Miss Debenham's Secret (The Husband Hunters Club 5.50)

CHAPTER SIX

Clarissa rose early so that she could do all the chores she normally did on Saturday before she left. She was nervous about Alistair coming to the door but she had already told her father, making it sound as if there were others accompanying them and it was not them alone. The way she had told it there was quite a little party going to see the cliffs that ran from Lyme along the Dorset coast and into Devon.

When had she grown so devious?

Well too bad. She didn’t want him trying to stop her going out with Alistair and after what she had overheard yesterday she wondered whether she would care or pay heed if he did. His cruel words had had the effect of destroying her respect for him and it saddened her to think she no longer had any admiration or regard for her own father. It was only duty that tied her to that embittered old man.

She wondered what her mother had been like. According to her father she had been a woman of perfection in all things but she could not believe that. Not anymore. Her mother probably had bad days; she probably wished for something else, she may even have been a little naughty. In fact, if she was Clarissa thought she would have liked her much better. What was her father like when she was alive, she wondered. Was he really as happy as he now imagined he had been or was he always resentful of whatever life threw at him? Did he treat his wife with affection or . . . the thought came to her suddenly . . . did he in fact treat his wife much as he treated his daughter?

Was it possible he resented her because she was just like her mother? She was certainly nothing like her father! Well, she would never know, but it was nice to imagine that her mother may not have been the saint her father portrayed her as. Just possibly she was a young woman not unlike Clarissa herself, who somehow found herself married to a domineering man who ruled her life as he now ruled her daughter’s.

The carriage drew up and Alistair helped her up onto the seat beside him, stowing away the picnic basket she had packed. He had a little treat in store for her when they reached their destination but he wouldn’t tell her yet, in case the weather turned rough and he could not go through with it.

Clarissa was wearing a dress with yellow daisies printed on the white fabric and short puffed sleeves; there was a green ribbon tied beneath her breasts and a matching ribbon decorating the hem of her dress. Her bonnet was straw and plain and beneath it her blue eyes sparkled up at him.

He wanted to lean down and kiss her but he knew it would be wrong. Clarissa was an innocent and he was just passing through; she deserved better than a man who might be killed in his next encounter at sea. And besides he had already decided a wife and family were not for him. But the longing was strong and he had to work hard to put it out of his mind.

The coastline here was famous. The cliffs were full of fossils, creatures that lived long ago and several times they stopped and climbed down to the beach to examine the oddities to be found there. Alistair had a book he had purchased in a shop in Lyme and read from it.

“The Blue Lias rock along the coast holds many well preserved specimens. Most of the fossils are the remains of sea creatures that lived during the Jurassic period.”

“My goodness.” Clarissa picked up something from below the cliff, where a rock fall had lately brought down quite a bit of material. It was the small fossil of a shelled creature, curved, like some sort of instrument you might have once been able to put to your lips and blow. Alistair’s book informed them it was an ammonite.

“The children often bring fossils to school,” she said. “I’ll show them this one on Monday.”

She slipped it into the pocket of her skirt but she knew she wasn’t keeping it to show to the children. It was a memento of this day with Alistair.

Back in the carriage they continued on along the cliff road until they came to a little seaside hamlet, with a very few houses and an inn, and there Alistair stopped.

“I have a surprise for you,” he said, his eyes twinkling, and led her down to where a small sailing boat was tied up in the walled harbour.

Her eyes grew wide as she realised his plans.

“Will it be all right?” she said.

“Why not? I’m qualified to sail a much bigger ship than this, Clarissa. You’re in safe hands.”

She relaxed and he arranged for their carriage and horse to be stabled at the inn and then helped her into the boat with the picnic basket. Before long he had cast off and they were tacking out of the little harbour and into the green water of the English Channel.

It was a beautiful day. Clarissa enjoyed herself, hardly worrying even when the little boat heeled over with the wind gusting in her sail, tearing through the waves with white spray raining down upon them.

“Is this what it’s like when you’re at sea?” she asked, raising her voice above the flap of the sail as the boom swung around. She’d quickly grown adept at ducking low out of the way.

“Sort of,” he called back.

But it wasn’t, or rarely. Life on a naval sailing ship was very different from this and he didn’t want to tell her some of the unpleasant things he’d had to face, with rations low and the men muttering sediti

on and the captain drunk. Much as he loved the sea he did not look forward to facing the men again this time, with this captain. But he knew he would have to, and if he could do well, if he could make his fortune as some men did, then he would be set for life.

Whatever life he chose.

But to leave the sea? That would be a difficult decision, and one that didn’t bear thinking about, although one day he knew he must, but by then he hoped to have enough to retire comfortably in a cottage somewhere by the sea. Somewhere like Lyme perhaps.

They’d been sailing along the coast and there, almost parallel with them, was a sandy inlet. He turned the boat toward it and soon ran her up onto the shore. The tide was on the turn so they should be all right for a while.

Once the boat was secured Alistair went to help Clarissa. In the end it seemed easier to swing her into his arms, to save her shoes; her clothing was already quite damp from the journey but she would soon dry.

Beneath the blue sky they sat among the shelter of some rocks and ate their picnic, while the water washed against the sand and the salty breeze stirred Clarissa’s fair hair. They chatted but there were long silences when it didn’t seem necessary to say anything.