Chapter Fifty-One
‘But why did Lucien run away like that?’ asked Nina. She had long since finished eating and her wineglass was empty, and while Venetia had been talking, the younger woman had listened intently. She now had her elbows resting on the table and was leaning forwards as though all the better to hear what Venetia had to say.
Of course, what Venetia had shared with Nina had lacked many of the crucial details of what had really happened, and so it came as no surprise to Venetia that Nina would ask the question she had.
‘It was the shock,’ Venetia lied. ‘Seeing a man dead like that, Lucien just couldn’t handle it. He’d always been such a sensitive soul. There was guilt too, Terry Sands had bullied him mercilessly, and Lucien had often wished the brute was dead, and then unexpectedly Terry was very much dead. I can quite understand why Lucien reacted the way he did.’
‘But you didn’t react in the same way,’ said Nina.
‘No. But then Terry didn’t target me as much as he did Lucien. Bullies do that, they perceive vulnerability, and they go for it, again and again. I never showed Terry that I had a weakness.’
‘Other than your love and loyalty for Lucien,’ remarked Nina, ‘doubtless Terry saw that straight away.’
‘Yes,’ Venetia said softly, thinking how insightful that was of Nina. ‘Love is always easy to spot. Its absence too.’
‘And did you never hear from Lucien again? Not even a letter?’
‘That was the hardest part,’ Venetia replied, her gaze drifting away from Nina’s face and settling on a beautiful painting above a pale wood console table. For a moment she lost herself in the delicate Victorian watercolour that featured two young girls carrying a basket of apples through an orchard, the sunlight filtering through the leaves on the tree branches and illuminating the whiteness of the girls’ aprons and bonnets. ‘The daily hope and endless waiting for Lucien to get in touch,’ she said, returning her gaze to Nina’s, ‘but he never did.’
‘That must have hurt.’
Venetia sighed. ‘It worried me more than pained me. I just wanted to know that he was all right, that he was safe.’
‘From what you’ve said, it sounds like you were always looking out for him.’
‘It’s true, I was, from his very first day here at Hope Hall when Lady Constance asked me to show him the ropes. There was just something about Lucien that made me want to protect him. He’d have hated knowing that, of course. He was very proud and could be quite arrogant at times. But it was just a defence mechanism on his part.’
‘We all do that to a degree, don’t we? We present a front to the world and hide our vulnerable selves behind it.’
‘Are you thinking of anyone in particular?’ asked Venetia, wondering if Nina was referring to herself.
‘My mother-in-law,’ Nina said. ‘When I first knew Hilary, she was always opinionated and overbearing as well as dogmatic, but when Hugh died everything escalated until finally she spiralled out of control and had no one to turn to. She’d pushed everyone away.’
‘You mean literally, no one?’
‘No one except for me, so it seems.’
For the next few minutes, it was Venetia’s turn to listen and when Nina fell quiet, Venetia said, ‘The poor woman, to be so bereft and alone in the world that her only way to find comfort was to steal baby clothes to assuage her grief. That is so very, very sad.’
‘It is,’ agreed Nina. ‘The way Hilary sees her life now, she has nothing left of any worth. She has nothing to look forward to, especially after I ended her hope of one day becoming a grandmother to Hugh’s child. She also has nothing with which to occupy herself. Other than brood on what will never be. Her friends have dropped her. Or more likely, she’s dropped them because they’ve run out of patience and just want her to get on with her life.’
‘She sounds depressed,’ said Venetia.
‘I’m no expert, but I would agree with you. This,’ Nina then went on, ‘is what I wanted your advice for.’
Venetia was thrown. ‘Sorry,’ she said, pushing her empty plate away from her, ‘but I wouldn’t know how to help somebody with depression.’
‘No, it’s not that kind of advice I’m interested in. And look, I’m very conscious that this might be insensitive of me, and I certainly don’t mean it to be, but I can’t help but think that Hilary needs something to look after, something to nurture and love, so I’ve been thinking about encouraging her to have a dog. I know she isn’t a cat person, she made that very clear some years ago when a neighbour’s cat persisted in using her garden as a toilet.’
‘A dog is a big responsibility,’ Venetia said carefully, ‘do you think Hilary would be capable of taking one on?’
‘I really believe that having something to love and cherish is just what she needs. Hugh once told me that when his mother was a child, she’d begged her parents for a dog, and they wouldn’t let her have one.’
‘Did she ever fulfil her wish as an adult?’
Nina shook her head. ‘No, she never did. But then I think Hugh fulfilled all her wishes and a lot more besides.’
‘And now that she has nothing, a dog might fill the void, is that what you’re thinking?’ Venetia’s words came out more tersely than she’d intended.
