Remembrance Read online

  “He is not happy,” Callie fairly shouted. “He doesn’t like them. He wants me. I know he does.” She buried her face in her hands and began to cry again. “Why, oh why does he not come to see me? I am here all day and that man, that man he thinks is his father, would allow him anything, so why does Talis not come to me? He said that if we could not be together here we would go back to the farm. But he lied. Why?”

  “I do not know, sweetheart,” Will said, pulling her into his arms, not wanting her to see the shock on his face at hearing that Talis had lied. “But I will try to find out.” For a moment he stroked her hair, then, trying to lighten her mood, he said, “What would you have of Talis? Would you like for him to buy you a fine house like that one?” he asked, pointing toward Hadley Hall.

  Callie didn’t hear the note of envy in Will’s voice, envy that another man could give the children what he could not. If it hadn’t been for Meg, they wouldn’t even have learned to read and write.

  “No, I don’t want a house. I want…” Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she said, “I want him not to be ashamed of me.”

  “Ashamed of you? Callie, how could you say such a thing about Talis? He never wants to be without you.”

  “Yes, but that was when he had no one else. Now that he has the choice among all these beautiful women, he does not want to see me. His father is this rich John Hadley, while I am the daughter of a dreadful man named Gilbert Rasher. There are horrible stories about him! Talis does not want to be seen with such as me. I am the Poison Girl.”

  Will did not know what to say to her to calm her. He well knew that Talis was not ashamed of her, but he also knew that something bad was happening if the children were not together. Or perhaps this was just the way it was in rich households; he did not know.

  “Come, now,” he said coaxingly. “What would you have of Talis?”

  “Nothing. I want nothing of him.”

  “Do not give me your pride. I know what you feel for him. Tell me a story of what you would have of Talis.”

  When she looked at him, her eyes were serious. “Talis thinks he owns me. He thinks that I am his, yet he has done nothing to win me. Do you understand? He has not fought for me!”

  “Yes,” Will said, understanding that courtship was so important to a woman. And it was true that Talis had never done anything to court Callie. Sometimes it was as though they had been born married to each other.

  “I want Talis to tell everyone that he loves me best,” Callie said softly. “I would like for him to…to shout it from the rooftops that I am his and he wants no one else.”

  At that Will had to laugh. The idea of proud Talis sitting on top of a roof like a rooster and crowing that he loved Callie was not something he could imagine. No, Talis’s idea of love was to allow Callie to serve him hot gooseberry tarts under a shade tree.

  And until now that had been enough for Callie.

  “You ask for much,” Will said, “but I will see what I can do.” There was not much hope in his voice.

  33

  Interfering old man,” John was muttering, flinging objects on the table about. “I have had him escorted off my land! I have given orders that he is never to be allowed to return. If he comes back I’ll have him hanged.”

  Hugh knew better than to make any comment at this point. John was in a rage because his beloved Talis had nearly fallen to pieces yesterday at the sight of an old, stooped man wearing the rough clothes of a farmer. In the midst of riding at the quintain, Talis had leaped from his horse and run to the man, flinging his arms about him as though he were still three years old.

  John, who more than anything else in the world wanted Talis’s love, had nearly choked on his jealousy. He had immediately called Talis back to him, meaning to reprimand him, but Talis hadn’t so much as heard his call as he repeatedly kissed the old man’s cheeks. It was the old man who’d pointed out to Talis that he was being summoned.

  To John’s further distress, Talis had presented the old man to John as though the man were visiting royalty. John’s face had turned purple with outrage and he’d ordered Talis to return to his training.

  “But I must to see to my father’s welfare,” Talis said calmly. “He has come a long way to see me and he is tired and hungry.”

  “I am your father,” John shouted.

  “Oh, yes sir,” Talis said. “I did not mean…”

  “Go on with your training,” Will said. “I will wait.”

  “No,” Talis said firmly, “a knight must take care of those he loves. You will excuse me, sir,” he said to John, “while I take my fa—While I see to my visitor.” With that Talis had walked away with his arm protectively, lovingly, around the broad, stooped shoulders of the old man.

  John had watched them go, his body so full of anger that Hugh had feared for his life. When Talis did not return that afternoon, John went in search of him and found him ensconced in the garden with the old man, their heads together, talking as Talis had never talked with John.

  “I am his father,” John was now raging to Hugh. “Does the boy not know that? Does he not understand that he is to come to me with his problems?”

  Hugh peeled an apple with a silver-handled knife. John Hadley was the last man anyone would want to tell an intimate problem to. John had the heavy-handed approach to life that a butcher had with a carcass of beef. “The boy misses the girl,” he said at last.

  “What girl?” John asked. “Why does everyone talk of Talis and a girl? Perhaps you and my wife see something that no one else does.”

  At the mention of Lady Alida, Hugh nicked his thumb. He did not like the woman; he found her cold and heartless. Perhaps she had not always been so, but she was now. And he had no doubt that if there was any trouble brewing, she was the cause of it. Also, Hugh could see that John was lying. There was more going on here than people were telling. In fact, lately, the whole house seemed to be full of secrets. Lady Alida riding off at breakneck speed to heaven-only-knows-where; that little nothing, Edith, suddenly acting as though she had a secret that was going to change the world.

  And that poor girl Callie sent off to tend a garden of poisonous plants and tolerate that vain rooster, Allen Frobisher.

  But the worst of it all was Talis. Hugh thought back to a few months ago when he had first seen Talis, on that day when the boy had saved John’s life. On that day when Talis had thrown that girl into the air and caught her, Hugh knew he had never seen anything as perfectly instinctive and genuine as the united movement of those two. The two of them had moved as one person.

  On that day Talis had been glorious. Hugh had never seen any young man who stood straighter, had carried himself with as much pride as Talis had. When John had declared the boy as his son, Hugh had wanted to fight him for that honor. Talis was a son any man would want to have.

  But now, mere months later, Talis had lost weight, his eyes were dark and hollow from lack of sleep and his energy seemed to have disappeared. He ate little and, according to Philip, he slept less.

  Had he been another lad, Hugh would have thought Talis was lovesick, but what was ailing Talis was more than love.

  This morning, in a jealous rage, John had sent from his house the old farmer who’d raised Talis. John couldn’t bear to see anyone receive the affection of Talis, couldn’t bear anyone receiving what he did not. Talis was always respectful of John, but he did not throw his arms around him and repeatedly kiss his cheeks.

  It had taken Hugh three hours on horseback to find the old man, driving a heavy farm wagon loaded with bags of grain. Even after finding him, it had taken Hugh quite a while to persuade him that he meant only good for Talis.

  The old man, Will Watkins, had said that Talis was very unhappy, that he was unhappy because he could not be with Callie. But Talis would not tell Will why he could not be with Callie. “Something to do with ‘vows to God,’ was what he said.” Then Will lowered his voice and his face changed to anger. “More like vows to her, if you ask me.�€