Chapter Five #2
As she steps back onto the beach, she hears a voice.
Only it’s not truly a voice…it’s the breeze, she thinks, or maybe it’s the seagulls squawking or the water softly reaching for her.
Swim, the voice says. Come home. She looks back at the river, squinting against the light.
A shadow moves along the edge of the inlet.
A fish, only the shadow is too long, like the shapes she saw in her dream.
She looks at it until it has moved out of sight.
A cloud passes before the sun, making her shiver.
She thinks of Jack’s words, There’s nothing unnatural about the Bucca.
He’s nature itself; he’s a part of the sea.
The landscape is playing tricks on her; the villagers’ notions about the merman are making her see things.
Taking up her clothes, she finds a spot in the sun and lets the warmth of the day dry her. An hour later, she’s walking down the gravel path, her eyes fixed on the shed again, when a loud snort nearly makes her shriek.
A black stallion rears its head and snorts again, stomping its right foot.
The horse is tied to the oak sapling by the door.
It’s a magnificent animal, tall on its legs, its black coat in places almost silver in the sun, with a thick, smooth mane.
The horse couldn’t look more out of place next to the cottage.
Stomping again, the stallion shakes its head, as if it knows it.
At the sound of a woman’s voice, she spins around. “Buttons! You impatient thing. We’ve only just gotten here.”
Buttons? The woman, too, doesn’t belong.
She’s standing on the path that leads to the water and she’s as young as Isabel—younger, perhaps—with blond curls as shiny as the horse’s mane, a heart-shaped face, and eyes that could vie with Jack’s for bluest. Despite the weather, she’s in a full riding habit of the finest green wool, with gold thread embroidery along the front and a matching silk ribbon wound into her elaborately pinned hair.
Isabel used to see women dressed like this in London—she used to be one of them.
This must be Lady Harriet Darby, she thinks, whom Lieutenant Sowerby said wanted to visit and who, she’s sure, must be regretting her decision to come.
She glances at the cottage, seeing again how small and dark and simple it is.
How squalid. Not to mention, she looks more than a little shabby herself.
Certainly, her second-best gowns still far outshine those of the women around the village, but her hair is wet from her swim, her shoes have dried mud stuck to them, and she isn’t wearing any gloves.
The woman walks up and caresses the horse’s nose.
Her hands are slender, encased in kidskin.
White, not cream. The contrast between the white of the leather and the black of the horse’s coat is as startling as the woman’s presence in front of the old pilchard shed.
Isabel opens her mouth to say something, but the woman is quicker.
Turning away from the horse, she says, “Mrs. Isabel Henley. May I present myself? My name is Lady Harriet Darby, of Weatherston Hall. I was told of your coming into the area and I hope very much you don’t consider it presumptuous of me to introduce myself.
” The words tumble out like marbles. Lady Darby’s fingers flutter to her face.
Giggling, she adds, “The truth is, I’ve been desperate to meet you. ”
Isabel curtsies, and to her surprise, Lady Darby does the same. Isabel says, “I’m honored to make your acquaintance, Lady Darby.”
“I’m ever so pleased,” Lady Darby twitters. “I had meant to come sooner, do you know, but I was laid up with the most horrid cold. My nose is still red, can you see?” She turns her head to show her profile.
Isabel says, “I cannot tell, Lady Darby. You look lovely.”
“Oh, thank you. I don’t believe I do, but it’s kind of you to say.
” Behind Lady Darby, the horse snorts again and she turns to him.
“We’ll go riding again later. I’m much too glad to have made a new friend.
” To Isabel, she says, “I do hope you don’t mind me calling you my friend.
I know we’ve only just met…oh, minutes ago, but I am sure we shall be the best of friends.
Do you know, this is such empty country?
I could ride for a day and not meet a friend.
Except now you’ve come. Weatherston is only three miles from here. ”
Isabel smiles. Just listening to Lady Darby makes her feel more like herself again.
She’s about to say, would you like to come in, but then remembers the cottage.
She looks away, her hand moving to George’s medal, her eyes on the sparkling river, and then she has it.
“Should you like to take tea in the garden with me, Lady Darby? It’s particularly lovely this time of year. ”
“Oh! I should like it of all things. And please, call me Harriet. I don’t stand on ceremony, not with friends. May I call you Isabel, Isabel?” She giggles again. “Isabel, Isabel. I’m such a dooby, aren’t I?”
“Will your horse be all right here?”
“Buttons? Yes, he’s fine. He’s an impatient fellow, but I shan’t be more than an hour, I’m sure.
My husband expects me home by five. Oh,” she says suddenly.
“Do you mean on account of the smugglers? My friend Lieutenant Sowerby told me there has been an engagement at sea recently, shots fired and so on. They seem to be growing more impudent by the day.”
Isabel glances at the shed, saying, “It would appear so.”
Harriet says, “You don’t think they would try to steal Buttons?”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t dare; not when we’re right here. But perhaps it’s best to put him in the shed. I can’t lock it, but he’ll be out of sight.”
Ten minutes later, Harriet is sitting on the white bench in the garden, the color moving in her face as she drinks in the view of the river.
Isabel has taken her around the cottage rather than through it.
It’s not much of a path, more of a strip of grass, that wraps around to the back, but it meant she didn’t have to show Harriet the kitchen and sitting room.
Harriet says, “It’s ever so pretty, isn’t it? Just as I think I cannot love this country any less, I’m presented with a view like this, which turns my entire judgment upside down again.”
“I’ll fetch the tea,” Isabel says. “It will take me a little while, I’m afraid.”
If Harriet wonders about her getting it herself, she doesn’t say. In the kitchen, she flies through the motions: the fire, the pot, the tea leaves, floating like so many paper-thin boats, the strainer. She’s glad she has saved the tea for any potential guests.
The cups are earthenware, but she has milk and a little sugar.
Thank heavens she went to the baker that morning; the bread has barely had time to cool.
She cuts the slices far thicker than she would if she were on her own.
She has butter, too, and a pot of strawberry jam from Mrs. Winters who lives down the road, where the inlet peters out into mud, and who wouldn’t take any money for it.
She feels foolish for thinking she did not want any friends when she came to the village.
She has been here only just over a fortnight and the people in Helford treat her like one of their own.
Mrs. Dowling even calls her that, one of our own.
“It’s because you were born here,” she says, and Isabel is inordinately grateful she says it like that, born here, and not found here or worse, brought here by the Sea Bucca.
Balancing everything on the tray isn’t easy as she walks down the uneven path, through the tunnel of greenery into the paradise garden.
A part of her worries she has taken too long and Harriet will have left.
But no, she’s still sitting on the bench, gazing at the river, her gloved hands folded in her lap.
Isabel didn’t realize how much she missed having a friend like Harriet until she saw her standing in front of the cottage when she returned from her swim.
She didn’t realize how much she missed feeling like herself.
Harriet smiles when Isabel brings the tea.
Her speech is fast and punctuated with giggles.
From time to time, her fingers move across her face and throat, as if she’s brushing away a fly or a tear.
She proclaims the tea delicious, the garden utterly delightful, the bread and jam the best she has tasted south of the Tamar.
She tells Isabel a little of her life in the west country, of the lack of society, of how much she misses London and her parents’ ancestral home in Kent.
More than anything, she wants to hear what she calls “the latest gossip,” and Isabel says, “It’s not really the latest. I came into Cornwall a fortnight ago. And I lived in Greenwich.”
As she says it, the fear claws inside her. Harriet has friends in London. Family, too. Could she have heard the rumors? But if she did, Harriet wouldn’t have come to call on her, would she?
Harriet says, “Greenwich is nearly London though, isn’t it?
And a fortnight is still far more recent than anything I’ve heard.
My friends are too busy calling on each other and attending balls to send more than a few lines every couple of weeks.
I’ve no idea what I’m missing out on and have only my imagination to paint the picture for me.
” Harriet’s hand dangles by her side. She plucks a daisy from the wall—erigeron, or fleabane, Isabel’s mind supplies after a lesson from Mrs. Dowling—and begins to remove its petals one by one.
The fear ebbs away. As they drink their tea, she feeds Harriet bits and pieces of the life she has left behind in Greenwich. Harriet doesn’t ask about George. She does say, “Aren’t you lonely, living here by yourself?”