Gray mist stood over the hills and cold crept through his clothes. What would he have given at that moment for his thick lambskin-lined coat, which he had stowed in one of the boxes that now stood at Crowe's estate. Sidney imagined the crunching of the little stones under his soles, was the snap of the cold around his bones.
Still, he walked on, hoping to be offered a cup of hot tea by Mr Heywood while he read through Sidney's reworked draft contract for the liquor manufacturer. Afterwards they would all go to church together, a circumstance Mr Heywood and his wife insisted on. Only then would work resume, which Sidney was particularly looking forward to that day. It would be the first time he would be collecting hazelnuts, that was the reason he told himself, rather than the knowledge of having the pleasure of knowing Miss Heywood was near him all day.
Sidney had always been on time. It wasn't because he wanted to make a particularly good impression that he was twenty-four minutes early striding down the curved gravel path in front of the Heywood's house. Although he had taken special care in his shaving, it was also not to emphasize that he had once been a gentleman, or at least could look like one. He repressed the thought that he had paid one of the maids an extra of three pence to iron his cravat in addition to his best shirt, as well as the obvious attention he had paid to his hair as he tried to bring it into shape with pomade. In his former life, he would have had the barber come to trim them already. They were just too long, and after a certain length they curled out of control, so that he had to constantly push them out of his face.
Just now he pushed back another unruly curl as he stepped around the corner and the entrance to the house was in sight. In the middle of this movement, he paused, as he saw something flash in the corner of his eye. He lifted his head to one of the windows on the upper floor, where a thick candle stood in the window. It danced because of some movement he could not yet make out. Sidney took two more steps before lifting his head again, and it was as if he had choked on overly sugared wine. A bubbling tickled his lungs that he tried to suppress with a deep inhale of the icy air.
He should turn away, he was well aware of that, but the sight captivated him like some of the bystanders at a fistfight outside a pup of the capital. Someone who saw Sidney standing there staring toward the sky might think he was seeing something he'd never had the pleasure of ever setting his eyes on before. That someone might be disappointed, but above all wonder what it was about this sight that captivated a man of the world who had seen so much.
And it captivated Sidney. Made him feel pain and longing at the same time. Joy and sadness.
But this time it was not only the pain of losing his nephew, a life that had been taken too soon. Not the sadness that his family now had to live so differently, that his unreasonable brother was in prison. It was the joy of realizing that life was worth living, for moments like this.
The usually so carefully deeply buried longing for security and a family of his own, which he had given up so long ago and suddenly felt with all its force, he pushed back firmly into the background and simply enjoyed the scene that was presented to him.
The child was hardly older than Baby James would be now had he not lost his life. It beamed at the woman who held it in her arms. Seemed to laugh with her. That laugh, nestled in Sidney's heart, though he could only see it, not hear it. There had to be something great this woman was doing, cradling the child in her arms, laughing so heartily that it brought tears of joy to Sidney's eyes. Nothing was more beautiful than the laughter of a child. The sight of pure happiness on its little face.
The maid's dark hair lay in a thick braid down her back. It swung back and forth as if she were wildly dancing. The woman turned a little to the side and beamed at the child with the same amount of love. It gave his heart a quiet stab. Still he couldn't help himself and involuntarily twisted his mouth into a smile when he recognized her. This fan-like warmth that rose again in his chest, he ignored. Equally ignored was the thoroughly interesting fact that Charlotte, no Miss Heywood, was dressed only in a nightgown, with a child's fist clinging to its collar.
