Chapter 17
Heaven knows why he fought coming to this place for so long. The months spent here so far have done more healing work than years in a hospital might have.
Perhaps it’s the name that put him off it when he was younger—Dunn Cottage, as if a body is done with life, just as the owners have been done with this house for many decades.
But now William is done, so it’s the perfect place. A shell of a man living in a shell of a home. The tip of its ancient tower appears farther down the coastline, tucked against the cliffside, and he breathes another prayer of gratitude for the refuge he never knew he needed.
Often, surrender is a last resort, the thing we avoid for so long, yet it eventually gives us exactly what we were searching for. Peace, protection…and because of a painting left there, the pound notes he needs more than anything.
He shifts and ensures the kitten is still nestled happily in its satchel.
Just one more rise—he can see the slate roof through the long grass.
His left hip aches so much he nearly collapses as he crosses Clodgy Point and descends the nearly-hidden steps into his own private corner of the world, desperate for the cascading peace that always comes.
But just up the path from the cottage, precisely where his tension normally melts away, hair on his arm prickles.
He’s anything but alone, and something dark mars the stony entrance.
He blinks, rain misting his face. She’s there on the broken-down steps, huddled beneath a cloak that’s beating against the rocks in the wind.
His Helen. She’s almost close enough to touch.
Shaking, breathless, he limps closer, all but dragging his left foot.
The figure rises, her overly red lips a shock against white skin. “I found your note,” she says simply.
His shoulders hunch, caving around the hollow of his chest. Of course it’s not Helen. Helen is moving. She will soon have a new address—one he won’t know. “Right.”
It was cowardly, slipping his apology to the artist under the studio door after closing. A feeble attempt to free himself of the weight wrapped around his soul after that encounter.
“You’re not an easy man to find,” she says above the wind, hovering between him and his sanctuary. “Had to ask about all over western Cornwall, and even now this place was only a guess. Do you know they think you a ghost?”
He shoves past her and through his door, but then he pauses. She’s come all this way. She’s cold and wet, and standing on an exposed cliff face. He sighs at the inevitability of it. “Come in if you wish.”
Of course, she does, closing the door behind her, instantly cutting off the wind.
Only then does he realize she has a reason for making the effort to find him. She’s found something vital.
She scrunches her nose. “Rather dark in here, isn’t it?”
Without a word he lights four tallow candles, placing them throughout the low-ceilinged room, and looks about his humble sanctuary with critical eyes.
It’s rather austere and ancient, one giant room with an oversized fireplace and heavy furniture that’s a blend of abandoned medieval castle and bear’s cave. “It’s cozy.”
“That tower certainly catches the eye, doesn’t it? I suppose that’s where all the mysteries of this wonderful place are hidden.”
“Hm.” He cannot bring himself to admit he hasn’t even thought to search the tower—or even found a door to enter it.
He scoops Kitten out of the satchel and places it on the back of his neck, where the tiny being sets to work cleaning William’s wiry, unkempt hair and rumbling its appreciation.
“Oh!” That red O again, much smaller than he remembers. “You’ve a flatmate.”
“Houseguest. It’s temporary.”
Back to the reason, please. How long does courtesy dictate he wait before bringing it up?
Unhurried, she reaches for the kitten, holding it close and turning it this way and that. “She,” the woman announces.
He turns, blinking. “Pardon?”
“It’s a she, not an it. I do hope you haven’t named her yet.”
Name. That would make it—her—permanent.
“Oooooh lookie at this whiddle nose.”
William grimaces. He sneaks a glance at her and she’s sitting in his chair. His chair. It’s the best one. She must take it, of course. That’s what one does for guests—gives them the finest.
“Aww, the tiny feet. How adorable can you be?”
The kitten looks toward William and offers another directive with pleading eyes. “Wroooowr.”
William sighs and retrieves his pitiful new shadow. “I suppose it’s—she’s still a bit frightened. Came from the bomb site. Penzance.”
The unwelcome visitor tucks her stockinged legs beneath her and studies him. “It’s the war, isn’t it? That’s what’s made you so waspish.”
He stares down into the metal washbasin by the door.
“I recognized that haunted look the moment you walked into the studio. Thought perhaps I could win you over anyway. I’ve always loved the story of Beauty and the—well, no matter. That is, I thought you might do with some company. You seemed…lonely.”
“Lonely is for people who wish to be around people but aren’t.” He wrenches open a jar of fish scraps and arranges them on a plate for Kitten, who happily pounces on her good fortune. Then he crouches to light a fire, watching the intruder in his peripheral vision.
“Right.” She chews the inside of her cheek. “Well, then. I suppose I’ll be on my way.”
“Good day, then.”
But she doesn’t stand, doesn’t move her invasive presence from his table. Is she awaiting an escort back up to the footpath? The route to this hidden place certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. He turns, one arm sweeping out. “May I—”
“Oh yes, tea would be lovely.” She blows out a breath, sweeping hair off her wet face. “It’s beastly cold out there.”
He is a beast, sending her back out in the rain, on an exposed cliffside.
This wind’ll blow over soon. Very soon, with any luck.
He fumbles with the kettle and water, hanging it over the fire.
After he digs his tea tin out of the larder and sets out mugs, it dawns on him that she hasn’t spoken in at least thirty seconds.
He turns and she’s staring at the painting of Merryn, transfixed. “Good night! Is that—”
“I don’t know.” His muscles bunch again. “I found it.”
She walks over and reaches for the painting without quite touching it. A breathless awe settles over the cottage as they study the mysterious woman with her challenging gaze that always pinpoints William. “It’s stunning.”
“I thought you found Covington tedious.”
“Pictures of docks and the horses I can do without. But this…it speaks. It lives somehow, with a story aching to be released.”
The next question quivers in his chest before he finally lets it out. “Have you heard of a woman called Merryn?”
She’s still staring at the portrait. “Merryn? Yes, I believe so. Is that her?”
“What have you heard of her?”
Concern clouds her face. “Nothing favorable, I’m afraid. And very few people will remember her at all now. She came through Newlyn so long ago, looking for something from some distant past and causing quite a flap. I cannot remember what about, though.”
He grunts, then pours the steaming water over the tea strainer in each cup.
She slowly shakes her head. “She’s exquisite. Haunting, almost. There’s something about her that’s so…lost.”
He swallows. Swallows again, though she isn’t even looking his way. It’s the portrait she’s speaking of. “Being lost isn’t a sin.”
“Indeed not.” Her voice is still hushed. Reverential. “Some must become lost to find what’s truly important.”
She’ll take up permanent residence at this rate. “You’ll have someone worrying about you.”
“What will you do with it? You cannot hide it away in here, this stunning masterpiece.”
Why is it always such a shame for something to be alone? “Thought to put it in the gallery up Penzance way, but—”
“But they’re too dull-witted to realize it’s a true Covington.” She tips her face in a way that makes her seem less silly somehow. Smarter.
He stirs the tea. Stares. At the painting, not the girl.
“I wonder how Covington knew her. He never painted people, but that is most certainly his work, isn’t it?”
If only she were the professional authenticating it. He sets one cup in front of her and cradles the other himself.
“I’m Florence, by the way.”
Florence. Like the Italian city. Like the emotions that flow out of her. He’ll never remember. “William.”
She blows on the tea. “I must have seemed a bit forward when you came into the shop. It’s only—well, mayhap you aren’t lonely, but I am.
And it isn’t too often a fine-looking man walks directly into my shop, interested in art.
Me, I’m a bit on the shelf of course, but I thought perhaps…
” She pauses. “Maybe you could take me out. You never know.”
A jolt to the chest. “Absolutely not. I’ve a wife!”
Her nostrils flare. “There are ways of advertising that, you know. A ring, for example.”
His fingers instantly find the band of smooth skin on his left hand where a ring used to be.
He’s floated on a cloud of happy memories lately, cherry-picking his favorites and becoming nostalgic.
Twenty-six years in the making is his love story with Helen, but it hasn’t an ending, exactly.
It simply changes with time and fades out as life crowds into the foreground.
He can picture that ring on the windowsill where he left it, though he was tempted to hurl the thing at the time.
Helen came rushing home that day, sure they’d been robbed.
“The accounts, William. They’re empty. We even owe three pounds—how can that be?
We had so much saved up.” Sobs burst from her. “We’ve sacrificed so much.”
He’d had to take her by the shoulders and tell her who had robbed them.
It had been him.
Even though she’d been against it, he’d purchased an investment property in Europe that was projected to rise in value nearly forty percent. He told her.
The resulting slap had been quick and shocking. That gentle hand that had soothed their babes, smoothed hair off his forehead, served thousands of family meals, left a mark on his cheek like a bee sting.
He rushed to justify his actions, to explain why he’d had to move quickly.
“Or what, we’d miss out on being robbed?
I told you it was a terrible idea. You agreed.
We’ll wait, you said, until we’re both ready.
A team, you said. A partnership.” She’d been shaking, that slender bracelet on her wrist quivering.
“Now we shall be partners in poverty. We’re trapped in this disgusting, smoke-filled city… ”
“It’s not like that,” he’d argued, but she’d been right.
“We have nothing, William.” Her blue eyes were nearly clear. “Less than nothing.”
That word had rattled around in the hollows. The life he’d given her so far was, apparently, nothing. Less than nothing. Decades of daily work…nothing. She had collapsed onto the cedar chest at the end of their bed and sobbed.
He’d taken a step toward her but stopped. When a woman cries over a single thing, it’s never just about that thing.
He lets out his breath. “It’s complicated,” he tells his visitor.
Florence eyes him. “Marriage is not a gradient,” she says, like a true artist. “You either are or you aren’t.”
“Am.” He clears his throat. “I am m-m-married.”
Helen was angry with him. He acted foolishly. But he still belongs to her in a way he won’t to anyone else.
“Then why are you here and she’s not?”
He stares down into his cup at the floating tea leaves. It’s uncomfortable in a way he never was with Helen, even when they quarreled.
William can feel Florence’s stare. She’s analyzing him. Pitying him. Reading the story he isn’t sharing and filling in what he isn’t saying.
“Very well, a proposal for you,” she says quietly. “I’ll dig about for this Merryn person—I know exactly who to ask—that way you have to come back to the studio.”
“Look, there’s no chance for anything between—”
“I know.” She slides her teacup away. “But it’ll keep you from becoming the hermit everyone believes you are. And it’ll give me something to do.”
He studies her face, and there’s an earnestness to it. Perhaps that’s why he thought her young before.
“I’ll ask something of you in return. What do you say?”
He steals another glance at the portrait. “Very well.” A favor, he cannot accept. But an exchange seems perfectly safe. “One week, then.” He should ask what favor she wants in return.
But before he can, she rises with a bright smile. Life has not calcified her soul yet. She hasn’t seen war. Hasn’t lived a lifetime of highs and lows with another person, with reality wearing the bond threadbare in spots.
“One week. I’ll make it worth the trip. Now, tell me everything you know about Merryn.”
He sighs. “She likely knew Rupert Covington. But she was married—at one time, at least—to a man named Ansel something.”
She pulls out a small notebook and jots these things down.
“She journeyed through Cornwall, likely many years ago now, and she seems to have some connection with Dunn Cottage.” He pauses, picturing Merryn’s neat handwriting in that notebook of hers. “Perhaps she lived here. She called herself Merryn Dunn once. A relation of Anwen Dunn, I suppose.”
“And who’s Anwen Dunn?”
He shrugs. “The person who left me this cottage. I haven’t any idea who she is, though.”
She blinks. “A stranger willed you a house—You’ve never been a bit curious why?”
Another shrug. “Not enough to do anything about it. Distant relation, perhaps.” He glances up at Merryn, again struck with the tingling sense that he knows her. Knows her voice. “Or…perhaps she is Anwen Dunn. Could that be?”