The maid seized the teapot as if she wanted to strangle it, and retreated.
After the door closed behind her, an awkward little silence threatened to assert itself. ‘Won’t you sit down, Miss Pallant?’ Cecilia said hastily. ‘Is your home far away? I didn’t hear a carriage arrive, but perhaps I wasn’t attending.’
Their unexpected visitor sank into a chair in a manner that might have been used to teach deportment. If she saw and judged the rips and stains on the upholstery, she gave no sign of it. ‘Not terribly far – a couple of miles or so. I walked – does that shock you? It’s quicker if one crosses the sand rather than going inland through the lanes, although the tides can be dangerous and come in fast, so I wouldn’t recommend it until you have grown more accustomed to the rhythms of life here.’ Miss Pallant, they now observed, was wearing stout leather boots under her stylish sky-blue military-style pelisse, the hem of which was indeed a little sandy. She might look like a fairy princess who had floated here on a cloud, but she was clearly robust enough for a four-mile walk.
‘Oh, I saw someone making their way across the strand from my window a while ago,’ Cecilia said. ‘Too far away to be able to distinguish them particularly. I wonder if it was you?’ It was a fatuous sort of a thing to say, she was painfully aware, but conversation didn’t seem to be exactly flowing, and it was the only innocuous comment she could think of in the moment.
The angel smiled. ‘It might have been, but more likely it was Major Bartrum. He is our local military hero, but he was wounded at Saint-Dizier last year and then was dreadfully ill with a fever for a long time afterwards. He has been observed by several people stomping across the beach at all hours, for the healthful exercise, one must suppose. He isn’t very friendly or agreeable, so I do not go out of my way to encounter him. I don’t know if it’s me he dislikes, or women in general. He is not married, of course, at nearly thirty, which argues for the latter. I have heard whispers that there is a broken engagement in his past. If so, one can only sympathise with the lady on her lucky escape.’
It seemed imprudent to respond to these apparently artless confidences; the newcomers should hardly be drawn into engaging in gossip about a gentleman they’d never heard of before that moment.
‘I did not know that the British were engaged at Saint-Dizier,’ Bianca said, and Cecilia sighed in inward relief at the innocuous response. Allegra was generally acknowledged to be Mrs Constantine’s favourite child, since everyone else had the vague impression that they swapped confidences from which the other sisters were somehow excluded, but Bianca and her mother shared a mutual fascination with the minutiae of the progress of the war, even its obscurest battles, and pored over the latest newspapers for hours together. Cecilia, for her part, had never even heard of this one.
Miss Pallant shrugged with superb indifference. ‘I don’t think they were. I have no great knowledge of such dull military matters, I confess, but I seem to recall my elder brother saying that the Major was unlucky to be there at all; that he was sent with important dispatches to Marshal Tettenborn – if that’s the name; how silly it is – and then caught up in the battle by pure chance. If you are really interested, Miss Bianca, you must ask my brother Oliver to tell you more, which I am sure he will be delighted to do. I certainly would not recommend enquiring of the Major himself, or you shall get your head bitten off for your pains.’
‘Do you live with your brother and his wife, Miss Pallant?’ Bea asked. ‘Forgive us our vulgar curiosity, but we have a great deal to do to set all the people in the district straight in our heads.’
The visitor laughed; it was like little silver bells tinkling, and had a mesmerising effect. ‘No, ma’am, my brother Lord Pallant is not married either – though nobody would accusehimof disliking women, I assure you – nor is my younger sibling, Sebastian, though he is little more than a boy, of course. We live together, just the three of us, since my mother died five years ago. You must come over to dine, once you are settled. I don’t think you have ever visited the region before?’
‘Thank you, that would be delightful,’ said Bea. ‘No, we have not. Our father had an estate in Surrey, but we have spent most of our time in London, especially of late years. You must understand that we did not even know Mrs Albery existed until we heard of her death. She was our great-great-great-aunt, we believe, or something of that nature, on our father’s side. Not a close relationship, in any event.’
Something flickered darkly in Miss Pallant’s limpid blue eyes, though Cecilia could not have said what it was. Disbelief, perhaps, derision, or plain jealousy. ‘Well, I should have condoled with you on your sad loss before now, should I not, Miss Constantine? Disgraceful of me to forget such a courtesy. But perhaps it is not so very bad that I neglected to do so, since one cannot really be expected to mourn a person of whom one had never heard when she was alive, and who has left one all her fortune besides.’
‘It is an interesting point,’ Miss Macintyre said calmly. She obviously feared that her former charges might be frozen in shock at this very blunt comment. ‘I have never been a great promoter of convention for convention’s sake, only of good manners, which should be universal. The Misses Constantine are wearing mourning, as you will have observed, Miss Pallant, purely as an act of respect. Mrs Albery is deceased, after all, even though they did not have the opportunity to know her, and apparently, she had no closer connections to regret her passing. Wereyouwell acquainted with her?’
Lucy returned with the teapot and fresh crockery, making a welcome distraction; Bea poured out for Miss Pallant, added milk at a nod from her, and handed her the cup. Lucy had not brought sugar, but as a family, they did not take it as a matter of principle, given its origins; if Miss Pallant did, she would have to manage without it on this occasion. The maid had also not fetched a clean plate, though there was still cake left. Nobody commented on this, not even their visitor.
‘Not very well,’ she said. ‘My mother used to call on her years ago, and I upheld the custom when I was old enough, but she never seemed particularly glad to see me, nor could I easily find – without any particular help from her, you must understand – a topic of discussion that would interest us both, so I must confess, I rather let the acquaintance lapse. Oliver came to see her occasionally; she was long past the age, of course, where either of them needed to heed propriety, and I think she was the sort of woman who preferred masculine company, and perhaps a salty tale. Some women are queer that way, are they not? But recently, she had kept to her room, being unwell, and I’m not sure she saw anyone. Mrs Drinkwater, perhaps, the vicar’s wife, and the vicar himself. And Major Bartrum and his mother, naturally – I believe she was his godmother, so he may have felt a duty to see her regularly, despite his general unsociability.’
Cecilia instantly fell to wondering if Mrs Albery had acknowledged this important relationship in her last testament, since Mr Cotwin had not thought to mention it, and how Major Bartrum – about whom at present they knew nothing more than that he was a wounded military man and (allegedly) unfriendly – felt about this. Might he have expected to inherit more – to inherit all, rather than three strangers? It was an uncomfortable notion.
‘Forgive me,’ their visitor said confidingly, ‘but you do make such a charming picture, the three of you. It makes me wish I had been blessed with a sister, or at least a female cousin of my own age – anything but dreary brothers. Are you the only members of your immediate family living?’
‘No, far from it,’ Bianca responded. ‘Our mother is still alive and in excellent health, but she does not care for the country, so Miss Macintyre was good enough to accompany us. We also have three married sisters, older than us, but they are occupied with their families, naturally. They have a great number of children between them.’ There were many people, Cecilia knew from her Seasons, who would have found it quite natural and even imperative to insert the fact that Viola was a duchess – twice a duchess – and Allegra married to a distinguished Member of Parliament, but Bianca was fortunately not one of them.
‘Well, if the rest of your family come to stay and bring all their no doubt delightful children, the countryside will be in uproar. Your own arrival is quite exciting enough.’ Miss Pallant finished her tea and set down her cup. She must be a woman of strong self-control; she did not so much as glance at the cake, moist and tempting as it was. ‘I must go,’ she told them, dimpling charmingly. ‘I am not quite so lost to all sense of decorum that I would prolong a first visit beyond what is permissible. I am sure you must have a thousand things to do to set the house to rights that will keep you busy for weeks ahead. Perhaps I may call again another day, though, when you have had a chance to establish yourself? I expect I might be useful if you have any questions about where to shop, and so on. It is a tedious sort of place to live, as I have said, but it is all I know, and I do know it well.’
The ladies rose with her, murmuring assent and thanks, and a moment later, she was gone, trilling gaily that there was not the least need to summon poor Lucy to show her out.
‘Goodness me,’ said Miss Macintyre when the door was safely closed behind her and the heavy front door had been heard to slam in turn a moment later. ‘I must confess, I took an instant dislike to that extraordinary young woman.’
‘Did you, ma’am?’ asked Bianca innocently. ‘I am sure I would never have guessed.’
And the sisters looked at each other, then burst into gales of laughter, which soon left them helpless and gasping on the worn old sofas.
9
It took Miss Pallant no little while to make her way back across the sands to her home, and her pelisse was muddy at the hem and her boots stained with salt by the time she had done so. Her lovely face was rosy from the exercise and the breeze, and tendrils of gold had come undone and clung to her brow and cheeks. She heaved open the enormous, heavy front door with ease of long practice, and shrugged the soiled coat off in the cavernous great hall, hanging it in an informal manner upon the newel post, along with several others. She then threw down her bonnet on a cluttered console table, before making her way to the library, which was her older brother’s peculiar sanctum.
Pallant Manor was an older house than Albery Hall, and considerably more decrepit in appearance; the lack of care here was neither superficial nor recent in date. There was damp staining the plaster at the corner of the room by the window, and the pungent odour of old books insufficiently cared for pervaded the chamber, which was as untidy and cluttered as the entrance hall. But there was a cheerful little fire crackling in the grate, despite the season, and Lord Pallant was reading at his leisure in an armchair close by it. He did not rise when his sister entered, but set aside his book, picked up with one elegant hand a quizzing glass that hung upon a ribbon around his neck, and surveyed her critically through it. He did not speak; words were scarcely necessary, since his gaze was so eloquent. She flushed further under his cool regard, but did not challenge him for his incivility.
It was said in the neighbourhood – along with many other things less flattering – that the Pallant family were the handsomest people of any rank or station in life for many miles around. They were all three of them tall, blond, well made, with chiselled features and striking dark-blue eyes. Oliver, Lord Pallant, the head of the family at thirty or a little more, was the most impressive in appearance, since he had broad shoulders, a muscular frame, and an air of unquestionable authority despite the careless informality of his dress. He was very plainly a person to be reckoned with. Had he not been so light in colouring, he might easily have merited the fashionable description ‘Byronic’; only a lady unaccountably prejudiced against a fair complexion would have denied that he was excessively good-looking. He might easily, from his bearing, have been a nobleman of the highest rank with vast ancestral estates and a fortune at his back, rather than a baron of precarious standing occupying a crumbling house in the middle of nowhere.
‘I saw them!’ Vivienne said impetuously, when it became clear that he would not speak first.
‘I would assume so,’ her brother rejoined with glacial calm, ‘since you have been gone this age. Are you going to give me your no doubt unreliable impressions of the family, or must I torture it out of you with a hot poker?’ This was not said with anger, or indeed any perceptible emotion at all; impossible to tell if he was joking, though he surely must be. Miss Pallant, at any rate, obeyed him, sinking into a chair opposite his and launching into impetuous speech.
‘There are three of them – yes, yes, we knew that already, you do not need to tell me so – and an old Scottish chaperon, who I think must once have been their governess; she has that air about her. One of them is perhaps five and twenty or thereabouts, and the other two closer in age to each other, and several years younger. They were not well dressed, wearing drab old mourning several years behind the mode, but then I surprised them before they had a chance to change out of their travelling clothes. They are dark, all of them, hair and eyes both, and handsome enough, in a foreign sort of a way. In that respect, there is little to choose between them, but if you were to ask my opinion – which I know you won’t – the middle daughter, Cecilia, might be the best for your purposes. She is not at her last prayers by any means, but she has had a London Season or two, I venture, and is therefore not likely to be in the least impressed by Seb’s juvenile posturing or hisbeauxyeux.’
