by Rose Lerner
Chapter 7
* * *
Maggie could hear Simon and Lord Throckmorton quarreling in the breakfast room next door. Should she stop it? In the end she felt too tired and afraid. She curled up on the sofa and tried to compose a congratulatory letter to Meyer.
The sound of the door opening frightened her for no good reason. She bolted upright as Simon came in, looking white and miserable.
“Simon, what is it?”
He went straight to the brandy decanter and poured himself a generous glass. Knocking half of it back didn’t noticeably steady him. The black hair falling over his forehead looked lank and stringy with unhappiness.
She stood, her heart going out to him. “What did he say?”
“He isn’t going to build a ruin after all,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t know how I’m to support us until my next commission. Why did I come here in the first place? Only because I was too lazy and cowardly to try to drum up business elsewhere.” He swallowed the rest of his brandy. “I have no judgment or instincts. Why do I listen to Clement over and over and over again?”
Maggie felt very small. She’d seen young men about town run out of money before. “Are you going home to your parents?” Yorkshire was so far away, and probably he’d forget her by the time he came back. Maybe he’d come back with a wife.
“I can’t. They can’t know I’m out of money. My father thinks I picked this profession because I’m an idler, and he’s not wrong. I’ve made a hash of my life.”
Maggie was feeling panicked and thin-skinned, and she would have liked someone to take care of her just now, instead of being obliged to make him feel better. But that was unfair, and not his fault. “You’re not lazy or cowardly,” she said, as patiently as she could. “You just—”
“No, I am.” He sat on the edge of a sofa, one at rather a distance from hers, and dragged a shaking hand through his hair. His eyes burned into her with a sincerity so bright and hot it gave her vertigo, like looking at the shimmering pavement in summer. “You should know what you’re getting into. I can’t—I tried to tell my mother about you, and I couldn’t. I crept downstairs and took the letter out of the post in the middle of the night, because I knew—I wanted to marry you.”
She could feel the blood drain from her face. “What?” she said weakly.
“I had thought of one day asking you to marry me,” he qualified, but even that was so startling as to render her speechless. “But I have nothing to offer you. No family. No steady income. My lodgings are half the size of yours.”
She stood, wanting to do something, but there wasn’t anything to do. She paced to the French doors and looked out at the beautiful grounds. “Simon, I don’t care about the money. But we’ve only really gotten to know each other in the last week and a half. I can’t—I don’t—”
“Had the idea not even occurred to you?” he asked in a small voice.
“I—yes, but only as an idle daydream.” Now that he was really saying it, she was terrified. She didn’t want this to end, but she couldn’t marry him. Give up Meyer and everything she knew and spend all her time in places like this that shut her out? “Our children—you wouldn’t want to raise your children as Jews.”
“I don’t know,” he said, and that surprised her speechless too. He might? “I’ve thought of all the obstacles. My parents wouldn’t receive us, I don’t think, unless you were baptized, and your reputation—well, they couldn’t, for my sisters’ sake, and my father’s parishioners would probably—I always wanted my children to have a big, happy family, and—”
Maggie couldn’t breathe for how much it hurt. “Baptized? I was baptized, you, you—I’d never do it again, not for anyone!”
“I know,” he said at once, but she didn’t feel better. Every word he’d said felt branded into her chest. She had always wanted her children to have a big, happy family, too. A Jewish one. Maybe it wasn’t possible. She had no one but her mother, so her husband would have to supply the deficit. Meyer was getting married to someone else, who didn’t have Maggie’s reputation, and what family-minded Jewish man would want her?
What family-minded Jewish men was she likely to meet, anyway, living as she did? Instead here she was, wanting this inglês so badly that losing him felt like water flooding her nose and mouth.
“So you really never thought this might be forever?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Then why are we wasting our time?”
“I don’t know.”
He stood, looking worse than when he came in. “I’m going to order our carriage back to London. I’m sorry I dragged you here for nothing.”
Nothing. She wouldn’t, until a moment ago, have called this week nothing. But maybe it was.
* * *
Simon ordered the carriage, and asked the butler to have the cook make up a hamper, and generally put off going upstairs to pack his things as long as he could. He couldn’t face Maggie looking at him. He had nothing left, and she knew it; he loved her, and she’d really never wanted more than to enjoy herself for a few weeks, just as she’d told him in the beginning.
But when he finally did go upstairs, he found her sitting on her trunk sobbing brokenly. Shock speared through him. “Maggie? What’s the matter?”
She turned red eyes on him. “I don’t want it to be over.” Her face was crumpled and wet and there was a big damp patch on her white sleeve. “I adore you and Meyer’s getting married to some Dutch girl and I—I’ve always had this stupid daydream that I’ll marry a nice Jewish man, and I’ll go to synagogue with him, and we’ll celebrate all the holidays at home and his family will take me in and love me and love our children and then, finally, I’ll really be Jewish. It’s laughable. The truth is no one is ever going to want to introduce me to his mother. I’m the one that’s made a hash of my life.”
Her tears started afresh, torrents of them. “I just—I never think. I never even thought that this was a waste of time if we weren’t going to be forever, because I never think of the future at all. I’ve worked so hard for years, I’ve earned so much money, and what do I have to show for it? Not a penny. Nothing. An enormous wardrobe no one would even want to buy from me!”
She had seemed so calm in the library. He had never dreamed she was so upset. It shoved him out of his own panic, somehow. He had been thinking only of himself, of his own hurt, of his own failure. He’d behaved as if he couldn’t hurt her, but he had. Henney’s mother didn’t know who she was, Simon remembered suddenly, and he’d gone on about his family rejecting her as if it would only make her despise him, and not as if she would be hurt, or humiliated.
In the face of her tears, and how much he wanted to put his arms around her, and I adore you, the problems that had loomed so large a moment ago seemed awfully unimportant. He thought about never introducing her to his sisters, and he thought about never seeing her again, and the second idea was so much worse it was almost amusing.
He knelt on the floor by her trunk, taking her hands in his. He could taste her tears when he kissed them. “You know, we’re neither of us very practical people. But I think—I think practicality is what we need right now.”
She pulled her hands away. “What are you talking about?”
He slid down to sit cross-legged at her feet. “This last fortnight, you’ve made me see that I can be very all or nothing. I thought it had to be marriage, right now, or this is a waste of time. But it doesn’t feel like a waste of time, does it?”
She shook her head, sniffling.
“I think we ought to take it one step at a time. Everything we’ve talked about is a practical obstacle. We haven’t much money, and my family probably wouldn’t receive us, and you want Jewish children, and my friends will talk about how you eat, and all that. If you think...”
He was so afraid to say this, so afraid she would say there was no point to trying, because she would never want to spend her life with him. “Think about whether you might want to settle down with me
. You don’t have to say you will. You’re right, it’s far too soon for that. But if you could see it as a possibility, I believe we can solve all the other things, step by step.” He took a deep breath. “If you don’t, then let’s say goodbye when we get to London.” He could hardly believe he’d said it; for so long he had taken love on any terms. But he couldn’t do that anymore.
Her green eyes glittered, hopefully, through her wet lashes. Her embroidered petticoat fluttered at him. He wanted to put his head on her knee and be surrounded by it. What if this was his last chance? “And I don’t mind if all you’ve got is your wardrobe,” he added. “It’s a splendid wardrobe.”
She laughed, and blew her nose in a flowered handkerchief. He loved her so much. “I—I don’t know. I have to think about it.”
He stood up. “I’m going to go do something practical about my bank balance. Think about it while I’m gone.” He didn’t want to leave the room without an answer. But he made himself do it anyway.
* * *
Maggie thought about it. Simon, forever. It sounded wonderful if she ignored every other consideration—which was precisely what she’d been doing.
She had thought herself so daring, so smart, but now that she was faced with maybe losing Meyer, she had to admit that she hadn’t been, not really. She’d relied on him to make overtures to her lovers, to make her Jewish—to choose her clothes, even! She loved the clothes, but that wasn’t the point. She’d built a whole wardrobe, a whole life, that only made sense in the context of somebody else, and she’d let it trap her. She’d gotten so good at saying yes and no that she hadn’t noticed those were only answers to other people’s questions.
She kept thinking, If Meyer were here I wouldn’t feel so afraid. She wanted to find a way to be feel all right on her own.
Until now, she hadn’t even quite realized she secretly believed that only getting married would at last make her Jewish for good and all. That she couldn’t do it alone.
It’s only a practical obstacle, she told herself. I can solve it step by step.
She took out her pencil and sat at the writing table. Ways to be Jewish on my own, she wrote.
1. Make Jewish friends. Women friends, too. Under that she wrote, Finally ask that girl at the Portuguese bakery if she’d like to go for a drink sometime.
2. Go to synagogue every Purim and Simchas Torah, even if Meyer isn’t in the mood. Talk to the other women instead of just trying to pretend you know all the words.
3. Maybe Meyer’s wife will teach me some things.
She couldn’t think of anything else at the moment. But that was a start.
Everything on the list frightened her. All this time she’d told herself she was brave, but she’d never really gambled much, had she? Not when she didn’t have Meyer stacking the deck.
Some of those women would turn up their noses at her, but she could bear that. Some of them wouldn’t.
Some of them must be like her.
The thought startled her, but it had to be true. Somewhere in London—probably right where she’d grown up, actually—there were other women who’d been robbed of their faith, and were trying to get it back. She could find them if she looked.
So there was the first practical obstacle sorted.
Did she think she could manage forever with Simon Radcliffe-Gould? She didn’t know. But she knew that giving up and accepting forever without him would be a damned shame.
* * *
Clement wasn’t hard to find. He had locked himself in the music room and was playing The Magic Flute very loudly on the piano. About two-thirds of his guests were standing outside pleading with him, to no apparent effect.
Simon had to shout to be heard over the noise. “Clement? It’s Simon. Let me in.”
Clement played louder.
At least Simon could hear him. “You go away,” he told everyone. “I’ll deal with it.” He was not particularly impressed when Darling left with the others, but then, nothing Darling had done had impressed him yet. “Clement, it’s just me now. I’m going to sit down and wait for you to open the door, all right?” He leaned his back against the door and waited.
Clement banged through the song and one more for good measure. Silence reigned for long minutes. Simon was about to threaten to break the door down when Clement opened it, his eyes red and swollen. “You might as well come in.”
“I’m sorry.” Simon squeezed in beside Clement on the piano bench. “I was an ass.”
“You meant every word.”
“I did,” he admitted. “But I could have been kinder about it.”
“I can’t help it that I still love you.”
“Maybe not. But you could help trying to trick me into coming to your party.”
“I meant to pay for the ruin!”
“I know, but I thought you actually wanted a ruin. You don’t have to pay me to spend time with you. You just have to accept that it won’t be every day anymore.”
Clement picked out a sad tune on the piano.
Simon screwed his courage to the sticking point. He’d never dared ask this before, in case he got an answer he didn’t like. “Clement, do you want to be friends?” He’d thought Clement’s no-visiting threat was intended as a punishment, to hurt him. Maybe it had been. But he admitted now that if Clement had been unfair, so had he. “You don’t owe me friendship any more than I owe you love. If it really is too painful—I’ll understand. I’ll be sorry, but I’ll understand.”
“Yes. Yes, I want to be friends. I was just angry.”
Simon let out a breath. “I’m not going to always give way anymore,” he warned. “When we disagree, sometimes I’m going to stick to my guns.”
“You make me sound so unreasonable,” Clement said. “Of course I don’t always expect to have my own way.”
Simon let it pass. For the first time he acknowledged to himself that it would never be like it had been between them. Now there was distance, where once they had been too close to catch their breaths. That was all right. It was good.
Maybe it was too late to patch things up at all. He hoped not—but for the first time, the idea of losing Clement didn’t provoke blind, desperate terror.
He’d been afraid of never feeling about anyone again the way he had about Clement. But now he loved Maggie, and it was a promise and a benediction. He hoped to love her forever, hated the idea he might not—but he could concede (reluctantly) that if one day they separated, he would probably love someone else afterward. There was no one chance at happiness, no single destined person one either found or spent one’s life missing.
Even if he was lonely for a while, he could get through it, one step at a time.
“Did you really bring Miss da Silva to fend me off?” Clement asked. He was already preening a little, between sniffles, at this idea of his own importance.
“Yes,” Simon admitted.
“But you’re fucking her.”
“I wasn’t when we arrived. I thought if I did, it would be a distraction from my work.”
Clement snorted.
“You know how easily distracted I am!”
“You’d have graduated with a First if it wasn’t for me,” Clement said, “but you’d have had a lot less fun.”
“I don’t know. I’ve told myself the same thing, but I was never as hard a worker as I thought. I just let you take the blame for slacking my studies.” Simon tried to imagine university without Clement. He didn’t care about the First, but would he have been happier? Would he have found friends who demanded less? Or would he merely have spent three years huddled alone in his room?
He remembered his secret shame, thinking Clement had picked him because he didn’t have other friends. But the truth was, he’d chosen Clement the same way. He had had other friends, but Clement was always available. If Simon happened to want someone to talk to, or dine with, or to go to the theater with, Clement had never said no. They had spent every day in the week together—because they had liked each other, certa
inly, but also because they had both been uncertain boys who hated solitude.
“Clementine, you really ought to get rid of Darling. If you’ve got to have somebody, St. Aubyn would take his place like a shot, and he’s much nicer.”
Clement’s playing turned sulky. “Sir Geoff is in love with St. Aubyn.”
“That isn’t your problem.”
Clement smiled. “You’re so ruthless on my behalf. But it is my problem, I’m afraid. I—I like Sir Geoffrey, actually.”
Ah. The quiet, less confident one. Simon supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. He put a hand to the keys, picking out a slow harmony. “Are you sure he cares for St. Aubyn as more than a friend? All I’ve noticed is that he doesn’t like St. Aubyn talking to you.”
Clement’s fingers trilled hopefully up into the high octaves. “Do you think so?”
“It can’t hurt to make an overture.”
“It can always hurt to make an overture,” Clement said drily.
Simon laughed. They were playing together now, and it made him feel surprisingly strong, as if the music were being drawn into his hands instead of coming out of them. “You should try it anyway.”
Clement shrugged. “Maybe I will.” He played softer, almost shyly. “If you marry Miss da Silva…” he said, and trailed off. Simon waited, nervous, but Clement said, “She’ll have a brother,” and looked very hard at the keys.
Simon was seized with affection. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, bumping Clement’s shoulder with his own even though he didn’t know that Maggie would be too thrilled to hear it.
Would he think of Henney as a brother, someday? It was hard to imagine—hard, even, not to feel a certain distaste at the idea, though he was ashamed of it. But probably brothers-in-law were always a tricky prospect. “I need your help,” he said.
* * *
Maggie had finished packing her trunk and was sitting on it impatiently, trying to decide whether she felt justified in purloining a half-read novel from Throckmorton’s library, when Simon returned. Looking at him with one beautiful hand on the door and an uncertain twist to his narrow mouth, she knew she’d made the right decision. She wanted to blurt it out—no, she wanted to wait for him to speak first. She made herself blurt it out anyway.
