by Alys Clare
Because I both respected and liked him, I found myself wanting to find some way of convincing him that his action had been necessary and humane. I came to understand, shortly before I finally fell asleep as dawn began to lighten the sky, that there was absolutely no way I could do so. Until our treasured vicar accepted in his heart and his very capable mind that he’d acted as the loving Lord to whom he had dedicated his life would undoubtedly have commanded, Jonathan would just have to suffer.
Celia noticed over breakfast the next day that I was not looking my best.
‘Did you not sleep?’ she asked quietly.
‘Not very well.’ I tried to smile. ‘I always forget how noisy London is.’
She studied me. ‘Would you like to go home?’
Home.
The river, the sloping hills and the secret valleys, the sea not far away, the soft, sweet air. My beautiful house, and Sallie, Samuel and Tock. I smiled suddenly, thinking of Sallie’s face when Celia had given her a gorgeous russet silk petticoat as a small thank you, as my sister said, for all her kindness; poor Sallie, quite overcome, hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry and had done a bit of both. Then she had fled into her room off the kitchen, returning some ten minutes later red in the face and beaming, twirling her skirts so that the yards and yards of frilly edged silk whistled and hissed. She had, I think, been Celia’s devoted servant even before that. Now, perhaps, she was her friend as well.
The village and the villagers. Josiah Thorn. Theo and his family.
Jonathan Carew.
Judyth.
I thought of her clean, sweet-smelling, tidy little cottage and the sun on her herb beds. I thought of her curvaceous body, her shiny dark hair and her light, clear eyes. I hadn’t realized I was smiling until I heard Celia suppress a soft chuckle and murmur, ‘Gabe, she’s only one aspect of home.’
It’s uncanny, and at times decidedly uncomfortable, how often my sister seems to read my mind.
Home.
The yearning in my heart told me how much I wanted to be there.
‘But we’ve only been in London for just over a week,’ I demurred. ‘You surely have more visiting that you wish to do, for I’m certain there are a couple of shops and a market stall that you haven’t yet patronized, and you were talking about a second trip on the river and seeing another play. Besides, we’ve booked the rooms for a fortnight, and I’m not at all sure we’ll be offered a refund. And it’s such a long—’
‘Yes, Gabe,’ she interrupted, ‘I know, it’s such a long way, and we’ll be wasting some of what we paid for the rooms, and we ought to make our stay here worthy of the journey.’ She sighed, giving me an exasperated frown. ‘My question remains: would you like to go home?’
So I just said, ‘Yes.’
