“I am going to build a cottage on the bank of the river below the meadow,” she said. “I have the place picked out. There will be just room for the house and a pretty flower garden. It is going to be heaven on earth—with a bright red front door.”
He regarded her in silence for a few moments. “Poor Dev,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, “I intend to pay for it myself. It can become a modest dower house for future generations. Ravenswood has never had one.”
“That was not what I meant,” he said. “If Dev agrees to have it built on his land, he will certainly insist upon paying for it himself, Mother. You will have what I would guess will be an unwinnable fight on your hands if you try to have your own way on that. I daresay the absence of a dower house until now has something to do with the size of this house?”
“It is rather large,” she agreed. “That is part of the problem, Ben.”
He smiled at her. “Joy and I will go back home in a few days,” he said. “I must confess to being uneasy at being away from Jennifer, though she has excellent company and care from Aunt Edith. You may, of course, come with us if you wish. We would be delighted, as you very well know. But I am not going to press the point. I may, however, persuade Owen to come with us. He always loves being by the sea. You will be alone here again.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Ben, it is not that I do not love you all. I do.”
“Is it not strange,” he said, “that children are expected, even encouraged, to make their own lives away from the nurturing loveof their parents when they grow up. But when parents try to do the same thing, they cause something like panic in their children. Why should you not have a life of your own now that we are all adults and living the lives we have chosen? Even Steph is spreading her wings.”
“I worry about her,” she said.
“It is unnecessary,” he said. “Many people with a low regard for themselves will grasp at the first opportunity to settle respectably. Yet I have heard that she refused two quite eligible offers in London?”
“She did,” Clarissa said. “One of them came with a title.”
“That fact alone tells me she will eventually have a strong sense of self and will find what will make her happy,” he said.
“Oh, Ben,” she said, “when did you become so wise?”
“Perhaps,” he said, “it started when I was at the knee of the woman who loved me instantly and unreservedly when I was foisted upon her, while ninety-nine out of one hundred women in the same position would have spurned me and refused to have anything to do with me.”
Clarissa was spared the necessity of answering by the sudden bursting open of the drawing room door and the influx of three disheveled, grubby, grass-stained persons, who were still in a boisterous mood.
“Uncle Owen almost broke his leg and his arm when he tried rolling down the hill,” Joy shrieked. “He did not tuck in right. I had to show him how to do it.”
“I believe I did break my nose, though,” Owen said, rubbing it.
“You are a splendid instructor, Joy,” Clarence said, beaming down at her. “I rolled down without mishap.”
“Yes,” she said.
Oh, she would never be a hermit, Clarissa thought as she got to her feet. She loved people too much. She was enjoying herself enormously.
“I assume you are staying for dinner, Clarence,” she said. “You will be very welcome. But the butler will be handing in his notice on the spot if you turn up in the dining room looking like a scarecrow. Go with Owen and get cleaned and brushed up. Joy, go with Papa for a scrubbing.”
They all filed meekly from the room. Before hurrying off after them to change for dinner, Clarissa tried to decide if she wanted more to laugh or to weep. Sometimes the emotions involved were very similar.
Chapter Seventeen
Ben Ellis came, as planned, to Matthew’s rooms the following afternoon. The surprise was that he did not come alone. Clarissa was with him. His daughter was not.
“Joy has gone off for a swim in the lake with Owen and Clarence,” Clarissa explained. “Clarence Ware, that is. He stayed last night.”
So, Matthew thought—Owen, Ben, Clarence Ware, Joy. Poor Clarissa. Her lovely solitary late spring and summer had fast changed into a series of visits by family members. He could only wonder if any more of them would turn up. And it was all his fault. Well, not all, he supposed. But he was certainly the cause of these impromptu visits.
“I have come,” Ben said after shaking Matthew’s hand, “so I may report to my siblings and my uncle in all honesty that I have had a word with you and done my best to sort out the situation. Here I am sorting it. I have known Mother since my father brought me to Ravenswood when I was three years old. I am now thirty-five. In all that time I have never once seen her behave recklessly orimproperly. She has always been the perfect lady and the perfect mother and grandmother. I would not presume now to question her choice of friends or style of living. I want only to see her happy. You are a man I have known since I was a lad. I have always looked upon you with the deepest respect and admiration for your talents and skill. I would not presume to confront you on any choice you make about your own life. There, that is done. Now, I seem to recall from two years ago, when you were making a wheeled chair and a cane for my wife, that you keep a display of your wood carvings in your workroom. I will go and have a good look at them if I may. I do not need company. Sometimes art is best viewed and appreciated when one is alone and behind a closed door.”
Matthew exchanged glances with Clarissa. She raised her eyebrows but said nothing. Ben did not wait for an actual invitation but strode off into the workroom and shut the door firmly behind him.
It was a good thing, Matthew thought, that he had taken the sketches for the baby’s crib into his bedchamber along with the pieces of the frame he had cut out that morning. Not that he had expected their meeting to take them into his workroom, but one never knew. One never did, indeed.
“Ben is your chaperon?” he said.
