Susan Speers

by My Cousin Jeremy

  “From what I know of my mother, she would have given it all up for a large family,” I told him.

  Dickon had paced out the measure of the room’s octagonal walls and stopped in front of the mantel, looking at the painting of the young girl reading.

  “By all rights there should be a safe hidden behind it,” he teased. “I say, do you mind?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He was gentle as he took down the gold painted frame. I never expected that he’d find anything, but there it was, a small metal door recessed in the wall with a numbered dial guarding its secrets.

  “Do you know the combination?” Dickon asked.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t know it existed. I’ll have to look.” Surely somewhere in Father’s study or this room the numbers were recorded.

  Dickon replaced the painting. “Don’t give up,” he said. “Imagine what treasure could lie within.”

  He came for tea every day, despite the increasing frosty atmosphere created by my butler. We didn’t walk through all of Hethering’s parkland. Somehow I knew Dickon would think it trespassing, and I didn’t dare imagine Jeremy’s opinion on the matter.

  If the weather was fine, Dickon and I sauntered through the woods to Willow’s cottage and took up our post on the bench by the pond. We talked and talked and laughed and laughed.

  I described my plans to refurbish the follies: the tower, the bridge, the pagoda and the sadly crumbled Roman columns.

  “And what of the fifth folly?” he asked me. “The marble temple?”

  “It’s perfect, it never changes.” I said. “I might just clear away some brush.”

  The truth was there were too many memories of Jeremy there, of Jeremy and of love. My fragile happiness with Dickon wouldn’t survive them.

  One day he told me about his public school days, about the struggles he’d had as a farmer’s son among the gentry. He made every incident comic in the telling, but I knew better: he’d been badly abused by his so-called betters.

  When he told me how his father saw him win the mathematics prize, I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. His eager response led to more and longer kisses until we broke apart, breathless but still embracing.

  Was kissing Dickon like kissing Jeremy? I wasn’t drawn to Dickon with the magical force that united me with Jeremy. Dickon wasn’t in my heart and my blood like my Jem, but I was a healthy young woman long deprived of the physical affection my body craved.

  Dickon settled his arm around me as I put my head on his shoulder. We looked deep into the water Willow had loved, the water that took her life. He spoke a little about his work in the London bank.

  “I have savings,” he said, “and good prospects ahead of me. I have my father’s acres and after the war…”

  “After the war?” I couldn’t bear to wait. It seemed my whole life had been nothing but waiting and my spirit rebelled. “Do you really think this war will end as soon as Christmas?”

  “I don’t,” he said. He stood up and walked to the water’s edge. He took a handful of pebbles and skipped them one by one over the ruffled waves. A cloud came over the sun and the wind turned chill. It made me wrap my shawl tight around me as I came to stand beside him.

  “I don’t like the past,” he said. “I want to live in the present and hope for the future.” They were brave words for a man about to fight a war.

  “You’ve been harmed by the past, Clarry, I know you have.” I hung my head and he kissed its crown. “I thought it would be better to wait,” he said, “but I don’t want to. Let’s begin our future.”

  “I don’t want to wait either,” I said. Everything in me wanted my life to begin now.

  He cut a thin green reed with his pen knife and wove it around the fourth finger of my left hand.

  “I’ll go to London tomorrow and resign my position,” he said. “But I’ll come back here, to you, before I enlist.”

  “Come back soon,” I said, and this time our kiss was a promise.

  Days passed and Dickon sent me a letter saying he had been delayed with unfinished business at the bank. A letter from Jeremy arrived the next day. He described his training in a series of terse phrases, but when he wrote about Hethering, his words were sinuous and graceful. He wrote as a suitor would write about his beloved.

  I wasn’t so foolish not to understand Jeremy and I submerged our feelings in our care for Hethering. I tapped my finger on the envelope bearing Dickon’s vigorous handwriting. I’d have to tell Jeremy about my plans with Dickon as soon as possible. I didn’t want him to hear about it from someone else. Still, I shrank at telling him before he left for France. I decided to wait until Dickon returned and we were promised for sure.

  I looked up with pleasure when Henry came into the study to announce a visitor. My butler’s attitude was warmer and I had a brief hope he’d accepted Dickon in my life. Then I read the calling card. Henry Putnam, my solicitor?

  I greeted my friend, wondering why he’d made a trip from London without notice, then caught the tiniest smirk on my butler’s face. Butler Henry had contacted solicitor Henry.

  “Leave us,” I said to my servant and if my solicitor wondered at my tone, he didn’t comment.

  I offered no refreshment. “I suppose you’ve come to speak to me about Dickon Scard?”

  “Yes.” Henry Putnam didn’t try to put a better face on it. “But not for the reason you might think.”

  “We will marry,” I said, daring him to forbid it.

  “Clarissa, I want you to marry the man you choose,” Henry said. “But there are things you must know about Dickon Scard, about the Scard family before you proceed.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Henry Putnam and I sat together for a long time.

  “What do you know about your ancestor Madison Marchmont?” he asked me.

  “Madison lived almost a hundred years ago,” I said. “He built the four follies, he wanted to build a fifth.” The secret folly belonged to Jeremy and me. I didn’t want to tell Henry about it.

  “Madison Marchmont’s greatest folly was his obsession with improving Hethering and its parkland,” Henry said. “He exhausted the rent monies and supplemented those funds with his considerable winnings at cards. When his luck ran out he took the estate into debt. He borrowed foolish sums, he mortgaged his lands. When he died, his son, your grandfather, Mathew Marchmont, devoted his life to clear the title.”

  “There’s no debt now,” I said.

  “Yes, that’s true, but one piece of land stayed in possession of a yeoman farmer, Walter Scard, a wealthy freeholder who lent Madison Marchmont a lot of gold.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “This piece of land is a wooded hill. You can see the entire county from its peak. It was the crown of Hethering’s land, more valued than any other acreage. Its title was in contention since the fifteenth century, when Cecil Marchmont fought for the House of Lancaster and Edmund Scard fought for the House of York.”

  “Go on,” I said. An ugly truth was hiding in this history.

  “Hethering land changed hands many times between the Marchmont and Scard families, until the seventeenth century when the Marchmonts became gentry and were granted clear title. The Scard family bided its time and increased its wealth elsewhere until Madison Marchmont’s weakness gave them opportunity.”

  “But Madison mortgaged the land, he didn’t sell it.”

  “Walter Scard crafted an agreement that said if Madison Marchmont died before his debts to the Scard family were paid, one tract of land, the wooded hill, was forfeit.”

  “Dickon owns it now,” I said.

  “Walter Scard and his descendents let the woods grow dense and neglected to taunt the Marchmont family. Without that one property, Hethering will never be complete.”

  I got up to pace the room. Jeremy knew about this, he had to. He’d scorned Dickon from the beginning. Their first words were a quarrel over trespass.

  Dickon knew every tree in that over
grown forest. He’d led me to the fifth folly. He never told me it was on Scard land. Jeremy never told me it was on Scard land. Neither of them considered my feelings.

  I paced back and forth several times and found myself in reluctant agreement with them. “I don’t understand,” I asked my solicitor. “Why does it concern me?”

  “War changes everything,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

  Then I remembered why Richard Marchmont wanted me to marry Henry Putnam. After Jeremy, I was heir to Hethering.

  “But Henry, Jeremy has a son,” I protested.

  “Forgive me, Clarissa, the child’s delicate health is no secret.”

  “So if he doesn’t survive and Jeremy is k-killed in battle…” The very thought made me faint.

  “As your husband, Dickon Scard could gain control of Hethering.”

  *****

  Every day I dressed in formal clothing instead of my usual skirt, blouse and pinny. I waited for Dickon. Four days passed. Then three more. Henry came in to announce a visitor. His satisfied demeanor confused me until I saw Jeremy a few steps behind him.

  “Hallo Clarissa,” he said and kissed my cheek. At first I thought his cool manner was for Henry’s benefit but it continued as we looked over the estate books together.

  “Is everything in good order?” I asked. He’d examined each ledger and register at least twice.

  “You have a talent for management, Clarissa,” he replied, beginning again, looking from column to column of my neat figures.

  “Then what are you looking for?”

  He smiled a bit, his eyes distant. “Dickon Scard’s fingerprints.”

  I sat back in my chair as vexed as I have ever been with my cousin. “Perhaps, then, you should examine me instead.”

  He flinched as if I had slapped him. “How could you, Clarry?”

  “How could I? Am I never to have a husband or children of my own? It’s all right for you to marry and have a son. Why must I stay a spinster with half a life?”

  “That’s not what I want for you, Clarry. Though it will kill me when you wed, I won’t deny you your chance. But Dickon Scard?”

  “Perhaps if you had been so good to tell me about our family’s history with the Scards, I might have made an educated choice.”

  “You know I’ve never liked him, I’ve never approved of your friendship. That should have been enough for you.”

  “I’m not your chattel, Jeremy,” I flung at him, “I never have been. I didn’t leave my Father’s house to take on a new master. I’m an independent woman of independent means and my decisions will be made independent of your jealousy and prejudice.”

  “Just don’t fool yourself he cares for you. Hethering’s the attraction.”

  This time I did slap him and it horrified us both.

  “Forgive me,” he said at once. “I am jealous. You’re breaking my heart.”

  “So you see,” I said, “how I have felt for a very long time.”

  There were tears in his eyes and I stopped the one that fell with my finger touching his face.

  He covered my hand with his and brought it to his lips. He pulled me to him and kissed my temples, my face and then, with infinite tenderness, my mouth. We sat squashed together on the small leather couch at the back of Father’s study, where penitents once waited for blessing or admonition. Jeremy’s held me tight against him.

  “Imagine if Father saw us now,” I said with a shaky laugh.

  “I want him to see us,” Jeremy’s voice was husky with restrained desire, then fierce. “I want him to know he never parted us. It simply can’t be done.”

  It was enough to sit, my legs crossed over his, to feel Jeremy’s warm breath on my forehead, to hear his heart beat. He stirred with great reluctance and consulted his watch. “My train departs in an hour. This is a brief leave.”

  An emergency leave, I thought. “Have a word with Henry,” I said. “This was an unusual circumstance, but I won’t be spied on and interfered with. If it happens again, I’ll leave Hethering and return to St. Ives.”

  Jemmy looked at my face and saw my resolve. “An independent woman,” he said. “I was a fool to think otherwise.”

  We had always been true partners. Now he knew it too.

  *

  Dickon arrived the next day. “Shall I serve tea in the salon?” Henry asked. I nodded. I could see Dickon was pleased by Henry’s new deference, but when he saw my face, his own grew bleak.

  “Jeremy was here,” he said. “All is changed.”

  I smoothed the folds of my pinny. There was no need for formal clothing, my feelings were evident. “Let’s drink our tea.”

  We waited for the tray in silence, then I poured his cup and added the cream and sugar he loved. I remembered our teas with Willow. I knew Dickon cared for me, but now a shadow lay between us.

  “Why did you never tell me that your family, the Scard family, owned the wooded hill by Willow’s land?”

  “And the folly at its peak?” He put down his teacup without tasting its contents.

  “And the folly.” Mad Madison’s crowning achievement, a place rife with memories of Jeremy.

  “I thought it would make a difference to us, your knowing that. My father warned me when I was a child not to boast, not to brag, there’d been enough bad feeling between our families over property. I thought —” his ruddy color deepened. “I thought to make it a bride gift to you.”

  I believed him, I did. But it wasn’t enough, and he saw that, too.

  “You’re disappointed in me.” He compressed his mouth into a deep groove. I remembered his happy face at our last meeting and felt shame.

  “I’ve lived my life in a garden of secrets, blind and running full tilt into one obstacle after another. I don’t want any secrets in my married life.”

  “Some of this has to do with Jeremy.” His voice was so humble I didn’t take offence.

  “Jeremy and I have always been close. We always will be in one way or another. But he’s resigned that I will — one day — marry.”

  “But not resigned to me. He doesn’t like me.”

  “You don’t like him, do you?”

  “I daresay it’s for the same reason. A lady, not a piece of land.” He drank a little tea. “So were not promised?” He was too proud to beg with words, but the look in his eyes said everything he would not.

  “We’re not promised right now.” How could I end his hope? How could I end mine? The war would be over one day and Jeremy would return to his family. I was fated to live alone unless I forged a new path.

  Dickon exhaled. “Will you write to me?”

  “Yes.” This much I could promise him.

  “I won’t lose you the next time,” he said. His crooked smile flickered with regret and determination.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  My quiet days at Hethering were interrupted by a trip to London to attend Daisy’s wedding. Her American beau, Ronald Gordon, had volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps and they made haste to wed before he left for France.

  Daisy’s mother had remarried and hosted the reception after Daisy and Ronald’s registry office wedding. Clifton and Blaise were there with their wives. I was speaking with Blaise’s wife Louise, who was quite young and awed by the elegant party guests. Ronald’s father was a wealthy banker, and upper class Boston vowels brayed from the mouths of grandly dressed men and women.

  A commotion was heard at the door and Chase Gordon entered. He dropped his cashmere coat over the butler’s arm.

  “You can’t get married without me, Ronnie,” he shouted above the din of excited voices. “It took a ship, a train and a taxi, but I’m here.” He gave his stepbrother a hearty handshake and put a smacking kiss on Daisy’s cheek. “Prettier than ever, sweetheart.”

  She was. Daisy was in love and happy and her natural prettiness bloomed into beauty. I felt spinsterish and as faded as an unwatered pot plant in her wake. But love and happiness had made Daisy kind.

  “Claris
sa is here,” I heard her say to Chase. “Let’s find her.”

  I didn’t run and hide, but leaned back against the wall and waited for their approach. Chase was the picture of a handsome, wealthy American: clean shaven, impeccable tailoring, and as he drew near I sniffed a spicy cologne redolent of leather and wealth.

  “Clarissa Marchmont,” he said. “How long has it been?”

  Jeremy’s wedding day, I thought, but refused to bring my cousin’s presence into this happy reunion.

  “I’ve dreamed about you,” he said.

  “I don’t believe that for a minute,” I replied, but felt a slow foolish smile spread across my face.

  “I’ve certainly written songs about you, inspired by you, I should say.”

  “That might be true.”

  “Just you wait and see, or hear, my dear.”

  He made his way to the piano and played softly until the crowd grew quiet. Then, in a light, but telling voice he began

  Every night I dream a dream,

  She lingers when I wake.

  People ask me why I seem

  To cherish my heartache.

  I hope the blessed day will come

  When she and I are wed.

  Then she will learn as she’s taught me

  The words the poets said.

  The verse had a lilting tune. It drew us all to the piano, but when he began the melody, I caught my breath at its beauty. He transcended the silly sentiment of our popular music.

  I love you dearest, I always will

  There’s not a moment that you don’t fill

  With happy dreams and loveliness

  My heart will break with tenderness.

  We wouldn’t let Chase stop until he’d played the melody at least two more times. Daisy left Ronald’s side to link her arm in mine.

  “Isn’t he wonderful?” she asked. “I can’t think where he gets such talent. He wrote that song for us you know, for Ronald and me, for our wedding day.”

  I smiled and nodded. The sweet perfume of her pink rose corsage brought me back to the occasion. “I hope you and Ronald will be very happy.”