“I think I’d rather walk.” I pointed down the path, the opposite direction he’d said Isabel had taken. “Will you tell Nathan I headed this way?”
I passed the spot where Nathan and I had fished. I walked to the stream and looked down into the cranny right by the bank. I wondered if any fish were hiding there today. Then I lifted the skirt of my dress and lengthened my stride . . . Time to walk. The path split. I headed down a small slope and, circling a hedgerow, ran into Gertrude.
“Good morning.” She seemed surprised to see me. She was dressed in black pants, her bright-pink rubber boots, and a black sweater. “Forgive me for not being in dress. I was visiting Mr. Chessman and thought I wouldn’t be seen.”
I waved away her apology. “Grant?”
“His grandfather.” She joined me. “He’s been here longer than I have.” She smiled. “If ever the world went sideways, a visit to his cottage always set it right—ever since I was a little girl. When I lose my patience with the Stanleys, I remember they let him keep his cottage and his salary, and I stop.”
“Isabel met him yesterday.”
“He mentioned that. He thinks his grandson is quite taken with her.” Gertrude looked at me. “This is where these escapes can get dangerous.” Her tone held a warning.
“I can imagine.”
“Life often doesn’t look the same. Can’t look the same afterwards.”
I wondered if Gertrude was talking about Isabel, me, or herself. It was hard to tell. “I’m beginning to think I don’t want it to.”
Gertrude pressed her fingers to her lips, as if she was trying to stop a smile or tears. I wasn’t sure which.
“I need to get back to the house.”
She went on up the path as I headed down. The realization of what I’d just said struck me. I didn’t want life to return to what it had been. It wasn’t just Isabel. It wasn’t just Nathan—as much as he seemed to be smack in the middle of everything. It was about music, fear, voice, running away, and tucking close. It was about family and swirling emotions I couldn’t name but felt in my heart as it pounded with each step. Everything was already different.
The path met up with the stream again. It was wider here and rushed faster. There was a log over it and a verdant sloping hill on the other side. I stepped onto the log and made it halfway across when it shifted beneath me.
The time-space continuum distorted. Space compressed. Time elongated. It took me three full sentences to fall.
1. That water will be freezing and, wow, it looks deep.
2. I’m going to ruin this dress.
3. This is really going to hurt.
The last sentence got my attention, and I twisted so that my shoulder and not my wrist crashed first. I landed in the icy water while thinking up sentence four.
4. Oufff.
I pulled myself upright but couldn’t find solid ground on which to plant my feet. I slipped and landed smack on the stones. One ruined dress. One bruised shoulder. It reminded me of a scene I’d read in one of Austen’s novels, but I couldn’t place it and now wasn’t the time to ponder. I reached forward to start my crawl to shore.
“Mary! What happened? . . . Wait.” Grant sprinted across the log to get to my side of the stream. Without pausing he waded in and pulled me up and out.
Grant. Military. Captain Wentworth. Persuasion.
“I thought you went for a walk.” I felt my teeth chatter. “I was just thinking I needed one of you.”
He stood me on the ground and pulled the drenched shawl away. “One of me?”
“A Captain Wentworth to pull me out. Thank you.”
Grant chuckled. “Right.”
“I was trying to cross.” I pointed to the hill. “I thought I’d get a good view up there.”
“You would, and when you’re warm and dry, there’s a bridge about a quarter mile that way.” He pointed farther downstream.
“I’ll remember that.”
He stepped close and rubbed my arms with both hands. We stood inches apart. There was something formal, strong, and almost sad about Grant. I hadn’t gotten a good look previously or even had a good conversation. He and Isabel were always off and away. I’d heard she’d helped him check the fence line, feed the horses, even helped his father select plantings for spring.
He caught my stare, and a slow smile crept across his face, dispelling the sadness. He dropped his hands and patted at his sides, and his eyes widened as if surprised by something. “I took off my coat at the stables . . . I’m sorry. I don’t have it to give to you.”
“I retract my comment.” I meant it as a joke, but my chattering teeth made him grimace rather than laugh. “I thought you were walking with Isabel and Nathan.”
“I left them. I needed to get something done.” Grant looked down the path as if figuring out the fastest way to get me back and dry, and yet he didn’t take a step. He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “You and Isabel are best friends. You know her better than anyone.”
Thinking back on the past six months and Nathan, I almost laughed. “Yes.”
“I wanted to talk to you, to ask you . . .” He watched the water before shifting his gaze back to me. Then he nodded, crisp and decisive, the way I’d expect a soldier to do once a decision had been made. “My wife left me during my last deployment. The separation proved too hard for her; she said she wasn’t cut out to be a soldier’s wife and that no one could be expected to endure that fear. She had an affair, filed for divorce, and cleared out before I got home. I know she had her own issues, but—” He stopped abruptly and gripped the back of his neck.
“You’re falling in love with Isabel.”
“I don’t even know her,” he scoffed. It didn’t fool either of us. “I don’t want . . . I don’t—”
“Want to get hurt again.” It was my turn to shift my gaze to the water. “Believe me, I understand. And I don’t blame you. Fear can make us do stupid things.” I glanced to him. “I’ve got my own experience in losing someone you love, even letting them go first. It all hurts.”
“Every day.” His nail beds whitened with the pressure at his neck, then reddened with the release.
Twenty years had taught me that Isabel’s pragmatism, almost disdain for love, was a cover. She wore boyfriends like fashions; they changed with the seasons and she attached a certain pride to that. She was shy to show what she really felt. She needed safety. In many ways, I’d done the same.
Yet with Grant, I’d seen more. I’d never seen her so in love, so free. So true to herself. Maybe that’s where she went in these episodes. Maybe she, too, became her best self. I looked down at my sopping purple dress. It clung to my legs. Perhaps Isabel and I were more alike than I thought.
Grant’s mouth lifted in a wry smile. “I should be talking to Isabel. Believe me, I would . . . I will . . . but . . .”
“No one can talk to her right now, not really.”
He nodded. “Who is she, Mary? Who is the true Isabel?”