A job that was, for some reason, very important to the boy. A chill hand seemed to grip Emma’s heart. Oh, no, she thought, could it be as simple and as terrible as this?
“Peter,” she said, “is this where you were that morning, when Miss Ashley-Woods fell down the stairs?”
Peter’s body tensed and for a moment Emma thought he might bolt. Instead, he gave a forlorn sigh and bowed his head, and the tension left his body as tears began, silently, steadily, falling bright as diamonds on his dark wool jacket.
“Nanny Cole told me to play outside,” he said, “but —but I didn’t want to. She’s supposed to give me lessons and she wouldn’t and I was—was angry.”
“So you came out here instead?” Emma prompted gently.
“I’m not supposed to,” the boy admitted. “Dad—Dad wants me to get fresh air and—and sunshine. But I like it here. The lady needs me.” The boy sniffed, then scrubbed at his nose with the sleeve of his jacket.
“Needs you?” Emma asked.
“To tell her that everything will be all right.” Peter put a fist to his forehead and uttered a strangled moan. “But I don’t know ... I don’t know if it will be anymore. No one will listen to me.”
Emma put an arm around the boy’s shoulders, then tightened her hold as he turned to bury his face in the soft angora sweater. Awkwardly, tenderly, she smoothed his dark hair. “Did you hear anything while you were in here that morning?” she asked. She hated herself for pressing the point, but she had to hear Peter’s reply.
Peter tilted his tear-streaked face up to her. “Not until the shouting started. Then I went out that way”—he pointed to the back door—“and round the outside to the cliff path. I—I didn’t want Dad to know I’d been in here. I’ve never disobeyed him before.”
Emma could well believe it. Peter was the most obedient child she’d ever met. “Did anyone see you go out onto the cliff path?” she asked softly.
Peter nodded. “Teddy Tregallis was down in the harbor, on the boat with his dad and his uncles. They all looked up and waved, so I waved back. He’s a good chap, Teddy. He’s going to be a fisherman when he grows up. He says he likes fishing more than school.”
Emma looked down into the boy’s luminous eyes and knew he was telling the truth. He wouldn’t have admitted to witnesses, otherwise; it would be too easy for her to confirm his whereabouts with the Tregallises. Peter had disobeyed his father’s orders and Nanny Cole’s instructions, and he’d compounded his wrongdoing by lying about it afterward, but that was the worst of it, and Emma was weak with relief.
“I don’t see any reason to tell your father where you were,” she said. “I don’t think anyone else has to know. Okay?”
The boy gulped and nodded, then lay his head against her, as though the confession had drained his last reserves of energy. Emma thought for a moment that he had fallen asleep, but then he spoke, in a voice so low that she scarcely caught the words.
“Dad says she’s perfect and Grayson says her cloak should be gray. But they’re both wrong.” He sighed. “She should be wearing white.”
“That’s what the legend says,” Emma agreed.
“It’s nothing to do with the legend,” Peter insisted. “I just know that’s how she’s supposed to be.”
If Emma had had more experience with children, she might have tried to persuade him, for his own good, that his father knew best. But Peter spoke with such conviction that she was willing, for the moment, to try to see the lady as Peter saw her. Closing her eyes, Emma conjured up an image of the cloaked and hooded lady, clad in white.
Slowly, the picture took shape. Streaks of purple, violet, and aquamarine filled the stormy sky, the sea was a swirling mosaic of greens flecked with silvery froth, and the lantern’s blaze split the darkness like a bolt of lightning. Now, Emma thought, what would it be like if the cloak and hood were ...
The image came to her with startling clarity. The billowing black cloak became a pair of celestial wings, and the hood encircling the raven hair was transformed into a glowing nimbus. My god, Emma thought, it’s an angel. There was no mistaking it, and she knew beyond all doubt who that dark-haired angel was in Peter’s eyes.
“Can you see her, too?” Peter whispered.
Emma could only nod. How could anyone fail to see it? Derek must have known what the window would become once he changed the glass. Had it been too painful for him to face the image of his dead wife, here in this lonely place?
“Dad will listen to you,” Peter said.
Emma knew what he was asking, but she had no desire to interfere in Derek’s work and no right to intrude on his grief. She wanted to leave the chapel, to forget about the window, but the boy held her there, looking up at her with such hope and trust that she couldn’t back away.
Again, she nodded. “I’ll try,” she promised. “It may not happen right away. It may not happen at all. But I’ll try.”