The Seventh Miss Hatfield (12 page)

Almost a second later, the remaining two candles snuffed themselves out.

In the dark, Clara’s hand felt small and lost in mine. I was surprised when she was the one who answered.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Good, and who are you?’ Miss Jones asked. ‘Do you want to introduce yourself to us?’

‘Yes,’ Clara said again, but this time her voice came out stronger. ‘I am Henley. Henley Beauford.’

I felt Henley’s hand jerk in my own. My throat constricted and I struggled to breathe.

Miss Jones went on, ‘Why are you here, Mr Beauford?’

‘I am here to tell her something.’

In the dark I couldn’t tell whether Clara was facing me or not, but somehow I knew she was talking about me.

‘What do you want to tell her?’

‘I want—’ Clara’s voice was like a child’s again. ‘I want to tell her that I know.’

‘What do you know, Mr Beauford?’

There was a thud and I felt something hit the table.

‘Clara? Clara!’ It was Willie’s voice. ‘Someone, do something!’

Miss Jones lit the candles in a hurry. I saw her hands shaking, but couldn’t make myself move to help her.

Clara’s head was down on the table, her hair hiding her face. When Miss Jones gently raised her head, I saw blood on Clara’s cheek.

‘Call the physician.’ Willie stood up in such a hurry that he knocked over his chair.

Clara giggled. ‘Why would you do that? I feel fine.’ She laughed again.

Miss Jones’s face was pale in the candlelight.

‘Out!’ Miss Jones screamed. ‘Get out!’ She then glared directly at me. ‘You do the Devil’s work.’

Henley pulled me to my feet and dragged me from the room, along the hallway and then into the street. Once in the open air, I was able to breathe again.

‘They’re insane!’ Willie said as we stumbled to our carriage. ‘Absolute lunatics! And they thought you were dead.’

Henley grimaced at Willie’s last sentence.

‘You know, they probably just pulled that name out of the newspaper,’ Willie said. ‘Everyone knows your father, and everyone knows he has a son.’ He patted Henley’s back. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

Henley agreed, but I knew he was still troubled.

We ended up giving up on boating.

On the ride back, Willie talked with Henley about Mary and his family, and about going home. It was obvious he missed his sister more than he would have liked to let on. I left them to reminisce about old times while I puzzled over what Miss Jones had said to me. I just couldn’t get her words out of my head. Tu scies numquam finem.

‘What did Miss Jones mean?’ I asked them suddenly. I’d interrupted whatever Henley and Willie were talking about, but I couldn’t help it. I had to know.

Willie waved me off. ‘She just isn’t the best reader. She probably thought she’d read Henley’s name in the obituary section of the newspaper.’

Even Henley laughed at that.

‘I mean before that. It was in another language. Latin, I think.’

‘Tu scies numquam finem,’ Henley said. ‘You will never know the end.’

‘God only knows what she meant,’ Willie muttered, but soon he and Henley fell back into comfortable conversation.

You will never know the end. I shuddered at the thought that she might have known exactly what I was.

‘Miss?’ I heard something murmuring near my face and my delayed hand reached up to swat at it. ‘Miss?’ This time it sounded more insistent and roused me from my half-sleep. ‘Miss.’

I blinked open my eyes to see Nellie’s face, close to mine.

‘Good, you’re finally awake,’ she said. ‘Mr Beauford just left for the country and you’re running a bit late.’

‘I’m late?’ I exclaimed, suddenly fully awake. ‘When are we leaving?’

‘In a few minutes.’

‘A few minutes?’ I was now sitting up in bed. ‘And you let me sleep in?’

‘I’m sorry – it wasn’t my place, I know, but you looked so tired last night, miss.’ Her eyes were downcast, and I knew I couldn’t be mad at her. It was my own fault anyway, given how I’d spent the night before.

I saw that Nellie had already laid out a dress for me. ‘I hope you like it,’ she said.

Nellie helped me dress, drawing the laces as tight as Miss Hatfield had. I rushed downstairs, grabbing the hat that Nellie threw at me. Henley was already waiting at the door.

‘Took you long enough,’ he said, his eyes gleaming. ‘My father just left in the carriage with Father Gabriel. We’ll be taking the automobile.’

It was hard not to laugh at someone as young as Henley calling a car an ‘automobile’, but then I wasn’t in 1954 any more.

‘And Willie?’ I asked. ‘Did he leave for home already?’

‘I’m afraid so. He left last night.’

I felt a pang inside me when I realized I’d never see him again.

Henley led me outside to something that looked more like a carriage than any car I’d ever seen. It truly was a horseless carriage, and in its way, it was a wonder for both of us – to me because of its antiquity, and to Henley because of its modernity.

Henley helped me up into the passenger seat next to him. Then he took his seat behind the wheel and the engine roared to life, humming beneath us with the same excitement we felt.

‘This will be my first time seeing the countryside in this area,’ I mused aloud.

‘Riding in an automobile really does open your eyes to new things, doesn’t it?’ Henley laughed. ‘Here, wear these.’ He passed me goggles then put on his own. I held my pair up uncertainly. ‘You look suspicious,’ Henley said.

‘I think I have reason to be.’ I waved the goggles at him.

‘I guess I know one more thing about you now.’ I looked up in surprise, wondering what secret I’d just revealed. ‘You’ve never ridden in an automobile before, have you?’

I couldn’t help but laugh. I nodded. It was true, I’d never ridden in an automobile before, but if he’d asked if I’d ever ridden in a car, I might have said yes.

‘You’re very mysterious,’ Henley went on. ‘You know so much about me already and I still know almost nothing about you.’

‘Well, now you know I’ve never ridden in an automobile before,’ I pointed out. He chuckled at that, but his voice grew downright serious.

‘You know things that even people close to me don’t,’ he said. ‘I–I told you about my mother … I don’t talk about her, usually.’

I smiled politely as if I had no idea what he was talking about, but we both knew. I felt so comfortable with him near me. True, he knew almost nothing about me, yet at the same time he knew the most important thing about me. He didn’t know my name, but he knew how I felt.

‘So I think it’s only fair that you tell me a little about yourself.’

I gulped inwardly, waiting for him to ask me my real name. Like Henley said, his request for information was only fair.

‘Since I’ve told you about my parents and you’ve met my father, what are yours like?’

‘They’re like any ordinary parents, I guess.’

‘No two sets of parents are ordinary. What’s your mother like?’ Henley’s eyes flickered back and forth between me to the road.

‘My mother …’ I started. ‘She fusses around with her hair, and when she’s finally satisfied with it, she fusses around with mine.’ I smiled at the image that brought up in my mind. Whenever I thought of my mother, I thought of her tucking me into bed with curlers in her hair. ‘She has gentle hands – slightly cool to the touch. She stroked my hair as I fell asleep … when I was little,’ I was quick to add. I hadn’t realized I’d slipped into the past tense.

‘And what about your father?’ Henley looked genuinely curious.

‘My father’s a straightforward kind of man. He never beats around the bush. If he had something on his mind, he’d say it.’ I laughed. ‘Tact was never something he learned.’ I thought back to the last time I’d seen him. He was dressed in my favourite suit – the light brown one with the matching hat that made his eyes look warmer – and he was off to work. I wish I’d got to say goodbye.

‘He sounds like an honest man.’

‘He was – is,’ I corrected myself.

‘Living apart from your family can’t be easy,’ Henley said. ‘Were you staying with relatives? Siblings, maybe? Before you came to us, that is.’ Henley’s eyes were focused on me rather than the road, which I found a little disconcerting.

‘I was living with a family friend,’ I said, for I didn’t know what to call Miss Hatfield. ‘My parents live far away.’ In my time, I wanted to add, but I bit my tongue firmly and kept the thought to myself.

‘So you have parents?’ There was a mischievous twinkle in Henley’s eyes now. ‘Finally, some more information about my mysterious “cousin”.’ He glanced at me again. ‘You’d think I would know her well, her being my cousin and all.’ Henley gave me one of those looks of his, which made me laugh so hard I almost lost my hat in the wind.

‘Better tighten those ribbons on your hat,’ he said, tugging at one of them with his spare hand.

As we drove out of the city in comfortable silence, I stared at Henley, trying to figure him out. He was busy driving and didn’t appear to notice me puzzling over him. I studied every inch of his face, trying to memorize every feature. I wanted to know so many things – why he made me feel safe when I knew I wasn’t, why he made me want to stay when I knew I couldn’t, and why he drew me to him.

‘You know, I can see you out of the corner of my eye.’ Henley turned to face me with a huge grin on his face. ‘Don’t think I can’t see you staring at me.’

I looked down, wishing the brim of my hat was large enough to cover my face and, more importantly, to hide my warm cheeks.

‘Few people blush that easily, and you’re just making it more entertaining.’

I almost stuck my tongue out at him. ‘I doubt your father raised you to be this kind of gentleman.’

‘And my mother would turn over in her grave to hear me talking in this way to a lady.’ We both laughed, and for that moment we shook off all our responsibilities and duties and left them to the wind.

We’d been driving for some while already when a strange noise started under the low hum of the engine. The tall buildings of the city had long since given way to the rolling hills of the countryside. Henley and I began to open up to each other, regaling each other with stories of our earliest childhood memories. This was fortunate for me, since I then didn’t need to lie about the gap in my life.

‘… and then the farmhand came in and we realized he’d seen the entire thing!’ Henley and I must have been red in the face from laughing so hard when I first became vaguely aware of the grinding sound of gear against gear.

‘Do you hear that?’

‘I was hoping I was just imagining it,’ Henley said as he stopped the car in the middle of the road.

‘You’re not going to pull over to the side?’

‘Why should I? No one uses these roads, and if someone does, it would be nice to have their help.’

Henley got out of the car and opened the hood of the car.

‘Do you know what you’re looking at?’

‘To be honest, I have no idea what the inside of an automobile is supposed to look like, so I’m no help at all in this department, unfortunately.’ Henley climbed back in. ‘I suppose our best bet is to find somewhere to stop nearby.’ With that, he revved the engine back to life.

We only drove a couple of miles further before the car stopped working altogether. It came to a screeching halt, and we had no choice but to get out and keep walking until we saw a house or a farm, or met somebody else. Dust from the road covered us within seconds, whisked up by a rising wind.

‘Just our luck,’ Henley muttered.

‘No use crying over spilled milk,’ I said, which made him laugh again for some reason. ‘I’m glad one of us is finding this situation amusing.’

I gave him a look, to which he responded, ‘I’ve just never heard that expression before. Is it common where you grew up?’

‘My mother used to say it when I was whining over something useless – like you’re doing now.’ He only laughed again. ‘Ouch!’

‘What’s wrong?’ Henley was by my side immediately. He held my arm as I leaned on him to lift my heavy skirts.

‘I just broke my heel,’ I said, putting my skirts back in place. ‘Now look what you’ve done. You’ve made me ruin a perfectly good pair of shoes.’ Henley appeared to find that hilarious as well.

‘You should take them off. There’s no sense in staggering along on only one heel.’

‘And go barefoot?’ I thought about what my mother would say.

Henley appeared to read my mind. ‘You don’t have to worry about what other people will think.’ He gestured to the empty landscape around us and a mischievous look came into his eyes. ‘Tell you what – I’ll do it with you.’

Without further ado, Henley bent down to take off his shoes. He tied the laces together and flung them over his shoulder, and then he was off and running. I stared at him for only a second before I took off my uncomfortable shoes and did the same, a matching grin on my face. I bunched up my skirts and ran after him.

We walked and ran in spurts like little children do, swinging our arms back and forth and laughing gleefully. Even though we couldn’t see anything before or behind us through the dust, we were euphoric.

We went on like this for miles before we saw anything. Then, through the dust, we could barely make out the minute form of a man entering a house in the distance.

‘Did you see that?’ Henley asked me. ‘There’s a cottage up ahead on that hill.’

‘How long do you think it’ll take us to get there?’

‘A few more minutes, I’d guess – but it’s on our way.’

‘So is anything in that general direction,’ I quipped, pointing forwards. ‘I suppose there’s no harm trying that house.’

As we drew closer, we began to see flocks of sheep dotting the fields around us.

‘A shepherd?’ I wondered.

‘Let’s find out.’

Henley ran ahead and knocked on the cottage door. It wasn’t long before the man we saw earlier opened it. I watched from a distance as he talked to Henley, then saw Henley point to me and the man nod some sort of consent.

The man’s house looked cramped from the outside, as if it only had one room. It was crooked and stood taller on its left side, where its only window was missing a shutter.

When I caught up with Henley, he told me that the man had agreed to let us stay the night in his house until his son came in the morning with a horse.

‘You’re taking their horse?’ I hissed at Henley as I ducked under the arm he was using to prop open the door.

‘No. We’re taking their horse,’ he said, removing his hat as he entered the house behind me.

‘Can’t you see it’s everything they own?’

‘Indeed, and I’ve already paid a good price for it.’

I glanced around and noticed a watch, glittering out of place on the only table in the room.

‘You gave him your watch?’ I whispered.

‘What else could I do?’

‘Couldn’t you have given him money instead? Wasn’t that watch a gift from your father?’ I’d noticed the inscription on it the last time he wore it.

‘My father … The watch doesn’t mean that much to me. It’s just a watch,’ Henley said. ‘Besides, I have no pocket money with me.’

‘No pocket money? What do you mean, no pocket money? You have a house in the country, but no money with you?’ I hissed again.

‘I–I’ve never needed to carry money with me before.’

Then I remembered that in town, he’d put everything we bought on his tab. A perk of being from one of the richer families in town, I supposed.

The old shepherd motioned to the two chairs by the table and gestured for us to sit.

‘Couldn’t you have paid him and just borrowed the horse? Then they’d get the money without having to lose the horse. They need the money.’

‘Everyone has pride,’ Henley said. ‘Even the poor.’

I opened my mouth to say something, but closed it as soon as I realized there was nothing to be said.

A loud clatter of cups on the table made Henley and I acutely aware of the shepherd’s presence. While we were talking, I’d forgotten he was there and wondered how much he’d overheard. When I shot Henley a questioning look, he shook his head as if reading my mind. He looked certain that the shepherd hadn’t heard anything.

The cups the shepherd had placed on the table were full of murky water. I could just about see my reflection on the surface of the brown liquid with flecks of grime deposited beneath, and I couldn’t believe that the person I saw was me.