Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson

Chapter 23

Present Day

I shook myself awake from my daydream when I heard the bird fluttering about in its cage. Surely I had something better to do than sit in this quiet room and reminisce about things that had happened years before. Taking myself to task for the weakness of my heart, I set about actually accomplishing something.

My wanderings the day before had been focused on finding the painting that hid the entrance to the secret passageway. Today I wanted to see the house as I had wanted to see it as a child—as an endless treasure trove, a place to which Henry and Sylvia went away and came back happy.

I found a part of the house I had not discovered the day before. It was easy to overlook, as the house had been added onto so many times over the centuries that there was no real pattern or logic to its structure. A doorway took me into a wing I had not seen before. It must have been on the back of the house, facing the moors. I walked down the hall but paused at an open door. I heard the soft murmur of a low voice. I eased closer, treading carefully on the old wood floor that I was sure would squeak in places.

The door to the bedchamber stood wide open. I paused outside the doorframe, not hiding but not announcing myself either. It was Henry’s voice I had heard—it was Henry’s voice I knew, even at a distance, even when it was just a murmur. Resting my hand on the doorframe, I watched him quietly as he sat before the large window that overlooked the moors. Two high-backed chairs were drawn before the window, facing each other. Henry’s attention was fixed on the old gentleman sitting in the other chair. The old gentleman’s gaze was fixed on the scene beyond the window.

“The moors are as beautiful as ever,” Henry said. “Aren’t they?” He paused, but his grandfather—it had to be his grandfather—said nothing. “You should have heard what Kate said about them. She called them ugly—so very ugly.” I heard the smile in his voice. “You would have something to say about that, wouldn’t you? You would convince her that they are beautiful, even at this time of year.” He paused again, but still no sound came from his companion. “Do you remember how you always told me to come before the heather was in bloom? You always told me that anyone could find beauty here in the fall, when the heather was bright and the moors were brilliant with color. But it took a real eye to appreciate the beauty in this land the rest of the year. You told me ...” Henry’s voice softened. “You told me that if I was going to be the master of Blackmoore, that I would have to love the land the same way you do.”

A clicking sound reached my ears, and I tilted my head, wondering what caused the new noise. Then I saw that his grandfather held seashells in his old hands. Now he moved his hands, and the shells clacked together, but still he said nothing, and did not move his gaze from the window.

“Yes, Kate is here,” Henry said, as if his grandfather had spoken. “I have finally brought her. You remember her, of course. She is the one I made the model for. That was one of the most enjoyable visits I’ve ever had here, Grandfather. The hours we spent working together on that ... the splinters you had to pull out of my fingers ...” A wistful tone had crept into Henry’s voice.

His grandfather turned his head and looked at Henry. My heart quickened with anticipation. And I forgot that I had not been invited to this scene. I leaned forward, waiting to hear his words.

“Who?” he said, in a voice that sounded frail and rough from disuse.

“Kate. Kate is here. At last.” A note of pride and relief colored Henry’s voice.

The old man shook his head. The shells clacked more loudly in his fumbling hands. “Who are you?”

My heart fell. After a brief pause, Henry said, “I am Henry, Grandfather.”

“Henry. Which Henry?”

“Your grandson.” His voice was hardly more than a whisper.

The shells clacked more furiously, and several fell to the floor with a clatter. Henry leaned over and picked them up, setting them gently in his grandfather’s lap, and covered his old hands with his.

“Never mind,” he said in a quiet voice. But I saw, in his profile, a broken look on his face. “I have rambled on too long. Shall I read to you instead?”

Grandfather pointed a trembling finger at the stack of books on the low table in front of them. Henry picked up the top book, looked at it, then set it aside. He did the same with two more books. The fourth book brought a smile to his face, and he asked, “Would Shakespeare suit you?”

The old man nodded briefly. His gaze turned back to the window, and as Henry cracked the cover of the book, the clicking of the shells quieted.

Henry’s voice reached me like a lullaby. I closed my eyes and listened to him read the words I had heard him read before, years ago.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken,

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Henry’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat, and a tear fell on my cheek. I leaned against the doorframe, weak with sorrow, my hand pressed over my breaking heart. I heard his roughly drawn breath, and then he went on:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I kept my eyes closed as his voice faded, feeling the full measure of devotion of this young man for the grandfather who had forgotten him.

“Again, please,” his grandfather said.

I opened my eyes in time to see Henry reach out and place another fallen shell in his grandfather’s hands. He started reading again, and I backed up carefully, knowing I had stayed too long. I had seen and heard many things in my life that I had not been invited to. I had regretted eavesdropping more times than I could count. It was always too hard on my heart.

I walked away with soft footsteps and tried to shut my heart to what I had witnessed. But my heart protested the closing, and stayed open, tender and raw, and it whispered to me, There is nothing more beautiful in the natural world than what you have just seen. There is nothing more moving than that devotion, that steadfast love.

But I shushed my heart. I did not want to be told such things, and I certainly did not want to feel. I did not want beauty to move me. I did not want to be won over by my heart. This was my path. This was how I would change the course of my life: by rejecting everything that Worthington women did naturally.