Free The Sea House: A Novel by Elisabeth Gifford

the island. I saw myself, running out as the mists poured off the hills and the sky was coming through blue, picking grass to feed Bessie before I milked her, and taking the pail home for breakfast where my father led the prayers and we all bowed our heads.
    Then I did see my dear ones, my mother and father and my brothers and sister, lying sick in their beds in that hovel they moved us to, where the rain washed into the mud of the wall and then the stones collapsed. How I tried to get food from nothing, and how I did never change my clothes for six weeks but got wet through in the rain then let them dry on me, again and again, till they chaffed my skin sore. One by one, I found their bodies, cold in the bed, and must watch the men come to carry them on the long walk to the graveyard. I got more and more chill, till they was all gone and I was there, up on the hill, watching Marstone’s men fire the thatch of our house – them no doubt thinking that I was inside.
    So it was for several days after that Sunday that I was too tired to speak a word, and the Reverend said, ‘Moira, why do we not hear you prattling on as you do usually?’ And then, but sadly now, ‘Moira, we must as Christians learn to forgive the past.’
    One morning, after the breakfast was cleared away, I was called back in to be spoken to, in the Reverend’s study where he writes his sermons. I was ready for my scolding, since I knew I had been distracted of late, and my cooking not as good as it usually was, but I found him looking most cheerful and pleased with himself.
    Callum the post had brought a big parcel for the Reverend early that morning, and the brown paper was all over the floor. The Reverend said that he had sent off for something from Glasgow, and there were some items for me. So I went over to his desk, and there was some blue cloth and some green flowered cloth all folded neatly and smelling new, like cotton freshly ironed. He said I could make myself two new dresses, since time had worn the old ones, and perhaps the green would make a Sunday frock.
    It was a shock to me, that he should have thought of that, and tears welled up in my eyes, which I rubbed away, and he said, ‘Oh, don’t you like them, Moira?’ and I told him it was just his kindness that was making me weep.
    So then he said, all gruff and cross, ‘Come, come now. Let’s have none of that. We have much work to do.’ And he showed me a primer for the ABC, and some books such as children read in school, and he did say that they were for me. I was not sure how to teach myself to read them, but he said, ‘We shall have a lesson every day, until you know all your letters, and then on the day that you can read, I promise you that I will let you borrow any book you wish from my own library. I would particularly recommend those devotional books written by my mentor in the theology faculty, although the fiction of Miss Austen can be very amusing.’
    It was all that I could do to stop myself from throwing my arms round that good man, but instead I gave a stiff curtsy, and thanked him very politely for all his kindness, and then took myself back to the cottage and wept like a fool until my eyes were big and swollen and no doubt red. I had to bathe them in cold stream water and pretend that I had caught a cold while I finished my work.
    *   *   *
    Her Ladyship was not at church that next Sunday. The Reverend had a message saying she was indisposed with a chill, no doubt, I thought, from riding everywhere in all weathers on that horse of hers. And I thought, she is a Marstone after all: it is not likely we shall be seeing her in the church again. This thought made me feel almost happy.
    And then the Thursday afternoon, when I went in for my reading lesson, after helping rake in the hay from the upper field, I heard voices in the drawing room and knocked, wondering who the Reverend had visiting with him in there, since he usually would say, so I would know to set a tray and