“All of half a pound, I daresay,” he said. “Though I believe it is the cloak that makes me look voluminous. Waituntil it is filled by the wind on the beach. You will beputting me on a reducing diet.”
It irked him to have to descend the stairs so slowly, to have to walk so slowly from the house and around thecobbled driveway to the road—or track would be a moresuitable word—and across it to the grass and then thebeach. There was just not the strength to stride along as hewished to do. But when he remembered how just the daybefore yesterday every step had taken almost all his strength, he decided that he must make a friend of patience for the coming days and weeks.
She chattered to him—mainly to try to keep him from using precious energy in talk, he guessed. Though he couldremember that she had always liked to walk and chatterwith him. Only him. Other people knew her as a shy, quiet,not particularly interesting lady. It was as if she saw himas the other half of her soul and could talk with him asfreely as she could think.
He drew her to a halt when they were on the beach and shaded his eyes against the sun sparkling on the water. Thetide was almost out. The beach was wide and flat andgolden.
“The beginning of eternity,” he said. “It is a wonderful place to live, Adèle, close to the ocean. One is constantlyreminded of the vastness of life and eternity. And of God.And yet it is an awareness without fear. One feels a partof it all, a part of eternity. I never fear death when I amhere.”
He could never speak thus with Allison, he realized. She would either think he had taken leave of his senses or shewould plain not comprehend.
The brim of Adèle’s bonnet touched his shoulder. “You are right,” she said. “It is a very good place to be. I amglad we came here, John. You could not have brought meto a better place.”
He drew his arm free of hers and set it about her shoulders. After all, they were on the beach and some of the proprieties could be allowed to slip away there. Besides, hehad brought some of his twentieth-century lack of inhibitions with him. She looked first startled and then verypleased indeed. The wind and salt air had already whippedcolor into her cheeks.
“I am not going to die,” he said. “Not yet, anyway. I am better, my love. All I need is to regain my strength. Iknow you will not quite believe it yet—perhaps not for along while. But it is true.”
Pray God—he closed his eyes to make it a real prayer— that he could stay with her, or that at the very least his ownhealth would stay with the man who would return to her.And pray God that that man, if he must return, would loveher as she deserved to be loved.
“I believe it,” she said softly. Her voice was trembling. “I do believe it, John. I knew when we were coming hereand even more so when I saw Cartref and the valley andthe beach and ocean—I knew that a miracle was going tohappen.”
“It has,” he said. “A greater miracle than you realize, I believe.”
He took her hand in his and began to walk with her toward the water. Through her glove his thumb and forefinger played with the ring on her finger. This was what hehad imagined doing, he thought, when he had suggested aweek at the Cartref Hotel with Allison. He had imaginedquiet walks on the beach, rambles in the hills, browsingsin the village of Awelfa. Long afternoons and nights oflovemaking. He was not at all sure that Allison would haveenjoyed any of it except the lovemaking. She needed thehectic pace of city life as a constant stimulant, he realized.
He did not.
He felt the now familiar dizziness for a moment. How could he be doing this, strolling inside someone else’s bodywith someone else’s wife two hundred years ago, and notbe feeling either alarm for his own sanity or panic at havingslipped through some time warp? But it was not someoneelse’s body. It was his own. He recognized himself in the mirror even though he did not look quite identical to his usual self. And he recognized himself inside. He had all ofViscount Cordell’s memories, though some of them werecoming back to him slowly. And Adèle washiswife, hisbeloved wife, even though their marriage was unconsummated.
The sand was becoming damp and spongy. The pressure of her shoes and his Hessians was making wet indentations.Finally they came to the first trickle of the receding tideand they stopped. He set his arm about her again.
“Now if I had all my strength back,” he said, “I might pick you up and carry you in and make you pay me allsorts of forfeits to persuade me not to drop you.”
She giggled—what a joyful sound it was. He realized that he had not heard it in a long while. His illness musthave saddened her for a few years even before he went toItaly. “And if you thinkthatis going to make me say I amglad you do not have your strength back, sir,” she said,“you are very mistaken.”
“What?” he said. “You would not mind being dropped into the ocean?”
“Of course I would.” She giggled again. “But it would not happen. I would pay all the forfeits.”
“Would you?” He drew her a little closer. “That is something I must keep in mind. I shall put it to the test—sooner than you realize.”
She was crying then, noisily and unexpectedly, and hiding her face against his chest. He set his arms about her and rested his cheek against the flowers on her bonnet. Thismust be very bewildering for her, and rather frightening.She must expect that he would have a relapse at any moment.
“John,” she said eventually, choking back her tears.“Oh, do forgive me. What a goose you will think me. It is just that I never expected—Oh, I—I don’t know what it isI am trying to say.”
“You expected to come here to nurse a dying man with all the gentleness of your love,” he said. “You did notexpect to be teased and threatened. And you did not expectto get your shoes wet in the tide.”
She lifted a wet and reddened and very beautiful face to him and smiled. “How good God is,” she said. “Howvery, very good.”
He tried to imagine Allison saying just those words. But he did not want to think about Allison, and he pushed guiltback out of his conscious mind.
“Yes,” he said, and kissed her. His body, he realized after a mere few seconds, was already beginning to respondweakly to the desires of his emotions.
He handed her his handkerchief after a couple of minutes and she dried her eyes and blew her nose. He started coughing at almost the same moment, as a gust of salt air caughthis throat. It was just a harmless cough, over in a moment.But he noticed the quickly veiled terror in her eyes andthen the gentle tenderness that had been there when heopened his own eyes three days ago to find her instead ofAllison on the bed with him.
“Nothing,” he said. “Look, it is over. No blood.”
She smiled at him and stood on tiptoe to kiss him again.
