Ralph Albert Scully
1801–1819
Son, soldier, beloved
This was what she had shown Lord Featherfinch that night.
“Is . . . Ralph lying to rest in Chiddington?” Clementine asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You could ask his mother.” For that matter, Olive could ask Mrs. Scully about the circumstances of Ralph’s death.
“But how would I do that?”
“Well, what do you say to her when you give her money?”
“Nothing. I send it to her anonymously.”
Clementine had to swallow a gasp. She felt as though she were being cut down as surely as any soldier. How thoroughly she had misunderstood her sister, and for so long. Foryears. What a waste. But such a lament was not what Olive needed now. And more to the point, there was no sense in crying over wasted years. They had a lifetime ahead of them. She hoped. “You could look for the stone while you’re there.” There were only two cemeteries in the village.
Clementine regretted the suggestion immediately. Olive . . . Well, she crumpled.
Clementine felt terrible. Olive hadjusttold Clementine she could not bear to be in Chiddington, and Clementine was suggesting she wander through its cemeteries in search of the grave of her lost love?
“No,” Clementine said quietly but firmly. “I see that you can’t do that. It was an ill-thought suggestion.” Seeing her sister so upset, knowing she’d hidden such grief—and such love—for so long, continued to make her head spin. “What about the list?”
“You still think I was lying about that?”
“No! I was merely hoping it might provide some comfort in your grief, or at least some distraction. Though I admit it is somewhat difficult to reconcile all that you have told me, all that I’ve seen just now of how losing Ralph has shaped you, with that list.”
Olive lifted one shoulder, and let it fall. The gesture seemed to return some of her former veneer to her, the face she showed the world. “If I can’t have Ralph, I don’t care who I marry.”
“I’m not sure I follow. You don’t care who you marry, yet you seem at least somewhat invested in the list.”
“Well, life is short, is it not? But also long.”
Clementine thought she understood. “You are biding your time.”
“Yes. I will settle for someone, at some point, but I will try to wring as much as I can out of the doing. At least that is what I tell myself in London. I can distract myself there, with parties and dresses and such.” She performed another shrug. “If you have to be in pain, you might as well be surrounded by pretty things and delicious food. If your spirit must suffer, why not coddle your body?”
Astonishing. And logical, in its way. Clementine rued all the days she’d spent thinking her sister shallow, when she was actually burying her pain in pretty things.
Olive shot Clementine a wry smile. “These revelations shouldn’t raise your opinion of me too much, Sister. It isn’t all performance. Idolove a party—and a hair ribbon, and when a gentleman prostrates himself at my feet and proclaims his undying love.” Clementine smiled as Olive sobered. “It only works in London, though.”
Clementine wished there was something she could do to ease her sister’s sorrow. “I wonder if there is a way you could return to Chiddington and see it as the site of all your good memories with Ralph, rather than a source of torment.”
“No. Perhaps someday, but not yet. I know the dogs much prefer the country, and I feel guilty keeping them from it, but I can’t bear it there. At Easter, I was miserable.”
Clementine remembered that. She had thought at the time that Olive’s antisocial behavior was snobbishness, that she was being petulant and self-absorbed. How gravely she had misunderstood.
Olive stood suddenly, briskly returning her needlework and book to their drawers. “You will go home, though, to Hill House. I will help you convince Father to allow it. I am very good at manipulating him.”
“And you will stay in London?” Clementine asked, though she knew the answer. Knew there could be no other answer.
“Yes.”
“I don’t like the idea that our home is not the same.” Especially now that she felt, for the first time in years, that she truly saw Olive, and that Olive truly saw her.
