Dare to Love

Dare to Love

Jennifer Wilde

With love to Patricia,

Pam and Barbara, who know

the reasons why.

CORNWALL 1844

I

They still stared and whispered to themselves as I walked down the street. Three years had passed since I was home last, but the village hadn't changed at all, nor had the people. At eighteen, I was no longer a child, but to the villagers I was still the Lawrence girl, the subject of scandal. It pleased me to find that I was not affected by the stares, the whispers. What these people thought simply didn't matter any more. They would never again be able to cause the anger, the pain, the resentment that had marred my childhood.

My blue-black hair fell to my shoulders in waves, and I wore a dusty rose cotton frock trimmed with lace. My manner of dress shocked the villagers, as did my cool, self-possessed attitude. I should have been wearing black, with my head covered and bowed with grief. Aunt Meg had been buried less than a week ago, and the very fact that I dared appear in public so soon afterwards was an affront to the good citizens. They couldn't know that Aunt Meg had begged me never, never to wear mourning for her, had begged me not to grieve.

“Remember me with a smile,” she had whispered in that hoarse, fading voice. “Forgive me, darling, for my inadequacies, and remember only the good things. You're strong. I've seen to that. You're strong and gifted and intelligent, and you'll survive. Forgive me, darling, forgive me—”

I hadn't understood at the time. Aunt Meg had devoted her life to me. She had given me everything—love, security, the very best education. She had given me comfort and compassion when I was a child, and when I began to study dancing she had given me the gift of her faith in me. What could there possibly be to forgive her for? It was only after the funeral that I learned that all the money was gone, that Graystone Manor was to be taken in payment of debts. The house and everything in it would be sold within six weeks if I was unable to raise ten thousand pounds. The sum might as well have been ten million.

The ballet school in Bath had been very expensive, but Aunt Meg had never let me suspect her financial difficulties. She had continued to pay my tuition and to send spending money, money for new clothes. On my visits home she had put on a splendid front. Unable to conceal the fact that all the valuable pieces of furniture had been sold one by one, all the good paintings and all the silver, she had explained it away lightly, by saying that she was expecting a huge sum any day now from the sale of the Northumberland property and that I was not to worry about it. She wanted me to tell her about my progress, the recitals, my adventures at school, to absolutely banish thoughts of anything so trivial as money.

The money was gone, and in six weeks I would be homeless. John Chapman had generously allowed me the six weeks. He had also allowed me to keep the fifteen pounds Aunt Meg had pressed into my hands before her death. Chapman was forty years old, a bachelor, a large, strapping man with rugged good looks, bronze-red hair and shrewd gray-green eyes. He was most understanding of my plight, most reasonable. He felt certain we could come to some kind of agreement, make some kind of arrangement. His voice had been deep and husky when he told me that, and there had been a gleam of anticipation in his eyes. I knew what kind of arrangement he had in mind, and I refused even to think about it.

Slowly, I strolled past the row of shops that had been standing since the days of Good Queen Bess. Sunlight sparkled on the worn brown cobblestones, and even this far inland there was a salty tang in the air. This small inbred Cornish village had once represented the world to me, a world in which I was an outcast, a pariah because of the circumstances of my birth. But I had since discovered another world, and its horizons were boundless. That was one of the reasons I felt immune to the villagers and their opinion of me. They were to be pitied, not feared.

Jamie Burns stood lounging against the wall of the pub up ahead talking to a husky friend at his side. Jamie was the blacksmith's son. He had been the ringleader of the gang of children who used to taunt me whenever they had the chance. Hands joined, they had danced around me like so many demons, yelling, “Gypsy brat! Gypsy brat! Gypsy brat!” hoping I'd cry, hoping I'd strike out at them, but I had never cried, and after a while I learned not to strike out, either. How many times had I gone home with bruises and cuts, my pretty dresses ruined, my pigtails all undone? How many times had Aunt Meg taken me in her arms and soothed me and told me I was foolish to let it bother me, that I was better than any of them? Those memories were still vivid in my mind, but they no longer caused anguish.

Jamie and his companion watched me approach. Both wore muddy boots, tight trousers, and coarsely woven white shirts. Jamie wore a loose leather jerkin, as well. His dark brown hair was unruly; his face, fox-like, wore a crafty smile. His cold eyes seemed to glitter as I drew nearer. I had seen that look in the eyes of several men, but it had never blazed so openly. I recognized Jamie's companion now, Billy Stone, a heavy lad with blond hair and the face of a wicked choir boy. His blue eyes were alight with the same male hunger, his wide mouth curling at the corners in a lewd grin. Neither of them spoke as I passed, but I could feel their eyes on me as I moved on down the street.

The bell over the door at the pharmacist's shop tinkled, to announce my entrance. The smell of roots and herbs and straw assaulted me as I moved past the rows of colored bottles to the wooden counter in the back of the shop. The pharmacist wasn't in, but Evan Peters, his assistant, came out of the back room. Adjusting the thin black leather apron that covered his shirt and trousers, Evan looked at me and from his expression I could see that he recognized me immediately. His daughter Molly had been one of the circle of tormentors during my childhood. His light hair was beginning to gray at the temples. His face was thin, and the brown eyes were hard. They passed immediate judgment on me as I stopped in front of the counter.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Peters,” I said.

“Mary Ellen Lawrence, ain't it? Couldn't be anyone else. You've grown up.”

“I'd like some medicine for a cough.”

“You've changed,” he said, ignoring my request. “You were a tall, skinny kid when you left, all elbows and eyes. Hear you went off to a fancy school in Bath. Hear you been studyin' dancin' with some Eye-talian fellow there.”

“That's right. Do you have something for a cough?”

“Heard about your aunt's death. Consumption.”

I was silent, trying to keep my face expressionless.

“Head over heels in debt she was, I hear. Stack o' unpaid bills when she died and Graystone Manor going to John Chapman. Hear he's gonna foreclose. Reckon you'll be in a tight spot when he does. Reckon you're in a tight spot already. You got money to pay for the cough medicine?”

I took a pound note out of my pocket and placed it on the counter.

Peters grinned and stepped through the door back of the counter, returning a few moments later with a small brown bottle filled with a thick liquid. Instead of handing it to me, he set it on a shelf behind the counter. Picking up the pound note, he carried it over to his cash box and began to make change. He moved with deliberate slowness, hoping I would show some sign of irritation. But I was determined not to reveal my impatience.

“My Molly done married Bertie Green and moved out ta the farm. Bertie owns it now that his folks passed on. Molly already has two young 'uns.”

“That's splendid, Mr. Peters.”

He counted the change very slowly. “Molly, she knows her place. She don't put on airs like some. You're a fine young lady now, ain't cha? Speak like a bloody swell, ever so refined. Guess they put a lot of ideas in your head at that fancy school.”

“They did indeed,” I replied.

“Reckon you wantin' to be a dancer comes natural. I remember when you used to run across the moors to spend time with them gypsies that camped in the meadow. Hear you learned all them gypsy dances. I wouldn't let a child of mine go near that scum.”

“I'm sure you wouldn't.”

“Your aunt believed in lettin' you do whatever you took a mind to. I reckon she felt you had a lot in common with them gypsies, seein' as how you're half-gypsy yourself. You even kinda look like one with those dark blue eyes and that long black hair.”

He clearly hoped to insult me. He failed. I was proud of my heritage on both sides. I had been born as the result of a great love, and if that love had been wrong in the eyes of the world, if it had caused a tempestuous scandal and ended in tragedy, I was still proud to know I was the product of it. It hadn't always been that way, of course. As a child I had been terribly ashamed, bitter even, but I had grown up.

“We run them gypsies off a couple o' years ago,” Peters continued. “Sly, thievin' bunch, the lot of 'em. Hear tell they're comin' back for th' fair in Claymoor. If they got any sense, they won't come around
here
no more.”

Peters finally set the medicine on the counter before me. Picking up the bottle, I slipped it into the pocket of my dress along with the change.

“I hear that your aunt's maid is stayin' on with you. Fanny. I suppose the cough medicine is for her. You certainly look healthy enough.”

“Fanny is staying with me, yes.”

“Noble of 'er, seein' as how she ain't been paid in over a year, seein' as how you'll both be out in th' cold soon as Chapman forecloses. What you plannin' on doin'?”

I looked at him with cool politeness and smiled.

“That, Mr. Peters, is none of your bloody business.”

Turning, I started toward the door before he could detain me any longer. His comments had irritated me far more than I cared to admit. I hadn't been to the village even once during the past three years, avoiding it whenever I returned to Graystone Manor for holidays. As I left the shop I vowed I would never come again. Any provisions we might need, Fanny could come for, as long as the fifteen pounds held out. I wouldn't have come today had she not desperately needed the medicine. I no longer cared what any of these people thought about me, but there was no reason to expose myself deliberately to the kind of mentality Peters had displayed just now.

My skirt rustled over my petticoats as I moved back down the street toward the old stone church and the road that led away from the village. Jamie and Billy were no longer in sight, and I was relieved. No doubt I could have put them in their place with a few well-chosen words, but after the encounter with Evan Peters I didn't want to speak to anyone. I merely wanted to be left alone. These people led such barren lives, their world confined to a few square miles. How could I ever have let their opinion of me matter?

Passing the bakery shop, the livery stable, the tiny inn with its mortar-and-timber-facade and thick glass windowpanes, I was conscious only of the grief that still surged inside me. Aunt Meg had begged me not to mourn, but I did, I couldn't help it. I had stayed in my room for two days after the funeral, crying quietly, refusing to eat, refusing to answer Fanny's knocks on the door, and finally I had found the strength to face reality, to face the loss and accept it. I would be strong as she had taught me to be, and I would try to remember her with a smile, but the grief would always be a part of me.

Passing the old graystone church at the edge of the village, I paused to look at the tall spire of tarnished copper. Tall oak trees grew on the right, their heavy boughs shading the toppling marble tombstones in the cemetery behind the low graystone wall. Aunt Meg was buried beside her parents in Claymoor, but my mother was here, her grave unmarked. My grandparents had refused to let mother be buried in the family plot in Claymoor. On impulse I pushed open the gate in the wall and moved down the uneven flagstone walks. It was dim here, everything in shadow, and the air was cool. The cemetery hadn't been kept up at all. Many of the stones had fallen over; the damp marble was green with moss. I finally located the unmarked grave near the back wall. It was covered with grass, with acorns scattered all around.