Chapter 19 #3
She did not ask what he had decided to do about that thought.
But the following morning there was a small bunch of wild thyme tied on the gate post of Cliff Cottage. She picked it up and held it for a moment, feeling the woody stems between her fingers, breathing in the sharp, warm scent.
She brought it inside and put it in a glass on the kitchen windowsill.
Kitty looked at it for a moment, then looked at Minerva, then back at the small bouquet with an expression Minerva could not read.
Not the raised brows or conspiratorial smile she would have expected.
For an instant, she wondered how this situation looked from Kitty’s perspective, if the weight of local rumors had begun to influence her.
But no. Kitty would not be influenced by local gossip.
“Pretty,” Kitty said and with a quick smile went back to the bread she was cutting. But the set of her shoulders, the attention she gave the task, seemed wrong somehow.
Minerva thought she ought to say something, but she was not certain what.
In the end, she did not say anything, letting the moment pass.
Two letters arrived with the morning post, tucked between a bill from the farrier and a notice regarding the drainage easement on the south field. Dashiell set the bill and the notice aside.
The first letter bore the seal of the Royal Astronomical Society. He had submitted a paper eighteen months ago, a systematic record of his observations of the Great Nebula in Orion spanning seven years. He had not told anyone he had submitted it. There was no one to tell.
As soon as the thought formed, he pictured Minerva. Had he known her eighteen months ago, he would have told her. The realization did not surprise him.
He broke the seal and read.
The Council had accepted it for publication in the forthcoming number of the Monthly Notices. His observations of the Nebula’s southwestern extension under conditions of exceptional atmospheric transparency had been noted specifically.
Pride and pleasure bloomed, startling him with their intensity. He allowed himself to enjoy the unfamiliar emotions for a moment, and then he set the letter aside and reached for the second.
Penhaligon had been his solicitor for twelve years. He was prompt, thorough, and reliable. Dashiell broke the seal.
The condition binding the named heir to permanent residence at Cliff Cottage, Fowey, is not a condition of Catherine Todd’s will but of the deed of the property itself, recorded as an encumbrance in the parish register in 1617 and reaffirmed at each subsequent transfer.
It is not, therefore, subject to dissolution by sale or any other conveyance.
The condition travels with the property and attaches to each successive female heir regardless of terms of an individual will.
The encumbrance has survived, to my count, nine transfers across a period of more than two hundred years.
To my knowledge there is no legal mechanism by which it could be removed short of an act of Parliament, which I do not recommend pursuing.
The words did not surprise him. He had expected this outcome when first he made the inquiry of his solicitor, but he preferred verification to supposition.
Turning his head, he stared out the window, seeing nothing, lost in thought.
He had meant to save her, to buy the cottage and free her from the darkness that invested its very foundation.
He had not saved Catherine, though she had been someone he loved.
He had not saved Jory; perhaps he had killed him. He had truly meant to save Minerva.
A wry smile twisted his lips as he contemplated his conceit. He was no hero. He could not imagine what had possessed him even for a moment to play at one.
Even knowing that Minerva was bound to this place, unable to leave, subject to what she had suffered on the cliff path and what she surely had sensed in the very walls of Cliff Cottage, he was glad that Minerva would stay exactly where she was. He should not be comfortable with that. But he was.
So no, he was no hero. He was, in fact, the villain of the piece.
He sat for a moment then reached across the desk to open the side drawer for a fresh sheet of paper.
His attention snagged on the small leather box that had been in the drawer for years.
He brought it out and lifted the lid, his mother’s ring safely ensconced in the velvet interior.
The amethyst caught the light, deep purple, the same color as the stone in Catherine’s pendant.
Minerva’s pendant, now. Years ago, he had shown Catherine the ring, marking the similarity of the stones and the gold filigree surrounds.
She had gone very still, holding it to the light, and then she had said, “Keep it,” the instruction needless because he had not intended to part with it.
The ring was all he had of his mother. His father had removed any other trace of her after her death.
He took the paper, closed the drawer, then reached for the drainage easement.