9. Chapter 9
No one ever happens upon me on the cliff head, yet footfalls sound on the path behind me only moments after I’ve paused there, shivering.
Before I can turn, a wool blanket is laid around my shoulders, strong hands clamping it gently against my arms in the wind. “You aren’t built to winter outdoors.”
I turn and look up into Simon Balfour’s face. It’s wise and kind and world-weary all at once. “No, I don’t suppose I am.”
He’s wearing Papa’s long frock coat over his fresh clothing, threadbare with the pink patches near the hem and elbow. “You are likewise not built for that house, are you?”
He offers a sad smile in reply. “Are you well?”
I whip stray hair off my face. “He’s insufferable. He’s—”
“Your uncle.”
My mouth drops open. “You cannot possibly be siding with him.”
“I don’t believe in sides.” He drops his hands with a soft exhale. “I only mean you’re eager to offer mercy to men like me, outside your walls. Why not offer it within as well?”
“Because it’s entirely different with him. A man like that lacks for nothing. And I will never allow anyone to bandy me about with words.”
“Then stand up for yourself—but wisely. Anger only weakens the truth he needs to hear.”
“I don’t know how I could possibly speak in any other manner with him. He’s so wretchedly stubborn. And cruel.”
“Not entirely, or he would have no ward.”
I bite my lip.
“Don’t let him ruffle you—that alone will ruffle him. Perhaps enough to make him hear your words.”
I pick at the hem of my cloak for several moments as the sea roars below us. “Were they all whispering about me when I left?”
“A few.”
“I’ll be labeled belligerent and difficult.”
“Hm.”
My gaze wanders down to that pink fabric. “You despise me for bringing you into such a place, don’t you? For allowing them to ridicule you without knowing they’re even doing so.”
“I merely see the need in that house. Just as you do.”
I cross my arms, leaning my elbows on a boulder. “Some are rich in purse but poor in spirit.”
He smiles. “You truly did memorize Dickens.”
“You know it?”
“I have been Tiny Tim.”
I tighten the blanket around me and wait for his explanation.
Instead, he turns and wraps his arm about my shoulders, drawing me close. “You’re cold.”
I stiffen, then relax against his side. Enjoy the feel of his arm about me. Somehow it doesn’t feel at all forward or overly familiar; simply fitting.
“It’ll pass,” he says. “The trouble, that is.”
“You’ve no idea what I’ve done. I’ve made a mockery of my uncle and… well, myself. I’ve a terrible habit of doing that.” I bow as tears warm my eyelids.
He inhales deeply, then releases it, allowing for a deep silence as his gaze travels out across the craggy land, the little town of St. Ives. “How small the house looks from over here,” he says at last. “So small and distant. Yet all those problems fit inside it.”
I huff. “I still feel them out here.”
“Yes, but only because you brought them with you. You need not, though.”
“Needn’t I?”
“Look beyond the house. Come, lift your eyes.”
I brace against a sudden rush of sparkling memories and shiver. It’s as if Papa has come back. Those words echo with painful delight through my soul. Lift your eyes, child.
“What do you see?” He breaks into my thoughts.
I squeeze my eyes again, then force them open. “Cliffs. The sea.”
“A massive sea. So immense.” He shifts and leans me against him so I’m looking straight up overhead.
“There, the stars. Even more massive than the sea.” Deep, textured blue is freckled with light.
“And beyond that… their Creator.” The stars, the sky—the vast immensity of it all swallows the tension that has ruled my days of late, drowning it in a sense of the eternal.
Then my gaze wanders back down to Dunn House.
“How small it seems from here. So inconsequential.” I let that sink into my soul.
I cannot puncture this moment by mentioning Papa aloud.
I allow these memories to belong only to me for now.
I cling to the sweetness of feeling small in the largeness of God’s creation.
Of seeing the distant world of Dunn House with such clarity.
Waves swish over rocks, foaming and spraying. “Why is this house party so important to you? Why must you impress them?”
I’m silent for a moment. “Survival. I haven’t anything of my own, so everything I’m given depends upon the favor of others.
” I press his arm close about me as if it’s part of my wrap.
Which feels brazen, but… necessary. His warmth radiates.
“Including the roof I hope to offer my father soon. Truly, I own nothing.”
“You possess more than you think. Courage, for example. No one in that house gave you that. You’re bolder than any person has a right to be.”
I snort-laugh.
“Passion. Intelligence. Heart and compassion.”
I fall silent.
“Wit enough to keep anyone on his toes. Beauty that would suck the color out of a primrose if it stood beside you.” He pauses, a bit breathless with this last admission, and his expression is purely vulnerable.
I bite my lip as heat radiates from deep within and his arm tightens.
“What do they really matter when you have all that?” he whispers.
I sigh. “I cannot live on mere courage and pluck, nor can I keep Papa with it.”
He shifts his weight. “How did you know about the coat? How did you know it was his?”
I turn slightly. “This,” I say, touching the faded patch on the sleeve, “was once a part of my dress. I sewed it here myself when I was six.”
“That’s a terribly strong patch.”
I smile. “Sewed with a great deal of determination.” I close my eyes, letting the wet breeze cool my skin. “Oh, how I adore that man. It is impossible to stay sad around him. Being parted from him all this time, wondering… I cannot seem to settle. To stop hoping… pressing… searching.”
“What would he say right now?”
I breathe deeply of the salty air, and a smile twitches the corner of my mouth. “He would advise me to stand on my head.”
A pause. “Would he, now?”
“For two reasons.” I hold up two fingers, imitating his good-natured voice.
“One, because a fresh perspective changes everything. And two, because it’s impossible to remain angry when you’re upside down.
” I smile at the memory. “He has a way of puncturing my nerves with a few well-placed words. And I have an abundance of nerves.”
A breath of silence. “What happened? How were you parted from him?”
I brace myself and slip into less pleasant memories. “When I was quite young he brought me to meet my mum’s brother at Dunn House. Then… he left. He visited at times, but even that ceased eventually.”
“How old—”
“Six. When he brought me, that is. Eight when I last saw him.” I look back up at the sky. “I only knew him as a child, and he was larger than life. But I often wonder what he’s like now. How he would seem to my adult eyes.”
Silence falls, then Simon speaks. “I know him as a jolly Irish man we call old Sye, a sort of protector to the vagrants under the bridge.” His expression clouds. “Years ago he changed everything for me.”
I smile my gratitude up at him. “Go on.”
“It is impossible not to love that man. He… does something to the air. He changes the atmosphere. Never lets it change him—nothing ruffles him. Except…”
I go still. “Except?”
“Men. Well-to-do men came to see him a couple of times, and he always spoke with them in private. He left them and was unsettled. One could not speak with him directly after.”
“Who were they?”
He shrugs. “Men in fine clothes all begin to look the same.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I didn’t wish to worry you, especially when I knew almost nothing about the men. Sye had his own business. He would do as he pleased, as we all did. Before his injury he would disappear regularly, and no one questioned it.”
I look away, my mind drifting into a foggy sense of loss.
“You eat well here, don’t you?” Papa had asked, searching my face for the truth.
“Yes, of course. But when will you come and take me with you? I wish to go home.”
“This is quite a home, isn’t it?”
“You aren’t in it,” I’d said quickly.
“Perhaps, dearest, that is for the best.”
“I’ve patched your coat, Papa. See? You do need me. You cannot go without me.”
But he had.
Again and again.
Then for good.
“I wish I could offer more,” Simon says at last.
“But you can do something.” I take hold of his arms. “Ask around—speak to people who would never speak to me. You’ll know where to look, who to ask. Please… help me bring him back.”
Shadows cross Simon’s face. “What if he doesn’t wish to return? Four walls are not for every man.”
“What if he needs those four walls? He’s never been well.”
“That’s for him to decide.”
“Even if it costs him his life?”
His arm stiffens against me, but he doesn’t answer.
“Please. Help me find him, Simon.”
“Only if you promise to let him decide for himself.”
I pull in a shuddering breath.
I’m trembling. Why am I trembling? I’ve been out here for some time, and now that I have a blanket wrapped around me, I’ve begun to shake. I also wish to cry. Yet I’ve given away my secret place, so I’ve nowhere to go. “I should return to the house. The guests will be abed for the night.”
“Of course.”
I turn on the rocky path, but stop. “I almost forgot.” I slide a slender package wrapped in plain brown paper from my cloak and extend it to him. “Here. This is from me. I walked all the way back to the house to fetch it, and I meant to leave it at the cottage, but now you’re here…”
His gaze flashes to mine, worry lining his brow, then looks down at the package. It’s clear he doesn’t wish to open it. He picks gingerly at the brown wrapping until a slim brown rosewood box is revealed. His frown deepens. “I’ll be accused of stealing.”
“It’s no gem. And I haven’t swiped it from among Uncle’s gifts, if that’s what worries you.”
“It’s a scarf.”
I smile. “Something far less practical.”
His face is grim until the moment he lifts the lid to reveal a rainbow of colors. He blinks, and his voice is hushed. “What is this?” Little pastel sticks wrapped in paper are lined up, colorful soldiers in velvet-lined slots.
“They were my mother’s. She was an artist, too.”
His gaze travels up to mine. He says nothing.
“She would have enjoyed you. And your sketches on butcher paper.” I smile. “If you manage half as well with these as you did on the train with chunks of charcoal, I should think they’d be in excellent hands.”
His smile is rich and warm and slightly disbelieving as he looks at me, then back to the pastels and runs his fingers over them. “I haven’t done this in… that is, I don’t think I can. Anymore.” The shadows shroud his face again.
I long to push deeper. Yet I bite my tongue. “If you will challenge me to do difficult things, then I will do the same. I cannot imagine any reason—any valid reason—a man as skilled as you should abandon his art. We all have a way of lighting our corner of the world. This is yours.”
He stares at them. “My lantern went out long ago.” Then he holds the box out to me. “I cannot—”
“It would please me greatly if you did.”
“Life has become so messy, and—”
“Simon?” I take his hand. “Lift your eyes. Past your troubles, whatever they are.”
I shove the box toward him again, and he catches hold of my hand, drawing it close and placing a tender kiss on my palm. “You deserve to have your father back,” he whispers. A lump bobs in his throat. “I’ll do what I can to see that happen.”
I close my eyes as the feel of his gentle touch climbs my arm. I open them again and he’s vanished. My hand is still suspended in the air, and my mother’s rosewood box is gone.
I exhale and float along the short path back to the house. I think of nothing else until I reach the kitchen entrance and Jane grabs my arm and drags me through the servants’ hall. “I know who he is, at last. And now I must know for certain—Ros, dear, is there an understanding between you?”