On warm summer mornings, it was Elizabeth's invariable habit to take a short walk in the grounds of the Hall. Since she had learned that on the east coast of Suffolk any change in the weather would not arrive until about an hour before noon, a fine morning beckoned. The grounds of the Hall were not extensive, bounded by a road, a stream and the farmland rented to Henry Vane, but they included the jagged ruins of the old priory and these, broken down though they were, anchored her to her ecclesiastical past, reminding her of her father more than her maker. Chiefly, however, they performed the function of a private retreat where she was able to escape the demands of the house and sit in the warm, windless sunshine, content with a book, her correspondence, or simply her own thoughts. Her husband had been much in her mind of late. She had had difficulty reconciling herself to his absences on account of the Trinity House. She thought him too old for such duties and the jokes about his appointment as an 'Elder' Brother had seemed somewhat too near the mark for wit. Though he cited the appointments of octogenarian admirals to posts of the highest importance during the late war, claiming that the responsibilities of Barham and St Vincent far outweighed those of a mere Trinity Brother', her husband's assurances failed to mollify Elizabeth. She had long nurtured a chilling conviction that Nathaniel would not be spared to die in his bed like any common country gentleman, and for several days past she had slept uneasily, troubled by dreams.
In the daylight she had chided herself for a fool, rationalizing the irrational with the reflection that she simply missed him, that she herself was old and that with age came the ineluctable fear of the future. And as she sat beneath the great arch, its flint edge jagged on one side, overgrown with ivy and populated by the buzzing of bees, its inner curve smooth with the masonry of its elegant coping, she was mesmerized by a single cloud which, pushed by a light breeze, moved against the sky and made it look as though the masonry was toppling upon her.
She was almost asleep when she heard the rustle of Susan approaching through the bushes which, she noted, needed trimming back to clear the path. Susan's appearance started a fluttering in Elizabeth's heart which increased as she saw the hastening nature of her housekeeper's approach and the letters in her hand.
'What is it, Susan?' Elizabeth asked anxiously, sitting up and pulling her spectacles from her reticule.
'Billy's just brought in two letters, your Ladyship, one's from the Admiralty...'
'The Admiralty?' Elizabeth frowned. 'What on earth does the Admiralty want?' She looked up at Susan as she took the two letters and then read the superscriptions.
'The other is to you, ma'am.'
'So I see. I suppose I had better open that first. Thank you, Susan.' 'Thank you, ma'am.' Susan bobbed a curtsey and retreated, looking back as she passed through the bushes to where Elizabeth was opening the first letter. She read it with a cold and terrible certainty clutching at her heart. Unconsciously she rose to her feet as though the act might put back the clock and arrest the news. Captain Drew had been sparing of the details, wrapping the event up in the contrived platitudes of the day, expressing his deepest regrets and ending with a solicitous wish that Lady Drinkwater could take consolation from the fact that her husband had died gallantly for the sake of others. Exactly what Captain Drew meant by this assertion was not quite clear, nor did his phraseology soothe Elizabeth in any way. Distraught as she was, Elizabeth was not beyond detecting in Captain Drew's words both condescension and a poor command of self-expression.
But as she sat again, her tears coming readily, her down-turned mouth muttering, 'Oh, no, oh no, it should not have been like this', she thought something stirred beyond the arch. It was a man, but her tears half-blinded her. For a moment or two the certainty that it was her husband grew swiftly upon her, but the shadow lengthened and turned into Mr Frey.
'Lady Drinkwater, good morning. I do hope I didn't startle you. Forgive me for taking the liberty of entering through the farm... My dear Lady Drinkwater, what is the matter?'
'He's dead,' she said, looking up at the younger man. 'My husband's dead, drowned in a boating accident, at sea ...' She held out Drew's letter for Frey to read.
'My dear, I'm so sorry...'
Overcome, Frey sat beside her and hurriedly whipped out his handkerchief, reading the letter with a trembling hand. After he had digested its contents he looked at Elizabeth. She shook her head. 'It had to happen,' she said as she began to cry inconsolably, 'but why at sea? Why not here, amongst his family?'
Frey put his arm round her and, when her sobbing had subsided to a weeping, she rose and he assisted her into the house.
It was Henry Vane who, much later, walking through from the farm to offer his condolences, found the second letter lying on the grass. Frey was still with Elizabeth and had sent Billy Cue into Woodbridge to summon Catriona and bring her out in the trap to stay with Elizabeth overnight. Vane presented himself and the lost letter.
'It seems to be from the Admiralty,' Vane said, handing it to Frey who, having taken a look at the embossed wafer, agreed.
'Thank you, Henry. I think it can be of little consequence now, but I suppose I should let Her Ladyship know.'
'How is she?' asked Vane, his open face betraying his concern.
'Inconsolable at the moment.'
'Would you present my condolences?'
Frey shook his head. 'No, no, my dear sir, you are of the family and have as much right as me to be here, come in, come in.'
Frey announced Vane and left him with Elizabeth for a few moments, joining them after an interval. Vane sat alongside her, holding her hand, and Frey noticed she seemed more composed.
'There was a second letter, Elizabeth,' Frey said softly. 'Vane found it; you must have dropped it.' He held it out towards her. 'It has an Admiralty seal.'
'Please open it. It cannot be of much importance now.' She smiled up at him and he slit the wafer and unfolded the letter. For a moment he studied it and then, lowering it, he said with a sigh, 'Sir Nathaniel attained flag rank on the 14th. He has been gazetted rear-admiral, Lady Drinkwater.'
'They are rather late, are they not?' Elizabeth said, with a hint of returning spirit.
'I think Sir Nathaniel would rather have died a post-captain than a yellow admiral,' Frey said with his engaging smile.
Elizabeth reached out her other hand and took Frey's. 'I am sure you are right, my dear,' she said, shaking her head, 'and I am sure he would rather have died at sea than in his bed, painful though that is for me to acknowledge. Do you not think so?'
Frey nodded and gently squeezed Elizabeth's hand. 'I rather think I do, my dear.'
It took some months for Elizabeth to feel her loss less acutely but her husband's absences during the long term of their marriage had, despite their last years of intimacy, in some ways prepared her for widowhood.
'It seems to me', Catriona had once said to her, after the untimely death of her own first husband and before she had married Frey, 'that a sea-officer's wife lives in an unnaturally prolonged state of temporary widowhood in preparation for the actual event.' It was a sentiment with which Elizabeth perforce agreed. She was an old woman and her lot, compared with Catriona's for instance, had been a far easier one.
If she regretted anything, it was that she had not known her husband well until both of them were advanced in age. Now, that sweet pleasure, and it seemed very sweet in retrospect, was forever denied her. It was at this point that she recalled the task she had given him: that of recording his memoirs. About twelve weeks after the news of Drinkwater's death had arrived at Gantley Hall; after his body which had been washed up on the beach of Croyde Bay was sent home in its lead coffin; after the visits of their children and the renewed weeping that accompanied the funeral rites; and after Sir Nathaniel Drinkwater had been laid with due pomp and ceremony beside his brother Edward and the mysterious Hortense, it occurred to Elizabeth to go through her husband's papers more thoroughly than she had at first done.