“I could never accept losing my own child.” I went to say more but swallowed back the words. Actually I had lost my own child, an early miscarriage that Daniel had never known about. I had no hope of marrying him at the time, in fact he had been in prison when I found out, and even though it had never been a baby I had held in my arms, I still thought about it and mourned it in my way. I had wanted to tell Daniel about it but there had never been a suitable moment. Now it hung between us as a secret and I wondered if I would ever tell him.
“Cheer up.” Daniel opened the gate for me. “We’ve just time for a rest before we have tea and soda bread to look forward to.” He put his hand up to his throat, rubbing it as he spoke.
“Your throat is bothering you?”
“Yes, it hurts like the devil. Let’s hope I haven’t caught a chill from last night. But I’m sure a cup of tea will make it feel better.”
We reached the front gates and I stood staring up at the big house. Daniel went to walk ahead then saw me standing there.
“Come on. What are you doing?” he called.
“I’m wondering if the face I saw was the little girl’s ghost,” I said.
“There is no such thing as ghosts.”
“I can tell you never lived in Ireland. Everyone you ask would tell you of at least one encounter with a ghost.”
“Which would then turn out to be a mooing cow, like the one Mrs. McCreedy told us about.” Daniel went ahead of me up the flagstone path to our cottage.
I hurried to catch up with him. “But how then do you explain that I saw a face at a window of an empty house and that the face I saw was that of a child who died eight years ago?”
Daniel shrugged. “I’m sure there is a logical explanation.”
“For example?”
“I can’t think of one right now,” he said shortly. “I’m going to put my feet up and read the newspaper until tea.”
He opened the front door, holding it open for me to pass through. Then he went straight into the little drawing room, selected an armchair for himself and opened the newspaper he had bought. I was going to sit at the writing desk and write to Gus and Sid, my neighbors and dearest friends who had made me promise that I would write to them every day. But the sun was streaming in through the cottage window and I couldn’t bear to stay indoors on such a lovely day. I found pen, ink, and paper in a pretty little lap desk, then I carried it outside. The grass was still wet from last night’s storm but I found a garden chair that had been dried by the sun and dragged it to sit on the grass in the shade of a big beech tree. Its leaves had already turned to gold and many had fallen in last night’s storm. I sat in the midst of a golden carpet and began my letter to my friends.
You cannot imagine the beauty of the scene that I am now admiring, I wrote. I am sitting in the midst of a carpet of golden leaves while beyond me stretch perfectly manicured lawns that end with the blue ocean. However our arrival last night was not quite so serene. I proceeded to describe our harrowing walk along the cliffs. You have never seen two more veritable orphans of the storm, I wrote. When we reached the “cottage” which turned out to be a large stone mansion built like a great castle, the full fury of a thunderstorm broke forth over our heads. I looked up at a window and … I was going to say that I saw a face but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. They were both such educated worldly women. I could imagine them smiling to each other about dear Molly’s Irish fantasies. So I left it out and went on, and we had to follow up our ordeal with a night spent in a stable, snuggled down in the straw, which proved to be surprisingly warm. But we must have looked complete frights when the housekeeper came upon us in the morning. I suspect she thought we were a pair of tramps.
I went on to describe the town and the mansions before I remembered that such things were old hat to them. This kind of life was not unusual to them. Gus was really Augusta Walcott of the Boston Walcotts. In fact they had stayed with Gus’s cousin in one of those mansions, although Gus had described it to me as a cottage.
I sealed the letter and was going to take it inside ready for posting. But the sun had moved and its warm setting rays now shone in my face. I leaned back and closed my eyes. I could hear the sound of the waves and smell the last of the honeysuckle and freshly mown grass. I heaved a sigh of contentment and must have drifted off to sleep, because I dreamed that I heard a child’s voice singing sweetly in a language that made no sense to me and a girl in a white dress stood looking down at me. I opened my eyes to find myself alone. As I brushed my hair from my face I recoiled in horror as my hand touched something. I brushed it away and jumped up as the thing fell into my lap. I thought it to be a bug of some sort, only to find that the things that had fallen from my hair were a perfect yellow leaf and a honeysuckle blossom.
I stood there with my heart beating rather fast, scanning the lawns. But nothing moved and I was forced to admit that my dream and the honeysuckle had nothing in common. Leaves fell at this time of year and the honeysuckle had been deposited in my hair by a gust of wind. I collected my things and went in search of Daniel. He had indeed fallen asleep in an armchair by the window, the newspaper unread on his lap. I stood looking down at him with affection. “Mrs. Daniel Sullivan,” I said to myself, then I tapped him gently on the shoulder.