Her Mother’s Hope

A strained ambivalence took hold of Marta. She continued to save money, but she stopped making grandiose plans about having her own boardinghouse. She tried to follow Mama’s advice and count her blessings. She had grown deeply fond of Lady Daisy and enjoyed being her companion. She respected and had great affection for Enid. She liked Welton, and she had befriended Gabriella, the new girl from Italy. Marta set herself the task of learning Italian while teaching her English. Life was good enough in Lady Stockhard’s household. Why change things?

Marta had collected the best of Enid’s recipes and tucked away the book Rosie had given her. She didn’t write letters to Rosie as often as she had during her first three years away from Steffisburg. Rosie’s letters still arrived with regularity, filled with glowing words about Arik and going on and on about every little change in baby Henrik. And now she expected another. Rosie had always been a wonderful friend, but there was an unconscious insensitivity in the way she shared her joy. Each time Marta read one of her letters, she felt as though salt were being poured over her wounds.

She could almost empathize with Miss Millicent’s increasing frustration over not finding a suitable husband.

Every Sunday when Marta went to church, she imagined Mama sitting beside her. She prayed God would have mercy on Elise’s soul. Although the dreams had stopped after a year, she sometimes longed for them to return, afraid she was already forgetting Mama’s and Elise’s faces. The ache remained like a heavy stone inside her. Occasionally, unexpectedly, the grief would swell up and catch hold of her throat until she felt she was choking on it. She never cried in front of anyone. She waited, searching desperately for something to do to keep her mind occupied. At night, she had no defenses. In the dark, she felt free to release the pent-up pain inside her.

When she couldn’t sleep, she borrowed another book from Lady Daisy’s library.

Time passed most pleasantly when Miss Millicent was off on one of her hunting expeditions, far less amiably when the miss languished at home. Marta liked having Lady Daisy all to herself. She thought Miss Millicent the most foolish girl she had ever met to take her mother so for granted. Lady Daisy had entered her declining years. Someday she would be gone. Who would love Miss Millicent then?

A year passed and then another. Marta took comfort in her routine. She got up early every morning and helped Enid prepare breakfast, then did housekeeping chores with Gabriella. Every afternoon, rain or shine, she took Lady Daisy on an outing to Kew Gardens. If Miss Millicent was home, Gabriella did the running to and fro. Marta wrote once a month to Rosie, though she had less and less to tell her friend.

Often after everyone had gone to bed, Marta would sit in the library and read. One night Lady Daisy found her standing by the shelves. “What have you been reading?” She held out her hand, and Marta handed over the book she had intended to return. “The Battle for Gaul by Julius Caesar.” She chuckled. “Rather grim reading, don’t you think? Certainly not something I would ever choose.” She smiled at Marta. “It was one of Clive’s favorites.” She handed the book back to Marta, and Marta slid it back into its place. Lady Daisy pulled a slim volume from a shelf. “I prefer Lord Tennyson’s poems.” She held it out to Marta. “Why don’t you take this with you tomorrow when we go to the gardens?”

After Tennyson, Lady Daisy told Marta to select something. After one afternoon of listening to Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, Lady Daisy brought A Tale of Two Cities with her. Sometimes Marta would read to her in the evening. Lady Daisy selected Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe next and followed that with Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent. Sometimes Miss Millicent became so bored or distraught, she came along to listen.

Marta continued reading whenever she had a moment to herself, often keeping a book tucked in her apron pocket.

Rosie wrote with surprising news.

Your father married a woman from Thun the summer after your mother died. I didn’t know how to tell you. She manages your father’s shop, and if I dare say it, she manages your father as well. Apparently, his wife has connections. She saw that he had two men assigned to help him.

After the initial shock, Marta felt numbed by the news that she had a stepmother. How would Mama feel if she knew she had been so easily replaced? Did Papa ever grieve over her or Elise? She considered writing to him and congratulating him on his marriage, then decided against it. Though she felt no ill will toward the woman, she didn’t want to extend good wishes to her father. Instead, she hoped his new wife would be as great a trial to him as he had been to Mama.

Marta continued to take Lady Daisy to Kew Gardens every day. Lady Daisy knew the name of every plant, when they bloomed, and which had medicinal value. She would lose herself in thought at times, and she’d be silent. They went often to the Palm House with its Pagoda and Syon Vistas and the steam rising from underground boilers into the ornate campanile. The steamy heat soothed Lady Daisy’s aching joints and reminded her of India. Marta preferred the Woodland Glade with its deciduous canopy, flowering shrubs and hellebores, primroses and red poppies.

Every season had its delight; winter with its witch hazel and ordered beds of viburnums along the Palm House pond, and snow covering the lawn with white. February brought thousands of purple crocuses peeking up through the grass between the Temple of Bellona and Victoria Gate, and bright yellow daffodils along Broad Walk. In March the cherry trees bloomed and left a carpet of pink and white on the path. April filled the dell with red and purple rhododendrons and magnolias with their plate-size white, waxy blossoms, followed in May by azaleas covering themselves in shawls of peachy-pink and white. The scent of lilacs filled the air. Roses climbed the Pergola and giant water lilies spread out across the pond while laburnum dripped sunlight-yellow streamers in celebration of spring. The tulip and mock orange trees hinted scents of heaven, before autumn came in a burst of color, fading by late November with the advance of winter.

“It’s a pity I can’t be buried here,” Lady Daisy said one day. Death seemed to be on everyone’s mind these days, ever since the “unsinkable” Titanic had hit an iceberg and sunk on its maiden voyage. Over fourteen hundred lives had been lost in the frigid Atlantic waters. “Of course, I’d rather be buried in India beside Clive. India was like another world with its strange architecture and jungles. It had a scent of spices. Most ladies I met longed to return to England, but I would’ve been happy to stay forever. I suppose that had everything to do with Clive. I would’ve been happy in a bedouin tent in the middle of the Sahara.”

Lady Daisy hardly said a word the next afternoon as Marta pushed her along in the Broad Walk in Kew Gardens.

“Are you feeling all right, Lady Daisy?”

“Sick at heart. Let’s rest by the lily pond.” She pulled a thin volume from beneath her blanket and held it out to Marta. “Lord Byron used to be Millicent’s favorite poet. She doesn’t read him anymore. Read ‘The First Kiss of Love.’” When Marta finished, Lady Daisy sighed wearily. “Again, and with a little more feeling this time.”

Marta read the poem again.

“Have you ever been in love, Marta?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Why not?”

It seemed an odd question. “It’s not something that can be ordered, ma’am.”

“You have to be willing.”

Marta felt her face heat up. She hoped silence would end such personal inquiries.

“A woman should not go through life without love.” Lady Daisy’s eyes grew moist. “It’s why Millicent is so desperate and bitter now. She thinks all her opportunities are gone. She could still marry, if she had the courage.” Lady Daisy sighed heavily. “She has a good education. She’s still lovely and can be charming. She has friends. But she has always set such high expectations. Perhaps if she had had Clive’s mother to help, but you see, she would have nothing to do with me. I was a pub owner’s daughter, nothing more. Millicent thought the lady’s heart might soften for her only grandchild. I warned her, but she went anyway. Of course, she was not received.”

Lady Daisy fell silent for a long time. Marta didn’t know what to say to give her comfort. Her mistress smoothed the blanket over her legs. “It’s a pity really. Millicent is like her grandmother in some ways.” She gave Marta a bleak smile. “She doesn’t approve of me either.” She lifted her shoulders. “And, in all truth, no one knows that better than I. But Clive saw something in me and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“I am sorry about Miss Millicent, ma’am.” Marta couldn’t deny what she had seen with her own eyes. “You are a remarkable mother.”

“Less than what I should’ve been. It’s my fault things turned out this way, but if I lived my life all over again, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I wanted him. That’s how selfish I am. Besides, if I had done things differently,