Today's Reading
Life at home became intolerable—for all of them, perhaps. It had seemed to Matthew as he grew up that his only real friend was Clarissa Greenfield. She was the one person in the world who accepted him as he was, though she had never tried to excuse his least admirable exploits, such as the time he had been told to take his ball farther from the house lest he break a window and had instead hurled it quite deliberately through the one at which his father was standing while issuing the order. Clarissa had merely asked him why.
It was a question she asked frequently as they grew up, but it was never rhetorical, an accusation in disguise, as it was whenever his parents asked the same thing. It was, rather, a question in genuine search of an answer. She always waited for his explanation. More important, she always listened and never told him afterward that he had been wrong or bad, that he ought to do this or that to make amends. She allowed him to rant when he needed to and pour out all his bad temper and self-pity. She listened until he ran out of complaints and instead talked about his dreams and listened to hers.
She could always bring out the best side of his nature, though he was never sure quite how she did it. Just by being a good listener, perhaps? By never judging him? She was also a good talker, given the chance, a cheerful and amusing companion. They had often laughed together over the merest silliness, sometimes quite helplessly. She was one of the few people with whom he ever did laugh, in fact. She was the only person who seemed to give him leave to be happy, to frolic with no purpose but pure enjoyment.
And frolic they did through long summer days, always remaining within the boundaries of her father's property because that was where she was expected to be. They walked and ran and waded in the stream and lay in the grass and picked daisies to fashion into chains and talked endlessly about anything and everything that came to mind. They often just sat cross-legged in the grass, their knees almost touching, while he whittled a piece of wood and she tried to guess what he was making.
"A beaver," she would say. "How darling it is, Matthew."
"A squirrel," he would say, and they would both laugh.
She never told him to be careful with the knife. She always admired what he carved and called him marvelously clever, even when she mistook a squirrel for a beaver.
Even in winter they had spent time together, sometimes tramping about the park side by side, dressed warmly with little more than their eyes exposed to the elements, but more often in a small, little-used salon inside, where cakes and biscuits and warm chocolate or tea were brought to them in a steady stream and Mrs. Greenfield would ask him if his mother knew where he was.
"She will guess," he would say.
She would smile and tell him she'd send a note so his mother would not worry, and she would include in the note the time at which she would turn him out of the house and direct his footsteps homeward. But those words to him were always spoken with a good-humored smile. And the funny thing was that he always left at the appointed time and hurried home so his mother would have nothing for which to blame Mrs. Greenfield.
Now Matthew watched Clarissa leaning back against the tree, all but grown up, just as he was. But after all these years, she had just broken his heart. Oh, it was an extravagant way to describe his feelings. But he was about to lose her and was trying to postpone the realization that he might find the loss unbearable. It was a silly idea—yes, silly was the right word—to describe his heart as broken, whatever that meant. He was eighteen years old, for the love of God.
He watched as she gazed ahead at a seemingly endless expanse of lawn and trees stretching off into the distance across the park. The afternoon sunlight was upon her face, but he could not tell what she was thinking. Was she staring off into the brightness of her future or back with nostalgia to the past she was leaving behind? Or was she fully present and feeling the breeze on her face and in her hair while being consciously aware that everything familiar was about to change? Was she aware of his silent presence close by, almost in her peripheral vision, or had she forgotten he was there? Did she know she had broken his heart?
Surely she was feeling at least some sadness. She loved him, after all—as a friend. But sadness was not her dominant mood today. He knew that. She had told him so.
"He is so...gorgeous, Matthew," she had said. "So good-looking and charming and good-natured. And his smile! Everyone admires him. Mama says he is possibly the most eligible bachelor in all England. Yet he has chosen me."
She had been talking about Caleb Ware, Earl of Stratton since his father's death three or four years ago. He lived about ten miles away at Ravenswood Hall, an imposing mansion and park close to the village of Boscombe. Matthew had seen him a time or two and knew him to be well thought of by his neighbors. But he had no personal acquaintance with the man. Stratton must be twenty-four or twenty-five years old and, yes, a very eligible bachelor since, in addition to everything else, he was said to be fabulously wealthy.
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