“When Jack and I went to the Peak District, he talked to me about things that had happened to him during and after the First War. Pretty bad stuff. He wanted me to open up, but all I could manage was to tell him about this dream I have over and over again. On a mission to Cologne, I saw a Fortress from my squadron get hit, and everyone had to bail out. One of the guys who jumped caught his chute on the plane. When he got free, the chute was torn and wouldn’t open. I watched as this guy fell to his death from 25,000 feet. It was part of my job — everyone’s job — to watch because when you got back to interrogation, you’d have to report on exactly what you saw so they could figure out if the guy was dead or a prisoner. In my dream, I’m the guy, but I never hit the ground. I just keep tumbling through space. I usually wake up in a sweat because I have this weight on my chest, and it makes it difficult to breathe.”
After telling me about his dream, Rob took a deep breath and continued, “This past week I’ve been thinking about you and about everything I should have said or done but didn’t. And it’s not just you. I should have gone to see Pat Monaghan’s family. They wrote me letters inviting me to come visit them because I was Pat’s closest friend. When I went back to the States, I was the navigator on a B-17 being delivered to an airfield near Omaha, but I never contacted the Monaghans.” Rubbing his temples with his eyes closed, he ended by saying, “That was wrong of me. Once I finish up in Atlanta, I’m going to go to see Pat’s family.”
“Rob, I’m glad you’re going to do that. I think it will do you as much good as it will the Monaghans. It’s an important first step.”
Nodding in agreement, he said, “Maggie, the one thing I want you to understand, no matter what, is that I love you. When I told you that you were the best thing that had ever happened to me, I meant it. The problem is, I’m not the best thing that ever happened to you, and I’m not going to ask you to put your life on hold while I try to figure out what to do with mine.”
I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer, and they were streaming down my face. Rob stood up, and I knew there was nothing I could say that would change his mind. I asked if I could see him off when he sailed from Liverpool, but from his expression, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. “To be honest with you, Maggie, I don’t think I could take it.” Opening the door to the foyer, he looked at me for the longest time before saying, “You do know that Michael Crowell is in love with you, don’t you?”
“Why are you telling me this?” I said through a flood of tears.
“Because it might be more obvious to me than it is to you.”
I turned my back to him because I couldn’t bear to watch him walk away. If at that moment the city of London had gone silent, the only sound to be heard would have been that of my heart breaking.
Chapter 31
The next evening, I was lying in bed, with Rob’s rose on my chest when Mrs. Dawkins came upstairs to tell me I had a visitor. For a split second, I thought it might be Rob, but she shook her head to let me know that it wasn’t. When I saw Beth in Mrs. Dawkins’s sitting room, I started to cry as I’ve never cried before. Beth put her arms around me and tried to comfort me, but I was beyond the reach of even Beth’s kindness. Mrs. Dawkins tiptoed into the room and left a box of Kleenex and two cups of tea, but I continued to cry in great gulping sobs.
“From the very beginning, I saw it coming, but I still kept seeing him.” In between sobs, I explained, “I have nothing to reproach him about. He never made any promises.”
After I had finally stopped crying, Beth told me she was staying at her cousin’s house in Holland Park, and she wanted me to come stay with her. I hadn’t told my boss that Rob had gone back to the States, but he knew something was wrong when he saw me sitting in front of ringing telephones that I wasn’t answering. He encouraged me to take a few days off.
Beth’s cousin, Lady Patricia Alcott, welcomed me to her home, but after that, I saw very little of her. She was being very kind by leaving Beth and me alone. We started the next day with a walk through Kensington Gardens. Beth was waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t have a clue as to what I was going to do.
“Maggie, I suggest that you not make any decisions as to your future for at least two weeks. Your first inclination might be to return home, but I think that would be a mistake. Your world has greatly expanded since you left Minooka. If you returned, I think you would feel as if everything was pressing in on you.
“I am confident you will be looking at things very differently and in short order. You have been so focused on Rob and how to make him happy, I think you neglected your own happiness. By your own admission, you didn’t think your relationship was going to work out, but you stuck by him because he is a decent man. Loyalty is an admirable quality, but it cannot act as a tie that binds you to someone who is not all you deserve. After so many months together, Rob should have been drawing you closer to him. Instead, he kept you at a distance.”
“But Jack kept you at a distance.”
“Yes, he did, and because of that, our marriage has traveled a very rocky road. It is only in the last few years that we have been able to break down all the barriers that have separated us. But having experienced so much heartache, I don’t want the same for you. And there is another reason why you might consider remaining in England. It has something to do with your love of history and Pride and Prejudice.”
When we got back to the Alcotts’, Beth asked me to join her in the morning room. She handed me a box and told me to open it. Removing the lid, I saw that inside were two diaries, and on the cover, in gold, were the embossed initials of Elizabeth Garrison Lacey.
“I’ve just now got them back from the bookbinder with their beautiful new leather covers. Mr. Selden did a marvelous job, not just on the covers, but on the actual pages themselves. We’ll have to wear gloves when we read them, but now we can turn the pages without the risk of them falling apart.” Putting her arms around my shoulders, she said, “I’ll confess I am using these diaries to entice you to stay in England a while longer because I love you.” And she gave me a squeeze. “But there is another reason.”
When I had been in Crofton, Beth told me that the expenses for refurbishing and repairing Montclair had run much higher than the Catons had expected, and they were looking for a way for Montclair to help pay for itself.
“They have decided to convert the house into a specialty hotel and market it as the ancestral home of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. Ellen Caton has asked me to write a history of the Lacey family as it relates to the characters portrayed in Pride and Prejudice, and I will need your help because I never learnt how to type.”
I actually started to smile. At the time the Crowells had wrapped up the love story of Elizabeth Garrison and William Lacey, Beth had said that “I knew it all.” But there was so much I didn’t know. What was Elizabeth and Will’s courtship like? Where did they go on their honeymoon? What was it like to be the mistress of Montclair? What Beth and Jack had shared with me was only the tip of the iceberg.
When I looked at Beth, she was holding out a pair of white cotton gloves, so I could open the diaries. Putting them on, I flipped to a page near to the end of the first diary. Apparently, the entry was made shortly before Jane was to marry Charles Bingham.