Chapter 32
Within the hour we’re packed into the automobile, rumbling toward Penzance, Laura’s scarf billowing out behind her. “Where will you go?”
“Cheltenham, I suppose. I’ve matters I must see to.”
“You could have saved him, you know. Rupert, that is.”
My heart was cracking down the center, hurting him this way. Now it splits in two. “He has other models, does he not?” He was so grateful. So delighted I’d come back.
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Models, yes. Muses…no.” She straightens her grip on the wheel.
“He has returned to what he was before you emerged from the mist, Merryn. A tortured artist who cannot see through the cloud of his emotions. He’s always been a brilliant impressionist, but never more than with you. Something about you…inspired him.”
“Love can do that.”
“Well. Yes, I suppose he loves you, too.”
But not as much as he needs me as his muse. Laura’s implication is clear. Love is secondary to Rupert—is that true? I look at her, idly wondering if she’s ever loved Rupert. “How did I meet him? How did I come to be in Newlyn?”
“Depends on who’s telling it.” Her smile is sardonic. “If you ask Rupert, you emerged as a mermaid-turned-woman from the foamy depths, just as the legend of Zennor, a fragment of the sea’s beauty brought to land for his benefit alone.”
“And if you ask someone else?”
Her snort startles me. “All I recall seeing is some bedraggled mouse shivering and full of seaweed, dragged ashore in a fishing boat, who could barely recall her own name.”
“How did I come to be there?”
“The fisherman said he found you stranded on St. Michael’s Mount after a storm, half dead and starving. You told us your name was Merryn, and that you needed shelter.”
“Was I nervous?”
She pauses. “Terrified. Of something. Someone.”
I shudder. Of AJ. Because he tried to kill me. Years had passed, and AJ had charmed me a second time. Had probate already been completed, and the fortune already in my hands and accessible to him…“What of my family? Did you inquire after my relations?”
“Didn’t try. We’re a tight community, and we haven’t much use for the outside world. We all believe—Rupert included—that any who wash up on our shores needing protection ought to have it, without question. Especially when they’re so obviously afraid. So that’s what we gave you.”
I look at this woman who likely knows more of my life in Newlyn than I do. Did I confess my escape to her eventually? Were we friends? “What did I tell you of my life before? Of where I came from?”
“Nothing. Well, almost nothing. You couldn’t remember anything except that you were Merryn Dunn and that you needed desperately to stay hidden.”
“I’d lost my memory.”
“You’d had a terrible accident. Battered and bruised something terrible.”
Two accidents. Two.
Above all, take special precaution with her, Lady St. Laurent. Dr. Bartlett’s warning rings in my head. A good blow and you’ll lose what little ground you’ve gained…I bury my face in my hands. What I feared, so carefully guarded against, had actually already happened.
Some find favor in this life. I’d say I’m one of them, except that I’ve been struck down and lost every shred of sense in my head—twice. I brace my forehead with my fingertips.
“One day passed into the next and you became one of us. You posed for the artists, cleaned their brushes, and stretched their canvases. And you sang. You brought a lovely presence to our colony, and everyone adored you. Especially Rupert.”
“And me? I must have—”
“Clung to him like barnacle to rock. So terrified and pale, needing someone to look after you. Rupert was only too happy to do so.” She glanced at me. “You ought to stop running one day.”
“What do you mean?”
“You came running into Newlyn. Running into Rupert’s arms, hoping for protection. Running away…and now running away again.”
“I’m sure I married him for more than protection. Was it a happy marriage?”
Another snort. “What marriage? Only lasted about eight minutes.”
“What do you mean?” My head is swimming. I feel like I’m slipping from the last rock beneath me and there’s nowhere to stand. Rupert assured me I’d been happy here, yet it seems truth is elusive and love is conditional, ebbing and flowing with circumstances.
But that’s what love is, isn’t it? An emotional response to someone who brings value to one’s life. That’s why I loved AJ and Rupert—I’d been the source of their needs and they had each become my rock when I needed one.
“You had a lovely wedding arranged on the beach, but before it started, you came flying up the path, claiming you couldn’t marry Rupert. I was in the midst of a most inspired painting with all my oils freshly mixed, but you begged me to take you away.”
I can hear my voice asking Rupert, How long have we been married?
It seems forever, he said. I cannot remember life before you.
Brush strokes across canvas, an impressionist portraying his view of the world.
You gave up a great deal to come with me. Words I spoke to AJ once.
And what did he say? I left nothing of great importance. Everything changed the day I met you.
Which had been years earlier, although he hadn’t told me any of that. Impressionism, I suddenly hear in Rupert’s voice from long ago, is not about expressing what you see, but how you see it. Truth is flexible. Open to interpretation.
And love is conditional.
“Were we happy before our marriage? Was I happy in Newlyn?”
Brilliantly so, was Rupert’s answer, but I read a different one on Laura’s face. “Happy is a choice, not a state of being.”
“I wasn’t, was I?”
She sighs. “As much as a tropical bird who’s had its wings clipped.
” She looks me over. “You were always one part frantic, one part lost. You knew you didn’t belong, but you hadn’t anywhere else to go.
” Her words ring with brutal honesty. They resonate deep inside, tickling my memory where I know there is more just out of reach.
“And the day of the wedding…I’ve never seen anyone look as frantic as you did. ”
“So you helped me get away then, too.”
“Drove you to the train.” A wry smile. “Bought you a third-class ticket to Gloucester.”
Gloucester. I’d remembered something and had been going back. To be with AJ? Or had my past self been reckless enough to confront him?
Then God himself had protected me from reaching my destination that day.
“I never made it to Gloucester. I ended up in Cheltenham.” I feel the primal urge once again to lunge before the automobile.
To save Cecil that day in a place I was never meant to be.
That must have been divinely appointed as well.
“Most trains have a stopover,” she says. “Yours must have been in Cheltenham. You were switching trains.” The car swerves into the station and Laura lets the vehicle idle.
“Why did I leave the wedding, Laura?” My voice is quiet.
“It was the orange blossoms. The ones on your veil. You told me they sparked a memory, and you had to face what you’d remembered.”
My temples pound a beat.
“I didn’t ask if you planned to return, so naturally we didn’t go looking when you didn’t.”
“You were only too glad to see the back of me.” It isn’t a question.
“Not exactly. He needed you, and he couldn’t paint without you.” She stares ahead thoughtfully. “Though I did tell you to stay. But mostly because…well, the best way to get you to do anything, Merryn, is to tell you to do the opposite.”
I study her lean profile. “You do love him, don’t you?”
Her lips press together. “We’re all of us fond of one another. It’s how we live in this community.”
“Yes, but you are especially fond. Of Rupert, that is.”
Her eyebrows rise. “Nothing has ever occurred between us, if that’s what you’re wondering.
” She exhales. “You deserve to be more than some man’s muse, Merryn.
You deserve your own life, not just the shadow of his.
And one of these days, I hope all this running brings you to your destination. And that it’s a good one.”
Does she mean it? I study her face, this woman who I’m almost certain secretly does love Rupert, but I shove aside my doubts and instead focus on the fact that she did, in fact, take time to drive me out of Newlyn yet again…
and did everything possible to give her beloved what he needed—even if that wasn’t her.
I put one hand on her gloved one. “Thank you, Laura. You’ve rescued me twice now.
And I’m not sure what else to do but keep running. ”
A crooked smile. “If I had one man pining after me and another attempting to manipulate me…I’d run too.”
Manipulate? Yes, AJ has done that.
Cecil. Something’s wrong, he said, baiting me to return.
But that can’t be so, can it? I nearly forgot he’d even said it, but now the doubt niggles.
I move to open the door, but Laura tugs me back.
“Speaking of stopovers, you’ll likely have one tonight, considering the hour.
Here, you’ll need this.” She drops a few coins into my hand.
“We’ll settle up when you come into that fortune of yours. ”
But I do not make it back to my fortune.
This is the point at which I should go directly to Mr. Gould for guidance on Cecil, and to find out whether or not the lad truly did attempt an escape.
I should handle matters legally, for I cannot risk running afoul of the law just now, but I’m not one for following rules.
So I board that train in Penzance and ride it directly toward Cheltenham College Junior School.
It’s precisely where Sabine St. Laurent will expect me to go, but if AJ’s claim is true, it’s exactly where I need to be. Even if it lands me in the asylum.
Once I stood between that precious boy and a Packard. Now it’s time, if indeed he is attempting to run, to come between him and the schoolmasters of that so-called boys’ school.