This was desolate country, which suited Scout just fine.
When she'd started looking for a job, she'd wanted something as far off the beaten path as possible. She'd never dreamed she'd find something in England, in Cornwall. It was so Agatha Christie, so evocative of another time. The green hills rolled to meet the dark blue sky, and she could see the grass waving in the strong wind which whipped it everywhere.
Every once in a while she'd see her reflection in the window of the hired car; her pale blue eyes, the smattering of freckles, the shaggy, overgrown brown bob. She found it ironic that now, at the age of twenty-four, she probably looked as much like her namesake from the 1962 movie as she ever had in her life.
She'd been born with the very feminine name of Clarissa Marie Lawson, and her baby pictures showed a little girl covered in lace and bows, the more pink the better. Just as soon as she'd been able, though, Clarissa had taken the scissors to her curls, and had begun dressing in overalls and shorts. It was her older sister, Susan, who'd noticed her resemblance to the character in To Kill A Mockingbird, and begun calling her Scout, and the nickname had simply stuck. Her poor mother had simply ceded to the inevitable and thrown away her hair ribbons and barrettes, and replaced her ballet slippers with roller blades.
Scout had sailed through life in Connecticut as a happy tomboy and attended Yale, where she'd gotten an MFA in Library Science and Antiquities. She loved books, and could think of nothing better than a life spent among them.
While at Yale, she'd dated a little, but hadn't really had much success or interest in boys until she'd met an assistant professor named Will Frye, who had twinkling brown eyes and a beard, and was smart and loved books as much as she did. He'd told her she was beautiful, and that he loved her. Scout thought she loved him, and she'd slept with him, and spent a year sharing his life and his bed, planning a future with him and being deliriously happy.
Then, after Will got his doctorate, he told Scout that, wonderful as she was, she was also, unfortunately, the wrong religion and they would, sadly, have to part ways.
"Besides," he said on the sunny morning that he gave her the news, "you're too skinny, anyway, you're built all wrong, you'd have all kinds of trouble." He pushed his glasses up his nose and blinked at her.
"What?" Scout stared at him and wiped her eyes, not sure she'd heard him correctly.
He gestured at her body.
"You hardly have any breasts at all, I doubt you could produce any milk," he clarified. "And your hips are so narrow. You might have to have a Caesarean section," he said.
"Are you talking about childbirth?" Scout asked incredulously.
"Of course," he said as if surprised she had to ask.
"Look, Scout," he said gently, putting his hands on her shoulders, "you have a lot going for you, and I'm sure you'll find someone. But I have to think in terms of a family, a Jewish family, you understand?" He smiled at her, a smile which she used to find mesmerizing, but now just found vapid.
Scout shook her head.
How could she have been so stupid?
So she collected her Master's degree, looked around for a job, and found one, as far away as she could.
In Cornwall, England. Organizing and restoring a library for some musician named George Wilder. Apparently, this guy, George, had been married to some supermodel, Tessa Richardson-Wilder, and they'd been this wildly successful and beautiful super-couple together, traveling the world, partying and buying diamonds or whatever it was that people like that did. Then she'd died in some terribly tragic way, some fall, right there in his house, and he'd just holed up there, not seeing anyone, grieving for her. He'd turned into some kind of recluse or something, which suited Scout just fine. She didn't care if she never saw anyone again.
She let her gaze drift out to the windswept landscape once more, and finally closed her eyes.
********************
George looked out the window and huffed out a breath of irritation when he saw the car pull up. The blasted librarian was coming today? Of all the fucking inconvenient times. Though, if he was being honest, all times were equally inconvenient, or convenient. It wasn't as though he was doing anything.
But still.
He'd chosen to stay here at Farraway Mist because he didn't want to see anyone, dammit, not even librarians. The house was pretty much as far away from people as it was possible to get, equidistant from both seaside villages, built right out on the edge of the cliff next to the sea. Sometimes, during rough weather, the spray from the waves hit the huge windows, rattling them in their frames. It created a melancholy sound.
He downed the rest of his drink, carefully set the glass down, and opened the beautifully carved, dark wood door, hoping his face looked neutral and friendly. He struggled to keep the look on his face as a thin young woman in jeans and a Ramones T-shirt got out of the back seat.
WTAF?
The driver quickly got three pieces of luggage out of the back and brought them to the porch, smiled at her, and drove away.
She walked toward him, a tentative smile on her face.
"Hello," she said, holding her hand out. "I'm Scout."
"You're a girl," he said, surprise making him blunt. "And you're American."
She bit her lips together.
Fuck.
She looked at him.
"Yes on both counts." She took a deep breath. "Not what you were expecting?"
He blinked at her, looking her up and down. "Uh, no, to be perfectly honest." He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
"Is it going to be a problem?" she asked. "Should I try to get the driver back? Though in my defense, I know my application did mention both those facts," she said frankly.
"Oh, I have no doubt," he responded curtly. "I'm not always the most observant. I probably just saw your name and photograph and assumed you were a man--" And oh shit, had he said that out loud? "I mean, not that 'Scout' couldn't be a woman's name--and I didn't mean that you look like a man, not at all, but you know--it sounds like it might be an um--like it might be--oh fuck." George ran his hand through his hair and looked up at the sky.
"It's okay," she reassured him. She looked around, deeply embarrassed, trying to figure out how to change the subject and get both of them off this extremely uncomfortable hook. "And, um, you hired me yourself?" she asked in surprise.
"Yeah? Why?" he asked curiously, obviously relieved.
"I don't know. I just figured someone like you had people to do that sort of thing for you, you know?" she responded, taking a deep breath.
"Oh. No. I try to keep my life simple," he replied, with an attempt at a small smile. "At any rate, let's take this inside, shall we?" He picked up two of her bags, leaving the pull case for her to deal with.
She observed him covertly as she followed him inside.
First of all, he was younger than she thought. He looked like he was maybe mid-twenties. His hair was blond, and long enough to tie, though she couldn't tell if that was because he liked it that way or he just hadn't bothered to get it cut. His eyes were dark blue, not pale like hers, very striking with his hair. No wonder he'd been able to transition from music to movies so easily. He was beautiful. And, reclusive or not, he definitely had some exercise equipment on the premises somewhere, because he was fit.
George led Scout through a large, tiled foyer and into a very grand hall, which contained a gorgeous staircase. They climbed it, and Scout could see that the stairs kept going to presumably the third and possibly a fourth floor, but they stopped at the second and went down a hallway that had rooms that faced the ocean.
George opened a door and let Scout enter first. She stopped just inside the room, too surprised to speak.
"Something wrong?" George asked. "Do you not like it? You can change if you like."
"No, not at all," Scout reassured him. "It's gorgeous, honest."
And it was. It was a comfortable mixture of the modern and the old-fashioned, with a beautiful four poster bed and thick curtains, but with a flat screen TV in the corner and an en suite bathroom through the open door.
"Well, I'll leave you to settle in for a bit, then you can come down and find me in the kitchen, and I'll show you the library where you'll be working, then, if that suits you?" George asked uncertainly. Obviously he'd spent a lot of time alone recently, and his social skills were rusty, even more rusty than hers.
She nodded.
"Sounds fine."
He left, his relief evident, and she spent a few minutes unpacking. Thankfully, she'd be spending most of her time alone, in his library. She wouldn't have to spend time with George Wilder, the sad widower, who no longer remembered how to talk to people, or indeed how to be with them at all.
As she turned away from the dresser where she was putting away her clothes she felt something cold blow by, like a draft from an open window, though both the windows were firmly closed. The curtain was moving gently, too, as if from a slight breeze, though again, there was no way anything could've moved it at all.
Scout gave a little shiver and pulled on a sweater before going downstairs to find her taciturn host.