The Indiscretion (16 page)

"That was the story I couldn't think of last night:
Swan
Lake
."

She was trying to escape something, he decided. What? Or maybe it
wasn't important, because it was done: She'd escaped it here, a woman released
from her swan state by the light of the moon, the light of the moor.

Her gaze lifted to him, a vague bafflement on her face.
"You've been to the ballet?" She didn't wait for his response,
though, continuing nervously – aware, maybe, that her tone had showed her
surprise. "How very nice," she said brightly, conversationally,
"that you've seen the ballet."

He twisted his mouth. "Yeah, sometimes, if I git tarred o'
practicin' cattle calls, I go see them purdy girls dance."

She glanced at him, wide-eyed, then cast her eyes down.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm being ornery."

More humbly, she asked, "Do you like it?"

"Ballet?"

She nodded.

"A bunch of women dancin' on near-bare legs right there in
front of me? Are you kiddin'? Of course I like it." He left a pause,
sighed at himself. His father had thought the ballet was sissy. To this day, he
could get defensive about his enjoyment of it. He gave a more serious answer.
"Yes. I like the way ballerinas are aware of their bodies, their grace. I
like the music." He waited. "And you?"

She grew wary.

He laughed at her. "Come on, Miss Viscount's Daughter."
He still couldn't decide if he believed her or not, though the incongruous
possibility worried him. He made fun. "You and the queen ever take the
evening off so the two of you can go to the ballet?"

She had the good grace to hang her head – an acknowledgment of all
the lies she'd told – then answered, "Sometimes."

Well, Sam thought. That was unexpected. No explanations or defense,
she went straight for the truth.

Look at the two of them. He said, "I've never seen two bigger
liars than us."

She looked up, her pretty eyes widening. "You've never been
to the ballet then?"

He snorted. "Yeah, that's it. I read about the ballet someplace."

She looked disappointed. Let her be. She wasn't married. She
wasn't in service. She didn't seem rich, but she didn't need money. And none of
this mattered, because no matter who or what she was, she thought she was
better than he was by a mile (though she liked him anyway and to a degree that
embarrassed her). He was a dime novel to her.

Hell, if he didn't know better – the daughters of the English
upperclass didn't travel alone – he'd have guessed she really
was
some
sort of minor nobility.

As to himself, he felt no need to enlighten her, since she lied
like a rug herself.

Normally, when Sam met a woman he wanted, he did a certain amount
of scrambling. He hated it, but he did it. He'd make an effort to impress her:
to cast himself in a powerful light. To his surprise and delight and sometimes
consternation, none of this mattered with Liddy. She assumed the worst: then
liked him anyway.

Who would have thought that a woman could be so wonderfully
unambitious with regard to a man's money or power? Not that he was so all-fired
impressive on either count, but still, most of the women he knew added that
sort of thing into the measure of a man. He was delighted to be found
attractive for nothing more than himself.

Delighted and not inclined to elaborate.

*

As
Lydia
watched Sam
nod back to sleep, it occurred to her: my heart's desire. It's him. I want him.
All of it. What he'd said about kissing her and lying naked on top of her,
being inside her clothes, inside – well, all of it, she thought. All of it. She
wanted the long, lean man from
Texas
, builder of
fires, hunter of rabbits, mess cook, campfire friend, and fine dramatic reader
of cowboy books.

For a long time, she watched Sam lying there sleeping, till the
fire was embers and there was so little light all she could see was his moonlit
silhouette. Eventually, she let go of the feeling, the yearning for him.
Freedom. I have this freedom in me. Strength and freedom.

She went to sleep with a sense of exhaustion, an ache in her
muscles from use, and dreamed of walking the moor: traveling under the overcast
sky, the cool air blowing across her, the earth passing under the feet.

10

What
a silly thing love is! It is not half as useful as logic, for it does not prove
anything and it is always telling one things that are not going to happen, and
making one believe things that are not true.

The Nightingale and the Rose
, 1888

L
ydia
and Sam awoke
at almost the precise same time that morning, the two of them raising their
heads all but simultaneously to the most beautiful sight: heather. The horizon
was purple with it. A whole field of the short evergreen lay beyond in full,
pale pinkish-purple bloom. Though the moonlight, the night before, had
disclosed sparse, nearby clumps, it had hidden completely that, down in the
shadow of their rise and just a little further out, the heather became dense,
the only plant for miles. It turned the moor into waves, a fuchsia ocean of it.

Lydia
was up in an
instant, running toward the heather, out into little winding paths through it,
raising up a wake of buzzing bees behind her.

"Be careful," Sam called. "Don't get stung."

It was gorgeous. Sturdy bushes, purple-stemmed, growing
thigh-high, as high as the bush ever grew. And in perfect summer bloom. The
field was covered in feathery spikes of tiny bell-shaped flowers. She pulled
off a green shoot, its dense ranks of tiny, hairlike leaves growing in whorls.
The handsomest of plants in the most desolate of landscapes.

She stuck a flowering piece into her hair, then danced out into a
small open space. There, she held out her hands and spun till her skirt flared,
till air brushed up under her skirts against the silk of her knickers – it felt
so nice. "Oh, the moor. I love it, don't you? It makes me want to run,
skip, do somersaults and cartwheels like a child."

Sam watched her, his hands in his pockets, his head faintly
aching. She was a crazy woman, Liddy. "Yep, it's a mysterious place."

It was, he thought. Stark. Beautiful. Impossible to predict. Yet
so much the same sometimes it was hard to recognize where you were. A paradox.

And all the while he thought this, he was looking at someone who
was as hard to decipher, as fine to behold.

Liddy closed her eyes and leaned her head back, her face toward
the sun. "A high-scoring day," she said.

"High-scoring?"

She peeked at him from under her eyelashes, a kind of squint.
"An archer's idea of a fine day: sunny, with little or no wind. Every
arrow you shoot goes directly where you send it. No excuses. But no trouble,
either."

Then she spun again, a slender little top. He could see her shoes
with a glimpse now and then of an inch of shins, an inch of calves, the finger
of distance between her ankle boots and the edge of her drawers. He could see
where her one ankle boot was laced wide over his wrapping. It felt good to
think her ankle was better because of it – and it had to be, because she was
all but doing a jig on it.

When she and her skirts settled, he discovered her face beaming at
him.

"The heather is lovely, isn't it?"

"Mm," he said, meaning yes.

"The Picts brewed mead from the flowers."

"The honeybees like it."

"Hill shepherds and deer stalkers laid it on the ground,
flowers up, and made it into springy beds."

"No kidding."

"No kidding," she repeated his Americanism. She looked
about them. "Such flowering abundance right around the corner from
yesterday's mud and slime." She giggled. "Why, it's as pretty as a
pie supper."

He laughed, too. "
Purdy
.
If you wanna say it right, you gotta get the accent." He made fun of
himself. "Purdy as a pah supper."

"Purdy as a pah supper," she said and laughed again. He
enjoyed hearing her British voice try it out. "A good expression,"
she said. "How like you it is."

"
You
brought it
up."

"Yes. All right. How like us."

Us
. How like us.

They ate breakfast, buried their fire, but were slow getting
going. Liddy was distracted by the beauty of the place; he was distracted by
the beauty of Liddy. It seemed to take forever to simply pick up their things,
pack the satchel, find their near-empty bottle of gin. Sam had done a fine job
of swilling most of it last night; he could only pray they got off the moor
today, because there wasn't enough left in the bottle to render him unconscious
again. The sun was getting high in the sky, yet he and Liddy hadn't started for
the day – they stood at the edge of the heather, arguing over whether to head
south or go back and follow the small stream that ran into the bog, looking for
a river and perhaps people in that direction, since their efforts so far at
finding the road had proved pretty worthless.

That's when they heard the sound.

Liddy jumped, grabbed his arm, and squeezed, alarmed, a woman
suddenly frightened. "Listen," she said.

She needn't have. It came again: a long, blasting whistle. Sam
grew stock-still, alert, trying to decide if his ears were playing tricks.

Very faintly in the far distance, it repeated: the distinct tones
of what sure as the dickens sounded like a train toot-tooting along.

He dropped the bottle and satchel,
emptying his arms, preparing for flight. He listened again, locating the
direction of the sound, then took off at a dead run.

He tore down the slight rise, through one edge of the heather,
half-slid his way through some muck, then raced up another ascent that became
rock, a slope that was higher still. From the top, he could see it – though he
didn't slow down: He ran faster, as fast as his legs could take him. Toward a
train that was pretty far off, but, sure as shooting, there was a shiny engine,
flashing with sunlight, leading a long, distantly rackety procession of cars.
The whole thing, as he pounded his way toward it, looked almost magical, no
tracks visible. It ran at the far edge of heather, ever so faintly clattering
in rhythm.

It whistled again, the sound brighter. Oh, to make it before it
disappeared. Sam pushed himself. Run faster, harder. Catch it. He matched his
breath to the pounding of his feet, pumped his arms, stretched his stride, used
everything he knew to beat a path that would intercept the chuffing line of
cars.

Lydia
followed Sam,
though she was unable to keep up. She knew, though, with a sinking heart it was
true: They hadn't found civilization, but it had found them.

Such confusion she felt as, skirts raised, she ran after Sam.
Feelings … so many unsavory feelings rushed … she tried to push them away. No,
she wasn't supposed to feel this sense of horror. Not the quick, plummeting
anger, the deprivation. She should feel … relief. They would flag the train
down. She would climb aboard. She might even know someone on it – almost surely
she would. And Sam … Sam would—

What? Where would Sam go?

One thing was for certain. She wouldn't kiss his mouth again. She
wouldn't get to lie beside him again or have rabbit cooked on an open fire.

She trailed after him, on his path yet farther and farther behind,
with her shoes patting the stony earth, her wrapped ankle throbbing, hurting,
her chest aching, her heart beating into her throat till she thought she'd be
sick, all the while fighting an awful prescience: that in back of her, their
cold, buried fire, their field of heather, the bog and fog and rivulet and
stones and mud … all
that
was real,
and she was leaving it behind – as she climbed the final rise and viewed the
train: her old world. It looked like some sort of child's miniature. A
Christmas toy set. The stupid train was dwarfed by all the purple, its smoke
stack spewing pitiful little clouds against a wide blue sky.

She couldn't help thinking,
that
,
the stupid train, was the mirage, the fantasy. The moor was real. It was alive.
She was alive on it.

She stopped, catching her breath on the rocky summit. Looking down
at Sam chasing the train,
Lydia
felt as if she
were witnessing the end of the world. Loss. Below, he ran for all he was worth
– and he was worth so much. Could that man ever run! He cut across the field at
an angle, coming out of the heather at just the right point. The train was no
more than halfway past. He waved. He jumped. He did everything but throw
himself at the moving train. She could see him calling. She watched him run
alongside the rattling cars, all but keeping up with them for a full minute,
and her windpipe tightened, choking in her chest.

She only began to cry when she witnessed their small, almost
pathetic, respite. Below, Sam's long legs covered great strides of land beside
the steaming train, his fists, his bent arms swinging. Yet he lost ground. And
the train, whoever controlled it, didn't so much as pause. No one saw him. The
last cars transported goods, no windows, no one.

It was passing them by.

She went more slowly down into the far side of the heather, wiping
at her face as she made her way purposefully, without rush. When she caught up,
Sam couldn't talk and breathe both. He was bent over by the empty tracks, his
palms on his knees as he huffed and gasped. In trying to catch his breath, his
body had to get past spasms to find enough oxygen. She had to wait till he
could say anything.

When he did, all he could pant out was the obvious.
"I –
haa
– I –
haa
–
miss'
d –
haa
–
th'
in."

"Trains run on schedules," she told him. "It will
be back. Or even another one may come along today."

He nodded, his chest heaving, his lungs sucking air noisily.
"We – we should – haah" – he panted – "should – haah – put
something out" – more puffing – "a signal to get –
whoo"
– inhaled air – "their
attention."

It was true. No one was likely to expect to see two people trying
to flag down a train as it clacked across a vacant moor.

Then another discovery. Agreeing with him in a nod,
Lydia
turned, and
there to the side, paralleling the tracks that stretched back, was a narrow
river that wound beyond the heather.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

Sam nodded.

That was enough. Because she wasn't all right. But she thought she
might be able to make herself so.

Without looking again at him,
Lydia
started for
the river, at first walking briskly, then at a trot. Her running after him and
the train had set off a mild attack of asthma, but now, as her feet jogged
gently toward the sparkling water, she felt the tightness in her chest loosen
on its own.

In the distance, the surface of the running river caught the sun,
its light sparkling and shifting with the current. It drew her, while she felt
her sense of absolute authority over herself return, larger, better – stronger,
louder for having been drowned out by a stupid train whistle. No, she thought.
No, she was never giving up this feeling again. Her old world could shriek all
it wished; she wouldn't answer.

She ran. Now or never, she thought. It was now or never.

Now. It was now.
I want him
.
There was no one here but her and Sam. So why should she listen to the
disapproval of people who weren't even here? They were just voices in her head.
Quiet! This was private. Here. Now. It was just between them. Her and Sam.

Sam.
My heart's desire
.

The river wasn't wide or impressive in size, though – as
Lydia
rounded the
heathered rise of land that hid it – its beauty and isolation made it a far
more affecting sight than she was prepared for. The flowing water, limpid and
flashing, unraveled into view like a burbling ribbon. At a far bend, where the
land rose, it became a cascade of water – the river coming down the land in a
series of short waterfalls, the current rushing, dropping a foot, running a
short distance, dropping two feet, running another short ways, then plunging
down over a granite wall into a spray that hit a wide spread of rocks.

She didn't see until she was right on top of it that, from there,
the river flowed downward in sheets over terraces of the rocks, dropping over
the last level smoothly to flow out into a small, peaceful, granite-banked pool
before it became a river again.

Amazed, she bent, squatting into her skirts at the pool's edge. As
she watched, a sleek brown animal dove beneath the water. She could see the
creature in perfect detail as it swam away, its little eyes and snout and
whiskers, its glossy coat, its paws tucked back: an otter. The water was that
clear. It was deep and, like the river, sparkling. At the pool's far end, its
rocky sides narrowed. There, the water flowed into the ribbon of river that had
drawn her. At the near end, though, the sun shown through the spray of the
falls, droplets glittering in the sunlight like tiny, airborne diamonds
bouncing off the rocks.

Perfect.
Lydia
knew precisely
what her business was here and got about it: She stood, slipping off her short
jacket, then began at the buttons of her blouse. Naked. She couldn't quite do it
in the end. She only stripped down as far as her white, cap-sleeve chemise and
knickers, ribboned at the knees, standing in her bare feet. She had meant to
take off her undergarments, too, but the water looked … too cold… Or, no, her
own shyness intruded, but never mind: She was brave enough. Without hesitation,
she leaped out into the air over the pool and plunged in.