Susan Speers

by My Cousin Jeremy

  While Dickon slept, I kept an eye on the men nearby, fetching water and blankets, writing letters when the VADs were busy.

  “We’re making a nurse of you,” Dickon said when he woke to find me bathing Geordie Aird’s face. Geordie’s wave had cheered my first visit to the ward, but his immobility resulted in pneumonia. Less than a week later, his bed was empty.

  Dickon saw my tears. “I loaned him my angel, but he needed his own,” he said, his smile slipping away. “I wouldn’t be so perky without your care.”

  He did improve and I was able to make several flying visits to Hethering to meet with tenants and balance the books. I learned Mr. Pickety came to Hethering every morning to meet with Henry and keep things in order. His generosity made my time with Dickon free from worry. I returned to Watford with ever larger parcels of Dora’s scones to share around.

  At last the day came when Dickon’s doctor waited to speak with me. “I’m releasing Dickon to your very good care,” he said, and presented me with a long list of instructions. “We’ve done everything we can for him at this juncture.”

  I looked up from the daunting paper. “What do you mean?”

  “There may be further procedures that will give your husband better use of his leg, but I want him rested and strong before we attempt them.”

  Dickon tried to catch my eye, but I looked away. He was alive, he was safe from the war. I had no intention he be further harmed.

  “We’ll see how I go, Clarry, then we’ll decide,” Dickon said, watching my face.

  “All right,” I said, vowing we’d never come back to Watford. At least Dickon thought to consult me. We were true partners, very married indeed.

  Chapter Thirty

  Ash Cooper borrowed a touring car to bring Dickon home and we fitted the broad rear seat with pillows to cushion his way. Ash drove with caution and as little speed as traffic would bear, but Dickon’s face was grey when we reached our stone house. I’d made the dining room into a first floor bedroom, fitting it out with the brass bed from upstairs covered in the quilt from Willow’s cottage.

  The parlor became my study, so I could stay as close to my husband as possible. It was sad to sacrifice our bedroom view, but as the days grew short, I didn’t have to worry about keeping the upstairs warm enough for an invalid. After a number of shaming experiences in the kitchen, I hired Aggie Corm from the village to market and cook for us. I kept our home and garden tidy and tended to Dickon.

  Matron’s instructions were numerous and detailed, but Dickon was a model patient and almost never complained. Henry came every morning from Hethering to help him shave and dress until he grew strong enough to manage on his own. I walked Henry to the gate one morning.

  “Thank you for your kindness,” I said with a full heart, and hoped my expression said more than those few words.

  “He’s a hero, Ma’am,” he said. “We’ll do right by him. The master — he’d want that.”

  I supposed he would. I tried hard to keep thoughts of Jeremy from my conscious mind, limiting them to his weekly letter.

  From the first night, Dickon insisted I sleep beside him.

  “I’ll hurt you,” I protested.

  “You won’t, I assure you.”

  The warmth and nearness fostered by our marriage bed had its inevitable temptations. Our lovemaking was awkward for me, and painful for Dickon, but when we lay spent in each other’s arms, he gave a lengthy sigh. “How long I’ve dreamed of you just so,” he said.

  “But, Dickon, I’m afraid —”

  “It doesn’t matter, whatever it costs, my leg hurts me either way. You’re my wife, and I love you, and I will love you.”

  Those weeks before the holidays were happy. On Christmas Eve, Aggie roasted a goose and we entertained the Picketys and Dora’s family in our home, a happy gathering around the enormous kitchen table. I saw Dickon relish the antics of the children with their Christmas candy.

  “I know what you want next Christmas,” I teased him. “Boy or girl?”

  “Both,” he said, and I prayed I could grant his wish.

  *****

  In the new year, he was well enough to leave on his own for a few hours. I spent my mornings at Hethering and Mr. Pickety or Amalia or Dora and the children would come to keep Dickon company. We shared Aggie’s good cooked lunch, and while my husband napped, I worked on sketches and text for my story about Belle’s rescue from the lake.

  I wondered if this endeavor would make me dwell on dangerous thoughts of her savior, but Jeremy the boy and Jeremy the man were two very different persons in my life. I don’t think I was unfaithful in my mind or my heart. If anything, I idealized the golden past, to escape the difficult present.

  *

  Dickon’s wounds healed, the debilitating infections subsided, but his leg remained weak, its misshapen, scarred muscles unable to bear his weight. As we worked every day with hot cloths and exercises, there was no discernible improvement. He soldiered on, determined to pin his heart on a hopeful future. I never said anything but encouraging words.

  The lie grew between us, poisoning the early days of 1917. I returned from Hethering one morning to find Dickon collapsed on the floor by my desk. His attempt to walk with a crutch had gone awry. Though he was pitifully thin, I could not lift him alone. Aggie’s arrival saved us.

  When we managed to get him back to bed, Aggie scuttled off to the kitchen. I closed the door behind her, then fetched a sponge, warm water and towels. The bath relaxed Dickon and he let down his guard. Tears of pain and disappointment coursed down his face while I helped him into fresh pajamas.

  “How will I do it, Clarry?” His mouth twisted down. “If I can’t cross the room and back, I can’t walk the grounds or through the forest. I’ll never see Willow’s cottage again.”

  “We’ll get a chair,” I said. “I can push you.”

  “You’re not strong enough.”

  “Ash, then, just until you’re better.”

  “I won’t get any better without surgery, Clarry. I want to do it, it’s time.”

  A freezing dread came over me, as if a serpent slipped into the room.

  Dickon saw my face. “You have to go through the bullets, Clarry. If you retreat, if you hide from battle, you’ll most likely die. Fight your way out — that’s the best chance. I want that chance.”

  I loved my husband, I loved our life in spite of its troubles. But I could leave this house, it wasn’t a prison for me. I could walk across the fields and take solace in the open air and the living land around me.

  “I saw your new book,” he said.

  “Dickon,” I didn’t know what to say. I should have discussed it with him, not left it to be found as evidence of divided loyalties.

  “He pipped me to the post, Jeremy. He always has.”

  “That was a long time ago,” I said.

  “He beat me to Willow’s door, didn’t he?”

  I hung my head. “You’re my husband.”

  “At his behest, with his blessing.”

  “I love you.”

  “Prove it.” Here was the toughness I’d sensed but never seen.

  “Let’s speak to the doctor,” I said. “I promise to listen.”

  Mr. MacDonald, the surgeon, paid us a special visit. He liked Dickon, I could tell that. The painful examination passed without a murmur. Dickon’s eyes were as bright as they’d ever been, he wasn’t afraid.

  The doctor and I sat on two chairs beside the bed. He thought for a long time before he spoke, matching his fingertips as if in prayer. “I think I can get you a decent result, Captain Scard,” he said at last. “Not pretty, it will never be that, but useful. This would be the time,” he said. “Carpe Diem. Seize the Day.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Dora and I brought Dickon to the hospital in Watford. We shared a room at the nearby inn. Matron received him back into her ward like a precious jewel loaned to a careless friend.

  “Do you think surgery is right for my husband?�
�� I asked her when he slept.

  “I cannot give judgment on Mr. MacDonald’s decision.” Her expression was guarded.

  “But if you could.” Tell me what to do, I begged her with my eyes.

  “Captain Scard knows what’s best for him. The patient must choose.”

  I sat with Dickon before they took him to the operating theatre.

  “I loved you from the beginning,” he said. “From the first time I saw you in the meadow.”

  “You had the loveliest smile, you still do.” I searched for words to tell him what he needed to know.

  “Don’t worry, Clarry, all will come right.” I nodded, as I thought he meant the ordeal ahead, but then he added. “I have enough love for both of us.”

  Tears spilled down my face. “You’ll need a tiny bit more,” I said over the lump in my throat.

  “Why’s that?” He lifted his hand to touch my cheek.

  “Because we’ll have our baby by next Christmas.” There it was, his lovely smile. “It’s true, I’ve suspected for some time now.”

  “I’m the happiest man,” he said. I held his hand until they wheeled him away.

  *

  Dora and I sat together in the hall. From the moment they parted me from Dickon, the freezing dread I felt before consumed me. I tried to pray. The words made no sense. I tried to speak to Dora. In our fearful silences I told myself I suffered a new mother’s fancies, but the body knows what the mind will not admit.

  All at once my heart began to beat with a slow, painful resonance that threatened to stop my breathing. Dora saw my distress and went down the hall in search of a cup of tea. That was when they sent Matron to find me.

  “Come with me, Mrs. Scard.” She took my arm in hers, pinning it to her side, keeping me on my feet as we walked to an empty consulting room.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” She put forth a chair, but I refused to sit until I knew.

  “You must be very brave.”

  At that moment, Mr. MacDonald entered. His eyes were shadowed and weary. He wore a clean coat, but there was a curl of dried blood on his trouser leg. My husband’s blood.

  “Your husband suffered an embolism during the procedure, Mrs. Scard, a blood clot broke away and stopped his heart. We did everything we could to save him, but he died on the table.”

  Matron helped me to sit down. “But if he hadn’t had the surgery?” I had to know.

  “He took his best chance. His strength was failing, I think you knew that. He could have lived on for a time, bedridden, ever weaker, but an infection like pneumonia or influenza would have taken him from you.”

  Matron came with me to tell Dora. She helped me make arrangements to bring Dickon’s body home. She telephoned Mr. Pickety. She packed our things at the inn and walked us to the train. Dora wept softly the entire time. My tears were frozen within me in the cold that never released its grip.

  Before we boarded, I turned to Matron, who stood resolute beside us, her cape blowing in the soughing wind. “What is your name, Matron?”

  “Laura. Laura Benes.”

  “My name is Clarissa.”

  *****

  I buried my husband on our first wedding anniversary. The coursing rain washed easy tears from my face, but there was a pain within me that would not subside. Amalia made tea and sandwiches for those who came to stand with us by Dickon’s grave. After a decent interval, I fled the vicarage for our home.

  The stone house was cold and damp. I had no heart to light a fire and huddled in a chair, still wrapped in my wet coat. The mist relented to let watery moonlight chill my happy memories until the cold became a burning inner pain I could no longer bear.

  I ran to Hethering and pounded on the door. By the time Henry appeared in a hastily donned dressing gown, I could not stand unassisted.

  He telephoned Amalia who summoned the doctor. In the dark hours of the next morning, I miscarried my child, my husband’s last happiness.

  Jeremy’s disappearance battered me, Dickon’s death crushed me, but losing our precious baby took my hope. I turned my face to the wall and let a small fever bloom into menace.

  I didn’t mind the heat that scorched me. I preferred it to the cold I’d felt since Dickon’s surgery began. I lay passive for Dora and Amalia’s nursing, but I refused to eat. Suppose I died too, I mused, weak from blood loss and a febrile convulsion. I would see Dickon again, and Jeremy, no doubt. That should prove interesting.

  I woke in the evening as deft but not tender hands rearranged my bed linen. An unfamiliar face — no, a familiar one. It was Matron. I was dreaming.

  “You’re not dreaming,” she said. “Mrs. Cooper sent for me.”

  “You should be with the men in Watford.”

  “A bit of enforced holiday,” she said. “Some ill chosen words to Mr. McDonald.”

  “Then you should rest,” I said.

  “Bah. One weak woman is a holiday to me.”

  “I don’t need a nurse.”

  “Yes, you — oh! You think you’ll slip away, do you? Bad things have happened and you’ll just give in. Nice and tidy.”

  I closed my eyes. This had to be a fever fancy. Then I gasped and coughed, my throat on fire.

  “Smelling salts.” Matron tucked them back into her pinny pocket. “Life is hard, Mrs. Scard. You’re no better than the rest of us cursed by tragedy and an iron constitution.” She wiped my streaming eyes. “You won’t die. Better make the best of it.”

  There was a knock at the door and she took Cook’s tray. “I’ll pamper you for a day or two, then it’s on to heartening fare.”

  A spoonful of delicious chicken broth was held before me. My sore nose twitched but I would not give in. A tapeworm could crawl up my throat before I—

  “Swallow, Mrs. Scard,” said Matron in the tones that reduced soldiers to little boys.

  I doubted I could win a wrestling match with my Amazon caregiver so I swallowed and felt my traitor body rejoice. “Call me Clarissa,” I said.

  Her whip thin eyebrows arched. “You may call me Laura when you do as I say.”

  *****

  Laura stayed with me until I was up and around, able to take short walks in spring’s uncertain sunshine. Then the military hospital came to their senses and called her back to duty.

  “Very satisfying,” she said as we sat with our knitting. She’d admired my embroidery, but I was bereft of ideas for a new design, so she taught me to knit.

  “Hard to believe someone who can create such beauty with thread didn’t learn how to knit.”

  “I never found it interesting,” I said.

  “It’s not meant to be interesting,” Laura snapped. “It’s meant to be useful.” She caught her ball of yarn before it escaped her lap. “When you’ve mastered a stitch or two and made a decent scarf, I’ll show you how interesting knitting can be.”

  She left before I learned more than knit and purl and how to rescue a dropped stitch, just as she rescued my dropped life. Her last words surprised me.

  “Your physical health is better,” she said after a closed door consult with my doctor. “You’ll continue to improve if you follow my instructions. But when you’re strong enough, your sorrow will find you.”

  “But I —”

  “Trust me, Clarissa. It will come for you soon enough. Stay strong. Drink your soup.”

  “I wish you could stay.”

  “It’s time,” she said. “They need me more than you do now. And I’m not easy company, admit it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, when she left the next morning, with my first completed scarf, wrapped for a soldier. “Come back soon.”

  “Shelter me again when I’m forced to take leave,” she said. “It will happen.”

  I laughed. “I’ll write.”

  “If I’ve time to reply,” she said, “I won’t be doing my job.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Because I was better, the solicitors arrived and Dickon’s will was read. I sat closeted with Henry Putnam an
d Abel Hicks and Dora and Ash Cooper who represented Dickon’s family of birth. I signed over all Scard land to his brothers and sisters in equal portions, as Dora advised.

  “All but one parcel,” she said. “He spoke to me quite plain about this, Clarry. It’s his legacy for you.” She pushed forward an envelope with a single deed. It was the forested hill adjoining Willow’s cottage. It was the fifth folly. That was when my sorrow found me.

  I fought it with the hour of work the doctor allowed me, with Laura’s regimen of meals and walks. I knit ten rows every day, weeping into the soggy mess in my lap.

  “I want my mother,” I said aloud, “I want her.” Then I wept again at the thought of Jeremy alone behind the line, starved or beaten, without a memory of his mother for solace. I hoped he thought of me.

  I climbed the stairs to my mother’s sitting room every day and sat for hours. I dusted her china figurines, I looked over her albums of pressed flowers. I sat at her piano, my cheek laid against the smooth wood of its cover.

  Daisy sent a note, a brief scrawl on overscented primrose paper. It seemed oddly appropriate to read her words in my mother’s room. “I’m sorry,” she wrote. “I haven’t behaved well, but I know what it is to lose a beloved husband and I pity you.”

  I thought of her life now. Would mine be so empty?

  *****

  One afternoon I lay drowsing on my mother’s chaise, exhausted from weeping. I dreamed she sat at her piano, her long cool fingers moving over the keys. Not Für Elise, not Beethoven, but Chopin. Not Chopin, but…

  I came awake, my mouth dry, my head pulsing. I still heard music. I sprang up and ran from the room, down the stairs.

  Chase Gordon sat at the piano, his eyes closed until he heard my footsteps.

  “There you are,” he said.

  Henry brought us tea, and I ate with real appetite for the first time since Laura left.