Free Susan Speers by My Cousin Jeremy

“Mrs. Ledbetter wrote for my permission. When you return,” he said, “when you’re twenty-one will be time enough to decide your future.”
    At twenty-one, I resolved, my father would have no further voice in my future. I had a year’s respite to chart my life’s course.
    I enjoyed the winter in Paris. With the money from Miss Caleph, I engaged a piano teacher, Monsieur Bec-Fin, from the Sorbonne. I believe he took on an adult beginner as a curiosity, but he soon admired my industry. I practiced every hour I could.
    “I wish you would continue with me, Mademoiselle,” he said as the Ledbetter household made preparations to leave for St. Petersburg. “I have many pupils with greater technique but few with such feeling for the music.”
    I buried my excess of feeling in the music. It was April in Paris, the city was filled with lovers and it was hard for me to be alone. I took walk after walk, searching the beautiful streets, but for what?
    For Jeremy, I realized as soon as I saw the Temple d’Amour, Madison’s inspiration for the fifth folly at Hethering. I was searching for Jeremy and I would never find him. I sat down on a bench, dropped my face into my hands and wept. Darsie led the governess, Mademoiselle Caron, a discreet distance away, and Marcie sat down beside me.
    “Look,” she said, putting her handkerchief in my hand. “I embroidered this.”
    Instead of a flower or her initials, there was a bad tempered frog spitting out a fly.
    I was laughing and crying at the same time, when she spoke to me in a mature manner incongruous for her youth.
    “Mummy says you’ve had a disappointment,” she said. “Mummy says you wanted to marry your cousin.”
    “My Father forbade it.” I told her.
    “But why? Cousins marry all the time.”
    “He wanted Jeremy to marry someone else.” She was too young for the ugly truth.
    “Jeremy Marchmont,” she said. “That’s his name isn’t it?”
    “He’s married now,” I told her. “It’s best we don’t communicate. But I haven’t learned yet how to go on without him. If I could just —”
    “See him, visit him,” she nodded. “That’s only fair.”
    “It’s a silly dream, Father will never allow it,” I said. “I must try harder to get on alone.”

Chapter Thirteen
     
    On our way to St. Petersburg we stopped our journey in the country near Geneva, Switzerland. We were guests of the Ledbetters’ friends, Ralph and Eva Speck, connections from the Foreign Office.
    “You’ll enjoy their gardens, Clarissa,” Evadne Ledbetter told me.
    “There’s a smashing summerhouse smack in the center,” Marcie said, her eyes dancing with mischief.
    “We like to bring our dolls there,” Darsie added.
    We arrived at the beautiful villa with little time to dress for dinner. Evadne had a headache from travelling, so I descended the stair on Mr. Ledbetter’s arm and took my place at the long dinner table with more than a dozen guests.
    When I opened my heavy linen dinner napkin and looked up I realized the extent of Marcie’s mischief. Jeremy sat opposite me, his black eyes shining brighter than his blinding white shirtfront.
    We stared at each other for a moment I wanted to last forever. He was thin as a knife blade with new shadows under his eyes and hollows in his face. We were both stunned into silence, but I knew he felt the same joy that rose in my breast. I fear I wore the twin of his heartbreaking smile on my own lips. The air between us quivered with happiness. He breathed “Clarry” like a prayer.
    My right hand twitched, tipping my wineglass, but the gentleman beside me rescued it. I tore my eyes from Jemmy, and remembered my manners long enough to say a breathless “Thank you” as our first course appeared.
    “I’m Henry Putnam.” The man had a pleasant face, no longer young. “And you, I believe are Clarissa Marchmont. What an extraordinary coincidence.”
    Did he look at Jeremy? I had to be very careful. In the candlelight and shadows I