The Oak Leaves

by Maureen Lang

  “They call it a curse, Father.” Cosima hadn’t meant to sound so cold. She looked out the window, seeing Royboy laughing and stumbling after one of the dogs.

  A curse. Her brother, whom she loved but sometimes resented, was the outward evidence of that curse. If she had children, it was virtually guaranteed, so said everyone who knew them, that she, too, would present a son with the mind of a permanent child. She’d seen what that had done to her father—the dashed hope, the weight of having no son fit to carry on the name or legacy. And she’d seen the way her mother had borne the guilt.

  Why would either one of them expect she’d want to repeat such a cycle? And thrust it upon someone else? She had no feeling whatever for Sir Reginald Hale, yet even a stranger deserved to know what he was in for should he carry out his plan to marry her.

  Besides, she had nearly convinced herself that God hadn’t designed her for marriage. Soon, if she could trust Him a little better, she knew the last of her desire to someday wed would dwindle away as well.

  “The carriage approaches, madam,” said Melvin from the threshold. Gone, for the time being at least, was any trace that he’d spent much of the winter mucking out the stable. He was once again the manservant, dressed in stiff black attire, complete with spotless white gloves and shiny black shoes. Indeed, most of the servants they’d dismissed for the winter had been called back, and Cosima guessed they were delighted to be earning a wage again—however slim it would be considering the circumstances in their land. Even so, they had a roof over their head, a warm hearth at night, and more to eat at Escott Manor than they likely had at whatever alms- or workhouse they had been forced to live in the past year.

  Mama was the first to her feet, and the table jiggled when her full skirt brushed the edge. One hand went to the back of her hair, which was neatly swept up into a loose bun, while with her other hand she smoothed away any wrinkles in the foulard of her gown. Their finest gowns had indeed acquired the faint smell of cinnamon, nutmeg, and orrisroot, but not a stitch had been touched by any hungry moths. A few days of airing had left the scent barely noticeable, fading altogether next to the pleasant aroma of rosewater bath both women favored.

  Her parents neared the threshold before Cosima rose to her feet, and she did so only because her father glanced back and stalled, offering her his arm.

  “We’ll wait in the morning room,” he said to Melvin.

  That her father sounded like his usual unruffled self was some comfort to Cosima, but she noticed his color was slightly heightened, giving away the fact that he was every bit as eager for this proposal to prove fruitful as was her mother. Cosima followed, her hand lightly on her father’s arm, but her gaze lingered behind, seeing Royboy still outside with the dogs. Perhaps it would have been better to be born like him.

  The parlor was called the morning room, but Cosima had always thought of it as the blue room, for so much of it was decorated in shades of blue, from the neatly upholstered furniture and brocade curtain swags to the vases and lamps that graced the side tables.

  Melvin entered just after Cosima and her parents were settled. Behind Melvin followed two figures. One she recognized as the servant, Mr. Linton. Her gaze slipped away from him, anxious to see the man who must be Sir Reginald.

  He was at first glance unremarkable. No taller than Cosima herself at five foot six—tall for a woman only half Irish, but somewhat small in a man. His most attractive feature was his thick, striking blond hair. Fair skin matched the lightness of his hair, and his eyes were a vivid blue. But those eyes were small, his nose a trifle large, and he had a nearly nonexistent chin, for his face seemed to narrow straight down from forehead to neck. His lips were flat and the upper almost invisible. And yet he was somewhat pleasant, because of his hair and eyes. Surely not handsome by any measure, neither was he ugly.

  If he was kind, she thought . . .

  Cosima closed her mind to such wanderings. Would she so easily entertain the notion of marriage? No . . . no matter what this man hoped to achieve.

  She realized her parents had already been introduced and now Sir Reginald stood before her. She offered him her hand, which he kissed after a formal bow.

  “You are lovely, Miss Escott. Lovelier than I imagined.”

  Then her mother, in a voice that must seem obviously flustered even to a stranger’s ear, offered tea. She went on to answer Mr. Linton’s inquiries about Sir Reginald’s belongings, as it had been prearranged that the two would stay at the manor. Mr. Linton then excused himself, following Melvin from the room.

  “We’ve read your introduction with interest, Sir Reginald,” said Father. “But nowhere could we find how you learned of our Cosima. Please, sit down and tell us.”

  Sir Reginald’s fine, fair skin seemed to turn a bit pink. Cosima doubted the color was from the warmth of their surroundings, though they sat in front of the fireplace. It was lit in hopes of chasing away a morning chill, but this part of the stone manor trapped cool air like the bowels of an icehouse in the middle of July.

  Cosima’s parents sat on the opposite settee, leaving Cosima the place beside their visitor.

  Reginald addressed her father. “I am acquainted with your mother, Dowager Merit, Sir Charles. That’s why I hesitated to mention the connection in my document.”

  Now it was her father’s turn to flush. Since he had not spoken to his mother at least in Cosima’s lifetime, his family was something she knew nothing about.

  “I hold nothing against you for knowing my mother,” he said, recovering himself quickly with a steady voice. “’Tis a sad thing that my family and I are estranged.”

  “They must acknowledge you in some way, Father.” Cosima’s reluctance to be part of the conversation was diminished by her interest in the topic. “Otherwise Sir Reginald would never have heard of us.”

  Her gaze, along with her parents’, settled on Reginald again, this time with obvious curiosity.

  Reginald looked between them, rubbed the palms of his hands on his lap, and then uttered a brief laugh that did not conceal his outward discomfort. He looked at Cosima. “You have a cousin who somehow knows all about you and your family here in Ireland, despite the fact that her own parents seem to have tried banishing all memory of this part of their family.”

  “She told you why, then?” Cosima wasn’t sure her father would have pressed for information but knew she must.

  “She supposed it was because of a general dislike for Ireland. Nothing but dissidents to be found in this land of farmers and Catholics. Oh, forgive me . . . ,” he added, raising a palm to his lips as if he wished he could grab back the words and stuff them down. “I’ve nothing against Catholics myself, or farmers, for that matter. All this trouble between England and Ireland is none of my affair, especially since I’ve very little religious leanings.”

  “But you would be married in the church, surely,” said Mama.

  “Oh yes,” Reginald said hastily. “I am Anglican, of course. Not a heathen at all, Mrs. Escott. Perhaps I should have said I have little political leanings, insofar as Catholics and Protestants are concerned. Sometimes it seems impossible to separate the two, does it not?”

  “Is that all this cousin of mine said of our family? That my father was disowned for choosing to live in Ireland?”

  “Well . . .” He looked around the room, as if their surroundings had something to do with the answer. “Forgive me. . . . This seems unpleasant to say the least, not at all the way I wished for you to get to know me or I to know you.”

  “Of course,” said Mama, standing. Cosima didn’t miss the glare directed her way. Nor did she miss the relief on her father’s face that the subject was suddenly to be abandoned. “How remiss of us to have pressed you into a discussion better left unspoken. We shall go to the dining room for a light repast after your journey.”

  They were all on their feet then. Sir Reginald offered Cosima his arm, and she placed her palm so lightly on his sleevethat she hoped he felt nothing at all. He
might not be comfortable telling her all she wanted to know about her father’s family, but that would not stop her from telling him all he needed to know about her. One look into his pleasant blue eyes and she knew the sooner she spoke, the better.

  Father led the way silently down the wide hall, and Cosima stared straight ahead, feeling Sir Reginald’s gaze on her profile. He didn’t even look around, not at the wall sconces Mama was so proud of or at the Irish landscapes her father had commissioned. It vaguely surprised her that Sir Reginald didn’t take more of an interest in the manor, if it was his hope to inherit through her. Just as well that he did not. Once he knew about her brothers, that would no doubt be the last she’d see of one Sir Reginald Hale.

  Now, how to tell him without Mama’s interference?

  They entered the dining room, and there in the middle of the room, with a smile as cherubic as a two-year-old’s, was the perfect answer to Cosima’s dilemma. Royboy sat—not in a chair, but on the center of the table—contentedly scraping bread pudding out of one of Mama’s favorite crystal bowls. He used no utensil, his face was covered with evidence of how he loved to fill his mouth, and his hands and shirt were lavishly smeared.

  “Royboy!”

  Even at his mother’s surprised and angry gasp, he smiled. Even as she strode forward, taking the bowl from him, grabbing his wrist to draw him off the table, he smiled. He laughed when she called for Decla, the maid who most often had charge of Royboy.

  Mama led him quickly from the room, but he grinned wide at his sister as he passed by. “Pudding.”

  Mama did not pause as she propelled him out. But Royboy must have noticed Reginald for the first time, and he turned, letting his mother pull him from behind so he had to walk backward.

  “How do you do,” he said, just the way Cosima had coached him so many times. It was by rote; she knew he had no idea that the words were a greeting or that they meant anything at all. But at the moment Cosima was inordinately proud of him. He’d used the phrase appropriately for the first time in his life.

  Once Royboy was beyond sight, led down the corridor toward the kitchen stairway, Cosima looked at Reginald. What better way could there have been for him to meet her brother? to see what kind of sons she would bear him?

  Reginald stood stiffly at her side, his face a mask. Well, he was polite; she would give him that. Even her father’s face showed a bit of horror, and he was used to Royboy’s wrongdoings. Father looked too embarrassed to speak.

  No such emotion hampered Cosima. She smiled as if what had just taken place were perfectly normal. “That was my brother, Roy Escott. Did my cousin tell you about him, I wonder?”

  As she spoke she stepped forward, and with her hand now firmer on his arm, Sir Reginald had little choice but to follow. They approached the table, where evidence of Royboy’s mis-behavior became clearer. He’d not only eaten the pudding but made a sizeable dent in the scalloped oysters, tipped over a water pitcher, and left large, colorful fingerprints on many of the plates and goblets.

  “Cosima,” said her father, who hadn’t moved from the threshold, “let us go to the sunroom, and we’ll be served something else in there.”

  “You know,” said Reginald, reaching for one of the clean plates on the far side of the mess, “there are plenty of these oysters left, and they look rather delicious.”

  Cosima watched, shocked beyond belief, as Sir Reginald served himself not only oysters but a bit of salad and two frosted biscuits as well. When he looked at Cosima, he appeared perplexed as to why she wasn’t joining him.

  And so she did.

  “Well then,” said Father, as Cosima and Sir Reginald took seats farther down the table, where the contents of the spilled pitcher had not reached. He still did not move from the threshold. “I’ll fetch your mother, Cosima, and have this cleaned up while we eat.”

  Alone with this prospective bridegroom, Cosima eyed Sir Reginald from the seat she’d taken across from him. Now she could watch him with as much interest as he seemed to be watching her.

  “Royboy is my brother,” she said, serving herself salad. “He’s very much like my uncle, whom we called Willie. His name was William, of course, but he was so like a boy all his life that we could never call him anything other than Willie. Quite like Royboy being christened Roy, but we call him Royboy. I’m sure my father’s mother—Dowager Merit, did you say her name is?—must know of them. If she isn’t aware of Royboy himself, certainly she knew of my uncle Willie. He was, after all, quite grown up at the time my parents wed. I even heard that Willie made a bit of a scene at the wedding when he started to disrobe after someone slipped a pea down the back of his shirt.”

  If Reginald had heard of Willie, he gave no indication. He ate the oysters, looking at Cosima as if she were discussing nothing nearly as devastating as the state of the male offspring in her family.

  “I also had another brother,” she went on, still eyeing him, looking for some sign he’d heard this before. “His name was Percy. Now Percy was different from Royboy and Willie. Not nearly as handsome. But he could speak very well and even read somewhat. No one would suspect he was even different until at least a few minutes into any given conversation, when he would begin to talk about something entirely unrelated or ask inappropriate questions.”

  Reginald kept eating. Had he even heard her? Was he not distressed, dismayed, even a little afraid? That was how everyone else greeted this truth.

  At last Cosima set aside her fork, glancing at the threshold because she knew she didn’t have much time before both of her parents would rejoin them. No doubt they would put an end to what she must do. But she must speak so that life could go on as it always had. Without change, without surprise. Without the possibility of prolonging the curse. Therefore, without marriage for her.

  “Sir Reginald—” she put away any pretense of congeniality in her voice—“this cousin of mine has done you a great disservice. She obviously had only a small portion of the facts when she told you of my supposed availability and the land I am due to inherit.”

  He frowned. “You are not going to inherit this lovely manor?” He looked around, then shrugged. “A shame, I suppose, but no matter.”

  “No, I am going to inherit, and most assuredly I will live here until the day I die. But upon my parents’ death, the very day I inherit, this manor and all its property shall be made into a school for the feebleminded. Whatever funds are garnered from the farmlands will go to support the staff and students, so that it may be self-supporting and remain so indefinitely, for as long as there are feebleminded souls needing a place to live and to learn as best they can.”

  Reginald took another bite of the meal, nodding. “A noble plan indeed, Cosima. I can see you are as kindhearted as you are beautiful.”

  His compliment sailed past without acknowledgment. “But do you not see the inspiration for such a plan?”

  He looked at her, silently waiting for her to express her unsolicited information.

  “Royboy is the reason,” she told him quietly. “And Percy. And Willie. And my two cousins on my mother’s side of the family, for they, too, were afflicted. And another set of cousins from my grandmother’s younger sister. Do you see what I’m saying, Sir Reginald? Must I tell you more plainly?”

  “Tell me what?”

  She held his gaze, and at last he stopped eating. “The Kennesey women are afflicted, Sir Reginald. We may produce healthy children, but too often we have slow-witted children instead. It is virtually guaranteed that I, like my mother, like my aunt, and like their mother before them, would produce lackwits, especially should I have any sons.”

  Sir Reginald produced one surprise after another. He smiled kindly, reached across the table, and took one of her hands, pressing it gently into his. His hands were soft, his fingers long and narrow. This was, she realized, the first time anyone other than her father or brother had ever touched her in such a way. She looked down at his slender fingers and smooth nails as he stroked the top of her
hand.

  “Cosima,” he said quietly, “if you are telling me about this supposed curse Mr. Linton learned of while staying in the village, then I must assure you immediately I believe in no such thing. You are young. You are healthy, yes?”

  She nodded but quickly added, “Healthy, yes, but as sure as red hair begets red, I shall bear half-wits.”

  He laughed. “Nonsense, Cosima! You can prove no such thing just because . . . well, because there have been a couple of unfortunate births. If it is in the blood, as you say—and I highly doubt such a thing—how do you know it wasn’t from something on the father’s side? the families into which your mother and aunt have wed?”

  She raised a curious brow. “Are there any afflicted with such a thing on my father’s side of the family?”

  “Well . . . no, not that I know of. But,” he added, hastily holding up a hand to still her protest, “there are any number of people on the street who act very much like Royboy. It’s an eccentricity. He can speak, can’t he? And he isn’t still wetting? Well, there you have it. I’m sure there are many people out there just like Royboy. Probably there was nothing at all wrong with your brother Percy; you just wanted to label him to mollify others and their cruel gossip.”

  Sir Reginald patted her hand and continued. “I’d say you listen too much to what others say, Cosima. Most of those who name-call can’t even read or write. Who’s to say they aren’t half-wits themselves? Never put society to the test of intelligence. Most would not pass.”

  Cosima shook her head, knowing his words sounded reasonable, though perhaps a bit pompous. He did not convince her. “But my mother, her sister, my grandmother, all—”

  “Now, now, then,” he interrupted, “I should think the best thing for you to do would be to come to England, which I was about to propose anyway, only you’ve given me the perfect opportunity to do so now. Marriage is a lifelong commitment and shouldn’t be rushed into, though I see no reason why we couldn’t get to know one another after we exchange our vows. To give you time to think about it, my plan is to bring you home with me, to let you see where you’ll be living, to give you a chance to adjust to me before the wedding ceremony.”