Chapter 47
The next couple of days passed uneasily at Albery Hall, which could scarcely be wondered at.
Bea knew that Vivienne must have received the news of her brother’s shocking death, presumably from Mr Marjoram or one of the constables, early on the morning after it happened; what she did not know was how she might be feeling about it.
His Lordship had been a terrible bully in the domestic sphere and outside it, and life with him had been an ordeal, she knew, but he was still Miss Pallant’s brother, and it was the only world she’d ever known.
And what would Vivienne do, where and how would she and her surviving brother live, now that he was gone?
It seemed to be generally accepted that their affairs were in the greatest possible disorder, and Bea could not even conjecture what fresh trouble might come of this sudden disaster.
She could not feel guilty – none of this was her fault, nor anyone’s fault but the dead man’s – but she was shaken, and could not be comfortable, she found, day or night.
Nor did she wish to discuss her peculiar situation with her sisters, even though she knew they felt for her.
She could not visit Pallant Manor just now – that was sufficiently obvious – but she should at least write, she thought.
A dozen times a day, she sat down in front of a blank piece of paper, but each time, the ink dried on her pen.
Dear Miss Pallant… If there was a form of words that could readily be used to send condolences to a woman one had been deeply intimate with, but could not fully trust, and whose cruelly abusive brother had been shot down and killed, by one’s own elderly chaperon, while trying to burgle one’s own bedchamber in the middle of the night, she did not know it.
Possibly such a thing had never occurred before, or not since medieval times, when all sorts of strange things happened in the best-regulated families, if the poems and histories were to be believed.
But then she thought, with her own experience of bereavement after the loss of her father a few years ago, that it was selfish to be deterred by such difficulties, and selfish too to dwell on her own sense of awkwardness above all other matters; the important thing was surely to let the distressed person know that someone in the world was thinking of them.
She could hardly suppose that Vivienne would be deluged with offers of sympathy; hers might even be the only one she received, and however complicated their relationship had been, Bea at least owed her that.
She wrote resolutely and quickly, without stopping to think too much beyond the ever-present knowledge that no letter could ever be considered completely private, and so she must not be dangerously indiscreet, for Vivienne’s sake as well as her own.
Dear Miss Pallant,
I have been thinking of you constantly since the dreadful events of a couple of nights ago, and hoping that you are in good health, if such a thing is even possible.
These are odd circumstances in which to offer condolences, from this family to yours, but still, I wanted to offer them, and hope you will accept them in the spirit in which they are sent.
I am truly sorry for you, that you have lost your brother, and in such a shocking and sudden manner.
This must be a very difficult time for you; I do not suppose that anyone can imagine just how difficult.
I will not insult you with commonplaces, none of which seem appropriate to the extraordinarily difficult occasion.
I can only hope that my writing does not offend you, or add to your distress.
That was not my intention, as I hope you know.
If my letter causes you fresh pain, I am very sorry for that too, but not writing, leaving you perhaps to think that I do not care at all for you and your sad situation, seemed worse.
I find that there is no more to say but that I am thinking of you still.
My best regards,
Beatrice Constantine
She sat back and looked at what she had written, frowning.
It was a strange letter, she thought, or would be thought so by anyone who perused it not knowing the most peculiar circumstances in which Lord Pallant had died.
But, trying to step outside herself and imagine it being read by Mr Marjoram, say, or by the coroner or some other official person, she thought it would do.
The writer was plainly embarrassed, as well she might be, and yet anxious to reach out in sympathy to someone who was, after all, as far as the authorities knew, completely innocent of her brother’s crimes.
Another victim, in fact. Vivienne was not quite that, or not just that, but nobody outside Albery House was aware of that fact.
If there was deeper emotion than mere condolence to be read between the lines, Beatrice hoped that only Vivienne would see it there, and perhaps take a little comfort from it.
She sealed the letter and asked Mrs Pritty to arrange for it to be sent; the housekeeper raised her eyebrows a little at the sight of the direction, but then nodded and said she would.
‘It’s a kind thought, Miss Beatrice,’ she said slowly.
‘I don’t imagine anyone is thinking of that young lady just now, and yet her situation is quite pitiable, even if we can’t suppose her quite grief-stricken as a sister would be in a regular family.
I’ll have Jem take it across directly. I hope the Manor isn’t besieged by creditors quite yet. Heaven knows what they’ll do now.’
Bea thanked her and went out to wander aimlessly in the garden and the copse beyond it, having been cooped up in the house for what felt like long, weary days.
She was a person somewhat prone to unpleasant self-reflection, and she could not deny the fact that it was in many ways convenient for her to be unable to express herself with perfect openness when writing to Vivienne.
The plain fact was, if she were free to say anything in the world, to write words that would sear the page with their passion and honesty, she still didn’t know what she would say, because she didn’t know exactly what she felt, or rather, her emotions changed and shifted like the tides.
Sometimes, anger and hurt overwhelmed her when she thought how Vivienne had set out to entrap her – not even at her brother’s command, because Lord Pallant would never have known that such a stratagem might be possible if Vivienne had not of her own free will told him so.
But sometimes, she thought herself unfair and unkind, because Vivienne was an abused and bullied woman, while she was not and never had been, and so could never really understand.
Sometimes, she tormented herself with visions of a possible happy future for them, now that Miss Pallant was free of her oppressor.
And sometimes, she wondered if she was plain crazy to indulge in such idle and unrealistic dreams, because she should know that Vivienne could never really be trusted, and even if she could, one day, how would Cecilia and Bianca feel if their sister insisted upon entangling her life with such a person?
What would their mother say, or Miss Macintyre, or anybody else in the family?
They’d consider her reckless and criminally foolish, to invest her happiness in this woman above all others.
And probably Vivienne herself would spurn such a suggestion anyway, coming from someone who had stood over her brother’s body as it cooled and been nothing but glad he was dead, except for the embarrassment it caused her own family.
Probably Miss Pallant would never want to set eyes on anyone named Constantine again as long as she lived, and who could blame her?
It made Bea’s head ache and her stomach churn, and no matter how long she picked away at it all, she could come to no proper and definitive conclusion.
Perhaps this was because there was no conclusion to be found.
Maybe other lucky people always knew how they felt on important subjects, and never had any trouble working out exactly what to do; on this occasion, she found, she did not.