She and Bianca walked the Pallants to the door – or saw them off the premises, depending on your point of view – and Vivienne found an occasion to whisper, ‘I shall walk over to see you tomorrow morning! Will you be here?’
She could only nod.
The sisters had spent the day rearranging furniture, finally getting round to picking out and setting to rights a couple of guest rooms, in case their mother or one of their sisters should take it into their heads to visit them. New linen would be needed, and another trip into Debenbridge for that and other things. Mrs Constantine at least was quite capable of turning up unannounced, to check on their domestic arrangements and scour the neighbourhood for suitable suitors; there was no longer any need for this, after the change in their fortunes, but it seemed likely that she would not easily break the habit of so many years.
Bea had another restless night, though she did not hear Cecilia on the stairs – she had no idea if this was because she’d dozed for a moment, or if no meeting had occurred. They hadn’t spoken on the subject for a little while, and in her own deep uncertainty about Miss Pallant’s motives, she had no wish to initiate such a potentially awkward conversation.
She was out in the garden early next morning, and declined Bianca’s invitation to accompany her, Cecilia and Miss Macintyre to the market town to do a little shopping and carriage-driving practice. She’d almost worked herself into a fever of anxiety when Vivienne finally appeared at the top of the steps. She still had not the least idea what she’d say to her, and how much she dared reveal. But she rose and said, ‘Come and sit in the summerhouse, Vivienne. I do not think you have seen it yet, now that it has been set to rights.’
Miss Pallant was wearing a chip-straw bonnet trimmed with white ribbons, and her best white muslin again. She had an almost transparent habit shirt under it, and no pelisse, only a paisley shawl that was wrapped about her shoulders, crossed at the front, and tied behind. She was, as ever, almost too beautiful to be real, and the picture of maidenly innocence; Beatrice had good reason to know that this at least was untrue. But then the world presumably sawheras an anxious spinster hurtling towards thirty without even having been kissed, neither desired nor feeling desire. And God knows that was a lie.
Vivienne eyed the soft cushions in the summerhouse with approval, sitting down upon them and pulling at Bea’s hand to bring her down beside her. ‘I had hoped to have the chance to wander away into the woods with you two days ago, and kiss you very thoroughly under a tree,’ she said, taking off her bonnet. ‘Maybe more than that. I know now that you have a taste for danger, and are excited by the threat of discovery. But perhaps this is better.’
‘It is certainly more comfortable,’ she murmured, reclining. She was a terrible person, because a good person wouldn’t be doing this with so many questions hanging over the honesty of her companion. Her lover. Vivienne might well be a terrible person, too. They could be terrible together for a while. Nobody would ever know. Unless, of course…
Miss Pallant was running her fingers up Bea’s calves and then, very lightly, around the tops of her stockings.
‘Vivienne,’ she said, while she could still speak, ‘you haven’t told your brothers, your brother Oliver, about… this, have you? Us?’
‘Of course not.’ The delicate fingers were stroking her thighs, parting them. ‘Why would I do anything so foolish?’
Bea lay back and resigned herself to her fate. It might all be a pack of lies. She was very well aware of that. But just in this moment, she didn’t care a button.
36
Cecilia didn’t see the Major for a few days before the assembly. Her courses had arrived – everyone’s courses had arrived, as they generally did, all at once – and the sisters stayed close to the house for a while, bickered half-heartedly, wrote letters, and ate a great deal of cake.
Once they all felt able to, they set out to call upon Mrs Bartrum and Mrs Drinkwater, as was their duty, and she practised her driving on the way. It was coming on well, she thought, not least because Copenhagen was a placid sort of a creature and knew his business far better than she did. It was difficult to imagine what might make him bolt – an artillery shell exploding next to his ear, perhaps, or a major earthquake.
The Vicarage was shabbily comfortable, full of children and the familiar chaos they brought, but Four Winds, Mrs Bartrum’s home, was immaculately maintained and tastefully decorated. If she had doubted Alistair’s assertion that he had absolutely no need of Mrs Albery’s fortune and did not in the least resent the fact that she and her sisters had acquired it, the house might have convinced her of the truth of what he said. He wasn’t there when they visited – she supposed he must be out walking – and so she wasn’t obliged to endure the embarrassment of making polite conversation with him, in his own home, under the intent scrutiny of his fond mama.
They all admired the little old picture Mrs Albery had given to her friend to commemorate their long acquaintance. She had always liked it, Mrs Bartrum told them placidly, because it was such a peaceful domestic scene, with such pleasant, restful colours, and it looked well in her sitting room, did it not, picking out the colours of the cushions she had made? Miss Macintyre made a small choking sound and agreed that it did indeed; if she did not mistake matters, it was by someone called Vermeer, she said. Yes, a Dutch painter.
Their hostess asked them if they intended to go to the local celebration, and was glad to hear that they did. She was hoping, she said, that Alistair would finally be persuaded that he was fit to dance again, his leg being so much better just lately after all his exercise. Dancing was an activity that he had once enjoyed excessively, and if he did relent in his stubbornness, he would no doubt ask all three Miss Constantines to take the floor with him. Nobody would expect them to decline to participate fully just because they had been in mourning; Mrs Albery had not been a close relative and everyone knew it.
They deserved and would receive special attention, she told them, as newcomers to the neighbourhood. Perhaps they might not care for everyone they would be obliged to dance with, as was sadly often the case at parties – it seemed likely that this was an oblique reference to Lord Pallant and his terrible reputation – but they would be well chaperoned, she would make sure of that herself if Miss Macintyre did not care to attend, and they must agree that Major Bartrum, at least, was an unexceptionable partner of whom they need have no fear.
She was plainly matchmaking as hard as she could between the Constantines and her eldest son, but there was no sign that she had any particular sister in mind as a daughter-in-law. There was no reason, Cecilia thought, to accuse her of cupidity; obviously, a lady of ordinary good sense would rather her child married a rich woman than a poor one, all else being equal. She did not need to be told that Mrs Bartrum loved the Major deeply, and had endured years of worry on his behalf, when he’d been fighting abroad. And then he had been seriously injured, and might easily have died. His recovery had been long, slow and painful, and on top of everything, he had lost the woman he loved in a most hurtful manner. He no longer seemed to go into society very much – and here were three most eligible young women, practically upon his doorstep, as if sent by providence. Naturally, his mama would take the opportunity to thrust them together and see if anything came of it, as any loving parent would. He had spoken civilly to them at church just the other day, she must be thinking, and they were all handsome enough; why not give them a little further push? There was, as far as Cecilia knew, nobody else in the area at all suitable as a bride for him – she assumed that Mrs Bartrum would not by any means welcome any suggestion of a connection with the Pallants, their nearest neighbours, no matter how lovely Miss Pallant might be.
Cecilia had drifted off into a daydream for a moment, lost in thoughts she would have been embarrassed to share with anyone, and returned from it to realise that her hostess was telling them that her other son, Rory, was coming home from Cambridge especially for the assembly. The introduction of this name enabled Miss Macintyre to enquire properly about Mrs Bartrum’s Scottish origins at last, in quite a natural fashion, and the two older ladies were soon tangled in a thicket of marriages and cousins that permitted them to establish with some degree of certainty that they were indeed related, albeit very distantly, through the noble Murray line from the far north-east. This was an agreeable thing, everyone concurred, and they departed in an atmosphere of triumph, with Miss Macintyre and Mrs Bartrum agreeing to call each other Cousin Euphemia and Cousin Janet. Bianca whispered to Cecilia as they left that although she should have known that Miss Macintyre had a first name, because after all, everybody did, she’d never thought about it before, and was awed to be informed at this late date that it was something as splendid as Euphemia.
When they got back to the Hall, Miss Macintyre – it really was very hard to think of her as anything else – was in a fever of impatience, and would barely allow the three sisters to change out of their good visiting clothes before she dragged them into the downstairs room in which they had decided to store the many very dirty, brownish paintings that had been hung here and there about the house. Nobody had looked at them properly yet, and the room was a dark one on the side of the building still somewhat hemmed in by shrubbery, so she directed them to bring and light as many candelabra as they could find. Panting with agitation as she rifled furiously through the stacked canvases, she said that perhaps there would be more lost Vermeers, or heaven knew what else. Mrs Albery had clearly been a woman with hidden depths.
But after an hour or more of searching, the old governess was obliged to admit defeat. They were all filthy, and they’d found nothing of any significance. There was no doubt, she said rather disconsolately, that some of the paintings from the previous century had a certain amount of value, and could one day be sent to auction – not at Marjoram’s, but up in Town – if the sisters had no wish to keep them. She’d lingered for a long time over an enormous panoramic view of Venice before muttering that it probably wasn’t, after all… But there were no more Vermeers, and no Old Masters of any description revealed themselves. It seemed that Mrs Albery had given away the best of what she had to a nice woman who liked the painting because it matched her cushions. And after all, why not? Miss Macintyre then showed a disposition to become philosophical about the nature and purpose of Art, and everyone agreed hastily that they had better go and wash and change for dinner.
37
It was the night of the local celebration. Cecilia drove there, before it was fully dark, and Miss Macintyre said that she would drive back under the helpful light of the full moon. The Constantines were all attired in new evening gowns from Madame Lisette in London that they had had no opportunity to wear yet, in soft shades of violet trimmed with black velvet or silver-grey silk ribbons. Pure, unrelieved white would have been acceptable too, but they had all inherited their mother’s Italianate colouring and it did not become them.
Cecilia was aware that she was dressing with unusual care and wondering more than once, as she brushed her hair till it shone and tied her ribbons, if Alistair would consider her new gown becoming, and tell her so. But she was too busy, she scolded herself, looking in the mirror and seeing nothing, to fuss just now over what this might mean, and whether it was not illogical behaviour in a woman who knew she must not marry or contract herself for a year.
They made their way to the town’s largest inn, and left the cart in the yard with the ostler. The assembly was to be held, as was the time-honoured tradition, in Mr Marjoram’s auction room. This was, after all, essentially a barn, and had been largely cleared of its content for the occasion, apart from a great number of miscellaneous chairs and sofas that had been arranged around the periphery of the large room to enable the elderly, the exhausted, and other non-dancers to take their ease and observe the proceedings. The cost of refreshment and hire of musicians was to be defrayed by the subscription charge, which varied according to the social standing of the guests; the Constantines, guided by Mrs Bartrum, had put their household down for half a guinea, which she judged generous without being too ostentatious.
Mrs Pritty, Lucy, and even Mr Fisk were here, having been brought by Lucy’s young man Tom in his carrier’s cart; in fact, every single person Cecilia had laid eyes on since she’d come to Suffolk seemed to be in the room, dancing already, sitting, or standing gossiping, including Mrs Bardwell, whose gold silk gown and exuberantly plumed turban were things of wonder, and the elderly, wizened man who had sold her the excellent potatoes. There was no ceremony to be observed here, no lady of highest rank opening proceedings with the most distinguished gentleman, and no dance cards to be marked. The sisters were soon pulled into the whirling throng by men they did not know, but when her first hectic set ended, Cecilia found Major Bartrum waiting for her.
‘You look very handsome tonight, Miss Cecilia,’ he told her. His face was quite composed, but his grey eyes were smiling with private significance, and she found herself blushing.
‘So do you, sir,’ she said a little breathlessly. It was true. He was more formally dressed than she had ever seen him, and the dark coat and knee-breeches became him excessively. He might not be a London dandy, but his jacket was well cut and clung lovingly to his broad shoulders and muscular chest. And as for his thighs… Best not to look at his thighs, for both their sakes.
