just like the one Dickon left me with.

I walked with her down the steps to her conveyance, a truck with empty milk cans clanking in the back. I waved before I went to find Blum, my brow knit with hard thinking. I couldn’t disappoint Dora straight away, despite my new, unfettered love for Jeremy. No discouraging letter must reach Dickon before he left the battlefield. When would I tell her? What would I say?

Then the final, betraying question: when would my Jem have leave?

My answer came two days later in a wire. All it said was ‘
Watch Tower Inn, Watford. Friday 5 p.m.
’. I packed a small valise and told Henry I’d be visiting friends in London for the weekend.

“Very good, Miss,” he said. I hadn’t fooled him at all.

The Watch Tower Inn didn’t live up to its name. It was a nondescript edifice of shoddy construction with no tower in sight. It sat on a crooked street, steps from the railway station. When I asked its direction from a respectable couple on the train platform, the man looked me over with an impertinent smirk and the lady glared.

As I entered the hostelry, I understood. Women in bright dresses with rouged faces thronged the public room, their bold smiles warming soldiers who drank glass after glass of ale. The men’s voices were loud with drink, the women’s shrill with false affection. One young man, hardly old enough to shave, stumbled against me, spilling his drink.