“This is a pretty property,” she said. “I am glad Wren did not sell it when she married Alex.”
“I believe it holds many happy memories for her,” he said. “She lived here with our aunt and uncle, who gave her all the love and security and sense of family she lacked during her first ten years. I wish I had known them. I did see Aunt Megan when she came to take Wren away, but I cannot remember either her face or her voice. And I never met my uncle. She married him after she left with Wren.”
“I think part of the appeal of Withington,” she said, “is that it has a happy feel to it.”
She did not know a great deal of Wren’s story. Neither Wren nor Alex had been forthcoming about it. But she knew enough to make her unutterably sad for a child who had lived through her early childhood without the close family ties Elizabeth herself had taken for granted.
“It does.” He smiled at her. “And I agree with my sister that this is the loveliest part of the park. I spend quite a lot of time here. There is a sense of peace. I do not know if it is nature itself that creates it, or if Wren had some part in it by being happy and secure and consoled here.”
They were walking among the trees, bare now for winter. Soon they were through them and standing on the bank of the stream, which was still flowing, though there was the rime of ice on the outer edges. There was a single-arched stone bridge spanning it to their left.
“Are you horribly cold?” he asked as she withdrew one hand from her muff in order to lift the muffler over her mouth and earlobes.
“The muffler helps,” she said. “No, not horribly cold.” Just freezing.
“Just freezing,” he said in unison with her thought.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“Because I am too,” he said, and they both laughed.
“Since we have come this far,” he said, “shall we at least cross the bridge and look at the daffodil bank so that you can imagine it later even if you are not at Brambledean when they bloom?”
“Lead on,” she said, sliding her hand back into the warmth of her muff.
“We do not have to go down,” he said when they stood at the top of the grassy slope.
“Having come so far?” She slipped a hand free of her muff again in order to hold up the hems of her dress and cloak and ran down to the bottom, gaining speed as she went. She was laughing when the fence stopped her momentum, and turned to watch him come down after her.
Oh, why did a man in a caped greatcoat and shining top boots and tall hat pulled low on his brow always look so virile? Well, perhaps not all men did, or even most. But Colin Handrich, Lord Hodges, certainly did.
“You see?” he said, gesturing toward the hill. “It is very bare of anything but weary-looking grass.”
“Ah,” she said, “but I have an imagination.” And she could picture it carpeted with nodding daffodils, the trees coming into bud at the top of the bank, the sky blue overhead. “We need winter if only that we can have spring.”
“That sounds like a philosophy for life,” he said, coming to stand next to her at the fence. “Have you known winter, Elizabeth? Ah, but that was an insensitive question. Of course you have. You lost your husband. Were you very much in love with him?”
“Yes,” she said. “Very much indeed when I married him.”
“But not later?” He chuckled.
“You did not know I was living apart from him when he died?” she asked. She was surprised he had not heard it from Alex or Wren, but they were not tattlers, those two.
His smile disappeared. He leaned back against the fence and crossed his arms over his chest. “I am sorry,” he said. “No, I did not.”
“I loved the man he was at heart,” she said. “I still do. I am convinced he had a sickness that was incurable, though not many people share my view. Why is it, Colin, that ninety-nine men—or women, I suppose—out of a hundred can drink to their heart’s content and even to excess on occasion without their very character being affected? Why can they take the liquor or leave it depending upon the occasion? Why does it not destroy their lives and those of their loved ones? And why is it that the remaining one out of a hundred is consumed by the very liquor he thinksheis consuming? Why must he drink it against his better judgment and even against his own will? Why does it possess him like a demon and sometimes banish the person he was and ought to be? Why does it make him vicious, particularly with the very person he loves most on the dwindling occasions when he is sober?”
His head was turned toward her. She had the feeling he was looking intently at her, though she did not turn her own head to look.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked after a lengthy pause.
“Oh, I am so very sorry,” she said, stricken. “I do not know where all that came from. I never talk about such things, even with my family any longer. At least, I must make thatalmostnever. Forgive me, please. This is a wretched way to thank you for inviting me for tea.”
“Did he hurt you?” he asked again.
She sighed. “Usually I could hide the scrapes and bruises,” she said. “Occasionally I invented head colds or headaches that kept me at home if a bruise or cut was visible. Twice I fled home to Riddings Park. My father sent me back the first time, when Desmond came for me, and I did not argue. He was sober and abjectly penitent and swore most convincingly that no such thing would ever happen again. It was easy to believe him even though I had heard it before. For the thing was that he really meant it, and I still loved him. Or, rather, I loved the man he was when he was not drinking. The second time was after my father died, and Alex refused to send me back even though Desmond came once alone and then with a magistrate. Alex hit him—Desmond, that was, not the magistrate. It was the only time I have known him be violent. I had a broken arm and one very black and bloodshot eye among other things. I have lived at Riddings ever since. Desmond died the year after—in a tavern fight.”
Colin had moved, she realized. He was standing directly in front of her. “I am so sorry for the terrible pain you had to suffer,” he said. “And I do not mean just the broken arm or the eye. But how do you do it, Elizabeth? How do you show…springtime in your demeanor? Almost constantly. Contentment, serenity, maturity, good sense, kindness—I could go on. How do you do it when you have lived through such a nightmare?”
