The Loves of Leopold Singer (54 page)

“I do.”

“I told my secret once, but the person I told died before he could do anything about it. Now you will have to bear my secret with your own. Someone needs to bear it, and I think you’re the proper person.”

“Oh, Aunt Philly.”

“There is nothing to say about Jane. I know men. I knew my son, and his son, and I think I know my own great-granddaughter.”

“Great-granddaughter?”

“Jane is Wills’s daughter, no? Sir Carey was known to the world as my ward. He was in truth my son. And he was born in a manner very like Jane, I imagine. His father was Aristaeus Sande.”

“My grandfather?”

“Your grandfather was also Wills’s grandfather. Sande got to two Asher sisters. Now someone knows.” Philomela let go of Sara’s hand.

“But I cannot be a baroness,” Sara said at last.

“So thought I, my dear. So thought I.”

Sara had fled the sickroom, fled the Branch. Geordie, tolerant as always, had not stopped her. Here in this room at Laurelwood, Sara could still be Sara Adams. Not Mrs. Geordie Carleson or, horror of horrors, The Right Honorable, the Baroness Branch. She looked through the window at the small lake and the oak. The leaves had fallen until there was only the one.

A letter from Uncle James lay unopened on her desk, long in coming from Jamaica, addressed to Miss Sara Adams. He didn’t know she was married. It was her first contact from him since he’d left her at the Boston docks, and she dreaded what news it might contain. She would never see Uncle James again, and she hated to think of him alone so far away.

She turned instead to a different letter she kept in her skirt pocket. In the last year and a half of cruel uncertainty, this had been her one constant, her most comforting companion, its every phrase now marked on her brain. She had held fast to the letter, but like the oak tree, she had to let go of the past if she was to have a future. She moved to the hearth for better light and unfolded the page.

My darling S,

I know you will never forgive me. I can never forgive myself. You must believe my intention was to make you mine—not to drive you forever from me. I disgraced myself even in my own eyes. I post this from London, but when you receive it I shall have left England for ever.

When I met you, I was redeemed, recalled from the path of debauchery and self-contempt. If it is any small consolation for the pain I have caused you, I live and shall live daily aware of the happiness that could have been. Happiness I destroyed through my own folly.

Be assured, I shall not accost you further. I intend to remain abroad.

Your humble and most sorry admirer, always,

W

The sharp, screaming honks of geese flying over the lake startled her. At the same time, she heard her husband’s voice outside the door. She must let go of the ideal she had made of Wills—and made in error, no question of that. At all events, she wouldn’t see him again in this lifetime. And if Aunt Philly’s disclosure had not been enough, yesterday she had learned from the physician a thing which must force her to break every bond between her and Wills. Again the geese shrieked.

She flung the letter like a sacrifice into the fire; eighteen months were immolated in less than eighteen seconds.

-oOo-

“A double rainbow!” April called up from the veritable cliff she and Josef had begun to descend.

“Lovely!”
Lovely! Lovely!

To her delight, Igraine’s echo repeated off the hillside across the chasm. She was in love with the feast that was England. The standing stones and the old buildings, the impeccable manners, and the enthusiastic reception she had been given by her London bookseller. Her life had taken a wonderful turn all because four years ago her friend had the faith to send in that story.

Today she was self-sufficient. Not wealthy, but well-to-do. And she had created her fortune herself. It was hers, and no one was going to take it from her.

“Daydreaming?” April came back up the hill.

“Contemplating my wonderful life. I am so very content. Mr. Murray gave me letters from readers all wanting more. He is anxious to continue as my London publisher. I told him that my next title is
The Moonstone’s Return
. I suppose I should begin writing it sometime!”

“You are content to be the popular lady novelist—and no more?”

“I’m not so lucky as you, my beautiful friend. And where is your dashing sea captain?”

“Gone to find any lingering wildflowers. He sent me back to rest.”

“And you let him send you away?”

April patted her stomach. “I have to think of more than myself, now.”

“Oh, April, that’s wonderful.”

Igraine hugged her friend and smelled her hair, as if it would be different somehow, and without thinking put her hand on April’s abdomen. They both laughed and lay down on the grass to watch for shapes in the gathering clouds.

“Igraine, why won’t you marry Mr. Grasmere?” April said. “He loves you, he adores you. He’s a good man.”

“Yes, yes. But I…” In truth, it was becoming harder to continue to refuse Mr. Grasmere.

“Is it that your heart is buried with another man?”

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew.”

Eventually, Igraine said, “I think I was captured more by the idea of Leopold Singer than the man himself. I hated God for creating someone I could love so thoroughly who it was impossible to love. He had all the virtues.”

“He appeared to.”

“He appeared to. I suppose I never truly knew him. What I thought was my undying passion began to fade when I met Mrs. Singer.”

“I know what your problem is.”

“Enlighten me, then.”

“You are too successful. You are the man in your life; you don’t need one.”

“I should think that a good thing for a woman like me.”

April rolled over and looked down on Igraine. “Could you consider the possibility of wanting, rather than needing, Mr. Grasmere?”

Igraine smiled. “Mr. Grasmere certainly wanted to come with us to England. I confess I would like to share this setting with him very much.”

“I think you do love Solomon Grasmere,” April laughed. “You’re just afraid to admit it.”

“Who is coming?” A carriage pulled to a stop on the road below them. A short, fortyish-looking fellow set the brake, assessed the darkening sky, and put up the top. A gust of wind blew his hat off.

“Why, I believe it is the man himself,” April said. “Fancy that.”

“And he’s thought of a carriage to take us back,” said Igraine.

“He is a thoughtful person.”

“A very thoughtful person.”

With the exception of her uncle, the men in Igraine’s life had wanted her either for what she could do for them or not at all. She was so used to abuse or neglect that she had never learned to recognize love. Like in a scene from one of her stories, a beam of sunlight pierced the clouds and splashed over Mr. Grasmere, lighting up the grays in his hair. As he huffed and puffed toward her, the light that lit Mr. Grasmere’s hair seemed also to light up her heart.

Solomon Grasmere loved Igraine Fiddyment, and the miracle was on this day she did see it.

“Mr. Grasmere! What a surprise,” April said.

“Um.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll find Captain Zehetner.” She left the would-be lovers to muddle through as best they could.

“Miss Fiddyment, forgive me,” Solomon Grasmere said. “I could not stay away.”

“I am glad you have come.”

He looked from Igraine to the sky and back, torn between practicality and his great mission. “The thing is, Miss Fiddyment, you have become necessary to my happiness. For so many years, I ran from human connection. When Captain Zehetner brought me home to Shermer Landing, I was full of dread. He spoke with so much affection for his family and friends. For a long while, I had lived a solitary life. In a way, Zehetner adopted me. He treated me like a brother and made me want to see my own home again, despite painful memories, to perhaps salvage some good there. And then you were there: competent, graceful, intelligent. I admired you, and then I loved you. You have refused me, and I have tried to bear it.”

“You have not tried to bear it very well, Mr. Grasmere.”

He looked up. Was she teasing him in his agony? “I have failed at bearing it, I admit.” She was smiling. Did he dare? “Miss Fiddyment, Igraine, did you say just now that you are glad that I have come?”

“I did. I am.”

“Then say more, Miss Fiddyment. Say you love me. Say you will be mine.”

“I do. I will.” It was a risk, it was a risk. If she married, everything she had worked for would no longer belong to her. Legally, she would cease to exist. Her fortune, her talent, her self would belong to this man. Whom she loved.

He kissed the palms of her hands. He held her face in his hands—she had not realized what strong, assured hands he had. He brought her lips to his and wrapped his arms around her. It was such a risk. She melted into his embrace. A few cool raindrops splashed down, and there was the soft rumble of distant thunder.

Lost in his arms
, a phrase that appeared countless times in her stories. That was all wrong, she realized. For in the arms of Solomon Grasmere, she had found herself. He loved her; that was her security. She loved him; that was her truth.

When April and Josef came up the hill together, they saw how Solomon Grasmere had “found” Igraine Fiddyment in his arms.

“The deed is done at last!” said April.

“Good work, man,” said Josef. “Now let’s get out of the rain!”

-oOo-

After Solomon Grasmere set off on his quest for Igraine Fiddyment, Susan Gray collected Jane to take her to the nursery. Marta started to follow when she saw a book lying on a table in the corner. She picked it up to return to the library and noticed its author.
I haven’t read Mary Wollstonecraft in years
, she thought.

She smiled at a vague memory: Leopold by the fire with an open book, her head on his knee while he spoke of some philosopher’s shining theory, trying to chase her fears away.
It was your voice, my dear husband, not your words that soothed me
. She turned through the pages and stopped at the inscription to “Susan, Sir” with its signature.

The room seemed to tilt. She looked to the walls and furniture for bearings, momentarily unsure where she was. At that moment she saw Leopold’s confident figure striding up the pathway from the garden to the kitchen door.

He wore an odd, baggy coat and a silly, broad-brimmed straw hat decorated with dried flowers. He came closer and closer until he leaned into the half-open door with his usual masculine familiarity.

“Hello! Is anyone at home?”

He didn’t see her in the dark of the kitchen, and she couldn’t answer. She couldn’t breathe. This had to be the most vibrant ghost in the history of ghosts.

“Puh-sie! Puh-sie!” Jane clattered on her little feet through the kitchen to the door, having broken free of Susan at the sound of her friend’s voice.

“Janey, love!” Leopold gathered the little girl into his arms and kissed her forehead. His straw hat fell to the floor, and a tumble of fair golden curls fell about his face and shoulders. “There’s my good girl.”

“Oh!” The Wollstonecraft slipped to the floor. He saw her now.

“Madam, are you ill?” He put the child down. While he steadied Marta, Jane put his hat over her head, covering her face to her chin. “Aunt, fetch a glass of water,” Leopold called to Susan Gray, frozen at the doorway on the opposite side of the room. Marta leaned on his arm. She wanted more, the smell of him, the feel of him.
Leopold, Leopold
.

She saw and comprehended at once Susan Gray’s terror. Leopold never had an affair with the Duchess of Gorham, but with Susan Gray!

Marta let this Persey person guide her to a chair. She accepted the water from Susan’s trembling hand. She hated Leopold then. How could he do this to her? Or to Susan? Or to his own son?