The Lost Bee (7 page)

The rest of her life rolled out before her in a vision, like a narrow carpet running to an uninteresting vanishing point. She would be ordinary. She would be cruel. She would not respect her husband. Not all the fortune and deference bundled with Gohrum could disguise the utter lack of power in that kiss.

Gohrum wasn’t Leopold Singer, and her chest hosted a jagged, ravaged wound where a heart could have been. Leopold could have made her happy, and she had lost him not through any mistake on her part. That whore servant of Gohrum’s had somehow bewitched him, though she couldn’t keep him either. The last Delia heard, Singer had returned to Austria.

Well, the wretched Miss Gray would pay. It was a shame to have to wait, but when Delia returned to London in May after her wedding trip, she would have that slut housekeeper thrown out.

***

At Mrs. Bead’s boarding house, Susan came downstairs to post a letter. She’d left Gohrum House before the duke’s wedding with the excuse of her mama’s worsening illness, but she couldn’t have stayed in any event. She’d been in Bath several months now, and Mrs. Bead never looked at her expanding belly without shaking her head sadly.

“Is that for the post?” She indicated the letter in Susan’s hand.

“The doctor has instructed me to write to my brother,” Susan said. “Mama may not last the night.”

John was nineteen now and married, to Susan’s regret. He arrived too late, the day after she buried their poor mama. He took one look at Susan’s swollen shape and said, “My Meg is in about the same way as you.”

“Oh, John. You are so young.” This was too much to bear. “Is there no hope for our family?”

“None, I think.” John laughed. He had been a kind and sweet boy, and he looked to become a generous and good man. “Come home and meet my bride. She’s a good girl, and we’ve got a nice little farm on Gohrum’s land with extra rooms that will do for you two.”

She hesitated. Carleson Peak was the last place she wanted to see again.

He said, “Don’t worry about Morgan Baker. Yes, I know all about that rascal. You think I didn’t see him trifle with you at our father’s burial?”

More than trifle, but there was no need to enlighten John on that subject.

“He was dismissed not long after you went to London. The man was nothing but hot air. They say he went to New Holland.” John cheerfully loaded her few bags and boxes into his cart, and Susan left Bath forever.

John a tenant farmer! She’d ruined herself and any chance of helping her brother to regain his inheritance. Even the duke would be loath to employ her now. For the first time in her life, she had no idea what she was going to do.

Two months later she still had no plan for the future. She stayed inside John and Meg’s house, a true cottage a quarter the size of Millam Cottage at Millam’s northern border. There were small odds of being seen by anyone who knew her, but she wouldn’t risk it.

The future arrived despite her lack of plan for it. The pain came in waves, closer and closer together until one wouldn’t let go. She had to push. She had to.

Let me die
, she thought.
Let me die and have done with it
. The pains were so close together now she couldn’t catch her breath. She tried pacing her room, which helped for a few minutes. The next contraction took hold so fiercely she let out a scream, a scream that mixed with other screams, terrifying screams, down the hall in another room.

Her brother’s wife Meg had been in labor for three days, and Susan could tell the midwife was worried. When her own pains started that morning, she’d stayed quiet. It was two months too early to be birth pangs. But could anything possibly be worse? If God could just let her die, she really wouldn’t mind.

Something had happened. Meg’s screams metamorphosed into wails of unbearable heartbreak.
No. No
.

Susan’s bedroom door opened. The midwife came in, worn out, but she eased Susan into the bed. Lying down was worse. Susan tried to stand again, but the midwife would have none of it.

“How is my sister-in-law?” But she knew the answer.

Hours later, when the house was silent with exhaustion and sorrow, Susan woke to the sweet song of a nightjar outside her window. She picked up her baby and studied his features in the moonlight. He had the deep brown eyes of his father and no hair at all on his head. She gasped as her heart swelled.

What wonder was this? That such a small helpless person could give her back her heart and all her belief in life? Love like this made up for everything.

Once she had run to the woods to join the fairies. She’d believed her mother had foolishly left the enchanted world, given up everything good to love her father. But there were no fairies. John Gray made a bad marriage and called it enchantment. He died and left his children to the care of a woman with no connections, no talents, and no ambition.

Susan was no better than her mother or her father. She’d brought this beautiful miracle into a world that would call him bastard and see no beauty, no miracle. She wouldn’t let his life be ruined before it even began.

She slipped down the hall and into Meg’s room. The midwife slept next to the bed, but poor Meg was awake, staring into the night. Her baby lay cold in his crib. Susan laid her own child on Meg’s bed and began to exchange the infants’ clothes. When she tied the last ribbon, she saw Meg staring at her.

“His name is Perseus,” she said. “Persey.”

She offered the baby to Meg, who mechanically opened her night dress to feed him.

Susan turned and froze. The midwife was awake. After an eternity, she nodded her approval and closed her eyes again.

Susan returned to her room with aching breasts and the wrench of longing for the one who’d lived inside her these many months. She felt utterly lost. Soft rain fell noiselessly on the other side of the window. She laid her dead nephew in her son’s place.

Susan set a batch of strawberry scones in the window to cool while she brought out the clotted cream and hung the kettle on the hook. Meg was awake. Her footsteps sounded on the stairs.

“Something smells heavenly.” Meg came into the kitchen and picked up Persey, who was playing on the floor. “Can I help?”

John and Meg had made Susan truly welcome, and she helped with Persey and the housework. They had a girl who served as maid-of-all-work, but Susan and Meg shared the cooking. To everyone’s relief, as Meg had grown stronger she took over more of that duty. Susan’s cooking skills began and ended with scones and tea.

The two women had never discussed the circumstances of Persey’s birth or the other infant’s death. For all John knew, they’d buried his nephew a year ago. Sometimes Susan feared her sister-in-law had been so distraught that night that her mind had blocked the truth.

“There’s nothing to do,” Susan said. “I was just about to sit down and wait for the water to boil. Did you rest well?”

“Very well.” Meg had recovered slowly from her horrendous labor, but she was young. Now that a year had passed she’d regained her strength. “I feel foolish sleeping during the day when there’s work to do. Today was my last nap.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Susan said. As much as she loved her brother and his wife, living with them had become unbearable. She had to go. “I’ve written to Mr. Peter, the butler at Gohrum House, about going back to my position.”

“Oh, Susan,” Meg said. “We would miss you.”

“You’re mistress here, and I’m in your way. You don’t want your husband’s old maid sister always looking over your shoulder. And there is one thing that is…painful for me.”

As if to illustrate the point, Meg absently kissed Persey’s blond curls and then his fat cherubic fingers.

“At any rate,” Susan said, “Mr. Peter’s answer arrived today. I’ll take tomorrow’s mail coach to London.”

She’d finally made plans for the future. She would do all she could to give Persey something of the life she’d lost. At the least, he’d have an education. To that end she had to be in the world earning an income, not hidden away in a room with no money, no autonomy. No dignity.

Tears filled Meg’s eyes, but she didn’t try to argue Susan out of the decision.

Persey stood up on Meg’s lap and wrapped his arms around her neck. He said, “Mama,” and planted a sloppy wet kiss on her lips.

Unbearable.

On a July afternoon a year after she’d come back to Gohrum House, Susan was sent for a particular kind of chocolate the duchess wanted for her breakfast.

Life was decidedly more difficult with the new duchess in residence. Her grace seemed to take particular pleasure in bedeviling Susan, though no one could explain why. Unfortunately, she preferred London to Millam Hall and only left town when the late summer heat made the city unbearable.
 

Mr. Peter and Cook were in the kitchen when she returned triumphant.

“Success!” She handed the prize to Cook and gave Matthew Peter a smile of gratitude. “Matthew Peter knew just where to find it. I’m sure her grace thought she’d stump me on this one.”

Matthew Peter beamed. He was still fond of her, and to Susan’s surprise she was growing fond of him. They’d gone to some theatricals and street fairs along with other servants from the household. He was persistent, and Susan’s resistance was beginning to fail.

He didn’t turn her head. Her heart didn’t leap at the sound of his voice or the mention of his name. With him, she never heard the white lady’s song. But she liked and respected him, and he liked and respected her. Maybe those things were more important.

Susan and Cook and the kitchen maids applauded Matthew Peter, but Mr. Peter seemed distracted. He asked to see Susan privately in his office and closed the door before speaking. Her mind raced with fear.

“Has something happened to—to my brother?”
To Persey?

“Nothing of that kind, Miss Gray,” Mr. Peter said. “An acquaintance of the duke is coming to Gohrum House. He and his wife are
emigrating
to America, and the wife isn’t traveling with a lady’s maid. The duchess wants you to serve as
Mrs. Singer’s lady’s
maid during her stay.

The room tilted slightly, and Susan leaned against the edge of Mr. Peter’s desk. “Mrs. Singer, you say?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Leopold Singer of Austria,” said Mr. Peter. “They should be here this afternoon. You may have seen Mr. Singer before. A fine young man. He dined at Gohrum House, I believe, once or twice a couple of years ago.”

He’s married.
“But I’m no lady’s maid,” Susan said. “I’m not trained.”

“I pointed that out to her grace, but she insisted. You know how she is.”

Susan went to her room and sat at the edge of her bed for a few minutes, trying to collect her thoughts. Leopold Singer was coming to London. He might be in a carriage, riding toward her from the docks, at this very moment.

But he wasn’t coming to her. He was married, and Susan was to be lady’s maid to his new wife. She felt like a fox surrounded by dogs; nothing good could come of this.

***

Mrs. Leopold Singer was simply lovely.

Hot with impotent fury, Susan raced down the stairs carrying Mrs. Singer’s traveling clothes to the laundry.

This was how it was. This was how it would be. Upstairs, there was a beautiful doll-like creature soaking off her travel weariness in a steaming perfumed bath. Mrs. Singer, who had the right to call Leopold
my
husband
.

Susan might read a hundred philosophical tomes and understand every one, but she would always be merely Gray, the plain servant who was once someone’s daughter. A housekeeper at best, at the mercy of a duchess who hated her.

At least now Susan understood why. The duchess had burst into the bath room and confronted Mrs. Singer under the guise of welcoming her guest, but her grace’s jealousy was impossible to hide. She loved Leopold Singer too, or had once. She must have believed he cared for Susan.

Would her tyranny cease now that she knew the truth? If Leopold Singer ever cared for Susan, he didn’t now.

Susan should never have accepted the demotion. Right this minute she should walk out of Gohrum House, go to The Lost Bee, and take the next coach back to her brother.

Of course she stayed, for the perverse reason that she had to see him. She stayed to hear his voice just one more time.

***

The duchess’s wrath shifted, for the moment, to Mrs. Singer. Susan lit the candles in the young woman’s room then shook out the skirt of the massive silk gown Mrs. Singer was to wear this evening.

Mrs. Singer stirred in her bed and sat up, staring at the old-fashioned dress.

“I am sorry, madam,” Susan said. “It’s what the duchess wants you to wear.”

The Singers were to attend a ball with the duke and duchess at Devonshire House this evening. Susan still had not seen or spoken to Leopold, though she’d heard his voice somewhere when she was bringing Mrs. Singer’s ball gown down from storage.