“How very gallant of you,” she said.
At her request, he told her about some of the wood carvings he had done in his spare time during the past couple of years. His favorite was a short-eared owl perched on the stump of a tree and poised for flight but delayed by the long staring match in which it was engaged with the man who would soon capture it in wood.
“I love to convey the idea of movement or imminent movement in what I carve,” he said. “It is a huge challenge but makes all the difference to the completed carving, I believe. That bird was ready to go, but it was absolutely not going to concede the staring victory to me. I was the first to step back and look away and so release the owl into flight. We might still be staring at each other if I had not.”
“The sense of movement is one of the things that most astonishes me in your work,” she said. “It would seem to be impossible to achieve when the carving itself does not move. But you make it possible.”
“I aim to satisfy.” He grinned at her again, though she knew what he had said was not quite true. In his wood carvings, he was the true artist. He carved for himself and his vision and, in doing so, pleased all who were privileged to behold his creations. But how could she convey that thought in words? She did not try.
“I would love to see it sometime,” she said.
He merely smiled. Perhaps he would enter it in the contest at the next fete, though that would not be until next year. Perhaps he would show it to her…But no. Today was supposed to be their last day.
They were busy tucking into the contents of the picnic hamper, which were quite as sumptuous as he had predicted. There were cucumber sandwiches—the bread was fresh and sliced wafer-thin, as were the cucumbers—and sausage rolls with pastry that flakedto the touch and lobster patties that melted in the mouth and slices of cheese and fried chicken legs.
And then there were the sweets, usually to be resisted as much as possible but today to be indulged in because…well, simply because. There were biscuits made with lots of butter, small apple tarts, thin slices of fruitcake, and equally thin slices of a white four-layered cake, a creamy icing and strawberry preserves spread lavishly between each layer—but not oozing out. How did the cook accomplish that?
But before they started on the sweets, Clarissa suggested they carry them, along with the as-yet-unopened champagne, along the footpath north of the lake to the thatched arbor at the junction with the western path.
“It is such a lovely spot,” she said, “though I rarely go there. I only ever see it from afar.” She was about to add that it looked utterly romantic, standing just where it did in all its miniature rural beauty. But she really must not bring up the idea of romance.
She wrapped some of the sweets in two neatly folded linen napkins within a white cloth that had been laid over the top of the hamper before it was closed, and made a bundle she could carry in one hand. Matthew meanwhile took up the bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other.
And so they walked along the path, just for the pleasure of finishing their tea inside a small grotto, which held a single table of bare wood and a backless bench on either side of it, if memory served her correctly. But the walk was lovely, the lake water glimmering and lapping on one side, the undulating green landscape dotted with trees on the other, a few low bushes and flower beds bordering the outer edge of the path. They walked in a silence thatfelt comfortable, and it seemed to Clarissa that there must have been silences when they were growing up. They had often spent hours at a stretch together. They surely could not always have talked nonstop, though that was how she remembered it.
“I often avoid being in company with others,” he said. “Silence is seen as the great enemy of people gathered together, and they will do all in their power to fill it with the sound of conversation, no matter how meaningless. You are one of the few people I have known with whom I have always felt perfectly at ease, even happy, when we are silent with each other. Do you remember when we could sit for hours, often in the branches of a tree, without speaking a word but nevertheless comforted by each other’s presence?”
Ah. There had been such times, then, and he remembered them.
“And now see what I am doing,” he said. “I am breaking the silence in order to extol its virtues.”
They both laughed.
“In fact,” he said, “I believe it was our silences I valued most about our friendship. They were so soothing. I have not fully understood that until now. How strange.”
“It says a great deal for the quality of my conversation,” she said.
But he laughed again. “Clarissa,” he said, “you were quite perfect.”
She blinked a few times, unwilling to show any sign of tears. He had always treated her as though she were perfect—that troubled, sullen, rebellious boy, who was such a trial to almost everyone else who knew him. Caleb, for all his affection and admiration, had never really considered her perfect, had he? He would not have needed other women if he had. Though she was not going to think of that now. Or ever.
The gardeners must have been along here recently, she thoughtas they approached the grotto. In beds and pots and hanging baskets, pink, white, and lilac hyacinths bloomed in profusion along with pink peonies; yellow pansies; blue, purple, and white irises; and great balls of white and pale green allium. The combined perfume of them wrapped about her senses like a tangible thing. Someone had cleaned off the table and benches and swept the floor. They stepped inside and set the remains of the picnic on the table, using the cloth that had wrapped the sweets as a tablecloth. The grotto was open at the front, two pillars holding up the roof at the corners. The wide opening was framed by thatch above and flowers and greenery on both sides. The whole vista of the lake and the island was spread before them. The lake water was very blue.
He opened the bottle of champagne.
And this was the end, she thought.
But was it? Must it be?
Why?
“The glasses add a definite something to this picnic feast,” he said, filling them both.
“Though there was much to be said for drinking straight from the flask at your picnic,” she said, seating herself on one of the benches while he took the other, facing her. “Both of us from the same flask.”
“This is more genteel, Clarissa,” he said, grinning as he placed one of the glasses before her and raised the other in his right hand. “One must make a toast when drinking champagne, must one not? I believe there is a law.” His smile faded as he gazed thoughtfully across the table at her. “To friendship,” he said.
“To a lifelong friendship,” she said. “Even when it lies dormant for years at a time.”
