'I wouldn't leave these lying about, Miss Lowenna. Too many light-fingered folk around, even out here! ' He laughed. 'You've a lot to learn, if I may say so.' He laughed again. 'Bare feet, too! '
Lowenna found another rock and sat. It was no longer a private place.
'I can manage, thank you.' She pulled on each boot slowly and deliberately, feeling the breeze on her legs, like being in a studio. The eyes. The anticipation.
'I'll walk you to the road.' He waved up to the stable boy. 'Jump, lad! You're not here to dream! '
He half turned and winked. 'Though there's a lot to dream about, eh, Miss Lowenna?'
She walked past him, Adam's letter coming to her mind as if she had heard him speak. I want you as my wife, my lover, my friend.
Elizabeth pointed out to sea and said, 'Fishing boats coming back! Let's go and have a look at them! ' She did not turn as Flinders heaved himself into his saddle and wheeled round in the road.
She repeated softly, 'I don't like that man. He watches.'
Lowenna touched her shoulder and felt her flinch.
She said quietly, 'Anything, Elizabeth tell me first.' They walked back to the road in silence.
The parish church of King Charles the Martyr was all but empty; it seemed as if everybody who had nothing else to do was down by the water, watching the fishing boats unload. Traders jostling with one another to catch the barker's eye, innkeepers and housewives looking for bargains as the fish were arranged in baskets along the jetty.
In the church it was quiet, timeless. Lowenna sat at the end of a pew, one hand on the prayer book shelf, recalling the day she had met Adam here; the sunlight was streaming through the great window above the high altar, exactly as it had been that day.
She glanced along the pews; there were three or four bowed heads in private prayer, or simply enjoying the solitude. A tiny woman in a smock was polishing the big marble font and its finely carved cover, neither of which looked in need of her care.
She heard a man's voice, like an echo, coming from behind one of the galleries, and Nancy Roxby's in answer. She had come to see the curate about something, and had asked Lowenna to join her.
Lowenna looked at the plaques and memorial inscriptions, the busts, and here and there a carved likeness of one of Falmouth 's sons. Campaigns in foreign lands, sea battles and shipwrecks around the pitiless Cornish coastline: many a hero was remembered here. Nancy would be thinking of them, and her own family, her father and brothers, all those watching faces that lined the walls and stairwell of the old grey house.
On the way from the house she had said, 'I heard you were down on your little beach again?' She had not waited for a reply, or a denial. 'Yes, Flinders told me. He doesn't miss very much, you know. Does a good job of work, honest, and reliable. Roxby chose him for those very reasons.'
Lowenna smiled. She always referred to her late husband as Roxby, never by his first name. As if his presence, even now, was too powerful to suppress. Because she still needed him.
Nancy had also confided her concern over the affairs of the two adjoining estates. Daniel Yovell had been a tower of strength and had helped Bryan Ferguson greatly in his ever demanding book work and dealings with tenants and farmers.
Nancy had closed the carriage partition then, and said, 'But I can't expect him to do everything, now that poor Bryan is no longer with us.'
She sensed that Yovell disliked working with Flinders. He had already showed his willingness to help here, in the church, where the Falmouth Sunday school was being extended to include day education, the first, she thought, in Cornwall.
Something would have to be done. Lawyers could not round up sheep, or arrange the cutting of slate for barns and walls.
She shifted her position in the hard pew; her body was very aware of its riding lessons. With distaste, she recalled Flinders' remark about her bare feet in the sand.
She tried to shut it from her thoughts. She was a visitor, with no right to criticize or interfere.
Her mind lingered on Adam's letter, and the longing that matched her own. Did one ever get used to it, and if one did, did one lose something, some independence, some essence of self?
'Ah, there you are, my dear! ' Nancy came to the door of the pew and paused, looking around the church, at the shadows and the shimmering colours from the windows. 'You must meet the curate, Lowenna, when you have a moment. He will want to know you.' She touched her arm impulsively, like Adam, or a young girl again. 'Before Adam comes home.'
Lowenna stepped from the pew. When he had touched her…
'If only…' She stopped and reached out. 'What is it, Nancy? Is something wrong?'
Nancy shook her head, but seemed unable to speak. One of the isolated figures had stood up to leave a smaller chapel, where Lowenna had seen old flags and banners hanging. A man dressed in dark clothing, moving stiffly past a table laden with books. Only his hair stood out, grey, but in the occasional shaft of sunlight it looked nearly white.
He seemed to realize they were there, separated by the rows of empty pews, and the little cleaning woman by the font.
Nancy called out, and her voice rang in the dim air.
'Thomas! ' She was almost sobbing. 'Thomas Herrick! It really is you! '
Herrick pushed past the last barrier and stared from one to the other before taking Nancy 's hand in his and studying her, his cocked hat falling unheeded to the tiles. It was then that Lowenna saw that he had only one arm.
Nancy said softly, 'This is Thomas Herrick, my brother Richard's best friend, who became part of our lives a long, long time ago.' She watched as he lifted her hand to his lips, saw the face she remembered so well, aged and tanned like leather, but the eyes the same, blue and clear: the young lieutenant still there, looking out. She smiled. 'Rear-Admiral Herrick, as he now is.'
Herrick bowed to Lowenna as she was introduced, and said, 'To think that we might not have met! It must be fate.'
'We heard you were returning to Africa?' She hesitated. 'Have you finished with the sea, Thomas, is that it?'
Herrick released her hand, his features partly hidden by shadow.
'The sea is done with me, Lady Roxby.'
'Nancy, Thomas. There are no ranks or titles with us, here of all places.'
Herrick glanced at the nearest plaque. Who fell in battle, for King and Country. He said without bitterness, 'He was lucky.'
They walked together toward the big doors.
Lowenna thought: beyond those doors there will be a crowd, noise, like an enemy.
She walked beside the man who had been a rear-admiral, one of Adam's world. Her world, if she could seize it.
Herrick said, 'I went to the house. I was going to ask Bryan Ferguson to drive me over to Fallowfield, to the inn. There would be friends there, I thought.' He winced; the pain of the amputation had not left him. 'I knew nothing about his death. It was like a door slamming when I heard. I was planning to go back to Plymouth… something made me come in here.' The clear blue eyes moved once more. 'Many memories linger in these walls… Nancy.'
'You should have come to us, Thomas.' Although her lips were smiling, she seemed close to tears. 'And The Old Hyperion is probably too full, even for a friend, with all these tradesmen and salesmen using the new road.'
The doors opened and two people entered the church, seeing nothing, and unaware of the moment.
'I shall call Francis.'
Herrick moved as if to stop her, but Lowenna said, 'Please, let her. I am a stranger here, but I have heard her speak of you many times, with much warmth.'
Herrick was looking down at her hand on his sleeve.
'You are a very beautiful girl.' Then he raised his chin a little. 'I am glad you are her friend.'
They walked slowly into the hard light, and Herrick shaded his eyes from the glare.
