A Second Spring (3 page)

“Are you all right?” He sounded shaken. Had he read her mind? No, of course, she had narrowly escaped falling in the lake and had nearly pulled him in with her.

“Yes, quite all right,” she said in a stifled voice. “Thank you for saving me. I am sorry.”

“Whatever for?” Now he seemed deliberately to misunderstand. “I had no intention of going with Mrs Rosebay,” he went on calmly. “She has the twins for company. If you permit, I shall walk with you back to the Dower House. Will you not take my arm? You have had a shock.”

His obliging offer was impossible to refuse. Catriona laid her hand lightly on his arm, and they turned down the path along the bank. Whatever he guessed to be the cause of her agitation, he set out to distract her.

“The skiff is comfortable,” he said, “but less stable I believe than the canoes we used in Canada. I should not care to trust it on a whitewater river.”

He went on to talk of the natives’ skill with canoes, their wretched treatment at the hands of the Northwest Company, and the treatise on the subject Lord Selkirk was writing.

“When we met his lordship in Montreal, we promised him to do what we can to influence the government to pass laws protecting those unfortunate people. Harry and I have been writing letters, and next month, when Parliament sits, we shall go up to Town to speak to people face to face. Money talks. I ought perhaps to tell you,” he added awkwardly, “that I returned from India something of a nabob.”

Her discomfort thoroughly dispelled, Catriona stared at him. “A nabob! You have been sailing under false colours, sir. Did you not claim to be a rolling stone? Don’t laugh at me, you odious man! A sailing stone may be an infelicitous image, but you know very well what I mean.”

“To complete the confusion of metaphor, you must not tar all of us rolling stones with the same brush. Some of us do gather moss. What would you have thought of me had I announced on entering your sitting room that, far from being saved from poverty by my inheritance of the manor, I am well able to buy an abbey?”

“I would have thought you a vulgar, ungrateful braggart.”

“Well, I cannot quite afford an abbey, and I’m proud to be a March of Marchbank.”

“And I think you a truly gallant gentleman,” said Catriona softly as they reached the Dower House’s back gate. “I shall not invite you in, Sir Gideon, as the turmoil attending on the arrival of two wet children is no place for a visitor. But I would have you know that I am most sensible of your kindness—”

“Gammon!” he said roughly, and turned to stride away.

She stood for a moment in the shade of the great elm and watched his tall figure until he was lost to sight in the copse. With a sigh, she went through the gate and into the house to see that water was heating and towels were warmed for her grandchildren.

* * * *

The first frost of autumn came that night. Leaves began to change colour, and clouds of swallows gathered to fly south. The first russet-cheeked apples arrived from the manor orchards. Winter clothes were brought out to be aired.

Several days of constant, chilly rain kept the twins indoors. After their lessons, they were unable to work off their energy in the small house. Up at the manor, they would have raced up and down the corridors with their hobby-horses, or built and attacked fortresses of tables and chairs and old sheets. Here at the Dower House, they fussed and whined and squabbled.

It was enough to ruffle anyone’s spirits, Catriona convinced herself. Her megrims had nothing to do with the absence of visitors from the manor.

She persuaded Letty to allow Daphne and Donald to go out for a while, well wrapped up. They came back sniffling, and Sarah complained about the wet clothes hanging in her kitchen. Letty’s silently reproachful glance both irritated Catriona and made her feel guilty.

Fortunately the sniffles came to nothing. The wind veered to the northeast, frigid, blustery gusts off the North Sea that split the clouds and sent them scurrying. Leaves whirled from the trees, and the twins returned pink-cheeked from an expedition to the copse, with pocketfuls of brown shiny horse chestnuts.

“For cannonballs,” Donald explained.

“To shoot at paper ships.”

“We met Mr Hilton in the wood.”

“He showed us a badger’s sett.”

“That’s what you call its hole.”

“Where it lives.”

“They only come out at night.”

Daphne gave him a repressive look and changed the subject. “Mr Hilton says it’s shaping up to a rare blow.”

The bailiff’s prediction was borne out by the rising wind. A tile slid off the roof and crashed to the ground, and Lois’s bonnet blew away as she returned in the late afternoon from visiting her family. By nightfall a gale whipped the trees and moaned eerily around the Dower House.

Catriona and Letty ate their early dinner with the twins, put them to bed, and settled for the evening in the cosy haven of the sitting room. Letty read aloud from
Waverly
while Catriona sewed. The howl of the wind and the creaking of the house timbers were punctuated by an occasional bang or clatter from outside. A splintering crash made them both jump.

“There goes the cucumber frame,” said Catriona with a sigh. “Everything which is not tied down—”

A thunderous shock rocked the house. Plaster fell from the ceiling, and a porcelain shepherdess dived from mantelpiece to hearth, shattering in a hundred pieces. From the hall came a wail.

Paling, Letty set down the book and jumped to her feet. With a shaking hand, Catriona stuck the needle in her work and laid it aside. Lois rushed in .

“Oh, my lady, I was that startled I dropped the tea tray. It was an earthquake, that’s what it was.”

Betty appeared in the doorway, Sarah’s round face visible over her shoulder. “The elm’s down, my lady,” she said grimly. “Hit the roof square on, from what we could see out the kitchen window.”

“The twins!” White as a ghost, Letty pushed past the servants and ran to the stairs. Catriona at her heels.

Before she reached the landing, Letty stopped with a cry of despair. The upper flight of the narrow staircase was a jumbled, impenetrable tangle of splintered elm branches, their yellow leaves stirring fitfully in the gusts that blew down from above.

“Daphne!” Letty screamed. “Donald! Answer me!”

Only the roar of the wind answered.

“Oh, ma’am, they’re dead.” Lois began to cry as Letty frantically pulled at the obstruction.

“Be quiet, you silly girl,” Catriona commanded, a cold, unnatural calm enveloping her. “Go and fetch the hatchet from the shed. Hurry.” She stood behind Letty, helpless, the stair too narrow for her to lend her aid. They could not be dead, her darlings! They must be too frightened to call out. “They are too frightened to call out,” she said, trying to persuade herself.

With a reverberating
cr-r-a-ack
the tree shifted as a beam gave way beneath its weight. A huge limb shoved the tangled mass of smaller branches at Letty.

“It’s not safe, my lady,” cried Betsy. “The whole house’ll be down next.”

“Outside with you. Keep Lois out. Letty, my dearest, you cannot reach them this way. We must see what we can do from outside. “Come, love.”

She took Letty’s scratched, bleeding hand and forced her down the stairs and out into the garden. The moon shone bright between fleeing clouds, then disappeared again. Stumbling through a litter of fallen tiles and broken branches, they sped round the side of the house.

The teasing moon illuminated the scene with pitiless clarity. Its roots riven from the sodden soil, the elm’s massive trunk angled up to the shattered roof of the Dower House, its ravaged crown centred on the crushed wreck of the twins’ chamber.

Letty tore her hand from Catriona’s clasp and rushed to the tree. As she reached it, it moved again, another overloaded beam failing. She scrabbled at the creviced bark, straining for a fingerhold to pull herself up onto the only pathway to her children.

Catriona could not deceive herself any longer. Donald and Daphne were dead. Letty was all that was left to her. She ran to seize her daughter round the waist, to tear her from the deadly destroyer.

“No, Mama! Let me go!” Letty fought her with the strength of desperation. “Donald! Daphne!”

And then the men were there. Harry Talgarth easily pulled Letty away from the tree. Shrieking, she pounded him with her fists, then collapsed against his chest, tears coming at last, glinting in the moonlight. He held her as she shook with sobs.

Somehow Sir Gideon was atop the trunk. Catriona held her breath, fists clenched beneath her chin, as he balanced his way up the slope, wavering in every blast of wind. As he reached the first branch, the moon once more hid its face. When it returned, he was past the branch. On hands and knees he crawled up the narrowing trunk.

He slipped. Catriona’s fingernails bit into her palms, an involuntary cry breaking from her throat. He caught himself, slithered past another limb, reached the house, and vanished into a jagged chaos of boughs and timbers snapped like matchsticks.

Darkness again. Suddenly the wind dropped. Into the stillness came a small, anxious voice.

“Mama?”

“
Daphne!”
Catriona swung round, trying to pierce the black night with her eyes, trying to believe she had not imagined the sound. “Daphne? My God, is it really you?”

The moon sailed clear of the clouds. There beside the shapeless mass of the elm’s roots stood the twins, hand in hand, in coats, hats, and boots, consternation on their small faces.

Letty fainted.

Harry Talgarth lowered her to the ground and knelt beside her.

“Mama!” wailed Donald.

“Grandmama!” Pulling her brother behind her, Daphne scrambled over the flattened fence and ran to meet Catriona. They both burst into tears as she convulsively hugged them to her. “What’s wrong with Mama?”

“Is she dead?”

“Did the tree fall on her?”

“We didn’t know it was going to fall.”

“We only went to see the badger.”

“Will she be all right?”

“Yes.” She forced the words out. “Yes, she will be all right.”

Miraculously, Sir Gideon was beside her. “I’ll look after these two. You go and see to your daughter.” He gathered the twins into his arms and began to explain to them what had happened and why their mother had fallen into a swoon.

Letty was already stirring when Catriona reached her. She looked up and whispered, “Mama? The twins?”

“Perfectly safe, darling. I have half a mind to beat the little imps within an inch of their lives. They went to see the badgers, if you please!”

“But if they had not!” Letty cried, sitting up with Mr Talgarth’s assistance. They all glanced up at the ruin of the twins’ chamber.

A sudden dizziness hit Catriona as reaction to the horror set in.

“All’s well that ends well.” Harry Talgarth, prosaic but comforting, helped Letty to stand.

“Mama, Sir Gideon says we may live at the manor!” The twins dashed up to cling to their mother.

“Till the Dower House is mended.”

Their voices seemed to come from a long way away. “Your turn to swoon, I think,” said a soft, faintly amused voice in Catriona’s ear. Sir Gideon took her arm. “Come, sit down and put your head between your knees.”

“I never...swoon,” she gasped, obeying the light pressure of his hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t suppose Mrs Rosebay makes a habit of it either. You both have every excuse. While you are about it, so as not to waste time, let me tell you that we came across your maidservants on our arrival and I sent them up to the house to give word of your coming.”

“What...brought you here?”

“The force of the wind made us uneasy, though I cannot claim to have foreseen anything like this near catastrophe. It seemed unwise to bring out a carriage, or even horses, in that gale, so we walked down—avoiding the copse, unlike your intrepid grandchildren.”

“Intrepid? Foolhardy!” She raised her head to smile at him. “But thank God for it. I wonder whether they saw any badgers.”

Sir Gideon laughed, his teeth gleaming white in the moonlight. The sky was clear now, a vault of stars, and the wind was no more than a fitful breeze. Catriona shivered.

“You’re cold. Dash it, I took off my greatcoat before performing my circus act. Harry,” he called, “where did I drop my coat?”

Harry came to join them, shrugging out of his coat. “I’ve no idea, coz. Pray take mine, Lady Catriona.”

“We keep cloaks in the hall cupboard—”

“I cannot think it advisable, ma’am, to enter the house before we are able to assess the damage in the morning.” Harry helped her don his warm, caped coat. “Gideon, shall I go home and bring a carriage?”

“The wind may rise again.” The baronet had found his coat and was holding it for Letty to put on. “If the ladies feel up to it, we had best walk.”

So they set out on foot up the hill to the manor. The twins raced ahead, still astonishingly full of energy. Letty walked briskly at Sir Gideon’s side, chatting to him with her usual cheerfulness restored. In the rear, Catriona trudged along, glad of the support of Mr Talgarth’s arm, for she was still shaken by the terrifying incident. She felt old.

* * * *

The Dower House was unsalvageable. The builder Sir Gideon called in refused to vouch for the safety of the ground floor and advised razing the whole. Rebuilding was best started in spring, he said, and might with luck be completed this time next year.

Catriona raised only a token protest to Sir Gideon’s offer of hospitality. Not for a moment did she doubt the sincerity of his assurance that he’d be delighted to have her family about the place.
His
family, too, he reminded her. And to be still more closely related, she hoped. With him and Letty living in the same house, her matchmaking could not fail.

A wing was set aside for their use. Farm carts carried up the hill all of their belongings that could be safely rescued from the ruins. Within a week they had settled into the manor almost as though they had never left.

As the news spread, neighbours came to commiserate. Some of them, Catriona had scarcely seen since moving to the Dower House after Jeremy’s funeral. Marchbank was some five miles from the nearest sizable house, and while ladies had occasionally called at the Dower House, the distance and their lack of a carriage to return calls had deterred visitors.