Till Next We Meet

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Colstin Hall, Scotland
October 1761

Catherine Dunnan stood at the window and pushed it ajar, feeling the sudden tenseness in the woman behind her. She almost wanted to reassure the young maid that she had no intention of throwing herself to the ground, but that would have required speech, and conversation was simply beyond her at the moment.

So many things were difficult, like rising in the morning and washing her face and hands. She preferred to stay abed, preferably asleep, but the world seemed to think that she should be awake and alert. So, she occasionally left her bed in order not to further worry her servants.

In actuality, she didn't care if the day was advanced or early, if it rained or was filled with sunshine outside her window. It had been six months since the letter and the trunk had come, but it might have only been yesterday for the pain she felt.

The day was overcast, any sight of the sun obscured by a white sky. A dampness clung to the air, making the leaves curl on the branches of the trees outside her window. Fog hugged the ground, as if the clouds had fallen from the sky.

The world looked upside down.

Behind her the maid puttered, placing a luncheon tray on a small circular table, arranging silverware, all the while prattling on about the morning's events. A litter of kittens had been born in the barn, Cook's bones were aching, the footman had a rash, a squirrel was found dead below her window.

Taken individually, each event was miniscule, almost unimportant. But added together, it became a sure and certain progression, the transcribing of life itself.

Once she had been interested in what went on around her. Now, however, her existence had narrowed, become fixed and immutable. She breathed in and out, and that was the extent of her focus.

An ache lodged bone deep in her chest, as painful as a spear wound. Never easing nor ceasing, it remained a constant thing against which to measure her hours. She awoke and it was there. She lay on her bed and prayed for sleep and it kept a vigil within her, a succubus that fed on her despair.

Air brushed across her skin, making her shiver. A squirrel scampered up from the fog, leaping from one branch to another. Through it all, the maid chattered. Catherine neither wanted to see nor hear nor feel anything, but however much she wished it otherwise, she was still alive.

And the living endure.

If she could only die. How could God not answer a simple enough prayer?

The vicar said she was wrong to pray for such things.

God would see to it that she died when He was ready and not she. The vicar was obtrusive in his care for her, assiduous in a way that was grating. How did one tell a man of the cloth that he was an irritant?

"What time is it?"

"Two o'clock, madam," the maid answered, quick enough that she must have anticipated the question.

So, she had slept most of the day after all. She would spend the night in restless nightmares.

"You look pale, madam. Are you feeling well?"

Did it matter? She slept and dreamed and slept and dreamed and sometimes she awoke, sat up against the headboard feeling adrift in a mindless confusion. At times like those she took another draught of the laudanum and waited to sleep again.

"You should eat something, madam," the maid said, finally done with the chore of arranging dishes and cutlery.

Catherine didn't turn from her survey of the strange fog-laden countryside. "I'm not hungry," she said. How many times would she have to repeat those words until her staff learned from them?

"Cook said you didn't eat dinner last night or breakfast this morning. You should eat a bite or two. Just that, madam. Please."

The girl's name was Betty, and she was adept at her tasks. She was walking out with a footman, and had a sparkling laugh and a habit of covering her mouth with her hand to hide her bad teeth. She was deferential and pleasant enough in the before time. The before timethat achingly innocent period when life had been halcyon and beautiful, ripe with promise and heavy with anticipation. The before time, before the letter had come, before Harry's body had been returned in a pitch-soaked coffin, before the world became shadowed and black, wearing mourning as deep as night.

She'd confessed in one of her letters to him that she was afraid of the dark.

The shadows of darkness, he'd written in reply, give an ominous appearance even to friendly things. Think, instead, of evening as a time of welcome rest, and darkness as the Almighty's way of forcing peace upon his creatures. The owl and the field mouse will be night's sentinels.

She had held that letter to her chest, cherishing the near poetry of his words. That night she'd tested herself by standing in the hallway outside her chamber with no candle or lantern to light her way.

I cannot promise you, my dearest, she'd responded, that I met the darkness with any degree of comfort, but my loathing of it has eased somewhat.

The night held no terrors for her now. Instead, daylight tested her courage. Being awake was a measure of her bravery.

"I'm not hungry," she repeated, hoping that the girl would have sense enough to hear the resolve in her tone. Food sickened her. Sleep did as well, bringing nightmares that were torturously confusing and colored red and purple and blue, but even those visions were preferable to being awake.

"Glynneth made me promise," Betty said.

Catherine forced a smile to her face. "Tell her that you succeeded." Her companion would not hesitate in hiding behind another in order to accomplish her aims ...

The foregoing is excerpted from Till Next We Meet by Karen Ranney. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission from HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022

Excerpted from Till Next We Meetby Karen Ranney Copyright © 2007 by Karen Ranney. Excerpted by permission.
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