Nobody's Darling

She had no cares, no debts, no obligations. She wore Worth gowns and diamond pinkie rings. She slept in her mother’s bedroom with its walls hung in pale blue damask bordered by tiny rosebuds. She slept in her mothers bed with its silk sheets and coverlet of tufted satin. She powdered her face and watched her lady’s maid pin up her hair in the mirror of her mother’s dressing table. Her grandfather probably would have dressed her in her mother’s clothes if the layers of ruffles and voluminous crinolines hadn’t been twenty-five years out of fashion.

For the first time in her life, Esmerelda understood just how much her mother had sacrificed for love. For the first time, she understood why.

She drifted through the cavernous halls of Wyndham Manor like Lisbeth’s ghost, losing her way so many times that she started to wonder if she ought not leave a trail of biscuit crumbs or unwind a ball of yarn wherever she went. She would wander from library to music room, pausing to flip through a book or idly run her fingers over the keys of a piano so grand it made her mother’s cherished old upright seem fit only for a saloon.

Her grandfather loved to hear her play, but there seemed little point to it when there was no one to learn from her flawless fingering and rippling arpeggios. She strayed into the music room one warm October afternoon to find one of the little parlormaids dusting the ivory keys with a feather duster.

“Would you like to learn to play?” Esmerelda eagerly asked.

The child clutched her apron and bobbed a terrified curtsey, her mobcap slipping down over one eye. “Oh, no, miss, I mustn’t touch anything so fine with my grubby hands.”

Airily dismissing the girl’s objections, Esmerelda sat her down on the bench and began to teach her the major scales. When Potter, her grandfather’s cadaverous butler, strolled into the room to find the child banging cheerily on the instrument, he nearly fainted dead away.

He immediately ordered the maid back to the servants‘

kitchen, leaving Esmerelda sitting at the piano, alone and forlorn.

She just didn’t seem to be suited for the life of the idle rich. When she offered to help her aunt balance the household books one afternoon, Anne shooed her away, telling her she should enjoy her leisure while she could because she’d have her own household to look after soon enough.

Stung by her aunt’s gentle rejection, Esmerelda grabbed her rich woolen cloak and fled the house, seeking solace from a brisk walk in the crisp autumn air. When she imagined being mistress of her own household, she didn’t see an elegant sandstone mansion like Wyndham Manor with its high mansard roof and formal gardens. She saw a humble frame house with a cozy corner where a father might teach his son to read by kerosene lamp. She saw a grizzled old basset hound snoring in front of the fire and a calico cat napping in a rocking chair. She saw a towheaded little boy with a wild streak and a smile that could melt hearts at twenty paces.

Esmerelda cupped a hand over her belly, her throat tightening with bitter longing. There would be no such child for her. Billy had made sure of that. She’d spent the journey to England praying that he’d failed, even knowing it would make her a social pariah in her grandfather’s world. But his effort to make sure there would be no tie left to bind them had been successful, leaving her womb as barren as her heart.

A curious commotion startled her out of her brooding. She peeped around the corner of the house to find her grandfather leading a parade of tittering servants. Her aunt trailed after them, looking even more exasperated than usual.

Her grandfather beamed at her. “Good afternoon, Esmerelda. I’ve brought you a gift.”

The servants shuffled apart to reveal a speckled horse that barely came to Esmerelda’s waist. She clapped a hand over her mouth, gasping in horrified amusement. “I’m twenty-five years old, Grandpapa. If I sit on that poor creature, I’ll break its legs.”

His square face crumpled like a punctured pudding. “I suppose I wasn’t thinking. I just always dreamed of buying my granddaughter a pony.”

Feeling guilty for dampening his childlike enthusiasm, Esmerelda stood on tiptoe to give his shiny pate a fond kiss and took the lead from his hand. “And a fine pony it is. I shall name it ‘Duke’ in your honor.” She stroked the beast’s silky little face. “He looks a bit like the pony who bucked me off his back at the county fair when I was six.”

Anne, a skilled horsewoman, rolled her eyes. The bolder servants cheered and applauded as Esmerelda began to march around the cobblestone drive with the pony trotting merrily along behind her.

Her grandfather delighted in lavishing gifts upon her. She would return to her bedroom to find a parasol of the finest Chantilly lace draped over a frame of heliotrope silk or a set of tortoiseshell combs for her hair. One night, she unfolded her supper napkin only to have the silver locket that had once belonged to her mother tumble into her lap. Although somewhat embarrassed by her grandfather’s extravagance, Esmerelda could not bear to disappoint him by refusing any of his offerings. She supposed it was his way of atoning for his years of neglect.

Each night after supper, they would retire to the music room, where Esmerelda was expected to give an impromptu piano recital while Anne embroidered and her grandfather enjoyed a glass of port and smoked a fat cigar. Esmerelda soon grew to dread these occasions. To her ears, all the songs seemed to be played in a minor key, and the ripe aroma of her grandfather’s cigar evoked a yearning so sharp she would end up struggling to read the notes through a fog of tears.

On Christmas Eve, her grandfather all but gobbled his way through seven courses of supper, his ears pink with poorly suppressed excitement. Esmerelda barely had time to dip her spoon into her steaming fig pudding when he clapped his hands and insisted they adjourn to the music room. She and her aunt exchanged a perplexed look, but dutifully rose to follow him.

The spacious white room had been draped with evergreen boughs. Their crisp fragrance scented the air. A fire crackled on the hearth and candles glowed softly in the recessed French windows, keeping the darkness of the winter night at bay.

Propped against the gilt music stand was a violin with a bright red ribbon tied around its graceful neck. Esmerelda’s hand trembled as she loosed the ribbon and stroked her fingers across its taut strings.

“A Stradivarius?” she whispered, giving her grandfather a helpless look. “For me?”

He poured himself a glass of port and lifted it, his eyes shining with pride and pleasure. “To my granddaughter, who brought music back into this house and into my heart.”

He sipped his port while she took up the bow and tucked the instrument under her chin. It nestled there, responding to her tuning as if to a lover’s touch.

Seduced by its flawless pitch, Esmerelda closed her eyes and drew the bow across the strings, expecting to hear the bright, brittle notes of Mozart or Vivaldi. She was as stunned as her grandfather and aunt when the plaintive strains of “Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier” filled the room.

Her melancholy touch turned the folk song into a lament, making the strings sob with a passion she had felt only in Billy’s arms and would never feel again. When her eyes drifted open at the end of the piece, they were wet with tears.

Unable to bear her grandfather’s shaken expression or the wry sympathy in her aunt’s eyes, Esmerelda mumbled an apology and fled the room, still clutching the violin.

When Esmerelda had gone, her grandfather sank into a brocaded armchair, looking his age for the first time since bringing his granddaughter home.

Anne paced back and forth in front of the hearth, the swish of her skirts echoing her frustration. “What in God’s name were you thinking, Reginald? You can’t keep hoping to buy the girl happiness.”