Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
July smelt of rich red wine. It was the blackberries in the hedges, overripe and bursting, crushed under foot on the path.
She’d gathered a basket that morning, her fingertips stained purple. Small scratches still stung her knuckles as she walked from the kitchen through the garden to the line of trees that bordered the paddock.
The ground was alive and damp here under the sheltering shadow of the ancient limes where the sun couldn’t burn.
The grass grew thick and lush at the tree bases, untouched by the scythe.
It dragged at her hem as she passed, a big blue dragonfly skipping over her shoulder, darting into the sunlight and up, up to join the laughter that rose to the sky.
Daniel, Joseph, and Nicholas were playing cricket in the paddock, the grass cropped smooth by her father’s horse—now out, carrying him on his rounds.
Two goats were assistant gardeners, sharing the paddock.
They were standing in the shade of a scrubby wool-flecked hawthorn in the paddock’s far corner, eyeing the human antics with bulging eyes.
Young William Shilstone was nearby, apparently gathering thistles to tempt them with.
They watched him with the same mad-eyed scorn as they watched the cricketers.
Grace Shilstone was in the paddock too, laughing as she clumsily caught the ball Daniel threw to her in a gentle underarm arc.
Nicholas, batting, pulled a face, not keen on this new choice of bowler.
To Joseph’s delight, he’d turned out to be an excellent batter.
Solid, efficient, and unflinching, no matter how Joseph or Daniel threw the ball. And Daniel had a powerful arm.
Daniel went up to Grace now, coaxing her to stand at the bowler's end of the pitch, taking her hand with a grin when she hesitated. She went with him, laughing, telling her brother he needed to worry, her aim was terrible, she might well hit his head. Nicholas shrugged. He’d faced worse.
“No one’s taking it seriously!” Joseph complained as Madelaine reached hailing distance.
“You all need to go in and wash for dinner.”
“Not until we get Nicholas out!”
“Your dinner will be cold by then. The stars will be out first.”
Joseph scowled, wrinkling his nose as the formidable batsman easily fended off Grace’s pea roll of an attempt. Grace burst out laughing at her own ineptitude, Daniel applauding, and took a bow.
Joseph’s petulance disappeared in a flash, replaced by a wide grin. “With Nicholas, we’re finally in with a chance! If we win the match on Saturday—”
“Dinner,” Madelaine repeated firmly, pushing his shoulder gently in the direction of the house. “You too, Daniel! Play again later. It’ll still be light.”
There was a little grumbling, but they all trailed after her.
At the corner of the paddock, just before the garden, was a wooden stile leading to the lane. Daniel said goodbye to Nicholas there—to Grace. “Come after dinner?” His smile was shy now, away from the pitch. “I’ll teach you how to bowl properly. If you like.”
She smiled, agreed, and skipped away, merry as a summer’s breeze in her lilac dress.
Madelaine couldn’t tell if she returned her brother’s partiality. She couldn’t tell if his would last. It might only be calf love, after all. Most of the time that’s all it was.
Ninety times out of hundred a boy felt things for a girl, or a girl felt things for a boy, and it meant nothing beyond the first stirrings of an ancient machinery. A fledgling chick testing its wings. It was sweet and easy and pure as the morning’s dew and burnt away just as quickly.
But sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it was a love that would last a lifetime.
There hadn’t been time on her first evening back from London to visit the churchyard. She’d gone in the morning, visited Alfred’s plaque, then walked down from the town, across the marsh and to the sea.
That had been the pattern for weeks. Churchyard, marsh, sea, then back home for chores and visiting with her mother, with her father. Dinner with the squire, dinner at the Ardinglys’, getting to know her cousins, getting to see Alfred’s parents smile and laugh.
It was good to see joy in their eyes. A decade was a long time to be without joy.
Summer came and ripened, turning baking and hot; it yellowed the grass and painted flowers all over the gardens and verges.
Nicholas and Grace and William put off their black mourning clothes and became daily visitors at the parsonage.
Children laughed and ran and grew and sang, singing hymns in the same pew where Alfred’s voice once rang; and they were his blood, diluted, yes, but still his blood, his family, going on and growing up…
“Didn’t you once tell me he was the most alive person you knew? Wouldn’t he want you to live?”
Sebastian…Lord Cotereigh…he’d said those words, snaked them under her skin. They formed a tattoo like the sailors inked themselves with; she’d seen them on the harbour dock, men who’d been to strange places and returned to fish the Sussex seas. “You’re alive,” he’d told her.
But she didn’t feel it. Not since leaving London.
There were trees which grew on the seaward slopes, or even on the shingled gravel of the marsh itself.
Twisted, stunted trees, deformed by the harshness of their life.
They didn’t look like the trees which grew in walled gardens, planted in fresh, rich soil.
A second love, planted in grief, planted in hardened hearts, growing in people grown cynical and tired and faithless…
it would never be as tender as its first bloom.
It was so different; it had taken her this long to realise it… Somehow, she’d fallen in love—fallen, like stumbling into a rocky hollow, getting scraped and sore as you tumbled down.
Then looking up and finding yourself alone…
Getting out again was the problem. She didn’t know if she had the strength.
“Maddie.” Her mother called from the kitchen as she walked back into the house. “Maddie…” Her brothers ran in ahead of her, forgetting to scrape their shoes on the mat.
“Boys…” She told them to do it then went to see what her mother needed. The woman hurried out from the kitchen, a basket in her hands.
“Do you mind delivering this? There’s just time before we sit down to get this over to Mrs Dalmer. I promised I’d do it this morning but time ran away from me, and I just know they’ll want the honey for—”
“Yes, yes, it’s fine.” She took the basket. A pot of honey peeked out from under the cloth folded on top. Her father’s hives were his pride and joy. She could smell bread. There would be cheese too, and some early plums. A half dozen lovely things.
The sound of shod hooves rang from the lane. Everybody turned—her mother, her brothers—as the hooves stopped outside the front of their house. It wasn’t her father. He would always ride to the paddock at the back. And every other caller would walk.
Their housekeeper, Mrs Lewis, who’d just come down the stairs, a dustpan in her hands, joined in the mutual frown, everyone exchanging a curious glance.
“Who could that be?” Mrs Lewis wondered aloud, bustling forward to the front of the house. The dustpan was still in her hand; Madelaine almost called after her to remind her, but for some reason her voice wouldn’t work. For some reason she felt suddenly dizzy.
The bell rang just as Mrs Lewis opened the door. She saw a tall figure, a flash of dark coat. She heard a man’s voice.
The basket fell from her fingers. She didn’t even hear the crash but stared dumbly as the pot of honey rolled across the flagstones, a crack in its side that oozed gold as it came to a stop.
What a waste. The thought flashed through her mind quicker than her skipped heartbeat.
Those poor bees. So much work, and all for nothing.
It was the sort of thing her aunt would say.
It made her think of her. It made her think of everything.
“No.” Her voice didn’t sound like hers. Both her brothers looked around at the note of panic. Instinct made them step between her and the door. “No. Don’t let him in. I am not at home.”
Daniel set his shoulders, a knight once more. Madelaine fled to her room, her mother’s questions trailing behind her.