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The nursery was a bright south-facing room full of sunlight and chintz, with a low nursing chair by the window, a rocking chair next to the large, well-railed and guarded fireplace, and at present, since the child was so young, a day crib. The nursery maid, a young girl with a handsome face and skin like cream, was busy feeding the baby, about a year and a half old, with fingers of bread and butter dipped in a chopped and buttered boiled egg. Hester and Rosamond did not interrupt but stood watching.
The baby, a quiff of blond hair along the crown of his head like a little bird's comb, was obviously enjoying himself immensely. He accepted every mouthful with perfect obedience and his cheeks grew fatter and fatter. Then with shining eyes he took a deep breath and blew it all out, to the nursery maid's utter consternation. He laughed so hard his face was bright pink and he fell over sideways in his chair, helpless with delight.
Rosamond was filled with embarrassment, but all Hester could do was laugh with the baby, while the maid dabbed at her once spotless apron with a damp cloth.
"Master Harry, you shouldn't do that!" the maid said as fiercely as she dared, but there was no real anger in her voice, more simple exasperation at having been caught yet again.
"Oh you dreadful child." Rosamond went and picked him up, holding him close to her and laying the pale head with its wave of hair close to her cheek. He was still crowing with joy, and looked over his mother's shoulder at Hester with total confidence that she would love him.
They spent a happy hour in gentle conversation, then left the maid to continue with her duties, and Rosamond showed Hester the main nursery where Lovel, Menard and Joscelin had played as children: the rocking horse, the toy soldiers, the wooden swords, the musical boxes, and the kaleidoscope; and the dolls' houses left by an earlier generation of girls—perhaps Callandra herself?
Next they looked at the schoolroom with its tables and shelves of books. Hester found her hands picking at first
idly over old exercises of copperplate writing, a child's early, careful attempts. Then as she progressed to adolescent years and essays she found herself absorbed in reading the maturing hand. It was an essay in light, fluent style, surprisingly sharp for one so young and with a penetrating, often unkind wit. The subject was a family picnic, and she found herself smiling as she read, but there was pain in it, an awareness under the humor of cruelty. She did not need to look at the spine of the book to know it was Joscelin's.
She found one of Lovel's and turned the pages till she discovered an essay of similar length. Rosamond was searching a small desk for a copy of some verses, and there was time to read it carefully. It was utterly unlike, diffident, romantic, seeing beyond the simple woodland of Shelburne a forest where great deeds could be done, an ideal woman wooed and loved with a clean and untroubled emotion so far from the realities of human need and difficulty Hester found her eyes prickling for the disillusion that must come to such a youth.
She closed the pages with their faded ink and looked across at Rosamond, the sunlight on her bent head as she fingered through duty books looking for some special poem that caught her own high dream. Did either she or Lovel see beyond the princesses and the knights in armor the fallible, sometimes weak, sometimes frightened, often foolish people beneath—who needed immeasurably more courage, generosity and power to forgive than the creatures of youth's dreams—and were so much more precious?
She wanted to find the third essay, Menard's—and it took her several minutes to locate a book of his and read it. It was stiff, far less comfortable with words, and all through it there was a passionate love of honor, a loyalty to friendship and a sense of history as an unending cavalcade of the proud and the good, with sudden images borrowed from the tales of King Arthur. It was derivative and stilted, but the sincerity still shone through, and she
doubted the man had lost the values of the boy who had written so intensely—and awkwardly.
Rosamond had found her poem at last, and was so absorbed in it that she was unaware of Hester's movement towards her, or that Hester glanced over her shoulder and saw that it was an anonymous love poem, very small and very tender.
Hester looked away and walked to the door. It was not something upon which to intrude.
Rosamond closed the book and followed a moment after, recapturing her previous gaiety with an effort which Hester pretended not to notice.
"Thank you for coming up," she said as they came back into the main landing with its huge jardinieres of flowers. "It was kind of you to be so interested."
"It is not kindness at all," Hester denied quickly. "I think it is a privilege to see into the past as one does in nurseries and old schoolrooms. I thank you for allowing me to
come. And of course Harry is delightful! Who could fail to be happy in his presence?"
Rosamond laughed and made a small gesture of denial with her hand, but she was obviously pleased. They made their way downstairs together and into the dining room, where luncheon was already served and Lovel was waiting for them. He stood up as they came in, and took a step towards Rosamond. For a moment he seemed about to._ speak, then the impulse died.
She waited a moment, her eyes full of hope. Hester hated herself for being there, but to leave now would be absurd; the meal was set and the footman waiting to serve it. She knew Callandra had gone to visit an old acquaintance, because it was on Hester's behalf that she had made the journey, but Fabia was also absent and her place was not set.
Lovel saw her glance.
"Mama is not well," he said with a faint chill. "She has remained in her room."
"I am sorry," Hester said automatically. "I hope it is nothing serious?"
"I hope not," he agreed, and as soon as they were seated, resumed his own seat and indicated that the footman might begin to serve them.
Rosamond nudged Hester under the table with her foot, and Hester gathered that the situation was delicate, and wisely did not pursue it.
The meal was conducted with stilted and trivial conversation, layered with meanings, and Hester thought of the boy's essay, the old poem, and all the levels of dreams and realities where so much fell through between one set of meanings and another, and was lost.
Afterwards she excused herself and went to do what she realized was her duty. She must call on Fabia and apologize for having been rude to General Wadham. He had deserved it, but she was Fabia's guest, and she should not have embarrassed her, regardless of the provocation.
It was best done immediately; the longer she thought about it the harder it would be. She had little patience with minor ailments; she had seen too much desperate disease, and her own health was good enough she did not know from experience how debilitating even a minor pain can be when stretched over time.
She knocked on Fabia's door and waited until she heard the command to enter, then she turned the handle and went in.
It was a less feminine room than she had expected. It was plain light Wedgwood blue and sparsely furnished compared with the usual cluttered style. A single silver vase held summer roses in full bloom on the table by the window; the bed was canopied in white muslin, like the inner curtains. On the farthest wall, where the sun was diffused, hung a fine portrait of a young man in the uniform of a cavalry officer. He was slender and straight, his fair hair falling over a broad brow, pale, intelligent eyes and a mobile mouth, humorous, articulate, and she thought in that fleeting instant, a little weak.
