Chapter 28
Idream of the man again, his soulful brown eyes turned upon me. But he’s standing still this time, staring at me from a distance, and the wind whips against me. Thick mist rolls over the beach, and I can feel the moisture on my arms. How real he seems. My mind is foggy. Exhausted.
I blink again, and he’s still there. Water swirls about my bare feet, chilling my mind into focus. This is real. I’m awake. He’s here. I’m here, on the beach I—
The castle. My gaze flicks to the right and there she is, a regal granite beacon on the choppy rocks off the coast: St. Michael’s Mount.
I didn’t see it in the dark last night, but now the rising sun has made her gray tower appear pink and orange, just as I remember.
It all seems right. It’s here, my dream solidifying.
I sway, and the world tilts, then blurs and refocuses.
I’m waking. It is a dream, isn’t it? It always is.
I spent the night half-sleeping through a hazy mix of dreams and reality in a cave on the rocky beach. Dream, wake. Dream, wake.
Which is this?
Another spray of water and the world stands still at last. It’s chilly and wet and smells of the sea and the dramatic, rocky cliffs of Newlyn.
I’m so tired. The long years of wondering, dreading, the long train trip, running from danger, the endless journey…
all of it narrows to this moment. This cove, this beach, this man standing before me, watching to see what I’ll do.
I cannot move. I’d been hopeful, curious, until I reached town last night. Now I’m afraid.
The moment I left King’s Head in St. Ives last night, glancing fearfully over my shoulder every few steps, I set out on the road to Newlyn.
This turned out to be a rutted pathway through sheep fields, over rocky terrain, through green, sloping countryside, and I stumbled along it, beating my fists against the darkness as I ran away from the man who’d always kept me safe.
Betrayal lodged in the center of my chest, making me winded and angry and utterly isolated…
and then I found the inn. The Red Lion appeared so welcoming with its hearty red door flung wide, the warm glow and loud, friendly voices inside.
I slipped inside weary, alone, hopeful, nearly falling over with exhaustion, legs shaking. But the publican stared at me as if I’d entered the wrong establishment. “What be wantin’?” He was a beefy man with arms thick as logs, and a bald pate that shone in the firelight.
I slid onto the stool at the bar, glancing at the heavy oak door for signs of AJ. How long would it take him to find me? “I haven’t any money, actually.”
“Of course ’ee don’, miss. Now go on back to wherever ’ee crawled from. We don’ care for the likes o’ you about.”
A sickening blow. “You…know who I am.”
“And shouldn’t I? Served ’ee often enough, I did.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. His look of venom forced the sentiment up and out, though I could not say for what I was apologizing. The squeeze of shame tightened. Solidified.
A glass crashes, splashing amber liquid across the counter, and the man swung around and cursed. He swiped the thing away, growling at the offender as he cleaned up the spill. Then he turned that glare on me, as if to lay blame.
“Please, sir,” I said with my last ounce of strength. My head was spinning. “Tell me where to find—”
“I’ll not be directin’ you back to him.” He planted his beefy hands before me, shoving his face near mine. “Look ’ere, you near did him in, woman. Covington’s a lost man.”
Covington. Yes…Rupert Covington. The name slid into place beside the image of the man on the beach with the somber brown eyes, the steady presence. My rock. My safety. My Rupert.
How could I have forgotten?
“You might as well have killed ’im off ’afore you left. Now go on, be off wi’ ee. And leave the poor man be.”
I slipped from the pub after that, into the increasing darkness.
The poor man. Those words echo. The poor man.
But after tossing and turning all night in the cave, that poor man is who I see before me.
A care-worn, diminished figure in brown worsted wool who stands as a lone tower on a glorious beach, not unlike the granite tower of the distant castle.
Waves crash over the island’s rocks, drenching the building, but it remains standing.
Unmoved. What waves have crashed over this man, battering him but not taking him down?
Surely I cannot have done all this to him.
Faint echoes of guilt needle me from every angle.
Leave the poor man alone.
The wind picks up, and I have to hold my hair back off my face to see him, for I do not wish to lose sight of the man.
I walk toward him. This time I won’t leave without speaking to him.
Maybe I won’t leave at all. I reach him, my tattered dress brushing my calves as the wind calms, but the atmosphere swirls with magnetism and wonder—the pull of his somber face, his desperate air that’s pricked with hope as he looks at me. “You’ve come back?”
Though I’m standing before him, it’s a question.
I’ll overwhelm him with questions. With explanations. They bubble up, all on top of one another. I hit my head. Lost my memory. I didn’t mean to stay away. At least, I don’t think so. I’m sorry.
Words are slippery things. “Hello,” is all I offer, and suddenly the reality of my real life settles comfortably around me. Broken me begins to align with former me, solidifying into one person, one story.
Breeze ruffles his dark hair, just as I remember, and the gulls call to us from overhead. “Where have you…I…” He shakes his head. Rubs his hand along behind his neck in a motion I know.
That deep glow of affection I recall from my dreams, that pure delight, is dimmed to a mild consideration of me now, a wary study of my features and the intentions behind them.
He cannot trust me, and he has no reason to. I left him. I may leave again—I’ve no idea what comes next, or what precisely came before. I only know this place was once home, and I was safe. And that he was mine and I was his.
He reaches for my hand, testing the waters.
My fractured heart stirs. When I lace my fingers into his, Rupert Covington’s face relaxes and a smile emerges, slow and hopeful.
Then he draws me close, wrapping his arms about me and resting my face against his chest, and I breathe in the scent of him.
Somehow, it still feels dreamlike and outside of reality.
But my heart hammers wildly until I shove him away, panting and desperate for space.
“I don’t care,” he says. “Whatever it is, I don’t care.”
He moves close again but does not embrace me.
The sun-warmed skin tainted with cloves and paint, the gentle bristle of his face that has brushed the top of my head.
There’s a trickle of memories. Wildflower bouquets.
Long morning walks in the sunrise. Hearty meals and joyous dancing.
Running through the tide, and a blur of faces whose names I do not know anymore.
And this man. This rough wool suit against my face, the low rumble in his chest when he speaks, and the scent of turpentine as he lifts his hand to smooth back my windswept hair.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I manage, looking into his face. Begging him to understand. I don’t even know if I have a fragment of my crushed-up heart to offer. “There’s been an accident. I’ve lost my memory, and I’m not certain—”
“Quite all right.” His smile is slow and deep. Calming.
I smile. “I am your wife. Yes?”
His look is shocked. Uncertain. “Yes, of course.”
A deep voice whips about in the distance. “Merryn!”
Chills climb my skin as another burst of wind sweeps over the beach.
“Merrrrrrryn!” comes the voice again, chillingly familiar. It’s AJ. But how?
The publican. Of course! Like a fool I asked the publican for directions to Newlyn.
Hand to my pounding heart, I look straight up to the cliffs overhead and see his familiar form. Rupert and I flatten ourselves against the rocks, out of the wind and hidden to anyone looking down from above. “Can we get away from this place?” I say against the wind. “Far away.”
“How far? Truro?” he shouts.
“Anywhere that is not here. I shall explain everything.”
“Let me fetch my things.”
“Merryn! Merryn!” AJ is walking the footpath above, his voice whipping over the beach on the wind. He hasn’t spotted us yet—I can tell by his voice—but he will. There’s a scrabble and tiny pebbles rain down from above where he steps near the edge.
“There isn’t time. I’m sorry, Rupert. I must go. Will you meet me somewhere?” I have no money. I cannot take a train. “We must speak.”
His jaw sets. “I’m coming with you this time.
Come, this way.” Leaving easel and canvases, he grabs his bag and points to a crevice in the rocks that turns out to be steps leading up a hidden, winding path to the clifftops farther up from where AJ is.
We reach a brick building on the top labeled Newlyn Art Lodge and immediately the wind dies down away from the beach. It’s serene here.
Unhitching a mare, he mounts without saddling and pulls me up behind him. “Hold on.”
Then we’re off, a gentle canter along the coastal path that looks over the turquoise-blue waters that have filled my mind for months…and the castle. I’m here. I’m finally here, and I’ve completed my journey. If only I can untangle my present from the past, and the mess I’ve made of everything.
Which marriage would be valid?
Why, the first one.