I sat closeted with Henry Putnam and Abel Hicks and Dora and Ash Cooper who represented Dickon’s family of birth. I signed over all Scard land to his brothers and sisters in equal portions, as Dora advised. “All but one parcel,” she said. “He spoke to me quite plain about this, Clarry. It’s his legacy for you.” She pushed forward an envelope with a single deed. It was the forested hill adjoining Willow’s cottage. It was the fifth folly. That was when my sorrow found me. I fought it with the hour of work the doctor allowed me, with Laura’s regimen of meals and walks. I knit ten rows every day, weeping into the soggy mess in my lap. “I want my mother,” I said aloud, “I want her.” Then I wept again at the thought of Jeremy alone behind the line, starved or beaten, without a memory of his mother for solace. I hoped he thought of me. I climbed the stairs to my mother’s sitting room every day and sat for hours. I dusted her china figurines, I looked over her albums of pressed flowers.
