On that trip they’d had their portrait taken at a photographic studio, their lips clenched tight to prevent overly broad smiles not suited to the solemn occasion. They’d been drunk on possibilities then—both of them seeing Michael’s future through nothing but rose-tinted glasses.
She closed the locket and reread Michael’s terse letter twice before putting it away. There was another letter, the envelope addressed to her by an unfamiliar hand. Mr. Somerset’s secretary had said that Miss Bessler might have instructions for her concerning either the wedding breakfast or the wedding cake. She stared at the envelope for some time, then sliced it open with one hard flick of her letter knife.
The piece of paper inside contained no instructions either on the wedding breakfast or the wedding cake. Nor was it even a letter. There were dates listed, and underneath each date, a few brief words.
21 November
Unwell. Could not keep down his supper.
22 November
Still unwell. But attended his classes and met with the journal staff.
23 November
Played in the match against Cotton House against the advice of many. His team won.
She started shaking. Michael. The observations were again about Michael. Her aunt had a minion at Rugby, with easy access to Michael. She added coal to the grate and made herself a cup of tea. The tea calmed her down some. Perhaps her aunt thought Verity would try her luck again with Bertie’s brother. Perhaps she believed that the warning needed to be renewed every decade or so. It didn’t really matter why her aunt chose to do what she did. As long as Verity kept her mouth shut about her origins, Michael was safe. And keep her mouth shut she would, for the rest of her life.
For now, the important thing was that Michael was unwell. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t nurse him, couldn’t even berate him for his neglect of his health without making him ask questions.
So she must cook for him.
Stuart smelled the madeleines the moment he walked past the front door. But when he asked Durbin and Mrs. Abercromby about the sweet, haunting scent, they only looked puzzled and said that they did not detect a thing.
It was impossible to work, so he went to bed at the unheard-of hour of eleven o’clock. But an hour later he could stand it no more. The scent of the madeleines was everywhere in the house. And faint as it was, nothing else could overpower it, not the soap with which he’d washed his hands, the lavender water in which his sheets had been laundered, or even the cigarette he’d lit and extinguished without quite realizing either.
At least this time he had not imagined things. Had the scent of the madeleines in the basement been any stronger, it would have tyrannized the senses. As such, it was only maddening in its beauty, as if spring had arrived overnight.
He blew out his taper and let the scent slowly saturate him. Memories surfaced like a creature of the sea, leaping above the waves. It had been a rainy day, long ago. Cooped up inside, he and Bertie had played hide-and-seek. For his turn, Stuart had tucked himself into a particularly snug spot in the wardrobe in Bertie’s room. And his hiding place had proved so clever that Bertie had gone by twice, even poked his head inside the wardrobe, without seeing Stuart.
But there, alone in the dark, a desperate homesickness had assaulted him. He missed the friends he’d left behind in Ancoats, the pub owner who’d taught him to read from the Manchester Guardian, and the Catholic prostitute who’d watched him after school and done her best to convert him to Papism.
And he missed his mother, who had disappeared off the face of the earth after their good-byes the previous June.
He worried constantly about her. Could she make her own tea and toast? Would she remember where she’d kept the key to the door? And why hadn’t she sent news to let him know that she was all right?
He didn’t even realize he’d been crying until Bertie had climbed inside the wardrobe, found a place for himself, and handed Stuart a handkerchief.
“I miss my mum too,” Bertie had said.
And that was all Bertie had said in the half hour and more he’d stayed with Stuart, until Stuart was sufficiently himself again to leave the wardrobe.
What had happened to them?
You may be legitimized, but you will never be one of us.