Never Look Back (45 page)

‘You’ve soaked my hair,’ Giles said a little later, touching it in surprise.

She moved away and found the whole bodice of her dress was wet too. ‘You’ve soaked my dress,’ she retorted.

Her first feeling was of embarrassment that she’d let herself go, but this was quickly replaced with unease, for to hold a man the way she’d held Giles wasn’t appropriate behaviour, not even under the tragic circumstances.

‘I think you chased the Devil out anyway, or maybe drowned him,’ he said with a half-smile.

All at once Matilda didn’t care about how that smile had been teased out of him, because it was the first since Lily’s death. She wiped her eyes on her apron and smiled back.

‘Well, that’s a blessing,’ she said. ‘We’ve got enough to cope with, without Old Nick around.’

As she made coffee for them both she told him in no uncertain
manner that he must return to his ministry work for people were depending on him.

‘I must take Lily’s place at the school too,’ she added. ‘And we’ve both got to make this house a home again and a good place for Tabitha to grow up in.’

He nodded in agreement, his eyes still bleak but the anger gone. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘But then of course you are about most things. I don’t really wish someone else died instead of Lily, I guess I just feel cheated that she and I couldn’t grow old together with our children.’

Matilda sighed with relief. ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Now, about that sermon you have to write…’

In the following weeks it became clear that Giles was slowly recovering. His tormented crying at night became less frequent and eventually stopped and he went back to his ministry work. He grew calm again, sometimes eating well, now and then even cheerful, but it was like sharing the house with a different man. He was indecisive, often brooding silently, and he searched Matilda out constantly, almost like a child. He wanted her opinion on everything, who he should visit, what he should say, his sermons, even if he needed to take a coat with him in case it rained, and she knew it wasn’t right to encourage this dependence on her.

Yet however hard she tried to distance herself from him, she found she couldn’t. She did help him organize his time, read through his sermons and advised him on how to deal with parishioners’ problems. She made his favourite meals to make him eat more, and often touched him with too much familiarity. If he came in from the rain, she went to take his hat and coat, just as she always had, yet her hands seemed to linger on his shoulders. When he came down the garden to look at the growing vegetables, it was somehow impossible not to touch his arm or hand. If they sat side by side on the couch, she was too aware of his body next to hers.

But it wasn’t all one-sided. He tweaked her cheek when he left the house; when he was sitting with Tabitha on his lap listening to her read, he always patted the seat beside them, wanting Matilda to join them. He often turned the handle of the mangle for her, and helped her bring in the washing.

She told herself it was only because they were both so hungry for the affection Lily had given them, and in time they’d both adjust, but sometimes it felt as if there was something more in the air than just mutual grief and kindliness between them.

In September, five months after Lily’s death, Tabitha was asked to sleep over at the Bradstocks, friends with several small children who had a small farm just a few miles out of town. Giles arranged to drop her off there in the morning while he was out on his visits, and he would collect her the following day.

That day was terribly hot and sultry, by midday much too hot to work any longer in the garden. Matilda picked some flowers, made them into a little posy surrounded by leaves, just as she used to as a girl, then went over to the churchyard to visit Lily’s grave and see the new headstone which had only been erected the day before.

Just the sight of the solidity of the white marble stone and the small stone wall which had been erected around her grave cheered her, for it seemed to say this was Lily’s permanent home now, its site under a tree making a fitting place to remember her.

‘Here lies Lily Amelia Milson, and her baby son, taken from her loving husband and daughter too soon,’
the inscription read.

‘GOD IN HIS WISDOM CHOSE HER.
AN ENGLISH ROSE SO FAR FROM HOME.
LET HER GENTLE NATURE TOUCH THE HEARTS
OF ALL WHO SEE THIS STONE.
BORN 1810 IN BRISTOL ENGLAND. DIED 1847
INDEPENDENCE MISSOURI.’

Matilda was surprised by the verse, she had expected Giles to choose something from the Bible. Yet it was so much more personal and touching, and she hoped that in many years to come people would stop and read it, and be as moved by the sentiment as she was.

She sat down on the grass beside the grave, leaned back against the tree and let her mind drift to thoughts of her friend. She had tried this many times before, but she had never got past seeing her that last fateful night, her face contorted in agony, and that was too distressing an image. But this time, perhaps because of
the inscription, she could imagine Lily in the garden, smiling as she tended her roses.

She hung on to the comforting image, closing her eyes and remembering how Lily had maintained so many English customs. Tea in the garden, the table laid with an embroidered cloth and her dainty china. Boiled eggs for breakfast, starched napkins tucked into silver rings, and fruit preserve in a little glass pot with its own special spoon.

‘I miss you so much, Lily,’ she said softly. ‘The house seems so empty and bare without you. Remember how we used to laugh and chatter as we did the washing? How we used to inspect the garden every day together? I feel so lonesome without you, I don’t think I’ll ever find another friend like you.’

She went on to talk about Tabitha and her school work, the animals and how Solomon had given them a little goat called Gertie to rear, but then gradually she moved on to the subject which had been troubling her for some little while.

‘I know I promised to look after Giles and Tabby,’ she whispered. ‘And I will never break that promise, but people are bound to start talking about us soon because I’m an unmarried woman living in his house. What should we do?’

It was so silent in the graveyard, not a breath of wind rustling the leaves, too hot for birds to sing, and the town beyond the fence sleepy in the sunshine.

‘Marry him!’

Matilda was startled by this whispered answer. She turned her head to see who it came from. But there was no one there.

She laughed then, assuming she’d imagined it.

‘I guess I’m getting a little crazy, hearing voices,’ she said aloud. ‘Of course that solution has occurred to me, but even if Giles were willing, I couldn’t possibly take your place, Lily. Imagine what a terrible minister’s wife I’d be, always wanting to interfere, thinking I knew best about everything!’

She sat there for a moment longer and all at once she had the strangest feeling of a presence close by. ‘Are you there, Lily?’ she asked in a whisper. ‘Send me a sign if you are listening!’

All at once she heard the rustle of leaves and she jumped up in shocked surprise. There was no wind to cause it, she couldn’t even feel a faint breeze on her cheeks, and the long grass around the edge of the graveyard was still.

‘Well, bugger me,’ she said, in her shock reverting back to her favourite swear-words from her early London days.

‘I should scrub out your mouth with soap and water.’ A gruff male voice she didn’t recognize came from behind the tree. To her further shock, Giles stepped out from behind it, a wide smile on his face.

‘Giles!’ she exclaimed, blushing from head to foot. ‘How dare you frighten me like that? How long have you been there?’ she asked indignantly.

‘A bit,’ he said, returning to his normal voice. ‘I just came to see the headstone before coming home. When I spotted you sitting there I didn’t like to interrupt your peace, so I stayed behind the tree. Don’t be embarrassed, I talk to her too.’

Mortified that he’d not only listened to what she’d been saying, but tricked her into revealing her innermost thoughts too, Matilda picked up her skirts and fled, jumping over gravestones and rushing towards the gate of the churchyard as if the hounds of hell were after her.

Feeling shamed and foolish, she went right down to the bottom of the garden, behind the pig pen, slumped down on an upturned pail and covering her face with her hands, burst into tears. She heard him coming down the garden, but this time there was nowhere further to run.

He’d abandoned his coat and his clerical collar, and with sweat running down his face he looked more like a farm worker than a minister. ‘I’m so sorry, Matty,’ he said as he got nearer. ‘I didn’t think before I whispered to you, I suppose I thought you’d know it was me right off and laugh.’

‘But why say that, Giles?’ she asked, hardly able to look him in the face.

He leaned down, put one finger under her chin and lifted it. ‘Because it’s the answer to everything. Will you marry me?’

Matilda gasped with shock. She’d seen so many sides of him in the years she had worked for him – master, clergyman, husband and father – and in all these roles she’d seen his integrity and his deep understanding of people and their needs. Had her words to Lily today troubled him so deeply that he felt he had to offer marriage?

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She slapped his hand away from her
chin. ‘It’s no answer to anything! You have only been widowed for five months, you can’t even think of marrying anyone else yet, and besides, you don’t love me.’

To her surprise he just laughed, and moved back to lean on the fence of the pig pen. ‘Matty, I have always loved you! Not romantic love perhaps, I would have been a poor minister and husband if I had spent my days thinking romantic thoughts about my daughter’s nursemaid. But it is love I feel for you, it grew out of admiration, trust and friendship. Isn’t it true you held the same feelings for myself and Lily?’

‘Well, yes.’ She blushed. ‘But that’s not the right kind of love for marriage.’

He looked at her long and hard for a moment or two. ‘Love is love, I don’t believe one can claim there are different kinds. Tabitha adores you. We are the best of friends, and in the past we have also been allies in secret schemes. I even know you keep a clean and tidy house and that you cook like a dream. Most couples intending to wed have a great deal less knowledge of one another.’

‘But what about desire?’ she whispered, blushing furiously.

‘Ah yes, desire,’ he said, and there was a hint of laughter in his voice. ‘Desire, that item which is often the only basis for some couples’ attraction. Do I feel it for you?’

He turned for a moment to look at the pigs rooting in their pen, and turned back again wrinkling his nose. ‘We could hardly find a less romantic spot to consider such a question. Yet I’m not blind to the fact you are a very pretty woman, and I’d give anything to take you in my arms and kiss you.’

‘Sir!’ she reproved him, jumping up from her pail. ‘It isn’t right to say such things.’

‘So I’m “Sir” again!’ he laughed. ‘I should have known you wouldn’t think the same way. I take it you don’t want to kiss me then?’

His words were like a scythe cutting through the long, tired old grass and revealing the fresh green shoots growing beneath. His dark eyes were looking at her with tenderness, his lips were curved into a sweet smile, and his black curls tumbling around his lean, tanned face suddenly looked so adorable that her fingers itched to reach out and ruffle them. But more than that, she could feel that old familiar tugging sensation inside her.

She knew in that instant that whatever it was that had made her want Flynn was there in Giles too.

‘Maybe,’ she said cautiously.

‘That’s a start then,’ he said. ‘As I recall, when Lily was bent on finding you a sweetheart not one of those men got even a “maybe”.’

Stepping forward, he put one hand on either side of her face and held it for a second, just looking at her. Then he kissed her lips. It was the lightest of kisses, yet not an entirely chaste one. ‘Was that so terrible?’ he asked, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

Matilda ran back into the house feeling totally confused, Giles called out that he was going down to the livery stable to check on his horse. When he returned a couple of hours later he was unusually quiet and made no further reference to anything he’d said earlier.

They ate a cold supper, then when he moved over to his desk to write some notes for his next sermon, she felt he probably regretted everything which had transpired in the afternoon. Unable to speak of it herself, she took some sewing out on to the porch and hoped that someone might come visiting and create a diversion for them.

No one came by, and at dusk Giles came out with a lighted lamp and sat down in a chair next to her. ‘It seems to be getting hotter than ever,’ Matilda said, casting around for any topic of conversation which would relieve the strained atmosphere. ‘I can hardly sew, my fingers are so sticky.’

‘It’s too dark for you to see clearly, so put it away,’ he said, reaching out and taking the work from her lap. ‘You work much too hard, Matty. Just sit back in your chair and enjoy the warm, peaceful evening.’

‘It seems odd without Tabby,’ she said nervously.

‘I’m very glad she isn’t here,’ he said rather gruffly. ‘Because I think we need to clear the air.’

‘You don’t have to say anything,’ she said. ‘Let’s just forget about it.’

‘You misunderstand me,’ he said, moving his chair sideways so he could see her better. ‘I don’t intend to retract anything I said earlier, but I do wish I’d put it better.’ He paused for a moment as if choosing his words carefully.

‘You may think I’m unbalanced by grief, Matty, and that I
asked you to marry me just to solve all our problems. But that isn’t so. I’ve thought about this long and hard. I know it’s the right thing to do.’

‘I don’t see any problems, not ones which need such a drastic step,’ she retorted.

‘There are, Matty,’ he said. ‘The main one is that your reputation might be ruined by being alone in this house with me.’