Chapter Nineteen
They traveled home largely in silence, alone with their own thoughts, though they held hands most of the way and occasionally laced their fingers. Their arms and shoulders touched. For a while Clarissa tipped her head sideways to rest on Matthew’s shoulder. But she knew it was too soon for him to talk of all the teeming emotions the day had brought him. And she had much to think about herself. A great deal had happened since her return from London.
“I need to concentrate upon work for the next few days,” he said as the carriage made its turn into Boscombe.
She needed to be alone again too.
“You will not neglect your archery?” she asked him as the carriage drew to a stop before the smithy.
He hesitated for a moment. “I will go three days from now after I finish work,” he said. “Weather permitting.”
She knew he would need to practice. Not because his skills would have grown rusty but because he would need to find that source of peace and balance within himself that had been severely disturbed lately.
“I will not come to watch,” she said. “But I will have tea taken out to the summerhouse. You may join me there when you have finished if you wish. But only if you wish.”
He smiled at her and they left it at that. They both needed to be alone. They needed to sort themselves out. She did not know quite why she felt very close to tears as the carriage resumed its journey back to the house.
What if they did indeed sort themselves out and the way forward did not include each other?
It rained the following day. Even so she trudged up the hill to the temple folly, wearing rain boots and holding a large old black umbrella, which had belonged to Caleb, over her head. She sat under the roof of the temple all morning, breathing in the lovely country smells of wet earth and greenery and distant sheep. She had not brought a book with her. She had not read in over a month. She wondered if she ever would again. Perhaps when she was alone and cozy in her cottage by the river…
She thought of the letters that had been delivered this morning. They had come together in one package, one from Pippa, the other from Stephanie. They must have been talking to each other about her, for both had basically the same message. They loved her. They missed her. She might come to Greystone whenever she wished and for as long as she wished—that was Pippa. Stephanie would return to Ravenswood if her mother needed her and stay all summer and all winter too. Yet each understood—both had emphasized the point—her need to be free of family and obligation and even the distraction of entertainments for a while. They understood that she had reached a turning point in her life and needed time and solitude in which to make some decisions. They sent all their love.
It was a great relief to feel their understanding and to be assured that they were no longer puzzled by what she was doing, or offended by it. Perhaps it was because they were her daughters, without the strong protective instinct that characterized her sons.
How she loved them all!
And how delightful that Pippa and Stephanie were able to have time with each other without her constant presence with them too. There was a six-year gap in their ages. Pippa was twenty-five, Steph nineteen. It was an age difference that had distanced them from each other when they were younger, though there had never been any real hostility. Now, it seemed, the gap in their ages mattered less. They were becoming firm friends.
Ben and Owen and Joy had arrived safely at Penallen. Jennifer had written a brief note to tell her so. It had arrived yesterday while she was away. Jennifer was very happy to have her husband and daughter back home—she never called Joy her stepdaughter—and delighted that Owen had come with them. If her mother-in-law had come too, her happiness would have been complete. But she understood entirely her mother-in-law’s need to be alone for a while. She would press no further invitations upon her, only the assurance that she would always be more than welcome.
Clarissa smiled through tears that never seemed to be very far off these days. How could she be distancing herself from a family that cared so much for her? How could she be dreaming of—and plotting for—a home of her own with a bright red front door she could shut against the whole world whenever she chose?
But they understood.
At last they seemed to understand.
She sat up in the turret room after luncheon. The rain had eased but not stopped entirely. She did not mind. It was the rain that kept the grass almost emerald colored and thick and springy to the touch. It was the rain that gave color to all the wildflowers blooming in the meadow and the cultivated flowers in their carefully weeded beds. And she was actually glad of the excuse to be lazy today, to remain at home, sitting and dreaming.
—
Devlin came with Gwyneth and the children the following afternoon after Clarissa had spent the morning, in her rain boots, strolling from one flowery nook to another in the dips of land between the house and the lake. She had stopped for what must have been a whole hour in the one with the small lily pond after checking that the seat was not still wet from yesterday’s rain. She breathed in the scent of the sweet peas growing there.
They had called in for a day or two on their way to Wales, Devlin explained. Ravenswood was far off the much shorter route from London they would normally have taken. But when she pointed out that fact, Gwyneth explained that they had wanted to give her one more chance to go with them. She looked at her mother-in-law with a twinkling smile as she said it.
“We will not press the issue, Mother,” she said. “We know you quite deliberately chose to come home to be alone and have probably been enjoying your freedom to come and go as you wish and do whatever you please. We guessed that you have been somewhat frustrated by the interruptions to your peace.”
Clarissa merely smiled back at her. Making a detour here was Devlin’s idea, not Gwyneth’s, she understood.
“Gareth and Bethan will interrupt it even more when they wake up from their naps,” Gwyneth said.
Clarissa laughed. “What are grandmothers for?” she said. “I have missed them. Has Bethan walked more than just that once yet?”
“She has not,” Devlin said. “You asked the wrong question, Mama. You ought to have asked if she has run.”
“Ah.” Clarissa laughed again. “Let the fun begin, then.”
“Is it any wonder,” Gwyneth said, “that we want you to come with us?”
They stayed only until the following morning, during which time Clarissa played with the children and read them their bedtime stories. But while Gwyneth stayed in the nursery to tuck them into their beds and remain with them until they fell asleep, Devlin spoke with his mother in the drawing room.
“We came because I needed to talk with you in person, Mama,” he said. He held up a staying hand when she drew breath to speak. “It is probably not quite what you expect. I have not come to object to whatever is between you and Matthew Taylor. You do not even need to explain to me or justify the relationship. We all reacted with rather ridiculous alarm to the hints various people dropped in the letters they wrote to us. As though you were a child. Or an imbecile. And I did not come to object to your remaining here alone through the summer. I have been assured, even apart from what you yourself told us before you came here, that it is what you want. You know there are several alternatives if you should change your mind, though I do not expect you will. I have come because both Ben and Owen have informed me that you have some sort of proposition to make to me and I had better listen to it carefully without dismissing it out of hand. Neither gave any hint as to what that proposition is.”
And so she told him of her wish to build a cottage for herself down by the river, a home that could become a dower house after her time since it would be on Ravenswood land. She told him she had no wish whatsoever to move away from her family or cut herself off from them. She wished only to have a place all her own. She told him she intended to pay for it herself. It would not cost him a penny—only his permission to proceed.
His expression was black by the time she had finished speaking. Or so it seemed to her.
“It is still light outside,” he said curtly after glancing at the window. “Show me.”
They walked down the driveway and along the river path in silence until she stopped.
“Here,” she said. “The cottage will go over there, just this side of the meadow, and there will be room left for a flower garden. Matthew says the chance of flooding is slim to none. And it will be very close to the house but separate from it. Devlin—”
He was still looking a bit thunderous. He held up a hand again.
“Just one thing,” he said. “It will be on my land. It will be my property. I will pay for it.”
He was not saying an outright no?
“It was my idea,” she said. “It would be an expense you were not—”
His hand was up yet again.
“It is not negotiable, Mama,” he said. “I will compromise on only one thing.”
“What?” she asked warily.
“You may pay for what goes inside the house,” he said. “And for what surrounds it. The furnishings and decorations. The lawns and flowers and hedges. It will be a considerable expense for you.”
“You are saying yes, then?” She clasped her hands and held them beneath her chin.
“I am trying to understand all this, Mama,” he said. “The need to be alone. The new friendship, which some of your neighbors, I might add, believe is probably more than just friendship. The need for a house of your own when Ravenswood is vast enough to swallow a village. The…independence from your own children. Gwyneth has tried to explain it to me as though she understands better than I do. Perhaps she does. Mama…she insists that you still love us.”
She stared at him mutely for a few moments in the gathering dusk. “I let you down very badly once, Devlin,” she said. “I sent you away because you had tried to defend my honor publicly. I suffered for that decision for six long years. I suffered because I love you, as I love all my children, perhaps more than I love my own life. But…I do love my own life too. I want to live whatever remains of it in my own way. But that does not include any separation from any of you. I love you.”
He stared at her in apparent bafflement for a few moments before striding toward her and catching her up in a brief, fierce hug.
“We had better go back to the house before we have to feel our way in the darkness,” he said. “And before Gwyneth organizes a search party. I will contact a good architect and send him here, Mama. You may explain your vision to him and he will draw up plans for your approval. I will explain to him that work on the house is to begin within the month and be finished before winter sets in. He can make all the arrangements.”
“Oh,” she said, taking his offered arm. She could not think what else to say. “Oh goodness.”
Could some dreams really come true?
—
Matthew had discovered over the years that working could sometimes put him into a near-meditative state, especially if the project was one that required some creativity. It helped still his mind, focusing upon the task, letting both skill and artistry flow through his hands and into the wood.
He worked almost constantly through the two days following his visit to his brother and to the churchyard where his wife and daughter lay at rest, and the long carriage ride both ways with Clarissa. His whole being teemed with jumbled thoughts and raw emotions he had not experienced since he was a very young man. He did not try to control them. He worked instead, forgetting to stop for luncheon both days and stopping only long enough the first evening to make himself a thick sandwich, which he carried into his workroom and noticed an hour or so later, the bread hardening and dry on top. He ate the sandwich anyway rather than going to get something else. He forgot to go to bed that night until his eyes were watering so badly he could no longer clearly see what he was doing.
He stopped work the second evening only because he had said he would go to a birthday party Mrs. Holland had organized for Sally, her daughter, who was married to Alan Roberts, the schoolteacher. Cam came to fetch him. It was a boisterous gathering, at which people all seemed to want to talk at once, raising their voices to be heard over everyone else’s, while those who were not talking did a great deal of laughing instead. George Isherwood, the doctor, was there as well as Mrs. Proctor, the dressmaker, the Misses Miller from the shop, and John Roberts, the cobbler. Matthew was fond of them all and did as much laughing as any of them, despite the news the Misses Miller had brought to the party.
The Earl and Countess of Stratton and their children had arrived home from London earlier in the day. The sisters had seen their carriage from the shop window with their very own eyes as it drove past on the far side of the village green. The Strattons must have changed their minds about going to Wales.
“But I wonder why,” Sally said.
Unusually, no one seemed able—or willing—to speculate upon the reason, and there were several uncomfortably silent moments while a few of the guests glanced self-consciously at Matthew.
He enjoyed the evening anyway and slept deeply that night. He worked the following morning until he was aware of a banging on his door and opened it to discover Mrs. Holland standing outside, a covered plate of leftovers from the night before in her hand.
“But you insisted I bring some home with me last night,” Matthew said in protest. “I had cake for breakfast.”
“Oh, did I?” she said with an almost comic look of surprise. “I forgot. Take it anyway. There is so much left Oscar and Cam will be eating it for a week.”
“Well, thank you,” he said, taking the plate from her. “You spoil me, Mrs. Holland.”
“Someone has to,” she said, patting the back of his hand after he had transferred the food to one of his own plates and given hers back to her. “His lordship’s carriage drove away from Ravenswood a few hours ago. It looks as if they are going to visit her ladyship’s relatives in Wales after all. They just stopped here for the night, I daresay. There is nothing better than sleeping in your own bed, is there? I don’t believe the dowager countess went with them. And who could blame her? I would not enjoy traveling a few hundred or a few thousand miles, whatever it is, with two young children, no matter how good they are. So she is home alone again.”
She squeezed one eye shut, rubbed it with a finger of her free hand as though a dust mote had attacked her, and clattered back down the stairs to the street.
Matthew took his bow and arrow to the poplar alley after cleaning up his workroom and casting a critical eye and hand over the almost-finished crib. Once he arrived at the wooded alley, he set up his equipment, noted with something that felt suspiciously like disappointment that he was alone, and began his practice.
It did not go well for a while. He almost gave up in frustration and despair. But what was there in his life that was so disturbing to him? He had work for some time to come, all of it both interesting and challenging. His friends were still his friends. Apart from the uneasy looks that had been cast his way last evening when the Misses Miller had talked of Devlin Ware and his family’s arrival at Ravenswood, he was being treated as he always had been. He had not become any sort of pariah. His family had been restored to him, and he was as determined as they seemed to be to pursue the relationship, to normalize it if that was possible after more than thirty years of estrangement. Poppy and Helena were at peace in their neat, well-kept grave. He would visit them regularly, assure them that they would never be forgotten. He loved Clarissa. Yes, it was as simple as that. He was not sure of the exact nature of the love she felt for him, but even friendship would be enough, as it always had been. And they would remain friends. He was confident of that.
There was no reason, then, to feel out of sorts.
When he lifted his bow again after taking a short break and followed his breath for a while—in, hold, out, hold—he was finally there, one with his bow and his quiver and arrows, with the target and the space between, with the air and the grass beneath his feet and the sky above.
It had been a long practice, he realized when he finally came back inside his body and discovered that his bow arm was stiff and aching, that his fingers were sore and tingling from drawing arrows from his quiver, that his legs seemed almost locked at the knees. He went to pluck the last round of arrows from the target—all had found the bull’s-eye—and looked ahead along the alley to the summerhouse. Even if she had come, he thought, she would surely have left by now.
But soon enough he saw she had come and she had not left. He could see her sitting inside the summerhouse in a light-colored dress, gazing back in his direction. He dropped the bow and quiver at his feet, decided against going back for his coat, and strode off toward her.
She was standing in the open doorway when he reached her and caught her up with both arms about her waist and swung her in a full circle. She wrapped her own arms about his neck and laughed.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I lost track of time.”
“And forgot your coat,” she said. “But I like you in your shirtsleeves. And I could watch you forever at your archery and not grow tired of it.”
They stood gazing into each other’s eyes, their arms still about each other. She was wearing a muslin summer dress with no shawl and no bonnet. She was rosy complexioned and bright eyed.
“Devlin came yesterday with Gwyneth and the children,” she said. “They left again this morning. Matthew, I am to have my cottage. Devlin is going to send an architect here so I can tell him exactly what I want, and the building is to start within the next few weeks and be finished by winter. Can you believe it?”
It was difficult. He would have expected her son to put up all sorts of objections to her dream.
“He insists upon paying for the house,” she said, “since, as he explained, it will be on Ravenswood land and therefore legally his. But I am to pay for all the furnishings and the landscaping and planting of the garden.”
“Am I going to be allowed to visit you there?” he asked, smiling back at her. “Or will that red door be locked against me?”
“Oh,” she said, her smile softening. “You must have a key of your own, Matthew.”
He laughed, though he felt a stabbing of emotion at her words and the look on her face.
“Have you had your invitation?” he asked her.
“How delightful it was,” she said. “Did they send one to you too, even though you are to be the guest of honor? The pleasure of your company is requested for refreshments, conversation, cards, and dancing if the young people and the young at heart insist upon it. And then, more prosaically, the date and time and Adelaide Taylor’s signature. No mention of your name as the special guest.”
“For which omission I am very grateful,” he said. “Perhaps Adelaide is a bit afraid I will turn coward and not go and she will end up looking foolish.”
“And feeling massively disappointed,” she said. “You will go, Matthew?”
“I will,” he said. “Will you?”
“Of course,” she said. “Mama and Papa will be there too.”
“Reggie insists upon sending his carriage for me,” he said. “I daresay he will be happy for you to use it too.”
She took her arms from about his neck and pressed her hands against his shoulders. “Come inside,” she said. “Tea was brought out an hour ago, but I waited for you.”
“Thank you,” he said, sitting beside her on one of the sofas. “Tell me. Are you closer to discovering what you came home to find, Clarissa? Despite all the interruptions?”
“I am,” she said, taking his hand in hers and lacing their fingers. “I believe I am going to be able to have my own life and my family life too. It might be said that I have always had both anyway, but—”
“I understand,” he said.
“I even read for an hour this morning after Devlin and Gwyneth and the children left,” she said. “That must sound very trivial. But I have been unable to concentrate upon any book since I came home.”
“And I was able to shoot today,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I saw. Is the turmoil starting to feel less…tumultuous, then?”
“It is,” he said. “I have a brother and sister-in-law, and a whole family surrounding them. It is not going to be easy or comfortable sorting everything out, and I know I will dread the coming of next Friday almost as much as I dreaded my visit a few days ago. But…” He shrugged. “It will be done.”
She tipped her head to rest on his shoulder, and he turned his head and kissed her—warmly and with deepening intensity as her free arm came about his neck again and her hand cupped the back of his head, her fingers pushing through his hair.
She was so beautiful, he thought, moving his head back a fraction from hers to gaze at her, heavy lidded and smiling dreamily back at him.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, her voice low.
He was thinking that he wanted to make love to her and that perhaps she wanted it too. But…in a glass-walled summerhouse in broad daylight, with gardeners forever busy in the park?
“I am thinking,” he said, “that I could drink that whole jug of lemonade myself if you do not first claim a glassful.”
She laughed and pushed away from him. “And all this food will grow stale if we do not eat it soon,” she said. “That would be a shame.”
“It would,” he said, and told her, as she moved forward on the sofa to pour their drinks, about the party the evening before and the bundle of food he had taken home and the duplicate plate of leftovers Mrs. Holland had brought him earlier.
“The offering this morning was an excuse for her to let me know that your son’s carriage had left Ravenswood, presumably bound for Wales,” he said. “The Misses Miller brought the news of its arrival to the gathering last evening.”
“Ah, the joys of belonging to a small rural community,” she said, handing him his glass and an empty plate for him to fill himself.
Matthew took a mouthful of his lemonade and contemplated the feast set out before him.