Susan Speers Read online

  Jeremy’s years at school passed in long stretches of quiet work and longing, broken by brief periods of pure happiness when he came home for holidays. He grew into a tall, handsome man. Four years younger, I was still a girl. He wrote brilliant exams, and headed off to university to study landscape architecture and diplomacy, an interest he discovered while a citizen of the world my father denied me.

  *****

  As I grew into womanhood, I worried Jeremy would outgrow me. I fretted more and more that his world was larger than mine. He would grow bored and forsake me for a sophisticated beauty.

  Another sorrow pressed my heart. Willow’s health failed, and she was often in bed. I tried to make her smile with silly fairy stories while I coaxed her to drink some tea and eat a bit.

  One afternoon, she clutched my hand. “Don’t let them take your Jemmy away. They took Léon.” She drifted off into uneasy sleep.

  “My sister was Willow’s companion when she was a young lady,” Miss Juniot explained. “They traveled in France. Willow found a friend, the younger son of a prominent family. He knew Willow’s difficulties, but he adored her. The parents parted them despite their happiness. They both suffered. Not long after, he drowned. They called it a boating accident.”

  Miss Juniot pursed her lips. “Willow never mentions Léon. Sometimes she calls his name in her sleep.”

  On the days Willow rallied, she stitched in frantic haste on a roll of linen she hid from me. “It’s a secret,” she said, with a wan facsimile of the mischievous smile I loved. I tried not to peek, but grew anxious as she completed the border. What would rally her when it was done?

  Nothing. She found no further happiness. Willow was clever, if damaged. She undid the complicated lock on her bedroom window. They found her body floating in the pond, her cinnamon hair drifting in its indigo waters.

  I remembered her words about Jeremy. “If you lose him, find him. I lost my Léon, I’ll find him one day.”

  Jeremy came home without permission to stand at my side during Willow’s simple funeral service. He held my hand in defiance of Father, and dried my tears with the handkerchief I gave him that first Christmas.

  Dickon Scard stood alone in the last pew, dressed in fine clothes that made me remember his career in London. He, too, had left our county to study at university. He was gone before I could speak to him, no one else acknowledged his presence.

  While the few mourners drank tea and ate frosted cakes, Miss Juniot gave me a parcel wrapped in grass green paper. “Willow left this in your work bag.”

  I couldn’t bear to open it. I put it under my pillow and ran to meet Jeremy at our tower.

  He was pacing its miniature sward of clipped grass.

  “I have to go back.”

  “Will you return to me?” Willow’s sorrow was a warning.

  “How can you ask me that?”

  “You live in the world. I’m trapped here. Bit by bit Father is parting us.”

  “He never will.” Jeremy scowled at Hethering in the distance. I imagined his sharp eyes fixed on the window of Father’s study.

  “You’re distracted. Your letters are brief.”

  Jeremy took my hand. “I keep a distance, Clarissa, because you are still a girl.” He silenced my protest with a gentle kiss. “I will never leave you.”

  I kissed him back. I was more than a girl. “I’ll never let you go.”

  *****

  Father ordered Jeremy to spend the Easter holiday with schoolmates. He wanted Hethering’s master to have a broad knowledge of the world. He wanted to punish Jeremy for leaving school without permission to comfort me.

  Jeremy used his diplomatic skills to effect a compromise. He spent weekends with a congenial member of his study group, then invited the fellow home for the holiday. Our time together would not be diminished. I was curious to meet Christopher Fforde, a name that had figured in Jemmy’s letters since his days at the Darby School.

  On their arrival, Daisy and I were invited to tea at Leighton House. We entered the musty drawing room to find Jeremy standing with two young people. The young man was Christopher Fforde, I thought. The young lady turned to me and smiled.

  “I’m Caroline Fforde,” she said, “Chris is my brother. You must be Clarissa. You’re just as he described.”

  I had no thought of jealousy. I looked into her hazel eyes and found a friend. Daisy’s presence faded to a distant annoying buzz, which was just as well for she was smitten with Caroline’s brother.

  I liked Caroline. I liked everything about her. I liked spending time in her company, I liked her neat clothing and the little gold timepiece pinned at her waist. Like me, she loved to read and we sat under the trees sharing favorite books and gossiping about the characters as if they were real people. I wanted to be just like Caroline Fforde.

  We had many happy times. Daisy, Clifton and Blaise shared afternoon teas and picnics with us. Caroline was kind to Clifton and the tightness behind his eyes lessened in her presence. Daisy trailed after Christopher who doted on her pretty face and childish voice, but Caroline watched them with an amused, knowing look. Blaise was besotted with our cook’s tender pastry while Jemmy’s face, pale from study turned brown in the sunshine he loved best. My father approved of Caroline, and his occasional visits among us were benevolent.

  “These cushion covers are beautiful, Clarry,” Caro told me one rainy afternoon, when we sat together in the small sitting room connected to my bedchamber. “Did you make them?”

  “I had a teacher, a special person who helped me.” It was still difficult for me to talk about Willow. I hadn’t been able to look at her last gift to me.

  “Jeremy told me about your dear friend.” Caro was too kind to remark on my tears. Her sympathy helped me to speak about Willow’s artistry. I opened my workbag and Caro found the piece I’d been too sad to examine. Together we unrolled it and admired Willow’s exquisite stitches.

  My eyes were still filmed with tears, when Caro looked closely at Willow’s last design. “Is this a garden, Clarry?” she asked me. “Or is it, do you think it might be a kind of map?”

  *****

  Jeremy and Christopher returned to school the next day and Caroline went home to prepare for her debut. In a matter of months Jem would return to celebrate his twenty-first birthday on Mid-Summer’s Day.

  Life at Hethering was changing. Miss Prinn and Mr. Pickety had a quiet wedding in the vicar’s study and opened a day school in our village. Miss Prinn convinced Father to send me and Daisy to a nearby school for two years of ‘finishing’. We’d begin at the fall term. I didn’t dare hope for a debut, but Daisy teased her mother for one.

  After our guests departed, I unrolled Willow’s last embroidery and scrutinized its stitches. I couldn’t see what Caroline did. I took a broad sheet of paper, my pencils and watercolor paints and spent day after day in our old schoolroom, reproducing as best I could Willow’s artistry. Perhaps if I retraced the marks her hands made I could understand them.

  Daisy abandoned me to befriend the new curate. I suspected her of only practicing her wiles and was sorry to see his painful blushes.

  When my map was finished I took it with me along the paths through the Marchgate Wood to Willow’s meadow. I stood with her pond behind me, like the satin stitched blue oval at the bottom left of her embroidered linen. The far wood was to my right, a swath of countless green crosses on the map. Beyond that was couching in gold, then thickly woven green crosses, shadowed with brown silk. The delicate fabric was stiff with them.

  I made my way through the far wood and into the meadow thick with golden grain. I squinted at the figure of a man coming toward me. It was Dickon Scard, just as it had been so many years before.

  “You’re home now?” I asked him, smiling while I held out my hand.

  “My father is poorly. What have you there?”

  I gave him my paper. “Willow stitched this for me in silk on linen.”

  “There’s more than one way to make a map
.” He too saw Willow’s purpose. His manicured fingers, the mark of a city man, touched on a circle of white woven lines. “Do you know what this is?”

  “A fairy ring is my guess. We loved the fairies.” I had no shame to confess this to him.

  “Come with me.” We plunged into a darker, wilder piece of woodland, and yet beneath our feet were traces of an overgrown path. I paused when a shaft of sunlight blazed into the green darkness, and saw that a single line of black led through the thicket of crosses, Willow’s fanciful trees. I thought it was shading, but now I saw evidence of the trail we followed.

  Dickon and I climbed higher as the path grew steep. Then it flattened. I looked around for Willow’s circle of open ground, but beyond a circle of birches was something that stopped my breath.

  Chapter Eight

  Hethering celebrated Jeremy’s coming of age with a formal ball. Daisy’s mother helped Father with the arrangements. Daisy was eighteen and this was her introduction to society. I was seventeen and overlooked in the planning, but I did have a new dress of silver white silk with a thin periwinkle sash.

  Father sent invitations to local society, distant relatives and Jeremy’s schoolmates. Our only disappointment was Caroline Fforde, homebound with a broken leg suffered in a fall from her horse. Hethering’s ballroom was opened, cleaned and polished, and I helped decorate it with garlands of Jemmy’s favorite roses. He and Christopher Fforde arrived late the night before the party. I was already deep in sleep from my exertions and didn’t hear the pebbles he tossed at my window.

  I entered the ballroom well after Daisy’s formal arrival, just in time to hear Father’s toast his heir presumptive.

  “I give you Jeremy Marchmont, the next master of Hethering.” Amid a chorus of ‘hear hears’ Father spoke on. “Jeremy has made us proud…at school. We look forward to his return.”

  Across the length of the room, I saw that Father’s hair was now completely white and that his hand trembled when he raised his glass. He turned to Jeremy, clearly expecting a gracious reply, but when I too looked at Jem, he was smiling at me.

  Nodding to the orchestra leader, he crossed the room, took my hand and led me into the first dance. Christopher Fforde hurried to claim Daisy and Jemmy’s birthday ball began the way he wanted.

  Father had to put a pleasant face over his fury, but I didn’t care. Jem was of age and out of his control. The estate wasn’t entailed, we could make our life together until Father saw reason. Father must give way to us, just as our teachers had done so long ago.

  Jeremy and I savored our first turns around the room, smiling into each others’ eyes with no need of words. He spoke first.

  “You slept through my pebbles, little one, beautiful little one.” He had grown even taller and towered over me. “I have something to give you.” Father’s gold signet ring flashed on his right hand.

  “And I have your birthday gift to show — er give you,” I replied.

  “Your father will send you off to bed early,” he predicted. “When he does, escape and meet me at the tower.”

  “Not the tower tonight, Willow’s cottage.”

  “As you wish,” his smile was so sweet, my heart skipped.

  He was right about my father, like a chess player who anticipated his opponent’s moves from bitter experience. He was right. Before midnight, I was sent to bed. My father who never courted embarrassment in society humiliated me with an order pronounced before all assembled.

  I cast down my dancing eyes, but not before I saw Daisy’s smirk. “Yes, Father,” I murmured, and left. I hoped the emotion flooding my face would be read as embarrassment.

  *****

  Twenty minutes later, Jem and I met on the far side of Willow’s former home. He was late, but carried a velvet cloak under his arm.

  “I knew you’d forget the night’s chill.” He wrapped me in its warmth. “Shall I give you my gift?” His voice was husky.

  “Mine first,” I insisted and took him by the hand.

  We crossed the far woodland and the field into the thick forest. I found the hidden path and pulled Jeremy after me, trying hard not to laugh in anticipation. We had to stop several times to free the cloak from brambles and twigs, but we pressed on.

  At last we stood at the crest of the hilltop.

  “Close your eyes,” I told him. “There’s a clearing. I won’t let you fall.” I had spent many hours here cutting away the brambles to make my gift as perfect as I could.

  A path of moonlight guided our final steps. I pulled Jem beyond the line of birch trees into the clearing and turned him for the best view.

  “Open your eyes, Jeremy.” He did and grew so still I knew he’d forgotten to breathe.

  Before us was an exquisite replica of Versailles’ Temple d’Amour, Mad Madison Marchmont’s fifth and final folly, his masterpiece. Its steps and columns and oval floor were made of marble that glowed in the moonlight. Its proportions were perfect. It was built for two. Below us spread Hethering’s land and buildings. Bright light from the third storey ballroom spilled across the lawns.

  “Happy birthday, Jem,” I said as he walked slowly around the folly. He ran his hands over the carved columns, he measured their height with the stretch of his arms. “Your kingdom is complete.”

  He was speechless but smiling broad enough to crack his face.

  “Breathe, Jemmy,” I implored him. At least tell me you like it.”

  He completed his circle and took me in his arms. “I like it Clarry, I like it very much.” His lips rested by my ear. “But I love you, you marvelous girl.” He let me go and held out his hand. Together we climbed the shallow steps. “This will be the temple of our love,” he vowed.

  We stood together for a long time, gazing down at Hethering, then with a mutual sigh we embraced and began our life as lovers. We lay together on the soft folds of the velvet cloak. Every kiss, every touch felt right, but the pleasure they brought led us further and further into ecstasies well beyond our experience. Jemmy stopped just short of our union.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I love you.”

  “We will marry,” he said, “as soon as I can arrange it.”

  Our hearts slowed and our blood cooled. He rearranged my clothing and wrapped me in the cloak with such loving hands that the soft night wind was no match for his tenderness. I knew I would remember this night forever.

  Chapter Nine

  We walked back as day broke over our land, our feet on lavender rose clouds, scuffling pinprick fading stars.

  Father waited at the door. “Pack your bags, Clarissa.”

  My life with Jeremy began this moment. I ran up the stairs in happy haste.

  “A word with you, sir.” Jemmy said.

  “At once.” Father’s voice was dead with anger.

  I chose my prettiest clothes for Jeremy. I added my journal, Willow’s embroidery and Belle to the valise. As I looked out over the rose gardens in farewell, I saw a stooped figure stumble through rows of exorbitant blooms.

  A laggard reveler from Jem’s party? No.

  It was Jeremy himself, his head in his hands, his shoulders heaving. He bent forward to be sick then staggered toward the ornamental pond.

  What had Father done? I started to run after Jem and discovered my bedroom door was locked. I had no time to waste.

  Secreted in my embroidery bag, sewn into an unfinished pillow top was a key to my sitting room door. I’d always known that I’d have to fight my way free of Father. The sitting room opened onto a back corridor. I listened at the keyhole, and freed myself to escape down the servants’ stair.

  I ran to the lake, hidden from view behind a long boxwood hedge and arrived to see Jemmy collapsed over the railing of our Ponte Vecchio. I’d avoided this folly since Jemmy’s banishment, and the entire structure was rickety.

  “Don’t fall.” I begged him.

  “I’d jump if there were a chance of drowning. I wish I were dead!”

  “What did Father say? What did he d
o? It can’t matter, we have each other.”

  “Don’t.” He held up his hand. Had he ever rejected me before? “We’re lost, all is lost. We can’t marry, we can’t love each other.”

  “Don’t be silly, we do love each other. I don’t care about vows. We’ll be together, no matter what.”

  “We can’t. Why didn’t we see it? There’s madness in our family, in our blood, Clarry. Mad Madison Marchmont, Willow, it was all around us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re cousins, Clarry, full blood cousins.”

  “Jeremy, cousins marry all the time. My father and mother were cousins.”

  He groaned. “Our fathers are brothers. It’s Marchmont blood that carries the taint. Our babies will suffer, our children will die.”

  “We won’t have children.”

  “I won’t deny you babies. I know how you love them.”

  “I don’t care, I swear it.” I would leave Belle behind.

  He didn’t hear me. His breath grew ragged. “I’m going abroad, I can’t bear England without you.”

  “But Hethering?” Surely that would hold him.

  “I can’t think about it now.” He faced me in the unforgiving light of dawn. “God bless you, Clarry.” He turned and walked away.

  As I ran after him, the rotten boards began to crumble beneath my feet and I had to retreat. Jeremy disappeared into the forest.

  *****

  I found Father in his study, a ledger open before him, but he stared at his father’s portrait on the wall opposite his desk.

  “You are an evil, filthy minded old man.” I was shocked by the hateful words spewed straight from my broken heart. “When you are dead we’ll be together.”

  Father did not even blink. “No, Clarissa, you will not.”

  “You can’t bear to see us happy.”