Page 61 of It Happened in the Highlands
Wynne asked permission of Mr. Kealy for the use of his cottage. And as Jo started up the hill with Mr. Sellar, she was relieved to see him head off Mrs. Clark and the others.
“Perhaps I only see the resemblance because the curate mentioned before the service that a visitor in the village was asking about someone named Josephine,” the old man said once they settled in at the cottage. “Too many years have passed. Memories fade. But when I first looked into your face, I swore I saw her.”
Jo had left the door open, and Wynne ducked his head and entered. She was glad. She needed his strength, his astuteness.
“If I may ask, how was Josephine Sellar related to you?”
“A cousin, twice removed. Not close enough to warrant guardianship when she became an orphan, nor close enough to inherit when she died.”
Her mother was an orphan. Of course, Jo thought, understanding the poverty she’d been enduring those last days of her life. She was grateful when Wynne asked about the parents and how they’d died.
“I was a soldier, off fighting in America back then, so I wasn’t here to know or help,” he said, staring at a streak of light illuminating the stone floor. “What I heard after, though, was that fever ran through the village. It took some lives, including Josephine’s parents.”
“And what happened to her after the parents died?” Wynne asked.
“She was left no pauper, certainly,” Sellar said, his gaze swinging around to them. “She had land and a great house, and once she came of the age, it would have been hers to keep. And it should have been, with Ainsley her guardian.”
“Ainsley?” she asked.
“Ainsley Barton. A great, kind-hearted man, bless his soul. He was brother to Josephine’s mother. A tragedy, it was, that he died a year later.”
Barton. Jo met Wynne’s gaze. There was a family connection.
“Do you know a Charles Barton?” Wynne asked.
“Of course, Charles was Ainsley’s son. Another good man, cut from the same cloth as the father.”
Cousins, Jo thought, emotions welling up in her. They were cousins. Charles’s sketches of her mother. They had to know each other for all of their lives.
Her mind returned to Mrs. Barton’s denials. And to Graham’s response. They said Jo resembled no one they knew. But Ainsley Barton was her mother’s guardian and uncle. She must have been well known to them.
“Did Charles become Josephine’s guardian when his father died?” Wynne asked.
He shook his head and his expression showed his disappointment. “No, that couldn’t have happened. Charles was close in age to Josephine. Maybe two or three years older. No, Graham became her guardian after his brother passed. He’s the one who has made all the decisions about Tilmory Castle since. He was the one I bought the Sellar property from when I came back from the war.”
Jo tried to speak, but her voice couldn’t push past the knot in her throat.
“Why Graham?” Wynne asked. “How could he sell you her property?”
The old gentleman looked at Jo. “We were told . . . I was told . . . Josephine drowned in the big flood. I don’t know why or how she came to be in Garloch. But a gravestone is sitting out there in the kirkyard with her name on it. I can show you, if you care to see it.”
Chapter 20
They found the gravestone marking the final resting place of Josephine Sellar near the wall along the river path. It was plain and similar to a score of others around it, but Wynne watched as Jo studied the markings. A name. A birth. A death.
He wondered what poor soul had been buried there in the place of her mother, and as they stood there, Jo murmured a quiet prayer. As he listened, the thought crossed his mind that someone else may have gone on living, never knowing what had become of their daughter or sister or wife . . . or mother.
In the curate’s cottage, Jo had not mentioned what she suspected to be her connection with the Sellar family. When she said nothing to the old gentleman, Wynne had followed her lead and remained silent. He knew as it stood, she had no proof of anything, only a handful of drawings and a series of possible coincidences. Still, he guessed that Mr. Sellar knew the truth.
Back in the village, she visited with Mrs. Clark while Wynne searched out the curate and compensated him for his time and efforts.
They left Garloch at noon and for a long time Jo sat quietly beside him, her head resting against his shoulder and their fingers entwined. He knew she had a great deal to think about. This journey had been an emotional whirlwind, and they both were feeling its profound effect.
“Did Mrs. Clark tell you more?” he asked. “Anything that you didn’t know?”
“She told me she was living in the village at the time of the flood. She was newly married then,” Jo told him. “It was an awful time, she said. The town was full of folk passing through, seeking some place after being turned out of their homes by the landlords. There was a large encampment along the river. As Mr. Kealy told us, when the flood came, so many people were caught in it and carried off by the waters. It took weeks to find some of them and many were beyond recognition. Families were forced to guess at the identities of the bodies.”
“That doesn’t excuse Graham’s false identification of your mother.”
