Chapter 10
The Constantine sisters had managed to convince Mrs Pritty that they should assist her and Lucy until more staff could be employed; they carried out the tea things to the kitchen, and would have helped her cook dinner if she would have allowed them to.
She shooed them firmly out, but did give consent for them to set the table in the small dining room and help Lucy bring in and clear away the dishes both before and after the meal.
They would not, she said, be washing plates and pots and pans; not in her kitchen, not while she lived and breathed.
They sat down at six to a solid dinner of stewed pork, accompanied by scalloped oysters, braised onions, carrots and buttery mashed potatoes.
There was an apple tart with cream to follow, and local cheeses besides.
It was not an elegant or dainty repast, but they were all extremely hungry and fell on it with enthusiasm.
Mrs Pritty had also sent in wine from the late Mr Albery’s cellars, a couple of bottles of old, cobwebby Bordeaux, and it seemed rude not to drink it.
This was a celebration, after all, and it was their wine now.
They toasted him and his wife, Mr Cotwin, Mrs Pritty, Mr Fisk and Lucy with the small, mismatched glasses that were all the house afforded; Miss Macintyre said that they were antiques.
Afterwards, they sat and played cards in the parlour until they were all yawning over their hands, losing concentration and agreeing that it was time for bed.
It had been a long and successful day. The house was real – they all confessed that they had not quite believed in it until they had actually set eyes on it – and it was theirs now, along with everything in it, even if the current contents didn’t appear to amount to much.
They were about to sleep in their new home for the first time, and wake to a day full of untold possibilities; they were all three of them laughing a little giddily as they climbed the stairs with Miss Macintyre.
They’d taken the trouble earlier, before it had grown dark, to carry up sufficient water for them all to wash with, though it would be cold by now, and Cecilia knew she really should undress and make ready for bed without delay, but instead, she set down her candlestick and went over to the window.
She hadn’t drawn the curtains yet, as the house could hardly be described as overlooked, their nearest neighbours being cottages a few hundred yards away, inland, unseen from here.
There was a slice of moon set in an almost cloudless sky, and the sweep of the view that it offered to her was magnificent.
The sea was silvered and foxed like her old Venetian mirror, and almost as calm as the glass tonight, except where white teeth of foam bit at the shore, glowing slightly and making complex, lacy patterns.
Distant lights picked out the few scattered dwellings along the bay; those gathered together near the mouth of the estuary must belong to the small fishing village there.
Probably that was where their oysters tonight had come from, and perhaps also their no-doubt-smuggled Bordeaux. It was a peaceful scene.
But there was someone, with a light, moving across the sands.
The tide was in, or partly in – Cecilia had not been here long enough to tell – and the beach was much reduced in size, but there must still be space to walk along it between the low, crumbling cliffs and the waves, because somebody was doing so, presumably with a lantern to guide their steps.
It could not, surely, be the unfriendly Major Bartrum, taking his exercise at such an eccentric hour, so who in the name of heaven might it be?
Cecilia told herself sternly that she had read far too many tales of smugglers, brigands, and French spies; it was far more likely to be someone making his unsteady way home from the alehouse in the village, or from visiting a friend or family member there, to one of the isolated cottages further along the coast. There was no need to look for fanciful explanations when prosaic ones lay ready to hand.
It was no affair of hers, either, if people chose to walk about in the dark.
She shook her head, closed the curtains, and slowly began to undress.