Simply Love

“He is always a good boy,” she said. “The teachers and girls at the school are all fond of him. At first, when he was younger, I thought the school a wonderful environment for him. But he cannot stay there indefinitely. I have become more than ever aware of that this month. I dread the thought of letting Joshua find a boys’ school for him, though. Oh, Mr. Butler, it is very much harder to be a parent than I could possibly have expected.”

“Is it?” He looked across at her before turning the gig off the narrow road and onto a rutted path between two fields.

“I find myself wanting to mold him and control him,” she said, “because I know what is best for him and because I know what sort of person I wish him to be. I have tried, for example, to persuade him to think of painting merely as an interesting pastime. He is going to have to earn his living when he grows up. But I have been surprised to discover that he is a unique individual quite separate from myself and very different from me-and with a will of his own. Why should that be a shock? I have always known with my intellect that it is true of all people. But some lessons have to be learned with the heart too before we really understand them. It is so easy to be a parent before we have children of our own.”

He laughed softly. “You make me believe, Miss Jewell,” he said, “that perhaps it is fortunate I will never have children of my own.”

“Oh,” she said, turning sharply toward him, “please do not misunderstand me. David is the most precious being in my life.”

And she felt immediately guilty because she had been enjoying a day without him. She had scarcely spared him a thought, in fact. Was he enjoying the castle? Was he taking unnecessary risks on the stairs or battlements? Was Joshua keeping a careful enough eye on him? Was he behaving well?

Mr. Butler turned his head to smile at her.

Why would he never have children of his own? Because he intended never to marry? Because he could not? Had the torture included…

But her attention was suddenly distracted. He had drawn the gig to a halt, and Anne saw that ahead of them the land fell away into what looked like a large, shallow bowl. It was ringed about with trees, except here where the track gave way to a wider, graveled driveway beyond a wooden, five-bar gate with a rustic stile beside it and a footpath. Ahead of them wide grassy meadows stretched to either side of the driveway, woolly sheep grazing on them, some taking shelter from the sun beneath the shade of a few old oaks and elms.

There must be a ha-ha close to the bottom of the slope opposite, Anne thought. Above it she could see close- cropped lawns and flower beds and what looked like a rose arbor. But it was the house, also on the far slope, that drew most of her attention. It was of gray stone, and architecturally it was not particularly beautiful. It was three stories high and square and solid, with long windows on the bottom two floors and square windows at the top. The walls were more than half covered with ivy. It was framed by trees.

It was neither house nor mansion. It was small in comparison with Glandwr just a few miles away. Manor was the right word for it. The hollow in which house and park were nestled gave an impression of seclusion and intimacy if not quite of smallness.

The sea was on the other side of the road they had turned off, maybe a mile or two away.

Mr. Butler had made no move to get down to open the gate, Anne realized. He was looking at her.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think,” she said, her eyes drinking in the house, the trees, the flower garden, the sheep-dotted meadow, the whole circle of the park, “you will be happy here, Mr. Butler. How could you not be?”

How could anyone not be happy here? Suddenly she was consumed by such envy and such a yearning that it seemed there was a definite physical pain about her heart.

“A retired naval captain and his wife were living here on a ten-year lease when I came to Glandwr,” he said. “When they left last year, I made very little effort to find new tenants. I believe it is the only instance of neglect I have been guilty of in my duties as Bewcastle’s steward.”

“Will he sell it to you?” she asked.

“He has not said no,” he told her. “But he has not said yes either. He will give me an answer before he leaves here, though.”

It struck her suddenly that he must be a very wealthy man if he was able to make an offer for such a property. There was a huge distance between them socially. It was a good thing she did not have designs on him.

But she was very glad they had become friends.

“Will you hold the ribbons while I open the gate?” he asked.

“Let me do it.” She did not wait for his answer but jumped out of the gig, opened the gate, and swung it back on its hinges. She stood on the bottom bar and rode part of the way, looking up as she did so to laugh at Mr. Butler in the gig. She was very aware suddenly of the rural beauty of her surroundings, the green grass, the blue sky, birds singing, insects whirring, a very slight breeze. She could smell vegetation and animals and the sea. She could feel the heat of the sun.

It was one of those vivid, blessed moments, she realized, that burn themselves into the memory and are there forever.

He was gazing back at her, unsmiling. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. Perhaps she had offended him by opening the gate herself. Perhaps he thought she believed him incapable of doing it for himself.

“I could not resist,” she said. “Will you wait a moment longer while I climb over the stile?”

“When the gate is open?” He grinned his lopsided smile at her.

“Stiles were made to be climbed over,” she said. “I have never been able to resist one.”

He gestured toward it, making her a mocking little half-bow from his seat as he did so.

But by the time she had climbed up the two stone steps and swung both legs over the wooden bar and sat on it in order to turn and smile down at him, he had got out of the gig and looped the ribbons loosely over the top bar of the gate, and was striding toward her in order to offer her his hand to help her descend.

“Now if I just had two arms,” he said, “I could play the complete gallant and lift you down.”

“But then,” she said, placing her right hand in his left and holding up her skirt with the other, “I would miss the chance of descending like a queen, Mr. Butler.”

She became a very undignified queen, though, when the bottom step wobbled precariously under her weight and she came rushing down to the ground and stopped only just in time to prevent herself from colliding headlong with him. She laughed and looked up into his face-only a few inches away from her own.

Deja vu struck hard, like a fist to her lower abdomen. It was like the scene up on the rocks between two beaches all over again.

His left eye looked very dark, very intense, his unsmiling mouth very beautiful. She could feel his breath against her face. She could feel his heat along the full length of her body. For one dizzying, mad moment she swayed a little closer to him. She half closed her eyes.

And then she pulled sharply away and laughed again, removing her hand from his as she did so.

“Thank you, sir,” she said lightly. “I would doubtless have come to grief if you had not been holding on to me. I suspect my pride and my dignity would have been hurt more than any other part of me, but pride and dignity must also be preserved.”

“I must have that step seen to,” he said.

They were seated side by side in the gig a few moments later and proceeding down into the shallow bowl that held the house and park of Ty Gwyn.

She had almost touched him again, Anne thought-not just his hand, but him. She had almost kissed him-and he had known it. He was seated rigidly beside her now, aware that she had shrunk from him. But he would have misunderstood the reason.

It was not him. Not really.

It was her.

She was terrified of physical intimacy.

But perhaps he was as relieved as she that she had turned away. She was not a virgin. She had been raped. She had a child. All of those facts might well make him feel a revulsion quite equal to anything she could feel about him.

But she did not believe he felt revulsion.

She looked about the meadow and ahead to the house and gardens and tried to feel simply happy again.