Remember When (Ravenswood #4)

Chapter Four

What Clarissa must be in need of, Matthew guessed, was a friend for the summer, someone who was not family. Some sort of crisis, if that was not too strong a term, must have brought her home to Ravenswood early and alone, when she might surely have remained in London until the end of the Season and then gone with one of her children or her brother to wherever they intended to spend the summer months. He could not remember her being alone here any other time.

It would be impossible, of course, for the two of them to be anything like the close friends they had once been. Her family would not approve. Nor would their friends and neighbors. Besides, their lives, hers and his, were almost as different now as it was possible for them to be. Apart from the memories they shared, they had nothing upon which to build an enduring friendship.

Twenty years or so ago, after returning to England from his long travels, he had given up all interest in and adherence to the very rigid British hierarchical system. The fact that he was a gentleman by birth and upbringing meant nothing to him. Nor did any interest he might once have had in rebelling and deliberately not being a gentleman. He still spoke like one, he supposed, because that was the way he had always talked. But to himself he was simply a person doing what he chose to do with his life, earning enough money to satisfy his modest needs, as he had done during his years abroad, mingling with people who pleased him, whether they were aristocrats or farm laborers.

There had been need of a carpenter in the village of Boscombe, and he had decided to settle here, not because Clarissa lived close by but despite that fact. He would not go to the house his grandmother had left him. She had given him a home there after his father turned him out following his abrupt marriage to the already pregnant Poppy Lang, and she had shown a stiff sort of kindness to his wife. But she had let him know at every opportunity that he was a disgrace to her and his whole family. Why on earth she had decided to surprise everyone—it must have been a hideous shock to his father and brother—by changing her will in his favor, he had no idea. Perhaps she had done it while Poppy was still alive and pregnant and had simply forgotten afterward to change the will back to the way it had been.

In choosing Boscombe as his home and place of business, Matthew had also moved close to Clarissa, of course, but that fact had meant nothing to him. He had a lingering fondness for her, perhaps, but nothing more than that. Except…Well, he had carved that image of her as he remembered her from the last day of their friendship, one of the most deeply emotional experiences of his life.

Now she wanted them to be friends again. Not just friendly, but friends. Her invitation to him to stay for coffee after their business meeting and his acceptance had seemed innocent enough, but it had not taken long out on the terrace for the years to fall away and send them back to when they had talked to each other as though they were talking to their own souls. She had asked about his travels, as other people still did occasionally, but he had not been content to give the usual vague description to satisfy her curiosity. Rather, he had delved right in and given her a lengthy account of his enchantment with the wood-carvers of Switzerland and of his fateful encounter with the Pietà in Rome. He had even told her about shedding tears in a public place.

What was it about Clarissa that had always induced him to bare his soul to her? Had she done the same with him? Certainly it had never been on the same scale. Yet the friendship had been genuine.

He was uneasy about encouraging any permanent sort of renewal of that friendship, however. But he could, he supposed, spend a little time with her at Ravenswood until her family returned home. He had his work as an excuse—actually, as a reason—not to go too often or stay too long. Besides, she claimed to have come home in order to spend time alone while she came to terms with her advancing age. She would not expect any new friendship that sprang up between them to be like the old, when they had often spent long hours and even whole days together. So he had suggested she come to the poplar alley, where he went to practice archery a couple of times a week if he could get away and the weather was decent.

Thursday was overcast and a bit cheerless, though there was no sign that rain was imminent. He went there after working all morning and through the luncheon hour on Miss Wexford’s table. Perhaps Clarissa had changed her mind, he thought, not sure if he would be disappointed or relieved if she had. But he could see her strolling at the far end of the alley, close to the summerhouse, as soon as he turned off the path that ran along the southern edge of the park above the meadow. He propped his bow and quiver against one of the tall trees and went to set up the target the correct distance away. She had seen him and was coming toward him.

Sheer grace and beauty, as she always had been.

He stood and waited for her and felt again the long-forgotten lifting of his spirits at the sight of her approaching.

“I hope I will not be a distraction to you,” she said as she drew close. “But I am looking forward to a private demonstration. I have never been able to watch you compete in any of the contests at the summer fetes. I have always been too busy with the craft and baking displays at the hall.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “you have not missed much.”

“Oh, but I believe I have,” she said. “My children are in awe of your skill. Owen in particular once told me that if you were ever to miss the bull’s-eye during a contest, the whole nation would go into mourning.”

He laughed. “He has a little trouble with accurate shooting,” he said. “Though I believe it is the matter of concentration that is his main problem. He is a game one, however. He competes regardless.”

“Concentration,” she said. “Is that your secret to success?”

“That and a great deal of practice,” he said. “Hours and days and weeks and months of it.”

She tipped her head to one side. “Where did you find the time for it?” she asked him. “And what made you try it in the first place? I do not remember your ever picking up a bow when you were a boy.”

“It is a long story,” he said, bending to take up his bow and checking to see that it was tautly strung. “I will tell you sometime.”

He had never told anyone else. He would be looked upon as some sort of freak if he did. Not that he would be particularly bothered by that, but why describe something he knew no one else would understand?

“I had no idea a bow could be so large,” she said. “It is huge compared with others I have seen at home. Did you make it yourself? But of course you would have. How did you bend it into such a perfect arc? It must have taken a great deal of strength as well as skill and patience. And how did you manage to string it?”

He laughed. She was reminding him very much of the eager girl she had been.

“Rule number one of asking questions,” she said, looking from the bow to his face, amusement in her own. “Wait for the answer to each one before moving on to the next.”

“I will show you how it is done one day,” he said. “Have you ever shot an arrow?”

“No,” she said. “And no woman has ever entered the contests here, if I remember accurately. It is a shame. I know there are some quite renowned women archers, though I would defy any of them to handle that particular bow. Matthew, will you pretend for the next while that I am not even here? I know you covet your practice time, and I will leave you to concentrate. I will prop myself against this tree to watch and not open my mouth until you are finished.”

She suited action to words, though he could sense that she had the same sudden thought he did—Clarissa leaning back against a tree. Not to end his world on this occasion, however, but merely to watch him shoot arrows at a distant target.

He had wondered if he would be able to do it today, if it had been wise to suggest she join him here of all places. He still wondered. He was not sure it would be possible to get to that space inside himself—though it was not actually a space, was it, or inside him?—that enabled him to ignore all else except sending his arrows unerringly into one small ring a seemingly impossible distance away. He hoisted his quiver onto one shoulder, took up his position, and raised his bow. He drew and released a few breaths, listening to the quiet rhythm of them, feeling the freshness of the air as it came in, the warmth as it left, and he was there. It was not a conscious thought. That would have been intrusive. Rather, it was an awareness. All else had receded. The world had faded away.

He shot one experimental arrow, drawing it from his quiver, fitting it to the bow, and letting it loose, all as one fluid motion. It caught the outer edge of the bull’s-eye and stuck.

She neither applauded nor said anything. He was unaware of any sign of her in his peripheral vision. But she had flickered into his consciousness, and he had to bring himself back to full concentration before releasing a barrage of arrows, one after the other. He went to fetch them, returned without looking at her, shot them again, and fetched them once more. Usually he continued for an hour or more, not because he needed the practice, as most people interpreted that word, but because he craved, even needed, the feeling he got from doing it. Though feeling was a poor choice of word. Words were terribly inadequate to explain the deeper meanings of life. Feeling would imply that he was inside his body and his mind. He was in neither place while he practiced, though he had never tried to explain that apparent absurdity to anyone who did not know and understand it for themselves. He had once lived among people who did.

He shot and collected one more round of arrows and reluctantly gave up the idea of continuing today, though it had been a very brief practice. It would be unfair to Clarissa, who had stayed still and silent against the tree. He went to stand in front of her as he had done on another, far different occasion.

“I am sorry, Clarissa,” he said. “I am not good company when I shoot.”

“I have been trying to work out in my mind what it is about watching you that has so caught at my breath,” she said. “It is not just the incredible speed and accuracy with which you shoot your arrows. It is something about…you. About the way you and your bow and arrows seem all…one. I do not know quite what I am trying to say. But I can understand now why everyone stands in awe of you as an archer, when one might expect some of them at least to be annoyed with you, even jealous. I believe everyone else competes for the pure prestige of being able to tell others that they came second to you.”

“I suppose,” he said, “I ought to sit out some of the contests.”

“Never do that,” she said. “Everyone would be terribly disappointed, Matthew.”

He shrugged, a little embarrassed, and propped his quiver and bow beside the tree next to the one against which she leaned.

“I have had some freshly squeezed lemonade and newly baked currant cakes taken to the summerhouse,” she said. “Will you join me there?”

“Are the cakes as tasty as the biscuits were a few mornings ago?” he asked her.

She smiled. “We have an excellent cook,” she said. “I have to exercise an extraordinary amount of self-discipline in order not to overindulge.”

They made their way along the alley, and it struck Matthew as it never had before how the straight line of trees on either side of the long, grassy walkway gave a marvelous sense of seclusion in contrast to the wide-open spaces of the rest of the park. He had never been inside the summerhouse, but he had often thought how perfectly it had been positioned for maximum beauty and privacy despite its walls having been constructed almost entirely of glass.

He opened the door—it was unlocked—and held it for her to precede him inside. The glass windows had trapped warm air in there and made it a pleasant place to sit. It was furnished with comfortable-looking sofas dotted with a number of cushions and a few woolly blankets. Two side tables held books, whose creased spines suggested they were not there just for show. On a longer table before one of the sofas a pitcher of lemonade stood on a tray with two glasses and a plate of currant cakes arranged in a pyramid. There were tea plates upon which to serve them.

“Do have a seat,” she told him as she poured them each a glass and placed three of the cakes on a plate before handing it to him. She put one cake on her own plate and sat beside him on the sofa he had chosen, though there was one empty place between them.

“I hope,” he said, “you are still enjoying your time alone at Ravenswood.”

“I am,” she said, “though I keep receiving invitations to tea or dinner—and to one young lady’s birthday party. They have been sent in the belief, I suppose, that I must be very lonely here on my own. So far I have been able to refuse every invitation without, I hope, giving offense. I have called upon each sender for the obligatory half hour. People really are very kind. Mrs. Danver made a brief call here the day before yesterday. She apologized that the Reverend Danver had not come with her. It was his afternoon for visiting the sick. Lady Rhys called on me yesterday afternoon. She had received a letter from Gwyneth and was kind enough to share it with me. She and Sir Ifor are leaving for Wales next Tuesday. He will play the organ for Sunday service one more time, and then there will be a long dearth until he returns. So I have not been alone for long stretches of time since my return, Matthew. But I never did intend to make a hermit of myself for the whole summer. I just hope to keep a balance between solitude and company.”

Just as he always did.

“I have certainly looked forward to this afternoon,” she said. “And I have been amazed and awed.”

“You successfully launched Lady Stephanie Ware upon society?” he asked her, changing the subject.

“I did.” She sighed. “She is nineteen and the daughter and sister of wealthy earls. She is enormously eligible, in other words. But she would not go last year and went this year only because Pippa was going to be in London with Lucas and the twins, and Gwyneth persuaded her that she would be sadly missed by all of them if she did not go too. What a gem of a daughter-in-law I have there. But what is it with my own daughters? Pippa would not go to London until she was twenty-two, an alarmingly advanced age even for a young woman of such beauty and eligibility. Fortunately she met Lucas—now the Duke of Wilby, no less—at her first social event, even before she made her official come-out. Something comparable did not happen to Steph this year, alas.”

“She is very young,” he said. He had never quite understood the compulsion young girls felt to marry almost before they left the schoolroom—before, in Clarissa’s own case. Most of them would surely benefit from a few years of experiencing life for themselves before settling down. However, that was the way their society worked, and very few people seemed to rebel against it.

“She also has such a poor opinion of herself that sometimes I could weep,” Clarissa said. “But there is no point in telling her over and over again that she is beautiful and sweet-natured and accomplished, that she will have no trouble at all attracting the sort of husband who will value her and make her happy. She is made for love. People are drawn to her, especially children. But until she can see these things for herself, she will never be happy, I fear.”

Lady Stephanie Ware was indeed a pretty young lady, though Matthew could understand why she could not see it herself. Physical appearance was of such importance to young girls. She was large in build and always had been. She had a round, youthful face that always seemed to glisten with good health. She had good skin. She wore her blond hair in a double row of heavy plaits wound about her head. The hair must be very long. He wondered if she had ever had it cut.

“She had two perfectly eligible marriage offers within a month of her presentation at court,” Clarissa said. “She rejected both. I was not entirely displeased. I might have been a little concerned, in fact, if she had jumped at the first offer. It might have suggested a certain desperation. But then she grasped the opportunity to go to Greystone with Pippa and Lucas when they decided to return home early so Pippa may be more comfortable during the months of her confinement.”

“So parties and balls held no attraction for Lady Stephanie?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Though I believe there was a specific reason as well as a general one. Do you remember Viscount Watley? Did you meet him when he spent a few weeks here a couple of years ago with Owen? They were at university together.”

“The handsome lad who had all the village girls sighing over him?” he asked.

“Tall, dark, and handsome,” she said, nodding. “Not to mention kind and charming—a natural charm, not an assumed one. He quite inadvertently made that summer insupportable for poor Steph.”

“Inadvertently?” he said. “He was not unkind to her, then?”

“Quite the contrary,” she said. “Owen tends to treat her with some carelessness at times. She is, after all, just his younger sister. But Viscount Watley went out of his way to draw her into activities when she held back and to talk to her and smile at her and praise her for her singing, among other things. He could not have treated her worse, as it turned out.”

Ah. Matthew was beginning to understand.

“She sees herself as fat and ugly, to put it bluntly,” Clarissa said. “And she fell painfully in love with a man she saw as a god. She was miserable. Oh, it would be funny if it were not also so tragic. And I am her mother.”

“He was in London this year?” he asked.

“Indeed. Two years older and even more handsome,” she said. “And delighted to meet Steph again. He made a point of introducing her to his twin sister, who is his female counterpart. Lady Estelle Lamarr is slim, elegant, dark-haired, beautiful, and charming, and she tried her best to make a friend of Stephanie. But…well, Steph fled to Greystone, when Pippa and Lucas had expected her to wait until the Season ended before joining them there with me.”

“It is not easy being a mother, then?” Matthew said.

“No, it most certainly is not,” she said. “But only because love hurts. Not all the time, of course. But sometimes.”

Yes, it did. He held himself aloof from the extremes of love now, but he still believed, even at the age of almost fifty-one, that what many adults dismissed as puppy love in the very young could be very real indeed. Very exalting. And very, very painful. The pain he had felt over Clarissa was long gone, but he could remember what it had been like. He would not wish to be young again.

“Do you sometimes wish we were young again?” she asked, again as if reading his mind.

“Young and carefree?” he said.

She turned her head sharply to look at him. “That was not very tactful of me, was it?” she said. “My own family life was rather idyllic. I had parents who adored both George and me. They instilled firm principles in us, but they also allowed us a great deal of freedom to become the persons we wanted to be. There was almost never any discord in our home. All my needs were met. I would not have had a care in the world throughout those years if I had not known you, if we had not been friends.”

“My apologies,” he said.

“Oh, no, no, no.” She set a hand briefly on his arm. “I did not mean that the way it sounded. I valued our friendship more than I can say. My heart bled for you when you were frustrated and troubled and rebellious and in trouble, as you so often were. I learned empathy from our friendship. But it was not all gloom and doom. We had good times, did we not, Matthew? We had fun.”

He smiled as he thought back. “They were not always fun times for you,” he said. “Do you remember all the trees I made you climb?”

“Even though I was afraid of heights?” she said. “You used to call me a girl. There is no worse insult than to call a girl a girl. And then you would dare me, and up I would go, shaking in every limb.”

“So that we could be closer to heaven,” he said. “So we could have at least the illusion of being away from the world. So we could give wings to our dreams. And we did enjoy all the hours we spent in the boughs of trees. Admit it.”

“We often told outrageous stories too,” she said. “We used to feed each other lines until we ended up helpless with laughter. But I always dreaded the coming down again. Why is it always so much harder to go down than to go up? I might have broken every limb and bone in my body.”

“I always went down ahead of you,” he said. “I would not have allowed you to fall. I would have caught you.”

“Ha,” she said derisively. But she was smiling. So was he.

“Do you remember when we used to cross the river between our properties by swinging from a rope I had tied to a tree branch that overhung the water?” he asked.

“Oh,” she said. “Matthew, you were cruel. I cannot believe I allowed you to goad me into something so dangerous.”

“But every time after you did it, you were exhilarated and bubbling over with triumph and laughter,” he said. “You never once fell into the water, did you?”

“But you did,” she said. “You were showing off and trying to do it one-handed. You lost your grip.”

“Not to mention my dignity,” he said. “I tried to persuade you that it was deliberate, but you set your hands on your hips while I dripped like a drowned rat on the bank before you and clamped my chattering teeth together. And you said, ‘Ha!’ just as you did a few moments ago.”

“Oh, Matthew,” she said, tapping his arm. “We did have good times. You put some adventure into my life.”

“And you put laughter into mine,” he said.

“Will you have more lemonade?” she asked him. “More cakes?”

“Neither,” he said, getting to his feet. “It is time I was getting home.”

“You will come again?” she asked him, getting to her feet to stand beside him. “Perhaps on a day when you do not practice archery? The day after tomorrow?”

It was a Saturday. He usually took both Saturday and Sunday off from work, having decided long ago that he would never make himself a slave to his working life. Occasionally there was an exception, but not often.

“It will be a Saturday,” she said, echoing his thoughts. “Perhaps you could come earlier in the afternoon.”

He looked through the glass windows at the park surrounding them.

“Have you ever been up into those hills?” he asked, nodding east toward the line of them in the distance. They apparently formed the boundary between Ravenswood property and that of Cartref, home of Sir Ifor Rhys.

“Many times,” she said. “They do not look particularly high from here, but the view in all directions from the crest of the highest hill is quite magnificent. There is a roadway along the top, just wide enough for two riders to go abreast or for a gig or curricle. Have you never been up there?”

“No,” he said.

“Then we must go on Saturday,” she said. “I will have the gig made ready.”

“What, Clarissa?” he said, grinning down at her. “Have you grown into a staid old age? Is there anything wrong with your feet?”

“It would be a long walk,” she said. “With a stiff climb at the end of it. Do not look at me like that. We will walk if you insist. And then we will trudge up to the top. Weather permitting, that is.”

“You have two days in which to pray for rain,” he said.

“Or, better yet, for snow,” she said.

They walked back along the alley so he could retrieve his equipment.

“Do you make your own arrows?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. He drew one out of the quiver and handed it to her. He watched as she slid her thumb and forefinger along the smooth, straight length of it and noted the perfection of her hand and manicured fingernails. He thought of his own callused fingers and short nails and rough palms in contrast.

“Amazing,” she said. “You must tell me the full story sometime. Perhaps when we are at the crest of the hill on Saturday, admiring the view and catching our breath.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

He hoisted his quiver over one shoulder and took the target and his bow in his hand, and they fell into step along the path. When they reached the driveway, he turned toward the village and his rooms above the smithy while she made her way back to Ravenswood Hall.

Two totally different worlds, which they would apparently bridge for the summer with some sort of resumption of a long-ago friendship.

So be it. It was not, perhaps, the wisest idea either of them had ever conceived, but when had he ever considered wisdom as a motive for any of his actions? And was she not entitled to a short break from devotion to her family and other duties? Did she not deserve some time just for herself, to do with as she pleased?

It seemed to please her to spend some of her time with him.