Band of Angel (10 page)

And here he was, waiting for her again, but he felt wrong now, like someone in a dream, sitting here in his clean shirt and his second-best breeches waiting for her, only this time his heart going like a bloody hammer.

The hut smelled of fish and seaweed. Beyond the half-open door he could see the sea flopping and turning and a small boat moving across the horizon. He’d avoided this place, but now, excited, angry, he remembered it: the flat-out gallops down the beach, the jumps they’d set up, the dares about who could ride farthest into the sea. It was here, in a way, that the end came, even before she came to speak to his mother. They’d been playing a fortune-telling game, and she’d grabbed his hands, opened his palm, and leaned forward, her conker-colored hair brushing his face, silky and sweet smelling.

“Young man,” she’d said, in the gypsy voice that normally made him laugh. “Sometimes I dinks you a little bit happy, sometimes I dinks you a little bit sad.”

But on this day the scent of her, the exquisite trail of sensation her finger had left running down his lifeline, had excited him so much he’d almost cried out in pain. Later, he knew that whatever it was they had together was gone, replaced by nothing that he knew about, or understood.

He took out the same fob watch that had so impressed her years ago. His father’s name was engraved on its lid: Lewis Jones, drover, Pantyporthman. Ten to four. He was ten minutes early. The sky was already turning from blue to a deep glowing pink. Later in the day, the fishermen’s wives would come down to the beach with their children to check the nets and pick up some wrack for their sacks. Unusually for him, he’d been ahead of himself all day: getting up early this morning to creep around and bathe in secret, then lying to his father about a blacksmith’s appointment, and finally rushing here like some great soppy girl, when he’d hoped to arrive late and swing from his horse in a calm manner and be what he normally was with women, the man in charge.

He heard the crunch of her horse’s hooves first and then the creak of her saddle.

“Deio?” she called out softly.

“I’m here, Catherine,” he called from the dark.

She came into the hut and took off her hat. She wore a blue velvet riding habit, and her skin glowed from the gallop.

“I like your new horse,” she said.

“He’s all right.”

“A very nice one,” she said brightly, reminding him of the tone her mother had used to try and bring the locals out.

“A bit too clever,” he said, “but I’ll sort him out soon.”

“On a drove?”

“Yes.”

“To London?”

“Yes.”

Goddamn her, and her mother. He seemed to have lost the power of speech.

They sat down beside each other on the wooden bench that ran around the walls of the hut, and all he could think about was how once, when they were children and sitting on this same bench, he
had made her, for a test, put out her tongue and touch his. The feeling had amazed him—it was like holding a live and landed fish in your mouth. Afterward he’d wrestled her, and they’d raced down the beach on their ponies. She’d never tell in those days, you could depend on her.
Tell-tale-tit your tongue will split, they’ll feed it to the puppy dogs bit by bit
. She was a fierce little girl with her own principles.

Memories, half-forgotten now or re-formed into something the mind could manage without shame and denial, a few more stilted words, and then that look of determination he remembered crossed her face, and she looked him straight in the eye and spoke in an attempt at the schoolmarm’s voice they’d once used for fun.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you here today.”

He said no he hadn’t given it a thought, he was too busy, and she’d blushed a deep red.

“Well, I have a favor to ask you, a very big favor.”

“Oh.” His voice implied he owed her none, but his mouth went dry.

But as she talked about her plan, to go with him to London, without telling her father who would forbid it, he became aware of an excitement growing, then a keen disappointment as his mind caught up with his emotions, and he heard her talking about a governess home, and her desire to be anywhere but here, “and on my own,” she finished up, “to think my own thoughts.” And “I have ten sovereigns saved,” she said, as if it was some vast fortune.

“So will you please consider me? I could help with the horses and other things. Please.”

She put her fingers over her mouth as though she couldn’t bear the suspense, and when she looked at him with those beautiful slanting tawny eyes, a wave of fury swept over him.

“No,” he said eventually in a flat voice.

“No?” she was appalled. “Why not?”

“We don’t take ladies, not to London. And what about your father?” It seemed to her he was exaggerating his Welsh accent. He gathered up his bridle as though about to leave.

“Look,” she said, “wait.” Her voice had begun to tremble. “I came
here asking for some measure of protection from you. It had not occurred to me that I would have to ask your permission.” She stood up from the bench. Her chin, with its small, carved dent, tilted toward him. It flashed through his mind to take her arms, to pin them over her head and still that agitated body with the full weight of his.

“I will tell my father as soon as I am settled. His life will be very much easier without me, I loathe and detest his sister.”

A child,
he thought,
a spoiled little girl.

“What are you thinking?”

“That we can’t take you. We don’t take ladies to London.”

“Why so?” Once, a long time ago, when he’d pushed her off her pony into a water bucket, she had got in such a rage with him that she’d stood up and calmly whacked him one around the face. He’d felt the sting for an hour afterward. Now, he saw the same look in her eyes.

“Highwaymen, stampedes, mad bulls, bogs—and that’s before you get to the borders.”

He was still young enough for his own lip to tremble with pride at all he had already seen and been through.

“How brave, Deio,” she said. “I bet all the girls think you’re quite the man.”

He looked at her with no expression; everybody knew his reputation.

“Stuff and nonsense,” she said. “Why do men always pretend the things they do are so impossibly difficult? And what about those women who walk to London every year to pick flowers or take cheese? How ever do they manage?”

“The weeders are not ladies.” It took a great effort of will not to shout.

“They are women. And what pray do you mean by a lady?”

He took his hat in his hand and worked it around in his fingers. “I don’t have to tell you, Catherine,” he said. “People like you are too well bred for the likes of us.”

As she closed her eyes to defend herself against accusations she felt he could justly make, he saw the sunlight dapple over her eyelids and, hearing the sucking and the gentle slapping of the waves, he felt his own courage falter and slide.

“They were frightened of us growing up too fast,” she said in a small voice. “Can’t you understand that?” She blushed and looked away.

“There was nothing not to understand,” he said. In the silent moment that followed, there was a commotion outside the hut. They went outside and saw that Jewel had caught his legs in the tether rope and was pulling back.

“Woah, pretty one,” she murmured, while he unwound the rope, “calm down now. We’ll stay in the sun with you.”

On the cliff tops high above them, a row of seagulls followed a pinprick man plowing a field. He saw her look around briefly to check there was nobody else.

“Mustn’t let anyone see us,” he teased, and for the first time she saw the familiar dimple in his cheek.

As they sat down in the hollow of a sand dune, a dragonfly landed between them.

“The Devil’s Messenger,” she said softly.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She had her back to him; now she turned to face him.

“Do you know something, Deio? I have tried very hard to live the life of a nice young lady here, to be good and modest and ignorant, and I am heartily sick of it. I have none of the fun of farm girls, who have friends and can do proper work on the farm, and none of the privileges of the ladies who are educated and who go on outings. I hate my life and I curse my ignorance. Listen—”

She had drawn so close to him, he could feel her breath on his face.

“If you won’t take me to London as a woman, take me as a man. I will dress as a man, work as a man, and take my chances like a man in London.”

Now he felt as angry as she was.

“Where would you stay? Think, woman.”

“At this home for governesses, a respectable place, or with other friends.”

He knew the modulations of her voice well enough to know that the friends had not been asked yet.

“What would you do there?”

“That’s up to me.”

“Not if you want me to take you, it isn’t.”

“Work. I want to do nursing or medicine.”

“Nursing!” He thought of the nurse he’d met on his second trip to London, in a tavern near Smithfields, slack-faced with drink and wild for it. Her room, her tattered stockings, her moans as she bent forward and he took her without even taking off his britches.

“Oh Deio,” she laughed suddenly. “If only you could see your face and the horror on it. Why shouldn’t I work as other people do?”

He smiled bitterly.

“Deio.” Her arms were about him before he had time to think and, for a moment, her body rested against his. He felt her breath on his face, and smelled her hair. He closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. For a second his hand rested on her face.

“Don’t do this, Catrin,” he said. “You don’t know what London’s like.”

She took one long breath of him then let him go. “We mustn’t do that again,” she said in a shaken voice. “It would put quite another complexion on my request.”

“Yes,” he tried to smile, “quite another.” He took a strand of her hair that had escaped from underneath her hat and gave it a small tug before tucking it behind her ear. He sighed and walked away.

“My brother Rob is in charge of hiring now,” he said, “and, let me get this straight: you want to go to London to see your aunt and to study?”

“Yes. Yes. I’ve said all that.”

“Wait. I need to get this in my mind.”

“On the next drove?”

“The next drove. Which is three days time, from here to Bala, Llangollen, and then London.” He heard her catch her breath. It was sooner than she’d expected. “I am not saying yes and I am not saying no.”

His face, apart from a muscle working in his jaw, was expressionless again, and she remembered how implacable he could be, even as a child.

“I will ask him and I shall leave my answer in a letter in this hut tomorrow.”

“Please say yes.” She cursed herself even as the words left her mouth. She sounded like one of those pitiful girls in novels. He stood up and slipped the bit between his horse’s lips. Up on the cliff, the man with the plow made his patient way back, the birds wheeling and shrieking above his head.

“I’ll leave a note for you here, tomorrow at four,” he said.

When she went back to the hut two days later, there was a bag underneath the bench with some clothes inside it. He’d left a small pair of green wool breeches, patched on the inside leg, which she vaguely remembered him wearing when young; a smock of coarse wool, and a bullycock hat that was black and could be pulled down low over the temples. Inside a pair of battered leather gaiters was a note written in his careless hand: “Rob can see you. He is short one boy to drive the beasts. I said you were from Abersoch.”

She squeezed the note into a tight ball in her hand and felt her heart thump. Her life until now had been so carefully orchestrated and planned. In the diaries that Mother, and then their governess, Miss Wilkinson, encouraged them to keep, each hour was accounted for: from eight till nine breakfast; from nine to ten, French; walk after lunch—and so forth. She’d begun to loathe the boredom of routine without understanding how securely it yoked and guided her. Now, even the idea that she could, at least for a while, be free made her shake with fear.

It was twilight by the time she walked up the steep hill toward home. The tip of the peninsula and Bardsey Island were lit up by gorgeous streaks of pink and peach light. On a night like this it was easy to believe in magic, in Merlin and his glass house, in Bran and his perfect island.

When she reached the road, a horse and cart quietly clopped toward her. A man with two collies on either side of him turned and waved. “How do, Miss Carreg. Lovely evening.” It was Twm
Gwelog, a neighbor for as long as she had been alive, and soon to be part of her past.

Once home, she crept up to her bedroom via the backstairs and lay on the bed in a panic. What had seemed so clear suddenly seemed madness. What if this was all a silly game? One she might regret for the rest of her life? Her escape nothing more than a showy moment, an empty flourish with no follow-through and no plan of subsequent action? She could lose the love and respect of her family, her security, her place in the world.

She lay for a while, her eyes wide open, breathing rapidly through her mouth. Then she got up and took down the bundle of clothes lying on top of her chest of drawers. She took off her lawn dress, her two petticoats and chemise, and stepped into the green breeches. The material prickled against her soft skin and the waistband swam on her. She swaggered around the room for a while, kicked one leg out, and smiled. She could smell the horses again, and the sea. Him.