Free Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville Page B

eyebrow at me.
    I’d say it’s waiting for an answer, Miss Sarah, he said.
    So I did it again, Dit dit dit dit dit? Daunt laughed and that made me laugh too so I couldn’t say it, and every time the bird asked the question, dit dit dit dit dit? and I tried to answer, it set us off again. When Mary and Archibald Campbell come round the turn in the track, the horses hardly moving, we’d set up such a racket that our horses were turning in circles under us, wondering what the devil was going on.
    Mary’s cheeks were pink, her eyes lively.
    What a fine step along through the way, Campbell said. A perfect paradise!
    His face spoke for the pleasure he was taking in where he was and who was with him.
    We’ll go a step further? he said, letting the horse walk towards the rocks and the start of the rough track.
    Oh no, Mary said. Nothing to see further along, is there, Dolly.
    Campbell decided not to insist and I saw that these two were going to be all right. Mary sure of what she wanted, Campbell not a man to go against her.
    Daunt led the way back, only not so sedate this time. Put the horse into a gallop, the way I’d done on the way out. I started Queenie after him but then thought better of it. It wasn’t John Daunt I wanted to play any games with.
    When we got back, somehow I couldn’t find the chance to have a word with Jack alone. A scratchy feeling seemed to have started. As if what had been straight between us had gone crooked. But all through the cups of tea and the evening meal, he didn’t meet my eye and one way and another he was always on the other side of the room.
    Campbell and Daunt wanted to be on the road by dawn, and I yawned and carried on like I was worn out, so we all had an early night of it. I got into bed and made out I was asleep straight away, even though I had the feeling Mary would of liked to talk. Waited to hear her breathing change. When she was asleep, she breathed hard like she was indignant.
    I slipped out of bed and went out into the hall. Daunt and Campbell were in the room across from me and Mary. Not a sound from there. Not a sound as I tiptoed past Pa and Ma’s room. Rumbly snoring behind Will and Bub’s door. At the end of the hall, the little cupboard of a room where Jack slept. I knew the door of that room, it squeaked if you opened it slow. I pushed it quick and got in and closed it behind me. The room dark as blindness. Heard a rustle from the bed.
    Jack, I said, and groped my way through the air. Squeezed in tight with him.
    Sarah Thornhill, he whispered, a warm puff of sound in my ear. What the devil you think you’re doing?
    Come here Jack, I whispered. Come right over here.
    Even though in that narrow bed we couldn’t of got any closer.
    Laid my palm on his chest. Could feel his heart beating.
    You’re the only feller for me, I said. Know that don’t you. Jack Langland, the only one.
    What happened between me and Jack then was the most natural and lovely thing. The two of us melting into each other as if we’d always been the one. The bed was inclined to creak so we had to keep things small and tight. That and the dark made the feeling stronger. Nothing but skin and bits of arm and leg and the warmth that rises out of two bodies.
    I knew all along Mary had it wrong. It was nothing like what the horses did. Not just a bit nicer about it . This was something different altogether.
    Afterwards we lay wedged against each other, my head on his arm where the meaty part was, the muscle making a pillow for me. I could feel his skin moving against mine with every breath we took. It seemed I had more blood than I ever had before, roaring through my veins, the flesh pressing out against the skin.
    I’d been only half awake all my life, only half alive. My body belonged to me now, joined up with me in a way it never had been before. I’d never imagined that a person could blaze like this, with bliss. Thought, I can die now.