"Go and fetch Master Cassian, James. Tell him he is required at luncheon."
"Yes ma'am." And obediently he left.
Randolph grunted, but spoke no words, and addressed himself again to his food.
"I imagine the newspapers write well of General Carlyon." Hester heard her own voice loud in the silence, sounding clumsy and terribly contrived. But how else was she to serve any purpose here? She could not hope any of them would say or do something in which she could find meaning, simply eating their luncheon. "He had a brilliant career," she went on. "They are bound to have written of it."
Randolph looked at her, his heavy face puckered.
"He did," he agreed. "He was an outstanding man, an ornament to his generation and his family. Although what you can possibly know about it, Miss latterly, I fail to see. I daresay your remark is well meant, and intended as a kindness, and for your civility, I thank you." He looked anything but grateful.
Hester felt as if she had trespassed by praising him, as though they felt he was their particular property and only they might speak of him.
"I have spent a considerable time in the army myself, Colonel Carlyon," she said in defense.
"Army!" he snorted with quite open contempt. "Nonsense, young woman! You were a nurse, a skivvy to tend to the slops for the surgeons. Hardly the same thing!"
Her temper frayed raw, and she forgot Monk, Rathbone and Alexandra Carlyon.
"I don't know how you know anything about it," she said, mimicking his tone savagely and precisely. "You were not there. Or you would be aware that army nursing has changed a great deal. I have watched battles and walked the field afterwards. I have helped surgeons in field hospitals, and I daresay I have known asrmany soldiers in the space of a few years as you have."
His face was turning a rich plum color and his eyes were bulging.
"And I did not hear General Carlyon's name mentioned by anyone," she added coldly. "But I now work nursing a Major Tiplady, and he knew of General Carlyon, because he had also served in India, and he spoke of him in some detail. I did not speak without some knowledge. Was I misinformed?"
Randolph was torn between the desire to be thoroughly rude to her and the need to defend his son, his family pride, and to be at least reasonably civil to a guest, even one he had not invited. Family pride won.
"Of course not," he said grudgingly. "Thaddeus was exceptional. A man not only of military brilliance, but a man without a stain of dishonor on his name."
Felicia kept her eyes on her plate, her jaw tight. Hester wondered what inner grief tore at her at the loss of her only son, grief she would keep hidden with that same rigid discipline which had no doubt sustained her all her life, through the loneliness of long separations, perhaps service abroad in unfamiliar places, harsh climate, fear of injury and disease; and now scandal and devastating loss. On the courage and duty of such women had the soldiers of the Empire leaned.
The door opened and a small boy with fair hair and a thin, pale face came into the room; his first glance was to Randolph, then to Felicia.
"I'm sorry, Grandmama," he said very quietly.
"You are excused," Felicia replied formally. "Do not make a habit of it, Cassian. It is impolite to be late to meals. Please take your place, and James will bring your luncheon."
"Yes, Grandmama." He skirted wide around his grandfather's chair, around Peverell without looking at him, then sat in the empty seat next to Damaris.
Hester resumed eating her meal, but discreetly she looked at him as he kept his eyes down on his plate and without relish began his main course. Since he was too late for soup he was not to be spoiled by being permitted to catch up. He was a handsome child, with honey fair hair and fair skin with a dusting of freckles lending tone to his pallor. His brow was broad, his nose short and already beginning to show an aquiline curve. His mouth was wide and generous, still soft with childhood, but there was a suikiness to it, an air of secrecy. Even when he looked up at Edith as she spoke to him, and to request the water or the condiments, there was something in his aspect that struck Hester as closed, more careful than she would have expected