Page 34 of The Lost Hours
He was watching me closely and I felt myself blush under his gaze. “I think you need to ride again.”
His words, spoken so softly, felt like splintering bones and I was lying on the ground again, waiting for the blackness. I stared at Tucker, speechless, then looked back at Captain Wentworth, his tail moving in a languid rhythm, teasing me with old memories that weren’t all bad. I looked into the horse’s eye again.Let’s fly; let’s fly high together.My breath quickened as I imagined the rush of wind on my face and the exhilaration of landing a jump, could almost hear the roar of a crowd.Oh, God.
I stared at him for a long moment, a horrible realization settling on me like ash. I felt sick, the ugliness of my thoughts making my stomach churn. I turned on my heel, walking blindly in the direction I’d come, knowing I couldn’t stay without blurting out what I’d only just come to understand.
In the face of disappointment I’d done the one thing I’d always despised about lesser riders; I’d given into my fears, surrendered in the face of my own mortality. And it was anger at myself that propelled me away from Tucker and from confessing what I’d just seen with startling clarity as I’d faced the newly named Captain Wentworth over the fence and felt his desire to fly: I wasn’t afraid of horses at all. What I feared the most was getting back into a saddle and discovering I wasn’t a champion any longer, that I had instead become nothing more than ordinary.
“I’m not one of your horses who needs rescuing,” I shouted over my shoulder without slowing down. He didn’t say anything but I knew he was watching until I’d turned the corner of the house.
I paused in the drive, putting my hands on my knees until I could catch my breath. I stood again in front of the sundial and the words suddenly formed meaning.Time flies, but not memories.
I gulped in the hot, humid air, my heart beating fast and my knee throbbing. But none of those things could take my breath away as quickly as my newfound knowledge had, or my sudden desperate need to prove myself wrong.
CHAPTER 12
Helen knocked on her grandmother’s sitting room door and then entered. “Are you done resting?”
Lillian’s voice was tinged with exhaustion. “It’s a hopeless cause. I don’t know why I bother. My back and my hands would rather keep me awake and restless.”
Helen moved to where she knew her grandmother’s chaise longue sat near the window. She felt for a nearby sofa and sat down, sensing by the lack of warmth hitting her skin that the plantation shutters were closed tight. “Can I get you your medicine?”
Lillian let out an uncharacteristic snort. “All they do is make me groggy and stupid and Odella says I can’t have anything to drink when I take one, so what’s the point? I’m miserable whether I take them or not, but if I don’t I can at least find a little relief with my wine.”
“I’m sorry,” Helen said, and meant it. Despite Lillian’s outwardly cool demeanor and her strict code of acceptable behavior, she’d essentially been the only mother Helen had ever known. Although Lillian had never been demonstrative, Helen had always felt loved by her grandmother. And it had been Lillian, and not Helen’s own mother, who’d slept in a cot in her bedroom when she’d been sick with fever, and had held her hand when her sight had gone to let her know that even though it was dark, she wasn’t alone.
Helen sat back in the sofa, her arm brushing papers, and felt one slide to the floor and land on her foot. Leaning over, she picked it up and handed it to her grandmother. “Sorry, Malily—I knocked this off of your stack of papers. I don’t want to replace it in the wrong spot.”
Lillian didn’t say anything, nor did she take the paper Helen held. “Malily? Are you all right?”
Lillian’s voice sounded strong but distant when she spoke, and Helen pictured her looking out the other way, toward the shuttered window. “I sat in the garden for a spell this morning with Earlene. We talked about the merits of moonflowers among other things. And all that talk about my garden reminded me of an old friend of mine who taught me everything I know about gardening. Made me nostalgic enough that I pulled out my scrapbook pages from when I was younger. The ones I’d given to Susan.”
Helen withdrew her arm but held on to the page in her hand, a question already forming in her head. “What happened to the cover? And the spine?”
Malily gave a throaty chuckle. “Well, that’s part of the story right there. There were three of us, you see. Three friends and one scrapbook we shared. When we . . . parted company, we each took our pages.”
Helen placed the single page on her lap and smiled to herself, recalling the pages Odella had seen on Earlene’s kitchen table. “You never told me any of this before.”
She heard the cushions sigh as Lillian moved on the chaise. “No, I haven’t. I always thought that I should share it with your mother first, but I don’t think that’s going to happen now.”
Helen jerked her head with surprise as she felt the old woman’s hands clutching at hers. She grasped them, feeling the papery skin, the misshapen joints, and for the first time saw her grandmother as an old woman instead of the heroine of Helen’s childhood.
Malily continued. “I thought that by giving these pages to Susan along with all the other family papers, she could prepare the story in logical sequence, even make it easier to understand how all the pieces fit together. But I didn’t realize how . . . fragile Susan was. It was a mistake.”
Helen clutched her grandmother’s hands tighter. “None of us understood what was going on in Susan’s head, not even Tucker. She seemed so upbeat and excited about being our family’s official chronicler. No one expected her . . .” Helen stopped for a moment. “What Susan did was her own doing. None of it was your fault.”
Lillian disengaged her hands. “You need to reserve your judgment, Helen.” She heard the throaty laugh again before her grandmother spoke. “I should have known that Annabelle would always have the last word.” A heavy sigh filled the room like damp fog and then everything was quiet. Helen thought for a moment that her grandmother had fallen asleep and then Malily spoke again.
“The scrapbook was Annabelle’s idea. She used to say that it was our duty as women to pass on our stories to our daughters. But I don’t think she had any more success with that than I did.”
“But there’s still time, Malily. And you’ve got me.”
“Not too much time, Helen, which is why I think Annabelle’s words won’t leave me alone. And I do have you, don’t I? You’ve never been one to rush to judgment, unlike your mother.”
Helen lifted her head. “I’m a good listener. Maybe you can tell me your story. And I can tell my mother when she’s ready to hear it.”
“She already knows parts of it. I shared it with her too soon, I think. But she was almost transfixed by the angel charm I’ve always worn—that’s part of the story, you see. And I thought that if I told her the story of the necklace, she’d want to learn the rest. And she did—to a point. She asked me to stop before I’d reached the end, so I did.”
“Is that why she left? Because she didn’t want to hear the rest?”
