Watching Sam zigzag across the field, Jane realizes that there is something else bothering her: the possibility that William has already made a connection between Inglewood and the Whitmore. Maybe George Farrington had business with the hospital? If Farrington attended the ball, as Jane suspects he did, in what capacity had he done so? Was he a patron? She circles back to her revelation from the first evening at the inn: his letter to the Superintendent said, Mr. Farrington is glad if they in any way enjoy’d themselves here—a courtesy, and an indicator that he was familiar with the hospital or at least sensitive to the kinds of patients who moved through there.
Back in her room, Jane fills Sam’s water bowl and he drinks all of it, then flops down happily inside the door despite the mess of burrs in the white fur along his hocks and under his belly. Her new hairbrush is still in the shop bag so Jane takes it out and settles down beside him, stroking his ears and running her fingers through his soft curls before gently working the tangles out, one knot at a time.
Later in the evening we go to the pub with Jane. Most of us like the closeness of a public room, the chatter of everyday conversations. We can tell, when Blake saunters in, that he is looking for “Helen.” He’s taken care with his clothes, is wearing a pressed shirt with a collar, black trousers and polished boots.
He spies Jane reading at one of the low tables along the bench wall where they’d sat the night before. Her pint glass is empty so he heads straight to the bar to order her another one, striding past us and stirring up a waft of rosemary chicken from a nearby table.
“I thought I’d catch you at the house today.” He puts a full pint down beside her empty one, avoiding her papers, and stands waiting for her to offer him a seat. When she doesn’t say anything, he straddles a low stool, tugs the corner of her pile of papers toward his side of the table and asks, “What’re you working on?”
“Just some Farrington stuff.” She places the Whitmore papers on the bench beside her and then changes her mind and tucks them between the straps of her handbag under the table. “Thanks for the pint.”
Blake leans in to say something, but hesitates as the waitress from last night appears. “Heya, Blake.” She smiles warmly at him and then flicks a quick slit-eyed look over toward Jane. “Can I get youse anything to eat?” She reaches across the table to take Jane’s empty glass and her long blonde hair swings forward and her midriff touches Blake’s arm. “Curry’s on special.”
Jane shakes her head, smiling at the girl’s territorial exercise.
Blake keeps his eyes on Jane. “No, we’re great, Katie, thanks.”
Katie wends her way through the crowd back to the bar. Blake checks to make sure she’s gone and then turns back to Jane and says, “Sorry,” as if he owes Jane the apology, as if he is protecting her — as if he thinks something is happening between them.
Around ten, Blake’s dad, who’s been up at the bar, walks past the table to say good night. He grins awkwardly at Jane and pats his son’s shoulder. By now Jane is used to the idea that everyone in the room seems to know Blake and is watching them, though when Blake explains to his father that she’s part of the restoration team from London, her lip twitches and she sits up straighter. Embedded in the lie is what happened less than a week ago with William, and a whole other world she is trying to ignore. Still, despite the lie, Jane finds to her surprise that there is a lot she can say to Blake: that she has an MA in archives and record management, that she used to play cello, that her father is a famous violinist, though she won’t give his name, that she has a brother who is a geneticist, and, when Blake presses her for details about her relationships, that she lived briefly with an architect.
“That’s one,” he says.
“One what?”
“You said before that you’d been in love three times.”
Jane laughs. “Well, the other two weren’t quite reciprocated, so they might not count.” She drinks the last of her pint and he watches her set it down as if calculating the likelihood of getting her to stay for another.
“But you live alone now?”
“I do. Well, me and the dog.”
He is watching her mouth move and it makes her self-conscious — because she likes it and because it makes her feel like some twenty-year-old version of herself that she never got to be.
“What about you? I’m guessing you live with your parents?”
He stands up, takes their empties in his hand and put his lips to her ear. “If I lived on my own, do you think we’d still be here?”
When they leave the pub Blake holds the door open and lets her go through first. Then he drops his hand to her waist to guide her to the right before she can say good night and head left toward the inn. He jerks his chin toward the church and the falls, says, “It’s nice out,” and just as Jane is about to say, I should probably go, it’s late, he threads his hand into hers and pulls her gently along. When they get to the field that divides the falls and the Farrington trail from the estate he takes the path up along the stone wall that runs beside Inglewood House.
All night Blake has wanted to touch her. Jane sensed it, and she saw that his father noticed it and was uncomfortable with it, that Blake’s neighbours sitting next to them had picked up on it too. The woman had caught the clasp of her bracelet on Jane’s sweater when she rose tipsily from the bench and tried to move between the tables, had laughed nervously as she tried to release it. Jane blushed and looked at Blake and shook her head because she knew what his neighbours, what everyone, was thinking.
Halfway up the path, near the spot where Jane had climbed the wall, with the sloped roof of Inglewood House’s stables silhouetted between oak trees, Blake stops and kisses her, his hands in her hair, body pressed against hers. She doesn’t pull away, and when he senses that she is letting it happen, when she kisses him back, he kisses her even harder.
Jane closes her eyes, feels his warmth against her, tastes the tang of beer in his mouth. This is how it begins, she thinks: a door opens and you step in or out of it, or you stand still with a bar of unexpected light at your feet and you wait to see if the sun inching over your legs, your arms and your face, feels good; if it does, you go in.
They end up on the grass. He moves on top of her for a second and then he pulls away, says, “Wait here.” He’s up and over the wall before she even knows what’s happening; when he comes back two long minutes later, he has a blanket from the stables.
“Listen, Blake—” She stands, presses her fingers against her temples. It’s ridiculous: he is a kid, she is a grown-up, and when he cleared the wall she had a feeling he’d done this a dozen times before. That makes this encounter seem an even worse idea than it already is.