Susan Speers

by My Cousin Jeremy

  Those words are burned into my memory, but at the time of their utterance, I was scarce aware of hearing them. The room seemed filled with a buzzing sound. The furnishings and draperies had begun to spin around me. As I looked at the photograph, it was the same as looking into a mirror. Edward Dane and I shared a high forehead, a widow’s peak, well defined cheekbones and a long straight nose.

  At once I knew the truth, though I could not say it, not even to myself. Terrible questions and terrible answers filled my head.

  Why had I lived when the other babies died? Because Richard Marchmont was not my father. How had this happened? How had my mother done this thing?

  I remember little of the journey back to Genie’s flat. Mr. Wickett’s secretary accompanied me in the hansom cab and carried a folder of documents and the box of mementos upstairs with me. I don’t remember bidding him goodbye or thanking him. Genie and Helen were not at home. I locked myself in my bedroom and flung myself face down on the bed.

  Hours passed. When Genie knocked on my door to announce dinner, I replied. “I’m indisposed.”

  Much later, when the flat was dark and quiet, I changed my clothes and washed my face. I was cold to the bone, and lit the fire in the parlor hearth. I sat in a faded velvet armchair, Alphonse curled in my lap. By the light of a single lamp, I read my mother’s letters to a man I never imagined existed, to a man I never knew, to my natural father.

  I have since devoured every word on every page of my mother’s precious letters, but through that long night I could only seize upon certain phrases.

  “You have made my dearest dream come true and if it were possible for me to love you better, I do.”

  “Richard may suspect, but he is kind and says little. I know he is glad of my happiness.”

  “Baby is healthy and plump and pink, truly an enchanted creature.”

  “I am jealous of every moment she spends with her nurse.”

  “If only you could see little Clarry watch the shadows cast by her little star-shaped hands.”

  “She smiled today for the first time. You must write to me the moment you know you can return.”

  My tears fell unchecked as I felt the warmth of my mother’s love surround me. I could never show the letters to Jeremy, he had nothing of his own mother.

  Jeremy.

  A bible verse pounded itself into my brain: Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set ye free. The man I called ‘Father’ was not my father. My father and Jeremy’s father were not first cousins. I was free of the taint of Marchmont madness. Jeremy and I were free to love each other, to marry, to have children. Nothing stood in our way.

  Jeremy. Jeremy. Jeremy.

  His face swam before me. Genie’s parlor, dark with early morning shadows slowly filled with the brilliant dawn of realization.

  Should I rush to Greece to tell him? No. He would return to England. I would be waiting. For the last time I would count the days until we could be together. We were free now, free as we never had been, free of our family curse.

  Chapter Sixteen

  During the next weeks I walked every morning on the Heath. I read and reread the author’s notes for our collaboration and thought hard about my illustrations. I took over the marketing for our little household. I bided my time.

  Every day the sun shone brighter, the autumn leaves fiery beneath a brilliant blue October sky. The brisk wind beat roses into my pale cheeks.

  Every day my happiness and confidence grew as I held my new knowledge close to my heart. I waited for Jeremy’s return, I waited to tell him my mother’s secret and see the joy fill him as we claimed our freedom and each other.

  “Clarry you are positively blooming,” Genie said one day when I returned with fresh Dover sole and hothouse asparagus for our dinner. “You are lit from within. Have you word of your cousin?”

  She knew of my enduring love for him. She didn’t know that I held the key for its fulfillment.

  “No,” I murmured as I examined my post. There was only a letter from Mrs. Pickety, now my good friend, Amalia. She alone had my London direction.

  “I suppose being an heiress is a happy thing,” Genie teased. She and Helen knew of my good fortune, but little about its circumstances.

  I had confided in Henry Putnam. He acted for me with Mr. Wickett and Rutherford Dane. He swore not to reveal my address or my prospects to Richard Marchmont, the man I called “Father” until very recently.

  “Do you think he knew about Edward Dane?” I asked Henry as we enjoyed an elaborate tea in the Palm Court at the Ritz.

  “I’d be very much surprised if he did.” Henry’s eyes were thoughtful. “He’s always been so protective of you.”

  I shivered at memories of Richard Marchmont’s “protection”. Henry saw my unhappiness and hastened to introduce another matter.

  “Have you made plans to visit your Cornwall property?” He added three lumps of sugar to his tea. That made me smile. I’d not known mild Henry to be greedy for anything.

  “Perhaps in the spring,” I said. It would make a discreet refuge for Jeremy and me until the furor over his annulment died down. “I prefer to remain in London until then.” Remain until Jeremy returned. “I’ve corresponded with the caretaker, a woman named Thérèse Gaultier. She was my fath—, I mean, she was Edward Dane’s nurse.”

  “Don’t leave it too long,” Henry advised me. “Neglected properties have a habit of declining without their owner’s attention.”

  “I won’t neglect it,” I promised. I was happy to bring Jeremy a proper dowry. I reveled in my liberation from Richard Marchmont’s influence, but Jeremy too could be domineering. I’d be well served by my independence.

  I waited beneath the hotel portico for Henry to summon a taxi.

  Then I heard a familiar deep voice. “Clarry?”

  But it wasn’t Jeremy. Instead, I looked up to see Dickon Scard’s smiling face.

  “It is you, Clarry.” Dickon clasped my hand, warming it in his. For the briefest moment I thought he might kiss my cheek.

  “Hallo, Dickon, you’re looking well.” He did. He looked a London gentleman, and his country speech was modulated too.

  “I’d heard you’d exchanged Hethering’s fair skies for city smoke.” He looked at my fashionable hat and neat gloves. “It suits you.”

  Henry came to take my arm. After a brief introduction, I gave Dickon my direction. “Not a word to anyone.”

  He solemnly crossed his heart, just as we did as children, and accompanied us to the street.

  “A good friend of yours?” Henry asked as our cab threaded its way through crowded streets.

  “Since childhood, though Jeremy never took to him.”

  “Hmm. His name, Scard, I’ve heard it before.” Henry thought for a moment, then shook his head. “May I take you to tea again? In a fortnight, shall we say?”

  “I’d like that.” Perhaps Jemmy would be back and I’d have a happy announcement. Henry’s calm good sense would make him a valuable ally in the troubled waters ahead.

  That night I began my first drawing for my publisher. I sat at Genie’s big desk, burning midnight oil to get the right mix of rush green and sky blue for a pond like the one by Willow’s cottage.

  When my eyes burned with fatigue and the crick in my neck grew into a pain too severe to ignore, I put down my pastels and stood to walk around our parlour. Genie and Helen had long since retired and the hearth fire was embers. I knelt to reach for some kindling and my glance fell on some neatly folded newspaper pages.

  The name “Marchmont” leapt out at me. I took the bit of paper back to Genie’s desk and unfolded its precise creases with trembling fingers.

  In a fragment of society news I read that Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Marchmont had returned from abroad to take up residence in Cadogan Square. Mrs. Marchmont was at home to callers.

  I could not find a date on the page of newsprint, but its edges were yellow and curled.

  “Returned from abroad.”


  “Taken up residence.”

  “At home.”

  The bland pleasantries turned my stomach. Jeremy was back in England, but made no effort to find me.

  Never mind, I told myself, pacing like a mad woman while Alphonse the cat fled the parlour for the kitchen he despised. Jemmy doesn’t know we’re free. My knowledge was the strength we needed to break the hold Caroline had over him. When Jemmy and I were together for good I’d box his ears for ignoring me.

  Even the thought of that aggressive touch stopped my pacing as weak knees tumbled me into a chair. I clutched a feather cushion to my body, remembering the feel of Jeremy’s skin, the strength of his arms, the heat of his mouth on mine.

  Caroline Fforde receiving guests as Mrs. Jeremy Marchmont? She’d be deposed. Soon I’d take my rightful place by his side, in his home, in his bed. It was only a matter of time.

  Genie’s mantel clock chimed three. It was only a matter of hours.

  *****

  I arrived in Cadogan Square at the last quarter hour for proper calls. The sun hid behind a pewter swath of clouds. The square was almost empty of traffic.

  Jeremy’s butler greeted me at the door and ushered me into a small hall to wait as he took my card to Caroline. The hall, the reception rooms I glimpsed and Caroline’s parlor were decorated in restrained good taste, but they felt lifeless. The atmosphere was muffled and I gasped for air.

  Caroline turned as I entered the room, but she did not rise. She was alone, pale and quiet.

  “Shall I ring for tea?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve come for him, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please,” she said.

  “It’s no good,” I said. “We belong together.”

  “I — I need him, now. He’s trying, I’m trying. Let us be, I beg you.”

  “How can you need him more than I?” I would not listen to her pleading.

  She stood up and I saw the unmistakable lines of her pregnancy beneath her loose gown. “This is how.” There was a small triumph in her words. She knew Jeremy would never leave her. She knew I would never let him.

  I turned on my heel, left their home and stumbled down the shallow steps to the street. I raised my hand to call a taxicab and one stopped right in front of me. Jeremy got out. He was dressed in black, thinner still and very pale.

  I swallowed my shock and overwhelming desire. I hardened my heart and my soul.

  “Wait for me,” I told the driver, “I’ll pay for your time.”

  “Dear God, Clarry,” Jeremy said. He mouth worked. Finally: “I have prayed for this moment.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Not this moment.” The ice water that filled my veins in Caroline’s parlor had turned my flesh to marble. “You should have told me, Jeremy. I deserved that much.”

  “I hoped to find my way free,” he said. “But I am bound to her now. I couldn’t contact you, Clarry, or I would ask you, demand of you, beg from you love I no longer deserve.”

  “You can tell me that truth,” I said, “but not the truth of Caroline’s baby? Not the truth of why my heart must break?”

  His pale skin took on a bluish tinge. “Don’t leave me Clarry. I die in my work, I die at home. I die without you. Don’t leave me here alone.”

  “Oh, that is rich,” I said. “You leave me. You left me at Hethering, you left me at school. You left me to marry, you left me in Europe. You made love to me and then you left me in hell.”

  “That’s not true,” he said and captured my hands. “I never really left you, Clarry, I never did. Not truly. Not in my heart.”

  “No, you never really left me, that’s true enough.” I pulled my hands free, leaving my gloves in his desperate grip. “I must be the strong one. That is left to me.”

  I climbed into the cab. “Drive on,” I said. I sat up straight, I did not turn around. Jeremy ran after us, calling my name, louder and louder until we turned the corner and left Cadogan Square.

  “Bit of a dust-up, Miss?” my driver asked when I gave him my address.

  “It’s over now,” I said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Genie opened the door when I arrived home and her kind eyes saw everything.

  “Tea,” she said to Helen and while we waited for the kettle to boil she pulled off my coat and poured me a tot of sherry from the captain’s decanter on our sideboard.

  “Drink it down,” she said. “Did you see Jeremy?”

  “Yes.” My teeth chattered, though the sherry warmed me.

  “I found the clipping on the floor,” Genie said. “You’ve been so hopeful of late. What happened?”

  “All is lost,” I said. “Caroline is expecting a child.”

  “Oh, my dear.” Genie covered my hand with hers and then just as quickly took it away.

  “Now he knows I’m in London.” I walked to the window and looked out, expecting his tall figure to materialize in the street below. “He’ll never stay away. He told me as much.”

  Helen carried in the tea tray. She’d heard my last sentences. “This is a good time to visit your property in Cornwall.”

  “The sooner the better,” Genie agreed.

  I sent a wire to Thérèse Gaultier and a note to Henry Putnam. Genie would act as liaison with my publisher. I penned a brief letter to Amalia Pickety, giving her my Cornwall address, but warning her against Jeremy’s inquiries. I wrote her about Caroline’s pregnancy. I could trust her to keep my direction secret.

  I left that night carrying a small bag of clothing and a portfolio of my work. I packed a trunk to be shipped.

  I stopped in the doorway to thank Genie and Helen. Both smiled, though their eyes were sad. “I’ve been happy here,” I said.

  “You will be again,” Genie said.

  I slept on the train. No happy dreams, no nightmares. I woke as if swimming up from a deep, dark ocean. Rain poured down the length of the journey, but as we entered St. Ives, a sky like a fading bruise sheltered a scarlet sunset. I had brief glimpses of quaint buildings and boats bobbing in the harbor, their sails furled.

  The stationmaster found me a taxi and I arrived at my new home just as the last reddish rays of sunset pinked its pale stone walls.

  The blue painted door opened before I could knock. Thérèse Gaultier and I stood toe to toe taking each other’s measure.

  “I’m Clarissa Marchmont.” I spoke first. “You are Mademoiselle Gaultier?”

  “I am Thérèse,” she said. “I answer to no other.”

  She was almost a foot shorter than I and at least forty years my elder. She had coal black hair drawn from wings around her face into a knob at the nape of her neck. She wore a neat black wool dress with a collar as white as the wide part on her head. Her eyes were black, her lips rouged red. Most people would say she was homely. I found piquant beauty in her severity.

  “Thérèse, then.” I entered the house and placed my gloves and hat on the hall table. “Thank you for taking good care of my home.”

  She gave me a piercing glance, then picked up my bags and carried them up a flight of polished wooden stairs.

  I followed her into a second floor bedroom at the east of the house, a large chamber with windows in three directions. A mahogany sleigh bed commanded one wall, a tall chest of drawers took another, with a straight backed chair holding its own on the third. Four small oil paintings dotted the walls. They depicted gardens, or rather one garden that overlooked the sea.

  “I will serve your supper in one hour’s time?” Thérèse phrased this as a question, but it was an announcement. She indicated the open door of a roomy bathroom and left me.

  I unpacked my few items of clothing into drawers lined with fresh white paper and scented with sprigs of dried lavender. The bathroom was a made over dressing room with space for a dressing table.

  My portfolio drew my attention. Was there a place with clear northern light where I could finish my first illustration and complete the rest? I tried to imagine s
pending months here without occupation. Without a means to forget Jeremy, to excise him from my life for good. Was that even possible? All I knew was that I had to try to go forward without him.

  What I said to Jeremy at his wedding was now coming true. ‘We’ll have useful, contented lives and in time find a measure of happiness.’

  But he said ‘My only happiness is you.’

  In the misty reflection of a gilt framed mirror I saw a tear roll down my face, because my only happiness was him.

  “I will prevail,” I said to my reflection. “I’ll be strong.” I washed my face and changed my clothing.

  Thérèse served me an excellent cassoulet. I ate alone in a yellow walled dining room. A collection of Quimper pottery decorated the dresser opposite a curtained window. I later found a welcoming window seat behind the velvet drapes. When Thérèse brought me a serving of delicious tarte tatin, I stopped her from leaving again.

  “I have work to do,” I said. “In London I began a series of illustrations for a children’s book. Is there a room with a table and chair where I may continue?”

  “The north bedroom.” Her eyes were grave. “Mr. Dane made his paintings there. In the morning I will show you everything: the attics, the cellars, the public rooms such as this one.”

  “And the garden?”

  Her eyebrows shot up.

  I smiled to encourage her. “I saw the paintings. The garden is here?”

  “Yes,” she said. You have an interest in plantings?”

  “I grew up in a beautiful garden,” I said. “And now I am banished from it.”

  I didn’t expect anything so easy as sympathy from my stern housekeeper, but her voice lost a little of its harshness as she bid me goodnight.

  “À demain, Mademoiselle.”

  “À demain, Thérèse.”

  *****

  Our tour was a succession of glimpses into a home that had seen much in its history. Each room was stripped of all but essentials but retained the aura of its past. In the attics, crates and bandboxes and ancient trunks held ornaments packed away, an Aladdin’s treasure of memories.