Seacliff (11 page)

He inhaled slowly, deeply, then let the air whistle out between his teeth before he spoke again. “This afternoon, while you were out walking, I received a visitor.”

She held herself quite still, not wanting him to know she had in fact seen him talking to the man.

“He brought me a packet of letters. They were all quite dated, I’m afraid. Somehow they had been sent on to London, because Bradford mistakenly assumed I would be traveling there this past week. A perfectly natural error. But I have spoken to him rather sharply about it to be sure it will not happen again.”

“I don’t recall messengers coming here, Oliver,” she said, the dread now working to drive a chill through her bones.

“You have been walking quite a bit lately,” he told her in mild reproof. “I barely see you at meals, much less during the evening.”

Not trusting herself to say anything in response, Caitlin only nodded and hoped he would take it for an apology.

“Be that as it may, there was a note in the packet from Reverend Ellis Lynne. It was addressed to me.”

Her eyes closed slowly, and she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. A hand took her shoulder and pressed her gently to the couch. Her tongue moistened her lips, but try as she might, she couldn’t swallow away a sour lump lodged in her throat.

Reverend Ellis Lynne was the Anglican clergyman in Seacliff’s valley. He was not universally liked, being as he was a transplanted Englishman and harshly prim. He believed it was his duty to pry into the lives of all his parishioners, whether they liked it or nor. Her father thought him a small man in both stature and character, and had once told her he believed the cleric was involved with the English. But since he had no proof, he could do nothing except speculate and complain.

Caitlin had no feelings toward the man one way or the other. But a letter to Oliver, not to her, could mean only one thing.

“Caitlin?”

“Oliver, please, say it quickly and be done with it.” But she would not open her eyes.

“Shortly after we left, my dear, it seems your father took a turn for the worse. According to the good reverend, Evans insisted on his afternoon walks along the cliffs, and though he was always accompanied by a member of the staff, on this particular afternoon he wanted to go alone, to see some tree or other. I don’t understand the significance of that, but it’s what the reverend reported.”

“My mother,” she said weakly, feeling a slow burning in her eyes. “There’s a great pine near the end of the wall, the only one there. When I was seven, she died during the winter and though she’s buried in the churchyard, Father always went to the tree when he wanted to… to talk to her. He proposed to her there, you see; I suppose he’d be considered a sentimental old fool.”

Oliver went on, his voice droning. But because there was a roaring in her ears, Caitlin caught only a few words and phrases. They were sufficient for her to know her father had obviously guessed he would not last out the year and was making his peace with himself the best way he knew how. When a sudden squall swept in from the Irish Sea across Cardigan Bay, the staff raced out to bring him back. They didn’t find him until just before sunset, lying at the base of the cliffs. The wind, it seemed, had overpowered him.

There was a long silence punctuated only by her attempts to catch her breath before she broke into sobs. Tears coursed down her cheeks, and she made no move to brush them away. And when she opened her eyes, Oliver was staring at her intently.

“We have to go,” she said.

Oliver nodded without hesitation. “We have to go now.”

PART TWO

Wife

Seacliff, Wales, 1775

8

I
t was early afternoon when Caitlin stood impatiently by the first of two polished black coaches, drawing her pale gold shawl more snugly around her shoulders. Her hair had been spun into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. But the haste with which she had performed the task now permitted the silken strands to free themselves in the softly cool west wind coasting down the slopes of the low mountains on the horizon. A vast armada of storm clouds swept grandly overhead, alternately blocking and releasing the sun. Their shadows rippled eerily over the rolling landscape. Caitlin shuddered involuntarily as one passed over her, but she did not move to climb inside the coach and take her seat. Instead, she let her gaze drift over the country she’d been traveling through for the last several days.

Despite the storm that had hounded the solemn, fast-moving procession for nearly a week, the land was a brilliant, gem-encrusted green. Hocks of black-and white-faced sheep roamed the low hills; Welsh ponies with hardy shoulders and thick manes trotted down the cobblestone road, effortlessly pulling flimsy carts and heavy wagons loaded with produce. The villages she had encountered since leaving England were, for the most part, small, their cottages carved from native stone. They hugged the sides of the narrow roads behind waist-high walls constructed long before the time of the Romans. There were lush orchards and verdant forests, white-running streams and shallow rivers, pastureland and tilled land that strongly evoked Eden.

Whenever they approached a cluster of homes it seemed to be a signal for work and play to halt. Young children lined the road laughing and whistling, their round faces ruddy, their traditional dark clothes billowing behind them in the wind. Older men fresh from the mines that scarred the slopes glanced up at the commotion, coal dust streaking their pallid foreheads and cheeks. They doffed floppy wool caps when they realized the status of the travelers. Women curtsied halfheartedly; their hair was bound in scarves and their skirts were hidden behind aprons. The Welsh emphasis on education was marked by the large numbers of schoolhouses set on well-kept plots of their own. The steeples of a number of churches loomed above each community like sentinels, the largest of them buttressed and towered and forbidding.

There were ruins of ancient castles, of fortresses, of Roman baths, overgrown now, reclaimed by the land.

Caitlin sighed loudly and laid a heavy hand on the brass latch. The coach was large and richly appointed, bearing Morgan’s crest on each of the doors. On the driver’s bench, Davy was dressed in scarlet and black livery, his neck chafed by a stiff, high collar. His tricorne had settled near the back of his head, and from it waved a thick white plume, blown about by the wind. She glanced up at him, caught his gaze, and smiled wanly.

He nodded once toward the mountains. “By sunset, mistress, if I reckon it right.”

“I know,” she said, and sighed again. Her stomach lurched lightly, and she pursed her lips against a faint taste of bile. She’d eaten quickly in order to get the household moving again, but Oliver had insisted on changing his clothes in a place where he was assured of some small comfort. The inn was not large, but at least, he said, it was far better than changing under some fool tree or other.

She wore dark brown, as she had since they’d left Eton.

“It be fine, mistress,” Davy said then, quietly. “He’d want you to feel right about comin’ home again. He really would. I know that for a fact.”

She started, amazed that Davy had divined her conflict so readily—and dismayed that it showed so openly in her face. But she made no response because she did not trust her voice. On the one hand, her mourning was still deep, still churning in her breast. Yet she had also realized by the second day away from Eton that she’d already reconciled herself to his passing. Not that the shock of knowledge had lessened, nor was the guilt she felt at not being with him when he died any weaker; but her grief was now tempered by the sure understanding that he was, after all these years of waiting, at last with her mother, the only woman he’d ever wanted or loved.

So, then, her excitement was unbidden but muted. Once they’d crossed into Wales and had made their way northwest toward Cardigan Bay on the west coast, she’d felt an electric thrill that prompted her to shift from one window to the other. Like a child would point at a flock of thin-coated sheep or at an arm of forestland stretching down a hillside and cry “Look!” Every tiny house, every stone-embedded road set her heart to racing in spite of herself. Her eyes sparkled with sad and joyous tears. It was as if she’d been gone for a dozen years and returned to discover something new, something more grand than she had noticed before.

Then a glance would catch at the black arm band on her dress and she would turn sober, sit back, and fall into gentle memory.

But the closer they came to Seacliff, the more somber she grew; and that morning she’d awakened in a nervous, short-tempered mood. Gwen was of no help. She traveled in the more Spartan coach with Bradford and Mary behind theirs. They’d barely passed a dozen words over the past two days, and though on her own part Caitlin put it down to mourning, she knew something else was bothering the woman.

“Sunset,” Davy said, his voice rising in pitch. Then he took off his hat and wiped a sleeve over his brow. “Before, maybe.” He sniffed, and clucked patience to the team of blacks he was handling. “Mistress?”

She looked up, blinking.

“It’s not your doin’, y’know.” He looked pained, as if he had no right to say what he wanted to say. He drew in a sudden deep breath, and seemed to change his mind. “Was Bradford’s fault fer not givin’ you the letter, that’s what it was. ’Sides, the master didn’t hold fer buryin’ anyway. He says t’ me once, ‘Davy me lad, outta the house and into the churchyard where I can be with the Missus. Don’t you dare let that girl of mine make a pageant of my goin’.’ I …” He stopped abruptly and looked away, clucking again at the horses, which were already in their traces and anxious to be moving.

After a long moment Caitlin said, “I know, Davy. But still …” It was hard. Not being by his side when he died, and not being there for the funeral. She knew Davy was right about what her father had wanted, but she could not help thinking that her absence would drive another wedge between herself and her people. It was one thing for Oliver to keep her away for most of each year; it was quite another for her to miss the passing of her own father. Though word of Bradford’s error would soon spread among the villagers, she knew they’d have their own thoughts about why she’d not come.

Nevertheless, she was grateful for Davy’s attempts to comfort her. Now if only Oliver would finish his dressing so they— “Cor,” Davy muttered then, “will you look at that, now.” She turned quickly, just as the front door of the inn opened, and Oliver stepped out.

He was wearing a scarlet-jacketed uniform embroidered with gold thread. A triple row of silver buttons marched steadfastly down his chest to the cutaway waist. Behind him the material stiffened and flared, and was edged with white and silver piping that trapped the fleeting sunlight and threw it back in lances. His white wig was perfectly curled, and over it he wore a wide-brimmed black felt hat adorned with a ruby-studded band and a massive black plume. His black boots were mirror-polished, their gold buckles almost too large to hold in one hand. There was no question but that he cut a dashing, even imposing figure. Despite her annoyance, Caitlin could not disguise a soft smile as the innkeeper’s children followed him silently, awed by his impressive presence.

When he reached her he stopped and bowed slightly. “Are you ready, madam?”

“I am,” she said. “You’re making me seem rather plain, I’m afraid.”

He preened, barely raising a hand. “The best way I could devise to pay tribute to your father. And there is nothing here that could throw a shadow on your loveliness.” He glanced around the yard, ignoring the children and the innkeeper at the door. “However, I think it best we begin the last leg, my dear. I’m sure the household is waiting for us.”

He opened the coach door for her, and gestured impatiently to Davy to remain where he was while he unfolded the steps himself.

Caitlin, however, suddenly balked and shook her head. “My dear?”

“Oliver, I can’t. I … I can’t stay inside there one more minute.” Ashamed, she lowered her eyes and sighed. “I need the air, Oliver, please don’t make me ride inside.”

She gauged his reactions carefully, knowing he would be thinking about her weeping all over his uniform, or worse— losing her luncheon. But what she’d told him was true. She did need to ride topside today. She needed to see the valley unfold before her; she needed to feel the wind in her face and her hair, needed to smell Cardigan Bay, hear the thunder of the surf as it smashed relentlessly against the rocks. She needed the time, and the memories… and most of all, she needed to see Seacliff before Oliver did.

“Please, Oliver, indulge me just this once.”

He reached into his side pocket with a white-gloved hand and withdrew a handful of coppers. He tossed them carelessly to the children. When their squealing laughter filled the air as they scrambled through the mud for the money, he looked down at her and smiled as if her needs always came first.

“Very well, my dear. I understand how you feel. Your country, your land… Believe me, I understand.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “But do remember where I am should you need a shoulder.”

She thanked him in a small voice and looked back to the second coach. Gwen’s face was not visible, and she stifled an impulse to run back and join her there; if Gwen had something on her mind, sooner or later it would surface, and they would talk. Meanwhile she took a deep breath and accepted Davy’s hand to the bench. The four blacks tossed their heads as they sensed movement in the air, their harnesses rattling like so many ill-tuned bells. Davy sighed loudly.

“We’re on, mistress,” he said at last. “Then on it is,” she told him solemnly.

The long whip curled through the air and cracked just over the heads of the lead horses. They started, pulled, and within moments clattered through the narrow yard gates and onto the roadbed of crushed stone by now driven hard into the earth by a thousand hooves. The wheels creaked, the blacks stepped high and proudly, and the wind carried the sound of a ragged child’s cheer as they left the village behind and set off across the lowlands toward the slopes of the mountains.