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"That was awful. Sometimes you remind me of Josce-lin. He used to make me laugh like that."
"I didn't notice you laughing," Hester said honestly, climbing up into the trap after her and forgetting to arrange her skirts.
"Of course not." Rosamond took the reins and slapped the horse forward. "It would never do to be seen. You will come again some time, won't you?"
"I am not at all sure I shall be asked," Hester said ruefully.
"Yes you will-Aunt Callandra will ask you. She likes you very much-and I think sometimes she gets bored with us here. Did you know Colonel Daviot?"
"No." For the first time Hester regretted that she had not. She had seen his portrait, but that was all; he had been a stocky, upright man with a strong-featured face, full of wit and temper. "No, I didn't."
Rosamond urged the horse faster and they careered along the track, the wheels bouncing over the ridges.
"He was very charming," she said, watching ahead. "Sometimes. He had a great laugh when he was happy-he also had a filthy temper and was terribly bossy-even with Aunt Callandra. He was always interfering, telling her how she ought to do everything-when he got the whim for it. Then he would forget about whatever it was, and leave her to clear up the mess."
She reined in the horse a little, getting it under better control.
"But he was very generous," she added. "He never betrayed a friend's confidence. And the best horseman I ever saw-far better than either Menard or Lovel-and far better than General Wadham." Her hair was coming undone in the wind, and she ignored it. She giggled happily. "They couldn't bear each other."
It opened up an understanding of Callandra that Hester had never imagined before-a loneliness, and a freedom which explained why she had never entertained the idea of remarriage. Who could follow such a highly individual man? And perhaps also her independence had become more precious as she became more used to its pleasures. And perhaps also there had been more unhappiness there than Hester had imagined in her swift and rather shallow judgments?
She smiled and made some acknowledgment of having heard Rosamond's remark, then changed the subject. They arrived at the small hamlet where their further visiting was to be conducted, and it was late in the afternoon, hot and vividly blue and gold as they returned through the heavy fields past the reapers, whose backs were still bent, arms bare. Hester was glad of the breeze of their movement and passing beneath the huge shade trees that leaned over the narrow road was a pleasure. There was no sound but the thud of the horse's hooves, the hiss of the wheels and the occasional bird song. The light gleamed pale on the straw stalks where the laborers had already passed, and darker on the ungathered heads. A few faint clouds, frail as spun floss, drifted across the horizon.
Hester looked at Rosamond's hands on the reins and her quiet, tense face, and wondered if she saw the timeless beauty of it, or only the unceasing sameness, but it was a question she could not ask.
Hester Spent the evening with Callandra in her rooms and did not dine with the family, but she took breakfast in the main dining room the following morning and Rosamond greeted her with evident pleasure.
"Would you like to see my son?" she invited with a faint blush for her assumption, and her vulnerability.
"Of course I would," Hester answered immediately; it was the only possible thing to say. "I ca
The nursery was a bright south-facing room full of sunlight and chintz, with a low nursing chair by the window, a rocking chair next to the large, well-railed and guarded fireplace, and at present, since the child was so young, a day crib. The nursery maid, a young girl with a handsome face and skin like cream, was busy feeding the baby, about a year and a half old, with fingers of bread and butter dipped in a chopped and buttered boiled egg. Hester and Rosamond did not interrupt but stood watching.
The baby, a quiff of blond hair along the crown of his head like a little bird's comb, was obviously enjoying himself immensely. He accepted every mouthful with perfect obedience and his cheeks grew fatter and fatter. Then with shining eyes he took a deep breath and blew it all out, to the nursery maid's utter consternation. He laughed so hard his face was bright pink and he fell over sideways in his chair, helpless with delight.
Rosamond was filled with embarrassment, but all Hester could do was laugh with the baby, while the maid dabbed at her once spotless apron with a damp cloth.
"Master Harry, you shouldn't do that!" the maid said as fiercely as she dared, but there was no real anger in her voice, more simple exasperation at having been caught yet again.
"Oh you dreadful child." Rosamond went and picked him up, holding him close to her and laying the pale head with its wave of hair close to her cheek. He was still crowing with joy, and looked over his mother's shoulder at Hester with total confidence that she would love him.
They spent a happy hour in gentle conversation, then left the maid to continue with her duties, and Rosamond showed Hester the main nursery where Lovel, Menard and Joscelin had played as children: the rocking horse, the toy soldiers, the wooden swords, the musical boxes, and the kaleidoscope; and the dolls' houses left by an earlier generation of girls-perhaps Callandra herself?
Next they looked at the schoolroom with its tables and shelves of books. Hester found her hands picking at first idly over old exercises of copperplate writing, a child's early, careful attempts. Then as she progressed to adolescent years and essays she found herself absorbed in reading the maturing hand. It was an essay in light, fluent style, surprisingly sharp for one so young and with a penetrating, often unkind wit. The subject was a family picnic, and she found herself smiling as she read, but there was pain in it, an awareness under the humor of cruelty. She did not need to look at the spine of the book to know it was Joscelin's.
She found one of Lovel's and turned the pages till she discovered an essay of similar length. Rosamond was searching a small desk for a copy of some verses, and there was time to read it carefully. It was utterly unlike, diffident, romantic, seeing beyond the simple woodland of Shelburne a forest where great deeds could be done, an ideal woman wooed and loved with a clean and untroubled emotion so far from the realities of human need and difficulty Hester found her eyes prickling for the disillusion that must come to such a youth.
She closed the pages with their faded ink and looked across at Rosamond, the sunlight on her bent head as she fingered through duty books looking for some special poem that caught her own high dream. Did either she or Lovel see beyond the princesses and the knights in armor the fallible, sometimes weak, sometimes frightened, often foolish people beneath-who needed immeasurably more courage, generosity and power to forgive than the creatures of youth's dreams-and were so much more precious?
She wanted to find the third essay, Menard's-and it took her several minutes to locate a book of his and read it. It was stiff, far less comfortable with words, and all through it there was a passionate love of honor, a loyalty to friendship and a sense of history as an unending cavalcade of the proud and the good, with sudden images borrowed from the tales of King Arthur. It was derivative and stilted, but the sincerity still shone through, and she doubted the man had lost the values of the boy who had written so intensely-and awkwardly.