A Christmas Journey

PART ONE

Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould hesitated a moment at the top of the stairs. Applecross was one of those magnificent country houses where one descended down a long curved sweep of marble into the vast hall where the assembled guests were gathered awaiting the call to dinner.

First one person, then another looked up. To wait for them all would have been ostentatious. She was dressed in oyster satin, not a shade everyone could wear, but Prince Albert himself had said that she was the most beautiful woman in Europe, with her glorious hair and exquisite bones. It was not a remark that had endeared her to the queen, the more so since it was probably true.

But this was not a royal occasion; it was a simple weekend party early in December. The London season was over with its hectic social round, and those who had country homes had returned to them to look forward to Christmas. There were rumors of possible war in the Crimea, but apart from that the middle of the century saw only greater progress and prosperity within an empire that spanned the globe.

Omegus Jones came to the foot of the stairs to meet her. He was not only the perfect host, but also a friend of some years, even though he was in his fifties and Vespasia barely past thirty. Her husband, older than she, was the one who had first made the acquaintance, but he was abroad on business at the moment. Her children were in the house in London, safe and well cared for.

“My dear Vespasia, you are quite ravishing,” Omegus said with a self-deprecating smile. “Of which you cannot fail to be aware, so please do not insult my intelligence by pretending surprise, or worse still, denial.” He was a lean man with a wry face, full of humor and an unconscious elegance as much at home in a country lane as a London withdrawing room.

She accepted the compliment with a simple “Thank you.” A witty reply would have been inappropriate. Besides, Omegus’s candor had robbed her of the ability to think of one.

A dozen people were here, including herself. The most socially prominent were Lord and Lady Salchester, closely followed by Sir John and Lady Warburton. Lady Warburton’s sister had married a duke, as she found a dozen ways of reminding people. Actually Vespasia’s father had been an earl, but she never spoke of it. It was birth, not achievement, and those who mattered already knew. To remind people was indelicate, as if you had no other worth to yourself, never mind to them.

Also present were Fenton and Blanche Twyford; two eminently eligible young men, Peter Hanning and Bertie Rosythe; Gwendolen Kilmuir, widowed more than a year ago; and Isobel Alvie, whose husband had died nearly three years earlier.

It was not customary to serve refreshments before dinner, but rather simply to converse until the butler should sound the gong. The guests would then go into the dining room in strict order of precedence, the rules for which were set out in the finest detail and must never be broken.

Lady Salchester, a formidable horsewoman, was dressed in a deep wine shade, with a crinoline skirt of daunting proportions. She was speaking of last season’s races, in particular the meeting at Royal Ascot.

“Magnificent creature!” she said enthusiastically, her voice booming a little. “Nothing else stood a chance.”

Lady Warburton smiled as if in agreement.

Bertie Rosythe—slender, fair, superbly tailored—was trying to mask his boredom, and doing it rather well. If Vespasia had not known him, she might have been duped into imagining he was interested in horseflesh.

Isobel was beside her, darkly striking, less than beautiful but with fine eyes and a ready wit.

“Magnificent creature indeed,” she whispered. “And Lady Salchester herself certainly never had a chance.”

“What are you talking about?” Vespasia asked, knowing that there must be many layers to the remark.

“Fanny Oakley,” Isobel replied, leaning even more closely. “Didn’t you see her at Ascot? Whatever were you doing?”

“Watching the horses,” Vespasia answered dryly.

“Don’t be absurd!” Isobel laughed. “Good heavens! You didn’t have money on them, did you? I mean real money?”

Vespasia saw by Isobel’s face that she was suddenly concerned in case Vespasia were in gambling debt, not an unheard-of difficulty for a young woman of considerable means and very little to occupy herself, her husband away a good deal of the time, and endless staff to care for her home and her children.

Vespasia wondered for a chill moment if Isobel were really acute enough in her observation to have seen the vague, sad stirrings of emptiness in Vespasia’s marriage, and to have at least half understood them. One wished to have friends—without them life would hold only shallow pleasures—but there were areas of the heart into which one did not intrude. Some aches could be borne only in secret. Isobel could not have guessed what had happened in Rome during the passionate revolutions of 1848. No one could. That was a once-in-a-lifetime love, to be buried now and thought of only in dreams. Vespasia would not meet Mario Corena again. This here in Applecross was the world of reality.

“Not at all,” she replied lightly. “The race does not need the edge of money to make it fun.”

“Are you referring to the horses?” Isobel asked softly.

“Was there another?” Vespasia retorted.

Isobel laughed.

Lord Salchester saw Vespasia and acknowledged her appreciatively. Lady Salchester smiled with warm lips and a glacial eye. “Good evening, Lady Vespasia,” she said with penetrating clarity. “How charming to see you. You seem quite recovered from the exertion of the season.” It was a less-than-kind reference to a summer cold that had made Vespasia tired and far from herself at the Henley Regatta. “Let us hope next year is not too strenuous for you,” she added. She was twenty years older than Vespasia, but a woman of immense stamina who had never been beautiful.

Vespasia was aware of Lord Salchester’s eye on her, and even more of Omegus Jones’s. It was the latter that tempered her reply. Wit was not always funny, if it cut those already wounded. “I hope so,” she answered. “It is tedious for everybody when someone cannot keep up. I shall endeavor not to do that again.”

Isobel was surprised. Lady Salchester was astounded.

Vespasia smiled sweetly and excused herself.

Gwendolen Kilmuir was talking earnestly to Bertie Rosythe. Her head was bent a trifle, the light shining on her rich brown hair and the deep plum pink of her gown. She was widowed well over a year now, and had only recently taken the opportunity to cast aside her black. She was a young woman, barely twenty-eight, and had no intention of spending longer in mourning than society demanded. She looked up demurely at Bertie, but she was smiling, and her face had a softness and a warmth to it that was hard to mistake.

Vespasia glanced at Isobel and caught a pensive look in her eye. Then a moment later she smiled, and it was gone.

Bertie turned and saw them. As always he was gracefully polite. Gwendolen’s pleasure was not as easily assumed. Vespasia saw the muscles in her neck and chin tighten and her bosom swell as she breathed deeply before mustering a smile. “Good evening, Lady Vespasia, Mrs. Alvie. How nice it will be to dine together.”

“As always,” Isobel murmured. “I believe we dined at Lady Cranbourne’s also, during the summer? And at the queen’s garden party.” Her eyes flickered up and down Gwendolen’s plum taffeta. “I remember your gown.”

Gwendolen blushed. Bertie smiled uncertainly.

Suddenly and with a considerable jolt, Vespasia realized that Isobel’s interest in Bertie was not as casual as she had supposed. The barb in her remark betrayed her. Such cruelty was not in the character she knew.

“You remember her gown?” she said in feigned surprise. “How delightful.” She looked with slight disdain at Isobel’s russet gold with its sweeping skirts. “So few gowns are remarkable these days, don’t you think?”

Isobel caught her breath, a flare of temper in her eyes.

Gwendolen laughed with a release of tension and turned to Bertie again.

Lady Warburton joined them, and the conversation became enmeshed in gossip, cases of “he said” and “she said” and “do you really believe?”

Dinner was announced, and Omegus Jones offered his arm to Vespasia, which in view of Lady Salchester’s presence she found a singular honor, and they went into the long blue-and-gold dining room in solemn and correct procession, each to their appointed place at the glittering table.

The chandeliers above were reflected in the gleam of silver, shattered prisms of light on tiers of crystal goblets in a field of linen napkins folded like lilies. The fire burned warm in the grate. White chrysanthemums from the greenhouse filled the bowls, providing a redolence of earth and autumn leaves, the soft fragrance of woodland.

They began with the lightest consommé. There would be nine courses, but it was not expected that everyone would eat from all of them. Ladies in particular, mindful of the delicate figures and tiny waists demanded by fashion, would choose with care. Where physical survival was relatively easy, one created rules to make social survival more difficult. Not to be accepted was to become an outcast, a person who fitted nowhere.

Conversation turned to more serious topics. Sir John Warburton spoke of the current political situation, giving his views with gravity, his thin hands brown against the white linen of the cloth.

“Do you really think it will come to war?” Peter Hanning asked with a frown.

“With Russia?” Sir John raised his eyebrows. “It is not impossible.”

“Nonsense!” Lord Salchester said briskly, his wineglass in the air. “Nobody’s going to go to war against us! Especially over something as absurd as the Crimea! They’ll remember Waterloo, and leave us well alone.”

“Waterloo was over thirty-five years ago,” Omegus Jones pointed out. “The men who fought that have laid their swords by long ago.”

“The British army is still the same, sir!” Salchester retorted, his mustache bristling.

“Indeed, I fear it is,” Omegus agreed quietly, his lips tight, his eyes sad and far away.

“That was the finest, most invincible army in the world.” Salchester’s voice grew louder.

“We beat Napoleon,” Omegus corrected. “We have fought no one since then. Times change. Good and evil do not, nor pride and compassion, but warfare moves all the time—new weapons, new ideas, new strategies.”

“I do not like to disagree with you at your own table, sir,” Salchester responded. “Courtesy prevents me from telling you what I think of your view.”

Omegus’s face lit with a sudden smile, remarkably sweet and quite unaffected. “Let us hope that nothing happens to prove which one of us is correct.”

Footmen in livery and parlor maids with white lace-trimmed aprons removed the soup plates and served the fish. The butler poured wine. The lights blazed. The clink of silver on porcelain was the soft background as conversation began again.

Vespasia watched rather than listened. Faces, gestures told her more of emotion than the carefully considered words. She saw how often Gwendolen looked toward Bertie Rosythe, the flush in her face, how easily she laughed when he was amusing, and that it pleased him. He was almost as much aware of her, although he was more careful not to show it quite so openly.

Vespasia was not the only person to notice. She saw Blanche Twyford’s satisfaction and recalled hearing her make a remark, which now she understood more clearly. Blanche had spoken of spring weddings, and Gwendolen had blushed. Perhaps this was the weekend when a declaration was expected? It would seem so.

Fenton Twyford seemed less pleased. His dark face looked cautious. A couple of times his glance at Bertie suggested unease, as if an old shadow crossed his thoughts, but Vespasia had no idea what it might be. Was Bertie not quite as perfectly eligible as he seemed? Or was it Gwendolen who somehow fell short? As far as Vespasia knew, she was of good family, wealthy if undistinguished, and without a breath of scandal attached. Her late husband, Roger Kilmuir, was also without blemish and was connected to the aristocracy. If his far elder brother died childless, which seemed likely, then Roger would have inherited the title and all that went with it.

Only, Roger had died in an unfortunate accident, the sort of thing that happened now and again to even the best horsemen. Gwendolen had been quite shattered at the time. It was good to see that she was reaching after some kind of happiness again.

One by one gold-rimmed plates were removed, fresh courses brought, and more wine poured, until nothing was left but mounds of fresh grapes from the hothouse, and silver finger bowls to remove any faint traces of stickiness.

The ladies excused themselves to the withdrawing room and left the gentlemen to pass the port and, for those who so wished, to smoke.

Vespasia followed Isobel and Lady Salchester and was aware of the rustle of taffetas and silks as Gwendolen and Blanche Twyford came behind them. They took their seats in the velvet-curtained withdrawing room, carefully arranging mountainous skirts both to be flattering and not to impede other people’s approach, when the gentlemen should rejoin them.

This was the part of any evening that Vespasia liked the least. Conversation almost always became domestic, and since Rome she found it hard to concentrate on such things. She loved her children, deeply and instinctively, and her marriage was agreeable enough. Her husband was kind and intelligent—an honorable man. Many women would have been envious of so much. She wanted for nothing socially or materially. It was only in the longing of the heart, the hunger to care to the power and depth of her being, that she was not answered.

She looked at the other women in the room and wondered what lay behind the gracious masks of their faces. Lady Salchester had energy and intelligence, but she was plain, plainer than her own parlor maid, and probably the housemaid and the kitchen maid, as well. It was widely suspected that Lord Salchester’s attention wandered, in a practical as well as imaginary way.

“I know what you are thinking,” Isobel said beside her, leaning a little closer so she could speak in a whisper.

Vespasia was startled. “Do you?”

“Of course!” Isobel smiled. “I was thinking so, too. And it is quite unfair. If she were to do the same, with that nice-looking footman, society would be scandalized, and she would be ruined. She would never go anywhere again!”

“Dozens of married women become bored with their husbands, and after they have produced the appropriate number of children, they have affairs,” Vespasia pointed out sadly. “I don’t think I admire it, but I am quite aware that it occurs. I could name you half a dozen.”

“So could I,” Isobel agreed flippantly. “We’ll have to do it, and see if we know the same ones.”

Blanche Twyford was talking to Gwendolen, nodding every now and then, and Gwendolen was smiling. It was easy to guess the subject of their excitement.

Vespasia looked sideways at Isobel and saw the shadow in her eyes again. If Bertie proposed marriage to Gwendolen this weekend, which seemed to be generally expected, would Isobel really lose more than a possible admirer? Did she care for him, perhaps even have hopes herself? She had loved her husband; Vespasia knew that. But he had been gone for three years now, and Isobel was a young woman, no more than Vespasia’s own age. It was possible to fall in love again. In fact, at thirty it would be harsh and lonely not to.

Should she say something? Was this a time when real friendship dared embarrassment and rejection? Or was silence, the pretense of not knowing, preferable, thereby allowing the deeper wounds to remain private?

The decision was taken from her by the arrival of Lady Warburton, whereupon the conversation moved to fashion, Prince Albert’s latest ideas for improving the mind, and, of course, the queen’s enthusiasm for everything her husband said.

They were rejoined by the gentlemen, and the atmosphere changed again. Everyone became more self-conscious, backs a little straighter, laughter more delicate, movement more graceful. The servants had retreated to leave them alone. The final cleaning up would be done when the guests retired to bed.

They were all facing Gwendolen and Bertie when Isobel made the remark. Gwendolen was sitting with her skirts swept around her like a tide, her head up, her slender throat pale in the candlelight. She looked beautiful and triumphant. Bertie stood close to her, just a little possessively.

“Charming,” Lady Warburton said very quietly, as if the announcement had already been made.

Vespasia looked at Isobel and saw the strain in her face. She felt a moment’s deep sorrow for her. Whatever the prize, defeat is a bitter taste.

Peter Hanning was saying something trivial, and everyone laughed. There was a goblet of water on the side table. Gwendolen asked for it.

Bertie reached across swiftly and picked it up, then set it on the tray, which had been left there. He passed it to her, balanced in one hand, bowing as he did so. “Madame,” he said humbly. “Your servant forever.”

Gwendolen put out her hand.

“For heaven’s sake, you look like a footman!” Isobel’s voice was clear and brittle. “Surely you aspire to be more than that? She’s hardly going to give her favors to a servant! At least, not permanently!”

The moment froze. It was a dreadful statement, and Vespasia winced.

“She will require a gentleman,” Isobel went on. “After all, Kilmuir could look forward to a title.” She turned to Gwendolen. “Couldn’t he?”

Gwendolen was white. “I love the man,” she said huskily. “The status means nothing to me.”

Isobel raised her eyebrows very high. “You would give yourself to him if he were really a footman?” she asked incredulously. “My dear, I believe you!”

Gwendolen stared at her, but her gaze was inward, as if she saw a horror beyond description, almost beyond endurance. Then slowly she rose to her feet, her eyes hollow. She seemed a trifle unsteady.

“Gwendolen!” Bertie said quickly, but she walked past him as if suddenly he were invisible to her. She stumbled to the door, needing a moment or two to grasp the handle and turn it, then went out into the hall.

Lady Warburton turned on Isobel. “Really, Mrs. Alvie, I know you imagine that you are amusing, at least at times, but that remark merely exposed your envy, and it is most unbecoming.” She swiveled to face Omegus Jones. “If you will excuse me, I shall make sure that poor Gwendolen is all right.” And with a crackle of skirts she swept out.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Vespasia decided to take control before the situation degenerated. She turned to Isobel. “I don’t think this can be salvaged with any grace. We would do better to retreat and leave well enough alone. Come. It is late anyway.”

Isobel hesitated only a moment, glancing at the ring of startled and embarrassed faces, and realized she could only agree.

Outside in the hall Vespasia took her arm, forcing her to stop before she reached the bottom of the stairs. “What on earth has got hold of you?” she demanded. “You will have to apologize to Gwendolen tomorrow, and to everyone else. Being in love with Bertie does not excuse what you did, and you would be a great deal better off if you had not made yourself so obvious!”

Isobel glared at her, her face ashen but for the high spots of color in her cheeks, but she was too close to tears to answer. She was now perfectly aware of how foolish she had been, and that she had made not Gwendolen but herself look vulnerable. She shook her arm free and stormed up the stairs without looking backwards.

Vespasia did not sleep well. Certainly Isobel had behaved most unfortunately, but marriage, with love or without it, was a very serious business. For a woman it was the only honorable occupation, and battles for an eligible man of the charm and the financial means of someone like Bertie Rosythe were fought to the last ditch. She hurt for the pain Isobel must feel, a pain she had just made a great deal worse for herself. Vespasia could only imagine it. Her own marriage had been easily arranged. Her father was an earl, and she herself was startlingly beautiful. She could have been a duchess had she wished. She preferred a man of intelligence and an ambition to do something useful, and who loved her for herself and gave her a great deal of freedom. It was a good bargain. The kind of love for which she hungered was well lost and offered to very few—and belonged in dreams and hot Roman summers of manning the barricades against overwhelming odds. One loves utterly, and then yields to honor and duty and returns home to live with other realities, leaving the height and the ache of passion behind.

She rose in the morning and, with her maid’s assistance of course, dressed warmly in a blue-gray woolen gown against the December frost and a very sharp wind whining in the eaves and seeking to find every crack in the windows. She went downstairs to face the other guests and whatever difficulties the night had not resolved.

She was met in the hall by Omegus Jones. He was wearing an outdoor jacket and there was mud on his boots. His dark hair was untidy, and his face was so pale he looked waxen.

“Vespasia …”

“Whatever is it?” She went to him immediately. “You look ill! Can I help?” She touched his hand lightly. It was freezing—and wet. Suddenly she was frightened. Omegus, more than anyone else she knew, always seemed in control of himself, and of events. “What is it?” she said again, more urgently.

He did not prevaricate. He closed his icy hand over hers with great gentleness. “I am afraid we have just found Gwendolen’s body in the lake.” He gestured vaguely behind him to the sheet of ornamental water beyond the sloping lawn with its cedars and herbaceous border. “We have brought her out, but there is nothing to be done for her. She seems to have been dead since sometime last night.”

Vespasia was stunned. It was impossible. “How can she have fallen in?” she said, denying the thought desperately. “It is shallow at the edges. There are flowers growing there, reeds! You would simply get stuck in the mud! And anyway, why on earth would she go walking down by the water on a December night? Why would anyone?”

He looked haggard, and he was unmoved by her arguments, except to pity.

Vespasia was touched by a deep fear.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” he answered, his eyes hollow. “She went in from the bridge, where it is quite deep. The only conclusion possible seems to be that she jumped, of her own accord. The balustrade is quite high enough to prevent an accidental falling, even in the dark. I had them made that way myself.”

“Omegus! I’m so sorry!” Her first thought was for him, and the distress it would cause him, the dark shadow over the beauty of Applecross. It was a loveliness more than simply that of a great house where art and nature had combined to create a perfect landscape of flowers, trees, water, and views to the hills and fields beyond. It was a place of peace where generations of love of the land had sunk into its fabric and left a residue of warmth, even in the starkness of late autumn.

Approached from the southwest along an avenue of towering elms, the classic Georgian facade looked toward the afternoon sun over the downs. The gravel forecourt was fronted by a balustrade with a long, shallow flight of stone steps that led down to the vast lawn, beyond which lay the ornamental water.

“I’m afraid it will become most unpleasant,” he said unhappily. “People will be frightened because sudden death of the young is a terrible reminder of the fragility of all life. She had seemed on the brink of new joy after her bereavement, and it has been snatched away from her. Only the boldest of us, and the least imaginative, do not sometimes in the small hours of the morning also fear the same for ourselves. And they will not understand why it has happened. They will look for someone to blame, because anger is easier to live with than fear.”

“I don’t understand!” she said with a gulp. “Why on earth would she do such a thing? Isobel was cruel, but if anyone should be mortified, it is she! She betrayed her own vulnerability in front of those who will have no understanding and little mercy.”

“We know that, my dear Vespasia, but they do not,” he said softly, still touching her so lightly she felt only the coldness of his fingers. “They will see only a woman with every cause to expect an offer of marriage, but who was publicly insulted by suggestions that she is a seeker after position rather than a woman in love.” His face twisted with irony. “Which is an absurd piece of hypocrisy, I am aware. We have created a society in which it is necessary for a woman to marry well if she is to succeed, because we have contrived for it to be impossible for her to achieve any safety or success alone, even should she wish to. But frequently we criticize most vehemently that which is largely our own doing.”

“Are you … are you saying that Isobel’s remark drove her to commit suicide?” Vespasia’s voice cracked as if her mouth and throat were parched.

“It seems so,” he admitted. “Unless there was an exchange between Bertie and Gwendolen after she left the withdrawing room, and a quarrel she did not feel she could repair.”

Vespasia could think of nothing to say. It was hideous.

“You offered to help me,” Omegus reminded her. “I may ask that you do.”

“How?”

“I have very little idea,” he confessed. “Perhaps that is why I need you.”

Vespasia swallowed hard. “I shall tell Isobel,” she said, wondering how on earth she could make such a thing bearable. The day yawned ahead like an abyss, full of grief and confusion.

“Thank you,” he accepted. “I shall have the servants ask everyone to be at breakfast, and tell them then.”

She nodded, then turned and went back upstairs and along to Isobel’s room. She knocked on the door and waited until she heard Isobel’s voice tell her to go in.

Isobel was lying in the bed, her dark hair spread across the pillow, her eyes shadowed around as if she, too, had slept badly. She sat up slowly, staring at Vespasia in surprise.

There was no mercy in hesitation. Vespasia sat on the bed facing Isobel. “I have just met Omegus in the hall,” she began. “They have found Gwendolen’s body in the lake. The only conclusion possible from the circumstances is that sometime after our unfortunate conversation in the withdrawing room she must have gone out alone and, in some derangement of mind, jumped off the bridge. I’m afraid it is very bad.”

Isobel sat up, pulling the sheet around herself, even though the room was not cold. “Is she …?”

“Of course. It is December! If she had not drowned, she would have frozen.”

“But surely she must have fallen!” Isobel protested, pushing her hair off her face. “Why on earth would she jump? That’s ridiculous!” She shook her head. “It can’t be true!”

“If you remember, the balustrade along the bridge is too high to fall over by accident,” Vespasia reminded her. “Anyway, why on earth would she be out there leaning over the bridge at eleven o’clock on a December night? And alone!”

The little color in Isobel’s face had drained away, leaving her pasty-white. She started to shiver. Her hands were clenched in the sheets.

“Are you implying that my idiotic remark made her do that? Why? All I did was insult her! She wouldn’t be the first woman to be called greedy, or desperate. That’s absurd!” Her voice was sharp, a little high-pitched.

“Isobel, there is no point in pretending that it did not happen,” Vespasia said steadily, trying to sound reasonable, although she did not feel it. “You are going to have to go down at some time and face everyone, whatever they believe. And the longer you delay it, the more you will appear to be accepting the blame.”

“I’m not to blame!” Isobel said indignantly. “I was rash in what I said, and I would have apologized to her today. But if she went and jumped off the bridge, that has nothing to do with me, and I won’t have anyone say that it has!” She flung the sheets aside and climbed out of the bed, stumbling a little as she stood up. She kept her back to Vespasia, as though blaming her for having brought the news. But Vespasia noticed that when Isobel picked up her peignoir, her fingers were stiff, and when it slipped out of her grasp, it took her three attempts to retrieve it.

Breakfast was ghastly. When Vespasia and Isobel arrived, everyone else was already gathered around the table. Food was laid out on the sideboard in silver chafing dishes: finnan haddock, kedgeree, eggs, sausage, deviled kidneys, and bacon. There was also plenty of fresh crisp toast, butter, marmalade, and tea. People had served themselves, as a matter of good manners, before Omegus Jones had divulged what had occurred, but nobody felt like eating.

Isobel’s entrance had been greeted in silence, nor did anyone meet her eyes.

Vespasia looked at Omegus and saw the warning and the apology unspoken in his expression.

Isobel hesitated. No one was wearing black, because no one had foreseen the occasion, and of course Isobel was the only one who had known of the death before dressing. She wore a sober dark green.

Lady Warburton was the first to acknowledge her presence, but it was with a chilly stare, her rather ordinary face pinched with distaste. She regarded Isobel’s clothes first, long before her face. “I see you were aware of the tragedy before you dressed,” she said coolly. “In fact, perhaps last night?”

“My dear Evelyn, do not let your grief …,” Sir John began, then trailed away as his wife turned to glare at him.

“It is perfectly obvious she was aware of poor Gwendolen’s death!” she said in a low, grating voice. “Why else would she wear mourning to breakfast?”

“Hypocrite,” Blanche Twyford murmured half under her breath. No one doubted that she was referring to Isobel, not Lady Warburton.

Isobel pretended not to have heard. She took a slice of toast, and then found herself unable to swallow it. She played with it to keep her hands occupied, and perhaps to prevent anyone else from noticing that they trembled.

Bertie looked haggard and utterly confused.

Vespasia wondered if he had gone after Gwendolen last night. Surely he must have. Or was it conceivable he had not? If he had followed her and told her of his feelings, asked her to marry him as everyone was expecting, nothing Isobel Alvie, or anyone else, could have said would have destroyed her happiness. Was that what he was thinking, that he avoided her eyes now? And what about Lady Warburton? Had she followed Gwendolen, or merely said she would to escape the situation?

“This is perfectly dreadful!” Lady Salchester burst out. “We really cannot sit here not knowing what has happened, and having no idea what to say to each other!”

“We know what has happened,” Blanche Twyford said angrily. “Mrs. Alvie spoke inexcusably last night, and poor Mrs. Kilmuir was so distraught that she took her own life. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”

Lady Salchester froze. “I beg your pardon?” she said, ice dripping from her voice.

“For heaven’s sake!” Blanche flushed. “I did not mean it personally. It is an expression of—of clarity. We all know perfectly well what happened!”

“I don’t.” Lord Salchester came surprisingly to his wife’s aid. “To me it is as much of a muddle as the nose on your face!”

Vespasia wanted to laugh hysterically. She suppressed the desire with difficulty, holding her napkin to her lips and pretending to sneeze.

Blanche Twyford glared at Lord Salchester.

Salchester opened his blue eyes very wide. “Why on earth should a perfectly healthy young woman on the brink of matrimony throw herself into the lake? Merely because her rival insults her? I don’t understand.” He looked baffled. He shook his head. “Women,” he said unhappily. “If she had been a chap, she’d simply have insulted her back, and they’d have gone to bed friends.”

“Oh, do be quiet, Ernest!” Lady Salchester snapped at him. “You are talking complete nonsense!”

“Am I?” he said mildly. “Wasn’t she going to be married? That’s what everyone said!”

Bertie stood up, white-faced, and left the room.

“Good God! He’s not going to the lake, is he?” Salchester asked, his napkin sliding to the floor.

Isobel left the table, as well, only she went out the other door, toward the garden, even though it was raining and not much above freezing outside.

“Guilt!” Lady Warburton said viciously.

“I think that’s a little harsh,” Sir John expostulated. “She was—”

“Both of them!” his wife cut across, effectively cutting off whatever he had been going to say. He lapsed into silence.

Omegus rose to his feet. “Lady Vespasia, I wonder if I might talk with you in the library?”

“Of course.” She was grateful for the chance to escape the ghastly meal table. She scraped her chair back before the footman could pull it out for her.

“You’re not going to just leave it!” Lady Warburton accused him. “This cannot be run away from. I won’t allow it!”

Omegus looked at her coldly. “I am going to think before I act, Lady Warburton. An error now, even if made with the purest of motives, could cause grief which could not later be undone. Excuse me.” And leaving her angry, and now confounded, he left the room with Vespasia at his heels.

In the silence of the book-lined library with its exquisite bronzes he closed the door and turned to face her. “Evelyn Warburton is right,” he said grimly. There was intense sadness in his eyes, and the lines around his mouth were drawn down.

“It was foolish,” she agreed. “And unkind. Both are faults, but not in any way crimes, or most of society would be in prison. It is dreadful that Gwendolen should have taken her life, but surely it is because she believed that Bertie would not marry her after all? It cannot be simply that Isobel behaved so badly.”

He regarded her with patience. “It is not necessarily what is but what is perceived that society will judge,” he answered. “Whether it is fair or not will enter into it very little. If we allow it to pass without addressing it, each time it is retold it will grow worse. What Isobel actually said will be lost in the exaggerations until no one remembers the truth. Tales alter every time they are retold, and, my dear, you must know that.” There was a faint reproof in his voice.

Of course she knew it, and felt the color burn in her face for her evasion. “What can we do?” she said helplessly. “What do you suppose the truth is? And how will we ever know? Gwendolen can’t tell us, and if Bertie quarreled with her, do you imagine he will tell us, in view of what has happened? Did Lady Warburton go after her? Do you know?”

“Apparently not. Do you know anything of medieval trials when someone was accused of a crime?” he asked.

She was astounded. Surely he could not have said what she thought she had heard. “I beg your pardon?”

Somewhere in the garden a dog was barking, and a servant’s rapid footsteps crossed the hall. The ghost of a smile curved his lips. “I am not referring to trial by combat, or by ordeal. I was thinking of a process of discovering the truth so far as we are able. If Isobel is indeed guilty of anything, or if Bertie is, then all of us agreeing upon a form of expiation would absolve them of guilt, after which we would make a solemn covenant that the matter would be considered closed.”

A wild hope flared up inside her. “But would we?” she said, struggling to believe it. “Would we agree to it? And could we find the truth? What if the guilty person would not accept the expiation?” She lifted her shoulders very slightly. “And what could it be? What if they simply walk away? We have no power to enforce anything. Why should they trust us to keep silent afterwards, let alone to forgive?”

He walked over to the heavy velvet curtains and the window overlooking the parkland with its rolling grass and great trees, now winter bare. Rain spattered against the glass.

“I have thought about it,” he said, as much to himself as to her. “The idea always appealed to me, the belief in expiation and forgiveness, a new start. Surely that is the only hope for any of us. We need both to forgive and to be forgiven.”

Looking at him standing with the harsh light on his face, she saw more pain inside him than she had in the years she had known him, and also a far greater understanding of peace. In that instant she wished above all to fulfill this faith in her, to make him pleased that it was she to whom he had turned.

“But why should they agree?” she said anxiously. “We have no power other than persuasion.”

He smiled and turned to face her. “Oh, but we have! The power of society is almost infinite, my dear. To be excluded is a kind of death. And if one is spoken of with sufficient venom, invitations cease, doors are closed, and one becomes invisible. People pass one by without a glance. One finds that in all ways that matter, one no longer exists. A young woman becomes unmarriageable. A young man has no career, no position; all clubs are closed to him.”

It was true. Vespasia had seen it. It was the cruelest fate because the people to whom it could happen were unfitted for any other life. They did not know how to earn a living in the work done by ordinary men and women. Those occupations also were closed to them. No woman born a lady could suddenly become a maid or a laundress. Even had she the skills, the temperament, and the stamina, she was not acceptable either to an employer of the class she used to be, or to the other employees to whose class she did not belong, nor ever could.

And she was not fitted or trained for any of the other occupations in which a woman could earn her way.

Suddenly Vespasia realized just what might be ahead for Isobel, and she felt cold and sick. “How will that help us?” she said huskily.

He looked at her with great earnestness. “If I explain to everyone what I have in mind, and they agree, then they will all be bound by it,” he answered. “The punishment for breaking their word would be exactly that same ostracism which will be applied to whoever is found at fault in Gwendolen’s death. Anyone who refuses to abide by that brands himself as outside the group of the rest of us. No one will wish to do that.” He shook his head a tiny fraction, lips tight. “Don’t tell me it is coercion. I know. Few people accept the judgment of their peers without it. It will offer a way for us to prevent the pain, and perhaps injustice, that may result otherwise.” His voice became softer. “And as important, it will at least give Isobel, or Bertie if it is he to blame, a chance to expiate the act of cruelty they may have performed.”

“How?” she asked.

“Gwendolen left a letter behind,” he explained. “It is sealed, and will remain so. It is addressed to her mother, Mrs. Naylor, who lives near Inverness, in the far north of Scotland. We could post it, but that would be a harsh way for a mother to find out that her child has destroyed the life she labored to give.”

Vespasia was appalled. “You mean they would have to go to this unhappy woman and give her the letter? That’s …” She was lost for words. Isobel would never do it! Neither would Bertie Rosythe. They would neither of them have the heart, or the stomach, for it. Not to mention making the journey to the north of Scotland in December.

Omegus raised his eyebrows. “Do you expect to be forgiven without pain, without a pilgrimage that costs the mind, the body, and the heart?”

“I don’t think it will work.”

“Will you at least help me try?”

She looked at him standing, lean, oddly graceful, the lines deeper in his face in the morning light, and she could not refuse. “Of course.”

“Thank you,” he said solemnly.

“What?” Lord Salchester said with stinging disbelief when they were gathered together at the luncheon table. The first course was finished when Omegus requested their attention and began to explain to them his plan.

“Preposterous!” Lady Warburton agreed. “We all know perfectly well what happened. For heaven’s sake, we saw it!”

“Heard it,” Sir John corrected.

She glared at him.

“Actually,” he went on. “It’s not a bad idea at all.”

Lady Warburton swung around in her chair and fixed him with a glacial eye. “It is ridiculous. And if we find Mrs. Alvie guilty, as we will do, what difference will that make?”

“That is not the end of the issue,” Omegus exclaimed. Vespasia saw him struggling to keep the dislike from his face. “In medieval times not all crimes were punished by execution or imprisonment,” he went on. “Sometimes the offender was permitted to make a pilgrimage of expiation. If he returned, which in those dangerous times very often he did not, then the sin was considered to have been washed out. All men were bound to pardon it and take the person back among them as if it had not occurred. It was never spoken of again, and he was trusted and loved as before.”

“A pilgrimage?” Peter Hanning said with disbelief, derision close to laughter in his voice. “To where, for heaven’s sake? Walsingham? Canterbury? Jerusalem, perhaps? Anyway, travel is a relative pleasure these days, if one can afford it. I’m not a religious man. I don’t care a fig if Mrs. Alvie, or anyone else, makes a journey to some holy place.”

“You have missed the point, Peter,” Omegus told him. “I shall choose the journey, and it will not be a pleasure. Nor will it be particularly expensive. But it will be extremely difficult, particularly so for anyone who bears guilt at all for the death of Gwendolen Kilmuir. And if we profess any claim to justice whatsoever, we will not decide in advance who that is.”

“I agree,” Sir John said immediately.

“So do I,” Vespasia added. “I agree to both justice and forgiveness.”

“And if I don’t?” Lady Warburton asked sharply, looking across at Vespasia, her brow creased with dislike, her mouth pinched.

Vespasia smiled. “Then one would be compelled to wonder why not,” she replied.

“I agree,” Blanche Twyford said. “Then it need never be spoken of beyond these walls. It will stop gossip among others who were not here, and any slander they may make against any of us, letting their imaginations build all manner of speculation. If we are all bound by what we agree, and the punishment is carried out here, the matter is ours. Surely you agree, don’t you?”

“I suppose, if you put it that way,” Lady Warburton said reluctantly.

Lord Salchester agreed also.

Omegus looked at Bertie, the question in his face.

“Who is to be the judge of this?” Bertie asked dubiously. Today his elegance seemed haggard, his exquisite suit and cravat an irrelevance.

“Omegus,” Vespasia said before anyone else could speak. “He is not involved and we may trust him to be fair.”

“May we?” Bertie said. “Applecross is his house. He is most certainly involved.”

“He is not involved in Gwendolen’s death.” Vespasia kept her temper with increasing difficulty. “Do you have someone in mind you prefer?”

“I think the whole idea is absurd,” he replied. “And totally impractical.”

“I disagree.” Lord Salchester spoke with sudden decisiveness, his voice sharp. “I think it is an excellent idea. I am quite happy to be bound by it. So is my wife.” He did not consult her. “It will be for the good of all our reputations, and will allow the matter to be dealt with immediately, and justice be served.” He looked a little balefully around the table at the others. “Who is against it? Apart from those either guilty or too shortsighted to see the ultimate good.”

Omegus smiled bleakly, but he did not point out the loaded nature of the challenge. One by one they all agreed, except Isobel.

Vespasia looked at her very steadily. “Any alternative would be much worse, I believe,” she said softly. “Do we all give our word, on pain of being ostracized ourselves should we break it, that we will keep silence, absolutely, on the subject after the judgment is given and should the price be paid? Then the offender, if there is one, begins anew from the day of their return, and we forget the offense as if it had not happened?”

One by one, reluctantly at first, they each gave their pledge.

“Thank you,” Omegus said gravely. “Then after luncheon we shall begin.”

They collected in the withdrawing room, the curtains open on the formal garden sweeping down toward the wind-ruffled water of the lake, and the trees beyond. It was the place where they could all be seated in something close to a circle, and the servants were dismissed until they should be called for. No one was to interrupt.

Omegus called them to order, then asked each of them in turn to tell what they knew of Gwendolen Kilmuir’s actions, her feelings, and what she may have said to them of her hopes from the time she had arrived three days before.

They began tentatively, unsure how far to trust, but gradually emotions were stirred by memory.

“She was full of hope,” Blanche said a little tearfully. “She believed that her time of loss was coming to an end.” She shot a look of intense dislike at Isobel. “Kilmuir’s death was a terrible blow to her.”

“So much so that she intended to marry less than a year and a half later,” Peter Hanning observed, leaning back in his chair, his cravat a little crooked, a slight curl to his lip.

“They had had some difficult times,” Blanche explained crossly. “He was not an easy man.”

“It was she who was not an easy woman,” Fenton Twyford interrupted. “She took some time to accept her responsibilities. Kilmuir was very patient with her, but the time came when he bore it less graciously.”

“A great deal less graciously,” Blanche agreed. “But he was mending his ways. She was looking forward to a far greater warmth between them when he was killed.”

“Killed?” Sir John said abruptly.

“In an accident,” Blanche told him. “A horse bolted, I believe, and he was thrown out of the trap and dragged. Quite dreadful. When she heard of it, poor Gwendolen was devastated. That was why it was so wonderful that she had a second chance at happiness.” She looked at Bertie with intense meaning.

He blushed miserably.

The tale progressed, each person adding colorful details until a picture emerged of the courtship of Bertie and Gwendolen, reaching the point when everyone expected an announcement. More than one person had noticed that Isobel was not pleased, even though she attempted to hide the fact. Now all the thoughts came to the surface, and she was clearly humiliated, but she did not dare escape. It would have been an admission, and she was determined not to make one.

But the tide swept relentlessly on. Even Vespasia was carried along by it until she was placed in a position where she must speak either for Isobel or against her. She had been forced to see more clearly now than at the time how deep the feelings had been on both sides. Under the veneer of wit and a kind of friendship, there had been a struggle for victory, which would have lifted either one woman or the other back onto the crest of a wave in society, assured of comfort and acceptance. The other would be left among the number of women alone, always a little apart, a little lost, hoping for the next invitation, but never certain that it would come, dreading the next bill in case it would not be met.

Without realizing why, Vespasia spoke for Isobel. Gwendolen was beyond her help, and many others were eager to take her part.

“We use what arts we have,” she said, looking more at Omegus than the others. “Gwendolen was pretty and charming. She flattered people by allowing them to help her, and she was grateful. Isobel was far too proud for that, and too honest. She used wit, and sometimes it was cruel. I think when Gwendolen was the victim, she affected to be more wounded than she was. She craved sympathy, and she won it. Isobel was foolish enough not to see that.”

“If Gwendolen was not really hurt, why did she kill herself?” Blanche demanded angrily, challenge in her eyes and the set of her thin shoulders. “That seems to be taking the cry for sympathy rather too far to be of any use!” Her voice was heavily sarcastic, her smile a sneer.

Vespasia looked at Bertie. “When Gwendolen left last night, after Isobel’s remark, did you go after her to see if she was all right?” she asked him. “Did you assure her that you did not for an instant believe she was in love with your money and position rather than with you?”

Bertie colored painfully and his face tightened.

Everyone waited.

“Did you?” Omegus said in a very clear voice.

Bertie looked up. “No. I admit it. Isobel spoke with such … certainty, I did wonder. I, God forgive me, I doubted her.” He fidgeted. “I started to think of things she had said, things other people had said—warnings.” He tried to laugh and failed. “Of course, I realize now that they were merely malicious, born of jealousy. But last night I hesitated. If I hadn’t, poor Gwendolen would be alive, and I should not be alone, mourning her loss.” The look he gave Isobel was venomous in its intensity and its blame.

Vespasia was stunned. It was the last response she had intended to provoke. Far from helping Isobel, she had sealed her fate.

Omegus also looked wretched, but he was bound by his own rules.

The verdict was a matter of form. By overwhelming majority they found Isobel guilty of unbridled cruelty and deliberate intent to ruin Gwendolen, falsely, in the eyes of the man she loved. There was sympathy for Bertie, but it was not unmixed with a certain contempt.

“And what is this pilgrimage that Mrs. Alvie is to make?” Fenton Twyford asked angrily. “I must say I agree with Peter. I really don’t care where she goes, as long as it is not across my path. I can’t stand a woman with a vicious tongue. It’s inexcusable.”

“Very little is inexcusable,” Omegus said with sudden cutting authority, his face at once bleak and touched with a terrible compassion. “You have given your word before everyone here that if she completes the journey, you will wipe the matter from your memory as if it did not happen. Otherwise, you will have broken your word—and that also cannot be excused. If a man’s oath does not bind him, then he cannot be a part of any civilized society.”

Twyford went white. He glanced around the table. No one smiled at him. Lord Salchester nodded in agreement. “Quite so,” he said. “Quite so.”

“Are we agreed?” Omegus inquired softly.

“We are,” came the answer from everyone except Isobel.

Omegus turned to her and waited.

“What journey?” she said huskily.

Omegus explained. “Gwendolen left a letter addressed to her mother, Mrs. Naylor. I have not opened it, nor will you. It’s obviously private. You will take it to Mrs. Naylor and explain to her that Gwendolen has taken her own life, and your part in it. If Mrs. Naylor wishes to come to London, or to Applecross, you will accompany her, unless she will not permit you to. But you will do all in your power to succeed. She lives near Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland. Her address is on the envelope.”

The silence in the room was broken by the sound of a sudden shower lashing the windows.

“I won’t!” Isobel said in a rush of outrage. “The north of Scotland! At this time of year? And to … to face … absolutely not.” She stood up, her body shaking, her face burning with hectic color. “I will not do it.” For a moment she stared at them, and then left the room, grasping the door until it slammed against the farther wall, then swinging it shut after her.

Vespasia half rose also, then realized the futility of it and sat down again.

“I thought she wouldn’t,” Lady Warburton said with a smile of satisfaction.

Vespasia thought for an instant of a crocodile who fears it is robbed of its prey, and then feels its teeth sink into flesh after all. “You must be pleased,” she said aloud. “I imagine you would have found it nigh on impossible to know something unkind about someone and be unable to repeat it to others.”

Lady Warburton looked at her coldly, her face suddenly bloodless, eyes glittering. “I would be more careful in my choice of friends, if I were you, Lady Vespasia. Your father’s title will not protect you forever. There is a degree of foolishness beyond which even you will have to pay.”

“You are suggesting I desert my friends the moment it becomes inconvenient to me?” Vespasia inquired, although there was barely an inflection in her tone, only heavy disgust. “Why does it not astound me that you should say so?” She also rose to her feet. “Excuse me,” she said to no one in particular, and left the room.

Outside in the hall she was completely alone. There was no servant in sight, no footman waiting to be called. They had taken Omegus’s request for privacy as an absolute order. There was something strangely judicial about it, as if everything, even domestic detail, might be different from now on.

She crossed the wooden parquet and climbed slowly up the great staircase. A few words had changed everything. But they were not merely words: They sprang from thoughts and passions, deep tides that had been there all the time; it was only the knowledge of them that was new.

Vespasia found it difficult to concentrate on dressing for dinner. Her maid suggested one gown after another, but nothing seemed appropriate, nor for once did she really care. The silks, laces, embroidery, the whole palette of subtle and gorgeous colors seemed an empty pleasure. Gwendolen was dead, from whatever despair real or imagined that had gripped her, and Isobel was on the brink of suffering more than she yet understood.

She thought everyone else would be dressing soberly, in grief for Gwendolen, and in parade of their sense of social triumph, somber but victorious. She decided to wear purple. It suited her porcelain skin and the shimmering glory of her hair. It would be beautiful, appropriate for half mourning, and outrageous for a woman of her youth. Altogether it would serve every purpose.

She swept down the stairs again, as she had only an evening ago, to gasps of surprise, and either admiration or envy, depending upon whether it was Lord Salchester or Lady Warburton. The merest glance told her that Isobel was not yet there. Would she have the courage to come?

Omegus was at her elbow, his face carefully smoothed of expression, but she could not mistake the anxiety in his eyes.

“She is not going to run away, is she?” he said so quietly that Blanche Twyford, only a yard or two from them, could not have heard.

Vespasia had exactly the same fear. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think she is very angry. There is a certain injustice in putting the blame entirely upon her. If Bertie was so easily put off, then he did not love Gwendolen with much depth or honor.”

“Of course not, my dear,” Omegus murmured. “Surely that is the disillusion which really hurt Gwendolen more than she could bear.”

Suddenly it made agonizing sense. It was not any suggestion Isobel made. It was the exposing of the shallowness beneath the dreams, the breaking of the thin veneer of hope with which Gwendolen had deceived herself. She had not lost the prize; she had seen that it did not exist, not as she needed it to be.

“Was that really a cruelty?” she said aloud, meeting his eyes for the first time in their whispered conversation.

Omegus did not hesitate. “Yes,” he answered. “There are some things to which we need to wake up slowly, and the weaknesses of someone we love are among them.”

“But surely she needed to see what a frail creature he is before she married him!” she protested.

He smiled. “Oh, please, think a little longer, a little more deeply, my dear.”

She was surprisingly wounded, not bluntly as by a knife, but deeply and almost without realizing it for the first few seconds, as a razor cuts. She had not been aware until this moment how much she cared what Omegus thought of her.

Perhaps he saw the change in her face. His expression softened.

She found herself pulling away, her pride offended that he should see his power to wound her.

He saw that, too, and he ignored it. “She would have accepted him,” he said, still quietly. “She had no better offer, and by the time she had realized his flaws, he might have begun to overcome them, and habit, tenderness, other promises made and kept might have blunted the edge of disappointment, and given other compensations that would have been enough.” He put his hand on her arm, so lightly she saw it rather than felt it. “Love is not perfection,” he said. “It is tolerance, dreams past, and the future shared. A great deal of it, my dear, is friendship, if it is to last. There is nothing more precious than true friendship. It is the rock upon which all other loves must stand, if they are to endure. She should have made her own decision, not have it made for her by someone else’s desperate realization of defeat.”

She did not answer. His words filled her mind and left no room for any of her own.

Ten minutes later when Isobel still had not appeared, Vespasia decided to go and fetch her. She went back up the stairs and along the west corridor to Isobel’s room. She knocked and, when there was no answer, turned the handle and went in.

Isobel was standing before the long glass, looking critically at herself. She was not beautiful, but she had a great grace, and in her bronze-and-black gown she looked magnificent, more striking, more dramatic than Gwendolen ever had. Vespasia saw for the first time that that was precisely the trouble. Bertie Rosythe did not want a dramatic wife. He might like to play with fire, but he did not wish to live with it. Isobel could never have won.

“If you do not come now, you are going to be late,” Vespasia said calmly.

Isobel swung around, startled. She had obviously been expecting the return of her maid.

“I haven’t decided if I am coming yet,” she replied. “I didn’t hear you knock!”

“I daresay you were too deep in your own thoughts.” Vespasia brushed it aside. “You must come,” she insisted. “If you don’t, you will be seen as having run away, and that would be an admission of guilt.”

“They think I am guilty anyway,” Isobel said bitterly. “Don’t pretend you cannot see that! Even you with so …”

Vespasia had been at fault. “I did not intend my remarks to give them that opening,” she answered. “I am truly sorry for that. It was far clumsier than I meant it to be.”

Isobel kept her head turned away. “I daresay they would have come to the same place anyway, just taken a little longer. But it would have been easier for me had the final blow not come from a friend.”

“Then you may consider yourself revenged,” Vespasia said. “I am subtly chastened, and guilty of my own sin. Are you now coming down to dinner? The longer you leave it, the more difficult it will be. That is the truth, whoever is to blame for anything.”

Isobel turned around very slowly. “Why are you wearing purple, for heaven’s sake? Is anyone else in mourning?”

Vespasia smiled bleakly. “Of course not. No one foresaw the necessity of bringing it. I am wearing purple because it suits me.”

“Everything suits you!” Isobel retorted.

“No, it doesn’t. Everything I wear suits me, because I have enough sense not to wear what doesn’t. Now put on your armor, and come to dinner.”

“Armor!”

“Courage, dignity, hope—and enough sense not to speak unless you are spoken to, and not to try to be funny.”

“Funny! I couldn’t laugh if Lord Salchester performed handstands on the lawn!”

“You could if Lady Warburton choked on the soup.”

Isobel smiled wanly. “You’re right,” she agreed. “I could.”

But dinner was a nightmare. Aside from Omegus, no one greeted Isobel. It was as if they had not seen her, even though she came down the great staircase, dark satins rustling, and the outswept edge of her skirts actually brushed those of Blanche Twyford because she did not move to allow her past. A moment later, as Vespasia passed, Blanche stepped aside graciously.

The conversation was free-flowing, but Isobel was not included. She spoke once, but no one appeared to hear her.

When the butler announced that dinner was served, Omegus offered her his arm, because it was apparent that no other man was going to. Once they were seated, Lady Warburton looked at Lady Vespasia, then at Omegus.

“Am I mistaken, Mr. Jones, or did you lay down the rules of this medieval trial of yours with the intention that we were all to be bound by them or our own honor was also forfeit?”

“I did, Lady Warburton,” he replied.

“Then perhaps you would explain them to me again. You seem to be flouting what I understood you to say.” She looked meaningfully at Isobel, then back again at Omegus with a wide challenging gaze.

He colored faintly. “You are right, Lady Warburton,” he conceded. “I am as bound as anyone else, but I am still hoping that Mrs. Alvie will reconsider her refusal, and then a final decision must be made. I choose to wait until then before I act.”

“I suppose you have that privilege,” she said grudgingly. “At least while we are at Applecross.”

The meal began, and Isobel was served exactly as everyone else was, but when she requested that the salt be passed to her, Fenton Twyford, who was next to her, looked across the table at Peter Hanning and asked his opinion on the likely winner of the Derby next year.

“Would you be kind enough to pass me the salt?” Isobel reiterated.

“I must say I disagree,” Twyford said loudly in the silence. “I think that colt of Bamburgh’s will take it. What do you think, Rosythe?”

Isobel did not ask again.

The rest of the meal proceeded in the same way. She was ignored as if her seat were empty. People spoke of Christmas, and of next year, who would attend what function during the season—the balls, races, regattas, garden parties, exhibitions, the opera, the theater, the pleasure cruises down the Thames. No one asked Isobel where she was going. They behaved as if she would not be there. There was no grief as if for the dead, as when Gwendolen’s name was mentioned. It was not simply a ceasing to be, but as if she had never been.

She remained at the table, growing paler and paler. Vespasia walked beside her when the ladies withdrew to leave the gentlemen to their port. It was painful to remember that this time yesterday Gwendolen had been with them. None of the tragedy had happened. Now she was lying in one of the unused morning rooms, and tomorrow the undertaker would come to dress her for the grave.

Perhaps it was the closeness of the hour to the event, but as the women entered the withdrawing room, each one fell silent. Vespasia found herself shivering. Death was not a stranger to any of them. There were many diseases, the risks of childbirth, the accidents of even quite ordinary travel, but this was different, and the darkness of it touched them all.

Within twenty minutes of the door closing, Isobel rose to her feet, and since they had not acknowledged her presence, she did not bother to excuse her leaving. She went out in silence.

Vespasia followed almost immediately. Not only did she need to see Isobel and try in every way she could to persuade her to make the journey to Scotland, she felt she could not bear to stay any longer in the withdrawing room with the other women and observe their gloating. There was something repellent in their relishing of Isobel’s downfall and the doling out of punishment, because it had nothing to do with justice, or the possibility of expiation. It was to do with personal safety and the satisfaction of being one of the included, not of those exiled.

Vespasia went back across the hallway, where she was greeted courteously by the butler. She wished him good night, wondering how awkward it was going to be for the domestic staff to work their way through the silences and rebuffs and decide whose leads to follow. Perhaps the real question was, how long would Omegus hold out against his own edict?

At the top of the stairs she retraced her path along the east wing and knocked on Isobel’s door.

Again it was not answered, and again she went in.

Isobel was standing in the middle of the floor, her body stiff, her face white with misery. “Don’t you ever wait to be invited?” Her husky voice was on the edge of losing control.

Vespasia closed the door behind her. “I don’t think I can afford to wait,” she replied.

Isobel took a deep breath, steadying herself with a visible effort. “And what can you possibly say that matters?” she asked.

Vespasia swept her considerable skirt to one side and sat down on the bedroom chair, as if she intended to stay for some time. “Do you intend to accept virtual banishment? And don’t delude yourself that it will only be by those who are here this weekend, because it will not. They will repeat it all as soon as they return to London. By next season all society will have one version of it or another. If you are honest, you know that is true.”

Isobel’s eyes swam with tears, but she refused to give way to them. “Are you going to suggest that I accept the blame for Gwendolen’s death and take this wretched letter to her mother?” she said, her voice choking. “All I did was imply that she was ambitious, which was perfectly true. Most women are. We have to be.”

“You were cruel, and funny at her expense.” Vespasia added the further truth. “You implied she was ambitious, but also that her love for Bertie would cease to exist were he in a different social or financial class.”

Isobel’s dark eyes widened. “And you are claiming that it would not? You believe she would marry a greengrocer? Or a footman?”

“Of course not,” Vespasia said impatiently. “To begin with, no greengrocer or footman would ask her. The point is irrelevant. Your remark was meant to crush her and make her appear greedy and, more important, to make Bertie see her love for him as merely opportunism. Don’t be disingenuous, Isobel.”

Isobel glared at her, but she was too close to losing control to trust herself to speak.

“Anyway,” Vespasia went on briskly. “None of it matters very much—”

“Is that what you intruded into my bedroom to tell me?” Isobel gasped, the tears brimming over and running down her cheeks. “Get out! You are worse than they are! I imagined you were my friend, and, my God, how mistaken I was! You are a hypocrite!”

Vespasia remained exactly where she was. She did not even move enough to rustle the silk of her gown. “What matters,” she said steadily, “is that we face the situation as it is, and deal with it. None of them is interested in the truth, and it is unlikely we will ever know exactly why Gwendolen killed herself, far less prove it to people who do not wish to know. But Omegus has offered you a chance not only to expiate whatever guilt you might have, but to retain your position in society and oblige everyone here to keep absolute silence about it or face ostracism themselves—which is a feat of genius, I believe.” She smiled slightly. “And if you succeed, you will have the pleasure of watching them next season, watching you and being unable to say a word. Lady Warburton and Blanche Twyford will find it extremely hard. They will suffer every moment of forced civility in silence. That alone should be of immeasurable satisfaction to you. It will be to me!”

Isobel smiled a little tremulously. She took a shuddering breath. “All the way to Inverness?”

“There will be trains,” Vespasia responded. “The line goes that far now.”

Isobel looked away. “That will be the least part of it. I daresay it will take days, and be cold and uncomfortable, with infinite stops. But facing that woman, and giving her Gwendolen’s letter, which might say anything about me! And having to wait and watch her grief? It will be … unbearable!”

“It will be difficult, but not unbearable,” Vespasia corrected.

Isobel stared at her furiously. “Would you do it? And don’t you dare lie to me!”

Vespasia heard her own voice with amazement. “I will do. I’ll come with you.”

Isobel blinked. “Really? You promise?”

Vespasia breathed in and out slowly. What on earth had she committed herself to? She was not guilty of any offense toward Gwendolen Kilmuir. But had that really anything to do with it? Neither guilt nor innocence was really the issue. Friendship was—and need. “Yes,” she said aloud. “I’ll come with you. We shall set off tomorrow morning. We will have to go to London first, of course, and then take the next train to Scotland. We will deliver the letter to Mrs. Naylor, and we will accompany her back here if she will allow us to. Omegus said nothing about your journeying alone—merely that you had to go.”

“Thank you,” Isobel said, the tears running unchecked down her face. “Thank you very much.”

Vespasia stood up. “We shall tell them tomorrow morning at breakfast. Have your maid pack, and dress for traveling. Wear your warmest suit and your best boots. There will probably be snow farther north, and it will be bound to be colder.”

Vespasia’s mind whirled with the enormity of her decision. When she finally fell asleep, her dreams were of roaring trains and windy snow-swept landscapes, and a grief-stricken and unforgiving woman bereft of her child.

She woke with a headache, dressed for travel, and left her maid packing while she went down to breakfast.

Everyone was assembled, ready to begin the new day’s ostracism. The dining room was warm, the fire lit, and the sideboard laden with silver dishes from which delicious aromas emanated. Only Omegus looked distinctly unhappy. Almost immediately he caught Vespasia’s eye, and she smiled at him, giving an imperceptible nod, and she saw the answering flash of light in his eyes. His body eased, and his right hand unclenched where it lay on the fresh linen of the table.

Isobel came in almost on Vespasia’s heels, as if she had been waiting.

Everyone greeted Vespasia as effusively as they calculatedly ignored Isobel. This time she did not speak, but took her place at the table with a calm, pale face and began to eat after helping herself from the toast rack and the teapot.

Peter Hanning mentioned the weather and invited Bertie to a game of billiards in the afternoon. Lord Salchester announced that he was going for a walk. Lady Salchester said that she would accompany him, which took the smile from his face.

Isobel finished her toast and stood up, turning to Omegus.

“Mr. Jones, I have given your offer much serious thought. I was mistaken to refuse it. A chance to redeem oneself, and have past errors forgotten as if they had not existed, is something given far too rarely, and should not be declined. I shall leave Applecross this morning, taking the letter to Mrs. Naylor with me, and I shall catch the first available train to Scotland and deliver it to her. If she will accept my company on the return, then I shall do that also. When we reach London again, I shall inform you of the outcome, and trust that everyone here will keep their word according to our bond.”

Lady Warburton looked crestfallen, as if she had lifted a particularly delicate morsel to her lips, only to have it fall onto the floor.

The ghost of a smile touched Isobel’s face.

“How shall we know that you gave the letter to Mrs. Naylor, and did not merely say that you did?” Lady Warburton asked irritably.

“You will have Mrs. Alvie’s word for it!” Omegus answered coldly.

“You will also have Mrs. Naylor’s word, should you wish to ask her,” Isobel pointed out.

“Really!” Lady Warburton subsided into indignant silence.

“Bravo,” Lord Salchester said softly. “You have courage, my dear. It will not be a comfortable journey.”

“It will be abysmal!” Fenton Twyford added. “Inverness could be knee-deep in snow, and the shortest day of the year is only three weeks away. In the far north of Scotland that could mean hardly any daylight at all. You do realize Inverness is another hundred and fifty miles north of Edinburgh, I suppose. At least!”

“What if your train gets stuck in a snowdrift?” Blanche asked hopefully.

“It is the beginning of December, not mid-January,” Sir John Warburton pointed out. “It could be perfectly pleasant. Inverness-shire is a fine county.”

Lady Warburton looked surprised. “When were you ever there?”

He smiled. “Oh, once or twice. So was Fenton, you know.”

“Doing what?”

“Wonderful country for walking.”

“In December?” Hanning’s eyebrows shot up, and his voice was sharp with disbelief.

“It hardly matters,” Vespasia interrupted. “Now is when we are going. We shall leave as soon as our packing is completed—if the trap can be arranged to take us to the railway station.”

“You are leaving, as well?” Lord Salchester said with clear disappointment.

Omegus looked at Vespasia.

“Yes,” she replied.

Isobel smiled, pride in her face, and a shadow of uncertainty. “Lady Vespasia has offered to come with me.”

Omegus smiled, a sweet, shining look that lit his face, making him beautiful.

“To give the letter to Mrs. Naylor, if Mrs. Alvie should lose her nerve?” Blanche Twyford said bitingly. “That hardly makes of it the ordeal it is supposed to be!” She turned to Omegus. “Are we still bound by our oaths, in spite of this new turn of events?”

Omegus turned to her. “In the medieval trials of which I spoke, and upon which I have modeled my plan, the accused person was permitted friends to speak for them, and the friend risked facing the sure punishment along with them. If found guilty, the accused person promised to undertake the pilgrimage assigned, and if their friend were sure enough of their worth, had the courage and the selflessness to go with them, then that was the greatest mark of friendship that they could show. Neither the physical hardship nor the spiritual journey will be lessened, nor the threats that face them along the way. They will simply face them together, rather than alone. And the answer to your question, Mrs. Twyford, is, yes, you are just as bound.”

Lord Salchester looked at Vespasia. “Remarkable,” he said with very obvious admiration. “I admire your loyalty, my dear.”

“Stubbornness,” Lady Warburton said under her breath.

Bertie avoided eye contact with Isobel.

Vespasia looked at Omegus, who was regarding her with a happiness that she found suddenly and startlingly disconcerting. She wondered for a moment if she had made the rash promise for Isobel’s sake, or just so she could see that look in Omegus’s eyes. Then she dismissed it as absurd and finished her breakfast.

The ladies’ maids would follow later with their luggage and remain at their respective houses in London. The expiatory journey was to be made alone. It would be both unfair and compromising to the integrity of the oath were the maids to have gone, as well. They did not deserve the hardship; nor were they party to any agreement of silence.

Vespasia and Isobel departed just after ten o’clock, with ample time to catch the next train to London. Omegus saw them off at the front door, his hair whipped by the fresh, hard wind that blew off the sweeping parkland with the clean smell of rain.

“I shall be waiting for your word from London,” he said quietly. “I wish you Godspeed.”

“Are you quite sure it is acceptable for Vespasia to come with me? I have no intention of making this journey only to discover at the end that it doesn’t count.”

“It counts,” he assured her. “Do not underestimate the difficulties ahead, just because you are not alone. Vespasia may ease some of it for you, both by her presence and her wit and courage, but it is you who must face Mrs. Naylor. Should she do that for you, then indeed you will not have made your expiation. If you should lie, society may forgive you, unable to prove your deceit, but you will know, and that is what matters in the end.”

“I won’t lie!” Isobel said stiffly, anger tight in her voice.

“Of course you will not,” he agreed. “And Vespasia will be your witness, in case Mrs. Naylor is not inclined to be.”

Isobel bit her lip. “I admit, I had not thought of that. I suppose it would not be surprising. I … I wish I knew what that letter said!”

His face shadowed. “You cannot,” he said with a note of warning. “I am afraid that uncertainty is part of your journey. Now you must go, or you may miss the train. It is a long wait until the next one.” He turned to Vespasia. “Much will happen to you before I see you again, my dear. Please God, the harvest of it will be good. Godspeed.”

“Good-bye, Omegus,” she answered, accepting his hand to climb up into the trap and seat herself with the rug wrapped around her knees.

The groom urged the pony forward as Isobel clasped her hands in front of her, staring ahead into the wind, and Vespasia turned once to see Omegus still standing in the doorway, a slender figure, arms by his sides, but still watching them until they went around the corner of the driveway and the great elm tree trunks closed him from sight.