Midsummer at Eyre Hall: Book Three Eyre Hall Trilogy

by Luccia Gray

  My mother turned to my wife. “What are your plans, Annette?”

  “I may return to my plantation in Jamaica, but for the time being, I’d like to spend some time in London.”

  “Of course, you are welcome to stay at our London house as long as you like, or come and stay at Manderley if you wish.”

  “My first journey will be to London. I need to think about what I may do, as far away from Eyre Hall as possible,” she said, still wiping her tears. She had shed too many, and as much as I wished I could soothe her despondency, at this moment I knew she would be happier without me.

  “Are you sure you can’t give yourselves a second chance? You are still so young.” My mother was as optimistic and naïve as ever.

  Fortunately Annette shook her head. “We have decided a divorce is best for both of us.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help?” said my mother

  “Nothing,” I replied. “It’s over, Mother. It has been over for some time. Annette has been patient.” I paused, remembering her tortured expression when I brought one of my mistresses to Eyre Hall. “Probably too patient with me, and I thank her for it, but our differences are irreconcilable.”

  My mother turned to me. “I’m sorry your marriage hasn’t worked out and I can understand that you no longer want to live in the same house, but what will happen to Eyre Hall and the Rochester Estate?”

  “That is why I’m telling you all this. You have to come back, Mother.”

  Michael stood furiously. “You will not tell your mother what she should do. And this had better not be one of your games!”

  “Eyre Hall is no game. Your son, James, is the heir, the only possible heir.” I remembered the red-haired, freckled little boy my mother had introduced me to when she arrived yesterday. He had his father’s amber eyes and tall, sturdy build, but the rest was my mother’s. “James must live here and grow to love and manage the estate. It’s the only option to keep it on foot and in the family.”

  Michael was stunned into silence.

  “Helen must stay at Manderley with her husband, so you have to come back Mother.” I turned to Michael. “The three of you must return.”

  My mother looked at Michael, waiting for him to speak. “You will not dictate where we live,” he said, pointing at me, and then he turned to my mother. “Helen still needs us at Manderley.”

  My mother left Annette’s side to stand by her husband. “Let’s discuss it, Michael,” she said, pulling her arm through his. When he nodded, I said what had been on my mind for years. “Michael, soon to be Lord Kirkpatrick, I hear.” I had been told that he had become a popular member of the Liberal Party, sitting on various select committees and was very close to Gladstone. What was this country coming to after so many years of liberalism? The next elections to be held at the end of the month would bring a Conservative government, at last. If Disraeli didn’t beat the damn Scot, the country would be completely ruined.

  “Eyre Hall and the Rochester Estate will be yours after all, Michael. Your ambition has no limits.”

  Michael tore his arm away from my mother’s. “I’ve heard enough. We are not coming back,” were his last words before storming out of the room. Max, who had been watching silently nodded at my mother and followed him out. Too bad he hadn’t lashed out at me, but at least I was sure he’d have an argument with my mother.

  As the door closed after Max, my mother pressed a finger into my chest.

  “Don’t you dare speak to Michael like that in my presence again. Make no mistake, John, I will always choose Michael over anybody or anything, including Eyre Hall. I thought you understood that. I will live wherever Michael wants to live, so you will have to convince him, not me.”

  I was forced to speak to Michael the following day, and we settled the matter the only way we could, by thrashing each other. I received the biggest beating by far. He told me I deserved a hiding for the way I had treated my mother and Annette, and perhaps he was right. In any case, it was the only way to make my mother come back to Eyre Hall, and I didn’t want my father’s legacy to be sold to another family, so I accepted my punishment. Max was our only witness, and I was sure he was there to make sure Michael didn’t kill me or injure me too severely. I trusted him. He was a gentleman too. I was sure he understood my position, and he didn’t seem to be a man who would tolerate a murder.

  My mother never saw the state I was in after the fight. It was Michael’s condition and I had to agree. Some of the damage was repaired. My broken arm and multiple bruises were cured, and I stopped bleeding while passing water after some months. Other injuries were more permanent. My nose was broken, changing my face permanently, and I never recovered the full use of my left arm from shoulder to fingers, but I had been lucky. He could easily have killed me, and quite frankly, no one would have cared. In fact, I wouldn’t have minded dying if it meant he’d be hanged.

  Mr. Smythe took care of the financial arrangements and negotiations over the following months, and by the summer my mother had returned to Eyre Hall, Annette had moved temporarily to London and I was living in Boston.

  ****

  Epilogue– Midsummer at Eyre Hall

  20th June 1879.

  It was almost Midsummer, and I was sitting at my mother’s old desk in her Tower Room at Eyre Hall, writing a letter to Catherine, my friend from Lowood with whom I had kept in touch over the years. She had written the nonsense story books I read my children, which were enhanced by her beautiful illustrations.

  My mother never used this study any more. She had moved to the modern new wing she built before we went to Jamaica to recover Michael. She rarely came upstairs to the old building, which she kept threatening to refurbish completely. I’d begged her not to, because I preferred the older, original furnishings, which had a serene and timeless beauty. Perhaps it reminded me of the years I missed my home, when I was torn from her side after birth, and I was recovering those early memories I never experienced.

  My mother told me I was born in the bedroom below the Tower, where Max and I slept when we visited Eyre Hall. I loved the smell of beeswax on the old oak furniture, and the rich, dark colours of the thick woollen carpets. I gazed into my mother’s long looking glass and wondered how many times she must have seen her reflection when I was still in her womb, and wondered what I would have looked like. She told me she had searched for my ghost in the room and sometimes imagined she had seen me. I wondered if I had left a part of myself behind, when I was kidnapped, the part I was now searching for.

  The evening was drowsy and peaceful. Max lay on the bed, taking a nap after our late lunch. I pushed the window and the smell of sweet, rich grass wafted up. I heard humming in the trees. Perhaps there was a nest. I needed to ask Simon to see to it before all the guests came.

  Simon and Beth had returned to Eyre Hall with their children, although they lived in their own cottage on the estate. Beth ran the household impeccably and delightfully since stiff Mrs. Leah retired. Running water and electricity, which had been installed when my mother and Michael returned to Eyre Hall five years ago, made a great difference. There was much less work, and my mother made sure all the new staff worked fair hours and were given the choice of living at Eyre Hall or on rented accommodation on the estate.

  Tomorrow was Midsummer’s Day, and we had arranged a party to celebrate the occasion. The gardens at Eyre Hall would be teaming with local children playing blind man’s bluff, running in wheelbarrow races, watching puppet shows, eating sandwiches and fairy cakes, licking ice-cream cones, and drinking lemonade, while a band played.

  I was overlooking the gardens below, as my mother would have done so often, pen in hand, writing her first novel, born out of the regret and sadness of my loss. They had told her I was stillborn, and she was eventually forced to believe it, after almost losing her mind.

  I could hear my mother in the garden now. She was laughing as she tied the blindfold at the back of James’s head, getting ready to play their version of blin
d man’s bluff with Beatrice, which was more like ‘catch’ with a blindfolded ‘catcher’. I didn’t know where she got the energy. My brother James and my daughter Beatrice were so boisterous; when they combined forces, they wore me out.

  Michael was sitting on the grass telling young Max, his nephew, William, and Ben, Simon’s son, some Bible stories with the help of a wooden Noah’s ark and model animals. Every now and then Beatrice ran over and toppled the animals with a sharp kick to infuriate her younger brother, and Michael pretended he was a lion, chasing her away on all fours.

  Michael had been much more than a father to me. He saved my life, united me with my mother, and acted as a father figure to the man I loved. Jane had been more than a mother. Even when I hadn’t known she was my mother, I had thought she was the most wonderful person in the world, and before she knew I was her daughter, she had loved me and looked after me, generously. I couldn’t love her more than I did, and although I had always felt loved by Michael and my mother, I also knew that they loved each other more than they could ever love anyone else.

  I never felt unloved, but I did often feel left out of their intense relationship. Max was much lonelier than I was when we met, having lost his parents and grandmother at an early age. I was sure that was one of the reasons we bonded from the start. We both felt abandoned, so we became friends before we became lovers, and that has helped us remain supportive throughout our marriage. I knew he was an honest, loving husband and father, and I wouldn’t want to be married to anyone else; in fact, I couldn’t imagine my life without Max. He was my rock, but sometimes I missed loving him with the overwhelming and consuming obsession with which my mother loved Michael.

  Michael, my mother and I moved into Manderley with Max when his father died. We all got on famously from the start. Max was always eager to please, and although he was sometimes awkward and prone to moodiness and sulking, Michael seemed to know the right time to praise him or reprimand him for his low marks or behaviour, and my mother was always able to smooth things over.

  We wrote hundreds of letters to each other while I was at Cheltenham and he was at Christ Church, and we spent every minute of the day together when we were at Manderley during the holidays. Max knew all the secret passages, which Michael or my mother hadn’t bothered to explore, so that we even spent some nights together, mostly talking, although we also made love. I had watched my mother closely, so I knew making love was what bound her to Michael with an invisible glue that made her eyes shine and her mood merry. I knew from the first time Max kissed me, the first day we met on Cove Beach, that his love would make my heart sing the way my mother’s did when she was with Michael.

  The worst day of my life was also the best. Michael and my mother were walking along the beach with James, while Max and I were alone at Cove Cottage; we must have been so immersed in kissing each other that we didn’t hear them.

  I’ll never forget Michael’s stern voice. “That’s it, Maximilian de Winter. You either marry Helen Eyre Rochester or fight with me.” Jane and I protested while Max seemed to have lost his speech. I was terrified that Michael would beat him to death, when suddenly Max threw himself down on one knee and offered me a small jewel box. “I love you Helen. I have loved you since the first day I saw you walking along this very beach, six years ago. Will you marry me?”

  They all stopped in their tracks, jaws dropped, while James clapped and giggled. I shouted “Yes!” and grabbed the box. I showed them my ring, before even putting it on.

  Michael surprised us all by laughing heartily. He pulled Max up and thumped him on the back. “You’ve been carrying that ring in your pocket for over a month. What were you waiting for? When were you going to propose to Helen?” Max reddened and complained that he was waiting for a special moment.

  Michael burst out laughing. “Glad I helped you find the special moment.”

  Apparently, the local jeweller had informed Michael that Max had ordered an engagement ring some time ago, so he knew exactly when it had arrived.

  Today, six years after our wedding, I looked at my loving husband who was having an afternoon nap by my side, on the bed in my mother’s study. We had married when I turned eighteen and had two lovely children, little Max and boisterous Beatrice.

  Max respected Michael’s authority from the day we moved into Manderley, and they got on amazingly well, except when they talked about politics. Max was more conservative, like his father, believing the social classes should never mingle, except in exceptional circumstances, such as Michael’s case. Only those who bettered themselves through the church or the military forces should be allowed to rise to an upper class. That was one of the reasons Max scorned his mother, who I learned had been a servant at Manderley. As his father and grandmother were dead, I was not able to ascertain the exact reason she left, or was forced to leave. In any case, I persuaded Max to visit his mother. She was an aloof, middle-aged woman, and although she was not much older than my mother, her hearing and eyesight were failing and she seemed ancient in comparison. Her only topic of conversation was the weather in winter and the flowers in her garden in summer. My mother persuaded Max to buy her a red brick house in a quiet village, over an hour’s journey away from Manderley, and send her a monthly allowance. We both thought she was a harmless influence, so we visited three times a year.

  Five years ago, my brother John decided he preferred America after all. He claimed women were more modest and obedient. Apparently he had decided English women are too independent and opinionated.

  It didn’t surprise me. I knew my brother had never taken a great interest in running Eyre Hall or the Rochester Estate. He would have been happy to let our mother run it, and devote his days to spending the income in a gentlemanly fashion. My mother always said he was just like his father, and although I never knew him, from what I’ve heard, she must have been right.

  Annette seemed to feel more at home than John at Eyre Hall, but once they divorced she moved to our London house. My mother and Michael had bought a town house near Lambeth Bridge, just across Parliament, because Michael was frequently called to the House of Lords, and he disliked hotels. There were some permanent staff, and we all used it when we were in London, so it was like our private hotel. Initially Annette had moved in temporarily, but she was still living there five years later, although she kept saying she would eventually like to return to Jamaica for a time. She owned a plantation in Spanish Town, where her uncle had lived, and she herself had spent her first twenty-two years there, although she had been born at Thornfield Hall, in this same spot where Eyre Hall was built.

  I had always been close to Annette. She was the only person at Eyre Hall who had been kind to me, apart from my mother. My brother John disliked me, and my half-sister Adele had never even acknowledged me as part of the family.

  Annette had confessed she’d like to remarry and have children, and I was sure it would not take her long to find a suitor because she was such a beautiful, intelligent, and wealthy woman. I told her she might meet Harry again in London. I knew he was working there, because Michael had been in touch with him during his frequent visits to the city, and he had visited Adele after her accident. We all knew Harry was still unmarried, but Annette told me she had no plans to stay in England or marry Harry. When I told Michael he should arrange an accidental meeting between the two he said he would not meddle because there’s a time for every purpose under heaven, and their time had passed. I wasn’t so sure Michael was right on this occasion, but time would tell.

  I supposed lack of children was one of the reasons my brother’s marriage hadn’t worked. Another reason was his possessive, volatile and violent nature. Michael was imposing and fierce like my brother, too, but he was always able to channel his strength into his projects or a good cause, whereas John was just a selfish and mean rascal.

  I imagined John and Annette’s relationship was powerful like lightning and tortuous like thunder. John was always too keen to get his own way and subjugate everyo
ne else. I supposed Annette, who also possessed a determined and fiery character, tired of bowing to his needs, while he ignored hers.

  After seven years of marriage, when it was obvious they wouldn’t be having children, and that they were no longer in love, a divorce seemed inevitable. John ignored Annette’s pleas at first and continuously embarrassed his wife with mistresses. I had even heard he was despicable enough to take one home, while she was in residence. Annette said she still loved him, in spite of the way in which he had behaved. I could never understand how she could love anyone who treated her so humiliatingly.

  When John suggested my mother, my brother and Michael return to Eyre Hall, it seemed the only option to keep the estate on foot. Michael refused to return at first, until John, who was sure he would have no children, offered to sell his part back to our mother, at a reasonable price. He had seen a suitable homestead in Boston and he had been offered a position at the Harvard School of Divinity, where he had studied some years earlier.

  My mother, Michael, and my brother James, had been living with us at Manderley until John and Annette left Eyre Hall. Michael sold the pilchard caning business when they left, and he was now spending more time in London on various Select Committees. He had been awarded a peerage by the queen, at Lord Shaftsbury’s proposal, but he didn’t like to be called Lord Kirkpatrick. He always said his duty was to serve the country, not show off a fancy name.

  So, my lucky brother James would inherit Eyre Hall and the Rochester Estate from his mother, and a great deal of wealth and the title of Lord Kirkpatrick, from his father. They would always have a room at Manderley, but I knew they would only visit occasionally. My mother had built Eyre Hall and pampered the estate for more than half of her life; it was only fitting that her son should continue with her legacy. She loved Cornwall, but her place was at Eyre Hall.

  I could hear the thumping sound of the children rushing up the staircase. “We’re playing hide and seek Helen,” said James, with his forefinger against his lips. “Don’t tell Mummy we’re here.” He slid under the bed with Beatrice, little Max, William and Ben, who were giggling away.