Chapter 6
One of the things Alice loved about St. Ives was its light. She wasn’t certain whether it was the proximity to the ocean, the endless blue skies, or simply because she was happier there than anywhere else, but the light was divine. The renowned painter JMW Turner had discovered St. Ives in the forties, and his prestigious presence had drawn even more artists, who came to paint the sea, the quaint architecture, and its stunning vistas. Of course, Alice didn’t count herself among the artists, but she was pleased with her current work. She stood in their main parlor painting a watercolor of a vase of flowers, trying to capture the glorious way the sun was shining through a translucent blue vase overflowing with Irises, some of which were beginning to whither in a rather lovely way. Her mother was behind her going through her correspondence and commenting now and again about some news from friends and relatives, many of whom were still in London. Alice was quite certain, given the long pauses between sentences, that her mother was editing out any words of concern or sympathy having to do with Alice being jilted.
Christina was off laying flowers on the graves of veterans in St. Ives Parish Church’s cemetery, though Alice knew the real reason she and her friends had gone there was to get a glimpse of the new vicar, who was purportedly a fine-looking young man from an excellent family. Christina had begged Alice not to mention anything to her mother, though Alice suspected Elda most certainly knew why Christina and her friends had suddenly become so altruistic. They expected her back any minute, and so Alice was not surprised when she heard the rustle of her sister’s skirts behind her.
“How was your outing?” Elda asked.
“Uneventful.” Alice could almost see her sister’s pout. No doubt the handsome vicar had not been seen. “But the cemetery does look nice with the new flowers.”
“Which was the reason for your trip,” her mother pointed out.
Alice turned and gave her sister an impish smile before going back to her painting.
“I do have news, however,” Christina said as she sat down next to her mother. “Mr. Southwell is in the village.”
Alice stilled momentarily, unable to complete the delicate blue she was applying to one of her Irises, and she prayed neither her mother nor Christina noticed her brief inability to breathe. A sudden and fierce smile touched her lips and her heart hammered in her chest. Pressing her lips together and schooling her features, she turned and said (as if the news that Henderson had come to St. Ives was of little consequence), “Oh?”
“Yes. He didn’t see me. We were in the Downalong coming back from the cemetery and he was going into the new bookstore.”
“A new bookstore?” Alice asked. “How wonderful.” Henderson is here. Henderson is here!
“At any rate, he’s here. We should visit the bookstore tomorrow,” Christina said. “Would you like to go?”
“We should all go,” Elda said. “I wonder if they have the newest New Quarterly. It hadn’t been published yet when we were in London.”
Alice turned back to her painting, her heart singing with the knowledge that Henderson was so close. What was he doing in St. Ives? She furrowed her brow trying to think of one thing, other than he wanted to visit with the Hubbards, and perhaps particularly her, that could have drawn him to the village. Could it be possible he had been here for days and yet hadn’t written to let them know? Her heart, beating so happily not one minute before, slowed to a painful tempo. What if he had no intention of calling on them? What if his visit to St. Ives had nothing at all to do with her?
Squeezing her eyes shut, Alice had to accept that it was quite possible Henderson had absolutely no intention of seeing her, that his visit to St. Ives had nothing to do with her. That he hadn’t been close to kissing her when he’d left that day in England as she had so foolishly thought. She began frantically searching her mind for an excuse to go into the village immediately.
“Is something amiss, Alice?” her mother asked.
Alice realized with a start that she had been staring blindly at her painting, her brush drying in her hand, lost in her thoughts. “I’m having trouble with this bloom,” she said, locking her eyes on the painting. “Something is wrong with the perspective, I think.”
Christina came up next to her and studied the half-finished painting. “It’s lovely, Alice. I wish I could paint half as well.”
Alice laughed. “And I wish I could play the violin half as well as you.”
“Your voice is better.” Christina gave her a cheeky grin. “But I’m better at needlepoint. Are we finished?”
“No. I’m better at penmanship and you are better at archery.”
“Girls, stop,” Elda said, laughing. “You are both well accomplished in your own ways.” She set aside her correspondence as she looked at her daughters. “I wonder why Mr. Southwell hasn’t stopped by. I’m sure he knows he is welcome. And I don’t know why he would stay in one of the village’s little inns when he would be far more comfortable here.”
Alice turned her attention back to her painting. “He hasn’t been back since Joseph’s funeral. He was his particular friend and perhaps he feels a bit awkward staying here now.”
“Still, if we do see him, I shall issue an invitation. With your father and Oliver still in London, it would be nice to have a man in the house.”
“To protect us from all the evil forces in St. Ives?” Alice asked with a smile, for St. Ives was perhaps the most tranquil place in all of England.
“No, dear, we need a baritone.”
For some reason, that struck Alice as terribly funny, and she bent over with laughter and was soon joined by her mother and sister.
“We need a little music in this house,” Elda said when she’d calmed. “I think having Henderson about would make all the difference.”
* * *
“I’m sorry, sir, but Lord Berkley is not at home.” Henderson eyed the black crepe tied on the door knocker before turning his attention back to the solemn-faced butler, and remembered the earl’s Cavendish Square butler had been wearing a black band. When he’d seen the obvious sign of mourning, he’d nearly turned around and left. Feeling a bit like a cad, he’d turned the bell on the door anyway, wondering vaguely why he hadn’t seen any signs of mourning at the earl’s London home. When his own great-grandfather had died, they had shrouded the home in black, changing the curtains, draping the mantel in black, and hanging black wreaths even though not a single person within the home had tolerated the old man.
“I was not aware of a death in the family. Please do accept my apologies. May I leave my card and this letter?”
“Of course, Mr. Southwell,” the butler said, quickly reading his card.
“I’m staying at the White Hart Inn in the village if Lord Berkley would like to reach me.”
The butler bowed and shut the door, leaving Henderson feeling a bit at odds. If the man was in deep mourning, the last thing he would want to do was discuss the deaths in India when his own grief was still raw. He mounted his rented horse, grimacing a bit as he did so; it had been weeks since he had been astride and his muscles were feeling the pain. Before turning the horse back down the long, curving drive, he looked back at Costille House, a medieval home, with a massive stone tower and tiny arched windows built for the archer’s bow. Nothing had been done to modernize the hulking home that overlooked St. Ives Bay and he could almost imagine himself wearing knight’s armor. The home was visible from the Porthmeor Beach, a large expanse of soft white sand where he and Joseph would sometimes fish, a mystical and somehow comforting presence on the cliff above them. He would like to see the inside and hoped to hear from Lord Berkley soon.
As he headed down the long drive, he wondered what to do with the rest of his day. He suspected most of the men he’d spent time with as a lad were in London for the season.
Pulling out his watch, he noted it was about half an hour before tea. And it was also about a half hour’s ride to Tregrennar and Alice. He rode along a narrow dirt-paved road lined with stone walls covered by some sweet-smelling flowering vine. Trees made a canopy overhead, the air cool in the shadows. Abruptly, the road gave way to brilliant sun and the heartbreaking blue of the sea to his right and the charming village of St. Ives in the distance.
St. Ives was known by some as the Naples of Cornwall, due to the large, curving bay and its temperate climate. It never got very hot, nor very cold, and few locals could recall ever seeing a snowflake fall even in the deepest part of winter. A narrow isthmus connected the village to a peninsula, known by locals as the Island, for once it had been separated from the mainland. He and Joseph, and occasionally Alice, had explored the Island and its Cornish ruins, imagining what it must have been like when the isthmus had been used by smugglers to bring in their wares. From his vantage point, St. Ives, with its centuries-old gray buildings constructed in a hodge-podge, looked more European than English, and Henderson guessed that was part of its charm. It looked as if it had always been there, tucked between the sea and the heather-covered hills. The harbor below was clogged with fishing boats and small schooners, the beach dotted with smaller boats, hauled up on the beach and above high tide. Tall hedgerows nearly obscured the water from time to time, but Henderson didn’t care. He could still smell the sea, and hear it crashing ashore on the beach below. Perhaps when he was done with India he could buy a little cottage and just gaze out over the ocean for hours. His grandfather’s own country estate held little appeal to him; he hadn’t been back in more than four years and had no desire to see its stark walls again. He missed his grandparents, but his mother’s toxic presence was enough to keep him away.
When he reached the intersection that would either bring him to the Downalong and its rows of tightly packed homes and his hotel or up to Tregrennar, he stopped. Just above the cabbage trees, he could see the very top of Tregrennar’s roof. At that moment, his stomach grumbled and he pulled the horse slightly to the left, toward Tregrennar, feeling as if he were somehow sealing his fate—whatever that might be.
* * *
The wind coming up from the bay whipped at Alice’s skirts and threatened to pull her well-anchored bonnet from her head. If it hadn’t been so very windy, it would have been quite warm, though not nearly as warm as London was in mid-July. Gathering her wool coat around her, Alice looked out over the white-capped bay, taking in the sights and sounds of her childhood home. Truly, it was a good thing Northrup hadn’t showed up to the church. He lived in Manchester and Alice didn’t care much for that section of Britain; too cold in the winter and hardly warm at all in the summer. St. Ives never got too hot and never too cold and in the summer it seemed as if it were gloriously sunny all the time. It wasn’t true, of course, for the storms that raged ashore from the Atlantic could be fearsome, but whenever Alice thought back on her childhood it was always sunny. And from the time she was fifteen, her summers had been filled with Henderson.
When she entered the part of the path lined with tall and ancient hedgerows, most of the wind was blocked, and it became a silent world but for the sounds of nature. Bees flew lazily and the cry of seagulls was nearly always present. She heard the sound of an approaching horse long before she saw it, and pressed close to the side in the event the rider did not see her. Alice and her friends had nearly been trampled more than once by a rider heading to Tregrennar—including her own father. This rider, however, seemed to be in no hurry, for every once in a while the horse would stop, then start, until finally the rider came into view. Her entire body went briefly rigid when she recognized Henderson’s tall form riding toward her.
“Henderson. Hello,” Alice called, wishing her heart wouldn’t speed up quite so much every time she saw him. He smiled, and something in that smile made her heart pound, it was just that beautiful. “Christina mentioned that she saw you in the Downalong going into the new bookstore.”
He dismounted and held the reins loosely in his hands, giving her a small bow of greeting. “Miss Hubbard, a pleasure. Why didn’t your sister say hello?”
“She said she saw you from a distance and didn’t want to shout.” Alice couldn’t stop her smile, couldn’t stop the hope that caused her chest to hurt. Henderson was not only in St. Ives, he was very obviously heading to Tregrennar. When she was sixteen years old, she’d come across Joseph and Henderson walking on this very path; she’d been heading to the overlook and they’d been coming from town. Henderson had slung an arm around her shoulders for exactly ten steps, a brotherly gesture that didn’t even garner a raised brow from her protective brother. Ten steps of feeling that heavy arm around her, of having him so near she could feel the heat of him, his manly scent of horse, cigar, and sea. She wished fervently that he was still so comfortable around her that he would do the same, throw his arm around her so that she might just one more time know what it was like. “Why didn’t you write to say you were coming to St. Ives?”
“There wasn’t time. I’m here to see Lord Berkley. You know him?”
Disappointment pierced her, a sharp little slice that made it difficult to maintain her pleasant smile. “Lord Berkley died just this past week,” Alice said, keeping her voice even.
“Well, apparently there’s another Lord Berkley in residence.”
Alice stopped walking and looked at Henderson in surprise. “Not Augustus. I thought he’d gone to Australia or some such thing. America? There were some terrible rumors about him two years ago when his wife died. At any rate, no one has seen him in St. Ives for years. I’ve never met him, actually.” Alice willed herself to stop speaking as she tended to babble overlong when she was nervous. “Is this about famine relief?”
“It is, though I fear I shall be disappointed again. Apparently, his father was the one with great influence in the House of Lords. I doubt if Berkley has even taken his father’s seat. From what I understand, the old Lord Berkley was a man to be reckoned with, but I have no idea if the son holds any influence.”
“I’m afraid I cannot help you there. I know nothing of the man. Perhaps Mother can be of some assistance. Have you had any success thus far?”
A shadow crossed over his features before he answered. “No, I have not. Otherwise I would not be here wasting my time.”
Of course, Henderson hadn’t meant to be so cruel; he didn’t know she was in love with him, didn’t know her heart sang every time she looked at him, every time his beautiful blue eyes looked at her. How could he know? To say such a thing, however, only brought home how ridiculous her feelings were. Alice forced a laugh and prayed it sounded sincere. “And here I was thinking you’d come to St. Ives to have some of Cook’s cherry tarts.” Or to see me.
“My God, Mrs. Godfrey is still with you?’
“Indeed, she is. And I know when she learns you’re in St. Ives, she’ll be sure to make you your favorites.”
“Then the trip was worth it,” he said, sounding like his old self and looking down at her with real fondness. Yes, Henderson was fond of her. Like he was fond of cherry tarts.
Alice stopped and glared up at him with mock anger. “Mr. Southwell, I have just realized it is very close to tea time. Is it possible you planned your visit accordingly?”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Indeed I have, Miss Hubbard, although I hadn’t thought there would be even a small chance of tasting Mrs. Godfrey’s cherry charts. My God—” His hand threw out to stop her mid-step. “An adder, Alice. Don’t move.” With his hand still pressed against her stomach, he pushed her back slightly, slowly, and Alice wasn’t certain whether it was the venomous viper that was making her heart thud in her chest or the feeling of his strong hand against her.
Beside them, the horse had also sensed the danger of the adder, which lay in the sun, basking on a section of soft sand in the very middle of the path. “I didn’t see it,” Alice said, her voice shaking slightly. Though adders were not deadly in most cases, being bitten by one was exceedingly unpleasant. “I would have stepped directly on it.”
The small brown snake flicked its tongue before moving off beneath the hedgerow, and Alice let out a sigh of relief.
Grinning, Alice threw her hands over her heart dramatically and said, “Sirrah, you have saved my life. However shall I repay you?”
“A kiss.”