She remembered a house, infinitely large and empty. An old woman who had tried to pull Olivia onto her lap—but Mama had snatched her back. And she remembered an argument, very angry, as Mama wept.These were not details that provided much help in locating her mother’s childhood home. But Shepwich itself was smaller even than Allen’s End, no more than a dozen houses sparsely arranged around the bend in the sandy road, and the proprietor of the general store, who greeted her with curiosity, answered at once: “The Holladays? Aye, you’ll want the white house half a mile down the lane with the old stone barn in back. Can’t miss it. A relation, are you? You’ve the look of a Holladay, about your eyes and . . .” He gestured toward his nose.“Yes,” Olivia said, “a relative,” and beat a hasty retreat to the coach, where Marwick was waiting—his presence, she’d felt, being somewhat too grand to induce easy admissions from a shopkeeper.She gave instructions to the coachman, an easygoing young man who’d proved remarkably tolerant at devoting his day to haring about the countryside.
