Remember When (Ravenswood #4)

Chapter Eighteen

The first half hour of Matthew’s visit felt unreal. Downright bizarre, in fact. He sat with Reginald and his wife and Philip and his wife in the drawing room, which looked familiar but different—somehow lighter, brighter, larger than he remembered it. They sipped on tea, though Adelaide informed him that luncheon would be ready within the hour and they all hoped he would stay.

They made polite conversation. Yes, the farm was doing well, far better than it had used to do, now that more modern methods were being applied. And yes, Anthony, their younger son, was doing well in London, and Mabel, their daughter, was a happy wife and mother.

And yes, Matthew’s business was going well, offering him a steady flow of work without overwhelming him. Yes, he was happy in Boscombe. He had some good friends there. It was a friendly place, in fact, a good place to live. And yes, he was proud of the sheep carving Emily had brought home with her last week, as he was of all his work. Yes, he carved during his spare time.

He ought to have brought another of his carvings as a gift for Adelaide, he thought too late. He had come empty-handed. That had been gauche of him.

Reginald and Adelaide had aged since he last saw them, a rather obvious thought to be having. They had been in their late twenties the last time. Reginald was sixty now. He had aged well, however. He was still lean. He still had most of his hair, though it was steel gray now. Adelaide had grown plumper and ruddier of complexion than she had been, yet she was still a pleasant-looking woman.

This was to be it, then? This uncomfortable meeting, filled with meaningless chatter? He was finding it impossible to shift the conversation to what was clearly in the forefront of all their minds. Half an hour was the expected limit of a social visit. Ought he now, then, to get to his feet, thank them for their kind hospitality, and walk over to the Greenfields’ house to tell Clarissa that he was ready to leave when she was?

But he had been invited to stay for luncheon. Had it been a mere polite offer, which they expected him to refuse? Were they willing him to take his leave and end the embarrassment they were all feeling? They could hardly just ask him to leave, could they?

“If you will excuse us,” Emily said, getting to her feet and smiling at Matthew. “We have promised to take the children outside for a walk before luncheon.”

Philip got up too. So did Adelaide.

“I believe I will come with you if I may, Emily,” she said. “The sun is shining nicely. But we will see you again at luncheon, Matthew?”

“Thank you,” he said without actually saying yes or no. “You are kind.”

And suddenly they were alone together, he and Reginald, and the silence in the room was loud.

Matthew drew a slow breath.

“Why did you do it?” he asked. No explanation. No context. Just the bare question about something that had happened more than thirty years ago. “I did not know. Not until Philip mentioned it when he came to see me last week. He assumed I knew. I did not. Why did you do it?”

“I assume you are talking about Grandmama’s will,” Reginald said.

“I could never understand it,” Matthew said. “The only way I could ever explain it to myself was that she changed the will for Poppy’s sake and the baby’s and forgot to change it back after they died. When I heard about it, I imagined that you and our father—you especially—were hideously disappointed and probably furious too. You had always longed for the day when you would have a home and farm of your own and the prospect of the amalgamation of the two properties in time. Though I suppose you never longed for the deaths of our grandmother and father. But why did you give up your dream?”

“It was always Papa’s dream more than mine,” Reginald said. “I was never an ambitious man. I was like you in that. I still am. We are happy here, Addie and I. We have everything we could possibly need. And we have our family, all happily settled. We have good neighbors and friends.”

Was it true, Matthew wondered—that Reginald had never been an ambitious man? He had always done his duty as the elder son of the family. He had worked hard. He had been an indulgent, affectionate brother—until he had not been. But ambitious?

“Grandmama never made a secret of the fact that she intended to leave her property and everything else to me when she died,” Reginald said. “It was her right, of course. She could leave it to whomever she wished. But I was never comfortable with the way she talked openly about it rather than keep the contents of her will confidential. I talked to Papa about it a couple of times. Since she had only the two grandchildren, I explained, and I was set to inherit everything of his, would it not be better, kinder, for Grandmama to leave everything of hers to the one who would not inherit from her son-in-law? Unfortunately, Papa did not see things that way. He visualized a time when the owner of the combined properties would rival the Greenfields in prosperity and social prominence.”

Why had Matthew assumed that his brother was just like their father? Perhaps because he had acted like their father?

“I wanted you to have that property,” Reginald said. “I wanted you to live there and farm there. I thought that having it might at last restore you to…yourself. You adored being on the farm with me when you were a young child. You would work to the point of exhaustion in an attempt to keep up with me. You would prattle constantly, peppering me with surprisingly intelligent questions. You were adorable. I adored you. I think the great change in you came after you understood that you would not live here forever and work here as my partner, that you would have to find your own way in life when you grew up, with some profession suitable for a gentleman. But not as a farmer, since you would not be a property owner.”

The great change in you…

“I never understood, Reginald,” Matthew said, emphasizing the one word. “I heard only that when I reached the age of eighteen I was going to be tossed out into the wide world to fend for myself. Rejected and unloved.”

“Papa could be blunt and tactless,” Reginald said. “He did not mean—”

“And then you stopped loving me,” Matthew said. He felt a bit like a petulant boy again.

Reginald closed his eyes and visibly winced. “Never that,” he said. “Oh, never that. But you became impossible. Totally out of control. I tried everything I could think of. But Papa convinced me that I was part of the problem, that I was indulging your bad behavior and must stop doing so—for your own good. He was an unimaginative man, Matt. I always realized that about him. And Mama was such a mouse of a woman that she would never speak up against him. But he was not a bad man. He was genuinely concerned about you and your future. He could only ever see one way to go—become stricter and stricter with you and force you into compliance.”

Matthew said nothing.

“The only person who seemed to have any influence on you was Clarissa Greenfield,” Reginald said. “I do not know how she did it or why she did it, but I blessed her in my prayers every night and morning. I did not have the courage—”

“To what?” Matthew asked when his brother stopped abruptly without completing his sentence.

Reginald shrugged. “Simply to love you,” he said. “And then, when you were already eighteen and showing no sign of settling down, you went and…impregnated Poppy and married her with no discernible plan for your future. And Papa at last admitted that he had failed with you, though I do not suppose he explained it that way to himself. He kicked you out, and it took some begging on my part to persuade Grandmama to take you in.”

Ah.

He had not known that. Good God!

“I suppose,” Reginald said, “you did it because Clarissa married Stratton. That must have been a nasty blow to you.”

“I never had any expectation of marrying her myself,” Matthew said. “That was not what our friendship was about.”

“No, I suppose not,” Reginald said. “And I persuaded Grandmama to change her will. It was not easy. I believe she did it eventually because for some strange reason she grew fond of Poppy.”

“Poppy was not a woman to be despised,” Matthew said. “She was a person. She was my wife.”

“Yes. I am sorry.” Reginald sighed. “I thought Grandmama might change her will back to the original after your wife and daughter died and you disappeared without a trace. We never talked about it. But she did not change a thing. And you did not come home, even after you returned to England. You never came home.”

“No,” Matthew said. “I did not know. About what you had done, I mean. I was not going to come back here and expect a prodigal’s welcome. I was not going to come back to the poisonous atmosphere that very nearly destroyed my spirit. Yes, I was bad. Yes, I was out of control. I was also a child when it all started. Children need to grow gradually into an understanding of life. They need to be loved while it happens. Not disciplined in some perversion of love.”

Reginald winced again.

“I have long forgiven my father,” Matthew said. “And my mother. They did what they thought was right, and I did not make it easy for them.”

“And me?” Reginald said. “Have you forgiven me?”

“You gave me a precious gift,” Matthew said. “One I knew nothing about until last week. Despite what you have said about ambition, I know it was a great sacrifice you made.”

“I wanted my brother close by and thriving,” Reginald said. “We could have been almost partners, as you had dreamed of when you were a child. My happiness would have been complete.”

“I do thank you,” Matthew said.

“But it was no substitute for love, was it?” Reginald said. “The love I withheld at a time when you needed it most. I did not have to listen to Papa, even though the habit of obeying him and convincing myself that he knew best was deeply ingrained in me. I was a young adult when I told you—the most nightmarish day of my life—that I would have nothing more to do with you until you learned to behave as you ought. I should have taken my own advice. I should have learned to behave as I ought. You were my brother, and I adored you and grieved over you. Effectively giving you property and income instead of love was no gift at all. You were right to stay away, Matthew. I did not deserve a relationship with you. But tell me now, because I have always worried—have you been happy?”

“Contented,” Matthew said.

“And you and Clarissa are still friends?” Reginald asked.

“Friends again,” Matthew said.

“I am glad,” his brother said.

“So am I.” Matthew got to his feet. “Maybe you will make my excuses to Adelaide. With thanks. I will walk over to the Greenfield house. Clarissa is there with her parents.”

Reginald jumped up in what looked like near panic. “Don’t go, Matt. Please don’t go,” he said. “I have never forgiven myself, if that is any consolation to you. And I understood your not returning here in all these years. I understood that the only way I could show my…love for you was to stay right out of your life and keep my family out of it. Philip is, of course, in his thirties. I could not forbid his writing to you a few weeks ago. I would never try to exert that sort of control over my children in any case. But I was sorry that you were to be bothered, that old wounds were perhaps going to be ripped open for you after all this time. And here you are as though to prove me right, obviously troubled by it all. Will you at least stay for luncheon? Addy will be upset if you do not. So will Philip and Emily.”

“And you?” Matthew asked.

“And me too,” Reginald said. “You cannot imagine how…good it is to see you again. Painful but good.”

Matthew regarded him with a frown. “You loved me that much,” he said. “I did not know it. You must have thought me the most ungrateful wretch in the world.”

“Yes, I loved you that much,” his brother said. “But I did not show it in the only way that mattered. One can never buy love. I am glad you did not know. And you do not owe me anything, especially thanks.”

They stood gazing at each other.

“Unfortunately,” Matthew said, “we can never go back to do things differently, can we? To do things right. We can only live on and try each day to do better than we did the day before. Which sounds very glib and preachy. Reggie, there has always been a hole in my heart where you were.”

His brother’s eyes were swimming with tears, he saw.

“Oh, Matt,” he said. “In mine too. Where you were.”

“To hell with thanks and forgiveness,” Matthew said. “And pious platitudes.”

“You will stay for luncheon?” Reginald asked.

“I will stay,” Matthew said.

And somehow, excruciatingly embarrassingly, they were in each other’s arms, choking and hiccuping, laughing self-consciously, and slapping each other’s back.

“I ought to have brought Adelaide one of my carvings,” Matthew finally said when he could speak clearly again.

“She would have liked that,” Reginald said after stepping back and blowing his nose. “She will like it. You can bring it next time you come.”

“There is to be a next time, then?” Matthew asked.

“Good God, yes,” Reginald said. “You do not know Addy and Emily, Matt. Tyrants both. I predict with all confidence that they are going to organize some sort of grand party in your honor and invite everyone they know.”

“Good God,” Matthew said.

“Yes,” his brother said, slapping a hand on his shoulder and indicating the door of the room. “Ghastly, is it not? I hope you brought your appetite with you. I believe a bit of a banquet awaits, early in the day though it is. Not quite the fatted calf, but not far off. After you.”

He opened the door and gestured toward the dining room, from which Matthew could hear the voices of his sister-in-law and his niece-in-law.

“Good God,” he said again.

—

When the time crept up to midafternoon but did not bring Matthew, Clarissa chose to take his lengthy absence as a good sign. Surely if the meeting with his brother had gone badly, he would have been here almost on her heels. Nevertheless, she was restless. She stood at the window of her parents’ drawing room, looking out along the driveway and drumming her fingernails on the windowsill.

Her father had fallen asleep in his wing chair by the fireplace, his hands crossed over his waistcoat. He was not quite snoring. Her mother had just described the sound he made as he inhaled as clicking.

“And a bit annoying it can be at times,” she said, gazing at him fondly. “I used to try to close his mouth with one very gentle finger. But he would always jump awake just when I thought I had succeeded and complain that he would never now know how that delicious dream he had been having of me ended.” She laughed softly as she came to stand beside her daughter. “Still no sign? But you know what is said of watched pots, Clarissa. They are good neighbors, the Taylors, and good people. The elder Taylors were more puritanical, may their souls rest in peace. They missed many of life’s joys in favor of righteousness. They were not easy to like.”

“Unfortunately,” Clarissa said, “they destroyed the joy of those under their care too.”

“We must not judge,” her mother said, rubbing her hand in a light circle over Clarissa’s back. “None of us are perfect. None of us behave wisely all the time, especially toward our own children, whom we love most in the world.”

“Like the time I sent Devlin away and he cut himself off completely from us for six interminable years,” Clarissa said.

“Or all the times your father and I ought to have confronted Caleb with our outrage over his infidelities but decided it was better for everyone concerned to let sleeping dogs lie,” her mother said. “Ah, here he comes.”

And Matthew was indeed walking toward the house—with his brother. They were laughing over something, and Reginald was slapping a hand against Matthew’s back. Clarissa felt the tension she had not realized she was experiencing ease out of her shoulders and neck.

“Reginald and Matthew Taylor are on their way here, Richard,” her mother said, raising her voice just a little, and her father awoke with a snort.

“Just resting my eyes for a few minutes,” he said. “Together, are they? And about time too.”

The next few minutes were taken up with jovial greetings. Both men refused tea and cakes.

“I do not believe I will be able to eat another crumb until at least tomorrow,” Matthew said, patting his stomach. “I have just been devouring a feast.”

“And I will take no more of your time, Mrs. Greenfield,” Reginald said. “We kept Matt rather longer than we ought. I know you have a distance to go, Lady Stratton.”

“Clarissa,” she said.

“Clarissa.” He nodded. “You will want to be on your way. Thank you for bringing my brother to me.”

“I am always happy for an excuse to spend time with Mama and Papa,” she said.

He wrung his brother’s hand but turned to look at them all before setting out for home. “I hope you are all free on Friday evening of next week,” he said. “My wife and daughter-in-law are planning some sort of neighborhood party in Matt’s honor, though I know he will have nightmares about it from now until then. I hope you will come too, La— Clarissa.”

“If only to provide the carriage to bring Matthew?” she said, her eyes twinkling at him.

“I will be happy to send my own carriage to fetch him,” he said. “You were always his best friend. And I do mean best. We would be honored to have you at our party.”

“I would not miss it for worlds,” she said. “Thank you.”

He nodded to them all again and was gone.

“What a lovely idea,” Clarissa said, smiling at Matthew. “Nightmares notwithstanding.”

He frowned. “I already feel like an impostor,” he said. “But Friday of next week is bound to be ten times worse than today.”

“Make that a hundred times, my lad,” her father said. “Stiffen your backbone and grit your teeth and march valiantly into battle.”

“Richard!” Clarissa’s mother said. “You are frightening the poor man.”

But the poor man was laughing, albeit a bit ruefully.

“And it really is time you were on your way,” Clarissa’s mother said as she always did when late afternoon was upon them and she knew her daughter had ten miles to travel in order to arrive safely home at Ravenswood before dark. “If you are quite sure you will not have any refreshments before you leave, Matthew.”

“I really could not, ma’am,” he said, patting his stomach again. “If it was not Adelaide pressing more food upon me during luncheon, it was Emily. And it is very hard to say no when people are being so kind.”

Ten minutes later they were on their way. Not to go straight home, however. Matthew asked if they could stop at the church, which was at the far end of the village. Clarissa took his hand in hers. He gripped hard.

“Guilt and innocence are elusive concepts,” he said. “The need to forgive and the need to be forgiven. It turns out that they are rarely entirely one-sided—one guilty party, one innocent. Everything is all jumbled up. Both guilty, both innocent. Both apologizing, both forgiving. No one more to blame than the other. Am I making any sense? Am I merely stating the obvious?”

“You are making sense,” she said. “Perhaps in time you will understand how I felt—how I feel—about Caleb.”

“I am not so sure of that,” he said. “I cannot see how that was not clearly a case of guilt on one side and innocence on the other.”

“I sent my beloved son into exile rather than confront the real cancer at the heart of my marriage,” she said. “I put appearances before love. But I do not wish to discuss that now. I only mean to assure you that I understand exactly what you are saying. So Reginald is no longer the black-hearted villain?”

“Nor am I,” he said. “Forgiveness always has to be given to oneself as well as to the other. I learned that years and years ago and applied it—except to the one crucial area of my life.”

She set her cheek against his shoulder, but the carriage was already slowing outside the lych-gate that led to the church and the churchyard. She felt him draw a deep breath and hold it for a while before releasing it.

“I will wait here,” she said.

He nodded. “I will not keep you long.”

“Take as long as you need,” she told him as he jumped from the carriage without waiting for the steps to be lowered and disappeared under the roof of the gate.

She watched as he came into sight on the other side, stepping off the path to the church in order to walk slowly among the headstones, many of them old and mossy. She realized after a while that he could not remember exactly where the grave for which he searched was. Her heart ached for him, and she could not watch any longer. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the cushioned seat behind her.

—

He found his grandmother’s grave and his parents’ first and stopped to acknowledge a pang of grief for them, though he had not allowed himself to grieve deeply when he heard of his parents’ deaths—a long time ago. He thought of what he had learned today and knew that all humanity was flawed. No one was totally innocent. No one was entirely guilty. We are all varying shades of gray. No man is an island… His grandmother had rarely spoken kindly to him, yet she had given him a home when he was homeless. She had been kind to his wife. She had left him everything she possessed when she died.

It was a large, sprawling graveyard. He searched for an unkempt mound. At least he hoped there was some sort of mound. One would have thought the exact spot would be seared upon his memory. But he had been too distraught at the time. Not outwardly. Outwardly he had seemed dead to all feeling, even grief. He knew that because people had told him so—with disapproving frowns.

He missed the double grave for a while because he was looking for the wrong thing. When he saw the neat headstone and the well-kept grave with its cluster of pink pansies growing from the ground, he looked almost idly at what was written there. He had been feeling near to despair at the very real possibility that he would never know quite where they were buried.

Poppy Taylor, he read, beloved wife of Matthew . And beneath that, Helena Taylor, cherished daughter . And the dates, the first showing that Poppy had died at the age of twenty-four—she had been five years older than Matthew. The second date was singular. Helena had been born and died on the same day in the same year. She had never drawn breath, never been given the chance to live.

But cherished nonetheless.

Someone had put the headstone here. Someone had composed the simple inscription. Someone had looked after the grave ever since, for more than thirty years. Someone had planted the flowers.

Someone had cared. Someone did care. Not past tense but present.

Matthew knelt beside the grave and pressed his hand to the stone so that the base of his palm touched Helena’s name and the tips of his fingers touched Poppy’s.

Ah, dear God.

His two women, the two he had vowed to love and protect for the rest of his life. The two who were supposed to be his salvation after a troubled boyhood and a misplaced romantic attachment. How different life might have been…Poppy, dead at twenty-four from some mysterious fever and convulsions coming seemingly from nowhere an hour or two after the midwife and doctor had left. And Helena, with no chance at life at all. The cord that had attached her to her mother for sustenance had been wrapped about her neck.

He had been helpless in the face of his responsibility to love and cherish them and keep them safe. And so he had failed in every imaginable way. And had fled. Briefly, as he crossed the channel from England, he had thought of dropping over the rail of the ship to the black waters below. But it was too easy a solution. He needed to suffer, to face himself and his many demons. And so he had forced himself to live on.

“Poppy,” he murmured now. “I would have loved you for a lifetime. Sometimes love is a deliberate choice. I would have made it. I did make it. I did love you. I am sorry it was not enough.”

He moved his hand to trace the letters of his daughter’s name.

“Helena,” he said. “I could not save you. I could not die in your place. Life does not work that way. But I have always loved you with every breath I have drawn since you died. Forgive me for failing you.”

And he pressed his hand to his mouth and clenched his eyes closed, swallowing the tears that had been more than thirty years in the making.

Eventually he got to his feet, patted the top of the gravestone, and made his way back to the carriage, where Clarissa awaited him.

Along with what remained of his life.