by L. K. Rigel
“Is it that your heart is buried with another man?”
“You knew?”
“Of course I knew.”
Eventually, Igraine said, “I think I was captured more by the idea of Leopold Singer than the man himself. I hated God for creating someone I could love so thoroughly who it was impossible to love. He had all the virtues.”
“He appeared to.”
“He appeared to. I suppose I never truly knew him. What I thought was my undying passion began to fade when I met Mrs. Singer.”
“I know what your problem is.”
“Enlighten me, then.”
“You are too successful. You are the man in your life; you don’t need one.”
“I should think that a good thing for a woman like me.”
April rolled over and looked down on Igraine. “Could you consider the possibility of wanting, rather than needing, Mr. Grasmere?”
Igraine smiled. “Mr. Grasmere certainly wanted to come with us to England. I confess I would like to share this setting with him very much.”
“I think you do love Solomon Grasmere,” April laughed. “You’re just afraid to admit it.”
“Who is coming?” A carriage pulled to a stop on the road below them. A short, fortyish-looking fellow set the brake, assessed the darkening sky, and put up the top. A gust of wind blew his hat off.
“Why, I believe it is the man himself,” April said. “Fancy that.”
“And he’s thought of a carriage to take us back,” said Igraine.
“He is a thoughtful person.”
“A very thoughtful person.”
With the exception of her uncle, the men in Igraine’s life had wanted her either for what she could do for them or not at all. She was so used to abuse or neglect that she had never learned to recognize love. Like in a scene from one of her stories, a beam of sunlight pierced the clouds and splashed over Mr. Grasmere, lighting up the grays in his hair. As he huffed and puffed toward her, the light that lit Mr. Grasmere’s hair seemed also to light up her heart.
Solomon Grasmere loved Igraine Fiddyment, and the miracle was on this day she did see it.
“Mr. Grasmere! What a surprise,” April said.
“Um.”
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll find Captain Zehetner.” She left the would-be lovers to muddle through as best they could.
“Miss Fiddyment, forgive me,” Solomon Grasmere said. “I could not stay away.”
“I am glad you have come.”
He looked from Igraine to the sky and back, torn between practicality and his great mission. “The thing is, Miss Fiddyment, you have become necessary to my happiness. For so many years, I ran from human connection. When Captain Zehetner brought me home to Shermer Landing, I was full of dread. He spoke with so much affection for his family and friends. For a long while, I had lived a solitary life. In a way, Zehetner adopted me. He treated me like a brother and made me want to see my own home again, despite painful memories, to perhaps salvage some good there. And then you were there: competent, graceful, intelligent. I admired you, and then I loved you. You have refused me, and I have tried to bear it.”
“You have not tried to bear it very well, Mr. Grasmere.”
He looked up. Was she teasing him in his agony? “I have failed at bearing it, I admit.” She was smiling. Did he dare? “Miss Fiddyment, Igraine, did you say just now that you are glad that I have come?”
“I did. I am.”
“Then say more, Miss Fiddyment. Say you love me. Say you will be mine.”
“I do. I will.” It was a risk, it was a risk. If she married, everything she had worked for would no longer belong to her. Legally, she would cease to exist. Her fortune, her talent, her self would belong to this man. Whom she loved.
He kissed the palms of her hands. He held her face in his hands—she had not realized what strong, assured hands he had. He brought her lips to his and wrapped his arms around her. It was such a risk. She melted into his embrace. A few cool raindrops splashed down, and there was the soft rumble of distant thunder.
Lost in his arms, a phrase that appeared countless times in her stories. That was all wrong, she realized. For in the arms of Solomon Grasmere, she had found herself. He loved her; that was her security. She loved him; that was her truth.
When April and Josef came up the hill together, they saw how Solomon Grasmere had “found” Igraine Fiddyment in his arms.
“The deed is done at last!” said April.
“Good work, man,” said Josef. “Now let’s get out of the rain!”
-oOo-
After Solomon Grasmere set off on his quest for Igraine Fiddyment, Susan Gray collected Jane to take her to the nursery. Marta started to follow when she saw a book lying on a table in the corner. She picked it up to return to the library and noticed its author. I haven’t read Mary Wollstonecraft in years, she thought.
She smiled at a vague memory: Leopold by the fire with an open book, her head on his knee while he spoke of some philosopher’s shining theory, trying to chase her fears away. It was your voice, my dear husband, not your words that soothed me. She turned through the pages and stopped at the inscription to “Susan, Sir” with its signature.
The room seemed to tilt. She looked to the walls and furniture for bearings, momentarily unsure where she was. At that moment she saw Leopold’s confident figure striding up the pathway from the garden to the kitchen door.
He wore an odd, baggy coat and a silly, broad-brimmed straw hat decorated with dried flowers. He came closer and closer until he leaned into the half-open door with his usual masculine familiarity.
“Hello! Is anyone at home?”
He didn’t see her in the dark of the kitchen, and she couldn’t answer. She couldn’t breathe. This had to be the most vibrant ghost in the history of ghosts.
“Puh-sie! Puh-sie!” Jane clattered on her little feet through the kitchen to the door, having broken free of Susan at the sound of her friend’s voice.
“Janey, love!” Leopold gathered the little girl into his arms and kissed her forehead. His straw hat fell to the floor, and a tumble of fair golden curls fell about his face and shoulders. “There’s my good girl.”
“Oh!” The Wollstonecraft slipped to the floor. He saw her now.
“Madam, are you ill?” He put the child down. While he steadied Marta, Jane put his hat over her head, covering her face to her chin. “Aunt, fetch a glass of water,” Leopold called to Susan Gray, frozen at the doorway on the opposite side of the room. Marta leaned on his arm. She wanted more, the smell of him, the feel of him. Leopold, Leopold.
She saw and comprehended at once Susan Gray’s terror. Leopold never had an affair with the Duchess of Gorham, but with Susan Gray!
Marta let this Persey person guide her to a chair. She accepted the water from Susan’s trembling hand. She hated Leopold then. How could he do this to her? Or to Susan? Or to his own son?
He must not have known. He could never have kept something like this from her or from the world. But then, she had kept the truth about Obadiah from him.
The women’s eyes met, and then Marta really understood. Persey doesn’t know.
Marta felt a stab of tender pain, not for herself but for Susan. She couldn’t imagine watching Samuel or Harry or Eleanor grow up calling another woman “Mother.”
“Aunt?” Persey looked to Susan for some explanation for this strange woman’s insistent grasp. Aside from his golden hair, Persey was more like Leopold in physique and manner than any of Marta’s children. He had a kind aspect, and a sense of robust happiness floated about him. He seemed more easygoing than even Leopold had been at that age.
Unexpected, a surge of love welled up in her and pour out to Susan Gray and to Leopold’s son. She touched her brooch and said a silent blessing for them both.
“Your…aunt was looking for her book,” she said. She handed Susan the Wollstonecraft. She hadn’t felt such peace since the river had taken Leopold. “It is yours, I thi
nk?”
“Thank you. Yes, that one is mine.”
Susan Gray and Marta Schonreden hugged each other like long-separated sisters.
“What am I missing?” Persey retrieved his hat from Jane. “I swear I will not understand women as long as I live.” He brushed his hair back and replaced the hat, raising his eyebrows in wonder.
“God’s grace!” Marta stared at Persey.
Above Persey’s left eye was a gash of bare skin at the apex of the brow, as if the line of the brow were broken. This man, so obviously Leopold’s son, bore the same odd feature as Obadiah. It was a sign, a sign from the Queen of Heaven. Obadiah, after all, was Leopold’s child. The burden of the past, never completely put away, dissolved and was gone. Marta was clean again and whole.
“Mrs. Singer, here you are! You must come at once.” April Zehetner bounced into the room. “You won’t believe the news. Miss Fiddyment has at last accepted Mr. Grasmere!”
The Loves of Leopold Singer
At the time Solomon Grasmere found his way to Laurelwood, a private carriage hired in London moved through Carleson Peak. Inside, a young woman with the look of a Hindu princess sat among a treasure trove of objects collected over two years of travel. A man rode beside the vehicle on horseback, hatless, his golden hair grown well past his shoulders. Slipped into the rifle sling on his saddle was an ash walking stick tipped with a silver dragon’s head.
The rider fixed his gaze on the oak at the mallards’ lake at Laurelwood. It was good to look upon things that never changed. The oak refused to give up its last leaf as it did every year, a stubborn act of faithlessness which he loved. He bent down and peered into the carriage. “It won’t be long.” The woman was unhealthily pale. She needed bed rest and a proper English doctor.
Like an ominous portent, a family of geese rose in seeming chaos, chattering and honking, formed its V and was gone. When he looked to the tree again, the last oak leaf was gone.
“No!” He spurred his mount at full speed for Laurelwood.
-oOo-
Wills’ letter was ash, white and delicate on the grate. The sight pierced Sara with melancholy. The cries of geese called her to the window, and she saw the oak’s newly bare branch, scratching like a black claw at the gray sky. Something between a whimper and a wail escaped her. She had to find that leaf. Her letter was gone. She had to have some thing to remember Wills by. A leaf pressed into a favorite volume could not be so wrong. She would be a good wife. She would give Geordie an heir and manage his household. Would the world deny her a leaf?
She ran out to the lake and to the tree where a strange man in exotic costume rummaged through the shrubbery. He saw her. And she knew him. She held back for what seemed forever, thinking of all that separated them. He held the leaf out to her, but she didn’t see the offering. She saw only his eyes and his outstretched hand. She went to him, into his arms.
When they kissed, she thought: These are the lips mine are supposed to taste, these are the arms where I am supposed to find strength, this is the soul that mirrors my soul.
“Then you forgive me, Sara,” Wills said. “I never thought you could, though I dreamed it. I hoped.”
But Sara drew back, astonished. She placed her hand over her heart, and her fingers worked the Voudon amulet that hung from her neck. This was all wrong, not at all like what she had felt in her fancy.
Here stood her fancy, now real. His arms were open to her, and it was no good.
Strange and uncontrolled laughter shook her frame. She was free. She looked at the oak’s bare branches and felt bombarded by surprising joy.
Wills smiled too. “I love you, Sara. I have always loved you. We’ll find a way—we must find a way to be together.”
“No.” She put some distance between them. She had to speak to make her new understanding real, both to Wills and for herself. “I cannot say I don’t love you. But I’m not like my mother. To gratify lust is not enough.” Let him be shocked that she thought of such things. It wasn’t her purpose to think of his feelings now. “I long for passion, but I require respect, friendship, correspondence. The wonder of it is, I have these things. Here, now, with Geordie.”
“You love me.” Wills managed to take hold of her hand. “That is my ring you wear. I chose it for you, and you won’t take it off.”
“Because my husband gave it to me,” she said softly, as if explaining an adult thing to a child. “I have loved you.” She withdrew her hand. “For a long, sad time. But from now on, I will not.”
He didn’t argue, didn’t plead. He said, “My mother says life doesn’t give us what we need, just because we need it. I understand her now.” He didn’t follow her, running careless as a schoolgirl back to her home.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Sara?” April was the first to see her. “Miss Fiddyment has at long last surrendered to the inevitable and accepted Mr. Grasmere.”
“Three cheers for the conquering hero.” Josef slapped Solomon Grasmere on the back. “Well done.”
Mrs. Singer stood outside the circle. She seemed emotional out of proportion to this news. “I’ve just seen someone.” She answered Sara’s inquiring look.
“Ah, I can guess,” Sara said. “Mrs. Peter’s nephew?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Singer squeezed her hand. “Her nephew.”
“I’m so glad. You were right,” Sara said, “about everything.” The burden of her guilt was gone, and she wasn’t alone. She was sorry for Mrs. Peter and for Wills and Aunt Philly and Jane, and she was sorry for herself. But it was bearable now, knowing she wasn’t the only person who’d ever been betrayed by passion. She would do what she could for Wills. Uncle James would know how to help him.
Uncle James! She’d forgotten his letter. She slipped away and returned to the letter on her desk, postmarked two months ago. Uncle James was well, but her grandfather, the great Aristaeus Sande, was dead. Then she read further and burst out laughing. She had to find Geordie and tell him of this cosmic joke.
Geordie had returned from The Branch and was with the others in the parlor, wishing joy to Miss Fiddyment and Solomon Grasmere. He had only just met her friends and readily liked them. He was sincerely glad for their happiness, but she could see something was wrong.
When he saw her, he brightened slightly. “I’m glad to see you, my dear. I don’t know where to begin with all I have to tell you. Poor Philomela has died.”
“I’m so sorry.” Sara looked at Uncle James’s letter in her hand. What would Aunt Philly have thought of its contents?
“I don’t think you understand, dear Sara,” Geordie said. “You are now Baroness Branch.”
“To Lady Branch.” Wills raised a glass, and the others followed suit. What was he doing her?
“That’s the other thing,” Geordie said. “I found Wills on the road coming back from The Branch. Isn’t it wonderful? But his wife is unwell. She’s lying down, and I’ve sent for Mr. Brennan.”
“Your wife?” This was a day for revelations.
“She’ll be fine once she’s rested,” Wills said.
How had she ever loved him? Her heart went out to his bride. She said, “Ordinarily, the fact that I am a baroness would be astounding enough. But I have heard of something that will shock everyone here, I’m sure.” She smiled at Wills. He had no hold on her. Uncle James’s news had released her from all concern on his account. She read:
Your grandfather and my brother, Aristaeus Sande, is dead. He has willed his entire fortune, a massive amount which I will not catalog here, to his grandson, William Philo George Asher, of Laurelwood.
After a long stunned silence, Geordie said, “I don’t understand it, but I’m delighted for you, Wills.”
Geordie was delighted for his brother, sincerely. His pleasure produced an overflowing sense of gratitude in Sara. And she’d nearly ruined everything. Now it was good to give Geordie this: “Forgive me, Mr. Carleson, for informing you in the presence of these people. But they are such good friends, and it seems this is a day fo
r news. I am expecting a joyful event.”
“Oh, my darling!” His arms enfolded her, and she knew she’d be safe and loved all the days of her life.
-oOo-
Marta slipped away from the young people to return to the miracle in the kitchen.
“He’s gone,” Susan said.
“Oh.” Marta stood in the doorway, unable to go or stay.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Susan poured steaming water from George Grim’s brass teakettle into a red and white Queensware pot. Marta had brought the kettle as a present for Sara, who had admired the thing.
“That would be lovely.”
The women sat across from each other at the end of the worktable. At the other end, Mrs. Johns had left the covered bread dough to rise with its moist, yeasty smell. They were alone in the room in the darkening late afternoon, quiet but for the crackle of the fire and the rumble of thunder.
The cutwork of the kettle glimmered in the firelight. Marta thought of George Grim’s lust, so ugly. Yet he had produced that beautiful object. Did Leopold feel lust for this woman once, and from it produce the beautiful Persey?
“I should never have married Matthew Peter,” Susan said, “though he was a good man and he loved me. I never loved him as I should have, as I could have. Persey has been everything to me. More than I ever deserved.”
Could it have been love Leopold felt for Susan? Marta found she wanted it to be love. She heard her mother’s voice call out from the long-buried past: Who does she think she is to put a claim on Leopold? The voice was ugly and wrong. How much Marta had suffered, how much life she had missed because she had listened to that voice, cold and loveless. A life spent believing she was unworthy of love, robbed of so much time, time she could have spent loving.
“He seems a wonderful young man,” she said, and her voice echoed Leopold’s at its gentlest and most magical. How could she explain that the very existence of Susan’s son had given her such liberating joy?
“Bi-kit.”
She lifted Jane onto her lap and kissed the forehead where Persey’s lips had been. Here was another who would not know her true father, one whom the world, if it had the chance, would call godforsaken. What did it matter if God turned away from such sweetness? The sweetness was there all the same, and the Queen of Heaven rejoiced in it. Of that Marta was certain.