“I’m not being led down the path. Any kind of path. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for all this.”
“Really? I can’t think of one. Either Simon’s been lying to you all this time, or I have. Naturally you’ll say it’s me. But the question is, Miss Fortescue, the question you have to ask yourself is why. Why would I lie?”
“Because you’ve conceived a terrible and ungrateful bitterness for your brother, just because he’s a good man, just because he happened to be born before you. And you think he’s betrayed you, when in fact he’s only done the right thing, a noble thing, giving your poor child a name—”
“Ah! Is that how he won you over? God, what a rotter, my brother. A true rotter. If I were you, I’d consider this a lucky escape, provided you’re clever enough to take the opportunity. Before he gets you into real trouble. Or has he already done that? Gotten you into trouble.”
I rose. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Oh, now, don’t cut up like that. I beg your pardon. I have a habit of saying the wrong thing to a lady—again, the exact opposite of Simon. I like to speak plainly, and it’s no more than the truth, you know.”
“That’s quite enough.”
He held up his hand. “Forgive me.”
“Why should I? You’re not really sorry. You like to say things that disturb people. You relish it. You enjoy being the exact opposite of Simon, don’t you?”
He tapped his enormous thumb against the base of the sherry glass. He had remained seated while I stood— not a very courteous stance, on the face of it, but I didn’t mind. I felt a little power return to me, as I stood there next to the table, glowering down at the shiny, monochrome waves of his hair—again, so unlike Simon, all mottled in gold and silver—and I later wondered if he understood this, if he kept his seat out of generosity instead of rudeness, defying a custom that must have lain very close to instinct.
But that was only later, when I had the time—weeks and years—to examine every detail of this conversation in my mind, over and over. In that August of 1918 I thought Samuel Fitzwilliam was simply a boor, in addition to being a vengeful, bitter liar. I didn’t understand him at all. I was the one who couldn’t see him by any other angle, except in opposition to his brother.
“Well,” he said at last, “I can see you’re not his usual sort, anyway.”
“Thank God for that.”
“I suppose that explains why he went to such lengths to seduce you. I don’t blame him for that, at least.”
“That’s generous of you.”
Samuel parted his thick lips—he had a strangely sensual mouth, for so blunt a man—as if he were about to say something. I felt the nearby stares of the nurses, who had given up pretending to make conversation, and the weight of so much silence became unbearable.
“Well? Do you have something else to say, or are you finished? I’d really like to return to my friends, Major.”
“Nothing at all, really. I’m just finding myself in a damned odd position. Wanting actually to defend the poor bloke, for once in my life.”
“You don’t need to bother.”
“The truth is, Miss Fortescue, as I said before, you’re better off without him. Better off without the whole family, really. We’re a bad old lot, deserving of extinction, I expect. Only the animal instinct for self-preservation keeps us going, like one of those wind-up toys that refuses to stop ticking along, crashing his silly little cymbals. I suppose I can’t even blame him for Lydia. He has to find the money somewhere, doesn’t he?”
“Of course not. There are others ways to make money.”
“Spoken with the ridiculous optimism of an American. Yes, I suppose there are many ways to make a stinking great pile of money, the kind of money you need to keep up moldering estates and pay the taxes on them, too. But not for a humble surgeon in the medical corps. That’s another thing he wanted and got. Well, now he’s got to live with the consequences, hasn’t he?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I mean he insisted on his medical course, instead of doing the sensible thing and reading, say, law or history. Something that might lead to riches in Temple Bar, or the City. I don’t know how he got our parents to agree. Why the devil it meant so much to him. I suppose he just likes to have the power of life and death over someone, like some kind of god, which is rather a chilling thought. But there it is. And now he can’t see why he’s got to make a choice between love and money. Because he does, you know. Lydia’s fortune is all tied up. If you’re hoping he’ll divorce her, I’m afraid you’ll be waiting for eternity.” He finished his glass and set it down on the table, next to the bottle and the pot of yellow chrysanthemums that matched the one on the table occupied by my friends. “But I’ve taken enough of your time. I’m not in the habit of doing Simon’s women any favors, and I only really came here out of curiosity.”
“You’ve wasted your time.”
“Have I?”
“Yes. I’m happy you’re alive, Major, and I do hope you come to your senses. But you’ve wasted your time. I have nothing but faith in Simon, and if you could have seen him, if you could see him for what he really is, what he’s suffered, I think perhaps you might change your mind.”
Samuel Fitzwilliam folded his arms across the vast khaki field of his chest.
“What a damned shame, really. At least on our side.”
“A shame?”
“A shame that you haven’t got any money.”
“It doesn’t matter if I haven’t got money. You’ll see. Simon and Lydia will divorce, and the two of you will at last have your chance to be happy together, if you can set aside your pride and seize what lies before you.”
He turns back his head and starts to laugh. “Oh, my dear girl. What a beautiful innocence you have. But you do know that’s illegal, don’t you?”
“What’s illegal?”
“Why, marrying your brother’s wife. It’s against canon law. There’s some talk of allowing a chap to marry his brother’s widow—the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Marriage Act passed Parliament some while back, at least, and now that the war’s taking all their husbands, the women are clamoring for the same opportunity—but to divorce one chap and marry his brother is quite beyond the pale. I’m afraid we’re done for, Lydia and I, unless we escape to some heathen isle. My brother’s fortune is safe from temptation.”