On Sparrow Hill (11 page)

“I can if I truly believe the outcome will only hurt us in the end. And honestly, Quentin, I cannot imagine any other result.”

He moved closer, his knee brushing against hers. “Rebecca, what do you feel?”

Something positive took hold inside Rebecca, weightier than all her cautions combined. Faith would have been their only real obstacle, but if Quentin had responded to the call of God upon his life, there would be no stopping their future.

“I feel . . . hope,” she told him, “whether I want to or not.”

He leaned closer, and so did she, to meet in a kiss. If this was true, nothing could stop them now.

14

* * *

There are days I am too busy to eat, even though I may spend a good deal of time at the dining table. When helping another at mealtime, it is difficult to take a bite for myself. The dinner hour here, Cosima, would have my mother shaking her head in consternation. Noisy, messy, often accompanied by trauma of one sort or another, especially by those most sensitive to sounds, smells, tastes, and textures. I have thoroughly accustomed myself to seeing food go in, then come right back out. Forgive the image, but I am now able to speak of the most extraordinary things. I doubt I shall ever be able to sit at Dowager Merit’s polite table again, for fear of either assisting the person next to me or speaking lovingly yet honestly of my students.

Perhaps this gives you an idea of our mealtime here, the precise time of day we should never hope for a visitor. . . .

“Look what you’ve done!”

The cry, louder than the rest of the noise, came from Katie MacFarland. She sat between Annabel, who rocked in place though she sat on a stiff chair, and Tessie, who hummed, even with food in her mouth. As the two girls who could help themselves the most, they had been assigned as Katie’s “charges.”

One of them must have tipped her glass, judging from the splatter in front of them. Berrie moved closer to sop it up with her serviette.

Katie stared down at the dark spots on her apron. Trivial to Berrie, to Katie it was anything but.

“Katie,” Berrie said calmly, “take off your apron. You’ll see your dress is perfectly fine beneath.”

The young woman seemed incapable of movement, staring at the droplets as though they were her own blood. Berrie had seen Katie act this way before and knew in a moment it would pass. And so she waited.

Commotion broke out at the opposite end of the table, pulling Berrie’s gaze. “He stole my bread! He stole my bread!” That cry was quickly followed by a boy bursting into tears.

Despite Mrs. Cotgrave’s being there in an instant, the tears sent a ripple of upheaval through the room. Moans, wails, and whimpers bubbled from one corner to the other, a noise great enough to forestall whatever calm Katie might have been about to reclaim.

“Time to separate them,” Mrs. Cotgrave called over the hubbub.

The words seemed, at best, incongruous to the melee around them, though Berrie agreed. She took the two boys at her side, one sobbing and the other holding his hands over his ears, groaning. “We’ll finish our lunch in the foyer, shall we, boys?”

Even as they walked Berrie could smell something new, something that often accompanied an emotional trauma. One of the boys hadn’t made it to the lavatory.

No sooner had she determined who would need cleaning than a new noise erupted, this one not from the dining hall. A crash echoed from the manor entrance, as if the door had burst open and hit the wall behind. An unfamiliar voice, strong and male, bellowed down the empty hall. Berrie recognized no words, only the emotion: anger.

Katie’s shriek, delayed but not forgotten, erupted at that moment. Loud, clear as her voice always was, it echoed above all other discord.

Mrs. Cotgrave rushed from the dining room, and Berrie hastened to follow. She stopped only to leave one whimpering twelve-year-old with an attendant, taking with her the one who needed a cleaning. His keening grew in volume.

“Katie!” The stranger’s voice was nearer, a touch of desperation lending it more urgency than its loudness. “Katie MacFarland!”

“See here—” Mrs. Cotgtrave started out strong and strident, echoing down the hall, but stopped abruptly. “No need to be shouting down the halls, is there . . . sir?”

Berrie saw the stranger for the first time. No doubt fear took the gumption from Mrs. Cotgrave. Berrie felt an inkling of it herself in the intruder’s large, dark, Gaelic ruggedness. Had he called for Katie?

Surely he was Katie’s protector, sent by the English-fighting Irishman who thought women should work at home with babies at their feet. Blue eyes scanned the front hall like lightning bolts and stopped upon her. In those eyes she saw what appeared to be a mix of as much fury as worry. But the blue was somehow familiar. And worry? She knew her first moment of uncertainty. Had this man been sent by the brother . . . or was he the brother himself?
God help them all.

“Where is she?”

“And you, I assume, have been sent by the MacFarland family?” Berrie asked. Granite stiffened her spine, determined not to have him guess the depth of her trepidation.

“Where is she?” He stepped forward, his body as well as his words demanding an answer. He looked past her, and his nose twitched, undoubtedly receiving the scent from the boy beside her. She knew this intruder couldn’t see more than the dim recess of the hall leading to the dining room. The boy beside Berrie cried louder. “And will you stop that racket?”

Yet another step brought the man close enough to fill Berrie’s entire line of vision, and the granite holding up her spine crumbled. She retreated, pulling the boy who was now howling nearer. She wanted to tell him where Katie was, but her voice seemed to have fled. Mrs. Cotgrave moved beside her and took the boy from Berrie’s protective embrace.

“This way, my boy,” Mrs. Cotgrave said, her voice once again her own as she guided him away.

“Simon, is that you?”

Katie’s voice rose above the din from the dining room. In the twinkling of an eye, the man went from irate to eager. Pushing past Berrie, he rushed toward Katie’s just-emerging shadow, stopping within a hair’s breadth of her. His arms went out, then fell back to his side. Berrie sensed that he would have clutched Katie to himself but knew what Berrie had learned: She didn’t like to be touched. By flour
or
humans. Not even by her brother, who this man must surely be.

“Katie! Are you well?”

“Can you help me with my apron? I don’t want to wear it anymore.” She turned around, saying over her shoulder, “It’s noisy here.”

Berrie rushed down the hall toward them. The noise in the dining room was just beginning to ease with Daisy and Charles taking their charges to the kitchen. Soon all that remained were four boys resuming their meal, a single attendant with them, and Katie’s two female students, both of whom had stopped crying and were now eating as if nothing had ever been amiss.

With her wet apron removed, Katie was smiling. “These are Annabel and Tessie, my two students.” No one acknowledged the introduction. Annabel kept rocking and eating; Tessie, humming and staring.

“Katie, I’ve been worried about you.” The man’s voice was unsteady even as he stood behind her when she took a seat to finish her lunch. “Why did you leave without telling me where you went?”

“Our sister said she would tell you about my job, that you would be happy because I am working, like you. Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.” He still held the soiled apron as Katie looked down to inspect her unsullied lap. He appeared uncertain what to do with the damp garment, and Berrie found her wits at last, holding out a hand to take it from him.

“Perhaps we can sit in the visiting room,” Berrie suggested, after a silent prayer of gratitude that the mayhem had ended. Ned, the sole male attendant left in the room, would be all right now that the meal was almost at an end. Mrs. Cotgrave was bound to return at any moment.

Berrie led Katie and her brother to the room where families said their good-byes to the students they left behind. Even in so short a time, Berrie had seen a wide range of emotions from the students, from indifference to abject terror, heartfelt grief to a simple, happy wave. She had no idea how either this man or Katie would behave or if this was to be a good-bye between the two of them or between her and Katie.

Once inside the parlor, Katie stood near the fireplace and smiled. Without looking Berrie’s way, the man spoke over his shoulder. “I’d like to be alone with my sister if you don’t mind.”

Berrie looked at Katie, hesitant to instantly do the man’s bidding.

“Miss Berrie is my friend, Simon,” Katie said. “She’s from England, but she isn’t a tyrant at all. She doesn’t try to push me down or take anything from me, not food or anything I brought along. Are you sure the English are so horrible, Simon? I tried to hate her when she told me she was from England, but it was too late because she was already my friend. I only found out she was from England a few days ago. Mrs. Cotgrave is from there too, and even though she’s not very pretty, she’s been nice to me too.”

“I’m glad, Katie.” Then he shot a cursory glance Berrie’s way. “Will you leave us, then?”

“Of course.”

She moved toward the door and Katie spoke. “You shouldn’t send her away, Simon. She’s my friend.”

As Berrie closed the door behind her, she heard Simon say, “I’m glad. Now I want you to tell me the truth, just as I always tell you. Has anyone hurt you while you’ve been away?”

Berrie closed the door. She didn’t need to listen any longer. Katie never told a lie.

15

* * *

Rebecca watched from the corner of the gallery. It was a long, rather narrow room, full of family portraits and a sampling of artwork from Renaissance to Impressionism, the obscure to the famous. Famous works included paintings by Rubens and Monet, and English works by Gainsborough and Hogarth—a collection of those artists rivaled only by the museum at Cambridge.

It wasn’t the artwork that kept her eye this afternoon; rather, it was Quentin, greeting a group of tourists who had just finished the house and garden tour. They’d come from the golden parlor, where Edward VII, still known at the time as the Prince of Wales, had come to pay respects when Peter Hamilton had died in 1900, publicly acknowledging Peter’s donation to the advancement of science through his many fossil donations to the London museum. The tour finished in the gallery, where they were just now.

In the past two weeks Quentin had taken up the surprising recreation of mingling with those who visited Hollinworth Hall. Rebecca enjoyed the tours as never before, seeing Quentin take pleasure in them too. If it was his hope to prove to her he had less of his mother and more of his father in him, that ploy was entirely successful.

Although Quentin had moved to the cottage two weeks ago, his mother was not there when he’d arrived, having left for a friend’s villa in Spain. With her gone and Quentin content to join Rebecca in the quiet country life the Hall offered, it was easy to forget the society he was part of. Dwindling fast were her worries that any outside influence could keep them apart. Every morning he greeted her with a smile, and every evening he kissed her good night until her head spun. Every moment spent in his company added to the hope he’d ignited, amassing an inventory of fuel that could last a lifetime.

Quentin seemed to enjoy extending the time visitors stayed at the Hall. He laughed with older tourists about the nicknames some of his forebears held. The first Hollinworth who’d married the last of the Hamiltons was tall and thin and called Piper because he reminded everyone of a pipefish, or so the story went. Another was called No-Beacon Bill because during the war he’d been the one to make sure household lights couldn’t be seen by the occasional German bomber. He’d purchased black blinds for the entire village and made after-dark rounds himself—without a beacon to light his way.

Quentin told stories with something Rebecca couldn’t possibly expect to emulate: the authority of a family member whose favorite tales had been passed down from one generation to the next.

Rebecca approached him as the others exited, and he slipped an arm about her shoulders. She couldn’t help being thankful the bus would take away the last of the camera-carrying guests. She wasn’t ready for pictures yet.

“Tomorrow we meet your American cousin,” Rebecca reminded him. The last two weeks had flown by.

He pulled her closer, kissing her ear. “I’d forgotten. There is a world out there, isn’t there? One not restricted to a two-hour tour.”

She trembled at his kiss. “I haven’t finished transcribing Berrie’s letters yet.”

He kissed her again. “You can e-mail them to my cousin when they’re ready.”

Part of her heard their conversation. A greater part was aware only of his kiss.

Reluctantly, Rebecca pulled herself away, gazing at the portraits representing three centuries of his lineage. “What would they say if they could look down upon us now, Quentin? Most of them were served by one relative of mine or another.”

“They can’t very well tell us, now can they? My guess is if they could see us together and had half a heart, they’d tell me to keep kissing you.”

He moved to do just that, and Rebecca meant to pull away again, to keep a rein on how they spent their time. It was too easy to be swept away.

“Hold there, sir! You’ll miss the bus, duck.”

Helen’s voice penetrated the haze enveloping Rebecca, who turned to the sudden commotion from the hall leading into the gallery. There stood Helen, a look of alarm growing on her face as she pointed to a man snapping a series of pictures. The shutter of the camera was pointed directly toward Rebecca in Quentin’s arms.

In an instant Rebecca freed herself. The reporter shot off, Quentin on his heels. The two collided at the door leading from the gallery, Quentin landing atop the man’s outstretched arm as he strove to keep his camera from reach. If ever there was cause to believe in the innate nobility of the man, she didn’t doubt Quentin now, though she doubted seeing him wrestling a reporter would cause anyone except her to think such a thing. Quentin twisted the camera from the wiry man and in moments had an electronic cartridge in his hand.