In the meantime, Miss Gilpatrick popped her head in and out of the drawing room as she arranged a picnic luncheon. I drove the pony cart, with the two ladies as passengers, and Carrot and Rowland ahead on horseback, leading the way. It was a lovely day, the sky the deeper blue of early autumn, the leaves of the trees beginning to turn to yellow, the farm laborers in the midst of mowing and reaping. One could well imagine Constable just over the next ridge, or perhaps down in the dale ahead, painting the scene.
We picnicked under an ancient oak, and I flirted a bit with Miss Kent. She smiled, amused, I now imagine, at my clumsy, boyish attempts. We all talked desultorily until one and then another dozed off, even Miss Kent, with Carrot’s head on her lap. But I was infatuated with the day and with my presence there, and I could not think of wasting a moment of it in sleep. Instead, I wandered off on my own, following a path that might have been a sheep trail and whose end was a mystery to me, making it all the more intriguing. I found myself eventually at the bottom of a fell, which I climbed in order to take in the view, and was rewarded with a vast expanse of meadows and fields, ending, at the horizon, with a dark escarpment that I took to be the beginning of the moor. Beyond, I knew, would be the North Sea. I had, as yet, never seen the sea, and the knowledge that it was just there, not so very far away, excited me. I realized, looking off at what seemed like the edge of beyond, how desperate I was for a new life, for Jamaica, for the world to open to me.
Turning back, I saw Carrot not far behind, apparently having followed the same path as I. By the time I returned to the foot of the fell, he was nearly upon me. “I wondered where you had gone,” he said in greeting.
“You can see the moors from up there!”
“Jam, there are moors all around.”
“But not those, not so vast,” I responded.
Carrot grinned and hooked his arm in mine as we headed back. “If you stay another day, we could take ourselves over there.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“You can do whatever you choose.”
Carrot could. He had independence, a home, good friends. “Someday,” I said. “But Mr. Wilson has been like a father to me; I owe him this, to take charge until the mill is sold.”
“Surely you will come back for a visit, before you sail for Jamaica,” he said.
“I will,” was all I could say. I could not be sure how, but I knew I’d give anything to spend more days like this one.
But Carrot was not finished. “Your brother is really a rather decent chap, once you get to know him.” Somehow Carrot had always been able to read my mind. He slung his arm across my shoulders. “Do you remember the time you tried to pummel me to death?”
“Oh God,” I said.
“It’s what brothers do,” he said, laughing. “I have plenty of cousins—it’s what they do. The older ones make life hard for the younger ones, and the younger ones fight back in the only way they know.”
“But you never—”
“I never understood how difficult it must have been for you—all those holidays alone. I should have.”
I shook my head, my mind still stuck on the word: brother. “It’s over,” I said. “That was years ago.” And then: “Did you know that Touch passed away not so long after he left Black Hill?”
He squeezed my shoulder. “Mr. Lincoln let me know in a letter. I couldn’t believe it…little Touch. The three of us—what a combination we made, what fun we had.”
“Indeed.”
“I could not imagine being at Black Hill without you,” he said.
“Nor was it the same after you left,” I responded.
We stood together for a time, gazing over the fells to the moors beyond. I did my best to hold back my tears, and after a while we walked back toward the rest, his arm still across my shoulders.
That evening we dallied over dinner, all of us mellow of mood and rosy of face from the day outdoors. And, later, there were a few songs from the others, especially Miss Kent and Rowland, but I could not bring myself to sing for them. “Next time,” I said. “When I’ve had a chance to practice, so as not to make another fool of myself.” And despite their urging and teasing, I did not budge, though many times since I have wished I had.
We lingered well into the evening, reading more of Rob Roy when it suited us, and on the spur of the moment I pulled a volume of Shakespeare off a shelf and read a sonnet or two. I meant them for Miss Kent, and when I finished I looked directly at her. Her face grew red and she glanced at Carrot, and it was only in seeing that look exchanged that I realized how mistaken I had been. And how kind they both had been to me.
After that final embarrassment, I could think of nothing to do other than to retire to my room and leave as quickly as I could in the morning. I did not even see Carrot again before I left.
Chapter 14
Though I had been gone but a few days, there were surprises waiting for me at Maysbeck. Mr. Wilson had taken a turn for the worse, having experienced another serious episode. Mr. Landes assured me that there had been no need to summon me back, as nothing that I or my presence could have done would have made a difference, but still I could not help thinking that I should have been there.
I could scarcely bear to see him as he had become, bedridden, somnolent, looking gray and wizened beneath the bedcovers. I spoke to him, and I thought his eyelids twitched as if he recognized my voice, but more than likely it was just my imagination, or my wish. Mrs. Wilson was red-eyed from weeping, and she clung to me as if I were her last and best hope. But just as there was nothing I could do for her husband, there was little I could offer her but comfort.
And that was not the only change. The day after I left for my visit to Carrot, a man had appeared at the door of the Wilsons’ home, claiming to be a distant cousin of Mr. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson had no recollection of having heard his name, but Mr. Landes had judged him to be a competent and honest fellow and had established him at the Crown with the idea that he could learn the business while I was still at Maysbeck and then continue to run it when I had left. All of this was accomplished without Mr. Wilson’s knowledge, for it was no longer possible to have any meaningful communication with him. It was clear to all that there would be no recovery, nor could he even be asked his opinion of this alleged cousin from Northumberland. But it did seem curiously providential that young Mr. David Wilson had arrived, now that I was set to leave.