But I only want her to stay. I sense that her presence is fleeting, and that I must earn it. “He’s…fun and handsome and full of life.” Speaking of pleasant topics is one way of accomplishing that.
“How marvelous!” She claps her hands.
“We’ve had no shortage of adventures together. He’s spontaneous and silly and…” I blink away tears as the rest of the truth tries to surface. Then, I see Rupert’s face. His warm, inviting expression so full of adoration. Then AJ’s again, with a bitter tang of regret.
I’ll never know exactly what to believe from either one of them, and I cannot abide a marriage like that. True love should be solid and dependable when nothing else in life is. One should never anchor oneself to anything that might change. Including a mother—or a husband.
“You do love him?”
“Oh yes,” I breathe, without thinking.
Mum frowns. “I did fear there were difficulties.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, I always assumed you’d eventually write with…happy news. But no letter came.”
I blush at the intimate topic. “Life is complicated.”
She brushes a gloved finger down my cheek. “Children have a way of simplifying the complex.”
I ache for Cecil. Ache to speak with him again and hear his straightforward thoughts on the world. His take on life. “They do, don’t they?”
“So there’s no trouble? Between you and Ansel?”
Why can’t I tell her? Why can’t I trust her with the details of my life? She places her gloved hand on my bare one and her face, that tender expression that soothed my childhood self to sleep, shakes something loose. “I’m not certain I really knew who he was when we married. I’m not certain I know now.”
“I so hoped your story would turn out differently than mine.” Her look is wistful.
I study her beautiful face, striking and ethereal and slightly tragic. “My father was a bank owner?” Thatwaswhat Gould said, wasn’t it?
She shakes her head. “He was an actor in Shakespearean stage dramas. He died before you were born.”
But…AJ’s first wife. The heiress, who is supposedlyme. She was the daughter of some bank owner. “He didn’t…he didn’t leave me an inheritance, did he? My father?”
She laughs. “He hadn’t much to leave, dearest. But you did possess a respectable fortune. Your father’s brother was a Barclay, and he died childless and left you a tidy income. That helped me sleep at night.” Tears well again. “Knowing your needs were seen to. That part of your life, at least, was secure.”
My life is anything but secure now. She stirs, as if readying to leave. Half-formed questions flit through my mind and I look up at her, imploring.
She softens. “I have an appointment in Bath.” She leans forward, placing one gloved hand on mine. “Come, darling. Let me show you how it used to be.”
Chapter 40
Wesleepforatime, then arrive in Bath in the morning. I’m weary and sore, having slept in my corset. I don’t think I’ll fully sleep until the decision has been entered, and Cecil is with me again. It’s like holding my breath, and until that call comes, I’m merely biding time.
But then I witness my mother singing opera on stage.
Words are insufficient to express the richness, the sheer volume that reverberates through the Lyceum when my mother opens her mouth. She is slender and restrained, yet she manages to release a sound as magnificent as the ornate theater itself.
How could I ever have given this up? Even if I had to leave Cornwall, I would have had Mum every day…andthis.It’s stirring and enrapturing and I cannot look away. I close my eyes and remember feeling this swell of grandeur.
I reach out to squeeze AJ’s hand, but of course he isn’t there. I long for what I thought he was, especially when my mother’s voice, singing of the angst of lost love, echoes through the theater. His entrance is stirring, then the woman’s love sweepsher up, draping her backward over his arm, I will them to kiss. I long for it.
They never do.
Afterward, I hurry down the stairs where Mum told me to look for her dressing room and she’s there, rosy and wide-eyed and more alive than I’ve ever seen her. “Did you enjoy it, Merryn darling?”
“It was splendid!”
