Chapter Thirteen
Once again Jacob had revealed more about himself to Margaret than he had intended, yet, strangely, talking about his father had not increased his agony. Rather, that unrelenting pain that had sunk its talons into him the moment the carriage had turned into the long driveway had eased somewhat.
They continued to walk, past the formal garden which, as always, was laid out with military precision, as if even the flowers and shrubs had to bend to his father’s will, towards the path that led them through the woodlands.
‘Finally, somewhere that brings back fond memories from my childhood,’ he said as they entered a grove of oaks, beeches, elms and birch trees. ‘This was where I would escape to as a child. It became Sherwood Forest or King Arthur’s Camelot.’
‘And can I assume you were always Robin Hood or King Arthur?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said, remembering those childhood games. ‘Defeating enemies, saving damsels in distress, slaying dragons. I did it all. And there’s something I want to show you. If it’s still there…’
He led her deeper into the woodland, the canopy of trees growing thicker overhead so that only filtered light was reaching the soft, leaf-strewn ground below.
‘There it is,’ he said, coming to a halt beside a ramshackle hut built of rough-hewn stone and untreated timber, its slate roof draped in thick green moss so it almost appeared to be merging with the forest.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘A hermit’s cottage.’ He led her closer to the small entrance. ‘It was built during my grandfather’s time, when it was fashionable to have an ornamental hermit living in your garden.’
She laughed as if he was making a joke.
‘I assure you, it’s true. Wealthy people would pay some poor old codger to live alone in a rundown cottage they had built for them.’
‘Why?’
‘They thought it romantic, or poetic or something.’
‘I doubt if it was romantic or poetic for the poor old man living here.’
‘Apparently, they were often unfortunate men who had returned from the Napoleonic Wars with their nerves shot to pieces and unable to return to their old lives.’
‘How awful.’
‘Yes, but my grandparents thought what they were doing was noble. They had weird notions about the dignity of living a simple life and being close to nature.’
‘As long as they weren’t the ones living the simple life or being this close to nature.’
‘Exactly. Do you want to see inside?’
‘Yes, I’d love to.’
He pushed back the weather-beaten wooden door. ‘Excuse my bad manners, but on this occasion I think I should enter first.’
Lowering his head in a manner he never had to do as a child, he walked through the small doorway.
He’d expected the cottage to be in a state of advanced dilapidation, full of spider’s webs, with the floor covered in animal droppings, but it was just as he remembered from his childhood—rundown but livable.
The rough limestone walls needed a coat or two of plaster, but it looked as if someone had been tending to the cottage in his absence.
The flagstone floor had been swept. There was a copper kettle suspended from an iron hook above the hearth and piles of dry wood were stacked beside the fireplace.
Perhaps the gamekeeper or someone else employed on the estate had been using it as a place to shelter and make himself a cup of tea.
‘This isn’t so bad,’ she said, looking around. ‘Although I wouldn’t want to live here.’
‘When I was home for the school holidays I did virtually live here.’ He indicated the straw mattress on the small cot in the corner where he’d often slept at night when he did not want to return home to the cold, unwelcoming house and his cold, unwelcoming father.
She scanned the bookshelves, which still contained books from his childhood, including, rather embarrassingly, some by the romance poets, a leftover from his sentimental adolescence.
He hoped and prayed she did not open any of them as even more embarrassing would be the poems he had penned himself and placed inside the books, believing them fit for publication. From memory, they were all odes to girls he’d never met and contained some excruciating rhyming.
‘No, don’t!’ he cried out as she opened a book and pulled out a crinkled page, scanned it then looked up at him.
‘Oh, girl of mine, you are so fine.’
Jacob groaned and sank onto the cot, his head in his hands.
‘Am I to assume you composed this?’
‘I was fifteen,’ he pleaded. ‘I thought I was the next Lord Byron. I should have thrown those poems away long ago.’
She grinned at him above the paper and continued reading.
‘With hair of gold you make me bold, Like stars in the night, your eyes are bright, Big and round and such a delight.’
He groaned again, even louder. ‘Please, stop this torture.’
Her teasing expression suggested she would show him no mercy. ‘So, who was this fine girl with big, delightful eyes and golden hair?’
‘A figment of my adolescent dreams.’
‘Well, I’m sure any fifteen-year-old girl would be pleased to receive it.’
‘A fifteen-year-old girl with no taste in poetry.’
‘Are there any more poems?’ She flicked through the pages of the book.
He quickly crossed the room, removed the book from her hands and placed it back on the shelf. ‘Unfortunately, I think that was one of my better compositions.’
‘You must have been a very sweet young man,’ she said, looking towards the book.
‘I think that’s a contradiction in terms. Fifteen-year-old boys are seldom sweet. Now that you’ve seen the cottage and I’ve been completely humiliated, perhaps we should walk through more of the garden.’
He pushed open the door. Still smiling at his expense, she moved past him and stepped outside, then quickly stepped back in. ‘Oh, it’s starting to rain.’
He poked his head out of the door. ‘It’s probably just a passing shower, but it would be best if we shelter here.’
‘Oh, good, we can pass the time with a poetry reading.’
‘I didn’t realise you had such a cruel streak.’
‘And I didn’t know you had a poetical nature. It seemed my father was right. We are getting to know things about each other.’
‘Things we’d rather keep to ourselves’ he said, taking her arm and leading her away from the bookshelf. ‘There’s something else about me you don’t know and I’ll show you if you promise to leave the poetry books alone.’
She looked at him, as if assessing which would provide her with the most amusement. ‘All right, what?’
‘I am a dab hand at making a fire.’
‘Really? No, I don’t believe it. You have a house full of servants who do everything for you.’
‘I’m not quite the useless aristocrat you seem to think me. When I was a youth hiding out in this cottage, I didn’t spend all my time writing bad poetry. The estate manager taught me all sorts of ways to fend for myself.’
Along with the other servants, the estate manager had taken pity on him and knew he often needed to escape from his father’s wrath.
The hermit’s cottage had provided a refuge and the estate manager had taught him not just how to light a fire, but how to prepare the game he caught and how to cook it.
If necessary, Jacob could have almost lived out here and become the hermit the cottage had been built for.
‘Watch and be amazed,’ he said as she sent him an incredulous look.
He piled up some dry leaves in the bottom of the grate, broke up some of the branches piled beside the fireplace into smaller pieces and arranged them on top of the leaves so air would circulate. Then he looked to Margaret for approval.
‘Very good,’ she said, still with that delightful teasing smile. ‘You know how to lay a fire, but how are you going to light it?’
‘Well, Robinson Crusoe, who, along with Lord Byron, was a boyhood hero of mine, used to rub two sticks together.’
‘Off you go then,’ she said, sitting down on the cot as if expecting this to take a long time.
‘Or I could do this.’ He crossed the room to the small cupboard in the corner, opened one of the drawers and was pleased to see a box of matches still stored where the gamekeeper had always left them.
He struck a match on the side of the fireplace, put the light to the tinder-dry leaves and twigs, then watched as the flame caught the smaller branches and flared to catch the larger pieces.
Once it was burning, he turned to Margaret.
‘Voilà,’ he said and made a bow.
‘That’s cheating,’ she said with a laugh.
‘All I said was that I could make a fire, and that’s what I did. I didn’t say I was going to do it in the style of a caveman or shipwrecked sailor.’
She stood up and placed her hands in front of the fire as if to check it was a real fire providing real heat.
To make things slightly more comfortable, he picked up the straw mattress and placed it in front of the fire. ‘A seat for you, Your Grace.’
With exaggerated elegance, she lowered herself to the ground. He sat beside her and mirrored her action, holding his hands out to the now crackling fire as if in need of the warmth.
‘It’s rather cosy, isn’t it? she said. ‘I can see why a child would enjoy playing here.’
He added another piece of wood to the fire. ‘It wasn’t a playhouse. It was somewhere I felt I could breathe. Somewhere I didn’t feel like I was constantly tiptoeing through a minefield.’
She sent him a consoling look. ‘I’m sorry you had such a terrible childhood.’
‘Well, I made up for all that misery later in life,’ he said, trying to return the conversation to the playful mood it had moments ago.
She frowned slightly and he wondered if mentioning his later life was such a good idea when it meant reminding her of the man he had grown into.
‘Was it because of your parents that you decided to never marry?’ she asked, the question taking him by surprise.
‘I am married.’
‘I mean really marry.’
He threw a stick in the fire.
‘And don’t say I am really married.’