Song From the Sea (16 page)

“It sounds to me as if we both have the same problem. May I pick Georgie up?” Callie asked, when his face started to scrunch up again and tears threatened anew.

“Please do,” Nellie said, settling in a chair with a sigh. “He's getting so heavy, and he's still at the age where he likes to be lugged about. Sometimes I think my back is going to break between his weight and carrying this new one here.” She ran a hand over her belly. “We've all of us heard about you, of course, miss—no offense intended, but word spreads like wildfire round the village, being so small-like. They say you fell off a ship into the sea and his lordship rescued you. Is it true?”

Callie swung Georgie up onto her hip and sat down at the table, settling the child more comfortably on her lap and absently handing him a spoon that he proceeded to gnaw on. “It is, and I feel like the veriest idiot. I cannot think how I managed to do such a silly thing, either, but I do thank God that Lord Vale happened to be there at the time, or I wouldn't be here now to tell the tale.”

“They say it was a miracle, his fetching you out of the terrible sea like that and bringing you safely back, and that your recovery was another miracle, for no one expected you to live.” She regarded Callie gravely. “You look right as rain to me.”

Callie laughed. “I am right as rain, or near enough, anyway. I've been fortunate to receive such good care. Lord Vale made sure of that, and I'll be forever grateful to him for looking after me so well.”

“He's a good man, his lordship. He looks after his own. Many's the time I've said to my Tom that I wished we were his tenants and not the squire's, but that's just the way of things, I suppose. Tom's father and his father before him all leased land from the squire's father and
his
father before him, and each one was more tightfisted than the last. The present squire would pinch a penny till it screamed if he could—he tries hard enough.” She looked past Callie as if not seeing her. “It's not right that my Tom should work day and night until he's ready to drop and never be able to get ahead, all because the squire won't give him his fair due at harvest time, let alone charging rent for the land far above what it's worth.”

“That sounds terribly unfair,” Callie said, outraged at the squire's injustice. She was absolutely certain that Adam would
never
treat his tenants like that. Even if she hadn't been so sure of his character, she would have known from the conversations she'd listened to between Adam and Nigel, never mind the testimonials from Mrs. Simpson, Jane, and all the others at Stanton.

Nellie shrugged and her smile was touched with pragmatism. “I shouldn't complain, though. All the squire's cottagers are in the same trouble. There's not a one of us who doesn't wish we had Lord Vale for our landlord.”

“I can certainly understand why,” Callie said, storing this information away to mull over later. She decided that she liked Nellie Bishop very much, for she was forthright and had no qualms about speaking her mind to Callie, which came as a welcome relief. No matter how kind the staff of Stanton Abbey was to her, their loyalty lay completely with their master, and Callie had intuitively sensed that any but the most mundane of questions about Adam would be politely rebuffed. She had the most ridiculous feeling that in some way they were protecting him, although she couldn't think from what. He seemed a most self-sufficient man and more than capable of looking after himself.

“Have you lived in Hythe all your life?” she asked, wondering if Nellie Bishop might be able to tell her something about Adam's history.

“Oh no, miss. I come from Dymchurch, down the coast, nearer the Romney Marsh. I only moved to Hythe when I married four years ago. Tom, now, he could tell you everything you want to know and more than you probably do about Hythe.”

Georgie started to squirm on Callie's lap and threw the spoon on the floor with a clatter, and Callie, distracted from her line of questioning, turned him around and bounced him on her knees.

“I'll take him from you, miss. He's been terrible tetchy with his upset stomach these last few days, crying day and night, and nothing pleases him. It doesn't seem to help whatever I do—I've tried cordial of gripe water and warm milk, but it all just goes right through him.”

“Do you know, Mrs. Bishop,” Callie said, fairly certain that she knew what Georgie's trouble stemmed from, “I might be able to help. I don't want to interfere—”

“I wish you would!” Nellie said. “I've had more useless advice than I know what to do with. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders.”

Callie laughed, thinking that statement was a true irony. “I don't know about that,” she said, “and I don't have any children of my own, but I do believe that your Georgie is cutting his molars and having a hard time with them.” Clear as day an image swam into Callie's mind of another dark-haired woman, this one olive-skinned, with bright black eyes, bouncing a baby of her own on her lap and describing to Callie an old peasant remedy for just this thing.

“An infusion of valerian,” she murmured half to herself, as if reciting from memory. “That will calm him and help him to sleep. Cloves, ground and mixed with water to a thick paste, sweetened with honey and applied on the gums will deaden the pain. Hard rusks of bread will help the teeth break through and settle his stomach, which is upset from all the excess saliva he's producing.” She thought hard, wondering what she was leaving out. “Oh, yes, and compresses of cool lavender water on his neck and cheeks will work wonders in relieving the inflammation and heat he's feeling from it. He'll be much more comfortable if you keep him cool rather than bundling him up—fresh air works wonders.” She planted a kiss on Georgie's hot forehead. “Isn't that right, young man?”

Georgie gurgled at her as if he'd understood her perfectly and patted her cheeks with both hands.

Nellie Bishop looked at Callie with astonishment. “His teeth, miss? Not a single soul mentioned that, nor any of the rest of it, either. How would you be knowing a thing like that?”

“I wish you'd call me Callie,” she said, about to make a huge leap of faith, “and to be perfectly honest, I have no idea, other than I just know. I haven't told another living soul this, but if I don't confide in someone, I really am going to go mad. The truth of the matter is, Nellie, that I've completely lost my memory and haven't the first idea who I am.”

8

N
ellie's mouth dropped open and then firmly closed again, and she clasped her fingers together and placed her hands on the table in front of her. “You don't know who you are,” she said, not as a question but as a statement.

“I haven't a clue,” Callie agreed, thankful that Nellie showed no signs of distress. She hadn't known what to expect, but Nellie's levelheaded reaction was a balm to her spirit.

“And no one knows about this—How is that possible? You must have been asked questions about yourself, where you came from.”

“I made up a past for myself,” Callie said, coloring. “I know that sounds a terribly wrong thing to do, but I was so afraid of what might become of me if I admitted that I couldn't remember anything, and at the time Lord Vale didn't seem very pleased to have me at Stanton. I suppose he was annoyed that I'd caused him so much trouble, but I truly worried that he would send me away to a hospital or an asylum or somewhere equally horrible.”

Nellie didn't say anything, and Callie wondered if she'd made a terrible mistake, but she held her peace, praying that Nellie might be sympathetic to her plight. She busied herself with Georgie, playing a little game with his hands.

“Why have you told me this?” Nellie finally said. “You have no reason to trust me or to believe that I will keep your secret.”

“I like you,” Callie said simply. “And I'm in need of a friend.”

Nellie's face broke into a wide smile. “Reason enough,” she said, as if she'd made up her mind. “You have nothing to fear from me. Well, now. This is an interesting situation. What do you plan to do? Do you think you can go on pretending forever?”

“I—I don't know,” Callie said miserably. “I've been praying that one day I would wake up and my memory would be back in full, but an entire month's gone by and all that's come to me are a few vague pictures that I can't really place—like just now, when I was telling you about Georgie's teething and what to do for him. I
know
that what I said was right, for I remember a woman telling me in just those words, but I don't know who she is or where we were when we had the conversation.”

She gently wrapped her arms around Georgie, who'd rested his head against her chest, stuck his thumb back in his mouth, and showed every sign of falling asleep. “The worst part is lying to all the people who have been so good to me, Lord Vale in particular. I feel terrible about deceiving them, but I didn't know what else to do. And now that I'm so much better, I feel truly wicked for continuing the deception.”

Nellie nodded. “Aye, I can understand why you chose to pretend, especially when you were so ill.” She looked long and hard at Callie. “I believe you have a good heart, for my Georgie doesn't take to strangers. Children sense things about people the way animals do.” She spread her palms flat against the tabletop. “What can I do to help you?”

“You have already helped by letting me unburden myself,” Callie said. “Beyond that, I don't think there's anything anyone can do. I have to work out a way to look after myself, find employment of some kind. I can't stay on at Stanton forever, or even for very much longer.”

“Where would you go—what would you do?” Nellie asked with a troubled frown. “You have no family, or not one that you know of, and no one to protect you. Why can't you just tell his lordship your troubles and let him help you?”

“I don't think he'd be very pleased with me if I told him the truth,” Callie said grimly. “Perhaps if I'd done so in the beginning he might have understood, but now …I can't imagine he'd feel anything but badly deceived and ill-used. Anyway, I already told him that I didn't want his help when he offered it to me.”

Nellie gaped at her. “He
offered
to help you and you were foolish enough to turn him down? Miss—I mean, Callie, don't you realize that his lordship could open any door for you that he chose? He could make your life so much easier—What in the world were you thinking?”

Callie thought that was a very good question. She didn't know herself. “I suppose,” she said, feeling rather silly, “that I thought he was rude and overbearing and I didn't want him to start looking for relatives he couldn't possibly find, since I don't even know my surname and the one I supplied to him is a fabrication. He'd have worked that out in no time at all, and then I'd have really been in trouble.”

Nellie pushed herself to her feet and walked over to a large wooden cabinet that sat against the far wall, taking out two plates. She ladled some stew into them, produced two spoons from a drawer, and put one of the plates in front of Callie. “It's only beans and potatoes, but I always think better on a full stomach,” she said, gently lifting the sleeping child from Callie's lap and settling him on the blankets in front of the fire.

Sitting back down at the table, she poured two glasses of water from a pitcher, handed one to Callie, then picked up her spoon and began to eat with an abstracted expression. Callie followed suit, finding the stew surprisingly good. She hadn't realized how hungry she was.

“That's better,” Nellie said when she was finished. She leaned back in her chair and regarded Callie gravely. “I wonder how much you know about his lordship.”

“I don't really know him at all,” Callie admitted. “He's not a man who's inclined to show his hand, and he certainly never gives any hint of his emotions. He's usually polite and can often be amusing, but for the most part he behaves as if I'm a silly girl who just happened to land on his doorstep and whose company he's willing to tolerate until I've fully recovered and can take myself away again— not that he's indicated he's in any rush,” she added, trying to be fair to Adam. “He's far too polite for that, whatever he might feel.”

“I wonder …” Nellie said, her face taking on that abstracted expression again. “I think it's interesting that he's been so obliging to you, when he's hardly taken any notice of anyone in the last two years, even Mr. Dryden, and he his lordship's oldest friend.”

Callie sat up straighter. “What are you talking about?” she said, mystified. “He's perfectly pleasant to Nigel—Mr. Dryden, that is. We all dine together every evening and they behave exactly like the oldest of friends. Did they have a falling out at some point back?”

“Do you mean you don't know? No one's said anything to you?” Nellie asked, looking astonished.

“Said anything about what?” Something prickled at the base of Callie's spine, a feeling that Nellie was about to tell her something terribly important that might go a long way toward explaining the mystery she'd sensed at Stanton, all tied up with the reluctance of the servants to talk about Adam, Adam's adroit ability to steer the conversation away from himself, and his adamant refusal to let her go anywhere near the woods.