Chapter 24
The sisters were all tired after their busy day, even Bea, who, as she admitted, had been nowhere and done nothing in particular, and they agreed to call a halt to their nightly card game rather earlier than usual, especially since they must be up betimes the next day to supervise the removal of the old furniture to some unused downstairs room (of which there were many) and the delivery of the new sofa and chairs.
But Cecilia found she could not like the prospect of going up to bed so soon, and told the sleepy company that she was going out for a breath of air, and would lock the front door when she was done.
She’d driven and walked many miles today, bid at her first auction, bought potatoes and eaten them, and had various interesting encounters with all sorts of people.
Now her brain was buzzing with jumbled impressions and snatches of conversation, and she knew she would not sleep until she found a way to still it.
In London, she’d have been condemned to lie awake for hours, listening to Bianca’s soft breathing at her side.
There was not even a garden she could go to there, not so much as a balcony or terrace.
The streets were not safe, and it was not permitted for a lady or any respectable woman to walk them alone, even in daylight.
But here, there was no one to stop her leaving the house, no one (for instance, her mama) to tell her she was crazy and would catch her death, and so she slipped out into the deliciously cool evening air and made her way across the lawn and down the steps to the beach.
The tide was going out, and the sun had not long since set; it was a little after nine and still not fully dark, and the moon was just rising, waxing and gibbous.
The scene laid out before her was so beautiful and tranquil that it took her breath away.
It occurred to her after a few moments that she was being foolish; she had seen a light out on the sand, a few nights ago, and it might be rash to assume that she was any safer here alone that she would be on the streets of Bloomsbury.
Just because she was rich now did not mean she was safe.
Were women ever safe? But this was her home now, and she refused to live in fear.
‘I’ll be damned if I do,’ she said aloud to herself.
‘Will you, now?’ a deep voice said from a few yards away.
She gasped and swirled to face the intruder, then sagged in relief – she had no time to examine why precisely she should be so instantly relieved – when she saw the tall, broad figure of Major Bartrum standing a little distance from her, leaning on his cane and regarding her satirically.
‘What are you doing here?’ she shot out crossly.
‘You don’t own the beach, you know, Miss Constantine.
Not below the high-water mark, at any rate, where I am currently.
I believe it belongs to the King, and he’s in no position to protest, poor soul.
I’m not trespassing; I have a perfect right to be here, as anyone does.
I could ask you the same question, for that matter. ’
She owed him no explanation of her behaviour, and did not give one. ‘Do you often come and lurk about near the Hall at night, Major?’ she asked with a little heat.
‘I’m not lurking, I’m walking, as I often do, day and night.
The tide is going out, as you may have observed, and so it is not yet possible to venture much further out and keep one’s feet reliably dry.
I’d also, as you will no doubt appreciate, rather not fall over and land in a puddle again, turtle-fashion, this time with nobody to kindly help me rise.
Therefore, I am obliged to pass closer to the shore just now – but still without trespassing, naturally – than I otherwise would.
Unless at a very high spring tide, when the moon is full, or unless there is a storm, the sand is very rarely entirely covered.
Though even I would probably not be walking out in a storm. ’
Cecilia wasn’t sure she believed him; the facts, yes, he seemed infuriatingly confident of, but his intentions…
He had the whole bay laid out at his feet, miles of it, and yet she found him here of all places.
She said boldly, possibly recklessly, ‘The other night, Miss Macintyre and I heard a noise in the house, very late. An unexplained creaking. As if someone – not one of us, because we checked and everyone else was sleeping soundly – was walking about, upstairs, where they should not be.’
‘You think it was me?’ His voice was low, a little grim. ‘I do assure you, ma’am, it wasn’t.’
‘I have no idea who it was. We didn’t see anyone, and found no sign of an intruder. But we are strangers here, and women alone. You can understand, I hope, why we should be somewhat concerned for our safety.’
He was silent for a moment, and then he said in a slightly friendlier tone, ‘Yes. Of course I can. You meet me walking alone at night – perhaps you’ve seen my lantern from your window on another occasion, later in the evening – and you naturally suspect me.
No, I’m not mocking you; that would be unjust. You don’t know me from Adam, and you’re right to be cautious. ’
It was oddly intimate, being out here alone together talking like this.
She should leave, she knew, but it was most curious – she didn’t want to.
‘The fact is, we don’t know anyone in Suffolk, and we should not delude ourselves that we do.
We’ve met several people, all apparently friendly – apart from you, of course – and we have no idea if we should trust them. ’
He laughed with a touch of derision. ‘And you’re heiresses. So maybe you shouldn’t.’
‘It’s true, we are wealthy now, most unexpectedly.
But we told your mother – though I don’t know if she’s shared it with you in turn – that we did not so much as suspect Mrs Albery’s existence before we received the letter from her lawyer telling us of her extraordinary bequest. We believe she was our great-great-great-aunt.
Our great-great-grandfather’s much younger half-sister.
So many greats, it’s hard to keep them straight in one’s head; it’s no wonder we never knew her.
The branches of the family must have lost touch years ago, long before any of us were born, or even our father, for that matter. ’
‘And yet I’ve heard her speak of you often over the years.
Of your mother’s cleverness in contriving your older sisters’ grand marriages – isn’t one of them a duchess, or twice a duchess, or some such fanciful tale?
’ His voice was a little cold now, and his face, when she glanced at it in the dusk, closed and rather forbidding.
Maybe this was an opportunity to confront him head-on and ask him what they’d all been wondering. The circumstances of her life till now had made her accustomed to guarding her tongue; perhaps that no longer needed to be the case and she could learn to speak openly.
‘Yes, she is – Viola, our second-oldest sister. Oh, you are convinced we’re nothing but fortune hunters, aren’t you?
And I daresay if I told you how hard life has been, how difficult it was for our mother and our three elder sisters, knowing we’d be almost penniless when our father died, you would not give a button for it.
There is no point me trying to persuade you of our good characters, and I shall not waste my breath on it.
Even by your own logic, sir, if such mercenary people knew that they had a rich, childless relative, would they not make very sure to visit her and gain her approval, so they might have a chance of inheriting her fortune?
Your bad opinion of us as both neglectful and greedy makes no sense; let us be one thing or the other!
But since we are speaking of such matters, what of you?
You were Mrs Albery’s godson, and by your own admission intimate with her, if she told you so much about us.
Did not you have expectations, which are now sorely disappointed, and that is why you appear to resent us so much? ’
‘It’s a reasonable question, I suppose, with the facts that you have,’ he said grudgingly.
‘The answer is no. Mrs Albery was no blood relation of ours, just a family friend, and my mother and I had no earthly claim on her, especially since we always knew that she had relations living – you, and your sisters. She did in fact leave us some thoughtful keepsakes, which she insisted on passing over when she realised that she had not long to live. She gave my mother an old picture she had always admired, and me her late husband’s gold pocket watch, which I am wearing now – a fine old piece, and I suppose quite valuable as such things go.
My brother Rory received a curiously wrought mantel clock she knew he had a fancy for.
She also sent us some particularly good wine, to our surprise, and asked that we drink it in her memory, and we have done so. We never hoped for or expected more.’
She did not reply straight away, while she digested this fresh information, and the Major went on, ‘Of course, just as you say, I have no means of persuading you of the truth of any of this. But I assure you, Miss Constantine, even without mentioning the proceeds of selling my commission, my father left us well provided for – me, my mother, and Rory, whom you have not met but who is a Fellow at Cambridge with a bright future ahead of him. We have a home, there across the bay, and are most comfortably circumstanced.’
‘Your friends must all rejoice in the knowledge, I am sure,’ she responded with a touch of spite. ‘Nobody in the history of the world who has enough in the way of worldly goods and fortune has ever been known to want more than that sufficiency, naturally.’