It was something she had never done, strangely enough. Even in the days when they had spoken freely to each other and he had poured out his heart and frustrations to her, she had never had anything remotely similar to share with him. Her life had been almost unbelievably trouble free. Even when she had learned years after her friendship with Matthew was over that her marriage was not going to be all she had hoped it would be, she had had her training as a lady to fall back upon and had been able to ignore what might otherwise have been unbearable. One thing her education had nottrained her for, however, was coping with widowhood and the sense that somehow she was superfluous to the life at whose very center she had lived and functioned for so many years.
How could she possibly talk about it?
Where would she even begin?
“Nobody can fully understand widowhood who has not actually experienced it,” she said. “You were married for a short while, Matthew. I do not know how much of this applies to you, though everything did end in horror for you, and I do not imagine you recovered quickly or even at all. Losing a spouse is not like other bereavements. Most people assume, and one assumes oneself, that after a certain time—a year, perhaps two—one will have recovered from the worst of the grief and adjusted to the changes in one’s life and will be forging onward with renewed purpose. One assumes it especially, perhaps, if the marriage itself was less than perfect, as mine was, particularly during the last years. There was a certain…distance between Caleb and me, though we never really talked things through with each other—or perhaps because we did not. And of course I had sent Devlin away and Ben had gone with him. I feared I had lost both of them forever, and I knew their absence weighed heavily upon Caleb. It was a dark time, and then he died in the middle of it.”
He did not break the silence when she paused.
“There is an emptiness in my life where he was,” she said. “Other people might think his sudden death was a fortunate release for me, a blessing in disguise. Indeed, especially in the early days, I expected that it would be. But then the emptiness set in, sometimes a sort of absence of all feeling, but often a little more painful. An ache of something missing at the core of myself. For of course it was not just my husband I had lost. I lost my position too, after a fewmore years, when Devlin came home and married Gwyneth and she became Countess of Stratton in my stead. It is rather a jolt to the system to become a dowager when one is still only in one’s forties.”
“The mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship is not an ideal one?” he asked.
“Oh,” she said. “I do not wish to give that impression. Quite the opposite is true, Matthew. Gwyneth is wonderful and I adore her. She makes Devlin happier than I have ever seen him, and she is the perfect mother and countess. She is much beloved in the neighborhood, as you must have seen for yourself. She is the perfect daughter-in-law. She took over her duties immediately after her marriage instead of dancing delicately about me, as so many new brides tend to do, pretending she still considered me to be the real countess and looking for a tactful way to take command. But she involves me in many of her decisions. She asks for my thoughts and suggestions and even help. But she is never obsequious about it. If she disagrees, she will say so and give a reason. She never rides roughshod over my feelings, though. I believe she genuinely loves me, just as I love her.”
“But—?” he said. “I can hear abutin your voice, Clarissa.”
She was quiet for a while, watching what was surely the same duck leading her ducklings back to the inlet on the southern shore.
“Much of my sense of purpose has been stripped away,” she said. “There is still Owen to settle, of course, though I do not suppose a mother’s influence or interference will be of any great service there. He will find his own way. He has too much intelligence and too much…conscience to fritter away his life as an idle gentleman about town. And if he does need a guiding hand, then it will surely be Devlin’s he will seek. I have Stephanie to settle also, though I have done all I can do already. I presented her at court this year and introduced her to thetonby taking her to dozens of parties andballs. Devlin and Gwyneth gave her a glittering come-out ball. I do not believe she will allow me to do much more by way of presenting her with eligible young suitors for her hand. She can be very stubborn. No, that is an unfair word to use. She is of very firm character, and I respect that. I just wish she had a more positive image of herself. But that is something she must discover within herself, if she ever does. It is not something I can teach her or persuade her of. A mother’s power is far more limited than she expects it to be when she gives birth to her children.”
She fell silent and hoped he would change the subject—perhaps suggest again going to fetch the picnic hamper or returning to the bank to eat there. But he remained silent too, and she had the feeling his attention was fully focused upon her. Oh, this was difficult. She was so unused to talking about herself to other people—really talking, that was. She had come closest to it down the years with Kitty, but for most of those years they had lived far away from each other and communicated only in long, long letters. It was not the same. It was easier by letter. There was time then to think before one wrote, to choose one’s words carefully, to filter out what one could not fully understand oneself.
“Hence the crisis, if you still wish to call it that,” she said. “I know that in innumerable ways I am one of the world’s most blessed and fortunate of women. I have all this for my home.” She made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “I am dearly loved by all the members of my family—including, I believe, both of my daughters-in-law and my son-in-law. But I am not sure I am needed. And the very fear that I may be right about that annoys me, for I do not wish to descend into self-pity as I approach my fiftieth birthday. I am quite determined, in fact, that it will not happen. But I need to…find my place.”
Still he said nothing.
“Do you notice how life is lived in quite distinct phases, Matthew?” she asked. “There was my childhood, my first seventeen years before I married Caleb. Then there were the years of my marriage. Each phase was very different and very clearly defined. I knew my role in each and embraced it. Now I have entered the phase of my widowhood. I am already six years into it, in fact, but I still do not understand what my role is to be, if any. Or how I will fill the dwindling years. And what a horrid word that is—dwindling. Where on earth did it come from? It is not a word I remember using ever before. It has occurred to me only recently how strange it is that despite the vast size of the park here, no one has ever thought to build a dower house. I think I might be happy living in one—close to my family and all I have loved since I was seventeen, but separate from them. In a place where I could close the door and be alone with myself if I chose. Is that how you feel in the rooms above the smithy?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Yet my very wish for a dower house is selfish,” she said. “Many people live in hovels, if they are fortunate enough to have a home at all, while I have all the vastness of Ravenswood to call my home.”
She drew her knees closer to her body and wrapped her arms about them while she felt Matthew’s gaze still upon her.
“This is how I see the three phases of your life,” he said. “The first two were all about obligation—what your family and society expected of you as a lady. You spent your childhood and girlhood learning what would be expected of you and preparing yourself for it. You were very single-minded about that, Clarissa. I remember. You were always very happy, but there was no breath of rebellion in you. The future you were expected to prepare for was the future youwanted. Your marriage was about obligation to husband and family and your role as Countess of Stratton. And again you did your duty superlatively well. You have raised a lovely family. You have carried out your obligations to the neighborhood around Ravenswood with dedication and grace and…humility. You have the respect of all and the affection of many. You have left the present countess with the difficult challenge of being your equal. Now, in this third phase, you no longer have pressing obligations. This phase is for you. It is a phase without the weight of duty or obligation upon your shoulders. And while you drew pleasure and a sense of fulfillment from the performance of those duties, you never did know much about freedom, did you? About the freedom to be the person you really are, living the life you really want to live.”
“But that is the whole point,” she said, turning her head to frown at him. “Who exactly am I, Matthew? What is the life I really want to live?”
“Alas,” he said, “I cannot answer those questions. Only you can. But I have seen you happy a few times recently. Not happy in the way I witnessed down the years when you fulfilled the role of countess and were known for your warm cheerfulness, which always seemed genuine. And not happy in the way you must have been as a young mother, when you brought your children swimming and exploring here and no doubt did numerous other things with them to keep them entertained. More recently I have seen you happy in yourself. Just in brief, snatched moments, perhaps, but very real. When you walked all the way from the house to the hills and then toiled up them to the crest of the highest peak, you were weary and desperate for the rest we took. But you should have seen the look on your face as we stood there at the top and gazed at the countryside all around. You were panting and flushed and vividly happy. Iam not even sure you were aware of it, but it was…breathtaking to see.”
“Well, it was an accomplishment,” she said, laughing. She rested one cheek on her knee and continued to look at him. “My children are very solicitous of my comfort, you know. They insist that I ride everywhere in a well-sprung carriage. They pamper and care for me. They make me very aware that I am the matriarch of a grown family and a grandmother of four, with more on the way. They would be horrified if they knew how you dragged me on that long walk.”
He grinned at her. “Is that what I did?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“And are you sorry you gave in to tyranny?” he asked.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “When else have you seen me happy in myself?”
“When you ran down the hill,” he said, “instead of taking the safe long way down by the road.”
“Happy?” she said, raising her head. “Matthew, I was terrified.”
“And laughing helplessly when I caught you and twirled you about,” he said. “And kissing me with reckless, scandalous abandon.”
They locked eyes. Neither spoke for several moments.
