Chapter 52
The next day, all the Constantines felt liberated, now that it seemed things had returned to normal and they were no longer under any sort of guard. They had not forgotten what had happened, the shock and horror of it, but… life went on, for them, at least, and it was precious.
During the short while she had been with them, Leontina had had time to take stock of the manifold inadequacies of her daughters’ domestic arrangements, and now demanded an urgent shopping trip to Debenbridge to rectify them.
Miss Macintyre was happy to accompany her old employer if it meant that she could visit the bookshop at last, Cecilia was perfectly willing to drive, and Bianca to sit at her side, perhaps to take the reins a little herself and begin her own education as a whip.
Bea said that the cart would be quite full enough with the four of them, and that she preferred to remain at home and enjoy a little time alone.
If either of her sisters had any particular reason to disbelieve her, they were considerate enough not to say so aloud.
So she was free to do as she pleased for a few hours, without anyone questioning her.
As soon as the horse and cart were out of sight, she set off for Pallant Manor, feeling both queasy and determined.
She’d never been there before, but she knew the direction, and knew too that Miss Pallant was still in residence, though it was rumoured that the new Lord Pallant had gone away on business of some kind, perhaps connected with the necessary sale of his and his brother’s expensive horses.
There had been a very quiet funeral, a few days since, and though she had fretted over whether Vivienne might need her support at that ceremony, she hadn’t in the end felt able to go.
She did not know what their relationship was going to be – she didn’t even know if they were going to have a relationship of any kind – but she could not let Vivienne think even for a moment that she would stand at her side from now on without further discussion.
If her former lover cherished any such hopes – and after all, she might not, since the connection between them had been very brief and carried out almost entirely under false pretences on Miss Pallant’s part – it would be cruel to raise them and then later dash them.
They should meet alone, when next they met, not in front of others.
Vivienne had not replied to her letter of condolence, but this, she thought, was perfectly understandable, and she bore her no ill will for it.
The Manor, when she reached it, proved to be in a much worse state than Albery Hall had been on their arrival.
The trees and bushes that surrounded it were even more overgrown, and if there had been a tended garden surrounding the building once, not even a ghost of it remained.
Ivy and other climbing shrubs had taken the ancient house prisoner, and what she could see of the roof was disturbingly mossy, with willow-herb seeding itself here and there in the gutters.
Beatrice went boldly up to the great iron-studded front door and pulled on the bell-handle; a discordant clanging could be heard from inside, but no servant came to answer.
Perhaps there weren’t any left; this could hardly be a surprise.
Fanny at least must surely have gone now that her lover was dead.
But she felt eyes upon her, and stood waiting patiently rather than turning away.
A few moments later, the door opened a crack, and to her horror, Sebastian’s blond head appeared instead of Vivienne’s.
They stood looking at each other in the most awkward of silences, and she absolutely refused to be the one to break it. What could she say?
‘Miss Constantine,’ he managed at last. Bea wouldn’t previously have known what expression a boy’s face could hold as he wondered what he should say to a woman who’d quite recently seen his brother lying dead on her chamber floor, having come to steal from her at the very least. Now she did.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said inadequately, surprising her.
‘You’ve come to see Vivienne, I suppose, and that is dashed good of you. Come in, please…’
She shot him a sharp look, and he laughed a little wildly when he saw it.
His face was pale, and she thought he’d been drinking, and finding it didn’t help in the least. ‘You don’t trust us.
Well, I don’t blame you. But I mean you no harm.
Honestly, I don’t. I’ll go away and leave you with my sister.
She will be glad of the company, for she has had none besides me all this while, and by now we do nothing but make each other uncomfortable. ’
Bea realised she still hadn’t spoken. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, stepping into the house and feeling all at once how ridiculous ordinary words must seem in such an extraordinary situation.
‘I didn’t expect to see you here, and I was taken aback…
I thought you might be angry with us – with my whole family. ’
He laughed again, in a lost fashion that made her pity him.
‘I was,’ he said with surprising frankness.
‘But Viv told me I was being stupid as an owl, and really, she was right. You didn’t ask my brother to break in and steal from you.
You didn’t even ask him and me to woo your sisters.
None of this is your fault… it’s ours. No, I can’t…
I’ll leave you. Vivienne will be here somewhere, I’m sure. ’
‘I am, Seb,’ Miss Pallant said softly from across the hall, and when her brother heard her voice, he looked at her helplessly, then wandered away.
Beatrice’s heart lurched violently in her breast. ‘I’m alone, as you see,’ she said a little unsteadily. ‘I wanted to come and see you. See how you did. But I’ll go away, if you wish me to. God knows I will understand if you have no desire to set eyes on anyone named Constantine.’
‘No, Bea… We have no servants now, and creditors have been… pressing, so we are careful how we deal with visitors. But I’m glad to see you.’ Vivienne closed and bolted the door behind her. ‘Let’s go to my sitting room,’ she said nervously. ‘The rest of the house is… Don’t look at it.’
Beatrice could hardly avoid looking, try as she might, but Vivienne whisked her rapidly through what seemed to be a medieval great hall, with a great deal of decayed panelling, rusty suits of armour and displays of antique weapons, into a much cosier and tidier small chamber towards the rear of the house.
Here too the chairs and sofa were threadbare, the woodwork scuffed and shabby, but it was at least a feminine space, with no trace of masculine intrusion.
They stood in it and looked at each other in awkward silence.
‘Thank you for your kind letter,’ Miss Pallant said at last. She was in unrelieved black, and though it might have been said to become her angelic fairness, she looked unhealthily pale nonetheless, like one who was not sleeping well nor taking any air.
‘I understand why you wrote as you did – Sebastian insisted on reading what you’d written, he was still angry then, and we argued over it, so I was glad that you had not committed anything more personal to paper.
Even he could not take exception to a word of it; it’s not as if we received condolences of any kind from anybody else, not even any of Oliver’s so-called friends.
But it was good of you to think of me, Beatrice; it has been a bright spot among a good deal of darkness. ’
‘I have been thinking of little else. And I wondered if I should come to the funeral, but… in the end, I could not, for many reasons that seemed excellent to me at the time.’
‘I did not expect you to. The circumstances of my brother’s death… Apart from anything else, Sebastian might not have been reasonable about it, if he’d seen you or any of your family. I would not have subjected you to that for all the world. You’ve been through enough.’
‘I really haven’t. I saw nothing, apart from… the aftermath. Cecilia was the one who suffered, and even that was very brief. But how are you?’
Miss Pallant seemed to realise with a jolt that they were still standing, and gestured to Miss Constantine to take a seat opposite her.
‘It was a shock, of course it was, but I’m glad he’s dead.
That’s the plain truth of it, and I hope you won’t be too horrified to hear me say it.
You have good reason to know what he was, and what he was capable of.
Please, please believe me, Bea, when I say that I had not the least idea that he planned to steal anything from you, nor that he had the means to enter your house – good God, even your chamber!
– as he did. I barely saw him on the last day of his life; I was avoiding him as much as possible, and he was drunk, I believe, and kept to his library. I was grateful for it.’
‘I never thought that you had any part in that. Nor did anyone else, I’m sure. It was his own crazy scheme, and he paid the highest price for it. But what will you do now?’