Susan Speers (2 page)

Don’t be thick, Clarry,” Jemmy took my hand and held fast. “When we’re grown, I shall have Hethering and you will be its mistress.”

I knew what Hethering’s library meant to Jeremy. Its towering overstuffed shelves were the neglected part of its treasure. Glass fronted cabinets as tall as two men held a welter of estate papers, a wealth of information more precious than books. Somewhere in that vast accumulation of writings and figures were the landscape plans of our great grandfather.

“Mad” Madison Marchmont was a legendary planner and planter of Hethering’s park. He devoted his life to improving the grounds of his estate at the expense of every other part of his life. Jeremy was fascinated by whispered stories of our ancestor’s obsession.

Madison’s crown jewels were his follies. As Jeremy explained to me more than once, a folly is a fantastical structure, smaller than its inspiration, built to ornament its setting.

On his Grand Tour of Europe’s capitals, young Madison was awestruck by the Temple d’Amour in the gardens at Versailles. He came home determined to make his own folly and after he had had the pleasure of building the first one, he went on to design and construct three more imaginative structures, each one placed to adorn one of Hethering’s famous gardens or parkland features.

A ‘ruin’ of artfully toppled Roman columns formed the centerpiece of the formal gardens, a round ‘Medieval’ tower loomed over acres of woodland and a small Chinese pagoda was hidden in the box hedge maze. Jem and I spent hours playing in the follies, inventing stories and games that mixed our growing knowledge of history with the fantastic monsters of myths and fairy tales. We kept ragged costumes and props hidden in the little structures, spreading them on the lawn to dry whenever rain damped them.

Jeremy was fickle in his choice of playhouse, moving from one folly to the next, whenever our game lost its freshness, but I was loyal to my favorite, a covered bridge quite like the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Our Ponte Vecchio spanned the narrow end of Hethering’s ornamental lake, dug, no doubt, by a team of Madison’s faithful, if ill-paid workmen.

Family legend said Madison built a fifth folly had been built in a hidden location on the estate to keep his creditors at bay. Jeremy was determined to find it and certain essential clues to its whereabouts could be found in the library.

While Jemmy crumbled the edges of ancient ledgers with impatient fingers, raising clouds of dust in the pristine library, I spent hours on my bridge, Beatrice to an imaginary Dante. I ignored the fact that my Arno was a scant three feet of weed choked water. Its shallow depth was a comfort to my Nurse.

I often brought my china doll, to the bridge for company. Belle was my mother’s gift to me, weeks before her death, my best connection to Mama’s cherished memory.

Jeremy had no use for Belle and excluded her from our games. He had little fondness for the ornamental lake either. “It’s choked with weeds,” he shuddered. “When I have Hethering, I’ll have it dug deeper.”

He’d come to grief there one summer, while rowing with Mr. Pickety. He’d jumped to his feet to wave at me, and fell in the water. He laughed at first for he was a strong swimmer, but his feet became tangled in the weeds and he panicked, thrashing about and swallowing a good deal of the brackish water. Mr. Pickety pulled him free, but the damage was done. From then on, Jem would only bathe in the river, in its fresh flow of icy water.

We grew older and more independent. Jemmy appeared every Saturday morning from early spring until the last clement day of December, his eyes sparkling with adventure, his pockets filled with scribbled notes. “I’ll wager we’ll find it today!” he cried with renewed enthusiasm. Our hunt was on for Mad Marchmont’s fifth folly.

We set forth, rain or shine, our lunch wrapped in grease paper and a bottle of cold tea tucked away in Jemmy’s rucksack. We never tired of hiking across the estate, searching the dense forests and unexpected jewels of emerald meadows for a sight of the missing structure. I began to believe it truly was a myth, but Jem never lost faith.

“Our great grandfather hid all reference to the funds he used to build it,” Jemmy told me, his eyes glowing with the thrill of the hunt. “Every now and then, the figures don’t add up, or I find a receipt for material with no stated purpose. He built it, I know he did! I just don’t know where. There are maps…”

What sort of maps?” I asked, eager. Miss Prinn had always praised my drawing, but she exalted over my maps. Mr. Pickety had given me a shy smile of approval when he saw my watercolor map of England.

“Madison drew endless maps and plans for Hethering,” Jem told me. “Some are fanciful, some are not.”

“I want to see them.” I knew it was hopeless. Father’s permission had not been granted to me. I was unimportant, a female. He might educate me, but he wouldn’t encourage me.

 “Never mind, Clarry,” Jemmy promised, taking my hand in his warm brown fingers. “I’ll find a way.”

*****

On one of our happy tramps across Hethering, we emerged from Marchgate Wood at the top of the long grassy hill that led down to Willow’s cottage.

“We’re in time for tea,” I nodded at the curl of smoke rising from her chimney.

“You can go if you like,” Jem told me, “but I will keep on.”

Jemmy only tolerated Willow, while I wanted to spend a part of every day in her magical parlor. With great patience, she taught me to embroider, to create the rainbow clusters of flowers that adorned nearly every cloth in her cottage, and I came to share her love of the bright colored silk threads.

Outdoorsman Jem was uncomfortable in cozy feminine confines and Willow’s mercurial nature made him nervous. Miss Juniot and I often exchanged anxious glances during his visits, afraid his impatience would hurt Willow’s feelings, but she seemed serenely indifferent.

That afternoon I stayed with Jem, and we crashed through the unknown forest on the far side of Willow’s meadow to find a field rarely scythed. Its coarse grasses grew long and thick. Jem had got ahead of me, out of sight.

“Halloo!” I called again and again, hoping he would return. Instead, another figure appeared, a boy closer to my age than Jem’s, with ruddy cheeks and wild brown hair. His rough sewn shirt and wool britches placed him as a laborer’s child. He might have been a laborer himself, for his face and arms were brown and the skin on his hands was broken and rough.

“I was looking for my cousin Jeremy.” I was sorry to take him from his work, times were hard for the poor.

“Well, I’m Dickon,” he told me. “S’pose you were visiting the daft’un.”

“Willow’s not daft,” I cried. “She — she’s special. I won’t let you call her names.”

“Queer or not, I don’t mind.” He didn’t take offense. “She’s kind and gives me cakes.”

“Me, too.” We exchanged shy smiles until he ducked his head. Many a friendship has been forged sharing the love of food.

Jemmy’s long shadow fell across us and he came to stand between me and Dickon.

“Is this boy bothering you Clarry?”

“This is my new friend,” I placated Jemmy. I feared a display of his temper.

“What’s your name, boy?” Never before had I heard Jeremy exercise his privilege. Jem’s resemblance to my father dismayed me.

“Dickon Scard.” The boy’s face flushed a deeper red at the bite of Jeremy’s voice, but he didn’t lower his eyes or doff his cap. “What’s yours?”

Jeremy eyes narrowed at the challenge. “Marchmont,” he pronounced. “You’re on my land.”

“I’m not,” Dickon protested. “Marchmonts don’t own every acre hereabouts.”

“You’re ignorant.” Jeremy dismissed Dickon. “Ignorant and insignificant. Come along, Clarissa.” He pulled me by the hand. I had only a moment to smile at Dickon, before Jemmy dragged me back into the woods, away from the friendly boy he termed an intruder.

*****

I spent more hours at Willow’s little cottage every day. Jeremy’s quest began to exhaust my good nature and his obsession frightened me a little. Our tramps had only one purpose now. He ignored Hethering’s other riches. Willow welcomed me kindly and would not hear a cross word against him.

“He’s afraid he’ll be sent away before he finds it,” she told me. Daft or not, Willow had a fey wisdom that often saw what others missed. She poured more tea into my cup and passed a generous plate of cakes.

“I don’t think the lost folly exists.” Several helpings of pastry had not dimmed my resentment.

“I think it may exist,” she said, her green eyes closed to slits, “but not where he expects to find it.” She said no more despite my sudden plague of questions. If we found the fifth folly, Jem would be at peace, and things could return to normal.

One lazy afternoon, I played with Belle on my bridge, humming a little tune, lost in the slow buzz of dragonflies and the heated torpor of the air. Jem had unearthed crates of forgotten papers and could not be enticed away from library. I wondered if he cared more for the hunt, now, than the prize.

“Cla — ri — i — ssa!”

Jeremy’s shout broke into my reverie about a dark prince’s who rescued me from peril. His footsteps pounded across the bridge. I left Belle to sun her linen clad body on the wide rail and waved. Jem was quite a sight. Dust matted his black hair and grimed his face. His clothes were filthy, but his expression held pure joy and I smiled at his happiness. His smiles were so rare and so sweet.

“Jemmy, what?”

He thrust to catch his breath and thrust an old pasteboard folder at me. There was a wisp of cobweb stuck to its string and I backed away.

“Clarry, there’s a map,” he gasped, and pushing me aside, opened the folder, shoving its length along the rail in front of me.

I had only a moment to appreciate the delicate watercolor images of a long ago Hethering, when he jogged it impatiently with a grubby finger. “Look here,” and disaster struck.

The folder’s edge knocked Belle from her perch and I screamed “No!” as she plummeted. I threw my body over the rail to grasp at her skirt. Jemmy saw me lose my balance and dropped his precious find to grab my waist. In a slow, terrible motion, the maps slipped from their folder, and they wafted down on the thick air into the water.

Belle’s splash didn’t alert the under gardener, but my scream and Jeremy’s anguished howl did. By the time Jem launched the rickety rowboat and dived off it into the weedy depths, our butler informed my father.

I was running back and forth at the pond’s edge, screaming after Jem, certain he would drown. He surfaced over and over, tiring from his lengthy dives and struggles to kick free of the weeds. Belle had sunk like a stone and the maps, heavy with water, disappeared before he could reach them. I’ll never forget his last dive. He was so long under water I was certain he’d been caught and was drowning.

I stripped off my shoes and stockings in a panic. I wasn’t a good swimmer, but I was going to plunge in after him.

Then there was a ripple in the water, and hand over hand, Jemmy pulled himself through the weeds to the shallows, where he lay on his back gasping for breath, a sodden bundle at his belt.

He’d saved the maps.

Tears blinded me as I pulled him up out of the muck. My throat was as raw as if I had fought for every breath with him.

“Oh, Jemmy.” I knelt beside him when his legs gave way. Thank God he was alive.

“Here,” he offered the muddy bundle to me. I shook my head. What good were maps if Belle was lost?

“Clarry,” his voice was weak. “Take her”

I couldn’t believe I held Belle’s dear form in my hands, covered in the slimy wreck of her costume. My beloved friend, my last memory of my mother. In that moment, my love for Jeremy filled my heart. That rich, sweet love for him has never left me. When he saw my love for him bloom, his face relaxed, weary, but filled with love for me.

I could not stop weeping that I nearly lost him, with sorrow for his loss, that he saved Belle, that he lost the precious maps. He held me close and patted my back.

“Why Belle?” I asked him, when I could speak.

“I saved what mattered.” I held him tighter and dropped my head on his shoulder. In his arms, I felt cherished and protected. I saw my happy future. Jeremy would keep me safe forever, and our children would inherit Hethering.

“You know now, don’t you, Clarry.” Jeremy’s voice was deep and true.

“I know.” I closed my eyes when he kissed me.

I opened them to see my father stare at us from a short distance away. Two high spots of color blazed on his face and the expression in his cold eyes frightened me. He turned on his heel and stalked back to Hethering without a word.

The blow fell swift and final. The morning after Belle’s accident, Jem and Mr. Pickety did not appear for lessons. Miss Prinn sent a note to Leighton House and its reply left her pale with shock.

“Jemmy —Jeremy,” she corrected herself, “leaves for the Darby School tomorrow morning.”

In an instant I was as pale as she, then my face stung with heat as if slapped. “My father did this.”

“We knew this day would come,” Miss Prinn began.

“Not like this. This is wrong, this is punishment. I want to see Jeremy, I have to.”

She hesitated. “He damaged a valuable document?”

“That was my fault. He musn’t be punished for it, for the sake of some old maps. He’ll be lost without Hethering.” I’d be lost without him.

I ran from the schoolroom, down countless flights of stairs, through endless miles of corridor, my footsteps muted by thick carpet, my progress witnessed by a series of fish eyed portraits. I beat my fists on Father’s heavy study door.

His secretary admitted me, taken aback by my angry, disheveled appearance. Father dismissed him, then came to the other side of his desk to fix me with a gimlet stare, but I stood my ground and glared up at him,

“I’m the one to blame.” My voice rang in my ears. “I knocked the maps into the water. Jem tried to rescue them.”

“Tried and failed. Chose to fail.” So Father knew it all.

“Punish me instead.” His slight smile told me he would punish us both.