She realized even before he answered that it was a question she ought not to have asked—there was a certain stiffening in his manner. But it was too late to recall her words. He took some time to answer.
“I was but am not,” he said then rather curtly. “I was born right-handed, Miss Jewell.”
The silence resumed, but it was no longer as comfortable as it had been before. Clearly she had intruded too far into his private world—into his privatepain,she supposed, if the Countess of Rosthorn had spoken truly of his artistic talent. He was right-handed, but no longer had his right hand. He could no longer paint.
He stopped walking suddenly and set his back against a tree. She stopped too, close to the bank of the stream, and looked rather warily up at him. He was gazing off over her head to the opposite slope.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I ought not to have asked that last question. Please forgive me.”
His gaze lowered to rest on her. “That is part of the trouble, Miss Jewell,” he said. “There are so many topics people—especially my loved ones—are afraid to broach with me that nothing is safe except the weather and politics. And even with politics people feel the need to steer clear of some events, like anything to do with the recent wars. Everyone is afraid of hurting me and as a consequence I have become touchy. Because parts of my body have been permanently broken, I must be seen forever, it seems, as a fragile flower.”
“But you are not?” she asked him.
He smiled ruefully.
“Areyou?” he asked in return. “Because you have an illegitimate child?”
People did not usually state that fact quite so bluntly in her hearing.
“I asked first.” She stooped to pick up some loose pebbles and lifted one hand high to drop them one at a time with a plop into the water.
“I have learned,” he said, “that humans can be remarkably resilient creatures, Miss Jewell. I thought my life was over. When I realized it was not, Iwishedit were for a long time. And I could have gone on wishing it and feeling sorry for myself and drawing the pity of others, and so lived miserably ever after. I chose not to live that way. I took my life in a totally new direction, and have been rather successful at it. I have avoided having anything to do with painting and painters until this morning. It was painful to accept Morgan’s invitation to view her painting—excruciatingly so. Even the smell of the paints…Well, I survived it, and even felt rather proud of myself as I walked home. I brought all the account books up to date when I got there and wrote a few letters that needed writing. Life goes on, you see.”
“And are you happy most of the time?” she asked him. But he had admitted to being lonely.
“Happy?Mostof the time? Happiness is always a fleeting thing,” he said. “It never rests upon anyone as a permanent state, though many of us persist in believing in the foolish idea that if this would just happen or that we would be happy for the rest of our lives. I know moments of happiness just as most other people do. Perhaps I have learned to find it in ways that would pass some people by. I feel the summer heat here at this moment and see the trees and the water and hear that invisible gull overhead. I feel the novelty of having company when I usually come here alone. And this moment brings me happiness.”
She felt an unexpected rush of tears to her eyes and turned her head away. He was happy to be here with her. A stranger—a man—was happy to be withher.
“Your turn,” he said.
“Oh, I am not fragile,” she said. “My life changed when David was born, and it is sometimes tempting to think that it was a dreadful change. But he brought a love into my life that was and is so intense that I know myself to be one of the most blessed of mortals. And then, like you, I turned my life in a new direction, with some help, and made a meaningful life for myself at Miss Martin’s school. You are right, Mr. Butler. We adjust our lives to circumstances and take happiness where it is to be found, even if only in fleeting moments. It is either that or miss our chance to welcome grace into our lives. Thisisa happy moment. I will remember it.”
“To welcome grace into our lives,”he said softly. “And I will remember that phrase. I like it.”
She rubbed her hands together to rid them of the particles of soil she had picked up with the pebbles and lifted her head to smile up at him.
“Did you love his father?” he asked.
She felt an almost physical shock at the words. She closed her eyes and felt slightly dizzy. Now he had intruded upon her private world—her private pain. Perhaps it was a fair exchange.
“No,” she said. “No, I did not. I hated him. God help me, I hated him.”
“Where is he?” he asked.
“Dead.”
She had never ever been able to feel one moment’s sorrow over that fact—or one pang of guilt over the fact that she may have been in some small way to blame.
“Shall we continue on our way?” he suggested, pushing away from the tree.
“Yes.”
It was a relief to walk again, and she could see the bridge and the end of the valley ahead and the grassy dunes that separated it from the beach.
They admired the three stone arches that supported the bridge as they passed beneath it and a few minutes later waded over the grassy sand dunes to the harder, more level sand of the small beach, which was enclosed by cliffs that drew the eye ahead to the blue, foam-flecked sea and upward to the paler blue of the sky. The stream had separated into many strands around the dunes and flowed in little runnels down the beach to the sea.
Yesterday, Anne thought, they had admitted their loneliness to each other. Today they had denied their fragility. Yesterday they had spoken the truth. Today, she suspected, they had both lied.
