Elisabeth Kidd (7 page)

She looked appealingly up into his blue eyes, and he could not resist her look. Drawing her a little closer, he bent to kiss her mouth gently, as if he were a little afraid of the result. But she felt no such hesitation; her hands crept up to the back of his neck to hold his head near hers. She felt the silk of his hair against her fingers, the faint, sweet scent of cider on his breath. He sought her kiss this time, and this time he responded fully to her eager, yet hesitant touch. Lost in the delightful sensations his warm mouth evoked from every part of her, she heard a voice deep inside her saying,
Yes, this real. He does love me
.

It was nearly dark by the time they returned to the narrowboat, walking slowly, their arms around each other’s waists.

“Let’s have another picnic tomorrow,” she said dreamily as she stepped onto the deck.

He smiled. “I can think of no more delightful prospect. Unfortunately, I promised Rose I would go with her to Market Harborough tomorrow. She wants to visit her grandchildren, and I need to buy supplies for the lock.”

She clapped her hands delightedly. “Oh, but that sounds almost as enjoyable as a picnic! May I come? How long will the trip take? It must be miles.”

“It is—nearly twenty. We may have to overnight in the town. Should you mind that?”

Her arms crept around his waist and she smiled up at him. “We shall be together the whole day. How can I not look forward to that?”

A look of sadness washed over his face for an instant, and was gone before she could be sure she had seen it, but all he said was, “I hope you will not be disappointed.”

Chapter 5

There had been rain during the night, so that when Sabina came up on deck early in the morning, the mist had not yet lifted from the water and the sun shone only fitfully through the trees. Nonetheless, she thought the canal at this hour a beautiful sight and wondered at herself for never noticing it before. Of course, she did not normally leave her bed this early, but the grounds of Bromleigh Hall must also provide such vistas and the sun must shine as lovingly on them as it did here.

She found Rose and Bill nearly ready to start and George waiting patiently at the rudder. She looked around for James. A horse’s whinny drew her attention to the bank, and there she saw him harnessing the two horses that would draw the boat for the first stage. She waved, and he waved back.

“James will start us off,” Rose told her, “and then Bill will take over walking the horses in an hour so you and James can have breakfast together. Would you like something now? I can make a bit of toast and butter.”

“Oh, no, you are much too busy, I’m sure,” Sabina said. “Anyway, you showed me how to make coffee. I’ll do that for you, if you dare trust me.”

Rose smiled sweetly at her. “Thank you, deary. That would be a help.”

Everyone was occupied for the next few minutes and there was no time for further conversation. When Sabina had made the coffee, she brought the pot on deck and gave everyone a mugful. She drank hers while leaning on the railing watching James walking steadily alongside the horses on the towpath. Occasionally, he glanced at her and smiled, and she felt warmed just knowing he was aware of her presence.

It was pleasant, she realized, to have someone she could count on to care for her above all others. She had always been able to approach one of her brothers or their wives or even their friends if she needed anything, or only wanted to talk. But none of them was her special companion. Fletcher and Alicia had each other, as did Henry and Dulcie. Randolph was alone by choice, and his pursuits and friends took him away from home more often than not. Sabina no longer knew what his life was like outside Bromleigh Hall, but she knew that she was no part of it.

Henry and Lewis were connected by that special bond that twins always seemed to share. She had sometimes wished she were a twin too, so that someone would know her thoughts as well as she did and would listen to her sorrows as if she shared them. She thought love must be like that, for she had felt it with Peter Ogilvey. But she was beginning to suspect that what she had thought was love for Peter may only have been friendship, a friendship that might not have survived marriage. Perhaps it was just as well…

No, she could not think that. They had shared more than most married couples did, and there was no reason to suppose that they would not have had a good marriage. She must remember him like that and not wonder what might have been.

She sighed and finished her now-cold coffee. She must not dwell on the past today. It was too perfect a day—one which would live in her memory forever, because James was the best part of it.

An hour later, when they had reached a convenient landing where Bill could change places with James, he came back on board and pulled up a chair beside her and Rose.

After kissing both ladies on the cheek, he sat down and helped himself to a plateful of breakfast. As they ate, he told Sabina about the canal, with some assistance from Rose.

“A great deal of the canal from here to Market Harborough is new since I went into the army,” he explained. “Indeed, it was not possible to travel to Market Harborough at that time by canal, was it, Rose?”

“Not entirely. The lock wasn’t open yet at Foxton, nor was the Husbands Bosworth tunnel.”

Sabina said she looked forward to seeing these wonders of modern engineering, but just now it was hard to believe that the entire distance might not be like the part of the canal they were sailing on. It meandered picturesquely through open fields with wooded hills to the east and occasional open views over the Avon valley to the west. James pointed out church steeples, a windmill, and other landmarks, and Rose never failed to be able to name each of them.

“I should know them,” Rose said. “I’ve lived on this canal or the rivers hereabouts all my life. In fact, I was born on a boat—not a narrowboat, though, a river trawler it was. I had eight brothers and sisters. We learned our letters from pub signs and the broadsheets pinned up at markets. We were what some might call poor, but it was a good life.”

“Where did you meet George?” Sabina asked, fascinated.

Rose laughed. “I saw him on the deck of another boat, going the other way on the Trent, near Nottingham. He saw me too, and jumped off at the next landing. He borrowed a horse and came back to ask my name. We were married a month later.”

Sabina pressed Rose for more stories which, blushing, Rose claimed she could not remember. But Sabina’s interest flattered her, and she gradually revealed the details of her long and seemingly uneventful life, during which she had never left England, or ever seen the sea or Wales or Scotland or even London. Nevertheless, Sabina envied her contentment with everything she had seen and done and wished again that she could be so easily satisfied—or rather, so contented with what she had rather than forever wishing for a past that was gone forever or a future that might not be what she thought she wanted.

Presently they came to the cutting that announced the tunnel, more than a half mile long, which had been dug through the low hills west of the village of Husbands Bosworth. The towpath continued into the tunnel, and Sabina saw that Bill was now carrying a lighted lantern so that he and the horses could keep their footing on the damp ground.

Inside the red brick tunnel, sounds seemed magnified, and even the slight lapping of water against the boat and the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves sounded loudly in the dim light. James put his arm around Sabina’s shoulders as they stood watching the mouth of the tunnel recede into darkness, then leaned over to kiss her lightly.

“I wish we could be together like this always,” he whispered.

Some note of sadness in his voice told her that he did not believe it was possible. She knew he was very likely right, but she was not ready to let the fantasy go just yet. She turned to look ahead.

“You can see the end of the tunnel coming,” she pointed out. Let’s look ahead, James, not back. I shall never forget the past days, but we must hope fortune will continue to smile on us.”

He hugged her and said, “I shall always hope so.”

When they emerged into the wooded cutting at the other end, James changed places again with Bill, and Sabina insisted on walking alongside him for a while. They held hands as they strode alongside the horses.

“It’s been a long time since I saw any of this,” James remarked as they passed open fields with no sign of human habitation for miles around. A kingfisher flew up from the reeds along the bank, and they watched its green-and-blue flash across the sky until it dove again for its dinner. It was as peaceful a scene as Sabina had ever seen, at least from this perspective, and she found it confirmed both her desire to live James’s life with him and her certainty that this could never come to pass. She sighed.

“Tired, Miranda?”

“No, just—sad. I don’t think—I don’t remember seeing any place so lovely.”

He smiled. “I think I like views with a little more human life in them—a church spire, or a bridge perhaps.”

“I think your wish is about to be granted,” Sabina said, pointing ahead. They had just come around a wide bend in the canal, and ahead was indeed a bridge. A young man was leaning over it, watching a barge loaded with wool pass underneath. The barge passed the Rose Franklin with several yards to spare, and James said that they would change horses not far ahead.

This was accomplished in a canal-side version of a coaching inn. James went inside to order ale for everyone, which he presently carried out to the deck overlooking the canal, where Sabina and the Theaks had drawn up chairs.

“For me?” Sabina said when James placed a small tankard in front of her.

“Don’t tell me you have never drunk ale—and this is the best home-brewed in these parts.”

Sabina looked at her friends and found them all watching her solemnly, but with various degrees of mischief in their eyes.

“Oh, you think I won’t, do you?”

She sipped the ale, which was dark and foaming and was surprised to find it tasty—not at all like the watery ales she had stolen a taste of from the kitchen when she was a child. Perhaps it was a grown-up taste, after all. She took a long swallow.

“
Brava
, Miranda!”

They lingered a little longer, and George displayed his mastery of river wildlife lore when several swans swam toward them to catch the crumbs of bread Rose and Sabina threw at them.

“Them’s young-uns,” George said. “You can tell by the brown bits on their feathers. They’ll be white next year. This lot haven’t mated yet.”

“Is it true that swans mate for life?” Sabina asked, glancing at James, who pretended not to see her but was smiling just the same.

“Oh, aye, most ways. Sometimes you get a rouge amongst them—a rake, you might say—that’ll steal another swan’s mate or destroy his nest.

“Much like some folks,” Bill observed gloomily.

When they reboarded the boat, James moved their chairs toward the bow so that they could watch oncoming traffic. He remarked that parts of the canal had been widened since he saw them last.

“But Bill tells me there has been a great deal more traffic since the war, and it does not seem to have abated with the peace—a good thing for those whose livelihood depends on the canal.”

“Like you and the Theaks.”

“Yes, and not just lockkeepers and boatmen. The canal companies employ clerks and laborers. We’ll see the carpenter’s shop and blacksmith’s forge at the Foxton staircase.”

“How far is it to Foxton?”

“About five miles more, I believe. Then we leave the main canal and take the Market Harborough arm.”

They had a nuncheon on the boat before this landmark was achieved. As they neared the locks, George blew on a horn, much like a coach horn, to signal their arrival. Ahead Sabina saw a hill sloping downwards from them, studded with a “staircase” consisting of two sets of five interconnecting locks. She could not imagine how the narrowboat would be maneuvered down this incline, but George, having been displaced by his son at the rudder, came to stand by her and explain what was going on and point out the essential features.

“There’s two sets, see, so boats can go up and down at the same time. Traffic’s light today, so we’ll have the lock to ourselves, soon as yon barge clears the pond at the bottom. It’s seventy-five feet down.”

When their turn came to descend the staircase, both Bill and James sprang into action, James jumping onto the grassy verge of the lock and Bill taking the rudder to keep the boat steady as they entered the first lock.

“I taught the boys to steer,” George said, unruffled by the excitement. “They know that if they scrape the boat, they have to repair it.”

Sabina smiled at his calm confidence in his teachings, but Bill did indeed keep the narrowboat on an even keel within the lock as James heaved on the beam that closed the gate behind them. Then James cranked the handle that opened a part of the lock gate through which the water flowed from one level to the next.

“You’ll see better when the water goes down a bit more,” George said. “See there? Them panels at the bottom of the gates is called paddles. They let the water out.”

When they were fully inside the lock, with the wet wooden gates towering over them, Sabina felt the water level lowering under them.

“Now I know what a ‘sinking sensation’ really is,” she said, laughing but holding firmly on to the deck railing.

Then James worked the next gate and she saw it begin to open. The boat passed through to the next lock, where the water was at the same level as in the lock behind them.

“The most important thing to remember is to close everything behind you,” George told her as the water in the second lock began slowly falling under them. “Like closing gates to a field when you ride through—you don’t want anything that don’t belong there getting in or out of the field—or the lock. Leave a lock open, you can drain a whole section of canal.”

The whole operation was repeated four more times until they finally emerged into the pool at the bottom of the staircase. Bill gave the rudder back to George and climbed onto the towpath, hitched up the horses for the next stage. James, panting from exertion, reboarded the boat, doused his head with a handy pail of water, and sat down beside Rose and Sabina with a sigh.