Chapter Seven
Her bed that night almost makes up for the disappointment of not having Jack accompany her back to the old pilchard shed. One of the maidservants, a girl named Sally, helps her undress, just as Mary used to at home. Isabel luxuriates in the abandonment of her struggle with ties, hooks, and laces.
The bed is a pudding made of silk and feathers, yet she lies awake for a long time.
She keeps going over the events of the evening and the intense happiness as well as shock at seeing Jack again.
John Carlyon, she says in her head, over and over, trying to get used to the name, but it’s no good. He remains simply Jack to her.
Harriet knocks on her door in the morning to offer Isabel the use of one of her gowns.
Isabel is touched but declines, saying she doesn’t mind wearing the blue muslin another day, and doesn’t Harriet agree the benefit of muslin cotton is that it so easily moves from day to night?
Over a late breakfast of honey and plum cake, strawberries and fresh cream, brioche with jam, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate, Isabel asks her friend, “Pray, where is Mr. Carlyon’s estate?
I don’t believe he mentioned it last night. ”
After eating steadily for half an hour, she feels as if her stomach is stuffed with wool, but she gets another slice of honey cake and nibbles on it.
Now that the reality of the cottage hovers on the horizon again, she’s determined to enjoy as much of the food at Weatherston as she can.
If she eats enough, the meal may last her until the next morning.
She has to resist the temptation to try to hide a fifth slice in the folds of her gown.
“Did he not?” Harriet says. She takes a delicate sip from her coffee. “He did look at you often last night, Isabel.”
“Did he?” She keeps her voice neutral. The coffee tastes as if it was made for the gods of Mount Olympus: hot, bitter, and strong. “I had not noticed.”
“Do you know he’s still a bachelor?”
“Is he? And where, pray, is his estate?”
Harriet laughs. “You needn’t be coy with me, my dear.
I could tell he caught your eye the moment I made the introduction.
His estate is at Roskorwell, on the coast three miles from here.
It’s down the coastal path but in the opposite direction of Helford.
It’s mainly farmland, which he has tenanted, but the house is of a good size and the family name is an old one in these parts.
I dare say you could do worse. But then, Lieutenant Sowerby speaks very highly of you, too. ”
Roskorwell. On the coast. She repeats the name in her mind. “I beg your pardon. What of Lieutenant Sowerby?”
“He speaks very highly of you and asked my opinion. I gave it freely, of course, and I assure you it included the highest praise of you. I shouldn’t wonder if he’s quite serious in his intentions.” Harriet sips her hot chocolate.
Isabel’s cup clangs into her saucer. She hoped—in vain, she sees now—that she’d misinterpreted the lieutenant’s words.
Harriet says, “I hope I haven’t offended you by speaking with Lieutenant Sowerby, Isabel.”
“Oh no, not at all,” she says, the cake heavy in her stomach.
Once they’ve finished breakfasting, Harriet asks her to take a walk in the garden, but Isabel says she really should get back, she has much to do, after which Harriet offers her the use of her carriage.
“Please do not trouble yourself,” Isabel says.
“The walk will do me good.” She embraces her friend and sets out at once.
The moment she passes the gatehouse, she takes the coastal path in the direction away from Helford.
The sea lies placid under a climbing sun, with only a little foam topping the waves that rush in and out of the coves.
Watching them, it’s as if the waves are rushing through her.
After about two and a half miles she comes across a wooden sign pointing the way to Roskorwell.
She’s glad she’s wearing such a light gown; it’s hot for walking today.
Taking off her gloves, she carefully tucks them into her change purse.
She isn’t sure what she’s going to say to Jack; she only knows she must see him.
The path turns again and she crosses a small stream that runs down the cliff, and then the woodland opens to a field and across it lies the house.
It’s far smaller than Weatherston and looks rather like an overgrown farmhouse, with wings added onto the original building, which is only two stories.
Made of whitewashed clay, it possesses the same unevenness as many of the cottages in Helford.
Ivy climbs the wall on one side, and along the front grow swaths of bluebells and small white flowers.
Clusters of hollyhock, not yet in bloom, push up against the many small windows, along with rosebushes in need of a trim.
The scent of flowers mixes with the sea air.
The front of the house faces the fields and the back looks out across the sea.
A short gravel drive leads to a door with an ancient iron knocker.
She lets it fall against the wood and listens to the boom of it inside the house.
Her heart trips. She doesn’t know what she’s expecting—for Jack to come to the door himself or for a servant to take her to him.
She doesn’t know what she’s going to say.
A few minutes pass and nobody comes. From the front step she can see some buildings to the side of the house: a stable, she thinks, and what looks like a large shed, but there’s nobody about.
She bangs the knocker into the door again and waits.
Gulls cry in the distance. The sea plays its endless melody—swoosh, crash, swoosh, crash upon the rocks.
At last, just as she’s about to leave, the door swings open. A man with an impressive black mustache looks her up and down, and before she can say anything, he tells her that the master is not at home. She swallows a new wave of disappointment and asks, “When is Mr. Carlyon expected back?”
“How would I know?”
“Is it today? Or has he gone to sea?”
The man narrows his eyes. “It’s today,” he says, sounding suspicious.
“In that case, could I wait for him, please? I must speak with him. It’s important, and I have come a long way.”
“From where?”
“Helford,” she says, even though she only walked from Weatherston this morning. When the man doesn’t react, she adds, “On foot.”
“On foot?” The man’s gaze trails up and down her gown. He doesn’t say it, but she can see him think it: in a fine gown like that?
“Please, may I wait for Mr. Carlyon here?”
“It could take hours.”
“I don’t mind in the least.”
The man steps aside to let her in, and without another word, takes her to a room crammed so full of books the bottom half of each of the three windows is obscured by stacks on the windowsill.
A large desk with an inlaid wooden top stands in the center of the room, piled high with papers, an inkwell, and more books.
It’s part study, part library and smells of wood, leather, memories.
She won’t look at the papers, but once the man with the mustache leaves, she inspects the books on the shelf: Milton, Shakespeare, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau.
There are several volumes on the flora and fauna of the west coast, as well as on seafaring and navigation.
Some are in French. Stuck on the wall are charts showing the coastline, the reefs, channels, and shoals.
The man with the mustache brings her a glass of water and she drinks it standing by the window, looking out across the books on the sill.
The blue horizon trembles in the sun. Seagulls tumble through the sky, dropping like shooting stars down to the water, and in the distance are two sets of sails, winking at her as they pitch on the waves.
She watches the ships until they are out of sight, and all of a sudden, she knows exactly what she’s going to say to Jack.
—
He arrives two hours later in a flurry of heat, sweat, and the smell of horse, his boots and the lower half of his buckskin breeches covered in dust. “There you are!” he calls out the moment he enters the room.
His words tug at something in her chest. They’re the same words he spoke to her when he lay bleeding on her bed and she carried in the water from the well. How was that only sixteen days ago?
A dog chases him—brown fur, ungainly on its legs, tongue dangling. When it reaches Isabel, it begins to dance around the velvet armchair she has occupied the past hour.
“Jib! Down, girl!” Jack calls. The dog is wagging its tail so hard its entire body shakes. “Down!” Jack says again, and then he has the dog by its collar and is pulling it away, out of the room.
A small whine sounds behind the door when he comes back in. “Sorry about the dog. She’s still a pup.”
Isabel rises, surreptitiously placing the book she’s been picking through on the seat of the chair behind her.
“Good morning,” she says, and falters, casting about for a clock, then for the sky outside the window.
The sun is high, set in a backdrop so pale it’s nearly white. “Good afternoon, I mean.”
Jack tosses his hat onto the books on the desk and crosses the space between the door and her chair in four strides, and then he’s bowing and holding out his hand to her and she slots her own into it as if it’s the last piece to complete a puzzle.
He presses his lips against the back of her hand where her fingers meet her knuckles and holds them there a few seconds.
She feels every one of those seconds deep in her stomach.
When he lets go, she looks at him a little dazed and he smiles and holds her gaze, long enough she feels she needs to sit down again.