‘That is good,’ Sophia said. ‘The countess likes to get a letter from her brother. It will cheer her.’
She was lightened by the thought, and went on sifting sand within her hands while watching Kirsty’s sister and the children. Hugo had retrieved the stick now and the game was on again, the gentle tug of war with peals of laughter rising happily above the rushing rhythm of the waves.
And then the game became a chase and Kirsty, filled with too much energy herself to sit in one place long, slipped running down the dunes and joined the children. And Sophia, left alone, could only think of how contented her heart felt at this one moment, and she raised her face towards the sun and closed her eyes.
When next she opened them, there seemed to be no change. There should, she later thought, have been at least a cloud to block the sun and send its shadow chasing darkly out across the brilliant sea—but there was nothing.
Only the countess, coming down the path to join them on the beach.
The countess was so rarely out this way that in all truthfulness Sophia could not bring to mind the last time it had happened, but she still thought little of it till the countess reached the bottom of the hill and stopped a moment, standing strangely still against the blowing grass. And then Sophia saw her take a breath and set her shoulders and continue on as though the sand between them had grown wider and was difficult to cross.
The countess did not try to climb the dune when she had reached it, but stood several steps below Sophia looking upward, and her face was like the faces of the women who so long ago had come to tell Sophia that her father and her mother would no more be coming home.
She felt the shadow touch her then, although she could not see it, and inside her a great hollowness consumed all other feeling. But because she did not wish to hear the answer to her question she said nothing.
‘Oh, my dear,’ the countess said, ‘I bring sad news of Mr Moray.’
And Sophia knew what it would be, and knew she ought to spare the older woman all the pain of its delivery, but in the sudden numbness that had settled on her, words were somehow far beyond her reach. She dug her fingers in the sand and tried to focus on the feeling as the countess slowly carried on, as though she felt the pain of it herself.
‘He has been killed.’
Sophia still did not reply.
‘I am so very sorry,’ said the countess.
There was sunlight in Sophia’s eyes. It seemed so strange, that there should still be sunlight. ‘How?’
‘There was a battle,’ said the countess, ‘at a place called Malplaquet. A dreadful battle, so my brother tells me in his letter.’
‘Malplaquet.’ It was not real, she thought. A distant place, an unfamiliar name that tasted strangely on her tongue. Not real.
She heard the countess talking but she could not understand the words, nor did she try. It was enough to sit there, sifting sand and gazing out towards the line where sea met sky and where it seemed at any moment she might see the first white flutter of a fast approaching sail.
The waves kept coming in their soft way up the beach and slipping backwards, and the gulls above still hung upon the wind and wheeled and called to one another in shrill voices that were lost amid the laughter of the children playing at the water’s edge.
Then Anna’s laughter rose above the others and in that one instant something tore Sophia from inside and crumpled her like paper in a careless hand. She fought against it; fought the brimming pressure of her tears until her mouth began to tremble with the effort, but it was no use. Her vision blurred until she could no longer see the far horizon, nor the countess standing closer by in sympathy, and she could no more stop the first small tear that spilled across than she could stop the final bit of sand that slipped between her fingers and would not be held.
And so she let it go.
I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to, but I knew I had no choice. The envelope of papers was still sitting where I’d left it on the corner of my desk, as far as possible from where I sat to write. It had been sitting there all day since I’d come back from Aberdeen. I’d only taken it out of my briefcase in the first place because I’d been missing Graham after our weekend and I had found it comforting to look up now and then and see the bold and certain letters of his handwriting spell out my name across the narrow envelope.
I hadn’t changed out of his rugby jersey, either. The long sleeve slipped over my hand as I reached across my desk. I pushed the folds back to my elbow, took the envelope in hand, and drew the papers out in one determined motion, as though I were ripping off a bandage.