The Face of a Stranger Page 0,70

her seat and excused the ladies, leading them to the withdrawing room, where they discussed such matters as music, fashion, society, forthcoming weddings, both planned and speculated, and were excessively polite to one another.

When the visitors finally took their leave, Fabia turned upon her sister-in-law with a look that should have shriveled her.

"Callandra-I shall never forgive you!"

"Since you have never forgiven me for wearing the exact shade of gown as you when we first met forty years ago," Callandra replied, "I shall just have to bear it with the same fortitude I have shown over all the other episodes since."

"You are impossible. Dear heaven, how I miss Josce-lin." She stood up slowly and Hester rose as a matter of courtesy. Fabia walked towards the double doors. "I am going to bed. I shall see you tomorrow." And she went out, leaving them also.

"You are impossible, Aunt Callandra," Rosamond agreed, standing in the middle of the floor and looking confused and unhappy. "I don't know why you say such things."

"I know you don't," Callandra said gently. "That is because you have never been anywhere but Middleton, Shelburne Hall or London society. Hester would say the same, if she were not a guest here-indeed perhaps more. Our military imagination has ossified since Waterloo." She stood up and straightened her skirts. "Victory-albeit one of the greatest in history and turning the tide of nations- has still gone to our heads and we think all we have to do to win is to turn up in our scarlet coats and obey the rules. And only God can measure the suffering and the death that pigheadedness has caused. And we women and politicians sit here safely at home and cheer them on without the slightest idea what the reality of it is."

"Joscelin is dead," Rosamond said bleakly, staring at the closed curtains.

"I know that, my dear," Callandra said from close behind her. "But he did not die in the Crimea.".

"He may have died because of it!"

"Indeed he may," Callandra conceded, her face suddenly touched with gentleness. "And I know you were extremely fond of him. He had a capacity for pleasure, both to give and to receive, which unfortunately neither Lovel nor Menard seem to share. I think we have exhausted both ourselves and the subject. Good night, my dear. Weep if you wish; tears too long held in do us no good. Composure is all very well, but there is a time to acknowledge pain also." She slipped her arm around the slender shoulders and hugged her briefly, then knowing the gesture would release the hurt as well as comfort, she took Hester by the elbow and conducted her out to leave Rosamond alone.

***

The following morning Hester overslept and rose with a headache. She did not feel like early breakfast, and still less like facing any of the family across the table. She felt passionately about the vanity and the incompetence she had seen in the army, and the horror at the suffering would never leave her; probably the anger would not either. But she had not behaved very well at dinner; and the memory of it churned around in her mind, trying to fall into a happier picture with less fault attached to herself, and did not improve either her headache or her temper.

She decided to take a brisk walk in the park for as long as her energy lasted. She wrapped up appropriately, and by nine o'clock was striding rapidly over die grass getting her boots wet.

She first saw the figure of the man with considerable irritation, simply because she wished to be alone. He was probably inoffensive, and presumably had as much right to be here as herself-perhaps more? He no doubt served some function. However she felt he intruded, he was another human being in a world of wind and great trees and vast, cloud-racked skies and shivering, singing grass.

When he drew level he stopped and spoke to her. He was dark, with an arrogant face, all lean, smooth bones and clear eyes.

"Good morning, ma'am. I see you are from Shelburne Hall-"

"How observant," she said tartly, gazing around at the totally empty parkland. There was no other place she could conceivably have come from, unless she had emerged from a hole in the ground.

His face tightened, aware of her sarcasm. "Are you a member of the family?" He was staring at her with some intensity and she found it disconcerting, and bordering on the offensive.

"How is that your concern?" she

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