Susanna Kearsley - The Winter Sea

Then, because she could not face the look in Kirsty’s eyes directly, she looked down and smoothed the lovely nightgown and began to fold it carefully, with hands that shook but slightly. ‘I have nothing else to leave her that is mine. It is my hope that she will never learn the truth, that she will always think your sister is her mother, but we cannot always know…’ She lost her voice a moment; struggled to recover it, and carried on more quietly, ‘We cannot always know what lies ahead. And if she ever does discover who she truly is, then for the world I would not have her thinking that she was not born of love, or that I did not hold her dear.’

‘Sophia…’

‘And if nothing else, when she has reached an age where she can marry, you may give it to her then, just as you gave it once to me, and she can value it for that alone.’ The nightgown, neatly folded, seemed like nothing in Sophia’s hands. She held it out to Kirsty. ‘Please.’

A moment passed. Then Kirsty slowly reached to take the offering. ‘For Anna, then.’ And as her fingers closed around the nightgown something seemed to break in Kirsty, as though she’d kept silent for too long. ‘How can you bear to leave,’ she asked, ‘and her not knowing who you are?’

‘Because I love her.’ It was simple. ‘And I would not spoil her happiness. She has been raised within your sister’s house, and to her mind the other children are her sisters and her brothers, and your sister’s husband is the only father she has known.’ That had hurt more than all the rest of it, because she felt that Moray had been robbed of more than just his life, but of his rights, to know his child and be remembered. But in the end she knew that scarcely mattered, as her own pain did not matter when she weighed it in the balance of their daughter’s future. Trying to make Kirsty understand, she said, ‘She has a family here, and is content. What could I give her that would equal that?’

‘I do not doubt that Mr Moray’s family, if they knew of her, would give her much.’

Sophia had considered that. She’d thought of Moray’s ring, still on its chain around her neck, and of his saying she had but to ask his family for assistance, and they’d help her. And she’d thought of Colonel Graeme and his promise there was none of Moray’s kin who would not walk through fire to see her safe. No doubt that promise would extend to Moray’s child, as well—especially a child who looked so like him that it called his memory close.

But in the end Sophia had not chosen to reveal herself, nor ask for any help from Abercairney. It was true that in the lap of Moray’s family Anna might have had the benefit of higher social standing, but, ‘I will not take her from the only family she has known,’ she said to Kirsty now, ‘and have her live with strangers.’

‘They would be her kin.’

Sophia answered quietly, ‘That does not mean that she will be well treated. Do not forget that I was also raised by kin.’

And that reminder brought another silence settling down upon them both.

‘Besides,’ Sophia said, attempting brightness, ‘I shall worry less about her knowing she is here. Should something happen to your sister there will be the countess and yourself who both would love and care for Anna as if she were your own child.’

‘Aye,’ said Kirsty, blinking fiercely, ‘so we would.’

‘It would be selfish of me, taking her from that to face a future that at best would be uncertain, with a mother and no father.’

‘But you are young, like me,’ said Kirsty. ‘You may meet another man, and marry, and then Anna—’

‘No.’ Sophia’s voice was soft, but very sure. She felt the solid and unyielding warmth of Moray’s ring against her skin, above her heart, as she replied, ‘No, I will never find another man I wish to marry.’

Kirsty clearly did not want to see her friend lose hope. ‘Ye told me once that there was no such thing as never.’

She remembered. But the moment when she’d said that seemed so long ago, and now she knew it had not been the truth; that there were some things that could never be put right once they’d been ruined. Moray’s ship would never come, and she would never wake again to feel his touch or hear him speak her name, and nothing could restore to her the life his love had promised her.

It was all gone. All gone, she thought. But still, she summoned up a smile to show to Kirsty, for she would not have this parting with her friend be any sadder than it had to be.

And there were other partings yet to come.

An hour later, in the library, she waited for the worst of them. There was no sun today to spread its warmth across the fabric of the chairs and cheer the room. The window glass was pebbled with the remnants of the freezing rain that had all night been flung against it by a wind from the northeast, and though that rain had stopped, the wind still wailed and tried its strength against the walls, its breath so cold that there was little that the small fire on the hearth could do to counter it.

Before the fire, the wooden chess board with its small carved armies waited patiently upon its table, but looking at it only called to mind the fact that they had had no word of Colonel Graeme yet, from France, and did not know if he was numbered in the wounded or the dead of Malplaquet. His quick grin crossed her memory and she turned from it, her back towards the chess board as she trailed her hand instead along the gilded leather bindings of the nearest bookshelf, searching out of habit for the book that she had sought out more than any other these past years—the newer volume, plainly bound, of Dryden’s King Arthur, or the British Worthy. The pages that had once been lightly used now showed the marks of frequent reading, for this book had always managed to bring Moray close, somehow, despite the miles between them.

It still did. She felt the same connection when she held it that she’d felt before, and when she chose a random page and read the lines they spoke to her as strongly and as surely as they’d always done, although they did not speak this time of love but of defeat, a subject fitting to her mood:

‘Furle up our Colors, and Unbrace our Drums;

Dislodge betimes, and quit this fatal Coast.’

She heard the door behind her softly open and then close again, and heard the slow distinctive rustle of the gown across the floor that marked the countess’s approach. Sophia, looking down still at the open book, remarked, ‘I have so often read this play I ought to know its lines as well as any actor, yet I still find phrases here that do surprise me.’

Drawing close, the countess asked, ‘Which play is that?’ and read the title, and her eyebrow lifted slightly. ‘I suspect, my dear, that you may be the only person in this house who has attempted reading that at all. If it amuses you, then take it with you as my gift.’

Had it been any other book she might have raised a protest, but she wanted it so badly for herself she merely closed her hands around it and said thank you.

‘Not at all. You must take several, now I think of it.’ The countess scanned the shelves with newfound purpose. ‘The Duchess of Gordon does assure me she has lodged you with the very best of families in Kirkcudbright, but notwithstanding that, my dear, they are still Cameronians, devoutly Presbyterian, and likely will have little use for pleasures such as reading. No, you must take some books from here, else you’ll have nothing there to read but dry religious tracts.’ She chose some volumes, took them down and stacked them near the chess board. ‘I shall have these added to your box. Here, let me have the Dryden, too.’ She stretched her hand to take it from Sophia, who released it with reluctance, but with heartfelt thanks.