Chapter 39
“Madam, this is a court of law, and your behavior is most irregular. You will restrain yourself or be removed.”
“This is your mother?” whispers the barrister.
There’s no denying it, for I am her mirror image, but I nod.
He then speaks to the lord chancellor, but throws a clear, jagged look toward Sabine.
“Your lordship, this is Mrs. Winthrop’s mother, Isabella de Montfort.
Which, of course, changes the assessment of Mrs. Winthrop’s…
unsubstantiated dreams.” Then, to me. “Mrs. Winthrop, is this the woman you recalled in your visions?”
“My memories. Yes, this is my mother.”
“Isabella de Montfort, I assume.” He turns to her, and she offers a graceful nod.
The lord chancellor turns to me with a long look. “Exactly how much have you recalled in these…flashes of memory, Mrs. Winthrop?”
“More every day.” Hope is building, and I cannot tamp it down.
I tell the chancellor what has surfaced on my trip to Cornwall, how I have begun to reclaim my lost memories.
“I found my way along the footpath and up the hidden staircase to the house where I lived as a child. I saw the place where I’d carved pictures into the mantel.
I recalled the words of so many songs from my childhood, and”—I pause to glance with awe at my mother—“opera. Lovely opera singing from my mum.” I tell him about recalling the steps, finding the key to my flat in Gloucestershire, and the floating memories that my mind had begun to pin down.
Rather than viewing me with doubt, he is astonished. Fascinated. “It would seem your memories are returning, then.”
I cannot take my eyes off the stunning woman in the red hat, whose gaze is fixed upon me. “The important ones, my lord.”
I will never forget this day because it’s the day of my hearing, the day I find my mother, and the day the lord chancellor, who isn’t at all acquainted with me, changes the course of my life.
“Taking this evidence into account, as well as the previous testimony presented to this court, it is hereby the judgment of the lord chancellor that Mrs. Merryn Winthrop has demonstrated sufficient recovery of her mental faculties and has shown, to the court’s satisfaction, both mental stability and moral fitness to maintain a life independent of an institution.
Accordingly, it is hereby ordered that guardianship of the minor grandson of the late Lady St. Laurent, Master Cecil Linwood, revert as requested to Mrs. Winthrop, with all associated rights and obligations. ”
Cecil. He just granted me Cecil. I shoot to my feet with a small cry, hands on my face. I am shaking with delight, overwhelm, disbelief. We won.
The lord chancellor glances at me, a tiny smile flickering before he continues.
“Furthermore, due to Mrs. Winthrop’s ongoing recovery, the court determines that Mrs. Winthrop is not fit to act as sole trustee and shall hereby act as joint trustee over Master Linwood’s estate alongside Miss Sabine St. Laurent, who shall take the minority role but possess veto power in any estate-related decisions, as well as Mrs. Winthrop’s husband. Let the order be so entered.”
I’m still shaking with happiness. He’s done it—the lord chancellor has split the fortune but granted me the treasure.
We take tea in a cheery tearoom across from the courthouse. I tell my mother in hasty half-sentences how I was injured and am still healing—mostly my mind. I give her sufficient details to bridge the gap of years but add that most of my memories remain lost.
Then I stop…and simply look at her. My mother.
When I married AJ, the ceremony was surreal. I felt like a celestial being, floating up the aisle on a cloud. This moment, sitting in a cramped tearoom drinking tea across from the enchanting ghost of a woman I saw in my dreams for years, feels just as unreal.
I have questions. Why did I run away all those years ago?
It isn’t important.
Had we argued?
Not exactly.
Tea is served, a strong brew with floating mint leaves.
Will I even taste it? I take a sip, burning my tongue.
“Why are you here?” I finally ask. She is known for traveling widely and for leaving me behind.
The picture is taking shape, but there are large, gaping holes.
I scramble silently for the missing stones, desperate to complete the mosaic.
“Because you are,” she says simply. She removes her gloves and wraps her bare hands around her cup.
“Because a nosy clerk in a post office in Newquay wanted to know if the woman who had appeared in town so suddenly was who she claimed to be—my daughter.” Tears well in her eyes.
“She said you were asking after me. I could scarcely believe it.”
I think back to the telephone conversation with Henry Gould. What did I say?
She grasps my hand beneath the table, tears spilling. “When a mother believes she will never see her child again, and then someone encounters her, says she is looking for her…”
Had I been looking for her? Looking for myself, perhaps, for understanding. Yet there’s a faint sense of home just sitting here with her, the pressure of her fingertips on mine, her melodic voice in my ears.
Then she pulls back, and my heart braces without being told to do so.
“You left. Often.” That must have been the trouble between us.
Her face crumples. “You’ve misplaced your memories, but that you keep?”
“It made an impression.”
“I used to take you with me. Do you remember that too?”
I trace the handle of my teacup. “Where did we go?”
“Oh, everywhere.” Her eyes are moist, imploring me to remember the times she was a good mother. “We traveled together for many of my seasons, seeing everything. Meeting people, tasting food, delighting in life. After a time, you didn’t care for it, though.”
“Why not?” But my subconscious answers before she does.
“You weren’t one for change. You wanted to be home. To grow roots.”
That’s what Cecil calls it. Growing roots. Something every child wants—and should have. “But you didn’t.”
“I took you on stage with me at every opportunity. You were a wonder, with that rich voice of yours.”
“They paid you more for two voices. That’s why you took me, isn’t it?” And perhaps why I left. She’d used me.
This pains her. “I love the stage. I longed for the one I loved best to experience it with me. But even more, I wished to give you an endless taste of the world. To show you how vast, how nuanced, is the great wide world outside of Cornwall.”
She’d given me her dreams. That’s one form of love, isn’t it? Giving to the one you love what you believe they want—even if it isn’t. But…there’s an aroma of sacrifice even in that. “So then you left me behind. At Dunn Cottage.”
“But I always returned.”
She did, with a flourish of welcome and music and lovely gifts. This knowledge rolls over me—she did love me, in her imperfect way. She loves me still. The angst of it stretches across her face.
“You were my little nightingale,” she says with a smile, wiping moisture from her eyes.
Nightingale. The one who was afraid—I hear the old folk tune on her voice, singing me to sleep. The bird wouldn’t go alone into the valley, into the shadows. It never liked to be alone.
Then why had I cut myself off from her completely? Why did I choose to be home alone?
“Stay with me in Bath. Come attend my performance.”
I open my mouth to refuse, but then I think of Cecil and hear myself say, “Very well.” Because it will take days for the lord chancellor’s order to be entered and recorded. And because it’ll keep me from kidnapping Cecil from Ludgrove School, where he was transferred.
I follow her onto the train to cross town, full to the brim with questions I cannot articulate, answers I don’t even know how to ask for but desperately need.
I’m close. I can see a fuzzy picture.
“Now tell me, my sweet.” She places a gloved hand on my knee as the train moves through the countryside. “Tell me about your wonderful Ansel.”
Oh, how my heart squeezes. Perhaps it shall break.
This is the perfect opportunity to tell her the extent of how my mind has failed me. How AJ has failed me. I should seek her advice and comfort.
But I only want her to stay. I sense that her presence is fleeting, and that I must earn it. “He’s…fun and handsome and full of life.” Speaking of pleasant topics is one way of accomplishing that.
“How marvelous!” She claps her hands.
“We’ve had no shortage of adventures together. He’s spontaneous and silly and…” I blink away tears as the rest of the truth tries to surface. Then, I see Rupert’s face. His warm, inviting expression so full of adoration. Then AJ’s again, with a bitter tang of regret.
I’ll never know exactly what to believe from either one of them, and I cannot abide a marriage like that. True love should be solid and dependable when nothing else in life is. One should never anchor oneself to anything that might change. Including a mother—or a husband.
“You do love him?”
“Oh yes,” I breathe, without thinking.
Mum frowns. “I did fear there were difficulties.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, I always assumed you’d eventually write with…happy news. But no letter came.”
I blush at the intimate topic. “Life is complicated.”
She brushes a gloved finger down my cheek. “Children have a way of simplifying the complex.”
I ache for Cecil. Ache to speak with him again and hear his straightforward thoughts on the world. His take on life. “They do, don’t they?”
“So there’s no trouble? Between you and Ansel?”
Why can’t I tell her? Why can’t I trust her with the details of my life?
She places her gloved hand on my bare one and her face, that tender expression that soothed my childhood self to sleep, shakes something loose.
“I’m not certain I really knew who he was when we married. I’m not certain I know now.”
“I so hoped your story would turn out differently than mine.” Her look is wistful.
I study her beautiful face, striking and ethereal and slightly tragic. “My father was a bank owner?” That was what Gould said, wasn’t it?
She shakes her head. “He was an actor in Shakespearean stage dramas. He died before you were born.”
But…AJ’s first wife. The heiress, who is supposedly me. She was the daughter of some bank owner. “He didn’t…he didn’t leave me an inheritance, did he? My father?”
She laughs. “He hadn’t much to leave, dearest. But you did possess a respectable fortune.
Your father’s brother was a Barclay, and he died childless and left you a tidy income.
That helped me sleep at night.” Tears well again.
“Knowing your needs were seen to. That part of your life, at least, was secure.”
My life is anything but secure now. She stirs, as if readying to leave. Half-formed questions flit through my mind and I look up at her, imploring.
She softens. “I have an appointment in Bath.” She leans forward, placing one gloved hand on mine. “Come, darling. Let me show you how it used to be.”