‘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.
‘We’re fine, thank you,’ Henley said, giving the cups back to the shepherd. ‘If you don’t mind, I think we’ll retire to bed now.’
The shepherd pointed up and I saw there was a loft above us.
‘Thank you,’ Henley said again. He took me by the hand and began climbing up the ladder. ‘Careful with your skirts.’
Henley pulled me up the last few rungs, and I saw that the loft contained little more than a mattress of straw and a window in the far corner.
Henley took off his jacket and put it at the foot of the makeshift bed along with his hat. He acted as if everything was perfectly normal and proceeded to spread blankets he’d found somewhere over the bed.
‘You’re not going to sleep in that, surely?’ he asked when he saw me move towards the bed still fully dressed. ‘At least take off that hat – that can’t be comfortable to sleep in.’
I’d completely forgotten I was wearing a hat. I took it off and put it with Henley’s things. Not wanting to wrinkle my dress, I took that off, too, and ended up going to bed in my petticoats. When I took off my dress, Henley drew back in shock. I informed him I intended to be comfortable and not get strangled in my corset. He offered to sleep on the floor, but I bluntly told him it was more important for both of us to get a good night’s sleep, than it was to preserve his old-fashioned sense of propriety.
I was very aware of where my body ended and his began, but nothing felt out of place as I listened to Henley’s breathing even out as he lay beside me. The warmth of his body against my side appeared to dissolve all my anxiety and fears about my impossible situation. I felt oddly complete – everything I’d wanted was fulfilled. The only thing that mattered was him; everything else vanished into the blackness of the night.
Chapter 13
The whistling of a kettle woke me, though my eyes remained tightly closed, determined to stay asleep. I prised them open to see sun already rising, reaching out to us through the window, and I rose as well.
I looked down at Henley’s sleeping form, moulded around where I’d slept, and wondered if we’d shared the same dream. But try as I might, I couldn’t recall exactly what my dream had been about. All I remembered was that it had been beautiful, almost glorious; something a person would suspend reality for, if they could.
The kettle continued whistling and I hurried as fast as I could down the ladder to stop it boiling over. The kettle hadn’t woken Henley when it started whistling, and I was determined it wouldn’t wake him up now. Sadly, my plan was short-lived.
There was a knock at the door, and before I could answer it, Henley had sprung out of bed, rushed down the ladder and run to answer it himself.
‘I can get the door,’ I said, and Henley looked bemused.
‘In that?’ He gave me a once-over with his glance, and I remembered I hadn’t put my dress back on yet. ‘It’s a good thing people think we’re cousins.’
I felt my cheeks and the rest of my face growing hot as I climbed back up the ladder. As I dressed, I could hear Henley and another person’s voice below. I couldn’t quite make out their words and they soon fell silent. They were still sitting in silence when I went down again.
The shepherd sat wide-legged on a shaky bench with his arms around a young boy. The boy had a small knife in his hands and was carving a piece of wood. The shepherd’s much larger hands enveloped the boy’s, guiding his motions.
I understood the silence when I noticed Henley seated at the other side of the room, watching the pair intently. I saw something in his eyes, but it wasn’t the envy I’d expected. What I saw was much closer to a deep and sinking sadness.
Seeing me, Henley stood up immediately. The boy followed suit.
‘I left my watch on the counter,’ Henley said. ‘I don’t have anything else of much value with me, but that should be enough for the horse.’
‘That’s most generous of you, sir.’ Hearing the boy’s voice, I realized he couldn’t have been much more than twelve years old. ‘My father and I can use the money to buy more sheep.’
The boy looked willowy – tall for his age – but his face still had the roundness of a child’s and his freckles made him all the more lovable.
‘Very well, then.’ Henley nodded. ‘Is that the horse outside?’
‘Yes, sir, that’s old Nancy-Ann. We’ve had her for as long as I can remember.’ I heard a tinge of sadness in the boy’s voice.
‘We’ll take good care of her,’ I assured the boy, and he smiled gratefully.
After Henley checked the bit in the horse’s mouth and the buckles in the bridle, he hoisted me up onto the horse’s back and soon followed, sitting behind me and taking the reins around me. My skirts made sitting astride uncomfortable but I wasn’t prepared to risk riding side-saddle.
As we rode away from the little cottage on its picturesque hill, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the fairy tales I’d read when I was little. Was I the princess being whisked away by her prince to something better? Could I escape immortality? Or was it already a part of me I could never leave behind?
‘Look behind us,’ Henley said, and I was startled by how close his voice was to my ear. ‘Doesn’t the house look like a painting?’
‘It does,’ I murmured. ‘I still feel bad for the shepherd and his son, though. They have nothing, and … look at us.’
‘They have something I never had.’ Henley’s voice didn’t sound bitter at all, nor did it reveal any hint of resentment. ‘There wasn’t any sense of obligation in their relationship,’ he noted. ‘It was all love; pure, confusing, and without need of a reason.’
‘But what kind of obligation could the son have to his father? It’s not as if he’s the heir to his father’s fortune and business.’
‘He might have a much simpler obligation; one that most people, wrongly or rightly, feel towards the disabled.’
‘The disabled?’
‘Or the deaf, to be more precise.’
‘I–I don’t understand.’
‘How can you not understand? We don’t live in so different a world from them.’
‘It’s just that … the shepherd … he’s deaf?’
‘You didn’t notice?’ Henley asked. He sounded surprised. ‘Why else did you think he wasn’t comfortable talking?’
‘But you spoke to him.’
‘He reads lips well – he has to in order to communicate with his son.’
I wondered how many other things would have passed me by if Henley hadn’t been there to tell me the obvious.
We rode on in silence for a while, then Henley pointed off to one side and said, ‘Look – you can see the house in the distance. We’ll be there soon.’
Though Henley simply called it ‘the house’, it was anything but. Henley’s country ‘house’ was a grand confusion of buildings set amid a rolling green estate. It was gleaming white, and getting closer and closer.
‘Are you ready?’ Henley suddenly had a boyish grin on his face.
Before I could ask what I was supposed to be preparing for, Henley spurred the horse into a full gallop. We flew down the hill, and for a few seconds I couldn’t feel the horse below me, as if we were afloat on the air itself. Then it was swiped from beneath us and we fell, crashing to the ground. The impact jolted me awake, throwing me into another world; one with country estates and horse riding on acres of green.
&nbs
p; The house gleamed in the mid-morning sun, a startling white against the verdant landscape surrounding it. The pure, timeless elegance of the grand building took my breath away. I turned to Henley and found the same awestruck expression on his face that must have been on mine. His eyes held an unmistakable love for the house, and I was surprised that I understood what kind of love it was.
‘Welcome to Maurrington, sir,’ a severe-looking man said as he and the other servants filed out to line up in front of the house.
I counted eight servants in total but there might well have been more still working away behind the scenes. The maids were dressed in starchy aprons and the valets looked equally pristine in their black coats.
‘This is Wilchester, head valet.’ Henley introduced him. Wilchester nodded towards me.
‘I trust you had a good journey,’ Wilchester said, and I noticed he had an English accent. ‘I’m sorry the kitchen couldn’t ready some food for your arrival – the staff in the city failed to send word of when you would be joining us.’
‘Don’t be too hard on Jim – he didn’t know our automobile was going to break down.’
‘Forgive me. I had no knowledge of your troubles. I was merely stating that he should have sent word you were on your way. When I was head of staff to the late Duke of Northumberland—’
‘That will be all, Wilchester,’ Henley said, dismissing him. I’d never heard him talk to a servant in such a distant and cold tone. It was as if he kept a barrier between himself and Wilchester. When Henley tired of him, he shut down and pulled the wall up higher.
Wilchester appeared accustomed to Henley’s tone, however, and led the way past imposing double doors into the grand house. The foyer was an open space with a stately staircase that branched in two as it ascended. The room was filled with antiques and lavish furniture as well as paintings. The walls rose up and up to dizzying heights, and when I tilted my head back, my eyes were drawn to the spectacular gilded flowers adorning the golden ceiling.
‘Miss Beauford, Hannah will escort you to your room.’ Wilchester motioned to a slight girl standing near the stairs.
‘Thank you, Wilchester. You may leave us,’ Henley said, and all the servants except for Hannah disbanded and returned to their posts and duties.
The Seventh Miss Hatfield Page 12