Page 48 of Baron in Check
Greg was used to leaving the Pearler’s house alone on Sundays, sometimes walking home in the dark to clear his mind. They were a wonderful lot, but there were, well, a lot of them, and he needed time to calm his mind before bed. His mind, previously a whirlwind of solitary musings after departing the Pearler's lively chaos, now settled into a calm contentment, buoyed by Hermy’s presence.
Tonight, his mind would likely not be calm, and he wouldn’t walk home with Hermy in the dark because it would be unseemly at best, even dangerous. She’d gone upstairs with Lizzie, Rachel, and Hannah, probably to do something terribly girly. He’d rather not know. Too late, when he imagined Hermy trying on dresses and pulling her hair up or letting it fall over her shoulders, his entire body went hard like a plank and other parts like a rock.
He heard the faint clink of crystal on wood. The door to Gustav’s study was ajar. He’d ask him for permission to use the carriage.
But when Greg knocked on the door, it wasn’t Gustav’s voice that answered.
“Come in!” Eve Pearler—Fave and Lizzie’s mother—said in a raw, sad tone.
“I apologize, Eve; I didn’t know you were here.” Greg stopped near the desk.
Eve was facing away, seated on the settee, her body toward the crackling fireplace. She used both hands to wipe her eyes.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, dear. Don’t worry.” She sniffed, squared her back, and turned toward him with a stiff smile. If he didn’t know her so well, almost as well as his mother before she’d gone blind, he would have believed her act. But Greg had been there when his mother cried every night, many a day, too, and she went blind over the course of a short period. No doctor could figure out what was physically wrong with her, but Greg knew she’d seen too much atrocity and couldn’t bear it any longer, so she withdrew into her own world of darkness.
Oh, please don’t suffer the same fate, Eve.
He walked to her, and she pushed herself up to greet him.
”Don’t get up.” He took the seat next to her. “Why are you crying?”
“Darling son, I don’t cry. I’m a mother; there’s no room for me to—” She heaved.
“I love you like a mother, but you’re notmymother so that you can cry with me.”
She grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears escaped through her closed eyes, and she wiped them from her cheeks, burying her face in her palms for a moment.
“I miss your mother, Greg,” Eve said.
Now, he gulped. It was bad enough to see Eve Pearler cry in the dark of the night, but for her to shed tears for his mother rattled his manly resolve not to weep like a boy on her lap. Except her face was blotchy and tear-stained, her eyes bloodshot. He’d never seen her like that, which shattered the firm ground he usually stood on. It struck him that the tides were turning, and rather than him running to the Pearlers for comfort, it could be vice versa now.
Eve took a deep breath. “I spoke to your grandfather.”
Greg’s insides churned, but he remained silent.
“I’d like to host your wedding and invite him.”
“If he’d wanted to see me, he would have come to find me.”
“Perhaps, if he’d known where to look.”
“It’s not that hard. London doesn’t have many barons who are baptized Jews. He could have deduced that Father had shortened his name to Stone.”
“It’s not the practicality that prevented him, but the cleft. It’s almost insurmountable, Greg, you know that.”
“And yet, I’m a bridge, aren’t I? Between your family and … well, me. Between the Jews and the Gentiles. They won’t have me, and neither would you.”
“How on earth dare you say we won’t have you? We’ve welcomed you here like one of our own!”
“Likea son, Eve, but not one of them. Imagine if I had asked for Lizzie’s hand in marriage.” Her eyes darted to him, and she raised her chin as if a “no” would come flying from her mouth like a guillotine. It was a moot point since Lizzie was happily married to Caleb, and they were both among Greg’s closest friends. Nonetheless, the example stood firmer than the rule it proved: Jews and Gentiles didn’t mix.
“I see your point.”
“And yet you trust me.”
“Unconditionally,” she said, her voice softening.
