The interior lived up to the outside, Samantha discovered over the next half hour. There were four sizable square rooms downstairs—a parlor, a dining room, a kitchen, and a book room. There were four large bedchambers upstairs and one small one at the head of the stairs, and there was the attic room with its dormer window in the roof. A hallway bisected the house downstairs and contained the staircase, which ran straight up to the landing above.
The architect, whoever he had been, had lacked imagination, perhaps, but Samantha loved the dimensions of the rooms. The furniture, though old and heavy and predominantly dark in color, just as Mr. Rhys had described it, nevertheless looked comfortable. Yesterday, no doubt, there had been a smell of age and even mustiness here, but the opened windows and the fires and the baking had taken care of that.
Finally, Mrs. Price bustled off to the kitchen to fetch some of her newly baked cakes and a pot of tea. Gladys was thumping about in the main bedchamber above the parlor, where Samantha sat with Ben.
“I cannot quite believe it,” she said, spreading her hands on the soft old leather of the chair arms.
“That the cottage really exists?” he said. “Or that it is habitable? Or that it is really quite large? Or that it actually belongs to you? Or that you are here at last? Or that you have a beach all to yourself and a view to entice you to your front windows for a lifetime? Or that your life has changed so drastically in such a short time?”
“Oh, stop,” she said, laughing. She rested her head against the back of her chair and closed her eyes briefly. “All of those things. Oh, Ben, it is as if I have been snatched away from my life and deposited here in heaven. It really feels like heaven.”
“I daresay,” he said, “the Earl of Heathmoor did you a favor when he took Bramble Hall away from you and summoned you to Leyland Abbey. You may never have given this cottage a serious thought if you had not been desperate for escape, or, if you had, perhaps you would never have thought of coming here.”
“This was fate, then?” She opened her eyes to look at him. “Something that was meant to be?”
But Mrs. Price came bustling back into the room, bearing a large tray, before he could answer her.
“I did not know if you liked currant cake or seed cake or bara brith best, Mrs. McKay,” she said. “So I made all three and you can have your pick. I daresay the major likes all three. Men usually do. I am sure you must both be ready for a nice cup of tea. You would not prefer coffee, I hope? Nasty, bitter stuff, if you were to ask me. I never have it in my own house. My man did not like it either and nor does my son. But I can get some to bring tomorrow, if you like it. If you want me to come again, that is. I wouldn’t mind coming in each day to get your breakfast and staying until I have cooked your evening meal, though I would rather not live in. My son would starve since he has not found a wife for himself yet, and I can never seem to sleep sound in any other bed but my own.”
“Shall we give your suggestion a try?” Samantha said. “And I am happy to drink tea. Bara … brith, did you say?”
“This dark full-fruit loaf,” Mrs. Price said, indicating the slices of it on the cake plate she had brought in before pouring them each a cup of tea. “There is no cake to compare with it for richness of flavor. That dog is gnawing on a soup bone and drinking his water in the kitchen. I do like a dog in the house, and a cat too, though I have never seen a dog quite like this one.”
“And never will again, Mrs. Price, it is to be fervently hoped,” Ben said.
Mrs. Price laughed. “Can I get you anything else before I go back to the kitchen?” she asked.
“You have always lived here, have you, Mrs. Price?” Samantha asked. “The village is not far away?”
“Just over those sand dunes,” Mrs. Price said, pointing west. “And behind here is Mr. Bevan’s land and the big house, though you can’t see it from here.”
Mr. Bevan’s land.
The big house.
“He is your grandfather, I expect, Mrs. McKay, isn’t he?” Mrs. Price said. “I wasn’t sure who was coming here, though I was told it was the owner. But you look as if you must be his granddaughter. He married a Gypsy lady, you know. But of course you know. You have the look of one yourself, though it sits well on you, I must say. I’ll get back to the kitchen. I have some soup cooking and some bread rising.”
“Is there an inn in the village, Mrs. Price?” Ben asked as she turned to leave.
“Oh, yes, indeed, sir,” she told him. “It is a nice, tidy place too. Nothing fancy, but it serves up a good dinner, it do, and is always clean. The stables too. My brother owns it.”
“Thank you,” Ben said. “I shall probably stay there for a few nights until I am sure Mrs. McKay is properly settled here. I promised her late husband, my friend, that I would, you know.”
Samantha took a bite of the bara brith when she was alone with Ben. It really was delicious, but she did not have much of an appetite. She set her plate aside and looked at him. He was gazing steadily back at her.
“He has land,” she said, “and a big house. He is still alive.”
“Yes.”
“Yet he sent my mother here to live with his sister,” she said. “He let her go to London at the age of seventeen and did not go after her. He did not go to her wedding or to my christening or to her funeral. It could not have been poverty that caused any of those things, could it?”