Beauty Like the Night

by Liz Carlyle

  Not knowing quite how to respond, Helene sank down onto a little stone bench in the rear of the garden. Lowe sat down beside her and took her hand in his. “Please say that I may count on you, Helene,” he said softly. “My sister needs your friendship, just as her daughters need Ariane’s. And more important, perhaps, I need your friendship, too.”

  Beyond the perimeter of garden, the girls still frolicked, their cheerful shrieks rending the crisp autumn air, but inside the circle of greenery, all fell quiet. Helene stared down at their clasped hands, not at all sure what the rector was trying to say.

  Abruptly, Lowe leapt from the bench. “Oh, I have no right to ask such things of you,” he said flatly, pacing away from her. “I daresay you think me a presumptuous sort of fellow!”

  Confused, Helene looked up at him. “Why, I do not fancy you are anything of the sort.”

  “Do you not?” he answered eagerly, pacing swiftly back to his seat on the bench. “I am so very grateful, Miss de Severs. I could not bear to undermine our growing friendship.” Almost wearily, he dragged a hand down his face.

  Intently, Helene leaned forward. “Are you perfectly all right, Mr. Lowe?” In truth, the rector looked haggard, as if he were deeply troubled by something.

  “Thomas,” he said softly, holding her gaze. “Would you find it terribly difficult to call me by my given name when we are not in company, Helene? Sometimes the title of rector begins to lay a little heavily upon one’s shoulders. Sometimes one wishes to be just ... Thomas.”

  “Of course,” agreed Helene gently. “But if we are indeed to be friends, Thomas, then I daresay you ought to tell me what is wrong. That is, you know, one of the first rules of friendship. And you look as if you passed a rather sleepless night.” She smiled ruefully. “I believe I know the signs.”

  “How astute you are, Helene,” he said, giving her a grateful look. “And so very solicitous. In my profession, a man quickly comes to appreciate that. A rector is often called upon to extend sympathy, whilst the converse is rarely true. And you are right; I was up very late last night with ... with a troubled parishioner.”

  “Oh? Nothing that could not be resolved, I hope?”

  Thomas Lowe rolled his shoulders back, stretching his black frock coat taut across an expanse of shoulders which did not look as if they belonged on a rector. He sighed deeply. “In truth, Helene, I was with my curate, my young cousin, Basil.”

  “Yes, I have seen him at church. There is some family resemblance between you, I fancy.”

  “Yes, a little,” he agreed sadly. “And I know I may rely upon your confidence when I say that it is so often difficult for the young to find God’s true path. I know the devil and his temptations surround us, Helene. But wickedness is often difficult to recognize when one is inexperienced in the ways of the world.”

  It was the most overtly zealous comment Helene had ever heard Thomas Lowe utter, and it suddenly struck her as being rather too serious, and more than a little out of character. But how foolish! The man was, after all, a rector.

  She gave a nervous laugh. “You speak as if you are a moldering relic, Thomas, when you are actually quite young. In truth, I think you are the youngest priest of my acquaintance. Not,” she lamely added, “that I have known a great many.”

  Thomas Lowe uttered a harsh, sharp laugh. “I am no longer young, my dear.”

  Helene did not know how to respond to that remark. “And what of your young cousin? Do you fear he has lost his way with God?”

  “Oh, no,” replied Thomas less stridently. “I fancy it hasn’t come to that. But Basil is sorely tempted at times. And being young, he cannot understand that we all have our places in life. Our stations, if you will. You understand, Helene, do you not?”

  “I think that I do.”

  “Yes,” he mused, “we all have our positions in life. And to dream of anything more brings us nothing but pain. Basil has the makings of a fine curate, but he is a landless and impoverished one, for all that. He must accept God’s path for him, and understand that other routes are not his to take. He must be ever mindful of his place in society.”

  Helene was no longer certain that she understood what Thomas was trying to say. Or perhaps she understood all too well. Perhaps the good rector was speaking of more than just his curate’s temptations. Indeed, his remarks seemed like veiled warnings; more subtle and compassionate than his sister’s, but were they admonitions nonetheless?

  Suddenly, Lowe spoke again, but his gaze was distant. “Might I ask, Helene ... have you ever been in love?”

  13

  In which Lady Catherine hosts a Tragedy of Errors

  It was a shockingly inappropriate question, but inexplicably, Helene did not hesitate to answer it. “Yes, once,” she answered hollowly. “A very long time ago.”

  Thomas turned to face her, his eyes suddenly sharp and assessing. “And did it end tragically?” He touched her lightly on the cheek. “Why—I’m sorry. I fancy that it did.”

  She laughed a bit unsteadily, and looked intently down at her hands. “I suppose I thought it very tragic at the time. But it was for the best, Thomas. Most things are, you know.”

  Slowly, the rector nodded and looked away again. “Perhaps you know what I mean, then, Helene, when I speak of the disappointments and temptations of youth. And why I fret so over my cousin.”

  “Perhaps,” she softly agreed.

  Just then, Thomas smiled, and changed the subject. “Well, let us speak no more of Basil’s mourning over a long lost love! What of Miss Ariane? How do you like your work here?”

  Helene smiled brightly, relieved to let the topic go. Thomas’s insightful comments had a way of making one decidedly uncomfortable. “Oh, quite well. She is a bright child, and we are making fine progress in the schoolroom.”

  “I hope that someday she will be able to communicate,” said Thomas gently.

  Lightly, Helene laughed. “Oh, Ariane communicates, Thomas! She smiles, she frowns, and she can pout until her papa is wrapped around her finger. Although she cannot yet use words to tell us things, I am confident she soon will. Until then, there are many ways of communicating. We must simply listen.”

  Solemnly, Thomas nodded. “Very true!”

  Helene looked through the greenery to where the girls were playing. “Already we have begun work on a rudimentary alphabet, and Ariane grasps it perfectly well—when she wishes to, that is!”

  “It would be wonderful,” proclaimed Thomas, “simply wonderful if the child can be normal. She deserves to have a happy life. I have always wished that for her. I have always prayed for her.”

  Once again, Helene was touched by his concern. It seemed that the rector loved children. But Ariane, to Helene’s regret, could not fully overcome her fear of men. Just two days earlier, she had fled into Milford’s pantry when a pair of strapping, blond-haired glaziers had arrived at Chalcote to repair the windows for the coming winter.

  The two men had been friendly enough, and yet, when one of them turned a jovial smile upon Ariane, she paled, and for the first time in a sen’night, she’d scurried away to hide. Now, after several visits from Lucy and Lizzie, Ariane no longer hid from Thomas, but she still kept her distance.

  Returning her attention to her guest, Helene turned to Thomas and laid her hand lightly upon his arm. He still gave every appearance of a man with a heavy burden. “You are still thinking of Basil, are you not? I can see that you are worried about him.”

  Suddenly, Lowe threw back his head and laughed. “Ah, how well you know me, Helene! I daresay Treyhern is getting his money’s worth, for your ability to understand the human mind is a powerful thing!”

  “I hope that is a compliment,” she murmured.

  “It is indeed,” Thomas answered, smiling down at her as he rose from the bench. “Now, take one more turn around the lawn with me, and then I must collect my wild imps and be gone.”

  Helene was a little disappointed. She did not welcome being left alone with her thou
ghts of Cam. “Can you not stay for tea?”

  Slowly, the rector shook his head. “No, no! I dare not risk your butler’s censure! I have taken tea here four times this week. Moreover—” Thomas paused to point down the long sweep of drive, “unless I miss my guess, here is Lady Catherine, come to bear you company. No one sits a horse quite as elegantly as she! So I shall bid you a good afternoon, and come again in a day or so.”

  As Thomas drifted down the garden path with his nieces in tow, Helene strolled toward the house, with Ariane clinging to her hand, hanging close to her skirts. Just outside the conservatory door, Helene stooped down to look the girl in the eye. “Ariane,” she calmly began, “will you do something for me? Something important?”

  The child nodded, ever so slightly. “Good,” said Helene. “I should like you to try to be friends with Mr. Lowe. He is exceedingly fond of you. Please do not worry so about strangers, Ariane. You must remember that you are safe when either your papa or I are near. You understand that, do you not?”

  The nod was less certain this time, but in the distance, Helene could see Catherine’s groom leading two horses toward the stables. “Come along then,” she said cheerfully. “Your aunt has come to tea. We must go in and tidy ourselves.”

  On the tenth day following Cam’s departure, Helene accompanied Catherine on a walk down to Cheston-on-the-Water. It was but a short distance down the hill and past the church, and made even shorter by Catherine’s graceful strides. Though the weather was cold, Helene was grateful for the chance to escape Chalcote and her oppressive thoughts of Cam. Together, they strolled through each shop, with Catherine chattering to everyone they met.

  Catherine purchased a fine riding crop for her husband and a length of ribbon for Ariane, while Helene stopped only to post a letter to Nanny. On their return to Chalcote Court, Cam’s sister suggested they take the route through the churchyard and around to the back gardens of the house.

  As they strolled uphill to the ancient gate set deep into the low stone wall, Helene was reminded of an earlier visit, and of the pretty girl she had seen darting surreptitiously through the gravestones.

  “Let’s go ’round this corner,” said Catherine, pointing toward the church. “I want to see if they’ve set Father’s gravestone.”

  “Yes, of course,” answered Helene, lifting up her skirts and setting off after Catherine. “Though it wasn’t done last time I visited.”

  “You visited the family graves?” asked Cam’s sister, stepping lightly over an old tree stump.

  “Yes,” admitted Helene, a little embarrassed. She tried to change the subject. “And that puts me in mind of something odd, Catherine. Indeed, I’d almost forgotten it. I saw the most extraordinary woman here that day, but she all but ran away from me. Young, fair, and very beautiful—”

  “Where?” interrupted Catherine sharply. She jerked to a halt, the hem of her heavy walking dress swaying over the frosty grass.

  Helene stared at her for a moment, then raised a finger toward the rear of the church. “Why, just there. She appeared, I think, from behind the corner, crossed over these graves, then darted out the gate—the same one through which we just came. She wore green, I seem to remember ... and had red-blonde hair.”

  At her mention of the girl’s hair, Catherine gave a sharp laugh and set off again. “Red-blonde? How fanciful I am! For a moment, it sounded as though you might have been describing Cassandra. So often one might find her wandering through the churchyard, but doubtless it was just someone from the village.”

  “Well,” began Helene reluctantly, “the girl I saw was flesh and blood. But she was no one from the village whom I’ve ever met. And quite well-dressed, too.”

  “A girl, was it then?” Catherine began to retie the ribbons of her bonnet as they walked.

  “A young woman,” clarified Helene.

  They reached Randolph’s grave. Catherine knelt, and with quick, neat sweeps of the back of her gloved hand, began to wipe the dead leaves from the base of the new stone. “Then we may take comfort in the knowledge that it was not Cassandra come back to haunt us,” she said quietly, looking up at Helene with a bitter smile.

  Curiosity got the better of Helene’s discretion. “You’ll forgive my impertinence, I hope, when I say that from all you have told me, Mrs. Rutledge did not seem the type to linger in the churchyard.”

  “Ah, but on that count, my dear, you would be quite wrong,” retorted Catherine, bouncing up to briskly dust the leaf mold from her gloves. “Cassandra wandered everywhere, day and night. She would drift through the woods and gardens, too. And if Cam expressed any concern at all, or offered to escort her, she would complain that he smothered her, and that Chalcote choked the very life from her.”

  “But there is no place on earth more beautiful than Chalcote!”

  “She was a restless spirit, poor Cassandra. Particularly so, once all her admirers had been exiled. And she despised my brother for it, Helene. In truth, I think she hated him.”

  “But they had a child together,” said Helene, confused. “How could she fail to feel respect, if not admiration, for a man who was such an exemplary father?”

  For a long moment, Cam’s sister did not answer. Instead, she needlessly adjusted her bonnet again, turned her back to Helene, and walked toward Cassandra Rutledge’s grave, her movements strained and abrupt. Tension grew thick in the air as Helene stood, frozen to the ground beside Randolph’s gravestone.

  From over her shoulder, Catherine spoke. “It would seem, Helene, that you have failed to guess our ugly little secret,” she said softly. Then suddenly, she spun about on one heel, her eyes flashing black fire, the similarity to her brothers startlingly obvious.

  Mutely, Helene shook her head.

  “Then I believe I shall tell you,” answered Catherine in a low, throaty voice. “From all that I have seen, I daresay you’ve every right to know.”

  “No,” whispered Helene, shaking her head again. “Your family matters are not for my ears. I am just the governess.”

  Catherine gave a sharp laugh. “Oh, do not delude yourself, Helene! You have never been just the governess. Not since the day you returned here.” Cam’s sister’s eyes narrowed as she leaned incrementally closer. “And I shall tell you—and Cam be damned if he doesn’t like it. Ariane is not my brother’s child.”

  For a moment, it was as if Helene felt the earth sway beneath her feet, and she reached out to place a steadying hand upon Randolph’s tombstone. “Not Cam’s? But then ... whose? How ... how can you be sure?”

  As if regretting the bluntness of her words, Catherine drew nearer and laid one hand upon the sleeve of Helene’s heavy cloak. “Cam can be sure, Helene. It simply is not possible that Ariane is his flesh.” The bitter, knowing smile flashed again. “And as to whose she might be, I daresay even Cassandra mayn’t have known. Amongst her many admirers, there was more than one gentleman—and I use the term loosely—who looked a likely candidate. It’s even remotely possible that she’s my father’s child, but I doubt even Cassandra was that desperate. Ariane was very small, too, which makes it harder still to speculate.”

  Slowly, Helene could feel the blood returning to her head. But the dreadful truth remained. Ariane was not Cam’s child! The thought was almost as appalling as it was tragic. And yet, it had to be considered, when one studied Ariane’s features and coloring. Moreover, this was not the first time Catherine had alluded to such a thing.

  She lifted her chin and looked Cam’s sister straight into the eyes. “Who else is aware of this, Catherine? It is hardly a secret which should be casually tossed about.”

  “I knew you would see it so, else I would never have told you,” answered Cam’s sister a little defensively. “And as to who knows, only I do. Doubtless, others suspect. And Cam will perhaps inform Bentley when he is a little more responsible.”

  “Then why do you choose to tell me?” asked Helene, truly confused now.

  “Do you truly not know, Helene?” she ask
ed. When Helene made no answer, Catherine merely shrugged, then clutched tight the close of her cloak, tilting her head back to stare up into the bleak, gray sky.

  She looked suddenly very weary, almost delicate, the bones of her face fine and sharp in the weak afternoon light as she studied the bare branches that swayed and clattered overhead. About their feet, dead leaves skittered and whirled in the wintry wind.

  With her brother’s black eyes and somber countenance, the heavy black wool of her cloak billowing over the winter-dead grass, Catherine looked like a pagan Celt calling forth the long, cold months until spring.

  “You asked,” she finally said, still staring into the branches, “about Cassandra’s respecting a man for being a good father. But can you now see what a hell her life must have been?”

  “I fear I do not understand you, Catherine.”

  Catherine dropped her gaze to stare pointedly at Helene. “Just think of it, Helene. She bore her husband a bastard, probably out of spite. And yet he does nothing? He shows no jealousy. He does not punish her. He does not rail at her. He merely takes the child as his own, and gives it every drop of love he possesses—love, I might add, which he never felt for his wife. And which she disdained to try to earn.”

  “What are you saying, Catherine?”

  “Is that not a just punishment, Helene? To be forced to face that, each and every day of your life? To know that you have done your husband the ultimate injustice? And that he has risen above it? I daresay I might have considered ending my life, too.”

  “Catherine!” whispered Helene. “You must never say such a thing! I am sure she did not. It was an accident. An accident! Cam—Lord Treyhern—told me so.”

  “You may believe what you wish, Helene,” answered Catherine in an ice-cold voice. “But a silver candelabra does not often get carried into a vacant cottage and tossed into a rubbish pile by accident.”