“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, perhapsyoucan assistme.”
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 Watleyhad 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 positivelyjangled—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, ofgames 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. Wealwayslonged to do so. At any point in our childhood we would have forgiven him if he had given us the smallest opening.”
“Hedesertedyou,” 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 thereasonsfor 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 weknowthey are stupid, and even when we know we are causingunhappiness 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 leastlistenedto 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 makinghimfeel 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 wasseventeen.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.Nothingwas 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 awoman.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 forus, 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 togo 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 forgiveyourfather, 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.
