Signs for Lost Children Sarah Moss (best way to read books .TXT) 📖

her undefended here. He braces himself and takes both her hands as she slithers off the last rock. She is too old for this physical comedy, she thinks, too old and too tall.

‘There. And no Louisa Musgrove about it.’

‘Louisa Musgrove?’ She brushes down her skirt.

‘A character in a novel. One you would perhaps enjoy.’

She shakes her head. ‘I have not time or patience for novels, Tom.’

Not since Mrs. Gaskell, before she was unwell. He must know she is not that kind of woman. He should have known it since the day they met.

‘I know. But that is not to say you would not enjoy one.’

From here, they can see the castle on St Michael’s Mount, and some of the causeway over to Marazion. It is one of those buildings that is not quite real, a turreted palace drifting between the sea and the sky. Perhaps they will make a trip there, later in the week, walk across the causeway and picnic by the church at the foot of the hill. She lifts her face to the wind, closes her eyes to see the sun red through her eyelids. She should not have agreed to this, a week of time-wasting just when she is most needed at Rose Tree House, just when the women are beginning to trust her and each other. She will not be there if a reply comes from Mrs. Rudge’s children, or when Mrs. Curnow goes out on day leave with her husband. She can’t think why Dr. Crosswyn was so insistent. Unless he has some change or scheme in mind best accomplished in her absence, unless the committee has made some condition that he knows she would resist.

He comes to her side. ‘Did you read anything new? While I was away?’

She doesn’t open her eyes. ‘No. Only medical books.’ She must try harder. She must not shut him out, must not allow herself for a moment to admit the possibility that his questions might be foolish. She should tell him that she read his Gaskell, and did not find it unpleasant. ‘And you? You wrote to me about the travel books.’

She took off her gloves to come down the rocks and the touch of his fingers on her bare hand makes her start.

‘I wanted to learn all I could. I think some of those books are much more accurate than others. It’s hard, without reading Japanese.’

His hand is warmer than hers, and larger. Maybe every day they should touch a little more, hands and then forearms and then upper arms, faces, shoulders, chests and bellies. In one week—

‘But the ship’s library was mostly novels. I began with Richardson but after Singapore I’m afraid my tastes declined sadly.’

She lets her fingers tighten on his. ‘There is little do on a ship, I dare say. Especially for a man used to action.’

He lifts her hand and pats it. ‘My time could have been better spent. They were strange days.’

‘You were between lands,’ she says.

The fire has gone out when they return to the house and shade is gathering in the corners of the rooms. She stands rubbing her chilled hands and watching while he kneels at the grate rebuilding the fire. She should light the candle lantern and find a bedroom candlestick before it is too dark, she should carve the ham and cook some eggs. His match grates and flares and the newspaper kindling flames out and then the log begins to hiss and glow.

‘There. Shall I light the range too, or will we have a cold supper?’

She blows into her hands. ‘Tea, at least.’

He stands up. ‘Why don’t you sit here and get warm? I know how to make tea, you know. And how would you like your eggs?’

She holds her hands to the fire, where flames are steadying around the log. ‘I don’t like to sit idle, Tom. We’ll do it together.’

They bring their plates back into the front room and eat from their laps. Tom tells her Japanese tales, as if by talking he can fill the space between them, as if there are stories that will reach across months and oceans apart, bridging madness and despair. He tells her about temples with gardens spread about them, about beds of gravel raked every morning into the semblance of wind-rippled ponds. He tells her about red leaves blowing into a canal, and about roof tiles each embossed with a chrysanthemum pattern, and she does not know why he tells these things, what is the purpose of informing her about foliage and waterways she will never see. Later, when first she and then he have washed at the kitchen sink and climbed the steep stairs carrying a wavering candle, later when they have blown out those candles and lain a few moments side-by-side in an unfamiliar bed in the dark, he reaches for her again and again she feels her body tighten and tense, her shoulders lift and her belly clench and she turns away from him. She thinks of Rose Tree House, of her white room there and the women resting below her, their minds healing in her care. This is not the answer, she thinks. There is no optimism in the propagation of family life. She has found a way to live and it does not involve the institution of marriage. It does not, it turns out, involve Tom. She lies on her side, facing the wall, feeling the lumps in the mattress under her ribs and thigh and the rough grain of the pillow under her cheek in the dark. The air is cold and smells of candle-smoke. It does not seem to take him very long to fall asleep.

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At sea he woke early for solitude, to have the deck and sometimes the library to himself for an hour or so before the other passengers appeared. And because twice, after she’d stopped speaking to him at the table, Louisa Davis came to find him there. Now he wakes, he thinks, because of