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26
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
‘Married?’ Grandmother apes, incredulous. ‘Impossible.’
‘The vicar secretly married them.’
‘That sounds just like something Miranda would do, alright. That’s why he was so adamant in insisting the inheritance was all his. She was his road to riches. And he killed her. If you’re not careful, you’ll be next.’
As if I care about my inheritance now. Jago Moon is not the man I thought he was. That night was all a sham.
‘I never told you that Miranda was your cousin.’
My heart jumps. My head spins. My throat tightens. ‘Cousin?’
‘She was my granddaughter from my first marriage. Your mother was jealous of her. Half-sister.’
‘And we were kept apart all these years… because of sibling rivalry?’
‘Your mother had everything. She was young and healthy and beautiful. But her sister, Maura, Miranda’s mother, wasn’t so lucky. While you got more and more beautiful each day, Miranda became more and more fragile. She hardly ever left the house. Eventually, when your mother mellowed towards us, she sent pictures of you and while we were happy for you, I couldn’t stand the sight of you, so pretty and healthy, while Maura – my first daughter – was trying to cope with a sick child. It just wasn’t fair.’
‘I understand that, Grandmother. Truly I do. But how was it any of my mother’s fault?’
‘She could have had some sympathy. Telephoned or even visited once a year. But she never did. But trouble started when Miranda was ten years old and laid eyes onhim… the wretched,blastedJago Moon. And it was the beginning of the end.’
The sound of his name makes my blood rush. Heliedto me. He knew who I was and heliedto me. He reeled me in, with his ‘I’m no good for you’ ruse. He made me fall in love with him, all the while knowing I was the only heir left in the family. How could I have been so stupid to fall for someone like him?
At least when Stephen had asked me out, I didn’t have a penny to my name. But Jago? He knew. He knew all along. And he played me.
My grandmother’s words reach me as if travelling through treacle, in slow motion, distorted.
‘Jago was only after her money. Everyone knew it. Even Miranda knew it, but she didn’t care. She loved him too much. He even went so far as to get her pregnant. Yes, she was expecting a baby from that lout when she drowned.’
A baby? He’s been mourning the death of hischild?
My head swims as it all clicks together. This is why he tried to kill himself, why he’s been off the rails for all these years. He’s been seriously suffering from a huge loss – not simply a sense of uneasiness or unhappiness caused by a few bad decisions or a breakup. This weight has been on his shoulders all this time, without any possibility of a solution. How do you get over something so monumental by yourself?
‘So you can see why I didn’t want you involved with someone like that.’
‘I’m so tired,’ I moan, falling back into bed, my head spinning as if I were still in the storm.
Like the waves pushing me under and tossing me up, I’m riding a rollercoaster of emotions and being yanked every which way. Who is Jago Moon? How much can he be trusted? If I do trust him, will I be forever destroyed, as he himself once told me? Or is he a kind but desperate man who’s had the worst of life thrown at him?
I want to believe him.Needto believe him. But every time I feel myself letting go to thoughts of being with him, something pulls me back.
She steps towards the bed and pulls the covers up to my chin, her hand lingering on my forehead.
‘Rest, Emmie. You’ll never have to see Jago Moon again. I’ll make sure of that.’
And this is how I spend Christmas Day after looking forward to it an entire year.
*
The next morning I wake to a low grey sky and not even the Christmas decorations strewn throughout the grounds manage to spread any festive cheer. After having touched the heavens with Jago on Christmas Eve, by Boxing Day I’m already dead inside. Is that how short happiness is? Just a quick preview, a flash of things that’ll never be?
There’s a taste of cotton wool in my mouth, as if I’ve been trying to poison myself. My head is so sore I can barely lift it off the mattress. But I have to, because my stomach is practically in my throat.
With the room spinning, I gingerly push one foot out of bed, hanging on to the bedside table. My bones can barely support my weight and only a massive effort to stay strong keeps me from tumbling to the floor.
I look out of the window to the grounds. Acres and acres of wet grass, topiary, fountains and artificial rivulets. Who needs to own this much money, and why? What’s it all for? Has it brought my grandmother any happiness? Her daughters? Miranda? Me? If anything, it’s brought me misery. If I hadn’t been half Heatherton-Smythe, Jago would never have accosted me. When I arrived in Starry Cove, he already knew who I was. Had he not known, he’d have completely ignored me. But instead, he played that hard-to-get game, and I fell for him, hook, line and sinker. I should have stayed in London. It’s safer there.
*
‘So, how are you recovering?’ Nat asks as they all pile into my bedroom, announced by Nettie, dropping their coats and Christmas gifts in a heap in the corner.
They’re like a Christmas float, bright, beautiful and cheerful. I wish I could be like my new friends, happy and hopeful, but now I know I never will be.
‘I’m fine,’ I insist. ‘It’s my grandmother who won’t let me get up.’
‘And she well shouldn’t after what you’ve been through,’ Nina sentences.
‘So! That was an adventure to tell the grandchildren,’ Rosie chimes as they gather around me on the huge bed, ready for some juicy details.
‘Did you…?’ Rosie asks.
‘Stop!’ Nat warns. ‘You can’t ask her that! Unless you want to tell, Emmie?’
Did I want to tell? I want to shout it from the rooftops. I’m in love with Jago Moon! And the night we spent together was… life-changing. I discovered things about myself – and him – that I never knew.
I look up to see their huge eyes. They’re literally hanging from my lips. Did Jago and I make love? I nod, gushing despite myself.
Rosie squeals. ‘I knew it! How was it? Tell!’
How was it? Surreal. But he had to go and ruin it all by lying to me.
I shrug. ‘I found out… about Miranda.’
At the mention of that name, they all glance at each other in sudden panic.
‘What?’ Nina barks. ‘He didn’t tell you before?’
I sigh. ‘No, he didn’t.’
‘What an arse!’ Nina sentences.
‘Oh my God, Emmie!’ Rosie exclaims, folding her legs under her. ‘We thought he had in the end, seeing as you’d grown so close. I’m so sorry!’
I shrug. ‘It’s not your fault – nor your job to protect me.’
‘Not our job?’ Nat growls. ‘He’s going to have to deal with us now, that big oaf.’
Rosie taps my shoulder with a cheeky, questioning smile. ‘You still haven’t told us how it was.’
I sigh miserably. ‘It was bloody phenomenal.’
Rosie squeals in delight as Nina wraps an arm around her.
‘Calm down, Cupid. But I’m curious: are you going to forgive him for not telling you?’ Nat asks.
I groan. ‘How can I? This is not an “I forgot to buy the milk” lie. This is epic. To not tell me he and my cousin—’ I cough, my throat tightening.
‘But he’s been through so much, Emmie,’ Nat says. ‘Give him a second chance.’
I shake my head, fighting back the tears. ‘No. I just ended a rotten relationship. I can’t… I haven’t got the strength to do it all over again. Plus, he never told me he went to jail for murder.’
‘But he was acquitted,’ Nat says.
‘I have to agree with Emmie,’ Nina admits. ‘I mean, it’s a mess. Why would she want to get involved?’
The trouble is, I already am involved.
‘Whatever you decide, Emmie, we’re here for you,’ Rosie reassures as the others nod.
‘Hell, yes,’ Nina says.
‘Thanks, girls.’
‘Come on – open your pressies!’ Rosie chimes, shoving a colourful box under my nose.
Christmas. I’d had such high hopes. A new family. A new place to live and a business. But now, I have less than what I started with. Because I’ve lost any hope of being able to trust Jago Moon ever again.
*
As I’m finishing my lunch the next day, Grandmother comes into my room, bright-eyed.
‘There’s someone here to see you!’ she chirps.
I sit up, brushing the crumbs from my lip, my heart lifting.
‘Who? Is it Maisie?’
‘No, better,’ she assures as the door opens.
At first I don’t recognise him, dressed in jeans and a sports jacket. He’s lost weight – a stone at least.
‘Hello, Emmie.’
‘Stephen! What are you doing here?’
‘I came to take you back home.’
I sit back, pulling the covers up to my chin. I feel absolutely nothing for him, if not perhaps a little bitterness for the years I’ve lost on him. If I think of all the times he and Audrey had tried to dominate me. And that I’d almost succumbed. But not anymore. That sweet, malleable Emmie who would do anything for love is dead. And Stephen has no idea how dead. Drowned, perhaps off the coast of Tempest Island.
I lift my chin and look him in the eye. I’m no longer afraid of ruining that fragile balance between us, where I walk on eggshells so as not to upset his karma – or his mother’s – usually quelling my own will just to avoid yet another argument. To think he hadn’t even come to comfort me after I was attacked. What boyfriend actually does that? Could his priorities have been any clearer?
Sod it. Sod him and his silly vacuous, garment-venerating mother.
‘I told you – this is my home now.’
He watches me in silence for a moment, running his hand through his hair like when confronted with a problem he doesn’t know how to solve. That’s what I’ve always been to him – a problem to solve.
‘Oh, come on, Emmie – I miss you. We all do.’
‘Who, you mean you and your mother?’
‘Emmie, that’s not fair. Audrey has a soft spot for you, only she doesn’t know how to show it.’
‘If I had stitches, they’d have popped out with my inner laughter,’ I quip, suddenly finding the scenario amusing.
Audrey – fond of me? What next? I’m the perfect match for her son? To think she was so right. Stephen and I are like chalk and cheese. We couldn’t be more different. And now I know.
Like a cautious animal, he sidles closer to my bed.
‘How are you? Your grandmother told me about your incident.’
Has she told him I spent Christmas Eve alone with a man in a cabin on an island? I almost hope as much, so he’ll get the idea. I’m not going back. Anytime.
‘I’m perfectly fine, thank you. But you really shouldn’t have come all the way down here to hear me say what I already told you.’
‘Yes, you told me on the phone. On the phone, Emmie? Really? Don’t I deserve more than that? Don’t I deserve your respect?’
‘My respect? What about me, then, lying on a cold pavement and then sitting in a police station, waiting for my fiancé to come and take me home? You were much too busy, weren’t you?’
‘Ah. I knew that would come back to haunt me.’
‘By “that”, you mean the night I was attacked and your schedule was too hectic to rush to my side?’
But I have no desire to start another argument when I’m well and truly done arguing with him. I never thought that I couldn’t care less for Stephen. But here we are. I couldn’t care less.
‘Emmie…’ he says, shifting from one foot to the other.
His eyes dart in every direction and finally out of the window. It’s almost as if he’s been sent by his mother to patch things up. Which makes me laugh.
‘I still love you, Emmie.’
He loves me? His impatience. His curt tones. Never spending any time with me. Expecting me to do his bidding in my own home. My own life. Always putting me last.
Then there’s Jago.Jago…
Giving up his feelings for me. For my own good. I still don’t know the story behind it all, but I’d seen the pain in his eyes during our goodbye. I’d seen how much it had cost him. The tenderness in his eyes, in his touch. His sad, resigned smile. I’d never seen a man suffer for love before. Certainly not Stephen.
But Jago? Jago’s moist eyes had broken my heart. Jago could finally feel. He’d got over his fears of letting go, whereas Stephen had never felt anything akin to Jago’s love in his life. Jago had suffered in the past because of someone else. Stephen never suffered – he made others do that.
Jago… I’ve lost him… And I’ll never get him back.
He’s a man of honour. A man capable of the deepest feelings, albeit afraid to show it. Capable of huge sacrifices for those he loves. Stephen only loves himself.
I shake my head, tears springing. ‘It’s too late, Stephen. I’m sorry.’
Stephen leaps up, taking my elbows, the most intimate contact we’ve had in months.
‘Aww, Emmie, you’re crying, see? That means you feel something for me, too.’
I wipe my eyes. ‘No, Stephen. I’m crying because of all the time I’ve wasted with you.’
His jaw opens, then shuts as his eyes flash. And finally, like the curtains closing on a play, it dawns on him. We’re past over. We need a new word for it.
‘Who the hell is that?’ he suddenly demands, changing tack as he walks to the window and looks straight down.
My muscles freeze. I can’t see from where I’m lying, but instinctively, I know.
‘And why is he looking up at your window?’
I turn on my side and bury myself deeper under the covers. Everyone is under the strictest orders to keep Jago away and for once, I’m grateful.
‘What does he want from you, Emmie?’ Stephen insists.
‘What makes you think he’s here for me?’ I throw over my shoulder. ‘I’m tired now. I need to sleep. Don’t bother coming back.’
Behind me comes his tsk-tsk. How obvious it is that it doesn’t touch his heart but only his pride. How annoying for him, to be surpassed in your efforts by another man who isn’t even trying. Only Jago doesn’t surpass him in the least, because I never want to see him again, either.
I can hear Stephen, still standing there, debating with himself for longer than I’m prepared to stand. Finally, he turns on his heels and leaves my room. And quite frankly, I think he’s actually just as relieved as I am.
