furniture, of design, marking it indelibly. There would be morning calls, luncheon with suitable people of like breeding and position, visits to the poor-and in season there would be balls, the races at Ascot, the regatta at Henley, and of course in winter the hunt. None of it would be more than pleasant at best, tedious at worst-but without meaning.
But Rosamond did not deserve a lie, even in her loneliness-nor did she deserve the pain of Hester's view of the truth. It was only her view; for Rosamond it might be different.
"Oh yes, sometimes I do," she said with a small smile. "But we cannot fight wars like that for long. It is very dreadful as well as vivid and real. It is not fun being cold and dirty and so tired you feel as if you've been beaten- nor is it pleasant to eat army rations. It is one of the finest things in life to be truly useful-but there are less distressing places to do it, and I am sure I shall find many here in England."
"You are very kind," Rosamond said gently, meeting her eyes again. "I admit I had not imagined you would be so thoughtful." She rose to her feet. "Now I suppose we had better change into suitable clothes for calling-have you something modest and dowdy, but very dignified?" She stifled a giggle and turned it into a sneeze. "I'm sorry-what a fearful thing to ask!''
"Yes-most of my wardrobe is like that," Hester replied with an amusing smile. "All dark greens and very tired-looking blues-like faded ink. Will they do?"
"Perfectly-come!"
***
Menard drove the three of them in the open trap, bowling along the carriageway through the park towards the edge of the home estate and across heavy cornfields towards the village and the church spire beyond the slow swell of the hill. He obviously enjoyed managing the horse and did it with the skill of one who is long practiced. He did not even try to make conversation, supposing the loveliness of the land, the sky and the trees would be enough for them, as it was for him.
Hester sat watching him, leaving Rosamond and Fabia to converse. She looked at his powerful hands holding the reins lightly, at the ease of his balance and the obvious reticence in his expression. The daily round of duties in the estate was no imprisonment to him; she had seen a brooding in his face occasionally in the time she had been at Shelburne, sometimes anger, sometimes a stiffness and a jumpiness of the muscles which made her think of officers she had seen the night before battle, but it was when they were all at table, with Fabia's conversation betraying the ache of loneliness underneath as if Joscelin had been the only person she had totally and completely loved.
The first house they called at was that of a farm laborer on the edge of the village, a tiny cottage, one room downstairs crowded with a sunburned, shabby woman and seven children all sharing a loaf of bread spread with pork drippings. Their thin, dusty legs, barefooted, splayed out beneath simple smocks and they were obviously in from working in the garden or fields. Even the youngest, who looked no more than three or four, had fruit stains on her fingers where she had been harvesting.
Fabia asked questions and passed out practical advice on financial management and how to treat croup which the woman received in polite silence. Hester blushed for the condescension of it, and then realized it had been a way of life with little substantial variation for over a thousand years, and both parties were comfortable with its familiarity; and she had nothing more certain to put in its place.
Rosamond spoke with the eldest girl, and took the wide pink ribbon off her own hat and gave it to her, tying it around the child's hair to her shy delight.
Menard stood patiently by the horse, talking to it in a low voice for a few moments, then falling into a comfortable silence. The sunlight on his face showed the fine lines of anxiety around his eyes and mouth, and the deeper marks of pain. Here in the rich land with its great trees, the wind and the fertile earth he was relaxed, and Hester saw a glimpse of a quite different man from the stolid, resentful second son he appeared at Shelburne Hall. She wondered if Fabia had ever allowed herself to see it. Or