Death be Not Proud (31 page)

“Tell me one thing,” he murmured into my hair as I curled up to him, my head against his chest, sleepy at last.

“Mmm?”

“Tell me that I didn't bruise you this time.”

I pulled at the neck of my shirt and squinted down as far as I could.

“Don't think so, no – do you want to check?” I offered innocently, opening the shirt a little more than I needed to.

He rolled his eyes. “I'll have to take your word for it. I think it had better be time for your breakfast.”

I laid my head back against him. “It's too early,” I protested, feeling the muscles of his chest move delightfully beneath my cheek as he raised his arm to look at his watch.

He chuckled ruefully. “Lead me not into temptation…” And easing me away from him, he stood up.

“Ow-h,” I grumbled, and over the back of the sofa, I watched longingly the supple ease with which he moved to the kitchen area. The moon had set and he travelled from the light of the fire into darkness. A sudden flare lit his face as he opened the lid of the stove and threw in more wood; it blazed greedily.

I rose, and followed to where I could watch him from a chair, my feet resting on the stretcher to keep them off the chilly floor.

“Can you see, Matthew? It's awfully dark.”

“Better than you can, but I'll light the lamp anyway.”

“S'okay, I'll do that.” I lit it, trimming the wick inexpertly so that it nearly went out. By the time I conquered the flame, Matthew was preparing something and I peered curiously to see what it might be. It looked liquidy, gooey and unfamiliar, so I let him get on with it.

“Did Ellen like cooking?”

He whisked the liquid in a large bowl, bubbles rising and popping in the mixture. He added salt, the grains making little dimples on the surface.

“Yes, she was renowned for it. Henry used to bring hordes of friends home from school; I think we used to feed half the town's children sometimes. There wasn't enough room around the kitchen table and they used to sprawl all over the porch.” He smiled as he remembered.

“Uh huh.”
Oh, happy families
and
she could cook. How could I ever compete with a Domestic Goddess?

He set the bowl to one side and removed a piece of delicate pink gammon from its wrapper, laying it in the griddle, where it began to hiss hot.

“And then there were the birthday and celebration cakes she used to make. Some of them veritable works of art; she won prizes. She even made cakes for the fourth of July and Thanksgiving; have you ever seen a cake in the shape of a turkey?”

I shook my head doubtfully, and then saw him laughing.

“Don't tease; I don't know what weird customs the Americans have. So, Ellen was a good cook, was she?”

“Undoubtedly.” He turned the slice of gammon over so that where its edges had crisped and curled a little, it now stood proud of the pan until it sighed and settled back onto the hot surface. “Yes, she was a good cook…” I could see him trying not to smile at my envy. “It's a shame that it was wasted on me.”

I giggled. “Well, you won't have that problem where I'm concerned.”

He grinned back. “Indeed not.”

 

It turned out that he had been cooking waffles which were to accompany the smoked gammon, and he trickled them with maple syrup before I could stop him.

“Try it first before you object.”

I pulled a face but did as he asked. It tasted fabulous – the balance between sweet and savoury intensely satisfying.

“Not as bad as you thought?” he asked as I finished.

“Ghastly, thanks,” I said, sliding my finger across the plate as he took it from me, licking the aromatic juice from my finger.

“Glad to hear it.”

“Matthew,” I said as I started to clear up, “do you remember things such as what you ate for breakfast when you were, er – young?”

“Ah hah!” he exclaimed, slipping my plate into the sink of hot water.

I looked at him in surprise “
Ah hah
, what?”

“I wondered how long it would take you to get around to asking me to fill in the gaps in your historical knowledge.” He sank his hands into the soapy water, and cleaned the plate with the sort of old-fashioned string mop my grandmother used to favour. I pretended to huff as I wiped the kitchen surfaces, deliberately reaching in front of him to rinse my cloth in the hot, sudsy water.

“I think I have been very restrained, and it's really no different from asking what music you liked in the eighties.”

“That would depend on whether it was the
sixteen
eighties or
nineteen
eighties.”

I sidled up to him and put my arms around his waist, looking coyly at him.

“You don't
really
mind, do you?” I nuzzled against him and he groaned. “Only it would be a little bit like keeping a dog and…”

“Wagging my own tail. How very daintily put; most apposite, thank you – how could I possibly resist such a request?”

I danced away, laughing at the mock chagrin on his face. He caught me before I moved more than a few feet, one arm encircling my waist. I had forgotten how fast he could move.

“Everything comes at a price, Emma.” His mouth caressed my ear but his hands were not where they were supposed to be.

“What's the currency?” I breathed.

“Payment in kind.”

I arched my back as he kissed down my throat but he let go of me suddenly.

“No, no,
no –
you'll be the undoing of me, wench; get thee gone.” He drew a hand across his forehead, his eyes tight shut until he felt more in control. I leaned against the kitchen table, reviewing the results of my wanton behaviour.

“Aw, I'm sorry…”

“No you're not,” he said adamantly, looking at me again.

“No, I'm not,” I agreed, smirking.

He glanced out of the window where the sky began to lighten subtly.

“Come on, get your gear on and I'll show you what's out there; I think it's time you went out to play, young lady.”

“That's what I thought I was doing,” I said soulfully, allowing myself to be ushered towards the stairs nonetheless.

 

By the time I had struggled into the heavy winter boots that gripped my calves like cramp, donned several more layers of clothing topped by my winter coat, and found my gloves from where I had left them to dry when we arrived, the sun had breached the horizon. Matthew waited with barely restrained impatience by the door to the porch, checking the progress of the sun every few seconds. He didn't make any pretence of needing outdoor clothes, and he wore the same T-shirt I had happily investigated earlier in the morning.

He had cleared the porch. Remaining ice-dust lay strewn like sand across the wooden boards and he held on to me as I gingerly stepped out into the dawn air. Across the horizon where the snow-smoothed ridges of the mountains touched the sky, the remnants of cloud were no longer a threat to the oncoming brilliance of the day. The beauty of the landscape was as yet unmarked. It was both compelling and intimidating, and I longed to step into it, but the thought of disturbing its tranquillity held me back. Matthew didn't seem in a hurry to move either.

“I never grow tired of the mountains, although I have seen countless ranges over the centuries. I can lose myself in them; there's nothing here to measure the minutes of my existence.”

“Are you happiest here, Matthew?”

He looked down at me and took my hand in his. “Sometimes.”

The lack of wind made the air beguiling. He pulled the zip of my jacket right up over my chin and mouth, encasing me in the softly quilted material.

“Ready?” he asked.

 

Like a sheet on an unmade bed, the swell of snow rose and fell in gentle undulations. I tottered tentatively on the icy platform and took a wide step out on to the snow. It held my weight for all of about five seconds before the crust of wind-compacted ice gave way and I sank to my hips. I stood stock still like a toddler in new boots, and twisted around. Matthew grinned at me from his vantage point of the porch.

“You knew that was going to happen, didn't you?” I accused.

His eyes shone wickedly but he didn't offer to help.

“It was always a possibility.”

I tried to pull first my right leg, then my left out of the confines of the snow but didn't have enough clearance to get myself free. I struggled to widen the tubes in which my legs were stuck, and heaved. Matthew chuckled.

“Instead of amusing yourself, I would
really
appreciate some help here.”

“You remind me of a newborn moose calf trying to get to its feet,” he leapt gracefully next to me, sinking only to his knees, “and not succeeding.”

The handful of dry snow I launched at him disintegrated in a harmless scatter of crystals. “However…” he continued, emphasizing the depth of my predicament by lifting his long, strong legs easily out of the snow, and stepping around to the other side of me and inspecting me from another angle, “… it'll certainly take your mind off things.”

The sun caught his hair, setting it on fire.

“It'll take more than that,” I grunted. Since he evidently enjoyed the spectacle of me wallowing like a hippo far too much to be of any practical use, I resorted to throwing myself inelegantly onto my stomach to spread my weight, and commando-crawled inch by inch until more of me was out of the snow than in it. I lay puffing, my head on my arms, until
I had recovered enough for one last effort. I didn't need to; Matthew put his hands underneath my arms and plucked me from the icy prison, holding me above the surface with my legs dangling like a vastly overgrown Archie.

“Now, we have a choice: either we use snowshoes – unless you can ski, that is? No? All right then, snowshoes or snowmobile it is or, I can carry you if you promise to behave yourself. What is it to be?”

His eyes were just about level with mine, the dark lashes emphasizing blue as clear as the sky above us. I couldn't make a promise I knew I might not keep.

“I think it'll have to be the snowshoes – I've never tried them and we'll go back on the snowmobile, won't we?” Matthew gave a quick nod. “OK, snowshoes it is.”

He took several long strides and put me down on the unyielding surface of the porch.

“Snowshoes,” he said, “take some getting used to, but these will take you anywhere when you do.”

They were not the simple traditional racket-shaped snowshoes I expected, but platforms of lightweight metal and plastic that looked seriously high tech. He showed me how to strap them on and I flapped my legs up and down with my new appendages, feeling the unfamiliar weight of them. They reminded me of wearing swimming flippers for the first time, without the benefit of looking more fluid in water as recompense for looking ungainly on land.

He was right – they did take some getting used to; but once I did, having fallen over enough times to no longer be embarrassed about it, they allowed us to travel quite a lot faster with relative ease.

He led me through the wooded slopes, climbing steadily until the trees thinned, and we looked out across the vast
landscape. I bent over, my hands on my knees until the stitch in my side eased and I could breathe without raking cold air into my lungs. Matthew waited patiently. Even had I been proficient in the use of snowshoes (and, frankly, they were an art form, and I was useless at art), he would have left me behind long ago, had he the will to do so. As it was, he stood perfectly still, his breathing as even and measured as if reading a book by the fire, while mine rasped noisily beside him.

Finally I straightened and joined him in surveying the land, feeling the perspiration start to cool beneath my layers of clothing. The trees were sparser up here where the land lay exposed. Below us, a veil of smoke rose and flattened in the cold layer of air, marking where the cabin hunkered down behind the ridge that protected it.

“This is so beautiful; I love the way it goes on forever. We don't have this in England now – not to the extent where it looks like eternity.” At home I would always be aware of the finite – that just over the next hill there would be a town or city; and night came inevitably accompanied by an orange glow from light pollution, so I could hardly make out the stars. “No wonder…” Matthew looked quizzically at me and I realized I had spoken out loud without meaning to. I finished the thought so that he could hear it. “No wonder you like it up here – you can be yourself – no pretence, nothing to hide. You don't need me slowing you up, though, do you? You could have done what you liked then.”

“I've had more than enough of being by myself, Emma. This is the first time I've had company for a very long time.”

“But I thought you come up here with the family?”

“I do, but that's not what I mean. They accept my differences – of course they do – but they don't know
all
of me.”

“What about Henry – haven't you told him?”

I shifted from one leg to another as my calf muscles tightened uncomfortably.

“Would you like to sit down?”

I cast about for somewhere to sit, but there was nothing but snow in every direction.

“No, it doesn't matter; I'll stand, thanks.”

“Wait a minute,” and he was off to the nearest conifer, snapping branches from the inside near the trunk like dry spaghetti. He came back with an armful, placing them on the snow one by one and building an insulating layer for me to sit on. I sat awkwardly, then took off my snowshoes.

“Thanks, that's better. You're always doing things for me, Matthew; I never seem to be able to do anything for you. I can't even make you a cup of tea.”

He sat next to me and put his arm around my shoulders so that I could lean against him.

“You have no idea what you have done for me, Emma D'Eresby, nor what being with me – being part of
my
life – might ask of you.”