Susan Speers

by My Cousin Jeremy

  Jemmy watched my face. “Try to forgive her Clarry. She’s miserable and frantic to leave England. She sees America as a kind of safe haven from war. She wants to visit Ronald’s family. She thinks she will find something of him there.”

  “She took something precious from me. She taunted me and blackmailed you.” It wasn’t easy for me to look past Daisy’s latest perfidy.

  “Clarry, she didn’t mean to help us, but she did. I was afraid to come to you before I left for France. I knew what would happen between us, I wanted it more than my life. But I feared the consequences.”

  “You’re a strong, independent woman,” he tapped my chin with his forefinger, “you’ve told me that in no uncertain terms. But, I feared to leave you alone with a damaged child. Edward Dane’s letter freed me to say goodbye.”

  I forgot Daisy and her bad behavior. “Not good-bye,” I said. “Not ever.”

  We made love again and slept and woke just before midnight, hungry as wolves.

  I brought the picnic basket back to bed with a bottle of Willow’s elderberry wine and two glasses. “They will wonder about me at Hethering.”

  “I told Henry not to worry, you were with me. He favors our cause, you know, all the servants do.”

  I did know. Dickon’s suit was foiled by Henry’s timely interference, but I pushed thoughts of Dickon away.

  Jeremy rescued the letter from the floor and tucked it into my folded blouse. “The world has had its way with us too long,” he said.

  “Not anymore.” I was done with intrusion.

  Exhausted and sated we slept until lark song woke us at dawn.

  “When must you—”

  “This morning.” These were his final hours of leave. We made love one last time, the gravity of the moment making every movement precious.

  “I want your child,” I said.

  “A little girl just like you, please.” He smiled and rubbed his nose against mine. “Clarry, if I die —”

  “You won’t die.”

  “But if I do, dearest, if I do, you mustn’t grieve too much for me. I tell you I’ll feel at home in heaven because I’ve known it here on earth with you.”

  I watched him climb the hill, every step taking him farther away from me and closer to the war. He turned back once, at the crest of the hill, and waved. I lifted my hand in reply, and only when his dear form disappeared from sight did I let my tears fall.

  Henry said nothing when I returned to Hethering with an empty basket and a face ravaged by weeping. As I turned around the bend in our staircase, I saw him hold the back of his wrist to his eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jeremy’s leave taking bound me and freed me. I was free to love him in a way I never had before. I was free to think about him every day, to revel in the memories of our lovemaking, to pray for him every night, begging God for the chance of more days together.

  But I was bound by a fear that grew every hour. Jeremy was the most precious thing in my life, I had told him so, I would tell the world if need be. We’d sinned without a moment of remorse. Did that doom our love? Did that condemn him to die in battle?

  I walked through my days half elated, half despairing. I spent Christmas with the Picketys, feasting on roast goose and playing with their mischievous children. I allowed myself the barest glimmer of hope that a child might be born of the passion Jeremy and I found at the last hour.

  When the babies were in bed and Mr. Pickety retired to his study, Amalia and I sat by the fire, she mending, I embroidering handkerchiefs for Jemmy.

  “Will you tell me about Jeremy’s last visit?” Amalia asked with a casual air that didn’t fool me. I’m sure there were rumors in the village.

  “He came to say good-bye.” I hope she attributed the pink in my face to the fire’s heat. “It was difficult.” I took a slow breath. “But it was wonderful, too.”

  She nodded. “The war. It makes everything, every moment so important. You will be careful, Clarry?” Her eyes, bright with sympathy pleaded with me.

  “I’ll try,” I said. “But all my caution, all restraint falls away when he —” I couldn’t go on and she was blushing too.

  “Your father did you a great injury, you and Jeremy both,” she said. “And now there’s his wife and a little baby who may suffer.”

  “Yes,” I said. I wasn’t proud of that.

  “And there’s another person in harm’s way, isn’t there?”

  She knew about Dickon. How many others knew?

  “What do they say about that in the village?” My threads were tangled and I fixed my eyes on them.

  “They say the pair of you were a match until Hethering’s master put an end to it.”

  “I told Jeremy I would make my own choice,” I told her. “But that was before —”

  “Before his last visit.” Her voice was kind, the look on her face was compassionate, but I saw her regret, too. She had traditional wishes for my happiness, she too would suffer if I chose a dishonorable life.

  I walked home over the frozen fields, leaving Mr. Pickety to doze in his study, his finger stuck in a book of sermons. He was too old to fight. I was glad of that for his hopeful family.

  I’d thought of Jeremy all day long, but now, as the moon rose, thoughts of Dickon filled my head. Could he sense me turn from him to Jeremy? If he did, would he despair? Be careless with his life?

  His Christmas letter lay on my desk unanswered. I would have to choose every word of my reply with care.

  *****

  Winter melted into spring, my days a dull repetition of estate duties, visits to the Picketys and waiting for the post. Henry always placed Jeremy’s letters on top of the salver, I had to search for Dickon’s. No word came from Daisy, who disappeared into New York society like a duck in a marsh.

  One by one my gardeners were piped away by the siren song of war, but Hethering’s gardens defied their neglect to produce a glorious show of color, the best in years. I spent hours beside our head gardener, Blum, pruning, weeding, culling and planting. His gnarled body suffered in the damp, but he tried to teach me everything he could, fearing as I did that his years out of doors were numbered.

  I made no headway with my latest set of illustrations for my publisher, Archibald Mosely. In the evenings my hands were too stiff and tired to practice the piano. Chase Gordon wouldn’t praise my playing now.

  One morning, I shut my account book with a bang, eager to meet Blum in our fern garden. Right then I heard Henry’s polite tap on the study door.

  “There is a — person who asks to see you.” His nostrils pinched in distaste.

  “Does this person have a name?” Henry required careful management.

  “Dora Cooper.” Each innocent syllable was intoned with scorn.

  “A lady then.” He hesitated to agree. “Show her in,” I said.

  Dora Cooper was a youngish woman, a matron judging by the broad gold band on her left hand. She wasn’t one of my tenants, nor did I know her from the village. Her clothes were plain, cut from good cloth. Her complexion had a familiar ruddy freshness, but her crooked smile confirmed my suspicion.

  “You’re Dickon’s sister,” I said with delight. I ignored Henry’s audible sniff. “May I offer you refreshment?”

  “No thank you, Miss.” She took the chair I indicated. She looked a little nervous.

  “Thank you, Henry.” His absence could only improve things.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Miss. That man said you were too busy to be disturbed.”

  “Nonsense, he’s just overprotective. You must call me Clarissa, or Clarry as Dickon does. He’s mentioned you to me a number of times. You live in the next village?”

  “Outside it. My man and I have a dairy farm.”

  “You’re the mother of his nieces and nephews, I think. He’s a proud uncle.”

  “He’d be a good Da to his own young ones. I mind he has none, ‘specially now.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “His letters a
re fanciful that way sometimes. He wants a large family like ours was.”

  Dickon had never said a word of this to me, but then our engagement was ended before it began. Remembering our kiss, with his sister sitting before me made me blush scarlet.

  This gave Dora a bit of courage. “I have to ask this, Miss, and I’m sorry to trouble you, but do you love my brother? Do you love Dickon?”

  “Oh dear,” I said.

  “Do you worry he’s not fine enough?” Her color was rising steadily. The question was hard for her, but I admired her a lot for pressing on to help her brother.

  “Oh, no,” I wanted to assure her beyond any doubt. “I think Dickon is one of the finest men I know.”

  “Do you grieve he’s not t’other one?” So the sorry details of my life had spread further than our village boundary. I couldn’t answer her question because I never let myself dwell on it.

  “I don’t want to cause Dickon any unhappiness,” I said at last, but I already had done that, and from the look on Dora Cooper’s face she knew all about it.

  “I don’t neither, I shouldn’t have come, but I had to.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “No, I don’t think you do,” she said. Her voice was sweet, almost musical. “Dickon has leave, you see. He’ll be home in a fortnight.”

  “He didn’t mention it in his last letter to me.”

  “He’s not sure, you know, if you truly want to see him. That’s what I think, anyway. He won’t make plans. He says things are uncertain.”

  “Of course I want to see him. Of course I do.” I got up from my chair and went to the window, averting my face from Dora’s honest eyes, so like Dickon’s. I could just see Blum in the distance, bent over an unruly shrub.

  “We had a misunderstanding.” I said, sitting down again. “But I will always be happy to see him.”

  “Don’t do it, Miss,” she said, he eyes pleading. “Don’t do it, Clarry, unless you mean it the way he does.”

  “Ahh.” I dropped my face in my hands.

  “I couldn’t bear him to go back to the front disappointed-like. Morale is everything when the bullets are whizzing, when men volunteer for hopeless missions.”

  “You’re right, Dora,” I said. But I had no answer for her. “When does he come home?”

  “In a fortnight.”

  “I’ll send word well before that, I promise.”

  “Thank you, Miss.”

  “Clarry,” I prompted, playing for time.

  “I hope so.” Her crooked smile was just like the one Dickon left me with.

  I walked with her down the steps to her conveyance, a truck with empty milk cans clanking in the back. I waved before I went to find Blum, my brow knit with hard thinking. I couldn’t disappoint Dora straight away, despite my new, unfettered love for Jeremy. No discouraging letter must reach Dickon before he left the battlefield. When would I tell her? What would I say?

  Then the final, betraying question: when would my Jem have leave?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  My answer came two days later in a wire. All it said was ‘Watch Tower Inn, Watford. Friday 5 p.m.’. I packed a small valise and told Henry I’d be visiting friends in London for the weekend.

  “Very good, Miss,” he said. I hadn’t fooled him at all.

  The Watch Tower Inn didn’t live up to its name. It was a nondescript edifice of shoddy construction with no tower in sight. It sat on a crooked street, steps from the railway station. When I asked its direction from a respectable couple on the train platform, the man looked me over with an impertinent smirk and the lady glared.

  As I entered the hostelry, I understood. Women in bright dresses with rouged faces thronged the public room, their bold smiles warming soldiers who drank glass after glass of ale. The men’s voices were loud with drink, the women’s shrill with false affection. One young man, hardly old enough to shave, stumbled against me, spilling his drink.

  He brushed the bits of foam from my shoulder with his bare, broad hand.

  “Fancy a tumble then, Miss?” His voice was cheerful, he hooked his thumb at the stairs.

  I felt a hot red tide rise from my high collared blouse. “No thank you,” I managed.

  “Leave the lady be, soldier,” said a bright, cheeky voice. A girl, young beneath her paint, took the doughboy’s arm. “I’m thinking her has a sweetheart already.”

  “I do. Yes. Thank you.” I stammered.

  “I’ll show you some fun,” she patted the soldier’s tunic pocket and waggled her fingers at me, having found a generous wad of bank notes. They disappeared into the crowd.

  I looked around the room again, desperate because now I knew a lady on her own was prey to unwelcome attention. That’s when I saw Jeremy, rather I saw a gaunt ghost of a man who resembled my Jem. He sat at a table behind a gilt painted pillar, his eyes closed. He appeared to sleep sitting upright and bore a terrible resemblance to his father and mine before they died.

  I sat down across from him, making as little noise as possible, but when I touched his hand, his body convulsed and his eyes opened to stare at something I didn’t see.

  When he jumped to his feet, eyes filled with fear, I grabbed his hands and pulled him back down. “It’s me, Jemmy, it’s Clarry.”

  He shook his head and grimaced in confusion and apology.

  “I dream of you every night,” he said. “I see you at Hethering, I see you waiting for me in the folly on the hill. I see your lacy dress, your beautiful eyes, your smile. How can it be I am with you for real, but chased by France’s horror.”

  “You’re in England now,” I said. “You’re with me and I banish every bad thing from you.”

  A hectic flush stained his pale face and his dark eyes shone with happiness. “My avenging angel,” he said. I loved his smile.

  “Do you have leave?”

  “A few hours, nothing official. I’ve been called back to discuss — there’ll be a push, that’s all I can say. We have the hours I begged — well, we have a few hours, that’s all.”

  He’d engaged a room. I ignored dusty corridors and cheap furnishings. I unpinned my hat and set it on the bureau, but he took it off to dust its brim and set it down again on his unfolded handkerchief.

  “This isn’t a proper place for you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The name was right.”

  “Will you remember me, remember us, when you see our old symbol? How our tower sheltered us. All our happy days.”

  Jeremy was nostalgic and depressed. How surreal to leave the blackened hell of war for too few hours of blissful peace, even in the ugly rooms of the Watch Tower Inn.

  We didn’t make love. That happiness belonged beneath the open skies of Hethering. These dubious surroundings would make it sordid. That’s what I told myself as Jemmy lay exhausted in my arms, his head on my breast, both of us atop the creaking bed’s soiled coverlet.

  The room darkened with an approaching storm. I heard thunder and felt Jemmy flinch at the noise. The rhythmic patter and fresh smell of rain soothed him. I closed my eyes for a moment, thankful to have him with me. I dozed and woke to find him watching my face.

  “I’m memorizing you,” he said.

  “You hardly need to,” I said.

  “I almost never see you sleep. You have the face of a Madonna. You must have children.”

  I might have pushed past his weariness and my distaste for our surroundings to love him as I should, but a loud knock startled me.

  “Sergeant Hardy, Captain. Ten minutes before the hour, as you requested, Sir.”

  Jeremy sat up and buried his face in his hands. “I have to go. There’s transport waiting.”

  I pulled his hands away from his face and looked full into his eyes. “I love you Jeremy,” I said. “I always have, I always will. I’m proud of you, I pray every hour for your safe return.”

  “Clarry,” he said. “Listen to me. There’s little time left.”

  I let go his hands and watched his f
ace.

  “I won’t survive this war. I came to say — I came to say goodbye.”

  “Jemmy, you can’t think like that.” I remembered Dora’s anxiety for Dickon’s good spirits. “It’s dangerous to think that way.”

  “No, Clarry, it’s not like that. I’m no more tired or disheartened than the next fellow. But the BEF is almost gone, soon fewer than a tenth of them will stand against the Boche. We’re desperate for Kitchener’s men.”

  “Jemmy, no.” I didn’t believe him, I couldn’t. None of this in the newspapers. He exaggerated, it was part of his depression. He needed more leave, not this pittance.

  “I’m doomed, Clarry. One way or another, I’ll be dead by Christmas. Our generation is doomed. Imagine twenty Oxford men charging a machine gun and you’ll know the waste of it all.”

  I put my hands around his sorrowing face like a blessing. Surely some men would survive the maelstrom. Jeremy was clever, no, he was brilliant. They wouldn’t put him forward as cannon fodder.

  “I have a chance to change the odds against us, to make a difference.” His despair was conquered by zeal. I knew that look, I remembered his search for Mad Madison’s folly. My heart froze as I watched him embrace a new quest, a new folly.

  “A suicide mission.”

  “Not as such, love, but my chances are — they’re not good. I want to go out fighting with everything I have.”

  “They want your foreign service knowledge.”

  “It’s my best weapon, but it will take me where few return.”

  Another knock. “Two minutes, Sir.”

  “I won’t let you go,” I said. “I won’t allow it. Not to this business. I’ll tell Caroline, we’ll petition the War Office. You have a child.”

  “You must let me do this, it’s what I’m meant for. I could save lives, a lot of lives. Don’t condemn them too. Let me go, love.”

  I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t say yes, and he used my silence to say worse.