Chapter 44
On Thursday I take the train to Ludgrove School.
I pay for one third-class ticket, giddy that I shall be purchasing two for the return trip.
The telegram arrived from Gould’s office this morning, the stack of legal documents soon after, and I wasted no time in claiming my inheritance—the portion I care most about, anyway.
I’ve had to allow for Sabine to be secondary trustee to the estate, considering my memory is still not whole and perfect, but Cecil, the bright elfin boy with the curious face and the troublesome smile…is mine. Mine! A smile leaks onto my face.
Ludgrove School is large and overbearing, a Tudor-and-brick structure with arrow-like turrets and the chaos of its pupils about the grounds.
This time, no one keeps me from him. I will not let them.
Inside the front hall, when I spot a schoolmaster crouched down to yell into his face, I make a dash for Cecil.
I’m propelled—a faint echo of the urgency that once urged me to dive between him and an automobile.
I fly to him, that boy so much smaller than the others. “That’ll do, sir.” The man straightens and I shove papers at him. “I’ll be taking my boy now.”
He blinks at me, and I realize—proudly—that I’m once again breaking rules. Bucking norms. I tuck Cecil behind me as another man runs across the entryway. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“She has papers,” says the first, incredulous.
A restrained argument between gentlemen ensues, but I pay no attention. I touch Cecil’s floppy hair. His skin is pale beneath his freckles. “Keen to leave this place?”
“Since before I came here!” His face glows.
I crush him in an embrace, even though he stiffens a bit—it isn’t manly, this affection—and spin him around. “Come, then,” I say, smiling. “Let’s go.”
Then like two children, we rush through the halls and out the door, toward the rest of our future.
Toward home, wherever that is.
“Hey,” the man yells. “You can’t just leave with him. There are protocols.”
Hang protocols. I’ve had plenty of them. I march down the walk and out that gate without looking back.
“Where’s AJ?” Cecil’s breathless, trying to keep up.
“It’s rather a long story.”
He eyes me when we slow outside the grounds, waiting to hear it.
“A great deal has happened, but we needn’t speak of such things today.” I steer us toward the cobbled street and we walk together, hurrying away from that place.
He frowns. “You’re still keen for him though, aren’t you?”
I laugh, then ponder that question. I think back over our ill-advised adventure across the Cornish coast. The swim, the picnic, the brooch…a night in a cave, another in a church…the tearoom. Him dancing me about. Tending my wounds. Beckoning me with his charm. Brimming with desire.
I start to say yes, but then that big, tight ball of the unknown hardens.
There’s a dark cloud obscuring that narrow window of time between my first life as AJ’s wife and my second, on Newlyn’s shores.
“I’m not certain I know who he is. We’ve not known each other long, you know—” Except that isn’t true. I’ve known him for years. Apparently.
His forehead is creased. “You’ll not get to know him by staying apart. Perhaps he should come with us.”
I bite my lip. “Not just yet.”
He frowns, confused. When people enjoy one another, they marry. I know that’s what he’s thinking. I can see it in a glance. Marriage according to my seven-year-old. Love isn’t quite that simple, though, is it? It’s nuanced and chaotic and sometimes painful.
At the station, Cecil clutches the bench. “What comes next?” Hope is in his eyes. Hope and trust.
I touch his cheek with one gloved hand. “What would you like to come next?”
“I don’t know.” He looks up at me for a moment, his face haggard as his eyes search mine. “But you came back.” His voice is soft. After our hasty flight, his brain is finally catching up with his body.
“I’m afraid I cannot take you back to Lady St. Laurent’s house.” How desperately he needs rest and home. If only I could give it to him.
A very Cecil smile appears. “Wherever you take me will be home.”
I smile wide and slide my arms about him again.
That’s what love is. Promises kept, embraces lavished without reservation, and simple presence.
You don’t have to be afraid of the dark anymore, little one.
His ears still stick out. His expression still looks a touch haunted.
The world’s still dark. But you’re not alone in it anymore.
Love stands in the gap between this boy and aloneness.
And now it is going to bring him to the one place his soul needs most. “How about a holiday to the seashore? I know just the place.”