Felicity and Miss Yates had already left Ellsmere; it had been decided that Aminta, in their stepmother’s absence, would sponsor Felicity at her debut, so she and her governess—soon to become governess to Freddy and India—were to live with Aminta’s family at least until the duchess and Claude returned. Soon I would be the only member of the family remaining there. Aminta and her husband had assured me I was welcome at their house, but I had put them off. In truth, I had not expected Charles to leave, and I was unprepared for the desolation his departure left in me.
At breakfast next morning the duchess cast a long look at my bowed head and said brightly, “Dear, I wonder if you would do me a favor? I would so appreciate your advice before I begin my packing for Italy. Perhaps this morning you wouldn’t mind going through my things with me and helping me decide what to take.”
This was nothing more nor less than an attempt to keep me from being lonely; her maid would be far more help than I ever could.
“If you can manage without me, I had hoped to take a walk.”
To my relief, she did not press me. “Very well, my dear,” she said. “I’m sure the fresh air will do you good. I shall see you at luncheon, then.”
I did not answer, and as soon as I decently could, I excused myself and left the house.
Almost without conscious thought my feet found the path to the shore. I had come out without a bonnet, and a warm breeze ruffled my hair as I made my way down the incline. The sea glittered and twinkled at me, playful in the sunshine, but I paid it little heed as I walked down the beach.
Herron and I had once talked of the uses to which men put their lives, of the capacities that lay within all of us. Now Charles was going to explore his, by setting out to become a healer. He had found the role that would allow him to realize his potential, and his would be a life of fulfillment, of usefulness, of purpose.
I, too, had discovered what capacities lay in me. The ability to kill.
I had known the horror of seeing those around me revealed to possess unguessed qualities, but it was nothing to what I felt upon discovering this hidden darkness in my own soul. Never mind the mitigating circumstances; forget that I may have saved Herron’s own life. When the choice lay before me, my instincts had led me to commit a crime I abhorred. Without thought, without mercy, without hesitation I had with my own hands ended a human life. I had become like my father.
I could not live with that knowledge.
I came to the border of rocks around the little bay, and climbed over them. The water was calm, the bay like a cup of light as it reflected the sunlit sky overhead. The water was warm where I waded in, but grew colder the deeper I ventured. When the water was up to my waist, my feet were so cold I could scarcely feel them, but I did not care. My skirts and petticoats floated around me in a profusion of white ruffles, and if there had been anyone to see, he might have fancied that I stood among water lilies. But soon enough the water would weigh them down.
The sea pulled at me as I walked further out, until each step was a dragging, slogging effort. My progress grew slower and slower. Then, in the space between one step and the next, there was no ground; my feet strained for the feel of sand under them, and trod nothing but water.
This was as far as I needed to go. I lay back against the surface of the ocean and let myself float now, the water cradling me. I shut my eyes. My face, turned up to the sunlight, was warm; my back, clasped by the sea, was cool. The gulls screamed faintly, but everything else was peaceful. The water lapped at my fingertips, drawing out my thoughts. It was like being rocked to sleep, just as I had imagined.
My breathing became slower. Every exhalation allowed another piece of me to slip under the surface of the water. My fingers were drifting down into the shadows. I lay quietly, feeling the water creep coolly up my arms. My shoulders. My temples. I breathed as gently as if I feared waking myself.
The water slid over my face. I was under water, all sound abruptly blotted out. All was quiet, muffled, distant. I breathed in…
…and burst choking and gasping from the water, my feet churning for ground, hands flailing for a hold. Thrashing against the sea, I stared wildly around, and found rocks looming their comforting solid presences over me. I gripped one and hauled myself up, feeling the welcome roughness rasp against my palms, painfully dragging myself onto the rock until I could lie there, my legs still drifting in the water, and breathe the air, panting.
At last I rolled over on to my back, my lungs still struggling for air. How had I come to be this close to shore, I wondered dimly, when I had walked so far out? I opened my eyes, stinging from salt, and looked around me. The tide was coming in, and I had not even noticed.
I began to laugh, lying there half in and half out of the water, drenched and half drowned. I had thrown myself into the arms of the sea, and it had thrown me back.
Suddenly the entire scene was ridiculous. How earnest, how sentimental I had been, running to meet a romantic death. And how many times had I remonstrated with Herron for seeking such an end to his fears and griefs?
“Fool girl,” I muttered to myself, but I was smiling. “Do you even listen to what you tell others?”
Spent from coughing and from laughter, I lay on the sun-warm rock and let the breeze dry me. I reflected that my father, wherever he was, would have been pleased had I drowned myself. It would have proven that I was unable to contend alone with the world and to throw off his yoke. There was no good in punishing myself for what I had done; it would undo nothing, and the only way I could live down my fears about myself was to set about proving that I was something more than a girl who had killed, and that having done so did not destine me to kill again. My life could be more than that.
Presently, when I had lain there long enough, I stood up and wrung the salt water out of my skirts. Then, only slightly unsteady on my feet, I started back to the house. The sea still twinkled and glittered at me as it had before, unconcerned with any epiphany experienced by one mortal girl. I waved goodbye and turned my back on it, to face what lay ahead.
Chapter Twenty
Herron, too, had come to new understanding about himself. I came to recognize this later that day, when I had changed out of my sodden clothes and joined him on the terrace. For a time we sat in the pale sunshine, saying little, as I worked at some embroidery.
“Oriel,” he said presently, “do you feel like talking for a bit?”
Until now we had not talked about the past, but something in his manner suggested that he was finally about to confront it. “Of course.”
“I have been thinking about what I should do with my future,” he said seriously. “I would like your opinion.”
“Well, heavens,” I said, startled, “you are the duke, you know. You have your role set out for you.”
“Yes, if I choose to accept it. But Claude is much better at being duke than I am, even if the title isn’t his. He truly enjoys administering the estate, keeping up with the tenants’ concerns and the rents and the crops, and he has a rapport with the tenants that I’ve never tried to forge.”
I tried not to betray my surprise at hearing him speak so generously about his uncle. “And you think your path lies elsewhere?” I queried.
He nodded, his eyes gazing past me out to the sea. “I have been thinking about this a great deal recently—I have had plenty of time in which to think, you know.” For a moment his familiar wry smile flashed out at me, but then he sobered. “I have decided to go into the church.”
It took me a moment to absorb this. “You sound very definite,” was all I could think to say.
“I believe it would be the right life for me. I used to think I understood the way life and death worked, and what love and justice and forgiveness were. Now I realize I am only just beginning to learn what they mean. I want to keep on learning about them, about why we are here. Do you remember that conversation we had, a long time ago, about the purpose to which we put our lives?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
&nb
sp; “I think I know where to look now for the answer.” He smiled at me again, only this time it was an uncertain, wistful smile. “Do you think I’m right?”
I reached over to put my hand over his. “I think you are very wise to find a life that will give you the answers you seek, Herron.”
“Thank you.” He hesitated, then added in a low voice, “I haven’t told you everything, though. There is another reason I’ve chosen this direction. Something that made me realize how many forces there are in the world that are still unknown to us.”
I waited, and he rested his head against the pillows and told me.
He told me of the night my father had dragged him to the roof. Herron had been too weak to follow all our conversation, but he knew my father planned to kill him. Too feeble to do anything in his own defense, he had waited almost with detachment to see what happened.
“He bent over me,” he said, “and I knew I was about to die. Then you came flying at him, with your hair streaming out and the most splendid look of wild determination on your face, like a warrior queen out of the history books.” I smiled at that. “And you went smashing into him like a tidal wave. I thought for a moment you’d saved me, until he started to regain his balance. But then the strangest thing happened.
“I saw a bright golden glow appear next to you. It was taller even than your father, and it had a shape—a slightly hazy shape, or it may have been my vision that was hazy. But it was pushing against him just as you were doing.” He turned his eyes to me. “It wasn’t very distinct. But it looked like my father.”
When I did not reply, he hurried on, embarrassed. “I don’t expect you to believe me, after all my fruitless waiting for his ghost. And this was nothing like what I thought I’d seen before, on the day of the funeral. I had hoped that you might have seen it yourself, so that you would understand—”
“But Herron, I felt it.” It was awe that had silenced me, not disbelief. “I could not see it as you did, but I knew I felt something beside me, helping me save you.” I shook my head, marveling. “All the time you were searching for him, he was simply waiting until a moment when you truly needed him.”
We gazed at each other in wonder that was too joyful to contain fear.
“Have you told anyone else what you have told me?” I asked after a moment.
“No, I’m certain they would just tell me it was my delirium, the loss of blood, a trick of the moonlight. I don’t want to hear it reduced to that. I’m glad you believe me, Oriel.”
For a time we sat in companionable silence. Then Herron shifted restlessly against his pillows.
“Are you uncomfortable?”
“No, I’m fine. Only that it’s unpleasant sometimes, the way things one did in the past come thronging back to one’s mind.” Awkwardly he said, “I—I was a brute to you, Oriel.”
I picked up my embroidery again. “Not all the time,” I said lightly.
But he did not take the chance to make light of it. “I owe you an apology. You were right about so many things, and I couldn’t or wouldn’t admit they were true.” He fell silent, perhaps sifting through them, and added quietly, “I was thinking always of myself; I never spared a thought for you or your feelings. And you weren’t the only one; I must have caused everyone a lot of pain.”
I did not deny this; let him take responsibility, finally, for his actions. But I was delighted to see this evidence of the change in him. He possessed a maturity now he had lacked before.
“And the night of the ball—how I must have terrified you.” He shook his head, remembering. “It was unforgivable of me; no wonder Charles flung it up at me later. You seemed so different that night, and it frightened me, that feeling that I hadn’t known you after all.”
“I know what that is like,” I said.
“But I should never have attacked you,” he said miserably. “The truth is that I found you very alluring that night, very—well—tempting. And I was angry at myself for being so drawn to that side of you.”
I looked at him in surprise. “That was why you were so furious? I thought you believed I was working against you, conspiring with your uncle.”
“I could hardly tell you the truth. I’m not even certain I recognized it myself at the time.” Then, “At least I know that you have found a better man,” he said more cheerfully. “Charles will make you happy, I’m sure.”
I frowned in concentration over my embroidery, and said nothing.
“Where is he, by the way? I haven’t seen him today.” His voice trailed off as he sensed something amiss.
“He is gone,” I said, snipping off a thread.
“Gone! When?”
“Yesterday evening. He apologized for not saying goodbye to you in person.”
I found that I had dropped my blue silk, and bent to retrieve it. I sensed Herron beside me struggling to understand this new development, but he hesitated to ask a direct question that might wound me. Presently he inquired, with such elaborate casualness that I almost smiled, “There hasn’t, I hope, been some trouble between him and—er—Claude?” Poor boy, he was trying to be tactful.
“Not at all,” I said. “It is just that I don’t think it is best for us to be together.” I sounded so sensible, so poised. Perhaps I had learned something from the duchess: how to give the appearance of being in command of a situation—or at least of my feelings.
“What will you do?” Herron demanded, almost indignantly.
I tried to shrug offhandedly. “I have a few ideas; you needn’t worry about me.”
“You could go abroad with my mother and Claude, you know; I’m certain they’d enjoy your company, especially when I tell them I’ll be returning to university instead of accompanying them.”
“No, I would only be a hindrance. They need some time by themselves.”
“But you haven’t had any opportunity to travel before,” Herron persisted. “And if you and Charles aren’t… well, you would meet many young men abroad.” A mischievous light came into his eyes. “Italian noblemen. You could become the first marchesa in the family.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said, unable to keep from smiling. “I don’t seem to be very good at keeping suitors.”
He laughed self-consciously. “You shouldn’t count me, you know; this suitor was too foolish to realize at the time how lucky he was in you. Your only mistake was settling for so dense a lover.” Then he grinned, and went on in a more cheerful tone. “No, next time we must find you a fellow intelligent enough to appreciate you properly. Perhaps a scholar, like yourself, and you can conduct your courtship in Greek verses.”
I laughed, and we went on to talk of other things. I had come to realize that in some ways I had loved Herron as I had loved Lionel: Herron had aroused the same protective impulse within me. But that was not what married love should be. Nor was it the comfort Herron had sought in me, when he had needed someone to give him the devotion he felt his mother had transferred to Lord Claude. What we had felt for each other had been sweet, but it could not last, and I could look back on it now without regret.
I might even be ready to start looking forward.
* * *
By the time Herron left for university to embark on his new course of study, spring was coming to Ellsmere. The sere garden plots, so drab during the past months, were tinted in delicate pale green hues, and trees seemed suddenly fat with leaves. The air grew so balmy that the duchess took to ordering tea laid on the terrace every afternoon. I supposed she was already imagining herself in Italy, where she and her husband could take all their meals on the veranda of a palazzo under the Mediterranean sun.
Herron refused to let us accompany him to the train station; we had to make our adieus at Ellsmere while the coach waited. I could not help but be reminded of the day my father and I bade Lionel farewell—for that was what we had believed it to be: farewell, not goodbye. A pinprick of fear touched me. But Herron was not going to war, I reminded myself. If he continued on the course he was starting n
ow, he would become someone I could be proud to have known. I blinked firmly to discourage a few foolish tears, realizing I would miss him.
He kissed my cheek and smiled at me. “I’ll write to you, Oriel.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I said, smiling back.
His mother took him in her arms, but she did not weep or plead with him to stay. It was the embrace of a duchess, warm but dignified, and soon she held Herron away from her so that she could look into his face. There was sorrow in her eyes at the parting, but pride as well. “Don’t forget us, dear,” she said only, before she pressed a kiss on his forehead and released him.
One more remained to take his leave of Herron. Lord Claude and his nephew faced each other, and the duchess and I waited in apprehension. The two men had not overcome their estrangement, but had avoided each other throughout Herron’s convalescence. Although I knew Lord Claude was anxious to convince Herron of his contrition, he was always on edge in his nephew’s presence, and Herron, while never reverting to his former hostility, still regarded his uncle with forgivable wariness. He had confided in me the day before that he hoped his theological studies would teach him how to forgive his uncle, since he had not yet succeeded in doing so in spite of his efforts.
The past few weeks had aged Lord Claude as well as Herron: his hair bore wide streaks of grey, and his face was more careworn than of old. I felt a pang of compassion for him, and saw the duchess’s hand sketch a motion toward him, quickly stilled, as if she had been about to reach out and steady him.
It was Herron who spoke first. “You have it in your power to do me a favor, sir,” he said, his voice polite but betraying no emotion. “While I am gone, Ellsmere will need an overseer. You have filled that role so well since my father’s death that I wonder if I may depend upon you to do so again when you return from your travels.”
Surprise and pleasure had dawned in his uncle’s face as Herron spoke. “I would be honored to have Ellsmere in my care.”
“Excellent. I thank you.” There was a silence, and then Herron gave an abrupt nod. “Goodbye, then.”
Sea of Secrets: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense Page 31
