Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It had occurred to Sebastian, as he had sat in the church, that this visit to Little Benning marked a transition point, a crossroads between his old life and his new. There could be no turning back now. He had a sense of a job unfinished. One more loose end to tie off.
He scanned the ragged lines of graves. ‘Will you excuse me, Isabel, but while I am here, I should pay respects to my parents,’ he said.
She looked up at him with understanding in her eyes. He had the odd sensation at times that this strange woman seemed to see into his soul.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Do you wish to be alone?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s of no matter to me.’
He strode through the maze of crooked headstones and battered tombs, looking neither right nor left, to the quiet corner of the churchyard where John and Marjory Alder lay together in death as they had been in life.
A posy of now dead flowers had been laid by the simple single gravestone. Connie’s work, he suspected.
He laid his hand on the headstone and looked down at the well-tended grave.
‘Did you know that, when a clergyman is buried, he is buried facing the west, not the east,’ he mused.
‘Why?’
He glanced at her. ‘So that come judgement day, he will rise up and be facing his congregation.’
‘That is reassuring.’
Isabel stooped to collect up the dead flowers, replacing them with a handful of wildflowers she had picked from around the churchyard. She kneeled for a moment by the grave as if in private prayer.
Laying her hand on the ground, she said in a low voice, ‘I wish I had somewhere like this for William. I had no say in where he was placed. He went to that cold, unloving mausoleum.’
‘And yet you visit him every day?’
Isabel looked up. ‘How did you know?’
He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve seen you. Isabel, forgive me for saying this, but it is easy to spend too long in the company of the dead.’
Anger flared in her eyes as Isabel rose to her feet to face him.
‘What do you mean by that?’ she demanded, her voice sharp with reproach.
Sebastian held out his hand. ‘I apologise. I spoke out of turn. I have no right to judge you.’
‘No you don’t. Not when you still live with the ghosts of the past, Sebastian.’
She looked at him with those knowing eyes and Sebastian froze. Of course, the death of parents was a terrible loss, but it was part of life. The death of a child or the death of someone you loved more than life…?
Inez...
‘Tell me about Inez, Sebastian.’
Inez...
For a long moment he stared at her, the name echoing in his mind. How could she know? All the memories came rushing back, and once more he smelled the dust and the blood of that terrible day. He put his hand on a nearby gravestone to steady himself and brought himself back to the present.
Isabel watched him, no doubt waiting for him to speak about the one thing in the whole world for which he had no words.
He swallowed, trying to make his voice sound neutral as he said, ‘Coming home is not always a good thing, Lady Somerton. Sometimes there are memories that are best forgotten. How did you know… about Inez?’
‘You called me by her name... in London, when you were ill,’ Isabel said softly.
She made no further move towards him and he closed his eyes. He could not turn away now. She was entitled to an explanation.
He began, trying to keep his voice neutral, ‘Inez Aradeiras was the daughter of a Colonel in the Portuguese army. We had married in Lisbon, and she was on her way to join me with the regiment. Her father had sent an escort, but they were overcome by a band of French marauders. They killed every man and...’ He screwed up his eyes as he tried to contain the emotion that shook his voice, even now after all these years. ‘Inez was murdered by the French.’
He stopped there. Isabel did not need to know the rest. How he had failed to protect the one person he loved more than life itself. How it had been his misfortune to come upon the scene—and the revenge he had exacted on her murderers when he had found them.
How he wanted to die—had tried to die.
‘Harry Dempster and Bennet know the whole story, of course. They were there. The only other person I have ever told was my stepfather,’ he glanced up at the church, ‘here in this church, on the day I returned from Spain.’
He took a deep breath, remembering the day he had returned to Little Benning, still on crutches and in terrible pain. His faltering steps had taken him instinctively to the church, as if he needed to find a forgiving God, not the vengeful God of the Spanish churches.
His stepfather had been there and seated on the hard, stone steps to the sanctuary, in jerking phrases that barely made sense, even to his own ears, Sebastian had poured out his soul.
Through it all the Reverend Alder had sat quite still, not one twitch of his face betraying any revulsion or horror or judgement at Sebastian’s tale.
Instead, the good man had risen to his feet and, placing his hands on Sebastian’s head, quietly pronounced absolution. As the words were murmured above him, the last wall of Sebastian’s reserve broke, and he had wept in his stepfather’s arms like a child.
He brought his gaze back to the woman who stood watching him. He hardly dared to meet her gaze, expecting to see pity, but when his eyes met her steady, unblinking gaze, he saw only understanding. She knew suffering and grief.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to slough away the memory of that awful day on a hot, dusty Portuguese road, but the stench of death now hung over both of them like a mantle.
What had induced him to confide in her, bring it all crashing back on top of him?
He shook his head. ‘I have learned that you have to let the past go, or it consumes you.’
‘How can you?’ she said.
He looked past her shoulder. ‘Anger, recrimination, and bitterness doesn’t change what happened. I could spend the rest of my life consumed by rage and despair, but life is for the living, not the dead.’
‘Did your stepfather teach you that?’
He allowed himself to smile. ‘No. He gave me something more precious: forgiveness. For the rest… it was a realisation I came to by myself.’
‘Then you have more generosity of spirit than I, Sebastian.’
She crossed the few short paces between them and stood beside him, looking down at the simple grave. She looked up and her grey eyes searched his.
‘If, as you say, the past belongs to the past, why has there been no one else in your life?’
He shook his head. To let himself love another as he had loved Inez? To fail again?
As he wondered how to respond to her question, he heard his name being called and, grateful for the interruption, he glanced back towards the lychgate. Matt leaned against one of the posts, his hand on his side as if trying to catch his breath.
A sudden fear gripped him. Had Connie taken a turn for the worse? Without a thought of Isabel, he ran towards his brother. As he approached him, Matt held up his hand.
‘It’s all right, Bas! The coach is back with Dr. Neville and I thought you should be there.’
‘Excellent.’ Sebastian turned to Isabel. ‘Come, Lady Somerton, you will approve of Dr. Neville.’