I nodded.
He sat back against the seat and said, “Thank God.” His smile was huge; I can still picture its breadth. The sun caught his face. He reached inside the breast pocket of his tunic and brought out his cigarette case, made of gold, from which he selected a long, white cigarette that seemed to glow by itself in the glare of the sun. He placed it in the corner of his mouth and struck a match. The flame wobbled as he held it up, though I couldn’t tell if this was because of a draft or a tremble in his fingers. I stared at his lips and felt the pulsing of my own blood against my skin. He shook out the match and blew a gentle breath of smoke to the side of the carriage, away from the window glass, and the pressure of his gaze forced me to look up into his eyes.
“This is only the beginning of us, darling,” he said. “I swear it.”
Chapter 15
Maitland Plantation, Florida, June 1922
I suppose I’m not surprised to see that Simon’s plantation is thriving. By his own testimony, he was an accomplished horticulturalist, a man with an inborn gift for making things grow or die, according to his own whim.
Still, the sight of all those rows of trees, thick-leaved and green, undulating along the gentle slopes toward the horizon, traps my breath in my chest. A fine haze drifts from the treetops toward the rising orange sun. The air is heavy with perfume. I think how much work it must have been, how much sweat and travail, to create an orchard so lush.
“How many acres again, Miss Bertram?”
“One thousand four hundred and thirty-three, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. Not all of it’s planted in trees, though. He’s got gardens and a whole plot set aside for the workers. Fields for the horses, too.”
“Horses?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. Didn’t you know? He’s got a whole string of them.”
“Of course. Horses. I remember.”
“My brother looks after them. He’s a good man with horses, my brother.”
“Does your whole family live here, then?”
She hesitates. “Yes, ma’am. There aren’t many of us. Just me, my brother, and mother.”
“How nice.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She chirps to the pony, and Evelyn, somewhat lulled by the motion of the cart as we drove out, lurches forward in my lap. “Hungry for breakfast, yet, Mrs. Fitzwilliam?”
“Certainly,” I say, but it’s a lie. I took a little coffee and a sweet roll from the tray in my room before coming downstairs, and an hour or two later it’s still enough for me. Something about the heat, I guess, stifling my ordinary appetite. It’s eighty-two degrees already, settling on our skin like a warm, moist Turkish towel, and who could face breakfast in that? Well, except Evelyn. When I found her this morning, playing about the kitchen while Miss Bertram instructed the cook, she had already eaten a whole poached egg on toast and drunk a tumbler of fresh orange juice. (Oranges, you understand, are in plentiful supply around here.) Now she squirms against my leg until I free her, and grasps the side of the cart with her long, plump fingers and calls out to the pony.
“She’s an angel,” says Miss Bertram.
“Most of the time,” I reply. “I wonder if Clara’s awake yet. She’d like to see all this, I think.”
“Clara? You mean Miss Fitzwilliam?”
“Yes, of course. She must be exhausted; she’s usually such an early riser.”
Miss Bertram chirps again to the pony, who’s slowed to a lazy walk, parting the haze with effort. “Didn’t she tell you? Western Union boy arrived last night. I don’t know what the telegram said, but she packed up and left first thing.”
“Left! Clara’s gone?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Miss Bertram stares straight ahead, between the ears of the pony. “Took her trunk to the Packard all by herself. Didn’t even say where she was going.”
But she left a note, which I discover when we return to the main house a quarter of an hour later. It’s tucked beneath the vase on my chest of drawers, so she must have entered before I awoke.
Dearest Virginia,
I’ve had a bit of terrible news from Miami Beach, a dear friend in straits, so I’m off for a few days to sort things out. Hope you don’t mind I’ve taken the motor. Give sweet Evs a kiss for me.
Much love,
C.
I gaze at the letters for some time, in much the same way as I read the note last night, until some whim strikes me and I open the top drawer, where I put the earlier message. I hold the two in the air, side by side, framed by orange blossoms, but the notepaper of one is smaller, a shade or two creamier, and while both are written in opaque black ink, the really expensive kind, Clara’s handwriting is quicker, spikier. They are really nothing alike.
But I already knew that, didn’t I? I already know whose hand wrote that note last night. I know the cast of those words like I know my own.
I glance up to my reflection in the mirror, and I’m surprised to see that I look rather well—at least, next to the white cloth face of the doll leaning against the glass. Still too thin, maybe, but my color is warmer, my eyes less anxious. I’ve taken an aspirin, according to the doctor’s instructions, and the headache that was threatening the sides of my skull has died away. Down the hall, I hear Evelyn squealing happily with Miss Bertram.
A low voice echoes in my ear.
Everything you seek is here.
I follow the squealing along a wide, high corridor until I arrive at Evelyn’s bedroom. “I was wondering where they put you last night, darling,” I say, and my daughter puts down a bright-colored alphabet block and runs to wrap her arms around my legs. I want to lift her up and blow raspberries into the warm skin of her tummy, as I usually greet her in the morning, but the act seems too raucous for my present tranquil mood, and besides, we’ve already reunited. Instead, I lower myself to the floor and return her embrace. Her hair smells of oranges.
“What a picture you are,” says Miss Bertram. “It’s a shame Mr. Fitzwilliam can’t see the two of you like this. He did want all these rooms for his children.”
I look past Evelyn’s head to the bedroom wall, which is painted a bright yellow, the color of sunshine. A pair of perfect windows, curtained in pink polka dots, gaze out on the second-floor balcony and the grounds beyond. On the white-painted bed, a pink-and-yellow quilt has been covered with sleeping dolls of all shapes and dresses.
“When was this room decorated?” I whisper.
“Oh, now, I don’t remember exactly. When the rest of the house was finished, I guess. Mr. Fitzwilliam always wanted a girl, you know. Boys, too, but there always had to be a girl. I think he has a soft spot. And now look! Here she is.”
I stroke Evelyn’s cheek with the backs of my fingers and swivel my gaze around the bookcases and dollhouses, the miniature table set for afternoon tea, the enormous stuffed bear in a rocking chair near the leftmost window, dressed in overalls, as if he had just returned from picking fruit in the orchard.
“Here she is,” I repeat.
There are four other rooms in the children’s wing: another decorated for a girl, two more in blues and greens, stocked with fire engines and soldiers. Each has a bookcase lined with all the childhood essentials: Peter Rabbit and Squirrel Nutkin, illustrated Bible stories and fairy tales. The fourth room contains a single bed and spare furniture of adult size. Miss Bertram explains that it’s meant for a nurse or nanny. “Though you don’t seem like the kind who hands her children off to the help all day, Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” she observes as she closes the door.
“No. I kept Evelyn in my own room during her first year.”
“That’s what I thought. Still, it’s a good thing to have another pair of hands around, especially if you’ve got more than one.”
“More than one?”
“More children, ma’am. Children do come, one after another.” She says it baldly, without tact, as we wander down the airy corridor toward the staircase, swinging Evelyn between us.
“Not in my case, however.”
“Why, you never know
what the future brings. You’re such a young thing. And then you don’t have a mama of your own to help out.”
“How do you know about my mother?”
“Mr. Fitzwilliam told me. I hope you don’t mind. I’m awfully sorry. I can’t think of much worse, for a child to grow up without her mama. Or her papa.”
“Well, I can’t help that.”
Miss Bertram doesn’t answer, and we reach the top of the staircase, long and sinuous, curving down to the front hall like the neck of a swan. I know I must question her more closely; I know I must urgently learn more about Miss Bertram’s role in my husband’s life. How she came by her knowledge. How much more she knows. How closely her intentions aligned with his.
And yet I find I haven’t a thing to say. Not a single query. A wholly unjustified contentment wells up inside me, as I regard the beauty of Simon’s house, the symmetry of its architecture, the marvelous sight of our daughter clambering down the steps of the elegant main staircase, gripping the rails as she goes, because she’s too small to reach the bannister. The light from the fan window floats in tiny motes before me. The raw edges of my nerves have all smoothed and rounded away. A smile forms on my lips.
After all, Miss Bertram lived here long before Simon, didn’t she? She belongs to the house, not to him.
“She’s a beautiful child,” says Miss Bertram. “How I wish Mr. Fitzwilliam could see her like this.”
“Yes,” I say, and I follow Miss Bertram down the stairs, while she takes up Evelyn’s small hand protectively in her own.
The strange thing is, I missed my mother most not when she first died but years later. When Evelyn was born.
The pregnancy and delivery, I suppose, went as easily as these things can go. My tall frame seemed to absorb the changes in my body without much fuss; until I was six or seven months along, you might hardly know I was expecting a baby at all. Even then, I maintained all my usual habits of exercise and activity, right up until the onset of labor itself, which occurred in the evening, as we were sitting together in the parlor, reading in quiet unity while Father’s gramophone played “Oh, Dry the Glist’ning Tear.” (I can still hear the melody in my head.) At first I thought the stiffening of my abdomen represented only the familiar pangs of false labor, but as the contractions grew and grew, each one coming sooner and harder than I expected, I realized what was happening. And for a few terrible minutes I didn’t know what to tell them. How do you explain to your father and your virgin sister that you’re about to give birth? What words, pray, do you utter to illustrate the delicate nature of your predicament?
Eventually Sophie noticed my distressed face and sprang to her feet, calling for the cook and the housemaid, both of whom had already gone home for the day. I think Father caught the drift and went for the telephone. Evelyn slid into the doctor’s hands only a few hours later, just under eight pounds, and a nurse came by arrangement to see us through the first two weeks.
But an unknown, disapproving, tight-lipped nurse from a Manhattan service is not a mother, is she? How can you tell her about your absolute unfamiliarity with babies and their ways, your paralytic terror at every sneeze and hiccup and change of color? How can you describe your fear and your ineptitude and your adoration? When it’s two o’clock in the morning and your baby fusses and fusses at your breast, and you’re weeping silently into her hair, shuddering chest, aching eyes, no idea what’s wrong, not the faintest clue why she won’t nurse and won’t sleep, who is there to embrace you and assure you that everything will be just fine? Who is there to take the baby into her warm, grandmotherly arms and ease your burden for a minute or two, so you’re not alone on this earth? Two o’clock in the morning with a newborn is the loneliest hour in world.
And then again, who is there to share your inexpressible joy when she sleeps at last, when her velvet cheeks go still and her tiny petal lips twitch, as if she’s dreaming of milk? Who is there to share this love that is more than love, this love that allows you—at last—to glimpse the nature of God’s love for the universe?
No one.
And I am reflecting on all this, remembering those feverish early weeks, as I recline on a picnic cloth and watch Miss Bertram play with Evelyn in Simon’s garden at Maitland. Some sort of counting game, I think; I’m too drowsy and content to investigate. Evelyn’s laughing and so is Miss Bertram, and now they rise and chase each other between the trees. No urgency requires me to follow them. For once, I don’t feel the familiar stir of uneasiness as Evelyn leaves me, in the company of another woman. The sweet floral scent of the orchard hangs in the hot air. Beneath the picnic cloth, the grass tickles my skin. I suppose I’m falling asleep, and I tell myself it’s a good thing, because my head is healing, my brain is healing from a serious blow.
When I waken, the sun’s hardly budged from its fierce quadrant in the sky. Maybe it was only a few minutes. It seems like hours, though. It seems like I’m a different person from the woman who went to sleep. I sit up and draw my knees to my chin, gazing at the neat row of boxwoods before me, and it occurs to me that boxwoods aren’t the sort of shrubbery you expect to find in the middle of tropical Florida. Although I’m no expert, am I?
So I rise and shake out my dress, and I wander toward the boxwoods, which reach nearly to my waist, clipped to a square, straight edge. A gap in the middle pleads to be stepped through, and though my head and my limbs weigh heavy with lassitude, drenched in the drowsiness that follows an afternoon nap, I make my way to the opening to discover what lies beyond. I find myself wandering past spicy eucalyptus, past verbena, past rows of densely blooming roses and flowers I can’t name, all arranged in a kind of tantalizing succession, so that you step past one charming planting and another one beckons around a gap, or the corner of a stone wall, until you arrive at a sunken oval edged in boxwood, planted in that natural, overgrown English style with a thousand blooming perennials engaged in intricate cohabitation. A low curved bench occupies the turf on the other end. I descend a few stone steps and tread into the center of the oval, thinking that I must be Alice and this is Wonderland, or else I’m still asleep on the picnic cloth. But do dreams smell like this? A succession of perfumes, one after another. The heady mixture of citrus and eucalyptus and warm, damp earth; the green scent of plants growing rampant. And I think, this is Simon’s garden; Simon planned and planted this.
I’ve entered the oval on its long side, and I’ve almost reached the center before I see the long, tranquil pool stretching from top to bottom. Almost like a canal, and at both ends—I can see them now—a pair of small stone fountains play softly. If you sit at that bench on the other side, I believe you can watch them.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”
How I jump! But it’s only Miss Bertram, speaking gently from the entrance behind me, wearing her long, low-waisted dress of blue cotton that I admired earlier. I smile in relief and agree that it’s a lovely garden indeed.
“He started plotting it out right away.” She folds her arms and follows the curving line of boxwoods with her eyes. “Mr. Fitzwilliam. He has a real love for gardening.”
“Yes, he does. Since he was a boy.”
She nods. “So he told me. It looks almost wild, doesn’t it? The flower beds, I mean. As if they just grew up there naturally. But I can tell you, he planned every detail. Dug each hole with his own hands. Wouldn’t let another man touch this part of the garden.”
“I can’t imagine where he found the time.”
“I guess he just wanted what he wanted. You know how it is, when you want something bad enough.”
“Who looks after it now?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Now that Simon’s gone. Who takes care of this garden?”
Miss Bertram hesitates. Her eyes flicker to one of the fountains and back again. I can hear them now, those fountains, rattling softly into the miniature canal, like the patter of a never-ending rain.
“My mama does,” she says, in a way that makes me think she di
dn’t want to have to say it.
“Your mother’s a gardener, too?”
“She always loved her flowers. And her house is close by.” Miss Bertram nods at some point over the boxwood hedge. “I know Mr. Fitzwilliam wouldn’t want any old gardener to look after his secret garden.”
The words secret garden strike a strange little chord inside me. “If it’s a secret, it’s not very well hidden,” I say. “I found it pretty easily, in fact.”
“Well, he would have wanted you to, wouldn’t he?”
Instead of answering her, I cross the canal in an awkward leap and walk to the bench. It’s longer and deeper than I thought; the kind of furniture on which you could lie down and take a nap, if you didn’t mind the stone mattress. Behind me, I hear the rustle of vegetation that betrays Miss Bertram’s approach.
“Where’s Evelyn?” I ask.
“My mama took her into the house for cookies.”
“Your mama?”
“Yes. Mama wanted to meet her. She’s Mr. Fitzwilliam’s daughter, after all. We’ve been just dying to see her.”
“Yes, she is.” I’m not really paying attention to her words, in fact, because in staring down at the surface of the bench I’ve noticed a set of small initials carved into marble at one end: my own.
And, at the other end, Simon’s.
“Do you like it?” asks Miss Bertram.
“He went to a lot of expense, that’s for certain.”
“I guess he did. He used to tell me that was why he worked so hard, to provide for you. So you wouldn’t be giving anything up, moving from your father’s house to his.”
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