After several minutes, she turned back to face me, the blue of her eyes growing more intense. “I’m finding that I grow tired very quickly these days,” she murmured. “And there’s been a great horned owl in the garden. It’s been hooting at night, and sometimes it keeps me awake.”
I immediately got up, saying that I would come back when she was feeling more energetic.
“Wait.” She held up her hand. “I want you to take charge of something.” She pointed to a large, flat package, wrapped in brown paper and sitting on her trunk. “I want you to take that parcel with you. It’s made me very anxious to have it here. I keep thinking that Ava or her lawyers are going to show up and claim it as part of Gregory’s estate. I know it will be safer with you.”
I walked over to her trunk and picked it up.
“Please be very careful!” she said urgently. “It’s very, very precious to me! I want you to open it, but not now. Not here. When you open it, you’ll see what I mean.
“Garth,” she called out faintly as I moved away. “Wait. Here are the pages I tore out. They’re rather private, you see—but I said I would trust you, didn’t I?”
I came back, and she slowly reached into her drawer. “You must also read these letters,” she said quietly, handing me a small packet. “Otherwise you won’t understand those—those other pages.”
She looked up at me searchingly as I took the letters. “But Garth, I want you to open that package. Then if you still don’t believe I am the Marged Brice of those diaries…”
She hesitated.
“Can you come back tomorrow?” she whispered hoarsely. “No, come back in a few days. Make sure you get a good rest. I want you to be well rested.”
“Yes, I’ll come back in a few days.”
I stopped in the doorway to look back at her.
She no longer seemed aware of my presence. The sun was streaming in through the window, throwing her face into shadow and giving her an ethereal aspect. All of a sudden, it looked as if the bones of her body were barely able to support the weight of her flesh. She raised her hands up in front of her—as if she were caressing something on her lap—and then sank back down into her chair.
Fifteen
“You put it in the trunk of your car?”
Clare was looking at me astounded.
“It was perfectly safe there.”
“It might be one of George Stewart’s canvases,” she continued. “You must be aware of how valuable his paintings are!”
I looked away, beginning to chafe slightly at her tone.
“Garth, I’m sorry.” Her voice softened, and she dropped her eyes. “That was just the curator in me speaking! Shall we take a look at it together?”
She began to clear off the dining room table.
By the time I brought the package over, she was standing like a surgeon, ready with a pair of scissors and a couple of clean cloths.
I placed it on the center of the table and stepped back.
Clare carefully cut the twine and then, even more carefully, started to peel off the paper tape at the back. I stood watching her, taking the bits of tape and paper from her as she removed them and setting them to one side.
It took us a good ten minutes to remove the exterior wrapping. Clare was extraordinarily thorough, peeling back each layer of paper one sheet at a time and very, very gently.
Underneath the exterior packaging were several additional layers of a light brown paper. I glanced up at Clare, but she had a look of deep concentration on her face and had already started to detach the first sheet. After what seemed to be countless strips of the light brown paper, we encountered a thick swaddling of heavy white fabric, then straw, and at last a layer of soft cloth.
Clare cautiously lifted the cloth away—and the back of a framed canvas appeared before us.
“It’s definitely a painting,” she said, looking up at me. Then she stepped away from the table. “You—you’ll have to turn it over. I’m shaking too much.”
I took a deep breath, not trusting my hands to lift it out.
I waited for a few seconds, then I gingerly lifted the frame out of the remaining paper and turned it over.
I gently blew off bits of straw from its surface, but even before they were completely cleared away, I recognized the canvas.
I was thunderstruck. “Isn’t this—isn’t this Sylvan Chapel?”
Clare placed her hand on my arm, gripping my wrist. “Yes!” she gasped. “That’s Stewart’s most famous painting!”
I could hear her swallow, and then she moved up closer to me, hugging my arm as if to support herself.
“But,” she whispered weakly, “it must be a copy—some sort of reproduction!”
But even I knew—at a glance—that it was not.
I shook my head. “No, the one in the National Gallery, the one that thousands of schoolchildren come to see each year—that’s the copy.”
We both looked up from the canvas at the same instant and stood staring deep into each other’s eyes.
She waited for me to speak.
“George Stewart must have painted a second Sylvan Chapel,” I said slowly. “But evidently he kept his word to Marged Brice. The original stayed with her.”
October 10, 1898
Dear Marged,
I am just returned from Montreal and have opened your letter awaiting me; alas, only to read of your engagement to George Stewart. I will be frank. It has distressed me almost beyond measure. You know the nature of my feelings toward you. I am sure that you can appreciate my disappointment in knowing that you do not, and feel that you cannot, return my affection.
Yet I do not mean to criticize you for this, Marged, for your letter is so gentle and considerate, and I only wish that I could be satisfied with your gratitude and esteem for me as a doctor and as your friend, but I cannot.
My feelings for you remain unchanged, and I wish you to know that I hope you will always regard me as someone who holds your welfare far above his own desires, and indeed, his disappointments. For this reason, I am urging you to take no rash action toward any marriage, at least until I might have had a chance to speak with you. I do not wish to intrude in your affairs, but as you know, my regard for you is of no ordinary order.
I have become aware of a report that relates to George Stewart, and I am positive that you must know nothing of it. I have thought a great deal about this and feel quite strongly that you must be made aware of it before you take any further steps in regard to Mr. Stewart. I cannot, however, communicate this information to you in a letter and feel most strongly that I must speak with you directly. I have therefore written to Dr. McTavish and requested that he arrange for us to meet. I have received his consent and have booked a ticket for Monday next.
Please know, Marged, that I have no desire to interfere with your happiness. You are far too dear to me for that to ever happen, and should you send me away forever, I would go with the best grace that I could muster, though with a heavy heart.
Forgive me if this letter causes you any anxiety, but this matter is of such a serious nature that I cannot and will not remain silent.
Yours always and faithfully,
Andrew Reid
October 23, 1898—Toronto/Davenport Station/6:00 a.m.
Dearest Marged,
I am writing this in haste as I wait for my train.
By now you will have heard of my departure from McTavish and he will have fulfilled his promise to give you this letter before expressing his own views on a matter that I must tell you of.
Yet you must believe me when I say that I knew nothing of these circumstances. Had I even the slightest suspicion of them, you must believe that I would have exercised much greater forbearance—that I would have loved you remains unchanged.
Yesterday, I met with Andrew Reid as you desired and told him of your w
ish that he communicate his reservations regarding our marriage directly to myself.
He did so—quite candidly.
McTavish was there, too. I cannot tell whether I am glad or not, but I do know that he always has your best interests at heart and fiercely protects them, and for this I am at least grateful.
Marged—I was married once. When I was twenty-two and studying to become a painter in Paris, I made a foolish and reckless choice. Against the counsel of my closest friends, I married a woman—an art student like myself—who also was studying under Frank McCauly, my former mentor.
I knew it to be a terrible mistake after the first two months. I have not the time to relate the events that led me to this conclusion, but I dearly regretted my precipitous marriage, as did she, and it was not long before we agreed to part.
I fulfilled my financial obligations to her generously, and we lived independent lives. We both agreed to leave the question of a more formal separation stand for the time being, and shortly afterward I left the Continent.
Sixteen months after our separation, I received news that she had been killed in a fire. I went back to Paris, and we buried what we believed to be her remains. McCauly—who was also injured in the fire and who himself only lived for a few months after it—verified that she had been killed. At that point, I thought that this chapter in my life was closed forever.
But yesterday Reid destroyed that hope.
It seems she was not killed—that somehow Lydia managed to escape the fire but was badly injured. She wandered alone and confused for several days until she was found by a physician who was in Paris on holiday. She ended up under his care—that is, under the care of a Dr. David Petersen, an associate of Andrew Reid.
Apparently Petersen fell in love with her and eventually married her. She, too, it seems, genuinely returned his affections but deceived him about her former marriage. She claimed that I had died in the fire and that she was now a widow. Eventually she even convinced herself that such was the case.
Shortly after their marriage, Petersen moved with her to London and then to Halifax, and they have lived there together and apparently quite happily for the past thirteen years, now with two sons. Reid went on at length about what fine and good boys they are.
Reid found out about this by sheer accident—or so he claims. He met with Dr. Petersen during a recent visit to Montreal—Dr. Petersen having taken his wife to a hospital there. I have learned that Lydia—Mrs. Petersen—suffers from a degenerative disease that has gradually destroyed her lungs and that the disease is likely to take her life in what may be only a few months. Apparently she has religious qualms about her duplicity to her husband and told Reid her secret while he was there. Dr. Petersen still does not know about her deception.
Marged, I will write to you again and at length about this. I will be in Montreal for a few days, where I am to confirm the identity of my former wife. There is a very faint possibility that all this is a mistake, but I have prepared myself for the worst.
My immediate reaction to this news is a determination to legally separate from her—yet Reid insists that I consider what consequences this would bring to her family, and especially to her sons.
It goes against my instincts to write to you in this way, but I have little choice at the moment. I feel that I must go to Montreal and settle this whole affair quickly. Clearly there are many futures at stake now, including those of Dr. Petersen and his children.
McTavish, however, insists that I immediately release you from our engagement.
I cannot bring myself to do this, but my conscience as well as my recognition of your young age force me to acknowledge the validity of McTavish’s position. Please believe that this and only this is what has prompted me—no, forced me!—to write this letter. That you would live to regret your promise to me…I am capable of selfishness, but not of that kind!
Marged, I believe that we will find a way to be together.
Let us both trust in each other, then. Let us both look to the moon each night—when we can—and know that the other is gazing on the same orb though hundreds of miles separate us.
My own Marged! My darling—now we are both in those open waters of yours. Let us both look to our hearts to guide us through them!
I will write as soon as I can from Montreal.
You have all my heart,
George
October 27, 1898
Dearest George,
At last I know! Dr. McT. has given me your letter, and I have read it yet again.
Your letter sits there on my desk: three seemingly innocent sheets of paper covered in your handwriting. Yet still it comforts me to know that our hands can somehow meet over these pages. Though it ends these terrible days of anxiety and waiting, it is still a devastating revelation to me.
George—how can it be that you are still married?
I am looking out at the moon, hovering in the sky outside my window. Why does it seem so fragile to me tonight? As if it might drop from the sky and disappear forever, and yet I know that it could not be so!
Oh, George, what have they said to you? How could it ever be a question of releasing you? They do not know it, but we are married! No one could convince me otherwise. In my heart, in my soul, in all of my limbs—in all of me, George, you are my husband.
Do you not remember?
It was just after dusk, and through the trees I could see you heading back from the shore; you seemed so carefree and happy, your good humor spilling out and filling up all the air. It seemed to me that the forest leaned toward you, as if all of them—the cedars, the pines, the aspen—all were curious about the joyful man in their midst.
We watched you, the trees and I—your form moving so gracefully along the path and the muscles of your chest and arms rippling in the waning light; your skin still wet and glistening from your swim in the Bay, a towel wrapped around your waist.
I had come to fetch you, just as we had planned—yet the Bay was rough, and I had to drop anchor beyond the Point and then come to you overland. You thought that I had changed my mind and would come in the morning, but of course I came just as I said I would.
And you were so beautiful! You saw it in my face, in my eyes, did you not? That I thought you so beautiful…
And was that not our true wedding night?
Though you brought me back to the cottage—don’t you remember the stars that night?
Were they not our nuptial guests?
And did not this very moon witness our vows—and the forest sanction our love?
Yours—wholly yours,
Marged
October 28, 1898—Montreal
My Own Marged,
Again I am writing in haste—forgive my brevity. This has been as a nightmare to me!
By now you know through McTavish that I am still legally married. But the doctors expect Lydia to live only a few months. It is for this reason alone that I am reluctant to bring a storm of shame and destruction into the lives of her husband and sons.
The solicitor who is now acting as my counsel has advised me to remain in Montreal, and so I shall be here at least for several weeks.
Marged—I know that I ask much of you—but can you come to me?
Reid has told me of his plans to join McTavish at his lodge until your family departs for the winter. He has been above board regarding his intentions toward you and has conveyed to me that, should you encourage him, he will renew his proposal.
I am not a man given to jealousy, but surely you can understand how much this has aggravated me, and yet I am powerless to stop him, as he has McTavish’s consent to stay with him.
For this reason, I feel that you must come to me here, since I cannot come to you.
Marged, it is the only way! I am confident that all will end well—that I will be free to marry you in a matter of weeks and that Lydia�
��s husband and boys will remain innocent of her deception.
Again—will you come to me? Will you trust in the future?
Marged, you must come to me!
I love you with all my heart.
George
Sixteen
“Are you sure this is the right address?” Clare whispered. “I saw a ‘T. Phelps’ on the mailbox.”
I gave the door another loud knock.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I whispered back. “This was Andrew Reid’s home. Edna told me that his housekeeper, Angela, lives here now. Tom was her husband.”
“Andrew Reid is the one who tried to prevent Marged Brice from marrying George?”
“Yes, I’ll fill you in on the details later, but that’s what I’ve gathered from the letters Miss Brice gave me.”
“Oh, I see. But why are we whispering?” Clare slipped her arm conspiratorially in mine.
The door inched open, and we both straightened up. The pungent smell of something burning in Mrs. Phelps’s oven wafted toward us.
“I think it might be lasagna,” Clare warned, keeping her voice low as we followed Mrs. Phelps back to a spare and spotless kitchen.
Eight minutes later, a thick and very crispy wedge of the stuff was sitting on a plate before me, and Mrs. Phelps was eyeing me anxiously. “It’s very good,” I told her, avoiding Clare’s doubtful glances and taking up another forkful. “Really, it’s very tasty.”
Mrs. Phelps smiled broadly and turned to Clare. “Now, what was it you wanted, dearie?”
Clare explained our errand while I did battle with the lasagna. Angela Phelps didn’t remember any family by the name of Brice, but she seemed very interested in the Longevity Project. “I’m only in my eighties,” she confessed. “Still a youngster, I guess, for your group. But Dr. Reid—why, he lived to one hundred and ten.”
“And you were Andrew Reid’s housekeeper for how many years?” I asked, wiping my mouth and politely refusing another helping.
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