The Book of Hours (20 page)

The walk and the sun warmed him such that Brian took off his hat, scarf, and jacket. He followed Cecilia along a path too narrow for them to walk side by side, and drank in a view so complete it seemed as though he could see to the end of this fair isle and beyond. Fields stretched out to join the misty gray horizon, dotted with little villages and church spires and stone border walls and tree-lined lanes. The river Thames cut a mirror-green swath through the land. Clouds flittered overhead, painting the landscape with shady islands.

They descended into a narrow, tree-lined valley. The day was so quiet, the valley so fair, even the raven's caw seemed content. Cecilia did not speak as she led him along the narrow path. The sunlight and birdsong sang a distinctly English tune, chanting a myth, promising only fair days to come, neither rain nor chill nor blustering dark days of foreign seasons. And because the day and the lady beside him found answering chimes within his heart, Brian smiled his pleasure of the fable and the teller both. Because he could give himself fully, because the chains of past seasons did not hold him in the here and now, he found it possible to call this day eternity, and so the fable became real.

They reached the base of the hill and entered a narrow cut. A copse of ancient chestnut and oak closed in about them. Cecilia led him to where the tiny valley took a sharp right turning, and halted before a church. It was a tiny structure, so old the stones seemed to have melted and run together. A thick mantle of moss dressed the slate roof. The same green adorned the waist-high stone wall, within which grew five massive trees. Tombstones dotted the church forecourt, markers from which all traces of names and dates had been washed away, as though to say that here such minor things no longer mattered—these people rested easy, and that was all one needed to know.

Cecilia led him to the single stone bench that was still upright and level. Overhead two trees had grown so intertwined that it was impossible even in barest winter to say where one stopped and the other began. The expression on Cecilia's face said this was a longstanding habit. Brian settled down there beside her and felt the silence seeping into his very bones.

Finally she spoke, her voice as quiet as the wind. “I found this place my first year in medical school. We're only about twenty miles from Oxford.”

He found himself unwilling to disturb her flow and the moment with words of his own. So he leaned on the stone wall and let her go forward alone. She breathed a pair of long sighs, then continued,“My parents were never happy. They seemed to enjoy quarreling. My mother was English, I've told you that. My father was in the military. She hated America; she moaned constantly about how much she missed her little English village. It was only when I graduated from college and won a scholarship and came back . . .”

She halted once more, and this time the silence was long enough for the birdsong to speak in her place. Brian felt no desire to push the conversation in any particular direction. The day had its own course, certain as a river's. His task was to chart it and follow it as well as he could.

“Everything was so different from what I expected,” she finally continued. “I was so alien and so totally alone. Then I met Mark. He was doing his residency in cardiology at Radcliffe; that's the Oxford hospital. That year we became engaged to be married. This was my second try at commitment; I also got engaged as an undergraduate. His name was Steve, and the only thing he shared with Mark was an absolute confidence that if he loved me deeply enough and argued long enough, he would turn me from my dream of becoming a country village doctor. That is the clearest memory I have of both my engagements, the quarrels. It seemed as though I was doomed to the same kind of life as my parents'. So I broke off both engagements. But each time it seemed as though I had cut off a part of my own soul as well.”

A pair of gray doves fluttered down, their wings gentle thunder. They waddled before the bench, cooing in sympathy as Cecilia went on, “This place became my refuge. I would come here and cry and try to sort through the mess I was making of everything. I knew part of what drove me was my mother's own unanswered dream of returning to live in an English village. Even so, it was my dream now. And I didn't want to give it up. Even if it meant having to live my life out alone.” There was another long sigh, this one so harsh it rattled her throat. Then, “When I first came to Knightsbridge, I made the worst mistake of all, at least as far as the men in my life. I started up with a local. A dashing fellow, village born and raised, so handsome and charming.” She cast him a shamefaced glance. “You know him.”

Brian guessed, “Joe Eaves.”

“Did somebody tell you?”

“No. I just thought there was more to the argument I saw you have with him than a hole he was digging in your front yard.”

She nodded glumly. “What a disaster that was. In all the time we spent together, I never figured out the real man behind his bright smile and his glib tongue. After a while I just stopped caring. But by then I was Joe's girl. Everybody in the village knew about us. So when I broke things off, I just accepted that I was fated to spend my life here alone. I worked, I had my few friends like Trevor and Molly and Arthur and Gladys, I had my little cottage. Most of the time it was almost enough.”

“I'm so sorry, Cecilia.” It was not much, but it had to be said. “Both about the problems you've had and about your losing Rose Cottage.”

They continued to look out over the tiny tousled courtyard and the church and the trees and the day. When he spoke again, it was not in regret, but in peace. “Sarah would have loved it here.”

They rose then, their time done. Brian walked over to the nearest tombstone and found his heart inscribing his own words of parting upon the time-washed surface. Written this time with the clarity of passage and the strength of healing. He reached down and patted the stone, then turned away.

Halfway back up the hillside, Cecilia reached behind her, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for Brian to lean forward and take her hand.

Twenty

T
HEY PULLED INTO
C
ASTLE
K
EEP'S GRAVEL DRIVE AND CUT
the motor. Brian felt as though his body still rocked and hummed in time to the now-silent engine. Cecilia turned to him and said, “I can't thank you enough for a lovely day.”

“Sharing that church with me was very special. I wish I knew how to tell you . . .”

She stopped him with a hand on top of his. “You've done just fine.”

They sat in companionable silence, the narrow cockpit forcing them into intimate closeness. Then he heard voices outside the front gates and the treads of several feet start down the drive. He was pleased to see Cecilia frown, for that was how he felt as well. As though the outside world was encroaching on them and their special day all too soon.

She leaned closer still and said, “Let me cook you dinner tonight.”

He could not help but smile. “That would be fantastic.”

“I wouldn't call it that so swiftly, if I were you. I don't know what I have in the fridge, and it's Sunday, so all the shops are closed.”

“I'm sure it will be fine.” He rose from the car to greet Arthur and Trevor as they hurried toward them.

The two men bore worried expressions. Arthur halted and announced, “Bad news, I'm afraid. Someone's broken into the charity shop and stolen the dollhouse.”

Together with Trevor and Arthur, Brian and Cecilia rushed down the narrow lanes and crossed a market square dappled with late-afternoon light. A single police constable stood outside the charity shop's main entrance, making notes in a leather-bound book. Together they made a cursory examination of the exterior, which yielded nothing. The back door had been jimmied; then apparently the thief had waited in the shadows for a moment when no one was looking through the window. As they inspected the shop's interior, a chorus of wails rose outside the shop as word spread and more young girls arrived to bemoan the loss.

As the police finished up, Trevor surveyed the shop with tragic eyes and complained, “Seven hundred and nineteen pounds.”

“What's that,Vicar?” The constable demanded.

“How much we've raised through the sale of raffle tickets. Seven hundred and nineteen pounds.”

The policeman asked, “You're certain this dollhouse was the only thing stolen,Vicar?”

“As far as I can tell.”

“Let those who want have a refund, but I doubt there will be many takers,” Arthur said kindly.

Trevor led them out the back, and with the constable's help secured the door as best he could. “The dollhouse was the biggest moneymaker of all. We planned to draw the winning ticket as the highlight of our celebration when the bells are rededicated.” Even from behind the shop they could hear the chorus of woe rising from the market square. “Those poor children.”

“If we turn up anything, we'll be in touch.” But the policeman's tone suggested that he very much doubted it would happen. He touched the rim of his cap. “Evening, all.”

They trod back around the shop and bid the dejected vicar a farewell. As Brian, Cecilia, and Arthur started back toward the manor, the old gentleman mused, “You know, we may be missing something here.”

Brian continued to watch the vicar's departing back as he asked, “What's that?”

“What if the burglars weren't after the dollhouse at all?”

Cecilia pointed out, “But that's all they took.”

“Exactly!” Arthur looked from one face to the other. “What if it wasn't the dollhouse they were after, but another hidden hoard?”

“You took the entire dollhouse apart,” Cecilia reminded him, “and didn't find any other secret compartment.”

“Excuse me a minute.” Brian hurried to catch up with the departing vicar. Trevor heard his approach and turned to greet him with a questioning gaze. Brian stammered, “I just wanted to thank you for the message at church this morning.”

“How kind of you.”

“No, really.” He struggled to find a way to express what his heart was feeling. “All day I've felt, well, enriched.”

Trevor straightened gradually. “My dear chap, what a nice thing to say.”

“I'd appreciate being able to come by and talk with you sometime.”

“By all means. Shall we say tomorrow evening?”

“Perfect. Thanks.” Brian could find nothing else to say that seemed adequate, so he merely offered his hand. “For everything.”

As he dressed for Cecilia's dinner in his cleanest khakis and shirt, Brian's eyes fell upon the letter. Heather's latest note lay crumpled and yellowed on the dresser by the parlor's center window. He reread Heather's words, then carefully folded the letter and slipped it into his shirt pocket. Standing by the window, his eyes open and staring out over his back garden, he spoke aloud, “Thy will be done, oh Lord. Amen.”

He turned away, immensely satisfied. It was not much as prayers went, but he had two years of rust to remove.

Sunday dinner was a cheerful affair, salad and omelettes and freshly baked bread. Over a basket of fruit for dessert, Brian shared with Cecilia the latest letter from Heather. It seemed the most natural of acts, a gesture of thanks for the blessings of that soft day. Midway through the reading, she reached across the table for his hand. Brian sat and studied the way the kitchen's lighting softened her features. Even in repose she was very intense, this petite lady, with an air of intelligence so brilliant it turned her eyes to fiercely dark jewels. He noticed for the first time how a few freckles sprinkled the highest points of her cheeks. Almost as though she could feel his gaze, one finger of her free hand rose to stroke beneath her eye, then moved over to slip a strand of hair back behind her ear. He found himself wishing there was a way he could lean forward and trace that same line with his lips.

Cecilia chose that moment to look up. She sat there, staring back at him, a new depth to her gaze. “I wish . . .”

When she did not go on, Brian quietly pressed, “What?”

She rose to her feet. “How about some coffee?”

He leaned back in his chair, watching her still. “Sure.”

“All I have is instant, I'm afraid.”

“That's fine.” He asked a second time, “What do you wish, Cecilia?”

“I wish I had been able to meet Heather.” She filled the kettle and set it on the stove. “What she said there was beautiful.”

“I thought so too. But that's not what you wished, was it?”

Cecilia's movements halted abruptly. When they restarted, everything was in slow motion, as deliberately she poured hot water over the instant coffee and brought over the two cups. “How do you take it?”

“Black is fine, thanks.”

When she reseated herself, she did not meet his gaze. “Any idea what Heather meant in her clue?”

Her sudden shyness kindled a pleasant warmth in him. “I've been thinking about that.”

“And?”

Brian reached across and captured her hand, forcing her to lift her chin and reveal the confusion in her gaze. “Cecilia, I wish I could stay here at Castle Keep.”

She breathed as though suddenly her heart was too large for her body. “I suppose that will have to do.”

They sat there a long moment, drinking coffee and holding hands, the overhead light bathing them in a glow as yellow as freshly churned butter, granting a gentle intimacy to the tattered room.

When Brian finished his coffee, he rose and pulled her up with him. “Would you come over to the house with me? There's something I need to check out.”

As they walked the gravel path beneath a star-flecked sky, Brian explained, “I remembered something Sarah said once. I think it was after one of her long conversations with Heather, but you know how it is: things get mixed up in your head.”