When he had returned to the pebbled part of the beach and to the foot of the ancient collapse in the cliff face that gave access to the headland and the park of Penderris above, Hugo stood for a few moments and gazed out to sea while the wind whipped at his short hair and turned the tips of his ears numb. He was not wearing a hat. There was really no point when he would have been chasing it along the sand more than he would have been wearing it.
He found himself thinking about his father. It was inevitable really, he supposed, when today was the first anniversary of his death.
Guilt came with the thoughts. He had worshipped his father as a lad and had followed him everywhere, even to work, especially after his mother’s death of some woman’s trouble when he was seven—the exact nature of the ailment had never been explained to him. His father had described him affectionately as his right-hand little chap and the heir apparent. Others had described him as his father’s shadow. But then had come his father’s second marriage, and Hugo, thirteen years old and at an awkward stage of adolescence, had developed a chip on his shoulder as large as a boulder. He had still been young enough to be shocked that his father could even think of replacing his mother, who had been so central to their lives and happiness that she was simply irreplaceable. He had grown restless and rebellious and determined to establish his own identity and independence.
Looking back now, he could see that his father had not loved him less—or dishonored the memory of Hugo’s mother—just because he had married a pretty, demanding young wife and soon had a new daughter upon whom to dote. But growing young boys cannot always see their world rationally. Further evidence of that was the fact that he, Hugo, had adored Constance from the moment of her birth when he might have been expected to hate or resent her.
It was a stage of his life, fairly typical of boys his age, that he might well have outgrown with a minimum of harm to all concerned if there had not been something else to tip the balance. But there had been that something else, and the balance had been tipped irretrievably when he was not even quite eighteen.
And he had decided quite abruptly that he would be a soldier. Nothing would dissuade him, even the argument that he did not have the character for such a rough life. If anything, that argument only made him the more stubborn and the more determined to succeed. His father, disappointed and saddened, had finally purchased a commission in an infantry regiment for his only son, but it was to be the one and only purchase. He had made that clear. Hugo was on his own after that. He would have to earn his promotions, not have them bought by his wealthy father, as most other officers did. Hugo’s father had always rather despised the upper classes, for whom privilege and idleness often went hand in hand.
Hugo had proceeded to earn those promotions. He had actually liked the fact that he was on his own. He had pursued his chosen career with energy and determination and enthusiasm and a driving ambition to reach the very top. He would have reached it too, if his greatest triumph had not been followed within a month by his greatest humiliation and he had not ended up here at Penderris.
His father had loved him steadfastly through it all. But Hugo had turned his back upon him, almost as if his father had been to blame for all his woes. Or perhaps it was shame that made him do it. Or perhaps it was the sheer impossibility of going back home.
And how had his father repaid him for his neglect? He had left almost everything to him, that was what, when he might conceivably have left it all to Fiona or to Constance. He trusted his son to keep his businesses going and to pass them on to a son of his own when the time came. He had trusted him too to see to it that Constance had a bright, secure future. He must have understood that she might have no such thing if she was left to her mother’s sole care. He had made Hugo her guardian.
Now his year of mourning, his excuse for inactivity thus far, was over.
He stopped when he was halfway up the slope. He still was not ready to return to the house. He turned off the slope and climbed a short way up the cliff beside it until he reached a flat, rocky ledge he had discovered years ago. It was sheltered from most winds, and even though it cut off any view of the sandy stretch of beach farther west, it still allowed him to see the cliff face opposite and the pebbled beach and the sea below. It was a starkly barren prospect, but it was not without a certain beauty of its own. Two seagulls flew across his line of vision, crying out some piece of intelligence to each other.
He would relax here for a while before seeking out the company of his friends.
He scooped up some small pebbles from the ledge beside him and tossed one in a high arc to the beach below. He heard it land and saw it bounce once. But his fingers stilled around the second stone as a flutter of color caught the edge of his vision.
The cliff on the other side of the pebbled slope curved outward toward the sea. Full tide reached it sooner than it did the cliff on which he sat. There was a way around the base of the jutting cliff to the village a mile or so away, but it could be a treacherous route if one was not aware of the approaching tide.
Someone walked that stretch of pebbled beach now—a woman wearing a red cloak. She had just appeared around the headland, though she was still some distance off. Her bonneted head was down. She appeared to be concentrating upon her footing. She stopped and looked out to sea. It was still some way out and was no imminent danger to her. If she had strolled from the village, however, she really ought to be turning back soon. The only other way back was up over the headland, but that would involve her in trespassing on Penderris land.