Anne Barbour (3 page)

A silence stretched between them, until Kate, recalling herself, continued.

“I’m so glad you’re here! I’ll just untether Belle, and we can go.”

As she ran to accomplish this, David called after her.

“But, what on earth were you doing when I arrived? It sounded like a coal miner at work, as well it might have been, judging from your appearance.”

Kate whirled, her face alight.

“Yes, I suppose I must look a sight,” she laughed, uncaring, “but, oh, David, wait till I show you!”

She darted behind the rock from which she had emerged a short time before, and when she returned, she carried something wrapped in an old shawl.

“Look! Just look!”

David reached down to receive the bundle and stared in amazement at its contents.

He turned the object, examining it carefully. It was the head of a young boy, carved in marble. Tousled hair curled over a smooth brow, and a turned-up nose wrinkled engagingly. His lips curled in a mischievous smile. The detail was astonishing; one could almost trace a delicate network of veins along the temples. The artist had captured all the exuberance and vulnerability of childhood.

David let out a soft whistle.    . ,

“Where in the world did you find this?”

“Back there!” She gestured. “I discovered it several months ago. And there’s so much more! Oh, David, we never dreamed—you and Philip and I—when we spent so much time playing here—there’s a whole house, right beneath our feet!”

“What?”

“Yes. One day I was sitting up here by myself, and a really ferocious storm blew up. It seemed only a matter of moments, and then thunder and lightning scared me to death. I shrank back against the rock wall, trying to find some shelter. Mud and rocks began to slide from above as I made my way farther along the ledge—farther back into the underbrush than any of us had ever gone before—and suddenly, I slid. I was so frightened! I thought I was going to tumble all the way down into the valley, but I lodged against a tree, with my foot caught in a sort of crevice.

“As I tried to wrench it free, the crevice grew wider, and before I knew it, I had fallen into what seemed like a cave. The first thing I saw was the head. I scrabbled about some more, and saw that I was in some sort of room, with vases made of bronze, and what looked like part of a leather sandal.”

“Good Lord, Kate. Do you know what you’ve stumbled into?”

“I think so. It can only be an ancient Roman villa! A family lived in this place—a Roman family, but so far from home, and so long ago. You can see—” she pointed to the thin line of road that lay between their vantage point and the river beyond—”the house was situated close to the old Via Julia—the road between Bath and Bristol.” She turned her attention to the sculpture. “The marble head is, I believe, a portrait bust. He was a real child, don’t you think? Look, here, he has a tiny scar at the corner of his mouth.”

David ran his fingers over the childish contours.

“This is astonishing! Yes, I believe you’re right, but it’s a much finer example of marble portraiture than any I’ve ever seen in this country.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” She wrapped the bust carefully in the old shawl. “Uncle Thomas took me to see the excavations at Bignor, and ...” She stopped at David’s questioning look. “It was, oh, three years ago, I think, when a farmer in Sussex found the remains of a whole villa in his field. It’s a huge place, and two portrait busts were found, but not nearly so fine as this. I’ve left the artifacts pretty much as I found them—I’d better put it back now.”

She turned and disappeared again behind the outcropping. When she emerged once again, she mounted Belle, and the two began making their way back along the little ravine.

David shifted in the saddle in a vain effort to ease the pain that was beginning to gnaw at him once more. He watched Kate assessingly.

“I see you have not been spending your time in embroidery and watercolors.”

She laughed. It was a musical sound, and David found that he was looking forward to hearing it on a daily basis.

“Aunt Regina tried to make a lady of me, but I’m afraid there isn’t a governess alive who could instill in me a single talent. My embroidery was fit only for dust clouts, and my watercolors for lining bird cages.”

“But how is it you are up here alone?” said David, joining in her self-deprecatory amusement. “I should think a discovery of this import would have drawn antiquarians from all over the country.”

Kate dropped her eyes.

“I haven’t told anyone about it,” she said in a low voice. She looked up at him, and at the surprise she read in his face, she continued hurriedly. “I will sometime. Well,” she amended, “I did tell Uncle Thomas that I found what I thought were some Roman ruins, but I didn’t mention the artifacts. He was mildly interested, but that was all. Oh, and I told Aunt Fred all about it, but she’s the soul of discretion—if you ask her to be. I know I can’t keep it a secret forever, but this has always been such a special place. It’s a sort of haven for me, and it holds so many dear memories, because it was our place. I feel closer to Philip here than I do anywhere else, and to you.”

At the mention of Philip’s name, it was as though a shutter had come down over David’s face. The smile dropped from his lips, and his mouth curved into a thin, bitter line. His eyes grew hard.

You idiot,
Kate chastised herself.
You are not the only one to grieve for Philip.
And how much worse it must have been for David, who had been obliged to watch his best friend die on that riverbank so far from home.

“Anyway,” she continued awkwardly. “I have set aside the things I have found, and noted where I found them, as well as making sketches of them as they lay. Not,” she smiled ruefully, “that they will be of much use to anyone, given my lamentable lack of artistic talent.”

David remained silent. Kate’s thoughts had been almost visible, and, though he had known that this meeting with Philip’s little sister would be painful, her clear sympathetic gaze was almost more than he could bear. He would have to tell her the truth eventually, he knew. But not now.

“How is it,” he asked, in an effort to turn the conversation, “that you are still here at Westerly? I would have thought you married, with a home of your own, long since.”

He thought she tensed at that, and, despite an unexpected tightening the words caused in his heart, he continued in a teasing tone, “Or could you not bear to leave?”

She smiled, and her gaze swept the gently rolling landscape
that lay about them like the folds of a green velvet robe tossed on the hills from above.

“I do love it here,” she said softly. “I think there must be no other place on earth half so beautiful. And you’re right. I don’t think I could bear to leave it.”

“Ah,”—he nodded wisely—”spoken like a young woman who has never been in love. I’m surprised some young buck hasn’t swooped down from London and carried you off. For I should imagine,” he concluded expressionlessly, “that you clean up fairly well.”

Kate’s mouth flew open, but she recovered quickly. She blew a kiss at him with dirt-caked fingers, and, arranging the grimy folds of her old muslin dress with a bored flourish, she drawled, “Oy, guv’ner. Aintcher never seen a laidy out t’take the air afore?”

David threw back his head and laughed. It hurt, but, by God it felt good. He could not recall how long it had been since anything had seemed even remotely humorous to him.

“Doesn’t Regina ring a peal over you when you return to the house looking like you’ve been digging in the Mendip mines?”

Kate’s eyes crinkled in a mischievous smile, and within him, a response stirred.

“I usually manage to sneak up to my room without being observed, although I may be in for it tonight, since we will probably arrive home close to dinnertime.”

“And no one suspects what you do up in the back of beyond all day?”

“Well, the place is so inaccessible—I think that was what enticed us three to make it our own—nobody knows exactly where it is, nor do they particularly care to find out. From time to time I bring Jem up with me—Jem Carver, one of the stable boys. I have been forced to build supports, else the hillside is likely to cave in on me, and I need help for that.”

“And Father permits this activity?”

Kate remained silent, brushing vigorously at a mud stain on her sleeve.

“I see,” he said. “Father doesn’t know, does he?”

“Well, he hasn’t asked, after all. And I just—didn’t want to bother him,” she finished lamely. She rushed on before he could speak again. “But, what about you? Are you home for good, David?”

“No.”

He knew his answer was unnecessarily short, and as the eagerness in Kate’s eyes faded, he added, “This isn’t really my home anymore. I have only returned because Father insisted that I do so—to recuperate. Even then, if I hadn’t learned of his paralytic stroke ...”

“But where will you go?” The question came out in a childish wail.

“Oh, back to the Continent, I should imagine. I have been offered a position on Castlereagh’s staff—a very lowly, minor position—to help with the preparations for the Congress. After that...” He shrugged, then said in an effort to lighten the moment, “By that time I shall no doubt have made myself so valuable to the Foreign Office, they’ll be clamoring for my services on a permanent basis.”

“But, how could you bear it? To go away and never see Westerly again? David, there is the River Farm. It is unentailed, and there is a lovely cottage on it already. Uncle Thomas always said you should have it someday. Perhaps ...”

“No!”

Her eyes widened at the harshness of his tone.

“I do not want to live,” he continued in the same voice, “on a patch of land on the outskirts of Westerly, like a child with his nose pressed up against the toy-store window. This place,” he swept an arc with his arm, encompassing rolling hills and the lovely old manor house lying in its fold of earth, “was my home, but I am not a boy any longer. I must make my own way.”

“But I was so looking forward to your being here,” she said softly. “Since Philip died, I have had no one ...”

The pain was ripping at him now, and he interrupted savagely.

“You are no longer a young girl. Good God, Kate, you are—what?—twenty now? Have you been living in some sort of a fantasy all this time—dreaming that big brother would come back to you someday and make everything all right? Well, Philip is dead. He is not coming back, and I cannot replace him.”

Kate gasped under the onslaught of his words. A hot reply sprang to her lips, but they had by now reached the stable yard and Moody, the old groom, was approaching to help them dismount. She slipped from her horse, unaided, and averted her face so that David would not see the tears that spilled down her cheeks.

David’s empty gaze followed her as she ran into the house.
This is only the beginning, little one. I have not yet told you the worst. Will you still cry when you have learned to hate me? Or will your tears harden
—
as your heart surely will?

Through long practice, Kate managed to avoid anyone in her blind rush to the sanctuary of her room. She slammed the door and flung herself on her bed, sobbing among the ruins of her universe.

How could David have spoken to her so? How could he have deliberately hurt her? She had not asked him to be the big brother that would “make everything all right.” She was perfectly capable of managing her own life. She only wanted a friend. What was there in that to make him lash out at her? Where was the David she remembered?—the merry companion of her youth, who, with Philip, had taught her how to bait a hook and how to shinny unobserved down the tree outside her bedroom window. What had become of the friend who had arranged an elaborate funeral service on the death of her kitten, and taken the blame when it was she who had stolen six damson tarts from the larder?

She was sure he had forgiven her for the childish outburst that had tormented her for so long, but the eyes that had stared at her just now in such fury belonged to a stranger—a haggard, pitiless stranger. What had gone wrong?

She shuddered slightly, and rose from the bed. Phoebe, her maid, would be tapping at the door in a moment to help her dress. Mindlessly, she reached for the pitcher of water that stood on her nightstand, splashing some of its contents on the floor. On a sudden impulse, she replaced the pitcher and fled from the room as though to let her unpleasant thoughts melt in the puddle of water she had left in her haste.

She ran through several corridors, past the main staircase that led to the Great Hall below, and up another flight of stairs. She continued down yet another hallway, reaching its end before she stopped at last before a heavily paneled doorway. She tapped lightly, and without waiting for an answer, opened the door and stepped into the room.

She might have been forgiven for assuming she’d entered Aladdin’s Cave, such was the profusion of jewel-like colors that greeted her gaze. However, the riotous splendor came not from precious gems, but from piles and spools and bobbins and bolts of thread, piled on the floor and cascading from tables and chairs. They were mostly of wool, but here and there glowed rich silks, and glittering among them were strands of silver and gold. In the midst of it all, at a huge loom, sat a plump, white-haired sprite.

“Aunt Fred!” exclaimed Kate. “I thought I’d find you here. How goes your work today?”

The sprite whirled, revealing itself to be a small and unmistakably mortal old woman. She rose from her chair and spread her arms in welcome.

“Kate! My dear, I was just wishing for someone to come talk to me. The work goes well. I had run out of the cerulean, but I think this cyan works even better for the sky, don’t you? Come and look.”

Kate stared at the panorama, which pictured a biblical scene—Adam and Eve being driven from the Garden of Eden, if she were not mistaken. However, unlike the manicured gardens that usually provided the background for such instructive tableaux, with perfect globes of fruit hanging from rigidly symmetrical trees, Aunt Fred’s garden was a lush jungle. The fleeing mortals, eyes wide with terror, ran beneath a luxuriant canopy of trees through which birds of every size and shape swooped in iridescent splendor. Shadowy shapes with gleaming eyes prowled behind foliage that bloomed in hues never designed by nature.