Cecilia disregarded his glowering looks and said, panting, ‘Can we help you, sir? Are you ill?’
He was silent for a moment and then said, in a deep voice that might have been pleasant if he hadn’t been practically growling, ‘I thank you for your concern, ladies, but there is not the least need for it, nor for you to run so madly to my aid. I merely tripped and fell; I have done myself no lasting injury. I am a cripple, which occasionally, I forget, and I was not paying sufficient attention to my footing. Please go away and leave me be.’
This was obviously Major Bartrum – his coat was a military one, though Cecilia wasn’t knowledgeable enough to be able to tell the regiment. She could see why Miss Pallant had described him as disagreeable, if this was how he greeted complete strangers who were only trying to help, and had drenched themselves in the process. It would do not the least good, she thought, to reveal that they knew his name.
‘Obviously, we can’t leave you be,’ she said reasonably. ‘And you can’t possibly want to lie on the sand getting wet, because you will surely catch cold. Eventually, the tide will come in and drown you, if you stay there long enough. If you are indeed uninjured, sir, I am very glad of it. Can you get up, do you think, if we both help you?’
‘It is none of your affair if I wish to rest here quietly for a moment,’ he ground out preposterously. Cecilia had the odd sense that he knew he was being perfectly ridiculous, and that annoyed him all the more.
He was almost as dark as Cecilia herself, his glossy hair abundant and wildly disordered, and his beaver hat had come off and rolled, inevitably, into a deep puddle. She picked it up and shook it, looking at him covertly through her own lashes all the while. His face was handsome and resolute, possibly too resolute for comfort, but a livid scar ran down it from brow to square chin, its flesh puckered as if it had been roughly sewn on the battlefield or soon after. It had missed his eye and mouth, but barely, and some part of her brain wondered that their visitor Miss Pallant had not thought to mention it when she’d been talking of him, since she had not appeared to be suffering from an excess of delicacy in any other respect. Bianca, she thought, would tell her later that he had suffered a sabre cut not long since, and she could see for herself that he was lucky to have preserved his vision, if not his temper.
‘You can’t possibly desire to do anything so silly,’ she told him bluntly. ‘And you must surely see that we can’t go away and leave you here like… like a stranded turtle. We have only your word for it that you are not hurt; it would be wickedly neglectful of us to desert you so, and we shan’t do it, so you might as well save your breath. Will you take our hands and let us pull you up, or would it be better if we kneel and you use the support of our shoulders to help you stand?’
‘Neither!’
‘Well, it will have to be one or the other, since we can’t possibly carry you. We’d be sure to drop you and do you further harm. Oh, no, I have it, sir – there are several labourers commencing work on the Hall grounds today.’ There weren’t, of course, but it was doubtful if he could be confident of that. ‘I shall run and fetch them; they can bring a hurdle for you to lie on and between them, I am sure they will be able to drag you…’ He’d hate that ingenious but undignified idea; she was very glad she’d thought of it.
He sighed like a man provoked past all endurance. ‘Give me your hands,’ he muttered with scant civility. And then a split second later, ‘Please?’
While speaking, he’d struggled into a sitting position, his knees bent, and reached out large, ungloved hands, his very posture grudging as he did so. It seemed a shockingly intimate thing to Cecilia, to touch the bare skin of a strange man; his hands were warm, a little rough, but she pushed aside the thought and concentrated on what must be done. She and Bianca planted their booted feet as securely as they could in the sand and braced themselves. Between them, they had the strength to haul him to his feet, but it was a close-run thing, so tall and heavy was he. At the last moment, he staggered and almost fell and pulled them on top of him, thus tipping the whole ridiculous scene over into pure farce, but providentially, he managed to regain his balance in the end, to stand looking down at them, scowling sandily.
Cecilia, who was trying very hard not to smile and mostly succeeding, gravely and silently handed him his sodden, ruined hat. He looked at it and clearly thought better of putting it back on his head; this was fortunate, as she feared that her fragile composure would not have survived the sight of him glowering furiously at her with water trickling down his face and seaweed decorating his ears.
‘Thank you,’ he said grudgingly at last. Clearly, he intended to say nothing more, nor would he introduce himself; ordinary civility was not an option for this man.
Some imp of mischief impelled her to drop him an exaggerated curtsey, all the while aware that Bianca was looking at her as though she had run mad. ‘I am sure it was our pleasure to be of some little assistance, sir,’ she said airily. ‘Do you think you will be able to…?’
‘Yes!’ he barked and pivoted on his heel, wobbling a little, and stomped ungracefully off. He then realised that he’d forgotten his stick, and was obliged to come back for that. Cecilia had noticed it a moment earlier and picked it up too, smiling a little as she held it out; there was no limit to her helpfulness today. He seized it from her hand, nodding stiffly as he did so, then turning away again.
It was not the sort of situation in which a dignified departure was really possible, and the rigid line of his broad back, the very angle at which he held his head, showed that he knew it. They stood watching him go. He was a wounded man as well as an excessively ill-tempered one; it would have been quite wicked to wish that he might fall over again, because he really might hurt himself another time rather than just injuring his precious masculine dignity.
‘It was a great pleasure to make your acquaintance, I am sure, Major Bartrum,’ she murmured satirically.
‘Men are so peculiar, and so ridiculously proud,’ Bianca put in. ‘I cannot wonder at you mocking him a little with your curtsey. Do you think he disliked us so merely because we witnessed him in such an undignified situation, or was it because he knows who we are – he must, don’t you think, and you mentioned the Hall besides? – and resented us bitterly for cutting him out of his inheritance from his godmother? Or both?’
‘I have no idea, but I am certain we will find out soon enough!’
15
Cecilia and Bianca returned to the house, shaking copious amounts of sand out of their damp skirts on the way, and continued their search around the rest of the exterior walls, and then inside, upstairs, in their bedrooms, the passageways, and the many unused chambers. But by the time Lucy called them for luncheon by vigorously striking an old gong that stood in the hall, they had still found nothing but dust, spiders’ webs, and a sad, desiccated dead bird in the grate of one of the abandoned rooms. They ate cold pork, bread, cheese and apples while they told the story of their little seaside adventure, and Bea and Miss Macintyre shook their heads over men and their folly.
Beatrice had had a more productive morning, without question. Though she had gained no useful information about the house from Mrs Pritty, two young women from the village had been engaged as permanent maidservants, and a middle-aged gardener and handyman had also been taken on, with more extensive temporary help called upon to do the heavy work of cleaning and clearing, both inside the house and outside. Decorating, if needed, could also be easily arranged for a slightly later date. It would be chaos for a few days, starting from tomorrow, but at the end of it, the Hall should be in a better state, both more comfortable for its inhabitants and ready to receive visitors.
They should be thinking, Bea told them, of making a list of required furniture; there was a public auction in the market town in a day or two, the housekeeper had told her, which would be too good an opportunity to miss, as it only happened once a month and always attracted a great crowd of eager bidders. Cecilia readily volunteered to go, with the old governess’s experience to support her, and they fell to discussing what pieces she should look out for and how much it would be sensible to pay for them. Sofas, they all agreed, were the first necessity, if comfortable and reasonably attractive ones could be found. Nobody was terribly concerned what colour they should be, or for following the dictates of fashion, as long as they did not end up with something perfectly hideous. They could always tie the rooms together, she suggested optimistically, with bright cushions and rugs; after all, they need please only themselves, since they were not expecting Mr Brummell or the Regent to come calling and sneer at their taste, or lack of it.
Bea had engaged herself to continue going over the linen and china lists with Mrs Pritty after nuncheon; she confided that she was quite enjoying it, as it soothed her passion for order and made her feel she was making solid progress. Bianca, in a rare moment of self-sacrifice, said that she would write Cecilia’s notes up in an orderly and legible manner and create a master list of things that they already knew they needed to purchase, and Cecilia herself proposed that she should continue to explore the garden and outbuildings to see what needed to be done there, so that the gardener and his temporary helpers might set about it tomorrow. Miss Macintyre exclaimed over their youthful energy, but for herself favoured a nap.
‘But I am nervous,’ Bea cautioned them, ‘at the prospect of more lady visitors later this afternoon. We didn’t expect anyone yesterday, and look what happened. I think we should all wash and change and meet in the parlour before four, with tea, in case anyone does come. There’s no point us having bought all those expensive new clothes if everyone who calls on us finds us in dirty old rags with our hair coming down. Mrs Pritty said that Mrs Bartrum and the vicar’s wife – I think her name was Drinkwater – would be certain to call at some point. Don’t leave me alone to face them, and Bianca, if she appears to support me, all covered in ink and talking her usual nonsense. Ceci, please, I need you too.’
Cecilia conceded that tea would probably be welcome by then in any case, and they separated, Miss Macintyre cautioning them that she had already seen and spoken to as many people as she could bear today while helping to interview the prospective servants, and anticipated that her nap would be a long one. She was not needed as a chaperon when no gentlemen were likely to be present; if any ladies did call, they could brave them on their own.
The weather remained pleasant outside, and Cecilia took a moment to gaze on the endlessly fascinating view again. The breeze was still stiff, and there were several small boats scudding about quite far out in the bay; she knew nothing of sailing, and so could not tell if they were fishing vessels, contained persons engaged in expeditions of pleasure, or something else entirely. She could not see anyone on the sand now, though, and presumed that Major Bartrum had reached his home, wherever it was, without further mishap.
She was able to get straight in her head the whole extent of the property now; it was not particularly large, and consisted of the overgrown gardens, with various decrepit summerhouses that needed urgent attention if they were not to fall down entirely, the lawns at the rear overlooking the bay, the tangled shrubbery around the drive, and a small, thickly grown wood reaching back from the shoreline and almost encircling the house. This copse had a little stream running through it down to the sea, and would be a pleasant place to stroll out of the sun or the wind, if the undergrowth could only be tamed a little; there must have been paths through the trees once, and perhaps places to sit overlooking the water.
Mr and Mrs Albery had plainly chosen the Hall, which they had renamed, as a country retreat from the exigences of business, and had had no desire for home farms, great tracts of land or hunting preserves. There were no tenants; the estate produced no income and incurred no responsibility beyond its maintenance. It was a home and nothing more. Now it was theirs.
Feeling a little foolish and deciding that it didn’t matter, she picked some flowers, mostly bluebells, and brought them inside to put in water before going up to change her raiment. So the parlour had a touch of colour to set off the girls’ sombre gowns when Lucy flung open the door and declared impartially, and with conscious drama, ‘Mrs Bartrum and Mrs Drinkwater have come to ask if you are at home, miss!’
