by L. K. Rigel
“I want to say yes, Geordie. But I must tell you something…about myself. You have the right to know.”
She turned her back to him, as if she couldn’t bear it if her words were met with disgust.
“A year ago, something horrible happened to me. Something beyond belief. And yet it did happen. I was taken—I was…violated. As time went by, I discovered that I was going to have a child.”
She paused as if expecting him to say something. Do something. He could hardly understand what he’d just heard, let alone respond to it.
“I was delivered of a girl in Massachusetts. Jane is with my friend, Eleanor. Mrs. Zehetner now. She and her husband have undertaken to raise her as their own.” She leaned forward against the chair, her shoulders hunched. “My friend’s mother, Mrs. Singer, learned of my feelings for you and of your proposal. She advised me to return to England, to marry you, to forget, and to build a life with you. She told me that bearing your sons would relieve the pain of losing my daughter. I don’t know if I believe her, but I am willing to try.”
She turned and looked at him again. Her face was red—not with shame, but with grief. “I can’t cover one lie with another. I can’t accept your very kind offer without you knowing. I have no reason to expect that you would still want me. Indeed, you have every right to loathe me now.”
His emotions churned in a kaleidoscopic clash from shock to revulsion to anger to compassion. Compassion was the victor.
Enough, he thought. Enough of my sex degrading the other. He was glad she’d turned away. Glad she hadn’t seen his initial reaction.
She added, Only Mrs. Singer, and now you, know.”
“And the man.” He had never understood how a man could want to brutalize another. He’d believed violence in a man marked him as ill-bred and unworthy of rank or admiration. But the rage he felt now was righteous and sublime. He wanted to kill the man who had hurt Sara, and he wasn’t ashamed of it.
“He doesn’t know about the child.”
That didn’t matter. One day, Geordie would avenge Sara Adams. After all, she’d been as good as a guest of his family when she was abused in this despicable way. It was a matter of honor. His heart broke for her. She was so tiny, so fragile, so wounded.
“Sara.” His words came out in a hoarse whisper. “You are as dear and pure to me as ever you were.”
Sir Carey had been happy with his mother though she had first belonged to another man. Men married widows all the time. He didn’t need an untouched bride, and it would please both his mother and Lady Branch if he and Sara should marry. The truth was, he felt tenderness for Sara Adams he had never experienced before. Though he couldn’t be sure that she truly loved him, she surely needed him. He would not abandon her.
“Sara.” He went to her and put his arms around her. “My love.”
Jordan Devilliers
Spring came again, but this year the lengthening days did nothing to arouse Elizabeth’s lust for life. Her ewes were ready to burst with this year’s lambs, but it meant nothing. Geordie was married to a girl who never spoke. Wills was inexplicably gone, not just from Carleson Peak but from England. Philomela’s health had again failed, and this time Mr. Brennan offered no hope of recovery.
In the small library, the new Mrs. Carleson sat at the desk where Elizabeth had for so many years kept the accounts. In one thing, the two women were alike. They both watched the ducks on the little lake through the window. In a fit of feeling redundant, Elizabeth had given the room to Sara as a wedding present. In making the gesture, she’d realized: Nothing of Laurelwood had ever in truth been hers to give.
Who was she, really? The names of her adulthood rang false. Since Sir Carey’s death, it seemed ridiculous to be called Lady Asher, and “Mrs. Carleson” was Sara Adams, that wisp of a girl with a pen in her mouth and ink on her fingers. She was the true mistress of Laurelwood. When the squire died, everything had passed to Geordie. For all Elizabeth’s love and dedication to this estate, its land and its tenants, she’d never been more than a custodian. Her own child’s guest.
Lately, if she wasn’t at The Branch with Philly, she kept mostly to her room. Just now, Geordie was gone from Carleson Peak on one of his wild missions. Probably off to look at some new machine he fancied would halve the men’s work. Who could know? Since his marriage, he rarely consulted with her about Laurelwood’s management. As if in Geordie’s mind too, Elizabeth had become superfluous. Old.
Even with Geordie gone, there was no increased interaction with her new daughter. Sara spent her waking hours with her nose in a book or chewing the end of a pen or staring out a window. If she spoke to anyone, it was with Cousin Susan. The two shared a mutual love of books.
Ah! This self-pity didn’t suit. Perhaps a visit to Dr. Devilliers would wake her up to springtime. The daffodils always bloomed first at the rectory. Since Cousin Susan refused his proposal, they’d all remained friends, though perhaps not in equal measure. Susan and Jordan shared more than scones and conversation, of that Elizabeth was certain.
“I’m going for a walk, my dear,” she told Sara. “I’ll likely take my tea with Dr. Devilliers.”
Nearing the front door, Elizabeth caught her own appearance in the hallway glass. A pale old woman in mourning stared back at her.
Susan appeared in the mirror behind her. “Is something amiss, cousin?”
“I’m still in black,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes. And this the second spring since Sir Carey’s death.”
Susan was dressed gaily, in a sky-blue gown covered with tiny pink and yellow roses. Her strange gray eyes were alive with interest in the world. It suited her to be an old lady with a little money and plenty of people to care for. Judging by the basket on her arm, she was going to see Dr. Devilliers herself. Elizabeth smiled. Were they, either of them, really so old? Just into their fifties—there was plenty of life left.
“I might come out of mourning,” she said. Something clicked in her brain, and her plan changed. “It’s been too long since I spent the day exploring Laurelwood.” She’d walk to the other side of the lake. Perhaps she’d see a white heron.
-oOo-
Dr. Devilliers shuffled through his front door to the porch added to the cottage last year, misquoting Coleridge to himself: Spring has not come late, but it is chilly today. He picked up the novel he’d left on the swinging chair Geordie had suspended from the ceiling. The new Mrs. Carleson had given it to him: Last of the Mohicans. She assured him it was the rage in America, and he could see why. Very exciting.
The lilac tree in his garden reminded him of Lady Asher, Especially when the woody buds were still hard and closed like a toddler’s fist. The daffodils were more like Mrs. Peter. This morning they were in a riot like a harlequin’s ruffled collar around his cottage. Every year when they bloomed he renewed his marriage proposal, and every year she refused. He chuckled; when she came today he’d ask her again.
He was in a puttering mood today, puttering about the parsonage, bothering Abishag, puttering about the yard. Abby had come to him after Sir Carey died, in hopes of getting or giving one kind of consolation. He had put her to work as his housekeeper. Today she banished him to putter about his flowers, and now he found himself puttering about his life. He tried to read a few lines of the novel, but couldn’t keep his thoughts in one place.
Where was Mrs. Peter? He hadn’t called her Susan since last year when he was so ill. They were no longer physically intimate but still the best of friends. The swinging chair lulled him into an actual nap. He felt the dream come on again. In his dream, he was at Cambridge, and his Caroline was there.
Caroline! She smiled and grabbed his arm. Pain seared up his left arm and clamped down on his chest. Caroline led him into a small parlor. The pain was as bad as from his heart attack. “Caroline, we cannot be found alone here.”
“Jordan, we must decide now. My father knows I love you. He is determined to stop us. We must leave immediately.”
“And go
where?” Listen to her, listen this time.
“Scotland first, of course.” Caroline kissed him again.
“If only it were that easy.”
It is that easy! Jordan wondered at the lack of imagination in his young self. But the pain made it hard to concentrate.
“It is,” Caroline smiled. “It is that easy.”
Ach! Someone touched his arm, pulling him from the dream into the world, and the world was pain.
“Dr. Devilliers…Jordan, are you unwell?” Mrs. Peter stared at him with wide-eyed alarm. “Oh, Jordan.”
He couldn’t move his mouth to speak.
“Abishag!” Mrs. Peter cried. “Find Mr. Brennan and bring him. Dr. Devilliers is ill.”
“Susan.” Just saying the one word was an effort. He wanted—needed to say so much more. “I…”
“It’s all right, Jordan.” She kissed his forehead. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Love you,” he said. Maybe. He wasn’t sure he actually got the words out.
“It’s all right,” she said again. She rocked him in her arms, and he fell back into the dream. In his young man’s body, he kissed Caroline—as he had not done all those years before. “Then let us go,” he said.
Jordan and Caroline, laughing together, ran away from the Oxford party and tumbled into his waiting coach. “To Scotland!” he sang out to the driver. The pain subsided to a tingle when Caroline linked her arm with his. His heart was full to bursting. His love was by his side. Together, they rode up the hill and into heaven.
-oOo-
The little chapel overflowed with familiar parishioners and strangers from the rector’s wide correspondence. Bishop Marsh came to the funeral specially and delivered a homily. He and Jordan had both attended St. Johns, though at different times. They met later, maturing in the church along similar intellectual paths, both fascinated by the Higher Criticism; both coming at nearly the same moment to doubt justification by faith.
The Peak was impressed by the weight of the bishop’s scientific personality and by his reputation as one of Cambridge’s foremost men of letters. His appearance was accepted as further evidence of Dr. Devilliers’s greatness.
The Peak was better impressed with its own good sense, however, when the Right Reverend Bishop’s objection to hymn singing during the service was met with indulgent chuckles.
“Your grace, I hope you will stop at Laurelwood to rest before your return?” Sara wished her husband were at home. She knew the bishop would prefer an invitation to The Branch or Millam, but the baroness was in no condition to receive guests, and the new Duke of Gohrum, to everyone’s dismay and disapproval, had not come to his uncle’s funeral.
The bishop was left with the choice of a good meal and a warm bed at Laurelwood or a long ride back to Peterborough.
“You are very kind, Mrs. Carleson.”
“That was right, wasn’t it?” Sara whispered to Lady Asher.
“Yes, dear.”
“And my great aunt? Do you think we might have Lady Branch for a few days’ visit?”
“That would be lovely, if Mr. Brennan will approve.” The ladies found the physician, who agreed to accompany the baroness himself to Laurelwood that afternoon and to visit every day she was there.
At supper, when the meat was cleared away but before the pudding could be served, Mrs. Johns announced that the squire had returned. Sara was truly glad to hear it. This trip had taken Geordie from her only six months after their wedding, and she’d been surprised to find she missed him.
He hadn’t told her his purpose or destination. She realized too late that perhaps he had wanted her to ask where he was off to. Perhaps he wanted to her ask about many things. She resolved to be a better companion. Now that he was home, she was eager to begin.
When Geordie stepped out of the coach, she gave him a genuine smile, and he returned it. Then, before his female relations could occupy his arms, he turned back and extracted a child slightly less than a year old. “Madam.” He spoke formally, loud enough so that all could hear. “This is my ward, Jane Gabrielle Jones. I intend to raise her here at Laurelwood.”
It was not unheard of then to bring a natural child into a household. A wife did well to smile with good grace and quickly produce a proper heir. If, in this case, as the years went by the child began to look more like the wife than the husband, well, no one remarked upon it.
The Nat Turner Rebellion
“And so I am now to see England,” said Miss Fiddyment.
On a humid August evening in 1831, Mr. Harry Singer gave a dinner at Beau Monde, what he called the Adams house since learning the name of its true owner. An invitation to an affair hosted by the publisher of the Post & Oracle, as the newspaper was now called, was as coveted as those to Leopold’s picnics had been.
This evening, however, was no soiree but an intimate gathering of family and friends.
“This news calls for a toast.” Harry rose with lifted glass. “To Miss Igraine Fiddyment, Shermer Landing’s very own Famous Authoress. To your travels. And to your continued success.”
“Hear! Hear!”
“To our most talented Miss Fiddyment!” This from Solomon Grasmere, whose devotion to and pursuit of Miss Igraine Fiddyment grew more earnest with her every refusal and more desperate with each literary success. Even now, it was clear he was in agony to be included in this trip to England.
“I have another toast,” Jonnie Zehetner said. “To my brother Josef, sea captain, businessman, and my good friend. May you and your lovely bride enjoy every pleasure on your long-delayed wedding trip.”
Josef and April both blushed, as much in love as ever. Josef was taking April to England on the Sheepshank to buy Wedgwood for the new house, and Igraine was going with them.
“To Josef!”
“And to April!” There were so many Singers and Zehetners now that, among the younger generation at least, they had resorted to first names.
“You and Eleanor must come too,” Josef said to his brother. “You’ve never taken a wedding trip of your own.”
“But we couldn’t leave the farm now,” Eleanor said in alarm. “With harvest so near, there is much too much to be done. And Samuel is coming to preach with Rev. Lightfeather. I would hate to miss him.”
“We’re very happy where we are,” Jonathan said.
“I can vouch for them,” Marta had to acknowledge. “No two people are better suited to their situation in life than my daughter and son-in-law, I think.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
Marta squeezed Eleanor’s hand. Once she had been afraid of running the household. Wasn’t it equally silly now to fear giving it up? It was a relief, she realized, to give it over.
“In any event,” April said, “I don’t understand why Mrs. Singer should not go with us.” The suggestion silenced the party, and Marta saw they were all awaiting her answer.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why not, Aunt Marta?” said Josef.
“I think, Mrs. Singer, there might be something there that has a call upon your heart,” said April.
Marta’s still-beautiful brows crept together. The Zehetners would surely visit Sara. It would be lovely to see little Gabrielle. But did she really want to cross the Atlantic Ocean again? How could such a voyage not torment her with memories?
“Unlike our Miss Fiddyment,” she said, “I certainly do not long for England. But it would be nice...”
No one but Eleanor and Jonathan was supposed to know the baby’s whereabouts. Geordie Carleson had appeared one day to claim her. The story was that they had taken in an infant abandoned by a departed servant, but that the father had appeared and demanded the child.
“Mother, the glassworks is doing especially well lately,” Harry said. “You could spend a little money, just as Father wanted you to.”
No one had been more surprised than Marta to learn at the reading of Leopold’s will exactly how much the fortune he had brought to the New World had increas
ed. Among the Singer holdings was a fifty-one percent share in the Shermer Landing Glassworks which he left explicitly to Marta, in trust, to be administered by Reverend Lightfeather.
He had written,
I wish my wife, Mrs. Marta Singer, not to be obliged to her sons for such incidentals as would contribute to her material happiness.
The income from the Shermer Landing Glassworks was rather more than incidental, but until now she’d had no desire to make use of it.
“Mrs. Singer,” Igraine said. “For myself, I would very much enjoy your company on the journey.”
Yes, Igraine Fiddyment must feel the odd one out when she traveled with the Zehetners. Their fierce romance did tend to exclude all else from the world.
Again, Marta looked at April Zehetner. Somehow, she was sure, April knew all. But April could be a threat to no person. Her kind encouragement broke through, and Marta’s resistance melted away. “Very well,” she said. “If you young people want an old lady with you, you shall have her.”
Before anyone could protest that Mrs. Singer was most definitely not an old lady (despite knowing she would be 50 on her next birthday), there came an alarming pounding at the door and a commotion in the foyer.
“Let me in! You will let me into my own house!”
A disheveled woman stumbled into the room, hatless, her gold and silver hair in wild disarray, a filthy coat flung unbuttoned over night clothes, her feet unshod and black with dirt.
“God’s grace. It’s Penelope Adams!”
Along with everyone else, Igraine Fiddyment stared. She was flung back four years, to the day Eleanor Singer and Sara Adams had come to her school with their mothers. Penelope Adams was older but no less flamboyant, and tonight a little crazed.
Mrs. Adams’s wild stare calmed. “Mrs. Singer—Marta.” She swayed, and Josef and Solomon helped her to a sofa in the parlor. She winced, either in pain or irritation.
“Bring Mrs. Adams brandy,” Harry ordered.
