Love Prevails Through Silence, page 7
He signed the document, his writing pointed and cramped, as though his fingers hurt him. He handed the document back and then the man opposite them spoke some more.
Amy glanced sideways at Mr. Rowell, but he looked perfectly calm, and then she looked at Mr. Bradford. He was clearly nervous, his brow damp and his posture hunched. She wondered why. She didn’t feel nervous. She felt the strange peacefulness that she had felt when she’d waited in the kitchen. The feeling of rightness had descended on her again and she drew a deep breath, just savoring the sensation of being utterly without fear.
She waited, not sure what to do, and then Mr. Bradford stood. She guessed that they were going out of the office, so she stood too, and Mr. Rowell stood with them. They all went down the steps. Amy looked over at Mr. Rowell.
Was that it? Were they married?
She looked at Mr. Bradford. He looked back.
His eyes were so gentle, and the green depths of them drew her in. He was handsome in his own way, she thought. And even more than how he looked, he was somehow special. He didn’t speak often, and he was a mystery to her. His responses seemed odd, utterly unlike anything she expected. She had thought he’d be taciturn and simply order her to clean things. Or maybe that he’d be cruel and angry, like Matron. Were not all men dangerous?
But he seemed kind.
She walked down the steps and out into the street, still feeling like she was floating. Mr. Bradford turned and looked at her.
“Shall we go to see your ranch now?” he asked her.
Amy stared at him and nodded wordlessly. She was not only married now, she owned property. She looked over at Mr. Rowell and beamed at him, but he just nodded. She lifted her hand and pressed it to her heart, and then walked hurriedly behind Mr. Bradford.
They were going to see her ranch.
Chapter Six
Noah looked over at Amy. She was so small. She was so nervous, too, like a foal. He had never seen a human being who shied away like a small horse at any sudden movement.
What did they do to her there?
He felt the familiar rage build up inside him. Sour, bitter, it choked at his happiness. He pushed it away. Just this once, it left.
He didn’t want to be angry today. He wanted to be happy.
He was on his way with Amy to see the ranch where they would live. It was something to make anyone happy.
He walked beside her along the street toward the sheriff’s office. They would take the cart Grayson had arranged. Noah had no transport of his own and walked to the jobs he got or hired a horse from the stables for a few hours, if the pay was good enough for him to do so. But he had no idea if Amy could ride, and he suspected that if he put her up in front of him on the horse, she would be too scared to be able to manage.
She was a strange lady.
She had an odd way of talking—he’d noticed that from the first moment he met her. It was a little toneless, and some of the sounds came out oddly. Perhaps she’d had so little cause to talk in the workhouse that she was out of practice. He dismissed that thought as unlikely—keeping silent couldn’t cause that, surely? Perhaps, more likely, she’d been injured in the throat. He had once met a man who’d been hit in the throat in a fight. His voice was a hoarse, gravelly sound and some sounds were not made properly—something like hers, so she had probably sustained some injury.
I’d like to hit whoever did that so hard that their skull cracks.
He felt the sour, bitter anger within him again and he pushed it down. He was not going to let it spoil his day. She was a beautiful girl, vulnerable and in need of protection, and he couldn’t help feeling rage that anyone would have hurt her. She struck him as a bright, spirited soul, too, though she rarely spoke. He guessed that fear had silenced her and made her keep her words to herself, and that added to his rage against whoever had harmed her.
He walked on.
“Here,” he said to Amy. She looked up at him, frightened. He was holding out his hand to her, to help her into the cart—which was, as Grayson had said, waiting for them near to the office—and she shrank back. “I just want to help you.” He spoke softly. What had happened to her, that she was so frightened of him?
She swallowed hard; he saw her lips tighten briefly, and the terror made her tense. She took his hand. He helped her up into the cart, feeling how cold her fingers were.
She swung up and sat down on the small bench in the back. Noah jumped up into the front. She was holding the bag she had brought with her—she had carried it into the office with her, and Grayson had subtly taken it from her and left it in the hallway so that the solicitor wouldn’t see it and comment. But she clung onto it now. It must hold her old dress, Noah guessed. It was such a tiny bag that he couldn’t guess what else it held.
He leaned back, shook the reins, and the horse slowly plodded ahead.
“Not a bad start to the evening, eh?” Noah said. He was trying to be cheerful. It was, oddly, not as difficult as he would usually have found it. He felt light-hearted, and keeping up a cheery conversation was not hard. “At this rate, we’ll get there by nightfall.” He looked around.
It was around five o’ clock, he guessed. He was exaggerating a little, as it was only two miles to the ranch. They would certainly make it by six o’ clock. He looked over at the hills. The sunshine was slanting, making long shadows across the fields, but it was still maybe three hours before sunset. They would make it in plenty of time.
He waited for her to contradict him, but she said nothing, and he guessed that she was too nervous. What did they do to people in there, he wondered, that they were too scared to speak when they came out?
He pushed the thought away. Whatever it was, she was safe now.
She was safe, and they were going to start a new life on the farm together.
The cart rattled on. Noah held the reins, the rocking motion jolting his sore feet where he sat on the front. He let his mind wander from the discomfort to the landscape. It was so beautiful. Gentle hills rolled on either side of the path, and it was a line of reddish stone, marked on either side with grass. The day was cooler now than it had been, and he breathed in, smelling the scent of damp stone and cool air. It was pleasant outside; pleasant and tranquil and he let his eyes focus on the hills toward which they rode, not thinking about much else.
The cart rattled and he winced as they went over a particularly bad jolt. He turned to look at Amy, but she was sitting hunched up, a look in her eyes that was not all afraid, but partly quizzical. He smiled to himself.
She was watching the landscape with interest, and he let himself look at her for a moment or two. She had a small, delicate profile and her dark eyes were truly lovely. It wasn’t so much the shape of them, or anything about how they looked; it was the character he had sensed there, once or twice—a fierce independence, an incisive intelligence.
She was interesting, and that intrigued him. He couldn’t help but feel that people had been underestimating her whole life.
He wouldn’t be one of them. He wanted to get to know her better.
The cart jolted again. He made himself turn away and look at the road ahead. They were moving faster now, as if the horse himself sensed they were getting closer. They rattled down the track and Noah guided them a little left—the map that Grayson had shown him suggested that the ranch was to the left of the main path, near the Cranfords.
He guided the horse where he thought they were supposed to go and then let the creature have his head. There was only one path, and they couldn’t very well go wrong. He winced again as the cart rattled and jostled over the stone.
He looked up as they jarred over a stone in the road. The Cranford ranch was on his right, and Mrs. Black’s land was next to that. That meant that their land was the open plot on the left of Mrs. Black’s holdings.
“Oh.” He wanted to laugh. If he had believed in God, he would have thought the Almighty had a fine sense of the ridiculous, because the land where he would live, farm, and hopefully find happiness, was right next door to that woman’s whose false piety had so grated on him just a day or two before.
He turned to say something to Amy, but she was clinging onto the cart. He could see that she was no longer curious, just frightened. He decided not to make any comment about the amusing placement of the land and slowed the horse, guiding the cart up the path. It led to a dusty, whitewashed building, and then it stopped.
Noah halted the horse. Once he’d jumped down and walked around the cart, he went to help Amy out.
She was shivering.
He lifted her out, putting his hands under her arms. She seemed too scared to move. He looked around at the ranch they’d arrived at.
Barren, empty, sun-baked land stretched to the hills ahead. To his right, in the distance, he could just see the cottage where Mrs. Black lived, though it was partly obscured by a tall tree, for which he was grateful. To his right stood the farmhouse. The roof and walls looked in need of repair. It was hard for him to believe anyone had lived here. The land around it was rank, the grass missing, and some plants straggled in what had been a garden. He couldn’t see any sign of animals, nor could he spot a barn or any structure where they could be sheltered. There was no outbuilding where ranch hands or day laborers might lodge.
It was deserted.
He looked at Amy.
She was rooted to the spot. Her eyes were on the hills. She seemed to be drinking in the sights and smells around her. She was staring at the landscape and Nathan frowned. He’d never seen someone look at anything so intensely before.
“Amy?” he called. She didn’t answer, and he frowned. He was reluctant to break in on the intense state she was in, but at the same time, it was important that they went indoors to assess what they needed from town. He was reluctant to go inside and let her stand out here by herself. For all he knew, wild animals or bandits could inhabit the ranch. It had been neglected for so long. He had thought it had been abandoned.
“Amy?” he said again, a little louder. He walked over to her. “Amy!”
“Oh.” She blinked and her expression changed to one of fear again. He realized that the earlier expression had not been fear after all, but something much more uplifting. He felt bad for raising his voice to her. He cleared his throat.
“Sorry,” he said. “I think we should go inside. We need to see if we can sleep here.”
The arrangement he had made with Grayson was that he and Amy would take the cart to the ranch, and then, an hour or so later, Grayson would come and fetch it and drive it back into town. He had also agreed that he would arrange for anything they needed to be immediately brought to the ranch the next morning. That would give Nathan time to organize transport and would also get them whatever they needed without his having to walk into town.
He looked over at the farmhouse and thought that it was a good thing he had his luggage with him; there were many things that they might need.
“Shall we go in?” he asked Amy. She was staring up at the ranch. He wondered if she remembered it. After all, this was where her parents had lived. He didn’t ask her what she was thinking—he guessed that any thoughts she was having just then would be too painful to share right now.
He gave her his hand and she took it. He felt strange when she touched him; unlike the earlier times, when he’d helped her on and off the cart, this felt oddly intimate. It was the first time she’d taken his hand by choice, not necessity. He could feel the print of each of her fingers pressing onto his skin. He was aware of it as he walked up the stairs, the sensation distracting him from what he was observing.
“Here,” he said as they went in through the front door. “I’ll go after you.”
She went ahead of him and stopped in the doorway. Nathan wondered if she could remember anything about the house. He looked up at the ceiling. The hallway was dark, the walls whitewashed, the ceiling high and the floor dirty. He could see doors leading off it on either side. The house was not big, but nor was it particularly small. He guessed that about four rooms led from the central hallway. On one side, there were stairs, and he had seen from the outside that there was an upper floor. He took a deep breath and, as Amy finally stepped inside, he followed her across the threshold and into the house.
Noah looked around. The floor creaked under his feet. There was furniture in the rooms—he spotted tables and chairs as he glanced inside. It was all as he imagined it must have been when her parents had lived here. The furnishings were basic and he felt as though some of them—curtains, other beautiful things—might have been sold at one time to allow the occupants to survive. The building itself was very well-made, but the furnishings didn’t match it and he thought maybe all the finer things had been exchanged for money at one time or another.
“Shall we go upstairs?” he asked her.
Amy wasn’t facing him. He guessed she was staring at something again—there was a set of drawers in front of her and she seemed to be studying it with intensity. He stepped around in front of her so as not to scare her.
“Amy?” he said again. “Would you like to go upstairs? I think maybe the bedrooms are there.” He hoped there was more than one place to sleep. Amy was terrified of him, and the last thing he intended to do was to scare her by making her sleep in the same room.
“Yes,” she said. “Let’s go.”
She went up the stairs before him. The grip with which she held the banister was rigid and he could feel some sympathy for that—it was a strange house and if he believed there were ghosts, he would have expected them here.
He walked behind her, going up the stairs to where the bedrooms were.
Amy walked up to the doorway of one of the rooms and stopped. It was a bedroom. There was a big bed in it, the coverlet reddish. He went to the curtain, which was also a reddish color, and drew it aside. The sunshine flooded in, and the room seemed much less frightening. Noah let out a sigh.
“There,” he said. “Not so bad, is it? Much better.” He went to a chair that stood by a small desk in the corner, drew it, and sat down. It was as much to reduce his height, which he felt scared her, as to get off his legs, which were aching again.
Amy stood where she was in the middle of the room. She was looking around, her eyes wide and fixed, as if she was drowning in all the myriad things she saw. Noah watched her, trying to read what was going on in her thoughts. She stood there and then, utterly unexpectedly, she sat down on the bed and began to cry.
“Amy!” Noah stood and went to her. He was too shy to touch her—he didn’t want to scare her—so he knelt at the foot of the bed and looked up at her. She was sobbing. He reached for her hand, and she let him hold it. She sat there, racked with sobs, and he tried to comfort her.
“Amy. It’s all right,” he said gently. “It’s all well. I know. I know…this must be hard. This was your parents’ home, and it must be so hard to see it like this.” He had no idea what age she’d been when she’d gone to the workhouse. Perhaps she remembered this place with love? He could not even begin to guess. All he knew was that she was deeply distressed. “It’s all going to be well,” he said gently.
She sobbed and sniffed and, slowly, she stilled. Noah looked up into her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed.
He reached into his pocket for his handkerchief.
“Here,” he said gently. He let go of her hand for a moment and pressed the handkerchief into it with both of his own. “You can have it.”
“Thank you,” she said. She looked at him disbelievingly for a moment and it occurred to Noah that perhaps nobody had ever given her anything before today.
He felt as though he’d been slapped. How would he feel if he’d grown up with nothing, and then, suddenly, he’d found out he had a home he could move into it? He’d be overwhelmed too.
“Shh, honey,” he said gently. He spoke as if he was comforting a child. “Shh, now. It will all be all right.”
Amy stopped crying and took a deep breath.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just…it’s all so much to understand. This was my parents’ house. And now I’m here, and it’s my house. Our house. I can’t even begin to understand it.”
Nathan smiled and nodded. “Shh, now,” he said gently. “It’s all right. It will all be all right.”
He didn’t know what to say. How could he help her make sense of something that, even to his own mind, was difficult to comprehend? He had grown up with nothing, too. If this had happened to him, he would have needed a week to take it all in. As it was, he didn’t feel as awed as she was. Though his own circumstances had suddenly changed, this wouldn’t be the first time he’d owned his own house. He couldn’t help thinking that his own farm had been rather nicer than this one was.
He stiffened. He hadn’t wanted to think about that.
He looked around the room. It was better than being lost in his own memories of that other farm. His new home was not as fine as it might once have been, but it was pleasant enough—all the furnishings were there, and it had a fine view from the window. There was furniture in it—a table, a chair, a wardrobe and the bed—and there was a rug on the floor and a fireplace in one corner. It was pleasant and he guessed it would be warm. There was, however, a lot to be done. The house itself seemed sound, but the fields outside had been badly neglected, and it would take weeks before they could even begin to plant again. He drew in a deep breath. It was a daunting prospect, but he would not be daunted.
