“No, it couldn’t,” Wes said. “If you are suggesting...”
“Well, I am,” Justin said, and his hand tightened about Estelle’s. He desperately wanted to find the right words to use with a man whose pride was prickly, to say the least. “Hear me out, Wes. You gave me a job years ago when I could not have been more unsuited for the work if I had tried. You gave me a chance—and a home. You are not destitute now as I was then. But I can offer you the job of your dreams and a home all three of you might like. You could complete your apprenticeship here and then take over the smithy. I have talked to Slater about it, and he is all in favor. I pay my workers well, Wes, as my father did before me. I keep their homes in good repair and give them good pensions when they retire. I give pensions to their wives if they are widowed. I see to it that there is a doctor to tend all of them when they are ill or hurt. I see to it that theirchildren, boys and girls, go to school. I did not earn any of all this, Wes, but I can and do take my responsibilities seriously. All this is mine so that I can make it possible for a whole lot of other people to live decent, productive lives with the security of knowing that neither they nor their families will ever starve or be homeless.”
“Bloody hell,” Wes Mort muttered—probably loudly enough for Estelle to hear.
“Give it some thought,” Justin said. “Talk it over with Hilda and with Ricky if you wish. Wes, you are my friends, all three of you. You are too far away there in Gloucestershire. Give it some thought.”
They had stopped walking not far from the stables.
“Damn,” Wes said. “Ah, I beg your pardon, ma’am. Juss, I’m set to marry Hildy at the end of next week. The oddest thing has happened after all these years. There’s going to be a little one. She used to cry every month when it didn’t happen, but then she got used to the notion that it wasn’t going to happen at all. Then suddenly it did. Are you going to stand there grinning like a fool, or are we going to the stables to get the horse?”
“I am grinning like a happy man,” Justin said. “And because you are squirming with discomfort. Wes! I am delighted for you both.” He was too. Hilda would be an excellent mother. And Wes would be a good father. Consider the way he had always looked after Ricky, never losing patience with him, never belittling him, always loving him. Even though he had had to give up his dream job to keep him safe.
Estelle was smiling, Justin could see.
“If it’s a boy,” Wes said, “I don’t want him doomed to working all his life in the quarry. And if it’s a girl, I want her to live in a place where there’s green grass and trees andwhere her hair and her dresses aren’t always gray with dust. I want her to have... prettiness in her life. It’s what I’ve always wanted for Hildy too. But wanting isn’t always getting. And there’s a school here? For girls as well as boys? Girls are often brighter than boys. Hildy is brighter than I am. Which wouldn’t be difficult, I suppose.”
“You will give this job some thought, then?” Justin asked, almost holding his breath and aware that he was squeezing Estelle’s hand only when she winced slightly.
“Damn you, Juss,” Wes said. “Beg your pardon again, ma’am.” His eyes came to rest upon her, quite accidentally, it seemed to Justin. “Damn, Juss, but you know how to pick the pretty ones. Begging your pardon, ma’am.”
Justin was laughing then, as was Estelle herself. It was novel to see his large friend squirm with discomfort. He released her hand in order to hug Wes. “You and Hilda gettingmarried,” he said. “Next week. I am going to find a way of being there, whether I am invited or not. How does Ricky feel about it all?”
“Oh, good God, we haven’t told him yet about getting married,” Wes said. “He would be asking twenty times every day if this is the day yet. When he knows about the little one, he’ll be pestering poor Hildy all day every day about her health and whether she ought to be lifting that pot or poking the fire. He will drive us both out of our heads.”
“He will be a wonderful uncle,” Estelle said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of, ma’am,” Wes said. “He’ll be forever shushing me and keeping me away from my own baby.” He laughed suddenly then. “There will never have been a more doting uncle.”
“Stay another day,” Justin said. “Have a good talk with Bill Slater. Let Ricky say goodbye to all his friends—there must be dozens, in the house, in the kitchens, in the stables.Get some rest. I will see you on your way early tomorrow. And next week I will see you at your wedding.”
“Ah, bloody hell,” Wesley said before apologizing to Estelle yet again. “We don’t want no fuss.”
“Youdo not,” Justin said. “I’ll wager Hilda would not mind a bit of one. Go on back up to the cottage. Get some sleep. I bet you have not had a wink all night.”
“I was afraid of sleeping in,” Wes said. “I—” He gave Justin a hard look, shook his head, and turned to make his way back up the hill.
“I believe he will return and bring his wife and Ricky to live here,” Estelle said as they watched him go.
“Hiswife,” Justin said. “It seems strange to hear Hilda referred to that way. They had already been together a year or two when I went to live with them ten years ago. I often wondered why there were no children. Neither of them ever spoke of it.”
“Which is hardly surprising,” she said, sounding amused. “I think your offer of employment came at the perfect time. But it was not made just out of kindness, was it?”
“Kindness?” He shrugged. “Wes has a steady job, and he is good at it and well respected by his bosses and his fellow workers. Ricky has work. They have a home, though it is in a bleak place. They can manage, even with a family. No, not kindness. I want them here because they are my friends,” he said.
“Because they are yourfamily,” she said. “And because you knew of his dream.”
He took her hand in his again. It was still early, but it was definitely morning now and any number of early risers might be looking out through a window and see them in the gray predawn light. A servant might step outside at any moment. The sound of their voices, even though they hadkept them low, had probably woken a few people up in the village.A groom had already seen them in the stables.Setting a decorous space between themselves as they walked back to the house would have been a bit ridiculous. Rather like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
In fact...
“The sun is going to rise soon,” he said, nodding at the eastern sky, already streaked with pale pink. “Shall we go and watch it from the bridge?”
“I have crossed it a few times since we came here,” she said. “But I have never stopped and actually looked at it—or from it. It is beautiful, just as the Chinese bridge at the lake is in a different way. Yes, let us see the sunrise as we stand upon the bridge.”
Twenty-three
They crossed the valley, Captain trotting after them, and walked halfway along the Palladian bridge before stopping. Estelle looked up and about at the intricately carved stonework overhead and on either side. It was like a small Roman temple with pillars and large openings on either side to afford views over the river. They stepped up to the side that looked east. The sun had not yet shown itself over the horizon, but both the sky and the water now were alight with varying shades of pink and gold. Her free hand, slim and delicate, was resting on the broad stone balustrade. Her eyes squinted as she looked out into the brightness.
