“Well, yes.”
“We might as well go together.”
“Goodbye, Jamie,” I said.
Jamie stood with his cap off and the wind ruffling his fine sandy hair, as I had seen him so many times before.
As we walked away I heard him whistling to his dog.
Then his voice said: “Time for us to go, Lion. Come on now, boy.”
Paul and I rode on in silence.
Then I said: “I don’t think Jamie will talk.”
“About what?”
“Seeing us together.”
“Why should he?”
“Surely you know that people thrive on gossip. They will be inventing scandal about you and me … and I should hate that.”
He was silent.
“But I think Jamie is safe,” I went on. “He is different from everyone else.”
“He’s certainly unusual. There’s something almost uncanny about him … coming along like that.”
“It was a perfectly reasonable way of coming along. He’d been to get things for his garden and was using the trap to bring them back.”
“I know … but stopping like that.”
“It was because he saw us and was being polite. He has good manners. Besides, he’d promised the dog he should have a run.”
“All that talk about the mine … and then letting the dog run loose there.”
“He thinks the dog would sense anything strange before we did. Is that what you mean by uncanny?”
“I suppose so. Heaven knows there’s been enough gossip about the mine. White hares and black dogs are said to be seen there.”
“What are they?”
“They are supposed to herald death. You know what people are. I always thought it was a good thing to scare people off going there. There could be an accident.”
“Well, then Jamie is doing what you wish.”
As we rode on Paul said: “I must see you again … soon. There is so much more to say.”
But I could not see that there was anything more to say.
It was too late. And nothing we could say could alter anything that had gone before.
I loved Paul, but I had no doubt now that my love must be put aside.
I had begun to believe that happiness was not for me.
Everything had changed now that Paul had revealed his feelings to me and I was afraid that, in spite of my resolve, I had been unable to hide my response.
I was excited and yet dreadfully apprehensive. I dared not think of the future and more and more I told myself I ought to get away. I even thought of writing to the worldly-wise Rosie and putting the case to her and perhaps hinting that I might come and work for her. Oh, what use would I be among the exquisite hats and gowns? I could learn perhaps. I even thought of taking up Alphonse’s invitation. It was not really very appealing. Moreover I knew that Cousin Mary was relying on me more and more. I very often went out alone visiting the various farms, and Jim Burrows had a great respect for me. There was a great deal to learn about the estate, of course, but as Cousin Mary said, I had a knack of getting on with people, a quality for which the Tressidors were not renowned. She herself, with the best of intentions, was too brisk, too gruff; but I was able to hold the dignity of my position and at the same time show friendliness. “It’s a great gift,” said Cousin Mary approvingly, “and you have it. People are contented, I sense that.”
How could I leave Cousin Mary when she was “like a bear with a sore head” when I was away?
It was comforting to be wanted, to know that I was becoming a success in the work I had undertaken; and yet at the back of my mind was the nagging certainty that by staying I was courting disaster.
I must think about it, I told myself, and the weeks passed.
I often went to Jamie’s cottage. I found such peace there. He now was tending a baby bird which had fallen out of a nest and which he was feeding until it was ready to fly. He kept it in a home-made nest—a coconut shell lined with flannel. I liked to watch him thrusting food into the little creature’s ever-open mouth as he muttered admonitions, warning it about too much greed and gobbling too fast.
I also watched him preparing winter supplies for the bees, stirring sugar in a saucepan over the fire. He was very anxious to make sure that he had ample supplies to keep his colony going through the winter.
“Winter can be a sad time for animals and insects,” he mused. “Nature doesn’t always make provision.”
“It is a good thing that there are people like you in the world to take up where nature leaves off.”
“They’re my friends,” he said. “There’s no virtue in what I do.”
“I should think there is great virtue in it. Any of those living things who cross your path should be considered very lucky. Have you always been like that … caring for things?”
He clasped his hands together and was silent for a moment.
Then he looked at me and smiled. “I’ve always cared for the wee creatures,” he said. “I’ve been a father to them.”
“You never had any children of your own, Jamie?”
He shook his head.
“But you were married, weren’t you?”
“That was long ago.”
“Did she … ?” I wished I hadn’t spoken because I realized at once that the subject was very painful to him.
“Aye,” he said. “She died. Poor wee creature. She dinna make old bones.”
“It’s very sad. But then life can be sad. And now you’ve settled down here and you have the bees and Lionheart and Tiger …”
“Oh, aye. I’m not lonely any more. It was a happy day when I came to work for Miss Tressidor.”
“I’m glad you came. She is a wonderful woman. She has been good to me, too.”
“There’s sadness all around. Up at Landower there’s sadness. We’re happier here … at Tressidor.”
I wondered if he had heard gossip. He was not the sort to whom the servants would talk. It was only rarely that I could get him to talk to me as he was now, and we had taken some time to reach this stage in our relationship.
He paused with the spoon held over the syrupy mass in the saucepan.
“Yes,” he went on, “there’s a lot of unhappiness there. It is not a happy home, that I know.”
“You don’t have much to do with them, do you?”
“No. There’s one of them comes up to buy honey now and then. It’s someone from the kitchens.”
“The whole neighbourhood wants your honey, Jamie. And does whoever comes talk to you about the unhappiness up at Landower?”
He shook his head. “No one tells me. It’s what’s in the air. I know it. When I pass the house I feel it. When I saw Mr. Landower with you, I knew it. I feel these things.” He tapped his chest. “It makes me sad. I say, there’ll be tragedy there one day. People stand so much and then there can be no more. The breaking point comes …”
He was staring straight ahead of him. I had a strange feeling that he was not in this room with me. He was somewhere else … perhaps in the past … perhaps in the future. I had the impression that he was looking at something which I could not see.
“It was really a very satisfactory arrangement,” I said. “The marriage saved the house for the family.”
” ‘What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul,’ ” he said slowly.
“Jamie,” I said, “you’re in a strange mood tonight.”
“I’m like that when the bees are quiet. There’s a long winter ahead, dark nights. There’s a stillness over the land … It’s the spring I like, when the sap rises in the trees and the whole world’s singing. Now the country’s going to sleep for the winter. It’s a sad time. This is when people want to break out and do what they wouldn’t dream of doing on a bright summer’s day.”