Degree of Solitude

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  When she returned, Gwen stood guard at the stairs. “Best not go up, Miss. Even our footsteps on the hall runner are bothering him today.”

  Before her conversation with Merrick, Catrin might have been perplexed by the statement. Now, though, she thought she understood. A little, at least. She nodded. “Very well. I need a room with a door I can close, and a table to write upon. Is there such a room in the house which is not the drawing room which everyone must walk through?”

  Gwen’s eyes widened. “There’s the other wing, miss. It’s been closed off for a year or more, since before Mr. Williams got here. But there're rooms in there that might do.”

  “The hot air from the fire reaches them?”

  “Oh, yes, miss. The whole wing is kept toasty warm so long as the fire burns in the drawing room.”

  “And is there a room in that wing with a desk or a table?”

  Gwen looked doubtful. “All the desks are upstairs in the library—what Mr. Williams uses as his study.”

  “There is a library upstairs?” Catrin asked, startled.

  “Mr. Williams’ study, it is now. It’s a lovely big room. Takes up the whole wing, just like the drawing room in this section of the house.”

  “Very well, then. Is there a way to reach the study which does not force one to move through the corridor between the bedrooms, upstairs?”

  “There is, Miss. There’s a staircase just like this one, on the other side.”

  “Please show me the way,” Catrin asked her.

  The study was a library and quite a large one, although not nearly the behemoth of a room like the library at Northallerton. Gwen stood outside the door, almost quivering with fear, her eyes wide.

  Catrin stepped in and looked at the bookcases and leather spines of books. Wood paneling covered the walls beneath the book cases, with carved wooden columns between them. At the far end of the room, under the southern windows, was a large leather-inlaid desk, which looked solid enough to have sat there since the house was built.

  Across the top of the desk was a deep flurry of paper. Stacks and single sheets. Drifts of sheets settled over more mounds. It was chaotic and disorganized.

  Catrin didn’t need to move any closer to the desk to recognize the hasty handwriting on the pages turned toward her. It was Daniel’s hand, without a doubt.

  Her heart beat a little harder at the sight. She had not had a letter from Daniel in a long time and she wondered what he had written.

  Catrin turned her gaze away from the desk, deliberately turning her body so she was not tempted to glance at the script, even though she could not possibly discern individual words from this distance.

  At this end of the room was a small table which looked as though it had been designed to hold a chess board, although no board sat upon it now. Instead, an oil lamp sat upon a pretty doily. Behind the table was a pair of large potted aspidistra. Their dark, glossy leaves gleamed in the low light.

  “Gwen, step in a moment, please,” Catrin called.

  Gwen took two steps into the room and hovered by the doorway. “Miss?”

  “Please ask Sayers to come and help me move these plants.”

  “It’s the only corner they seem to like, Miss. They were dying over by the desk.”

  “Too much sun, I dare say,” Catrin replied. “I’m not moving them far. This corner is nice and warm, by the vent, even though it doesn’t get the southern light.”

  Gwen hurried away to find Sayers. They both returned, rolling up their sleeves.

  “Where to, Miss?” Sayers asked.

  “First, if you would move the table so a chair may sit behind. Then, find a chair for me to use. Then, the aspidistras can be moved in front of the table.”

  “In front, Miss?” Gwen asked, astonished.

  Sayers pushed on Gwen’s shoulder, shepherding her out of the room. “You heard the Miss,” he said quietly. “Go and get one of the spare dining chairs from the butler’s pantry and bring it here. Go on.”

  He returned to the library and grimaced. “I’ll talk to Gwen about speaking out of turn, Miss.”

  “Gwen wouldn’t be Gwen if she didn’t ask a great many questions, Sayers. Don’t repress her nature too much. She is a cheerful note in the house I would miss if she was gone. I can help you move the table—it is small enough.”

  The two of them lifted the table and arranged it to Catrin’s satisfaction across the corner of the room. While they were settling it just right, Gwen returned with one of the oak chairs from the dining room. A cushion was propped upon the seat and Gwen’s face was red with effort, for the chair was not light.

  Sayers heaved and lifted the first of the aspidistras, the tendons in his neck straining.

  “In front of the table, please, Sayers,” Catrin told him.

  He moved slowly around the table, carrying the plant, then carefully lowered the pot onto the rug in front of the table. His face also turned red. Then, breathing hard, he moved the second plant.

  “Closer together, if you don’t mind, Sayers,” Catrin said, standing at the side of the table to judge the effect.

  He tilted one of the blue and white Limoges pots and rolled it a few inches toward the other, then carefully put it back on its base. The big, dark green spear-shaped leaves waved and tossed at the motion.

  Catrin bent and turned the pot with great effort, so the leaves of each plant were mingling and touching each other. “This will do,” she decided. “Gwen, would you mind collecting my drawing box from the window seat in the drawing room and bringing it here? Thank you.”

  She gripped the back of the big dining chair and moved it behind the table with effort. She picked up the cushion and put it back on the seat. The cushion would prove useful, she was sure. She sat on the chair and surveyed the table—the desk, it now was.

  The big leaves of the two aspidistras blocked her view of Daniel’s desk. They would also block his view of her table. She slid the shallow drawer out. It was felt-lined and would normally hold chess pieces. It would serve to hold paper, now.

  “Yes, this will do very nicely, thank you, Sayers.”

  “I’ll bring a box of matches for lighting the lamp when you want, Miss.” He went away, unrolling and straightening his sleeves.

  Gwen deposited Catrin’s drawing box on the end of the table and Catrin got to work. She had letters to write and stories to plan, and a list of household tasks, too. Catrin also wanted to think about what Gethin Merrick had revealed to her about Daniel’s condition. She did not want to simply give up and let Daniel suffer as he did, not without exhausting all possibilities. For her, thinking required pen and paper and plenty of ink.

  Chapter Twelve

  Catrin remained in her corner of the library for the rest of the day. Gwen brought tea, and Sayers brought lunch.

  Catrin lit the lamp around four o’clock that afternoon, as the sun lowered and the shadows lengthened across the enormous Persian carpet which covered the middle of the room. She handed Sayers a thick bundle of letters, to arrange for them to be posted in the pillar box on the high street, which she had spotted that morning.

  “Sayers, is there any man in Newport without employment whom you would care to offer a position as footman, here?” Catrin asked him. “Come to that, there must be some young women in search of a position in service, who can assist Gwen?”

  “Assist, Miss?”

  “I find Gwen suits me as a lady’s maid, Sayers. You will need a parlor maid to help about the house, in her stead. An experienced housekeeper would be better, only I do not have time to advertise and interview, so an inexperienced but well-intentioned maid will have to do.”

  “I must think about it, Miss. There’s always young’ns coming up in the local families, looking to support the family.” He hefted the letters. “I’ll take these to the post box myself and think about it on the way.”

  Later, he brought dinner, after informing her Mr. Williams was still in his room.

  No names were presented to
her that night. Catrin turned out the lamp not long after her late supper, tiredness wreathing her thoughts and making them sluggish. Her sleep last night had been broken, then she had woken early, too.

  Catrin crept into her bedroom, trying to minimize the impact of her feet upon the upstairs hall runner, for she could still hear movement through Daniel’s door. Thank goodness he did not groan with pain the way he had the day she arrived.

  The lack of sound from the other side of his door let her slide into her bed and shut her eyes. She fell asleep before the first of her long list of worries could surface and berate her for failing to find a solution.

  AS USUAL, WHEN HE RETURNED to the house shortly before the moon set, Daniel found the place in complete darkness. No one stirred, which suited him. He climbed slowly to the next floor, unwrapping the thick scarf he wore at night. It was a chilly February, made colder by the night air and his passage through it. The wind always blew on Carninglis. He wound the scarf about his face, which protected his cheek from the sometimes frigid fingers of the wind, which hurt as much as heat did.

  The scarf also hid his face if he happened upon others among the hills, but he never saw anyone.

  After walking all day in his room, he sensed that only a long walk outside, where he could stride and grow breathless, would help muffle the ache in his head tonight.

  As he walked down the corridor toward his room, he felt the pull of exhaustion in his limbs. He had been tired before he set out, but this was the only way he could hope to sleep.

  He paused with his hand on the door and looked at the door opposite.

  She had not been afraid of him, when drowsy with sleep. The thought pleased him to a degree which surprised him. Throughout the long day, he had recalled the warm sensation it provoked.

  Only when she was in full possession of her faculties, awake and aware, did she look at him in that fearful, shrinking way most other women and quite a few men did. He had grown to hate signs of that defensive cringe. He had stopped talking to most people because of it.

  He knew they behaved in such a manner when near him because he couldn’t control his impatience when dealing with them. The more they fluttered nervously, the greater his frustration.

  Only she would not be nervous right now. She would be deeply asleep.

  Before he talked himself out of it, Daniel trod softly across the corridor and turned the handle on her door and stepped in.

  As her room laid on the east side of the house, looking out toward Carninglis, the moon did not cast light into the room. Only the hulking shape of the hill behind the house showed through the lace in the windows.

  Daniel had been walking in the dark for hours and his eyes were well adjusted. He moved toward the bed.

  She laid on her side, a hand beneath the pillow. Her long, thick black lashes rested against her cheeks. In the mild starlight, her flesh was pure white and unblemished. The firm, high-arching brows were in repose.

  His gaze shifted to her lips. His body tightened. Memories intruded—memories he had locked away. He tried to push them aside, to dismiss them. Only, she laid before him. She was just as he remembered seeing her.

  He had once watched her for most of the night, just like this.

  Daniel reached for the stool in front of the bureau and placed it carefully on the rug, a long pace away from the bed. He sat, his scarf gripped in his hands and studied her face. Before, he had laid at the same level as her, but this was nearly the same…

  His heart ached.

  Her full lips did not lose their softness while she slept. They curved into the elegant crescent which always beckoned to him. It was not the cupid’s bow which artists considered to be the perfect shape for a beautiful woman. He did not like the pursed and gamine effect of a pair of bowed lips, anyway. He liked Catrin’s full and frank lips. He always had, especially when she startled him with an observation or piece of reasoning which reminded him she was far more intelligent than he, and that he had allowed her beauty to lull him into lowering his mental guard. The flash of intellect and the curve of her lips as she spoke…no other woman existed with that unique combination.

  His chest ached as he watched her.

  At least it was not Christmas, right now. The two of them seemed fated to ruin each other’s Christmases. Christmas 1870, the year Will had been shot…that year had been another difficult Christmas.

  It was one of the few years Daniel attended the family gathering in Innesford. Why on earth had he gone? Because Catrin would be there? He couldn’t think of a reason to attend a function which lasted an entire week, when she had made it perfectly clear she did not wish to be associated with him anymore. Her rejection at Wakefields’ townhouse had been definite and reasoned—of course it was reasonable. Catrin did not allow herself hysterical and nonsensical demands. She had judged him and found him wanting.

  The week of the gather had been distracting enough, for Daniel’s brothers and cousins knew how to have fun. Only, the low, sour note which underlaid every minute shortened his patience to the point where he declared at the dinner table that he was heading for Ireland.

  His mother had been touched and saddened by his pronouncement, although she wrote letters of introduction which made his stay in Ireland far more comfortable than some of his other journeys.

  Over the next few weeks, Daniel learned more about his father and his father’s family than he suspected anyone else in the family was aware of.

  Neil, the second oldest man in the family, had inherited Seth William’s temperament and personality almost completely. Cian and Daniel were faint traces at best. They had gone their own way.

  It was satisfying to fill in the blanks about his father, but Daniel found his attention kept drawing back to England. He wasn’t far enough away from her. Even China had not been far enough away to keep Catrin completely out of his thoughts.

  Knowing he was a complete fool, Daniel returned to England in time for Christmas. That year, Innesford hosted the members of the Great Family for four days.

  Catrin and her family arrived from Marblethorpe barely an hour after Daniel came downstairs after changing out of his traveling suit. He stood on the third step from the bottom and watched her move gracefully into the big hall below.

  She wore Kirkaldy tartan and lace, and the blue shot with red made her black hair and eyes and her white skin glow. A black ribbon at her neck held a silver cameo.

  Daniel clutched the banister, fighting to keep his face neutral and show nothing of the raging turmoil in his chest and his thoughts, as he drank in every inch of her.

  He couldn’t remember, now, why he had denied her anything at all, last Christmas.

  Catrin laughed and talked and hugged everyone who stood in the foyer. She hadn’t seen him. It wasn’t possible for her to spot him from that angle, yet she turned and looked up, as if she had known he was there, all along. Her smile grew warmer. It was the type of smile a woman gave a man when they were alone…when they preferred to be alone, when the world was made just of the two of them and nothing could intrude…

  A jolt seared through him, making Daniel’s heart work and his flesh to tingle. He tightened his grip on the railing, breathing hard.

  Then someone touched Catrin’s arm, drawing her attention away. She turned, saying something in her mellow voice which Daniel could not hear, and the moment was broken.

  The after-effects lingered for much longer, though.

  AS HE HAD THE PREVIOUS year, Daniel waited for a moment when everyone settled into small groups all over the house, talking and passing the time. Most of them gathered around the fireplaces whose fires filled the big house with warmth. He did not wait for days as he had last time. He would not withstand waiting long at all.

  That first evening—the eve of Christmas eve—he found Catrin examining the Christmas tree in the corner of the drawing room. She stood right beside one of the French doors.

  Daniel held out her coat and the heavy shawl she had been wearing. He was a
lready in his outerwear. It had snowed again that afternoon and now the moon was up, making the snow glow magically.

  “Will you come with me?” he asked.

  She glanced at her coat. “I don’t think there is much point in that, Daniel.”

  His throat tightened. His heart hurried. “There are some things I must say to you.” He kept his voice down, for Mairin and Bridget stood on the other side of the tree. They had their heads together, murmuring, and didn’t glance at Daniel or Catrin.

  “Is there an apology among the things you must say, Daniel?” Catrin asked him. Her mellow voice held a sliver of iron in it.

  Daniel shook out her coat. “As abject an apology as I can manage,” he assured her. “I will roll in the snow for you, if you will but listen to me for a few minutes in exchange.”

  Catrin slid her arms into the coat and buttoned it swiftly, then put the shawl around her shoulders and lifted a fold of it over her hair, to keep her head warm. The red wool framed her face perfectly.

  He pushed the French door open swiftly and let her out, then shut it behind him to keep in the warmth. The cold was refreshing against his face, cooling his blood.

  “The snow looks as if it is lit from within,” Catrin murmured. She glanced at Daniel, the side of her shawl covering all but one dark eye. “I suppose there is a mundane scientific principal to explain why. I don’t care to know. Not tonight. It is quite beautiful.”

  “Then I won’t explain to you about the refracting aspects of a snow flake,” Daniel told her, recalling a dry lecture he had once sat through before speaking to the professor, to write an article for the newspaper.

  “Please do not.”

  They crunched over the fresh snow, making it groan under their feet. Without discussion, they headed for the maze. No one else was using it. The snow was untouched about the entrance.

  “Well, they will find us easily enough if we freeze to death out here,” Catrin remarked, glancing back at Daniel’s clear bootsteps, and the swishing trail of her gown.