Chapter 6 #2
Later that afternoon, Sophie donned bonnet, pelisse, and gloves for her usual walk.
It was the time of day she liked best. She never tired of watching the sunset from Castle Rock, a precipice high above the Bristol Channel.
The wind up there would be brisk at this time of year, but she wrapped a muffler around her neck as she left, taking her sketchbook with her.
She walked at a steady pace up the steep, serpentine path.
The Valley of Rocks lay nestled between two ridges of hills, dotted with huge stones piled atop one another like block towers left by giant children.
Accustomed to the exercise, she ascended with little effort, her breathing only slightly taxed, to the headland above the valley.
To the left, points of land fingered into the sea one after another.
Before her, the blue sea to the horizon, and to the right, the faint line of the Welsh coast.
It was her favorite place on earth.
She set down her sketchbook and simply savored the view.
“So this is what all the fuss is about.”
Startled by the voice, she turned. She’d heard no one approach over the wind.
It was Mr. Overtree. His gaze not on her but on the rocky fingers fading into the shimmering sunset.
“Your father suggested I walk out here, but I have long wanted to see it anyway, based on another artist’s recommendation. Don’t tell him I said so.” He sent her a grin. “Thomas Gainsborough described Lynmouth as ‘the most delightful place for a landscape painter this country can boast.’”
“I know. Why do you think my father began coming here in the first place?”
“Did he?”
She nodded. “He spent his honeymoon here.”
“Your father?”
“No.” She laughed. “Thomas Gainsborough. And the poet Percy Shelley—I met him here a few years ago.”
Mr. Overtree inhaled, looking over the valley, the craggy rock formations, the sea. Then he asked, “It does beg to be painted, doesn’t it?” He gestured behind her. “Is that your sketchbook lying against the rocks?”
“Oh . . . yes. I sketch a bit for my own pleasure.”
“When you are not painting for your father, that is?” His brown eyes shone with humor.
“I only paint backgrounds and the like.”
“And skillfully, by the looks of it.”
“Thank you, but don’t mention it. He prefers to keep it quiet.”
He shrugged. “Very well.”
Mr. Overtree didn’t ask to see the drawings in her sketchbook, Sophie noticed. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or slightly offended.
“He needn’t be self-conscious, you know,” he added. “Many painters have assistants. Though I thought that Maurice fellow was his.”
“He is. Father is training him.”
“To take over for you . . . or to marry you?”
She gaped. “Not to marry me, I assure you!”
“Only teasing.” He grinned at her again, his eyes lingering on her face in a way that was partly studious and perhaps slightly admiring. In general, she detested when artists looked at her closely—noticing the long slope of her nose. Her thin face. Her thin . . . everything.
“So there is nothing going on between you and Mr. O’Dell?” Mr. Overtree asked.
“Nothing whatsoever.”
“He seems to think there is.”
“Then he has a vivid imagination.”
Mr. Overtree said quietly, “Yes, I fear he does.”
She again felt his eyes lingering on her profile, but when she glanced up, he shifted his gaze.
“Ah, the magic hour. . . .” he murmured.
Before them, the sun sunk low, sending shafts of golden sunlight over the sea, the land, over each of them.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Why do you think I come out here almost every evening?”
“Because the sunset becomes you?”
She laughed and glanced at him shyly. “If it does, there are only the wild goats and gulls to notice.”
“I hope you shan’t mind some company while I’m here.”
She met his earnest gaze. “Not at all. It isn’t as though I own the place. I am willing to share, if you are.”
“I am indeed.”
She smiled at Mr. Overtree but quickly looked away. He was almost painfully handsome, not to mention charming. She would be wise to guard her heart. A man like him was unlikely to take an interest in her.
Or so she’d thought.
Standing on deck, Sophie shook off her reverie and returned to reality, and to the small cabin she shared with the stranger she had married.
When their ship returned to the Plymouth docks, Stephen led the way to the nearest coaching inn and booked passage to Bath. While they waited in the parlour for their coach to be called, he wrote a few lines to his parents.
Unlike Sophie, he had not sent a letter to his family before leaving Lynmouth.
He supposed he wished to shield himself from embarrassment if she backed out of their marriage at the last minute.
Now that they’d returned to Plymouth as man and wife, he hoped a letter would give his parents time to lay aside their disappointment that he had not married some well-connected woman of fortune.
As a younger man, he had once thought he would marry someone known to them all.
But after she directed her affections elsewhere—and war had wrought its changes—he’d given up the notion.
Stephen thought his parents should be glad—if not shocked—that he had married at all, considering he had asserted for several years now that he had no plans to do so.
Dear Mamma and Papa,
I am writing to let you know that I have taken a wife, Miss Sophie Dupont, whom I met in the course of my travels to find Wesley. Unfortunately, Wesley had left for Italy before I reached Lynmouth, so I was unsuccessful in my mission to send him home.
I know my marriage will come as a surprise to you. But hopefully not an unhappy one. Because I have little time before I must rejoin my regiment, we were married on the Island of Guernsey. Miss Dupont’s friend and neighbor, Mrs. Mavis Thrupton, acted as chaperone on the journey.
We travel first to Bath, so I may become acquainted with her father and his family. Then I shall bring her home to you. I trust you will welcome her warmly.
Sincerely,
Stephen
He blotted and sealed the letter, preparing it for the post. Would his parents welcome Sophie warmly? Somehow Stephen doubted it.