by Mary Balogh
It was extraordinary, quite different from any painting she had seen before, including his own canvases at the house. The paint had been boldly slapped on. There was also a certain clumsiness to it-each brushstroke was thick and distinct from all the others. But Anne did not notice the defects-if they were defects. What she did notice was that the lake and the reeds were alive with light and energy and motion and had a fierce beauty that threatened to overwhelm and destroy both boat and jetty. And yet they possessed something that was almost dignified, something resilient that held them there as though by right. Humankind had not imposed mastery over nature. Rather, the water had allowed humankind to be a part of it, to borrow its power and share its buoyancy.
Simply love.
Or perhaps she was reading too much into what was undoubtedly an awkwardly rendered scene. Perhaps she simply wanted to see signs of greatness.
Except that the signs were there. Even her untutored eye could see them.
It was a painting that was suffused with vision and passion.
She looked up into his eye and was very aware of the black patch over his absent right eye. His vision had changed-both the inner and outer vision. And he had changed from the boy whose work she had viewed yesterday. He had seen ugliness as well as beauty since then, but he had not been broken. And he had accepted defeat with grace and then risen above it to turn it into triumph.
“Sydnam.” She smiled slowly at him and blinked her eyes to clear them of the tears that had gathered there.
“It is quite dreadful,” he said, but his eye was bright and his voice strong. “And the process is like beating my way through dense forest after years of ambling along a well-worn path. But I will forge a new path. The next canvas will be better, and the next will be better still. And so begins again the elusive quest for perfection.”
That, at least, she could identify with.
“Every year I taught,” she said, “I would change something about the content and method of my classes, convinced that this time I would have a perfect year.”
“Anne,” he said, and some of the fierce light went from his eye so that he was regarding her with soft awareness. “Anne, my dearest, you have already given me so much. And yet I have taken you from everything you held dear except your son. How may I make amends?”
But David called to them before she could protest, and they made their way to him.
“The boat is still too brown, sir,” he said, virtually ignoring Anne, “and the water too blue. But I like the way it is no longer flat.”
“Hmm,” Sydnam said. “I see what you mean. But the great thing about oils is that you can keep adding to what is already there. The boat looks almost new, does it not? How can you age it the way you see it there on the lake? Ah, but I can see that the wood is flaking away in places-you have captured that with your brushstrokes. Well done.”
“Should I try blending some of this color in, sir?”
Anne strolled back to the blanket while they talked, and opened the small picnic basket her mother-in-law had suggested they bring out with them. There were bread buns filled with cheese and new carrots from the kitchen garden, a shiny apple each, one bottle of cider and another of lemonade.
They ate and drank everything after all the painting things had been cleaned and put away and the wet canvases left to dry on the easels. It felt like a blessed day to Anne, who felt more hope than ever that once they were home in Ty Gwyn they would be able to function as a family and could even expect some happiness with one another. And there was the new baby to look forward to. There had been so much apprehension, even fear, involved in her discovery that she was with child that it was only now she could turn her mind to the great pleasure of knowing that she was to be a mother again. She hoped it would be a girl this time, though it would be just as lovely to have another boy. What she really hoped was that it would be a live, healthy baby.
Of course, there was still the major problem of a marriage that was threatening to be a celibate one…
And then, quite without warning, when she least expected it, when all her defenses were down, she found herself confronted with the crisis she had known must happen one day soon now but for which she was still unprepared. David began to ask questions.
“You are my stepfather, sir,” he said, kneeling on one edge of the blanket and looking intently at Sydnam. “Aren’t you?”
“I am,” Sydnam said, pausing before taking another bite out of his apple. “I am married to your mother and so you are my stepson.”
“But you are not my real father,” David said. “He is dead. He drowned.”
“I am not your real father,” Sydnam admitted.
David turned his gaze on Anne.
“What was his name?” he asked.
She drew a slow breath.
“He was Albert Moore,” she said, unable any longer to convince herself that he was too young to be given truthful answers.
“Why am I not David Moore, then?” he asked.
“I was never married to your father,” Anne explained. “And so you were given my name.”
“But he would have married you if he had not died.” David frowned.
She could not quite speak the lie, and yet he was still too young for the bare truth.
“But he did die,” she said. “I am so sorry, sweetheart.”
Though she was not.
“Cousin Joshua is Joshua Moore,” he said. “He is my cousin, then?”
“He was Albert’s cousin,” Anne explained to him. “So he is a sort of cousin to you too.” First cousin once removed, in fact.
“Daniel and Emily are my cousins too,” he said.
“Second cousins, yes,” she agreed.
“Mama.” He looked at her with wounded eyes. “Who else do I have? Mr. Butler has Uncle Kit and Aunt Lauren and Andrew and Sophie and Geoffrey and Grandmama and Grandpapa, but for me they are only step-people because he is only my stepfather. Who else do I have of my very own?”
Sydnam’s hand touched hers on the blanket and she realized it was not accidental even though the touch did not linger. He got to his feet and strolled closer to the bank of the lake, though he remained within hearing distance.
“You know Lady Prudence from Cornwall,” Anne said, pulling David right onto the blanket to sit beside her. “She is married to Ben Turner, the fisherman. And Lady Constance, married to Mr. Saunders, the steward at Penhallow. And perhaps you remember Lady Chastity, who used to live at Penhallow when we were at Lyd-mere, though she is now Lady Meecham and lives with her husband. They were all your father’s sisters. They are your aunts.”
David’s eyes were wider and even more wounded.
“They never said so,” he said. “And you never said so.”
“I was never married to their brother, David,” she explained. “And when you are older, you will understand that that makes a difference. I did not wish to impose on them. But Joshua has told me that they all wish to acknowledge the relationship and welcome you as their nephew.”
It was not, of course, that she had not wanted to impose on them. It was that she had not even wanted to admit to herself that David had had a father and that he had been Albert Moore. But she had come to realize that what she wanted for herself was not necessarily what was good for David.
Ghastly as the thought was, Albert Moore had been his father.
“Do I have anyone else?” he asked.
She would not mention the dowager Marchioness of Hallmere, David’s grandmother, who no longer lived in Cornwall and who hated Anne and therefore David with a passion. She looked up almost unwillingly to find Sydnam looking over his shoulder at her, his gaze steady.
She drew in a deep breath again and released it slowly.
“You have a grandmother and grandfather in Gloucestershire,” she said. “Real grandparents-my mother and father. And an Aunt Sarah and an Uncle Matthew, my sister and brother.”
He was up on his knees again then and gazing at her with saucer ey
es.
“And cousins?” he asked.
“I do not know, David,” she said. “I have not seen or heard in years.” But there was, of course, another uncle. And she had heard, though her mother’s twice-yearly letters were always brief and about matters that did not relate to the family.
“Why?” he demanded to know.
“I suppose,” she said, smiling at him, “I have always been too busy. Or they have.”
He continued to gaze at her, and she somehow knew what he would say next even before he opened his mouth to say it.
“But you are not too busy now,” he said. “We can go to see them now, Mama. We can. My stepfather will take us. We can go. Can’t we?”
Anne licked dry lips. She would not look at Sydnam again, though she was half aware that he had turned back to face the lake again.
She ought to have lied.
But no, it was time. He had a right to the truth.
“Perhaps we can go sometime,” she said.
“When?”
“After we have finished visiting here, perhaps,” she said. “But perhaps-”
“Famous!” he cried, jumping to his feet. “Did you hear that, sir? I have a real grandmama and grandpapa, and we are going to see them. I am going to tell Uncle Kit and Aunt Lauren. I am going to tell them now.”
“You had better take your painting things with you,” Anne said, and he bounded over to them, picked them all up, careful not to smudge the surface of his canvas, and trotted off in the direction of the house without waiting for either Anne or Sydnam.
She hugged her knees tightly and bent her head to rest her forehead against her knees.
He wondered if she would have told David about her family and even agreed to take him there if he had not said what he had at the temple folly two afternoons ago.
They had rejected her. No, they had forgiven her, which had apparently been worse. And they had never asked about David or expressed any wish to see him.
He could only imagine what she was feeling now. But her decision, he knew, was irrevocable. David was excited about going.
“Have you ever rowed a boat?” he asked.
“What?” She looked up at him with blank, uncomprehending eyes.
“I have,” he said, “but not for years. I could do it now, I suppose, but the exercise would be mildly self-defeating. It strikes me that a one-armed rower would move in a perpetual circle and never get anywhere. Which is something like life, I suppose, if one cares to take a pessimistic view of it.”
He grinned at her. Making fun of his disabilities was something he rather enjoyed being able to do.
“I have rowed a boat, yes,” she said, looking warily beyond him to the boat both he and David had painted a little while ago. “I lived in Cornwall right by the sea for a few years. But I have not done it for a long time. And I was never very good at it. I always used to dig the oars too deep and try to push the sea past the boat instead of moving the boat through the sea.”
“Sounds exhausting,” he said.
“And impossible,” she agreed.
“I have not been to the island for years,” he said. “Do you fancy going there today?”
“With me rowing?” She shaded her eyes, presumably to judge the distance. “If you have an hour or three to spare.”
“But I am far too gallant to expect you to do all the rowing alone,” he said. “I was thinking of us as a team-you on the right hand oar, me on the left.”
“It sounds like a recipe for disaster,” she said.
“Can you swim?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“And I can bob around and somehow keep my head above water,” he said. “We would survive a ducking, which I do not expect. I trust your rowing prowess and my own. Of course, if you do not have the nerve…”
She smiled and then chuckled and then laughed aloud.
“You are mad,” she said.
“Guilty as charged.” He grinned back at her. “But the question is-did I marry a mad wife?”
“How deep is that water?” She shaded her eyes again and looked dubious.
“About up to your eyebrows at its deepest point,” he said.
“My raised eyebrows?”
“You are a coward,” he said. “Let’s go back to the house, then.”
“We will never fit side by side on that seat,” she said, turning her attention on the boat again.
“Yes, we will,” he said, “provided you do not mind some intimacy. I do not have a right arm to take up room, remember. And you are not very large-yet.”
Her eyes flew to his and she blushed.
“You are insane,” she said again. “Let’s do it.”
It was a mad suggestion-he did not mind admitting it to himself. He had long ago decided what was difficult but possible-riding a horse, for example-and what was absolutely impossible. Rowing a boat fit into the latter category. But then so did painting. Indeed, that had always been at the top of the list. But he had painted this morning. And now he felt capable of anything. He felt like a veritable Hercules.
The jetty was not as steady as he remembered it. But he walked carefully out onto it and held the boat while she stepped into it-very gingerly and without the aid of his hand since the only one he possessed was holding the boat. She turned and sat on the seat and laughed and looked terrified as she pushed her cloak out of the way of her arms. He climbed in after her, and she edged along the seat to give him room, causing the boat to tip and rock alarmingly. She shrieked and they both laughed.
She had been almost right. They were very tightly packed on the seat.
“I hope,” she said, picking up one of the oars and fitting it into its lock, “I remembered to say my prayers last night.”
“I did if you did not,” he said, grappling with the other oar.
“They cover both of us.”
He unwound the mooring rope and pushed them away from the jetty.
She shrieked and laughed again.
It took them all of half an hour to row across to the island. But as he informed her when they finally pulled onto the beach there and jumped out to drag the boat together up onto dry land, they might have crossed the English Channel and back if only they had proceeded in a straight line instead of meandering around in rough circles for the first twenty minutes while they both tried to recapture the knack of rowing and-once that was more or less accomplished-tried to row in harmony with each other.
They were both laughing so hard that she could scarcely get any words out.
“How on earth are we going to get ba-a-a-ack?” she asked.
“Not on earth,” he said, “unless you want to try running over the lake bottom, Anne. You had better keep your eyebrows raised if you do, though, or you will get them wet. I intend rowing back.”
He took her hand in his, noticed that her palm was red and ridged from the oar, and held it to his lips.
“If you end up with blisters,” he said, “I will never forgive myself.”
“A few blisters would be a small price to pay,” she said, “for the fun of doing this. When did you last have fun, Sydnam? Silly, mad fun like this, I mean?”
He tried to remember and could not.
“It was forever ago,” he said.
“And at least that long ago for me,” she said.
“This has been fun,” he agreed. “But perhaps we had better wait until we have our feet safely back on the other shore before we pass a final judgment. Come and see the other beach.”
It was a tiny man-made island. But the adjacent side of it had always been a favorite spot, since it offered excellent swimming and faced away from the house, which was well out of sight anyway. The grassy bank sloped gradually into the water and was covered with wildflowers in the summer. Even now some hardy varieties survived. He and his brothers had often swum nude here, but they had never been caught.
“It is really quite blissful here,” Anne said, sitting down and gazing into the water.
&
nbsp; “We ought to have brought the blanket,” he said.
“The grass is dry.” She rubbed it with one hand. “And it is sheltered from the breeze here. It feels almost warm.”
He sat beside her and lay back to gaze up at the sky.
“Sydnam,” she said several minutes later, bending over him to look into his face, “you will take us?”
“To Gloucestershire?” he said. “Yes, of course. You know I will.”
She gazed down at him.
“I suppose,” she said, “I ought to tell you what happened.”
“Yes,” he said, “I think you ought.”
He lifted his hand and touched the backs of his fingers to her cheek.
“Come down here,” he said, and spread his arm across the grass so that she could rest her head on it. When she had done so after tossing aside her bonnet, he wrapped his arm about her and drew her head onto his shoulder.
“I think you ought to tell me,” he said again.
“I was going to marry Henry Arnold,” she said. “But we were both very young-too young to marry-and my father was having financial difficulties and I offered to take employment as a governess for a couple of years. I went to Cornwall and thought for a while that my heart would break-I had known Henry all my life and missed him more than I missed any of my family. We were not officially betrothed, but everyone knew we had an understanding. Everyone was happy about it-both his family and mine.”
And he had abandoned her. Sydnam waited for the most painful part of her story.
“And then,” she said, “soon after I had made a visit home and we had celebrated Henry’s twentieth birthday, I was forced to write home to tell…what had happened to me. I wrote to Henry too.”
And the blackguard had rejected her.
“My mother wrote back,” she said. “She told me that they forgave me and that I could come home afterward if I wished-I assumed she meant after the baby was born-but that perhaps it would be better if I did not.”
Sydnam closed his eye, and his hand played with her hair. How could any mother not have rushed to her side at such a time? How could any father not have rushed to call to account the rogue who had ruined her?