“A large, not particularly pretty one,” he said. “It was at the bottom of the pile. Do you have any idea why he wants it and seems determined to carry it back to the house?”
“Oh dear, itislarge,” she said. “It must be very heavy. He has seen something in it, though. It happens occasionally, and he will not rest until he has it.”
“Something?”He frowned at her, mystified.
“Oh.” She laughed. “That would make no sense to you, would it? Andrew is amazingly talented as a stone sculptor. My father triedvery hard to teach him to paint as a way to pass the time and release his emotions. He was terrible at it and seemed quite uninterested. Then Papa discovered Andrew one day chipping away at a stone with a sharp knife. He was terrified he would cut himself and took the knife away from him—Andrew was still very young at the time. Somehow over the next few days, however, he found a knife to replace the confiscated one, and then another. It was Mama who said Andrew should be allowed to continue what he was doing, under supervision. She promised to watch him and make sure he did not hurt himself. And he produced the most exquisite mouse, all curled up and fast asleep. It was rudimentary compared with what he has done since then, but his talent was obvious from the start. Mama says he can see things in certain stones that he must release, as he cannot always release what is walled up inside himself.”
She gazed fondly at her brother as she spoke and squeezed his shoulder when he looked up and pointed at the stone. She smiled and nodded.
“You and I,” she said, though not aloud. She pointed first at him and then at herself, then gestured with both hands in the direction of the house and did not need to speak aloud. “We will take it back to the house together,” her gestures said.
“While I stroll along behind like a benevolent uncle, my hands clasped at my back?” Nicholas said.
She flashed him a grin. “We could manage,” she said. “But did I just hear an offer to carry it yourself—with my help?”
“Withyour brother’shelp,” he said. “He ought to know every step involved in pursuing his passion. He is big enough. You may stroll along behind like a benevolent aunt and describe to me some of the things he has sculpted since that mouse. I once saw Michelangelo’sPietàin Rome. It was breathtaking. Matthew Taylor, mymother’s husband, saw it once too and it inspired him to take his wood carving to the next level of skill. If you have not seen any of his carvings, you should ask to do so. They are in the rooms above the smithy in the village. I am sure Owen would be happy to take you there.”
He was lifting the stone with Andrew’s help as he spoke. He wondered what the boy had seen in this one. He hoped it was more than an ant or a ladybird.
“You are going to have to do all the talking,” he said as they made their way back to the house. “Andrew and I have more important things to do—like breathing, for example.”
She laughed.
She seemed to have recovered her spirits. He guessed he had come across her earlier in one of her rare moments of open vulnerability. She had never struck him as a moody person. She spoke warmly now of the figures, mostly animals, her brother had released from a seeming eternity of captivity inside stone. And yes, they were always bursting with animation as though at any moment they might breathe and move. Only his first effort, the mouse, had been sleeping.
“While I,” she said as they approached the stables at the back of the house, “have no artistic talent whatsoever despite all the benefits sound and sight bring me and the proximity of a marvelously talented father and a mother who encourages all her children to try their wings even if they sometimes crash. It is very provoking.” She sighed, but there was laughter in the sound.
“Believe me,” he said. “You have talents in great abundance.” He felt embarrassed then, hearing the fervent intensity in his voice. But it was hard to believe this was the goody-goody, overpious schoolgirl who had been detested through much of her needychildhood, if she was to be believed. And the change had come entirely because she had been offered love, total and unconditional, on the happiest day of her life.
She seemed to spend her days now giving back that love in superabundance.
She was directing them to set the stone down in a clear space just inside the stable doors and squeezing the boy’s shoulder again.
“We will know exactly where to find Andrew for the next week or so,” she said. “Papa brought his tools. We do not go anywhere far from home without them. He is usually the most patient boy in the world, but when he has found a new stone, he will not rest until he has it and all the tools to work on it.”
She was really quite delightful when she forgot herself. Owen was going to be a fortunate man—if he ever got to the point, that was. He did not seem to be in any hurry, though the two of them were undoubtedly the best of friends. Why on earth had he not taken that opportunity for the romantic encounter Gwyneth and Devlin had offered on a platter by suggesting a walk in the alley at sunset? He would have said a firm no to Owen’s suggestion that he and Grace join them if Grace had not first accepted it.
But what made him an expert on relationships?
Winifred was talking to Andrew without the medium of sound, enticing him back to the house for tea, assuring him that the stone would be safe where it was, that no one was going to run off with it. She signed something else Nicholas could not decipher until Andrew turned and offered his right hand and bobbed his head in an obvious gesture of thanks.
Nicholas shook it and winked and smiled at him.
The boy smiled back.
They must have been on their way to the lake to share inGwyneth’s picnic, as he had been too, he thought. But they had been ambushed by a large ugly stone.
Winifred drew Andrew’s arm through hers and led him out of the north wing, through to the courtyard, and on into the house for tea. Nicholas fell into step behind them.
Who would have guessed that such a seemingly plain, almost drab creature was so filled to the brim with life and warmth?
—
Winifred took Colonel Ware’s suggestion and asked Owen at the breakfast table the following morning if he could arrange for her to see Mr. Taylor’s wood carvings sometime. She had heard he kept several in the building that housed the smithy in the village. She had also heard they were well worth seeing.
“But of course,” he said, beaming at her. “We will go this afternoon if he is not busy. He will be delighted that you are interested. He is sure to have something entered in the wood-carving contest at the fete next Saturday, of course, but there will be many more to see. He will almost surely take first prize at the fete, but when he offered to refrain from entering anything one year so other people would have a chance, there was a storm of protest, even from some of his most fierce competitors. He is very popular, you know. I think it is because he is so unassuming. He mingles with everyone, high and low alike. He lived a quiet, humble life in those rooms for years before he married my mother. I tell you what we will do, Winifred. We will call on Mama at the cottage first. Have you been there yet?”
“No,” she said. “Though I have seen it from the village.”
