Someone perfect, p.25
Someone Perfect, page 25
His father had banished him because he had seen—with his own eyes—his son attempting to seduce his wife over her protests and hysteria. Because Justin had refused to defend himself except with a simple denial. How could he have defended himself? She was his father’s wife. If Justin was not guilty, then she was. How could he have told his father that? How could any son tell his father that? His father was an honorable man. He had taught his son the importance of honor above all else.
Perhaps his father would not have believed him anyway even if he had fully explained what had happened. Or perhaps he would have. Perhaps, even, he had believed his son’s simple denial. But what could he have done? Called his wife a liar? Banished her? He had married her and made sacred vows to her. They had a daughter.
Perhaps on that morning he had had as little choice as Justin had had.
So things had been as they had been.
And were as they were.
The countess had told her daughter that Justin had stolen from her and been banished as a punishment.
Perhaps, Justin thought, he did not need to forgive his father. His father had been as much a victim as he had. Perhaps more so. He, Justin, had had a chance to make a new life—and had taken it. His father had not had that chance.
* * *
* * *
It did not rain on the following day, though clouds remained overhead and made the weather rather dreary. Most of the guests stayed indoors, enjoying the company of several visitors, all of whom brought stories of sightings that had turned out not to have any significance. Some of the guests ventured outdoors, a few to stroll as far as the lake.
Justin once more took Captain and went walking across the Palladian bridge and up into the wooded hills on the other side of the valley. This time, though, a few of the young people went with him—his cousins Ernie, Sid, and Rosie Sharpe, Frederick and Paulette Ormsbury, Gillian Chandler, Maria, and both the Lamarrs.
The wooded hills had always been a favorite playground of Justin’s when he was a boy. They were less contrived than the hill behind the house, with its ironically named wilderness walk, though he had always loved that too. Here he had been free to let his imagination run wild. Today he could think only of getting free of the trees, somewhere close to the lake and at a higher elevation than the hills opposite, where he had stood yesterday in the rain. Visibility was better today too. The cloud cover was unbroken but high.
The others were more interested in climbing straight up the hill so that they could descend the other side and walk into the village for refreshments at the inn—and perhaps for some news.
“I’ll keep going this way,” Justin said, pointing off to the west, when they were halfway up. “But do not let me stop the rest of you. Perhaps there will be some news.”
He looked at Lady Estelle, but he had been avoiding her—or she had been avoiding him—since the night they had met in Maria’s sitting room. He had been embarrassed by what had occurred, and doubtless she and her brother had been too. Any plans he had had to court Lady Estelle seemed to have evaporated. And she would be leaving here soon. They had promised two weeks, she and her brother, and there were only a few days left.
She was looking back at him now while Ernie was chatting with her on one side and Paulette was hovering at her other side.
“I will come too,” Lady Estelle said. “I want to see the view from higher up.”
Captain woofed, impatient at the delay.
“I will come—” Paulette began. But Watley had moved to her side and was offering his arm.
“The hill is a bit steep straight ahead of us,” he said, giving Paulette his most charming smile. “Allow me to assist you. Or, if worse comes to worst, perhaps you can assist me.”
Paulette blushed and giggled and slid her hand through his arm, any idea of following where Lady Estelle went forgotten.
Had that been deliberate? Justin rather thought it had been—which was interesting in light of what Watley had heard the other night. He gazed at Lady Estelle as she crossed the hill to join him. The others were already trudging onward toward the top.
“I will look with you,” she said. “Perhaps my eyesight is better than yours.”
“I hope it is,” he said. “I hope you can see all the way to Gloucestershire.”
Captain went bounding off ahead of them.
“Thank you,” Justin said after a few moments, and she turned her head to smile at him.
Eighteen
Estelle had sat for a while in the morning room with Maria while Mrs. Sharpe, at Maria’s request, told them stories of growing up with her beloved elder sister, the Earl of Brandon’s mother. Doris Haig and Sidney Sharpe had joined them, bringing fresh coffee. They had added their own stories of their aunt as they remembered her, fond memories, full of humor and nostalgia.
Maria had listened quietly and smiled and even laughed, especially when Mrs. Sharpe had recalled how her sister always used to wince at the bright mismatched jewelry she loved to wear, in the form of rings and bracelets, necklaces and earrings and brooches, and tell her that she positively jangled—on the nerves if not always on the ears. Her sister in contrast had always been quietly and faultlessly elegant, and Mrs. Sharpe had envied her good taste.
Yesterday Maria had asked her Cornish aunts to tell her about their childhood here with her papa and their parents, her grandparents. The memories had come spilling out, of games they had played, of mischief they had got into, of squabbles, of one horror of a governess who had left finally—and abruptly—the day after their brother had accidentally on purpose capsized the boat and spilled her into the lake after she had refused to let him take the oars because he was only fifteen. Their children too had gathered about them to listen and laugh.
Last evening Mr. Leonard Dickson and Mrs. Patricia Chandler, his sister, had become the focus of attention with a sizable group in the drawing room after Maria had asked them to tell her about her mama as a child and about her aunt Sarah and their family life generally. Their voices had grown louder and more boisterous, their Yorkshire accents more pronounced, as one memory provoked another and their children and spouses egged them on. After the busy day of making plans to find the missing Ricky Mort, the laughter their sometimes outrageous stories provoked had felt very good.
It was all making Estelle miss her own family—her mother’s side, her father’s, her stepmother’s. And it struck her that when she and Bertrand returned to Elm Court within the week, she might not be as contented with their solitude there as she had been for the past couple of years. Family, all those people who had some connection with one another, however slight, was of such huge importance to one’s well-being. It gave one identity and a sense of belonging. It was the answer to loneliness and any sense of disconnection with the world one inevitably felt at times. There were all sorts of exceptions to that ideal, of course, but . . . Well, she was going to value her own family more than ever after being here. And Maria was coming to see how much she had missed all through her childhood and girlhood because she had been cut off from her own family.
Estelle was mulling these thoughts as she walked diagonally up the hill with the Earl of Brandon. His thoughts must have been moving along similar lines.
“How did you bring yourself to forgive?” he asked her.
The question was not specific. But she knew what he was asking.
“My father?” she said. “It was not terribly difficult, you know. We always longed to do so. At any point in our childhood we would have forgiven him if he had given us the smallest opening.”
“He deserted you,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “He did. He blamed himself for our mother’s death. He was the one who had opened the window from which she fell. And they were bickering at the time. He had just got us both to sleep after a difficult night when she came storming into the nursery, angry with him for staying up with us when they paid a nurse to do just that. After her death he did not trust himself to raise us. Then Aunt Jane turned up, confirming him in his beliefs, taking over very ably and very forcefully.”
“So he slunk off,” he said, “and left you to her for . . . what? Sixteen, seventeen years?”
“Sixteen,” she said. “Yes, he did. He punished himself with a life of riotous . . . debauchery. I make no excuses for him. He makes none for himself. Forgiveness does not consist in making excuses for the transgressor, Lord Brandon. It consists in acknowledging the facts, understanding the reasons for them—not the excuses—recognizing the pain it all caused both the one who was wronged and the one who did those wrongs, and admitting that forgiveness is not something given by the innocent to the guilty. No one is innocent. We all do stupid things, even when we know they are stupid, and even when we know we are causing unhappiness for someone else and for ourselves. Forgiveness is given despite all those things.”
“It sounds like pious nonsense,” he said harshly as their climb took them up clear of the trees. Captain was waiting for them. His ears flopped and his jowls shook as he came toward them and nudged Estelle’s hand with a cold nose. She patted his head and smoothed a hand along his back.
“That way, Cap,” the earl said, pointing off to the west. “I beg your pardon. Those were ill-mannered words.”
“The point is,” she said, “that if we had not forgiven our father, or at least listened to him and given him a chance to listen to us at last, we would have carried the hole in our hearts where he ought to be for the rest of our lives. For the sake of pride. And righteousness. Forgiving him was not just about making him feel better. Indeed, for a while I was more furious with him than I had ever been in my life. I had planned a surprise fortieth birthday party for him—when I was seventeen. I was so proud of myself. And he simply did not come. When I went halfway across England to find him— Yes, I did, even though I had never asserted myself before. Nothing was going to stop me. I went, taking Bertrand and our aunt and our father’s brother with me. And when we found him, he was with a woman. He had run off with her instead of coming home to us.” She laughed quietly, almost to herself. “She is now our stepmother. Oh, forgiving him was not about making him feel better, Lord Brandon. It was for us, for Bert and me, so that our hearts would finally heal and be whole. If that is pious nonsense, then so be it.”
The lake was below them on their right. Behind them, to the left, the village was half hidden behind trees and some lower hills. They walked past the lake until the only way to go was down on one of three sides or back the way they had come. They took the fourth alternative and stopped.
“This has not been all about me and my father anyway, has it?” Estelle said after they had been silent for several minutes. “Are you unable to forgive your father, Justin?”
She heard the echo of his name on her lips. She did not know if he had noticed. He was gazing ahead, his eyes squinting against the rather chilly breeze.
“Why would I need to forgive him?” he asked her. “I was the transgressor. He punished me with banishment.”
“For something you could not possibly explain to him,” she said. “Not without accusing your stepmother. Your father’s wife. Maria’s mother. That is the truth of it, is it not? You sacrificed yourself so that his life would not be impossibly wrecked. So that Maria’s would not be.”
“You would make a saint of me, would you?” he said. “I was furious with him. For not seeing the truth himself. For having married her—after he had been married to my mother. They were not just different sorts of women. They were more like different species. But he married her, and he always—always—treated her with unfailing courtesy. Forgive me, Lady Estelle, but I have said enough. More than enough. He was my father. Maria is my sister.”
“I think perhaps,” she said, “you were and are very like your father.”
He did not reply.
“Do you think he probably suspected the truth?” she asked. “Even knew it? Do you think he expected that you would go and live with one of your aunts? Or find some respectable employment with their assistance? Was his intention to remove you from a place and a situation that were intolerable to you—and to him? Did he never expect that he would lose all communication with you?”
“How the devil am I supposed to know what he expected or intended or thought?” he asked her.
“But instead,” she said, “you went off on your own and worked at any menial job you could find until you ended up at the stone quarry and made your home there. And your family. I suppose your aunt and uncle had promised to say nothing of your whereabouts or of the place where they sent you letters. Was it your way of punishing your father?”
He wheeled on her. Beneath the brim of his tall hat his eyes looked black and bleak. Just a few weeks ago Estelle would have been frightened. She might have taken a step back.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. That is exactly what I was doing. Thank you for making me understand that. I had not realized it until this moment. And you were quite right a few minutes ago too, Lady Estelle. No one is innocent. But how can I forgive my father now? He is dead. How can he forgive me now? He is dead.”
They stood facing each other for several moments, his breathing labored as he glared at her, and she gazed back. He reminded her a good deal of her father as he had been during those weeks after Viola had broken off their betrothal and he was at home with her and Bertrand, determined to be there for them at last but still bearing the burden of his guilt and loneliness. Wanting to let them in but not knowing quite how to do it. Wanting forgiveness. Wanting Viola but punishing himself by not going after her.
Lord Brandon turned away first, and they stood side by side, gazing out over the countryside mapped out below them stretching west, south, and north. There was little to see except fields and pasture, sheep, a few cattle, some huddles of farm buildings. Almost no people. There was a cart in the middle distance, driven by a man with a woman at his side. It looked as though she was holding an infant on her lap. There were three children standing on the bars of a gate not far off, watching the sheep on the other side.
“Ricky,” the Earl of Brandon murmured. “Where are you?”
Estelle touched his hand, and without turning to look at her he set his arm about her waist and drew her to his side. She did not believe he was even fully aware that he was doing it. His dog had settled, panting, at their feet.
“He was always the peacemaker,” Lord Brandon said. “You must not imagine that life in that cottage was some sort of rural idyll. Wes and Hilda used to quarrel occasionally, and quite noisily at times. Wes sometimes bickered with me and I bickered right back. Ricky would say things like ‘You weren’t nice to Hildy, Wes. She didn’t mean to burn the crust on the pie. You ought to say sorry.’ Or ‘You needn’t get cross with Wes, Juss, because he can’t read those words. He’s trying. You ought to say sorry.’ And dash it all, we always did. No one ever lost their temper with Ricky. Or got impatient with him. Or made fun of him. There was a great deal of love in that house too.”
“It was a family,” she said. For four years it had been his family. It still was.
“Please, God,” he muttered a while later, and his eyes were closed and his head tipped back, Estelle could see when she turned her head. “Let him be found. Let him be safe.”
Estelle leaned her head to the side and rested her cheek against his shoulder.
* * *
* * *
The next day the sun was shining, the air was suddenly almost hot again, and Maria suggested they cheer themselves up with a picnic at the lake after luncheon. They all went, even Lady Maple, who rode there in a gig with Mrs. Chandler, her niece, while Mr. Chandler carried a chair for her, having brushed off the services of a footman. A whole fleet of servants carried their tea out there in large hampers, however, and spread big colorful blankets on the grass for them to sit upon.
It was a lovely occasion, Estelle thought, and surely something that ought to have been happening every summer for years past. The three distinct family groups had mingled well from the start of this visit and were enjoying one another’s company today. One person had kept them apart until now—the late countess. What an unhappy woman she must have been. And what unhappiness she had spread around her.
The boat was brought out of the boathouse, and rides were given in relays, the various rowers being the earl, Ernest Sharpe, and Bertrand. Estelle stayed away from it, having always been of the opinion that water was best appreciated from the safety of firm land beneath her feet, or beneath some part of her person, anyway. A few of the younger people—Paulette Ormsbury, Megan and Wallace Chandler, Nigel Dickson, and Rosie Sharpe—went swimming, though they did more splashing and shrieking and laughing than actual swimming. The young children surprised their parents by being more interested in playing in the grotto than in frolicking in the water.
Some people strolled along the banks of the lake, on both sides of the bridge. Maria stood right on the bridge for a long time, gazing at the waterfall, her cousins Angela and Frederick Ormsbury on either side of her. Gillian Chandler and Sidney Sharpe climbed partway up the steep hill on the other side of the waterfall from the grotto while both their mothers kept anxious eyes upon them, though neither—to her credit—called out to them to come down. A few people simply sat and soaked up the heat and the sunshine and chatted with whoever happened to be close.
Captain, reclining upon a flat rock outside the grotto, kept watch over the children.
Estelle strolled between Mr. Rowan Sharpe and Mr. Harold Ormsbury, enjoying their conversation though not participating in it a great deal. She was too busy watching everyone else and appreciating the whole scene. And feeling—paradoxically—a bit melancholy. Everyone belonged here in one way or another, except her and Bertrand.
