Chapter 2 First Impressions #2
“Our grandmother’s, then. Must possession always be genealogically precise?”
“In this family, yes.”
Constance looked from one to the other. The exchange had the neatness of old habit, but beneath it lay a stiffness unlike ordinary sibling irritation. Marianne did not fear Jasper as Wroth did. She measured him. That was different.
Jasper turned one of the prayer books over. “Miss Brown, you see before you Lady Marianne’s great gift. She can make even a devotional object sound like a deed of settlement.”
“Devotional objects often become deeds of settlement in old families,” Marianne said. “A ring left between pages, a birth date written in a margin, a widow’s note tucked beneath a cover. Men write wills when they want to be obeyed. Women hide instructions where only the patient will find them.”
Constance could not help looking at her with new interest. “That is very well observed.”
Marianne’s eyes cooled. “Do not compliment me too quickly, Miss Brown. I may think you want something.”
“I usually want accuracy.”
“Then you will be disappointed often.”
Jasper laughed, but Marianne did not smile. She had said something she believed. Constance felt the room alter. It was not warmer, but it had become more interesting.
Lord Jasper left to meet Wroth. Marianne remained beside the table, untying the last twist of string and arranging the prayer books in a line. Her fingers were long, pale, and decisive. She handled the books properly, supporting the boards, not forcing the spines.
“You know books,” Constance said.
“I know belongings. There is a difference.”
“There is. But not all owners understand it.”
Marianne’s glance sharpened. “You should not collect remarks that can be used against you. It is a dangerous habit in houses where people remember conversations.”
“Does Dacre House remember conversations?”
“It remembers everything that damages and forgets everything that grieves. That is the usual arrangement in families.”
Constance wondered how often the Dacres spoke in sentences that sounded fit for inscription on stone. Perhaps it came from generations of being quoted. “Lord Dacre has asked me to reconcile the catalogues.”
“So I understand.”
“Are there family materials connected to the women of the house? Diaries, devotional books, correspondence, account books, presentation copies?”
Marianne was silent long enough for Constance to know the answer mattered. “Some.”
“Will I be permitted to examine them?”
“That depends on whether Jasper finds them useful.”
“Useful to the catalogue?”
“Useful.”
There it was again, the narrowing of language when the matter approached something alive. Marianne finished arranging the books and drew her gloves tight at the wrist.
“My brother enjoys clever people, Miss Brown, until they become inconvenient. I do not enjoy clever people at all, which makes me somewhat safer. Do your work. Be exact. Do not sentimentalize the household. And do not assume that because a thing is hidden, it wishes to be found.”
“That is not usually the hidden thing’s decision.”
“No,” Marianne said. “It is usually the finder’s misfortune.”
She left as abruptly as she had arrived.
Constance stood in the quiet after her departure and looked at the three prayer books.
Inside the cover of the first, in a hand faded brown with age, someone had written: Margaret Elinor Dacre, given upon the morning of my marriage, that obedience may not make me forget my soul.
Constance read the inscription twice.
By noon, the fire had settled into a steady glow, and the morning’s work had filled six sheets. At luncheon, served on a tray in a small room near the library, Constance ate alone until Roland Dacre appeared without invitation, carrying a plate and a glass of claret.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I have fled a conversation about drainage improvements and come seeking civilization.”
“I am not certain cataloguing qualifies.”
“It qualifies if it does not mention drains.”
He sat opposite her as if they were old acquaintances. He had an ease that might have been carelessness, but Constance suspected it was too effective to be accidental. Where Jasper arranged attention, Roland invited it. His smile included the listener as a co-conspirator in his own charm.
“Have you found anything scandalous yet?” he asked.
“I have found inconsistencies.”
“In this house, that is practically a love language.”
“You speak of your family with great affection.”
“I speak of my family with accuracy. Affection is for dogs, children, and creditors who agree to wait.”
“Do you have many of the last?”
Roland lifted his glass. “What a precise ambush. I see Sayer did not send us a harmless scholar.”
“I asked because you mentioned them.”
“Did I? Then I must learn to mention virtue, solvency, and a blameless nature.”
“Those who possess all three rarely mention them.”
“Miss Brown, you wound me, and over cold beef.”
He seemed amused, but she noticed the faint color rising near his collar. Debt, then, or at least sensitivity to the subject. Another possible discrepancy in the family catalogue.
Roland leaned back. “My brother admires you already, which is unfortunate.”
“Why unfortunate?”
“Jasper’s admiration is very like his disapproval. Both require one to remain still while he examines the mechanism.”
“That is a strange thing to say of a brother.”
“I have many stranger things and more loyalty than good sense. You may choose which to value.”
“Loyalty to him?”
Roland looked toward the closed door. “To the family. There is a difference, though Jasper does his best to abolish it.”
His tone had changed. Beneath the polish, Constance heard resentment, not theatrical now, but worn smooth by long use.
Before she could answer, Helena appeared in the doorway.
Roland rose with immediate grace. “Helena. You rescue Miss Brown from my worst qualities.”
“Can that be done in one luncheon?” Helena asked.
“Not thoroughly. But she has made a brave beginning.”
Helena’s gaze passed from his wineglass to his smile. “Jasper is looking for you.”
“Then let us hope he enjoys the search.”
“He does not.”
Roland’s expression altered, though lightly. He set down the glass. “No. I suppose he does not.” He bowed to Constance. “Until I am next required to flee responsibility, Miss Brown.”
He left by another door, whistling softly. The tune stopped almost as soon as he was in the corridor.
Helena remained in the doorway. In daylight her beauty was less ghostly, more human, though no less controlled. She wore a gown of dark violet with a high collar and long sleeves. Her hair was dressed simply for morning, the dark coils pinned low. She held a book in one hand.
“I hope my brother-in-law did not trouble you,” she said.
“He was amusing.”
“That is often how trouble introduces itself.”
Constance gestured to the empty chair. “Will you sit, Lady Dacre?”
Helena seemed to consider refusal. Then she entered and sat, placing the book upon the table between them. It was a small volume of poetry, bound in blue cloth, the corners worn from use.
“My husband said you might wish to see a book I actually read rather than one I am supposed to display.”
“Did he phrase it that way?”
“No. I supplied the honesty.”
Constance smiled before she could stop herself. Helena saw it. Something almost softened in her face, then vanished.
The book was Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Constance opened it carefully. The margins contained light pencil marks, very fine, made by someone who pressed softly as if afraid of leaving too much evidence of attention.
“This has been read closely,” she said.
“Is that a professional accusation?”
“A compliment.”
“I am not accustomed to compliments that examine margins.”
“They are the safest kind. They can be verified.”
Helena looked down at the book. “My husband dislikes markings in modern volumes. He says they are a form of vanity, as if the reader believes her thought should stand beside the author’s.”
“Do you agree?”
“No.” The answer came too quickly, and Helena’s gloved fingers closed on the edge of her chair. “No, I think sometimes a mark is only proof one was present. One read. One answered, even if no one heard.”
The words remained in the air. Constance understood that she had been given more than a literary opinion. She answered with care.
“Then the marks belong in the history of the book.”
“Even if they are foolish?”
“Especially then. Foolishness is often more personal than wisdom.”
Helena’s mouth moved slightly, not quite a smile. “You are very kind to marginalia.”
“I spend much of my life defending what other people call accidental.”
“And do you find accidents often innocent?”
“Not often. But they are usually honest before people make explanations for them.”
Helena looked at her then with an attention that felt different from Jasper’s. Jasper examined. Marianne measured. Roland invited. Helena listened as if every word had a cost, and she was deciding whether Constance knew the price.
“You speak as if paper is safer than people,” Helena said.
“It is not safer. Only less skilled at pretending.”
“That must be a comfort.”
“Sometimes it is. Sometimes it means paper preserves what people would rather let die.”
Helena’s hand moved toward the book, then stopped.
Her glove had slipped back a little from the wrist, revealing a narrow line of skin.
There was no bruise there, only a paleness that made Constance aware of how completely Helena was covered.
The high collar, the fitted sleeves, the gloves fastened snugly despite the warmth of the room.
Many women dressed so. Fashion had its own tyrannies.
Still, Constance remembered Agnes’s watchful eyes and Jasper’s question in the library: Where is Lady Dacre? Still?
Helena drew the glove down, though there had been nothing to hide.
“You must not let this house make a novel out of you, Miss Brown,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”