Could she possibly be so brave?
19
The End
Four days later, Clementine called at Mollybrook, hoping having come alone wouldn’t cause a stir. She could have brought a maid, but she had a mission, and she trusted that the friendship the two families used to enjoy would make her solo visit unremarkable.
“Miss Morgan, hello!” Miss Brown swept into the sitting room Clementine had been installed in and greeted her warmly, dipping a curtsy and smiling widely. “How wonderful to see you! I daresay it has been years. Is your family at Hill House for a while now?”
“Yes, I think so. I hope so. I was—”
She was coming to declare her love to Archie. But she could hardly say that. She hadn’t thought this through. She’d spent the last several days of planning and packing and traveling focused only on moving her body through space. Toward Archie.
She tried again. “I was hoping to pay the dowager countess a visit.” Archie aside, she found it was not untrue. She had fond memories of the countess, and it had been too long. She was ashamed, in fact, at how much the family had been suffering without her knowledge.
“That is very kind of you. I would be happy to take you to her. I wonder, though, if you are aware that she is not herself these days.”
“I . . . have heard something of that,” Clementine said carefully. “Perhaps my wanting to see her is ill-advised.” Perhaps it was selfish. Would her presence confuse the older woman? Upset her?
“Not at all. She enjoys visitors, for the most part. I merely wanted to prepare you for the fact that she will not recognize you. She doesn’t recognize anyone these days, not even her son.”
Clementine, of course, could not tell Miss Brown that she knew that. The knowing didn’t matter anyway; it didn’t make the hearing any less sad. “I understand.”
And so she was ushered through the house and into the garden. Lady Harcourt was seated at a small wrought iron table beneath the wide green canopy of a majestic beech. Clementine remembered this tree. Although she and Archie had spent more time in the wilds around Mollybrook than in its manicured gardens, she had nevertheless passed many an afternoon perched in this tree’s branches. And she remembered Lady Harcourt under this tree: this was where she had generally set up her lawn games.
“My lady, you have a visitor,” Miss Brown called as they approached.
The older woman turned in her chair, and in so doing, revealed her son, who had been seated across from her.
He gasped, and lurched to his feet.
Oh, Archie. Archie. She wanted to tell him to sit. That it was just her. That she was here. That she was home.
She loved him so very much. It was fantastical to think that mere days ago she had been protesting to her sister that she didn’t.
They were insects in amber again, staring at each other across the expanse of lawn. She watched surprise give way to something else, something like delight, but darker. He smiled, but there was something else yet again there, a kind of knowing that was new, that was—
“Well, Clementine Morgan, as I live and breathe!” Archie’s mother exclaimed.
Archie gasped again, but he wasn’t alone this time. So did Miss Brown. So, albeit on a bit of a delay, did Clementine. The shock of being recognized by Archie’s mother shattered her amber trance.
“Yes,” she said carefully, giving her attention to the old woman, who looked so much like Archie—Clementine hadn’t noticed when they were all younger, but she had Archie’s kind, multicolored eyes. “My lady.” Clementine dipped into a curtsy.
“Oh, none of that, my girl. You think you and my son can steal all the tarts from my kitchen one day and come in here the next with your curtsies and yourmy ladysand be forgiven?”
Clementine had no idea what to say. There had been a day, when Clementine was about eleven, when she and Archie had stumbled upon an empty kitchen featuring half a dozen lemon tarts left to cool, and . . .
Well, why not try for the truth?
“Your cook remains legend in my mind, my lady. I know I ought to rue my actions that day, but if I am truthful, I find I cannot.”
To her shock, Lady Harcourt laughed and gestured for her to sit. Clementine glanced at the still-standing Archie, for the chair she was being directed to had been his a moment ago. He gestured animatedly for her to sit, and retreated to stand a few feet away, next to the tree trunk. Clementine surmised that he wanted her to continue conversing with his mother, to try to extend this rare stretch of lucidity.
“How is your mother, my dear? I haven’t seen her for so long.”
Clementine didn’t know what to say. She used the excuse of settling herself on the proffered chair to gather her thoughts. Something inside her rebelled at the notion of lying outright. Deciding to fall back again on the truth—though this was a more melancholy truth—she took one of Lady Harcourt’s hands in hers. The skin at the back of it seemed impossibly thin, like a bird’s newly laid egg held up to the light. “I am so sorry to have to tell you that my mother died.”
“Oh!” Tears gathered in the corners of eyes bracketed by fine lines. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”
