Mama's absences grew longer with each passing week. When she returned, her cheeks bore colour not given by our salt Atlantic winds, but by air breathed elsewhere, air that had been shared. Her hair was smoothed more carefully than before, her scarf drawn close with the gesture of one who fastens armour, and her fingers lingered upon the ties as if they longed to be unfastened by another hand. Once, as if to no one, she said, "A woman cannot live alone. Not in this world. It is for your good as well as mine."
At that age, we could not fathom all she meant. We only knew her absence weighed on the rooms, and when she was present her ears seemed tuned for a step not ours. Even the dwelling itself seemed to sense it. The timbers leaned as if listening, the stair creaked expectant, the smoke in the chimney curled with unease. The house knew men were coming.
The Tempest
The first came like a storm, heralded by the wind itself. His knock was a blow, rattling the latch so violently that the bowls upon the shelf clattered together. Arabella gripped my sleeve. Heath tightened his hands on his stick until the veins rose white. Mama startled, but with a breath smoothed her hair and tightened her scarf.
The door burst open before her caution could form. He strode in, broad-shouldered, his boots striking the planks as though the floor were a drum beneath him. His coat was open, showing a chest proud with its own strength, and his cheeks burned with the arrogance of appetite.
"Good day," he cried, laughter booming till the beams overhead quivered. "I hear a woman lives here who knows order and here she is."
His glance swept over us, not to see, but only to count. "Three," he said. "They will learn."
Mama coloured, her chin lifting. "Sir, you presume much. This is my house, and you mistake boldness for courtesy."
He barked a laugh that struck the walls and came back again. "A woman without a man is a hearth without heat. With me, you would live twice the life."
He snatched the poker from Heath's grasp and drove it into the coals. Sparks flew like startled insects, smoke rolled thick, Arabella cried out as a cinder spat against her dress. He roared with laughter, as though danger were a fine joke.
"You are too rough," I said, my voice sharper than I intended.
His eyes flicked to me, dark and dismissive. "Girls ought to smile, else they sour the air."
"I am not a lemon," I answered before fear could stop me, and Mama's quick glance silenced me.
He leaned his weight upon the table, and the table groaned beneath him. "I will call again in two days," he declared. "I expect bread upon the cloth and children in better order. A woman must be ready to receive."
"Enough," Mama said, her voice like iron. "You are pompous and wretched. I would sooner dine with famine than share a loaf with cruelty. Do not return."
His face reddened, but words failed him. He stamped, turned, and his shadow filled the doorway one last time before it vanished. The latch fell; the house gave a long sigh as if freed from a tempest. The bowls ceased trembling, the fire steadied, and the boards grew lighter underfoot.
"He frightened the bowls," Arabella whispered.
"He frightened himself," Heath muttered.
Mama pressed her scarf against her breast. "He will not return."
I scrubbed the cup he had touched. The stain clung as though it had a will.
The Ledger
The second arrived with softer tread. His knock was measured, his bow deliberate, his smile slow as oil poured. Mama's cheeks coloured at once, as though the very air had changed at his entrance.
"Madam," he said, lifting her hand as if it were coin. "I have heard of your diligence. I thought it wise to see with my own eyes."
His gaze travelled not to us but about the rooms. The hearth, the bowls, the scoured planks. I had scraped them raw with sand till my knuckles burned, and he nodded as though Mama had done it herself.
"A well-kept house," he said. "Neat, serviceable. A woman such as you keeps a husband from ruin."
Mama lowered her eyes, pleased. The praise stung, for it was my labour he commended, and her silence that received it.
He wandered, trailing his hand across the shelf till a bowl rocked. Mama darted to steady it. He tugged at the cloth upon the table so the cup slid; she caught it. He pressed at the window latch till it groaned; she eased it back. Each careless motion summoned her, and she followed, eager to prove she would attend his every disturbance.
"To me, a household is a ledger," he said. "All must be tallied. A wife who mends without complaint, who trims the candles, who counts each potato — that is true beauty. With me, you will never lack. So long as the accounts are kept."
It was then, in his slow way, that he turned to her and said, "Mrs. Hatherleigh. Think well on this. A prudent woman may secure her children's future by marrying prudence itself."
The name fell in the room like a stone into water. Mrs. Hatherleigh. I had seldom heard her called by it, and never with such weight. To me she was only Mama. Yet there she stood, not only ours but someone else's. A woman with a name. The sound of it made her distant, as if she belonged more to the world than to us.
Her lips trembled. "You speak as though I were a sum upon a page."
He smiled. "And what is a home if not arithmetic?"
The fire cracked as though rebuking him. He frowned, touched the doorframe as though measuring it, and said, "Think on it. But not long. Men of sense do not wait for women to waver."
He left. The latch clicked, the timbers sagged.
"He is steady," Mama murmured. "Steady men do not come often."
"Steady as stone," Heath said. "And stone does not love."
Arabella whispered, "He looked at Clara like she was a coin."
I thought of my raw hands in the basin, the soap biting, the stain upon the cup. I hated him for praising her with my work, and her for receiving it.
The Wound
The third suitor's step was quieter still. His hat was in his hands before the door was open, his eyes damp with sorrow. Mama looked surprised at the humility in his face.
"Mistress Hatherleigh," he said softly. "I come with no boasting. Wrong was done to me when I was a child. It left me alone in myself. I tell you so you will not think me hard. I wish only to be understood."
Her eyes softened. Pity is a door that seldom bolts. She bade him cross the threshold. The fire hissed, the planks gave a long groan. The air turned uneasy, as if the walls themselves withheld trust.
He spoke of hunger, of nights without end, of hurt that had not mended. Mama folded her hands in her lap as if she were holding pain not her own. Her voice gentled; she said that perhaps wounds might heal in a quiet house.
Then he turned to us with a faltering smile. "Come then," he said. "Which of you will be strong enough for a lift?"
Arabella hid behind me. Heath stood motionless. I did not know how to refuse. He reached, and I let him take me up.
Once, twice, he swung me. His laugh was too loud, his hand pressed where no hand should. A shame pricked hot through me; though I had no name for it then, I knew it was wrong. I stiffened, slid down, but he reached again.
Heath stepped between us, stick raised. "She does not like it," he said, voice like iron.
The man faltered, muttering. "Forgive me. I forget myself when I am happy."
Mama had risen, eyes fixed upon me. "Clara," she said, and the question in her voice met the answer in my clutch upon her sleeve. Whatever softness she had held for him hardened.
When he rose, he asked if he might return.
"No," she said, quiet but firm. "I wish you healing, but not here."
He bowed too deeply, muttered blessings that did not bless, and left. The latch fell, clean and final.
Mama touched my face, then counted my fingers as though to be sure none were missing. "I am sorry," she whispered.
"It is done," I said, though nothing was finished.
That night, I lay awake and learned what a child learns when the door of safety sticks on its hinge.
The Jester
The last suitor came with a grin that refused to be stilled. His knock was light, almost playful, as though he had no wish to disturb but only to be welcomed. When Mama opened, he tipped his hat and said, "I heard the sunshine had gone astray. Perhaps you have hidden it here."
Arabella laughed at once, a bright sound after so many heavy days. Heath smirked despite himself, and I stood with a rag in hand, curious.
He entered as though he carried cheer in his pockets and meant to scatter it about the room. He bowed to Mama as if she were a queen, and to us as though we were her court. "Three sovereigns," he declared. "No wonder the place shines."
He spoke in stories that had little truth but much delight. He told us gulls had scolded him on his walk, that his boots had tripped him for being too proud, that a sneeze of his had shaken the grass itself. None of it was real, but we laughed as if laughter were nourishment enough. Mama laughed most of all. Her eyes grew bright, her voice lightened, and for a moment she looked as she must have in the years before we could remember.
Arabella, never content to watch, mimicked him. She pitched her voice high and strutted across the room, declaring herself scolded by gulls and betrayed by her boots. Heath groaned and called her foolish, but he grinned all the same. Even I laughed, though it felt strange in my throat, as though I had borrowed a voice not quite mine.
He knelt before Arabella and placed a sweet, wrapped in paper, into her palm. "Guard it well," he said solemnly. "I am a danger to sweet things."
Arabella divided it carefully into three. She took the smallest part for herself and offered the rest to us. The man praised her as though she had solved the world's greatest puzzle, and she glowed beneath it.
For an hour, perhaps two, the house itself seemed to soften. The fire burned steady, the timbers rested, even the boards seemed to sigh with relief. The cottage, which had endured tempests and reckonings, at last exhaled in laughter.
But when he rose to go, his pockets were as empty as when he arrived. He carried no bread, brought no coin, left nothing to fill the pot. At the threshold he paused and said, low so that Mama's face alone caught it, "You deserve a day that does not bite." Then he was gone, his grin swallowed by the lane.
We liked him. Arabella said so openly. Heath muttered, "At least he was not cruel." I liked him too.
But Mama's smile faded the moment the latch fell. She turned away, busying herself with her scarf, her eyes shadowed again. I know now what I did not then: laughter is not bread, and kindness cannot be leaned upon. He would not shift his life to carry hers. He was gone like the others, leaving only the echo of mirth in a house still hungry.
That night the ocean pressed its sorrow against the shore, its endless breath rattling the shutters. I lay between Heath and Arabella, listening to the house breathe. Mama's room lay to the right, ours to the left, the little washroom between, with its tub and reluctant sink and the hollow in the wall where Legs kept vigil. Above, the stair led to the kitchen and parlour, and beyond them the forbidden room, shut tight as though it guarded a secret of its own.
The house had endured bluster, tallying, sorrow, and jest. None had remained. The boards bent and straightened, the hearth sulked and brightened, the walls leaned and listened, but in the end each suitor's shadow had passed, leaving nothing but memory.
Mama sighed in the dark. Her breath was heavy with longing, and though she thought it hidden, the timbers heard it. So did I.
The dwelling had grown weary of false guests, as had we children. Yet I sensed the lane was not finished with us. More feet would come, more hands upon the latch, more voices laying their weight upon our fire.
And the house would remember. So would I.