The Loves of Leopold Singer

by L. K. Rigel

  There were two letters, one from the Duke of Gohrum addressed to Mrs. Peter. Elizabeth rose to take it to the housekeeper, but was interrupted by Mrs. Johns from the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, my lady.” The cook shifted her weight and worried the corner of her apron clutched in her fingers. “I feel I must say something. It’s Mrs. Peter.”

  Elizabeth could hardly believe her ears, but there wasn’t a dishonest or devious hair on Mrs. Johns’s head.

  “She’s waiting just outside, my lady.”

  “Very well.” Unnerved, Elizabeth set the letter aside as Mrs. Johns called Mrs. Peter in.

  The housekeeper appeared both angry and defiant, but not guilty which was somewhat relieving. Her expression was familiar, but again Elizabeth couldn’t place it.

  “Please stay, Mrs. Johns,” she said. The cook grimaced and stopped near the door. Poor Mrs. Johns hated all dramatics.

  “You wanted to see me, my lady?” Mrs. Peter said

  “I don’t know what to say. Mrs. Johns tells me she saw you remove a book from this room. You mustn’t fault her. It was her duty to tell me, and she did not like to do it. I don’t understand. Are you not paid well?”

  Mrs. Peter’s defiance changed to puzzlement, and then astonishment. “You think I took the book to sell it?”

  “I hardly think you’d be taking a volume of Rousseau to read it,” Elizabeth said. But then she stopped and considered. Mrs. Peter had proved to be just the intelligent housekeeper she had hoped for, and in the last two years Elizabeth had wondered more than once about her education. She added, “Would you?”

  “Well, yes, my lady. I’ve been reading from your collection all this time. I didn’t think you minded.”

  “You read Rousseau.” From Mrs. Peter’s expression, it could be true. “And what is it you find interesting in Rousseau?”

  “I find his theories on the education of children to be exciting and worthy—although, unlike him, I believe girls as well as boys have a natural right to education. I find the Solitary Walker humorous, profound, and revolutionary in its celebration of individual human dignity. I find the Confessions silly and self-indulgent.”

  “I find your vocabulary most remarkable, Mrs. Peter. Don’t you, Mrs. Johns?” Elizabeth smiled. It clicked. She knew where she’d seen those eyes, that expression.

  “Remarkable, my lady,” said Mrs. Johns. “I didn’t understand a quarter of it, I’m sure.”

  “Especially,” Elizabeth continued, “a certain phrase. Silly and self-indulgent. I confess I find that quite remarkable.”

  In the charged silence, Elizabeth and Susan regarded each other with a mixture of discovery and disbelief. “I know who you are.” Elizabeth said at last.

  “I am no one, my lady.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Elizabeth said. “I once knew a man who loved philosophy. I was very young. And anyway, I never could stand theoretical hemming and hawing. But I adored this man. He treated me as if…as if I had the right to my own thoughts. He used to call one of the books he read silly and self-indulgent, and I swear it was something by Rousseau. His name was Mr. John Gray.”

  Mrs. Peter gripped the back of the chair beside her.

  “John Gray was my uncle,” Elizabeth continued. “Did you know him?”

  “He was my father.”

  “You are the fairy’s daughter. My cousin.” Elizabeth remembered the ash woods of her grandfather’s estate and butterflies in the sun, and the angry, defiant girl with strange gray eyes. “You have been reading these books since you came to Laurelwood?”

  “In my free time, yes.”

  “And I thought I knew everything that happened under this roof. Are you a generalist, or do you specialize?”

  “I like everything. Natural science, history, philosophy.”

  “No novels?” Elizabeth was teasing now, “no Monk Lewis?”

  Susan smiled. “I have read a novel or two, my lady.”

  “Everything seems to be quite in order, Mrs. Johns,” Elizabeth said. “I think my cousin and I would like to have a talk. Would you have tea sent in?”

  “Very good, my lady.” Mrs. Johns hurried to the kitchen with the delicious tale.

  Elizabeth handed Susan the letter from Gohrum. “This came for you today. It was among my letters.”

  Mrs. Peter opened the letter, and as she read her face grew pale.

  “I confess I have wondered at the duke’s interest in you,” Elizabeth said. “As we are cousins, perhaps you will feel you can enlighten me? Oh, dear. You look quite unwell.”

  Mrs. Peter’s hand trembled as she handed over the letter. “Is it true?” she said. “Have I understood this correctly?”

  “Good lord,” Elizabeth said. She read aloud:

  My dear Mrs. Peter,

  I am at last free to relay the following good news which I intimated was forthcoming some time ago. I am convinced this must make your circumstances easier to bear. At the time of your father’s tragic death, he had invested a sum of money in the corporation which built our canal in Gohrumshire. As a mere formality, my father was named trustee in the event anything should happen to your father. Unfortunately, as we know, the worst did happen. The shares were issued in such a way that neither the capital nor the interest could be put to your use until now. As I am now trustee of your little fortune (for you are the named beneficiary of these shares), I have reinvested the capital as well as the interest in the percents. I am pleased to tell you that you now have an income of one hundred fifty pounds per annum. I took the liberty of holding back a little ready money for you and have enclosed with this letter a draft for fifty pounds.

  I am very sorry for your sorrows. I only hope this income will ease your troubles a little.

  Yours &tc,

  Gohrum

  They sat down and let the news sink in. Elizabeth said, “When the duke writes that your father had invested in the Millam canal—“

  “My father designed the canal and supervised its construction. He was killed by the same blackguard who killed the old duke.”

  “I never knew the circumstances of Uncle John’s death.”

  “Did I understand this correctly? My income will be one hundred and fifty pounds every year?”

  “That is what the duke writes, my dear cousin. I am delighted for you.”

  “Please excuse me, my lady. I need some air.”

  Susan wandered out of the house. Stunned, she walked until she came to Laurelwood church, to Matthew Peter’s grave. She was restored. She was Lady Asher’s cousin, and she had a private income. What would follow, she hardly knew; but fear of poverty was gone. And gone was the feeling of belonging nowhere and to no one. And Persey would have a proper education.

  -oOo-

  Jordan Devilliers dozed off in a chair in front of the rectory. The lilacs had long played out, but his roses and the irises were in their glory. It was hot today, and he’d stopped to have his tea where he could enjoy the flowers. He had the dream again:

  He was young, still a student at Cambridge. He was at some kind of party, and his Caroline was there. It was the reception given by the Dons for his graduating class so long ago, which Caroline had attended to honor her brother—or so she had said.

  His Caro! Jordan knew he must be dreaming, and yet she seemed so real. He touched her forearm. She gave him that wicked smile he knew so well and led him into a small parlor. “Caroline, we cannot be found alone in here.”

  “Oh, pooh! How a man can be so brilliant and at the same time so fearful is beyond me. Kiss me now.”

  “Oh, Caro!” He laughed and kissed her—and pulled away. Yes, this is how it was.

  “Jordan, we must act now. My father knows I love you. He’s determined to stop us. We must leave immediately.”

  “And go where?” Listen to her, you fool.

  “Scotland first, of course,” she kissed him again. “We can be married without delay at Gretna Green.”

  “If only it were th
at easy.” It is that easy! The dreaming Jordan wondered at the lack of imagination in his young self—a lack he had once called character.

  “It is,” Caroline smiled. He loved her so! And miracle of all miracles, she loved him. “It is that easy.”

  He kissed her forehead; she kissed his hands.

  “After we’re married, Jordan, we can go to America to your brother and start a new life. It may be hard, but no matter. It will be easier than life anywhere without you.”

  “And the life you will lose if you marry against your father’s wishes?”

  “How can you doubt me? Can it be you don’t love me after all?”

  This was where he got it all wrong. He had said he did love her, that it was precisely because he loved her so much that he would behave like a gentleman and sacrifice that love on the altar of her future happiness, that he wouldn’t come between her and her family. It had sounded so correct at the time. The righteous certainty of youth!

  But the dreaming Jordan was not a boy. In his dream, he kissed Caroline—as he had not done all those years before. “Then let us go,” he said.

  Jordan and Caroline, laughing together, ran away from the party and tumbled into his ready coach. “To heaven!” he sang out to the driver. That’s where the dream always mocked him. Caroline wasn’t at his side in the coach because she was already in heaven, and he couldn’t follow.

  “Jordan.” Now, where Caroline had been, Elizabeth sat beside him, speaking his Christian name. But she was married to another man. “Come with me, Jordan.” She opened the coach door and led him to the Laurelwood churchyard where Mrs. Peter stood beside a grave with a fine stone marker. She saw him and smiled. He woke up.

  His tea was cold. It was the dream’s influence, but he had the desire to walk to the church. Mrs. Peter was there, standing among the graves. She looked markedly happy. She said, “I am going to have a stone marker made for Mr. Peter.”

  -oOo-

  Elizabeth opened the letter from the duchess.

  My Dear Lady Asher,

  I know that Sir Carey would never impose upon you, but I believe he’d be delighted to enjoy your company in town to celebrate the passage of the Slave Bill for which he has toiled these many years. The Duke and I only last night heard him speak of you again with ardent affection and not a little loneliness, and it reminded me of a promise I made to myself years ago vis-à-vis your husband. Do come and surprise him. We should all be so pleased to see you.

  D.

  Gohrum House, London

  This was certainly unexpected. The duchess had been ill for some time and generally saw no one. Elizabeth wouldn’t accept this invitation, but she would go down to London.

  Things hadn’t been going well. She didn’t know if Sir Carey wanted to be more aggressive with her or if he was tired of their sexual play. She felt increasingly degraded by their games, but it was only in the moments when he completely dominated her, when she lost her identity in his will, that she felt loved.

  She knew that her desires were craven, but she was lost and couldn’t find her way out of them. She left for London that afternoon, and by that evening she’d settled in at Asherinton and ordered a hack to take her across town.

  Sir Carey returned to Commons from his late supper. Only a few more weeks and the session would be over. He could escape Lady Whitley forever. He ached to see Wills again, and Elizabeth and Geordie too. His son’s birth had been both blessing and curse. The boy filled him with a new and wonderful kind of love, but it rekindled the old anxiety about his birthright.

  What did he have to leave Wills? All Laurelwood’s wealth belonged to Geordie. On the Asher side of things, The Branch, the pottery works, and the peerage itself would go to Penelope Sande. Sir Carey had only his half interest in the Maenad, and that ship was getting on in years. It might well be in dry dock when the time came.

  Outside Parliament, Elizabeth stepped down from the hack as another lady was handed out of the next carriage. The two exchanged polite nods and simultaneously ascended the steps, but Elizabeth stepped aside when she saw the Duke of Gohrum. The other lady pulled her cloak’s hood forward and hurried up the stairs.

  “Your grace, good evening.” Elizabeth curtsied.

  “My dear Lady Asher,” said the Duke. “It is a pleasure to see you.” He took her hand, and didn’t let it go.

  “How is her grace’s health? Improving, I hope?”

  “Poorly, I am afraid.”

  “I shall add her to my prayers.”

  “So kind, my dear.” He held on to her still. “And how is the golden child, William?”

  In the gallery Sir Carey saw Lady Whitley coming, but he wasn’t quick enough to get away. “My love, why have you not come to see me?” She reached for his arm.

  “I’ve been busy with preparations to return to the country.” Sir Carey looked around to see if anyone had noticed. “And with my duties here. As a matter of fact, I am needed at this moment.”

  “My love,” she said. “I miss you so much!”

  His stomach turned. How could he have been such a fool to become involved with her?

  “I long to have you beside me, to feel you inside me again!”

  He started to deliver a crushing insult, but stopped cold. Elizabeth stood not five feet away from Lady Whitley, her eyes bright with shock. She looked at Sir Carey without anger, but with acceptance, and he knew his time in Eden had ended. Cherubim with swords of flame took up posts at the gate to Elizabeth’s heart.

  Strangely, as his wife turned and walked away, he felt no loathing or anger for Lady Whitley. Only pity—or perhaps nothing at all. She did have the decency to take her hand off him.

  On returning to Laurelwood, Elizabeth went directly to her room and cut off her hair. The first night Sir Carey was home, she heard him try her door. He didn’t try again. To preserve her dignity, she withdrew from her marital obligations as she had done with the squire. But it was different this time. This time, she missed her husband’s company.

  In some things she turned again to Dr. Devilliers, but the first time he came to tea she realized she was on dangerous ground with him. She asked her cousin to join them.

  “Happily, Mrs. Peter has agreed to remain as Laurelwood’s housekeeper despite her good fortune,” Elizabeth said. “I’m the fortunate one.”

  “A hundred fifty pounds is a great deal of money to me,” Mrs. Peter said. “But where would I live with it and what use would I be somewhere else in the world?”

  “That is very good of you, Mrs. Peter,” Dr. Devilliers said.

  “Not at all. I’m happy. I’m close to my brother. And what would you do, dear cousin, without me?”

  Dr. Devilliers’s tender expression made Elizabeth a little sick. He was her Dr. Devilliers. “I remember when we met,” she said. “We were little girls in the field looking at a frog, I believe, and you ran away to the woods to join the fairies.”

  Mrs. Peter laughed uncertainly. Elizabeth had hurt her feelings, yet she pushed on.

  “The story in the family was that your mother claimed to be a fairy herself, and that’s how she bemused your father and caused him to lose his inheritance.”

  “I remember.” Mrs. Peter rose and said, “Please excuse me.”

  Dr. Devilliers looked at Elizabeth with bewilderment, both of them too embarrassed to speak. After an unbearable silence, he also took his leave.

  Susan came to the great oak tree at the little lake and stopped to watch the ducks on the water. She heard footsteps. Dr. Devilliers had followed her.

  He said, “I’m sure Lady Asher didn’t mean to be cruel just now.”

  “She’s been unhappy since she returned from London. You saw?”

  “Her hair, yes. I think there must be some trouble between Lady Asher and Sir Carey.”

  He stood too close. She should move away, but she liked the sensation of his nearness. He was so kind and so clever.

  “Mrs. Peter, I wonder if I might speak to you. You say you woul
dn’t know where to live with your hundred and fifty pounds or how you could be useful elsewhere.”

  “It’s enough to do a little good with. I’ll send my nephew to school when he is older.”

  “I know where you might be useful, Mrs. Peter. Susan. More than that, you would be cherished. You would be…”

  “No. Please stop, Dr. Devilliers.” Susan’s heart pounded. “Thank you, so very much, for what you were about to say, but please don’t say it.” He was lovely, and she loved him. Not with the lust she’d felt for Leopold Singer, and not with the friendship and practical need she’d felt for Matthew Peter.

  This was a different kind of love. She wanted to make him happy more than she wanted him to make her happy. It was wonderful to know that he wanted her too.

  “But my dear…”

  “No, please. You see, I didn’t love Matthew Peter. I never should have married him. And then he died because of me.”

  “You mustn’t think that way.”

  “I do think that way. Believe me, Dr. Devilliers. You deserve so much better.”

  “Don’t you think you could learn to love me?” he asked.

  “That’s not the problem.”

  It wasn’t only guilt over Matthew Peter that stopped her. It was the memory of his face just before he died. His disgust when he’d learned about Persey. What if Dr. Devilliers were somehow to learn about her son? She couldn’t bear the same judgment from him. And Persey would be ruined if the secret came out.

  Then there was Elizabeth. Susan knew that her cousin loved Dr. Devilliers too, despite her marriage to Sir Carey. She remembered what it had been like to watch Leopold Singer with his bride. She couldn’t cause that kind of pain.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so very sorry.”

  She loved Jordon Devilliers, of that she was certain. But she was more certain of something else. Everything that had gone wrong in her life had gone wrong because of men. She must never marry.

  Book Two

  Morning Glories