Solsbury Hill

by Susan M. Wyler

  PART

  FOUR

  The shelves were stained, the books were arranged, and Mead had placed the furniture close to the bookshelves, so there was a lot of space in the middle of the finished library. His long desk was cleared of books and papers, but now there was a telephone.

  Eleanor dialed Gladys. She told her she was finally on her way back, and Gladys hesitated. “Miles is still in England,” she said. “He’s arranged to work at his firm’s London office, so he’s still there, waiting for you.”

  Eleanor took it in and felt confused. How much time had passed since their visit to York? How strange it would be to see him.

  She was leaving Trent Hall, and she hoped that in continuing to move, something would come clear. There were things in New York she had to get back to: her clothing line in production without her oversight, the most important time in her life as a designer. Her apartment going as dusty as her mother’s room at Trent Hall, she felt if she didn’t touch ground in New York soon, none of what she’d learned here would ever make sense to her.

  Eleanor climbed up the library ladder and sat on the top rung. From this point of view, the library was even more beautiful than it was from the ground. Sun shone through the stained-glass window and the place felt like a medieval cathedral with the colors of alizarin crimson and lapis lazuli dancing around.

  She sat on the top stair of the ladder and watched sunlight sparkle on the glass, light move across the books’ bindings. There was also the shadow cast from the branch of a tree just outside the stained-glass window, doing something interesting.

  She missed Emily.

  She was wearing the ring again.

  She smiled at the memory of her day with the ghosts of Catherine and Heathcliff. How would she tell anyone what had happened here in the Yorkshire moors, where she’d found herself and her family?

  With the courage it took to know one’s self, she’d undone the curse. Facing truths and opening doors that led down dark halls, she’d started the journey.

  Love was powerful, childhood love with its innocent hooks could be enthralling, love on the moors wild enough to kill you, but with feet on the ground and a lofty soul, there was nothing but right love to choose. There was nothing to fear.

  Mead would come eventually. He had to come eventually.

  And he did. In a matter of time, he came through the old barn door and took her in. He walked to the base of the ladder.

  “So, you’re going back,” he said. “You’ve decided.”

  “I haven’t decided anything.” She attempted a smile.

  He climbed one rung and then one more, and he recited Browning as he climbed toward her. “‘How sad and bad and mad it was—But then, how it was sweet!’”

  “‘Grow old along with me!’” he went on, from another piece. “‘The best is yet to be.’”

  She scrunched up her nose and he climbed higher to kiss her freckles, then he kissed her lips fiercely and grabbed her so tight that it hurt and she squealed of it, so he let her go.

  She sucked her upper lip where it felt like he’d bruised it and his eyes filled with words that even he, a fine Scots storyteller, couldn’t tell.

  Eleanor took a deep breath and was trembling. So she couldn’t stop it.

  It was one of those things. It was one of those moments of awe and dread and desire, inevitably.

  She’d curled her hair and it was thick and tumbled around her face.

  He stood just below where she sat on the top of the library ladder and he looked at her carefully. She knew that he was seeing a girl all dressed up and curled for a boy.

  “Miles is still in London,” she said. “I made a call to Gladys just now, on your new phone.” She tried a smile. “She told me. I didn’t know, but I’ll see him there, on my way . . .”

  Mead ran his fingers through her hair, mussed it, pulled it back into a ponytail with his hand and tugged gently.

  “Is there something I could say?” His accent was more pronounced when he was in a certain mood, and she loved this in him. “I know it’s what I didn’t say, or what I did say and shouldn’t have said.”

  “Shh . . .” She reached toward him, to put one finger to his lips, and lost her balance for a second, but he was right there in front of her and kept her from falling.

  His eyes lit up. “Do you remember when you fell from the tree in your mum and dad’s backyard?”

  She was startled.

  “Do you remember my catching you?”

  Puzzled, she smiled an unfathomable smile.

  “It was back then when Alice and I went to Manhattan, for the funeral. That day or another one, and you’d let me come play with you and some friends of yours. You were climbing a tree and you fell from a branch of it, and I happened to be there when you fell.”

  “I’ve never forgotten it,” she said. “It’s almost the only thing I’ve always remembered from that time, but I didn’t know it was you.”

  “It was like you were falling in slow motion and I just opened my arms.”

  Now the world gave her more. It never stopped giving her more. If it was Mead who’d caught her in his arms, was he her childhood love? She inhaled his peace and knew there was nothing to be afraid of.

  Mead backed down the ladder and Eleanor followed him. He held her hand and walked her to the other end of the library, to another ladder. He fixed her eyes with his. “Ready to climb again?” She climbed ahead of him and he kept his hand on her the whole time, on the back of her legs beneath her skirt to the swell of her bottom, till they were up in what once had been the hayloft, where the floor was now hardwood, finished and stained, and there was a woven rug and pillows on the floor, like a home in Morocco.

  He lit a fragrant candle and she thought they could just live there, where long ago an owl had made his family. They wouldn’t have to come out even to eat, but could live off the light and air in the loft; and she wouldn’t have to go anywhere, she’d be home.

  There was a zipper on the back of her skirt. He was harder than she’d ever felt him. In all ways harder. Angry and insistent and suffocating so she kept gasping for breath and her mind was blown, through the top of her skull, he pressed so deep inside her, lifted her so she was upside down, inside out, and he touched something that hit her physical heart.

  She was crying and all she could think was she’d fallen from a tree.

  Neither could he breathe. They were wet with sweat and panting like angels in the loft till he started laughing. And she didn’t know why he laughed, but she started laughing as well, and she thought, it was you who caught me.

  Mead watched as Eleanor dressed again, to go. Back in her pleated miniskirt, she slipped into one black boot and then the other. Her opaque-black-stockinged legs. He picked up her satchel and carried it outside. She walked slowly, behind him. There were leaves all over the gravel ground and there was frost on some of the branches. Mead put her small satchel on the seat inside. “This all you’re taking?”

  She looked up into his face, bit her lower lip, and gave a few nods. Her eyes fell shut and she took a deep breath, took in the fragrance of him, then the leaves in midair, the horses not far away in the stables, so she’d never forget. It seemed a lifetime ago she had just arrived. She felt her jaw chattering. He stepped close to block the wuthering wind.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I know you’re the lady of the manor here and you always will be.” He looked about the courtyard. “I wish I had some flowers to weave into your hair.” He took her face and kissed her long again.

  She looked up at the tree whose branches had scratched at her window and saw that now it stood without bending an inch to the wind.

  “You know there’s much more I will say to you one day.”

  She nodded mutely.

  His hand on her back, he urged her into the taxi and closed the door befo
re she had a chance to say good-bye. The taxi drove away from him and she sank back in the seat as Trent Hall disappeared behind the hill. The taxi passed the wisp of a village called Flatfields.

  When she saw the North Sea, she thought of the selkies. Seals that swam up close to the shore and slipped out of their skin to be human, on land, and then slipped back in again. But if a man stole and hid the skin, he’d keep the selkie forever as his human wife. The world was full of puzzling stories.

  The woman beside Eleanor on the train had nicely shaped calves and wore a pair of sensible shoes. She offered a lap blanket and Eleanor received it happily, pulled it up to her shoulders, and tucked it under herself, wrapped it tight around her legs so no cool air might slip in.

  The woman wore a felt hat, her hands were delicate, and she wore a beautiful emerald ring on her wedding finger. Her hands moved quickly as she knitted blue and green yarn with nubs and ribbons into the shape of a carpetbag. She had one like it sitting beside her on the seat, out of which she pulled a package of thin sandwiches made with pumpernickel bread, cream cheese, and chopped cucumbers. She offered a sandwich to Eleanor, who took it gladly. The train cut through the familiar green of the moors.

  When the train slid smoothly into the station, Eleanor dried out the tin cup the woman had given her with tea and milk. She handed back the blanket she’d loaned her for the ride and thanked her. The woman finally slipped off her hat to straighten her hair. She looked into her reflection in the train window and smiled a big smile with an excited wave of her hand as they passed a handsome man and two blond children.

  Without a hat, the woman looked quite young. The man and the children ran along beside the train smiling at her and waving until the train stopped. She made a bun of her pretty hair, tucked in some stray hairs, then placed her hat carefully on her head and pinned it there.

  Miles was at the end of the platform when Eleanor stepped off. He came toward her, took her bag, and put it down so he could take her into his arms. He rubbed her back with vigorous encouragement and she buried her face in his chest. When he pulled away to get a look at her, she clung tight for an extra moment, then tossed her head, tossed her curled hair, let him see how she was doing. She unbuttoned her overcoat and offered to take back the bag. Side by side they walked through the station and then to the curb, where Miles hailed a taxi to the Stafford Hotel.

  On the vinyl seat, her skirt didn’t slide easily, so Miles went around the other side and met her in the middle.

  “You must have things to tell me,” he said. “I know you do.” His arm went to its natural place around her shoulders. “You can start now or save it for later.” His hand moved briskly up and down her right arm, as if he were trying to warm her. “They didn’t feed you,” he said, “you’re thin.”

  At home, this would be an unequivocal compliment. “I’m strong from walking.” She watched the streets of London go by.

  “I can’t believe you’ve been here all this time,” she said. “I had a meeting at Harrods and you must have been here. What have you been doing?”

  “I sent you loads of texts.”

  She remembered seeing them, but had only just read them on the train.

  “I’ve been learning about the market here. We’ve got offices in London, so it hasn’t made much difference. I could easily live here.” He craned his head forward to read her face as he spoke, then sank back against the seat again.

  “Is Harrods making an offer?” he asked.

  “Looks like it, yeah, I think they are,” she said.

  “That’s great.”

  Conversation between them had never before been strained.

  On Regent Street, she noticed top-end shops and elaborate Christmas decorations. Piccadilly Circus with throngs of people and unlit neon lights. She caught a glimpse of the Mall and Buckingham Palace. He kissed the back of her head, and she sensed him smelling her hair.

  The hotel was like an elegant home. Velvet upholstery and floral wallpaper, lovely rooms and halls. Their suite’s sitting room was blue and tan velvet with a bay window in front of which a table was set with flutes for champagne and a bucket of ice with a bottle of Cristal.

  Eleanor slid out of her overcoat and peeled off her sweater.

  Miles stepped back another step and walked backward toward the table, where without looking he reached for the bottle of champagne. He unwrapped the foil and deftly jimmied the cork free. He poured two flutes and lifted one toward her, without a word.

  She walked toward him and happily took the glass and a sip.

  Miles was saying that it worried him, when he thought about it, that she hadn’t made a scene when she saw him, at least when she got alone with him. “You never got mad at me,” he said. “I thought maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. Not a good sign, right?”

  “Please.” Enough of signs, she thought. She touched her temples.

  He undid his tie and sat next to her.

  She rubbed her temples like she was rubbing in a stain. “You can’t imagine how much has changed,” she said.

  “I don’t want things to change.” He knelt on the floor in front of her where she sat on the edge of the bed. “I want to tell you about why it happened.”

  “I don’t want you to.” She didn’t want to talk about the girl, who she was, and what had moved him to want her in his bed on that evening, or on many evenings about which she’d never heard.

  She rubbed her temples again.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself,” Miles said and he pulled her fingers away from the sides of her head.

  Miles knew much about her life, but he didn’t know that her father was not her father, that the man who’d come to her basketball games was not her blood. He didn’t know that her true father had lived in a small living room on the edge of the North Sea and had loved her mother since she was a little thing. He didn’t know that her father had eyes like hers—eyes that changed so in some pictures they looked shuttered and secretive and other times appeared as generous and open as when the sun reaches down with its fingers through the clouds.

  “Of course.” She looked into his scared eyes. “You should explain to me if you need to, if you want to, you should.”

  “Maybe you’re right, maybe we should just go home and talk about it once this is behind us more.”

  “No, you should go on,” she said.

  So he explained the way it had felt to love her since childhood. The blind faith he’d had in himself through her love and what it had felt like, after so many years of seeing himself through her, to feel other women’s eyes. To feel the power of his own attraction. To feel himself desired, how little it took to seduce a girl who liked him—once he started with a most natural smile.

  It sounded like there was more than one girl, but Eleanor didn’t ask. She let him continue.

  He explained that he’d never wanted anything but a life with her, and the closer it came to being true, the more he felt he owed it to them, to himself and so maybe to their life together, to be a little wild before embarking on forever, because he imagined them together forever—from the beginning to the end.

  Eleanor’s bones felt less cold. She sipped the champagne. She looked at Miles’ face and she liked him. She always had, she had loved him. He was telling the truth, and she liked him for that, that part of him that felt he needed to tell her the truth and get it all on the table.

  She knew he had a life planned for them, one that started on their school playground and would end on the playgrounds of their grandchildren. It included a diamond ring and a white dress, a house in the country for the weekends, with swings, and children on the swings one day, and Eleanor opening her own store in the city and then one in the country.

  “Let’s go out and find the river,” she said.

  He stood and put on his jacket.

  “You look good,” she said. He looked h
andsome in his navy jacket and gray slacks.

  The cab dropped them near Westminster and they walked on the Victoria Embankment.

  “It’s magnificent, isn’t it?”

  “It really is,” she said.

  “You know, I’ve been talking a mile a minute since I got you back, up close again.”

  “I know.”

  “I guess I don’t really want to find out what happened over here.” He shrugged. “I’ve got a bad feeling about it.”

  She sighed the sigh of resolve. “A lot happened.”

  She told him about some of the things she’d found. The clues that seemed to have been left for her like crumbs to collect on her way out of the woods. She told him about the letters she’d found by accident in the cupboard of one of the rooms, how she’d gone into Scarborough looking for an old family member, but she was changing things and leaving things out.

  The Victoria Embankment was beautifully shaded with trees, though they’d dropped their leaves, and the sky seemed very high over the river.

  She looked at him and laughed at herself.

  “What?” He didn’t understand what was funny. “Really, what?”

  “Nothing. It’s all so awful.” She was smiling.

  He seemed lost and she was sad to see him lost and to feel so far away from him. His hand held hers. Their fingers fit perfectly together in a fist. She remembered noticing it and thinking they were meant for each other when he first took her hand like this.

  “You’re my best friend,” she said. “Really, my best friend.”

  His sad face brightened.

  “It’s not the girl, or even the girls, if there were many of them.” She noticed he didn’t object and her heart did one small flip before she continued. “It’s something else. Maybe something that’s been happening. Maybe you noticed something before I did, or maybe you sensed there was something more in store for each of us.”