by Carole King
Chapter 12
The Cape May light rose majestically over the harbor, a giant protecting sentinel, guardian of the night. Autumn stretched her gaze to the lighted top that nearly vanished among the stars. To be up there, so high, so distanced from earthly concerns, would be a rare and wondrous experience, she thought. And yet, the same experience might encourage impractical thoughts, unrealistic fantasies, capricious hopes. Autumn stood for long moments looking up, deciding. She had planned this visit for two days; she could not give up her resolve to timidity; she must be brave. She turned her attention to the surrounding landscape. The ocean, unbound from its winter chrysalis, swashed against the shore. Night creatures chirred, but Autumn saw no evidence of them. She was alone with the massive structure of the lighthouse, its unwavering illumination at the top, and surrounding that, the heavens. Shrouded in the sea-scented darkness, she made her silent way, wraithlike, up the path toward the entrance. The door swung easily on oiled hinges, making no sound, betraying no presence. As she stepped inside, an unearthly cold assailed her, and Autumn drew her cloak and hood tighter about her. Surveying the height of the sharply curved cone of the staircase, she knew a moment of hesitation. She must be prepared for anything, she told herself. The risk she was taking might prove to be worth any perceived danger. If she were right, a welkin world would open for Vanessa. If Autumn was right, Vanessa would know the bliss of an earthly paradise—a pure and perfect fulfillment. If Autumn was right. That was the dream. But first Autumn must conquer the reality, the brick-lined, unlighted shaft that housed an iron staircase. Her slow and cautious footfalls reverberated, sending clanging evidence of her presence to the lofting summit of the building. Because of the narrowing circumference of the lighthouse, she faced a more and more alarmingly constricted circular ascent. The window embrasures stationed at each landing became less and less thick, drawing her more chillingly near to the soaring height she was about to confront. Her flaring cloak often impeded her ascent, tripping her. She caught her balance time and time again. She shuddered against her own vulnerability. On the final landing a dizzying star-swept view of the sky, the world she now occupied, assaulted her and confused her sense of balance, her sense of up and down, her hold on reality. She felt giddiness overtake her as the spiral staircase turned, upended, whirled her with a reeling velocity into its plunging depths. She grabbed for the iron railing. The world swirled, towered, darkened, and stopped. Autumn felt strong arms envelop her. She clung to this new reality.
“Watch your step, little one,” a resonant, caressing voice told her. Autumn opened her eyes and looked into a world of laughing sea-glass blue.
“Robert,” she gasped. “I thought I had fallen. I thought I was going to die.”
“You’re not going to die,” he said, smiling deeply, richly, “not for a while, anyway.” He lifted her, sweeping her from her unsteady footing on the stair, and with a sure step he carried her the few feet up to a little round room at the very top of the lighthouse just beneath the light. He set her down onto a small wooden stool and held her as she leveled herself, regaining her equilibrium. “Feeling a little queasy?” he asked her. Autumn nodded. “You experienced a bit of vertigo, little one, that’s all.”
“’Tis high,” Autumn managed.
“Aye,” affirmed Robert Moffat. “’Tis higher than most people ever imagine being.” He moved away and poured her a small draught of brandy. “Take this.” She obeyed, sipping cautiously. The blazing, musky liquid seemed to ease her discomfort just a little. She handed him the glass and took several long breaths. At last she looked cautiously about at the surrounding windows. The night sky, clear and crowded with stars, was everywhere.
“You live here,” said Autumn, amazed.
“Aye,” Robert affirmed. “This is my aerie. ’Tis wondrous, is it not?”
“It is,” Autumn agreed. Her amber gaze caught the dazzle of the sequined sky. She looked back at Robert. Here in this star-ornamented lofty world, he seemed different. He seemed like a great eagle. With no sea cap hiding his mass of steely curls, he looked even larger, if possible, than when she’d found him, earthbound, following her. Autumn studied him for a further moment. “You brought Vanessa here, did you not?” she asked evenly. He hesitated, then nodded his proud head.
“Aye, little one,” he answered softly.
“And you gave this, not to the Byron household, but to Vanessa—to inspire her memories.” She drew from her pocket the little snow globe, wrapped in tissue. She held it up between them and peeled away the protective layers of paper. He looked down on it. The stars were reflected in its watery depths. Autumn shook it gently, and snow and stars swirled together, producing for just a moment a heaven, an Eden of dreams. Robert forced his gaze away from the snow globe. He looked out into the night, hands folded behind him. His face was echoed in the star-slung world of the many-layered windows.
“You know our secret,” he said.
“I do,” Autumn told him gently. She stepped down from the stool and moved to him. “I should say, Robert, that I know some things but not all.” The sea thundered and swelled beneath them. Like the floor of the heavens, it rose up to enshroud them in sound and spume. Vaporous clouds of blown foam separated them from earthly restraints, and together, Robert and Autumn soared free on the silver mists of truth. Robert turned to her.
“I can tell you of a love so grand it made the heavens sing, Autumn.” He smiled. “Did Vanessa say anything of that?”
“Yes, Robert,” Autumn affirmed, “in so many, many ways. More often, words failed her, but I know of that.”
“And you came here out of . . . curiosity?”
“No,” Autumn replied firmly, “not curiosity. My purpose is not self-indulgent.” She lifted her hand and displayed the turquoise ring. “She told me that this was her treasure.” Robert lifted her hand in his and his eyes danced. “She gave it to me as payment for telling her future. I could not do it at the time, but now I believe I could—if you will cooperate, Robert.” He let go of her hand and glanced away uncertainly. Autumn held up the snow globe. “When she looks at this, and she looks at it often, and when she touches it, and that she does, too, a tenderness arises from her soul that reveals more than any mere words. She longs for you, Robert, with longings that only love can produce. I am not ‘curious,’ I am determined that whatever dream Vanessa imagines she conceals be made real.” Robert turned and paced as much as the tiny room beneath the light would allow.
“’Tis impossible, Autumn,” he said finally.
“If you think it so impossible, why have you been following me? Why have you made yourself visible at the Byron estate?” Autumn moved to him, facing him directly. “You do not believe in impossibility, Robert. No man who is familiar with this starry world believes in that. You condole with the planets; you are intimate with the stars; you are cordial with the sea. You are not confined by earthly restraints. You believe, Robert, in every possibility the universe has to offer.” She paused, catching her breath, then resumed. “And what of Vanessa? She wants to believe. She longs for that. But she is trapped in a smothering world of systems and fashions and propriety. Is that what you want for her?”
“It is not what I want, Autumn. It is not what I want at all.” He paused and lowered himself into his chair. He picked up the small parcel of letters and held it reverently as he spoke. “I shall tell you what I want, and I shall tell you why I cannot have it.” He set the letters on his knee, lit his pipe, and poured himself a brandy. “It was nearly four years ago that I met her. She was beautiful, alone on the promenade, as you were all those weeks ago. For one breath of a moment, in truth, I thought you were she that day. She lifted her tiny parasol against the dampness of the sea, but I knew,” he said, smiling in recollection, “that she was exhilarated by it. She came every day. And one day I approached her.
“You speak, Autumn, of systems and fashions and propriety, and you know whereof you speak. It is not the fashion for a proper lady, the widow of
a wealthy doctor, to interest herself in a someone like me. And, to be frank, she resisted at first. Oh, she lowered her pretty lashes and gave me her shoulder,” he remembered laughing, “but one day a tiny smile curved her lips, and I knew. And then another day, she spoke to me. Oh, that was a day, little one. She said—and I remember the words perfectly—she said, ‘You are most persistent, Captain Moffat.’ You see I had told her of my days at sea, of the years I had spent as captain of the Thomas, a whaler out of Gloucester, and of my desire to lead a quiet, contemplative life, and of my commission as keeper of the Cape May light. I don’t honestly recall everything I told her in those hours we spent by the sea, but I must have said a great deal, while she, in silence, listened. For, once we began speaking together, she seemed to know a great deal about me. And though she had revealed nothing of herself, I knew everything that was important for me to know about her. Eventually, though, we exchanged the stories of our lives, sitting on benches on the promenade, watching the sea. It was a glorious time, little one. A glorious time.” His voice trailed off, and he took a sip of his brandy. “We began to keep company, but it was a furtive company. We both knew, I think, even then, at the beginning of those dream-clouded days, that what was growing between us could never be. Rumors began. Embarrassed silences greeted Vanessa when she called on former friends or invited them to her home. She told me it didn’t matter. She said her life as she had known it had been false, a ready-made existence she had never really wished for or wanted. All she cared about was me, she said. And then, one day, her son returned from college. She made the mistake of telling him of me.” Robert smiled sadly. “He could only assume, given the details, that she was losing—or had lost—her senses. He did what any son would do under those circumstances. He took his mother under his protection.”
Autumn’s brows furrowed. “And Vanessa allowed this?” she asked.
Robert nodded. “There was little she could do,” he replied. “Vanessa loves her son deeply. She respects his authority as a man, as the head of her household, and as her protector.”
“And what exactly,” asked Autumn flatly, “was he protecting her from?”
“From me,” answered Robert. “From herself, I suppose. Belief systems die hard, little one. Both Vanessa and I understood that in the eyes of the world our love was, well, scandalous. Vanessa is a very rich woman and I am, in her son’s eyes at any rate, a ne’er-do-well, a nobody. My motives could have been nefarious. And Vanessa’s unspeakable.”
“But they were not,” stated Autumn. “One would think Cain would have taken the time to discover that.”
Robert Moffat smiled. “When scandal threatens, little one, people—especially sons—do not take the time to examine what seems obvious to them. For Vanessa, I suppose it was easier to admit to insanity than to a wantonness of character.”
“I wish I understood,” Autumn observed, “why the choice must be made between insanity and wantonness. Are they the only explanations for Vanessa’s relationship with you?”
Robert laughed fully, deeply, the rich sound reverberating in the tiny room. “It would seem so, would it not?” he said. He sobered at last and said gravely and with no tinge of bitterness, “That is the way of the world, and I must accept it.”
“Why?” said Autumn.
“Because,” answered Robert quietly, “it is the way of the world, the way people look at things, little one. We cannot change that. We can wish things were different, even dream that they are, but our wishes and our dreams change nothing. We are better off not wishing and not dreaming.”
“I disagree,” stated Autumn solemnly. “We must never stop dreaming, Robert, no matter what happens to us. We are not animals; we do not live by instinct alone. Our dreams are made of hope, and we human beings live on hope. Hope is what made you watch me on the promenade, what made you follow me home that day; it is what made you approach me in the garden with this little snow globe.” She held it up. “Hope,” she said, “is sometimes all we have, Robert. We must not lose it, for it comes from the soul. Our minds tell us that certain things are true, but hope is what tells us that they can change.”
“I have all but lost hope,” said Robert. He looked up to find Autumn’s eyes filled with tears.
“Don’t say that,” she implored him in a whisper. “Please don’t ever say that.” Robert stood immediately and went to her. She looked up into his sea-glass gaze and clutched the rough wool of his shirt. “My own father lost hope, Robert. And when he lost that, he lost the will to live. What he did not realize was that those of us who loved him could have helped restore his hope. I can help you. Vanessa can help you—and herself. She loves you deeply, Robert, and she is strong now; she is stronger than she has ever been.”
“Autumn,” said Robert earnestly, “there are things you don’t understand . . . about Cain . . . about everything.”
“I understand only one thing,” Autumn said, her passion rising, “you and Vanessa must be together. A public scandal may ensue, but the real scandal of one’s life is to deny one’s truest feelings. Promise me, Robert, that you will cherish your dreams and that you will not lose hope.” Robert bowed his head. “Oh, please promise me that,” she urged.
“I will,” Robert said finally. “But I do not see how . . .”
“You must trust me.” Autumn swiped impatiently at her tears. “I promise you,” she said, managing a small smile, “that Vanessa will very soon realize that she must choose you over insanity.” Robert smiled, too.
It was very late and very dark as Autumn made her journey back to Byron Hall. Clouds had rolled in to shroud the starlight in a gauzy mist. Robert had accompanied her to the private road that led up to the estate. She lifted herself onto the tips of her toes to kiss his weathered cheek when they parted. She drew her heavy cloak more tightly around her as she made the climb up the drive. Moving past the house, Autumn could not bring herself to go inside just yet. She was too filled with the exhilaration of the events of the evening. She ambled down the shrub-edged path behind the house to the shore. She looked out over the rolling expanse of the water and waves, shimmering darkly. The words she’d said to Robert drifted like the lapping water onto the edges of her consciousness. She had been so bold, so certain, where Robert and Vanessa were concerned. But what of herself? What was to become of her hope?
“Hello, Autumn,” said a loved masculine voice from behind her. She turned to find Cain approaching.
“You’re back,” she said softly. Cain had been away for several days, looking to his tenant farms. “I did not hear your horse.”
“He is stabled.” He moved closer to her. “I saw you come home,” he told her. Autumn’s heart tipped and began to pump wildly. He had seen! He knew! “You have a beau?” he asked, his voice hard and questing.
“A . . . beau?” Autumn could not imagine Cain’s implication.
“I saw him walking with you down on the road.” And suddenly, Autumn’s mind cleared.
“Oh!” she said, the word a breath of relief. “Oh, no, Cain. How could you think such a thing? He is not my beau.”
“Who is he, then?”
“No one,” Autumn said hastily, her mind whirling with possible, plausible explanations. “He is . . . no one. Just someone with whom I was walking.”
Cain shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jodhpurs. “You kissed him,” he said quietly. Autumn’s breath caught.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I did. I did kiss him. I was . . . thanking him.” Cain’s black gaze captured the starlight.
“Thanking him,” he said evenly. “For what?”
“For walking with me.” Beneath her cloak she clutched the little snow globe in a perspiring palm. Autumn, for all her facility with words, had never learned to lie. But she knew that right now she could not tell Cain the truth. “The truth is,” she stammered softly, “he was the man who brought back Castillo.”
Cain’s brows formed a dark V over his eyes. “What do you mean?” he asked sharply.<
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“Castillo got out . . . some nights ago.”
“How?”
“He . . . the wind. The wind must have blown open the gate to his stall.” Autumn was thinking rapidly, her words coming in breathless gasps. She could not tell Cain that Antoinette’s betrayal had led to a slackening of the stableman’s attention, that because of her, Castillo’s stall had been left neglected. The lie, piled upon another lie nearly stopped her heart. Still, she persisted. She knew her story must persuade. “That man, you see, was from another farm—one on the west shore—a stableman. And he brought Castillo back, Cain. He brought him back. And I never thanked him properly. And tonight, I went to thank him.” She left off abruptly and left Cain staring at her in bewilderment and disbelief.