Chapter 60
Thanksgiving came to Brookside on a gray day with cold sprinkles dotting the deserted terrace and flecking the
windows. Dahlia, under orders to make a simple meal with no excesses, produced
three succulent chickens stuffed with cornbread and raisins, a pile of roasted
potatoes, green and yellow squash, and both pumpkin and apple pies. Fettles set
the table for the whole household using the family china and crystal. With all
the lamps lit and the fire roaring, the dining room sparkled as it used to, and
everyone gathered to thank God for what remained and to pray for the days
ahead.
In an
effort to banish all gloom in this oasis of warmth and good fellowship, Agnes
encouraged everyone to tell stories of their days at Brookside,
especially those of a humorous nature. So they sat for nearly three hours, the
ten of them—Agnes, Fettles, Mrs. Williams, Dahlia and her nephew, Marie, Ned,
Isaiah, and the two junior staff—feasting and reliving their favorite memories.
For this short time, disappointment was barred from the room, old friends long
gone lived again, and all that was most precious was brought back into the
light.
Meanwhile,
just up the road at Fellcrest, the Duke and Lord Phillip shared a quiet meal
together, alone at the long dining room table surrounded by the tumultuous
peacock wallpaper. Phillip had acquiesced to his father’s invitation to join
him for the holiday meal. His two sisters and their husbands were sorely
missed, being unable to come home this year as one was recovering from a bad
flu and the other had just delivered her third child. Left to themselves,
father and son exhausted discussion about the new farm and how Phillip was
getting on in the little house and all other possible topics well before
dessert. After coffee and a game of cards, Phillip pleaded fatigue and excused
himself. His room was just as he had left it several weeks earlier, and he
welcomed the comfort of his old bed. He stretched out with a worn copy of The
Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe and escaped into
its pages until sleep overcame him.
The next
morning he rose early to the sound of icy rain at the window. By ten o’clock he
had dressed, breakfasted, and said good-bye to his father. The rain stopped as
he headed back up the road toward his little kingdom of self-imposed exile, but
a damp chill remained. He reflected upon how the presence of people made him increasingly
uncomfortable and wondered whether he was on his way to becoming a recluse. He
seldom saw anyone besides Richmond, the wiry
former slave from Virginia
who helped him around the farm, and Natalya, a Russian immigrant who had lost
her family in a tenement fire as they slept. She now cooked for the two men and
kept the house swept.
Phillip had sunk to a place that he
could no longer pray himself out of and found solace only in physical tasks
such as fixing broken wagon wheels and digging in the raw earth. Every day
reminded him that he was thirty-seven years old with nothing to show for it
save a collection of stories to tell.
Sometimes
at night as the fire burned low and he sat alone with his boots on the fender,
Phillip let himself remember his days with Agnes. For a little while, his numbness would retreat, and he felt again her cool
hands in his, her hair against his cheek; he heard her laugh again and saw the
violet night sky spread before them as they sat pressed against each other, whispering
about all their tomorrows. Slow tears traced a path down his face and his lips
murmured bits of remembered conversations. In this way he strove to hang on to
at least the memory of her, knowing how time rubs away the details from even
the most vibrant pictures.
A week
after Thanksgiving, as Phillip struggled to rouse himself one morning after
just such a late vigil, he thought he heard his father’s voice downstairs.
Dressing quickly, he splashed water on his face, brushed his hair with three
strokes, and went down. He found the Duke seated at the old round table that
came with the house, its surface bearing witness to the hundreds of forks and
knives that had dug into it over the years and all the hot kettles placed upon
it. The Duke clasped a large cup of tea in both hands, which Natalya had just
set down for him along with some biscuits and peach butter.
“Hullo!”
the elder cried, grabbing up an envelope from the table and waving it at
Phillip.
“What have
we here, oh father of mine?” Phillip smiled wanly as he pulled on his jacket in
the drafty room.
“A letter
for you. It arrived yesterday, but old Morgan didn’t tell me until this
morning. You’re up rather late for a farmer, aren’t you?”
Phillip
took the dirty letter and examined its worn corners and strange notations. It
looked as though it had gone around the world at least twice. He studied the
odd handwriting and postage.
“From France,”
put in the Duke. “By way of Egypt
from the looks of it.”
Phillip
took up a knife from the table and cleanly slit open the envelope. He unfolded
three pages of common stationary covered in a small hand. He read the date.
“This was sent nearly three months ago.” Then he looked at the last sheet. His
features froze as though he gazed upon a ghost.
His father
was on his feet, looking over his son’s shoulder. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Phillip
held the signature out.
His father
squinted, then looked at him in consternation. “Rupa? The Indian girl? But how?
How did she know where to send it?”
“I gave her
my address.”
“Why did
you do that?”
“I don’t know.
In case she needed it at some point. I don’t know really.”
The Duke
looked down at the letter. “How is your French?”
“No better
than before. Can you read it?”
The Duke
put a hand inside his coat and drew out his spectacles from a slim case. Fitting
them on, he took the letter, and both men sat down. The father took a sip of
tea, smoothed the pages on the table, and began to read, translating as he
went:
17
September 188_
Dear
Phillip,
I
know you will be surprised to get this letter, and I hope it reaches you. I
feel that I must write to you now that I know what is happening there in America
at your home. I hope that maybe this letter will help make everything right
again, and it is truly the least that I can do for someone who risked so much
for me.
In
simple words, Rupa recounted how she had met Wilbur at the dance hall (without
naming the city) and what she learned from him about her father coming to America
and delivering the child to Phillip. Then she told how Henri had really come to
be, about the terrible night at the hands of her brothers and the soldier. The
Duke stopped reading several times to look round-eyed at his son. At last he
reached the end of the letter:
Maybe
you can show this letter to people who think badly of you and think that the
child is yours. I hope you do not think I am terrible for leaving him with the
nuns. I never dreamed that my father would do what he did, even coming to America
with the baby.
If
I can ask you one more kindness, dear Phillip, it is this. Please put the baby
with someone who will love him. I do not want him to suffer in a cruel family
like I did. I am very sorry for all the trouble I have made for you. You are a
very kind man. Do not worry about me. I am happy here and every night I thank your
God that He sent you to India
to save me.
Rupa
P.S. I am sending this letter
from a city where I do not live [she
lied], so the postmark on the envelope does not signify anything.
The
Duke pulled off his spectacles and laid them on the table. Both men sat quietly
for a moment. Then the father stretched his hand out to his son, who clasped it
in his own. Phillip looked from the letter to his father’s face and saw to his
surprise that he was crying.
“Forgive
me, Phillip,” said the father, reaching for his handkerchief. “I was never sure
the boy was not yours, even though you told me he wasn’t. Why did I doubt you?
I should have known better.”
Phillip
rose and closed his arms around his father.
“And that
poor girl,” the Duke stammered, “what brutes she had for brothers!”
“It is
disgusting,” breathed Phillip. “I never liked them, but I never suspected they
were capable of such monstrosities.”
“But now we
know!” declared his father, tapping the letter where it lay. “We know the
truth.”
The Duke
wiped his face and cleared his throat. Phillip asked Natalya for more tea, and
the two men attacked the biscuits and butter with vigor. They agreed that the
sausages she gave them next, served piping hot with homemade applesauce, were
the best they had ever tasted. When the first wave of relief had passed, the
Duke began thinking practically about the next steps.
“As good as
this news is, it might not be a solution to your situation, Phillip. I’m afraid
everyone within a radius of a hundred miles thinks this boy is yours. It will
be hard to undo that with just this letter—a letter from a girl who left him at
a convent and went on her way. What would we do, take out an announcement in
the papers?”
Phillip
folded the letter and slid it back into the envelope. “It doesn’t matter,” he
said, smiling. He rose and took his coat from its hook. “There is only one
person who needs to see this.”
“Oh! Do you mean . . . ?”
Phillip
nodded, pulling on his gloves.
“Shall I
give you a ride there?” asked the Duke. “I’d be very happy to.”
“No, I
don’t want you to have to bring me all the way back here. I’ll ride alone. You
take your time, father. I’ll stop by your house on my way back.”
“Do!” The
Duke rubbed his hands together. He gave Phillip a hug, wished him Godspeed, and
shut the door behind him. Of all the things he wished for his son, a good
wife—and Agnes would surely be that— was at the very top of the list.
Chapter 61
Phillip rode to Brookside
with a stiff wind behind him. The ground was hard, and he let the restless Queen
Anne run at full tilt as long as she wanted. He could not lose a moment in
sharing Rupa’s revelation with his great friend, the woman who might yet be his
bride if she could put all the harsh words behind. He could not imagine what
would happen next, but an assurance of the truth, proof that he had not lied to
her, must help dispel the cloud that hung between them.
Below an
iron sky the fields lay bereft of crops, with harsh stubble where green stalks
had stood. Bands of bare trees broke the open land, and here and there small
gangs of sheep and cows nibbled off the last of the summer growth. Scenes of
that awful night at the ball ran through Phillip’s mind, the night his world
collapsed. He saw again Dhanesh’s sneering face, inches from his own, saw the
carriage drive away, the stunned crowd, Claudia’s smile. Maybe you can show
this letter to people who think badly of you and think that the child is yours.
Phillip passed his father’s house at a quick trot and rejoiced that Agnes’s
was not much farther. He tried to hold himself back, but he could almost feel
her arms around him again. There, just over that rise, was the drive.
Phillip
turned in past the familiar stone pillars and pulled Queen Anne back to a slow
walk. He had to collect himself before seeing Agnes. He must not scare her,
arriving like a man on fire. He felt his pocket—yes, the letter was still
there. He smoothed his moustache and straightened himself, breathing in and
out, but his heart continued to beat wildly. Just around the bend would be the
great house, and inside would be Agnes. It would be good to see Fettles again,
too, and have tea in the green parlor. A wave of nostalgia for days past and a
yearning for the days ahead filled him nearly to bursting.
He rounded
the bend and saw again the square mansion beyond the twin rows of shivering
trees. Dry leaves flew across the front drive and spun around in circles, but
otherwise all was still. Phillip approached slowly, looking for Ned or his
helpers by the stables. He scanned the windows for faces or any other sign of
life. Pulling Anne to a stop, he looked up at the stone façade, at its blank
windows and smokeless chimneys. He slid from the saddle, approached the massive
doors, and knocked. He heard the sound echo ominously within. Again he knocked,
harder, but drew no response. Tying Anne to a post, he took the path that led
around the side of the house, ending at the back terrace. Phillip looked from
the silent house to the tumbled garden, to the fields beyond. The fountain sat
still with a blanket of wet leaves in
its basin. Only the native wildlife went on about its business, the gray
squirrels darting across the lawn and skittering up and down the stiff trees.
Phillip
walked mechanically to the garden, down paths overgrown with the debris of last
summer’s glory, past the thorny arms of old rose bushes and brown nets of
withered honeysuckle. He walked as in a trance until he found himself standing
once more between Venus and Vulcan. There they kept their vigil, half-clothed
in the damp chill, still separated, still yearning. He lowered himself onto the
familiar stone bench, but its stark coldness drove him back upon his feet.
Below him stretched the dull landscape stripped of all magic—could this be the
same place he sat with her in the deep blue night, wishing for more than one
lifetime? He felt the wind whip his face and cut through his clothes.
Yes, it was
here. And she was gone.
* * *
Agnes had been careful to exempt from the sale of Brookside any of the finest family heirlooms. Whoever
these buyers were, they would not be enjoying the cream of the Somerset’s collection. The
buyers had fussed, but Agnes held firm. Some items had been packed and sent to
Stella, some went to Vera, and a few tokens found a home at the Bairnaughts’
and Rockwells’. Vera had agreed to store some pieces in her cellar for the time
when Agnes had settled in somewhere and could take them back again. The last
horses were sold off, the chimney flues closed, and the remaining furniture
stood draped in white sheeting.
Agnes walked slowly through the cold house one more time.
The intensity of silence struck her. Everyone except Ned had gone away in the
last two days, all to new positions or to the homes of family members until
they might find a new post. Only Fettles, Marie, and Ned would remain with her,
and Fettles and Marie had left for Vera’s house in New York City yesterday with the furniture
and the dogs. Agnes wanted one last morning to say good-bye, to make sure she
had left behind nothing she did not intend to. Dressed in her coat and scarf,
her hands tucked into a fur muff, she checked each room, pausing to open dresser
drawers and look behind doors for things left hanging on hooks. A glance in the
music room reminded her painfully of the one piece she would most deeply miss.
Shrouded in white, the Chickering stood alone by the windows, its conveyance a
condition set down by the home’s buyer. Where would Agnes put a grand piano anyway
where she was going? Tears started up and ran from her eyes. Closing the double
doors, she moved on.
She came to her last stop, the green parlor, now a mere
collection of cloaked forms. Pulling back the sheet from an old chest of
drawers in the corner, she opened each one. In the back of the second drawer,
nearly escaping her notice, was a small box. Its corners were chipped, and over
its satiny red cover ran irregular scratches. Agnes recognized it immediately
as her mother’s collection of miscellaneous teaspoons, gathered over many
years. Gently lifting the lid, she smiled to see the still-shiny spoons lined
up in their tissue wrapping just as Mother had left them. A memory rushed over
her of tea parties for her dolls, when she would carefully choose the fanciest
of these spoons to set in each saucer. What delightful days those were. Her
heart swelled with gratitude to her mother, gratitude for all the lovely,
sun-streaked days of her childhood in this home. Taking the box, she went to
the door and placed it beside her traveling bag.
She heard Ned come in the kitchen door, and a moment
later he was in the foyer with a small crate under his arm.
“Your collection?” she asked.
“The last of it. Rest is in the carriage.” Ned looked at
Agnes uncertainly. “Maybe I should have sold it all to the museum. They offered
a pretty fine sum for everything . . .”
“No, indeed!” Agnes remonstrated. “Your butterflies and
birds’ nests will take up very little space in Vera’s basement. You are right
to keep them.”
They looked around.
“Are the doors locked?”
“Um-hm. Locked up the stable and kennel, too, so’s nobody
decides to move in before the new owners do.”
Agnes frowned. “Well then,” she said, picking up her box
of spoons. She meant to say something of a concluding nature but found she
could not.
Ned took her bag and followed her out, stowing it along
with his boxes, then handed Agnes up into the compartment. She watched as Ned pulled
the heavy front door shut and turned the key. Turning up his collar, he
squinted toward the indifferent sky as the winter’s first snowflakes drifted
down. He pulled on his gloves, pocketed the big brass key, then climbed slowly
onto his seat and clucked to the horses.
Agnes sat back and tried to look
fixedly out the far window. But before they had gone twenty yards she could not
help lowering the glass and leaning her head out to look upon her home one last
time, pale against the towering pines, until they rode around the bend and the
grand old house disappeared from view.
To be continued . .
.
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