Chapter 8: Friday 28 June
In the brightness of morning, not only was I able to dismiss everything Guy said as fiction, I wasn't so sure of my adventure either. Being market day in Ordmoor, I set out before eight and kept an eye on the edge of the road to find those deer prints again. I didn't, of course. I'd only a vague idea where I was in the fog, and I since I'd no intention of walking the road searching for them, I reached the edge of Glen Lonon without finding them. Even if I found tracks, how could I be sure they'd be my deer tracks? 'Stick to the papers. Type them up and get out of here while you're still sane,' I told myself with a grim laugh, adding, 'before it's too late.'
The morning grew warm and sunny, though a cloud or two could still be seen off in the hazy hills dragging a shower. I did an unhurried shopping, picking up fresh bakery, a couple of different cheeses, two cases of beer, local and ginger, and some finer teas purchased at a small shop that supplied fine foods to the big houses. I was back a little after eleven, just slightly damp from a misty shower I couldn't avoid.
After lunch I began the process of transferring the hand written pages into the plastic sleeves. Most were in three pieces with only the one edge not chewed through. At the bottom of the box, these pages had gotten wet at one time and now tended to stick together and needed to be carefully pried apart. It was slow going. Several times in the afternoon I could hear some of the guests go by the cottage, no longer house-bound by the weather.
I took a short break in the afternoon to visit Mrs Cullen, in one of the cottages on the far side of the stables. Guy said she takes in laundry for the guests of the Groom's Cottage and I arranged to have mine washed tomorrow morning.
This evening I hung about the cottage waiting for Learmonte, but he was a no show – too busy, I suppose, with his arriving guests. After the sun dipped beyond the hills I went out for a walk in the twilight. I hiked across the sheep paddock to the edge of the Lonon River and then along its bank, crossing a line of trees and a small creek in the growing darkness. I was walking on the edge of the paddock when I was startled out of my brooding by a rustle of underbrush along the river bank. Willie and Watt bounded out to greet me.
'Hello boys. You gave me a start,' I said as they milled around for a bit before heading back down the bank. Looking to the river, I saw a slim figure outlined against the pale, shimmering water, knee deep in the river with a fishing rod poised in her hand. She glanced up – Lady Nesta. Of course. Recognizing me, she turned abruptly away, lifting her line off the water and cast again in a smoothly elegant manner.
Had she not seen me, I'd have slipped away. But since she had, I decided to stay to introduce myself. I didn't want her to think I was stalking her, so I followed the dogs down the bank and found a seat on a rock next to them to watch Lady Nesta fish.
And she fishes quite elegantly, with a precision and economy of motion that placed her fly right on the drift line, hooking, landing and releasing two fish in the quarter of an hour I watched. When it became too dark, and perhaps despairing of being able to avoid me, she reeled in her line and carefully climbed out of the river and up the bank. She was dressed in a dark twill blouse with a tweed jacket and narrow brimmed hat, old fashioned hip boots with a satchel over her shoulder. The dogs and I got to our feet to meet her.
'Good evening, Lady Nesta,' I said as she came up the bank. 'I hope you didn't mind me staying to watch – too much,' I added catching her scowl. 'But I thought that since I seem to be always turning up, I'd best stay and introduce myself and... well, apologize. I'm really embarrassed about finding myself always in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hope you'll forgive me. I want you to know that it was never my intention... '
'Of course. If I make a scene in public, I can hardly complain about an audience. You needn't let it concern you,' she said without a glance as she climbed the bank beside me. Reaching the top, she started across the paddock.
I tentatively walked beside her while the dogs bounded ahead.
'I appreciate your understanding,' I said. 'By the way, I'm Alasandr Say, Sandy to my friends.'
'Flora mentioned you.'
'I enjoyed watching you fish,' I persisted, trying make conversation. 'I took up fly fishing as an undergraduate. It was either that or golf. But I was never all that good. Unlike you, I caught more trees and bushes than anything else. I could almost hear the fish laughing...'
'It's my regular beat. I've fished it for years. I know where to find them. They never learn.'
'Or perhaps it's just part of their daily ritual,' I suggested.
She just shrugged without a glance my way and said nothing more.
'In any event, you make it look elegant.' I ventured, but she clearly wished me gone, so I gave it up as a lost cause. 'Well, I'll be off now. I just wanted to, well, I didn't want you to think I was stalking you or something... Well, Good night.'
'Good night,' she said without sparing me a glance, and I angled off for the Groom's Cottage beyond a tree lined ditch while she continued on towards Hidden Garden. So much for Lady Nesta Mackenzie. I felt better for the effort, anyway.