“That’s past mending. All in all, I’m not sorry. In spite of having you to lean on, I think I amounted to more than if I had stayed home.”
“I agree. And an engineer might be much in demand in civilian life, unlike most of these soldiers.”
“You think I should muster out?”
“You’re not getting any younger.”
“Thank you very much. Whereas you, five years my senior, seem to get younger before my eyes.”
“That is because you are looking at a man in love.”
“Truly, Bose, you are sick of army life, aren’t you?”
“It’s time to move on to something new, time for both of us to move on. I only hope…”
“What?”
“That you won’t let your pride stand in the way of your future the way it did before.”
“Bose. I have been facedown in mud and blood so many times I don’t remember what pride is. I know we won a lot of battles, and that is some consolation, but for myself, I feel beaten by the war.”
“Then listen to your father when he talks. Don’t take everything he says amiss.”
“I shall be polite to him for your sake and Joan’s.”
“Polite isn’t enough. Be kind to him, for your own sake. If we ride away from here now, you might never see him alive again.”
Evan recalled how empty he had felt when Lady Mountjoy let him believe his father was dead, and knew Bose was right. If he left Meremont again, he would not return. It hurt too much, and he wasn’t entirely sure why this was so.
Evan rose at dawn and dressed himself. He realized it must be hours until breakfast, so he took a walk to the stable to check on their horses. He then wandered down the lane toward the fields. If the house mystified him, the grounds disoriented him. He expected things would have changed, but there were huge trees growing where he did not even remember small trees. The only familiar parts were those Gram had described. He could call up her voice telling him about the lane with the bridge over the stream and the cottages beyond. And there was the small beech wood where one could walk quite unobserved from the lane.
Evan found a path that he must have taken as a boy. It had been kept open by some inveterate walker, and he felt a friendly sympathy for the unknown boy.
He sat down on a rock to rest and try to puzzle out the past, but the crucial memories eluded him. It seemed such a profitless task. He was what he was now. Why unearth memories that were likely to be painful?
He started at a movement among the new foliage, and almost dropped to a crouch before he remembered where he was. A lithe figure picked its way along the path. Not a boy though, but a girl, wearing a shawl and bonnet that looked old-fashioned even to a man who had been absent from England for years.
“Good morning, Judith,” he said quietly, so as not to startle her.
“I didn’t even see you there, you were so still.”
She sat down beside him, which spurred him to ask, “Do you often stop to rest here?”
“Not rest, just listen and think. The way through the wood is too short otherwise. I was just taking some bread to Mrs. Gorn. She’s quite alone now.”
“Isn’t that a job for Lady Mountjoy?”
She looked at him accusingly. “She would do it, if she could.”
“Sorry, that was a stupid thing for me to say.”
“Especially now that you know she is increasing. I saw your face when you guessed. You looked—well, satisfied, as though you had caught her out at something.”
“Did I?” Evan thought back over the previous agonizing evening. If his face was that easily read, they must all think him a cold, brooding fellow. “It had only solved a puzzle for me, about why she doesn’t want me to stay. Her irrational dislike for me makes sense in light of her pregnancy. Women do often act out-of-character when pregnant …don’t they?”
Judith hesitated, and Evan thought she was on the point of denying that her sister disliked him, but instead she asked, “Had you ever thought that perhaps that is the one time they are more truly themselves, when all that matters is the baby and providing for it?”
“I had not thought about it, but then I have not had much time to observe women, let alone wonder about them. You, for instance, are a complete mystery. I would have guessed you to be the type of person who likes horses, not hates them.”
“But I love them!” she said passionately, then looked away.
“But not to ride?”
“I drive tolerably well,” she said, clasping her hands in her lap.
He looked at the strong, competent hands laid against the faded material of her gown and inspiration hit him. “A riding habit. You need a new one, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t want one. What are you that you read my mind like that? It’s not fair.”
“That had to be it. You would love to ride, but you must have a riding habit to do it in. We will go into Exeter and buy you one.”
“We will not. What would people think of me? Men do not buy women clothes.”
“Not even their aunts?”
“I am not related to you by blood at all. It would be highly improper.”
“Improper for me to bring gifts to my family—all my family? You could help me pick out exactly what Helen and Angel would like. We’ll go before breakfast, if you can drive me.”
“I can’t. I have work to do.”
“What sort of work?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“You don’t strike me as the sort of person who would put your own interests before your family, even if it meant putting off your work.”
“No, of course not. I mean—”
“You were just using that as an excuse not to help me. Very well. I shall go myself. But I fully intend to buy you a riding habit, whether you want one or not. Of course, left to my own devices, I shall probably choose red, or make some other crucial blunder, but there you have it. I am a soldier and prone to blunder.” He got up decisively.
“No, you must not,” she said, jumping up.
“Not red?”
“No, you must not buy it at all.” She stamped her foot in frustration. “They will think I coerced you.”
“No one coerces me. Hasn’t Father told you how stubborn I am?”
“Time and again.”
“What else did he say about me?”
“Only that you were very unforgiving.”
“Me unforgiving? That’s a good one. Well, do you mean to come with me or no? For I am off now.”
“I will help you choose gifts for your father and the others, but you must not buy me anything.”
“Oh, well, half a loaf…Come then.” He held out his hand to her so commandingly that she took it, and he very nearly dragged her the rest of the way through the wood. She fetched it back when they came at last to the stable.
Before Judith fairly knew what had happened, they were on the road to Exeter, with not so much