My final crime: I am a bigamist.
I never saw Lydia again. But she exists: I know this because she contrived to win her ten thousand pounds after all, using my name to extort this money from your father, under some promise of leaving you in peace. I presume she told him the same story she told Samuel: that I had somehow caused my parents’ deaths, instead of having fought day and night to save them. As a result, he refused any attempt on my part to address him directly, and I dared send you nothing more than those empty envelopes, for fear that he might forbid even that slender communication.
I have recently heard rumors that she lives in London, under another name, spending extravagantly, but I have not been able to discover where. Samuel insists he knows nothing about her, and I can only speculate whether he is still her creature, or whether he still believes me guilty of her crimes. I suppose this suspense is her revenge on me. Or perhaps she clings to this last card—the legal fact of our marriage—in case she finds herself in need again. That is all we are, to a woman like that: cards to be played and discarded, according to her desire and our usefulness. Even to my dear Sammy, who lives and thrives with me here at Maitland, she has made no overture of maternal love, and I admit, I am deeply grateful for her neglect. He is far better off without her.
So there you have it: my sins laid out before you. My full confession, each fault committed out of either carnal weakness, or else the desire to protect you from evil, or else base fear—fear of losing you, who always seemed to me like a bird: impossible to cage, only slightly tamed, liable to fly off at the slightest alarm, never to return. I can only hope that you will understand, at least, why I have committed these crimes, even if you cannot forgive me. Certainly I have not forgiven myself.
I have entrusted these letters to Portia Bertram, and asked her to convey them to you at such time as she believes you are ready to receive them: so that if I should fail in this enterprise I shall shortly undertake, I can hope at least this little testament will reach you, as a final remembrance of a man who will remain yours, now and in whatever life is to come,
S.F.
Postscript. I have, from what few ready assets I possess, set aside the sum of five thousand dollars in trust for little Samuel, in case I should not survive the adventure I now undertake. I only ask that you have the goodness to ensure there is no difficulty in its administration, and that, in a full generosity of spirit, you will grant him whatever further share of my estate you judge fair, and allow him to know the sister to whom I have not yet had the privilege of introducing him.
Chapter 28
Cocoa, Florida, July 25, 1922
During the course of our affair, Simon hardly ever spoke to me of his wife, and I wasn’t inclined to ask, for all the obvious reasons. For one thing, I was jealous. Though I believed him when he told me that he and Lydia shared no more than a name and a child he hadn’t really sired, she was still his wife. She might, if she wanted, decide to claim his love, and she had that right. If she said No, I’ve decided I want this to be a real marriage after all, a genuine union of man and wife, Simon might feel honor-bound to obey her, mightn’t he? So I was jealous of that right that belonged to her—only to her—and any allurements she might possess that would sweeten its employment.
For another thing, I was afraid to ask. Didn’t the whole affair seem just the slightest bit far-fetched? What man is really so noble as that? How was it possible that Simon had never slept with his own wife, not once, not on their wedding night, not just to make things official? Not in loneliness, not in despair, not in affection, not in human lust? Had he said that only to comfort me? To forestall such jealousy as I describe above?
One time—just that one time—I asked whether it was difficult to love a child who wasn’t his own, and he said it wasn’t. Samuel was his brother, after all, and so Sammy was his nephew. His blood ran in Sammy’s veins. And the boy was such a delight, such an upright, clever, inquisitive chap. Just such a son as any father would be proud of. And his face took on animation, and his eyes crinkled in pleasure at the recollection of Sammy’s charms, and I found myself thinking that Sammy’s mother must be a fool, not to be in love with this man, to want a real marriage with this man.
A fool, or else a woman with no heart to give.
But this idea lasted only a moment and never returned. And now? As I stand, gazing at this woman before me, whose wide-mouthed smile belongs exactly to Simon, I cannot quite comprehend what this means. The full dimensions of the charade that has been practiced upon me.
The woman is still speaking. Clara, she calls herself. Clara Fitzwilliam. I interrupt her to ask, if she’s actually Clara Fitzwilliam, who the devil is the woman at the Phantom Hotel who claims to be her?
“I don’t understand,” Clara says.
“Clara Fitzwilliam’s been in Cocoa since February. Staying with her brother. Staying with Samuel.”
Clara grips her hands together at the intersection of her ribs. “My God. Then it’s true. She’s here. My God, she’s actually done it.”
“Who’s here? Done what?” I take her by the shoulders. “Tell me the truth! Who the devil are you? Who the devil’s she?”
“I’m Clara Fitzwilliam! I’ve already told you! Don’t you remember? We met in the conservatory at Penderleath. When you and Simon were just married, and my parents were sick. It was frightful. I ran downstairs wearing that surgical mask—”
“No! That’s impossible! Samuel’s with her. Samuel ought to know his own sister!”
“Of course he knows his own sister. He knows me. He’s just going along with her charade. Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t see! Why on earth would he pretend someone is his sister when she’s not?”
“Because he’d do anything for her. He always would. Poor Samuel. He’s been under her spell since he was a boy. Doing whatever she asked him. But this! My God, the nerve of her!”
You know, the human memory is an extraordinary thing, malleable and indestructible all at once, capable of reason and deceit, capable of anything. As I gaze at this woman, thinking, It’s impossible, I cannot possibly have mistaken one Clara for another, I can’t possibly have been such a dupe, her grave, pale face seems to change before me, transforming into the face buried deep in my recollection, half hidden by a hygienic surgical mask, hollow-eyed and desperate, during a brief, frantic moment in a crumbling Cornish manor. Or maybe it’s the memory that changes. Maybe I have been remembering her all wrong, ever since Clara Fitzwilliam danced into my bedroom six weeks ago, calling me sister. Pouring herself into the vast depression inside my heart.