Page 1 of The Seaside Homecoming
1
The rain depresses ... My lady has been bored to death. And in the clutch of Giant Despair.
—Charles Dickens,Bleak House
MAY1820
Bleak. The weather, her mood, her life.
Miss Claire Summers pulled back the dusty velvet curtain and looked out onto another dreary Edinburgh day. Rain pelted the cobbled street two floors down, where a few merchant carts and hackney carriages passed with a clip-clop of hooves, their drivers’ hats pulled low, and even the horses’ heads bowed against the rain. The wet pavement was devoid of pedestrians, except for a butcher’s lad who jogged past with a bundled delivery.
Then a coach stopped in front of the house. A man emerged, placing a beaver hat over fair hair as he alighted and strode quickly toward the door, disappearing beneath the protruding porch roof.
“Close the curtain!” her great-aunt demanded. “I’ve told you the light hurts my eyes.”
What light?Claire thought. She bit her tongue, let thecurtain fall, and turned toward the shrunken figure in the canopied bed.
The door knocker sounded in the distance.
Head and shoulders bolstered by pillows, the old woman frowned. “Who is that? Dr. McClain has already been.”
“I don’t know.” Callers were rare except for regular visits by the doctor and the apothecary’s assistant.
“Humph. Probably that young man from the apothecary’s again. Seems to deliver some useless new tincture every other day. Remind him to use the tradesmen’s entrance and not the front door.”
“It is not him. I did not recognize the man.”
The old woman flicked a weak hand toward the side table. “Water.”
Claire walked over to fill a glass, but a soft tap interrupted them.
Agnes Mercer turned her head toward the bedchamber door. “Come.”
The ancient butler entered, calling card on a silver salver.
Her aunt huffed. “What is it now?”
“A gentleman has come to call. A Mr. Callum Henshall.”
“Henshall? I know no one by that name.”
“He asks to see Miss Summers.”
Surprise ran through Claire, followed by foreboding.
Sure enough, the old woman narrowed her eyes, a suspicious scowl carved into her brow. “What have you been up to, besides gawking at men from the window? Sneaking out to meet them as well?”
“Absolutely not. I know no one by that name either.”
Claire knew very few people in all of Scotland, having lived in relative isolation for nearly two years now. The one exception had been regular attendance at church services, until her aunt’s declining health had rendered her bedridden.
Another lift of gnarled knuckles. “Send him away, Campbell.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
Claire blurted, “Did he say what he wanted? May we not ask his business first?”
“No,” Aunt Mercer snapped. “I said send him away.”
