by Anne Perry
Nerissa looked up and met her eyes. “It is more than forgetting, Lady Vespasia.” She lowered her voice to a mere murmur. “Aunt Serafina creates fantasies, imaginings as to what she did in the past, and it is embarrassing because her accounts are very colorful, and some of them involve real people and events.” She chewed her lower lip until it was pink. “I wish I could protect her from anyone seeing her like this, with no control over her mind, and most of the time very little discretion with her tongue.” She turned away and lowered her gaze until she was staring at the floor. “She has a great admiration for you, you know.”
Vespasia was startled. She and Serafina were not quite contemporaries, Serafina being a decade older, and they were completely unalike. Vespasia had used her wit, intelligence, and extraordinary beauty to learn information and persuade men of great power to act, as she believed, either wisely or generously. Serafina had been an adventurer in the most physical sense: brave, skilled, and with an iron nerve. She had ridden with the insurgents in Croatia, and manned the barricades, rifle in hand, in the streets of Vienna, before the ignominious collapse of the revolution and the emperor’s return to power in ’48.
Vespasia had done that only once, in Rome, far back in her youth. Their paths had crossed, perhaps half a dozen times since then. They had known of each other through allies in the common cause.
“Are you sure?” she asked quietly. “I think perhaps ‘respect’ would be more accurate, as I have for her. And of course we have a friendship now, in our later years, born possibly out of the understanding of what we fought for then, and the passion, and the losses of those days.”
“You are very modest,” Nerissa replied, a very faint edge of bitterness in her voice. “But admiration is what I meant.” She looked at Vespasia squarely, even defiantly. “She will try to impress you. I’m sorry. It is humiliating to see. It might be better if you simply left a card. I will tell her you called when she was asleep, and you did not wish to disturb her.”
“She will not believe you,” Vespasia replied. “She will know perfectly well that you are keeping people from visiting her because you are ashamed of her. I will not be party to that.”
The color swept up Nerissa’s pallid cheeks, and her eyes were hot with anger. But she was not yet mistress of the house, and she dared not retaliate.
“I was merely trying to save your feelings,” she said very quietly. “And to save Aunt Serafina from being remembered as she is now, rather than as the proud and discreet woman she used to be. I’m sorry if you do not see that.”
“I see it very well,” Vespasia told her, finding herself torn between pity and irritation. “And I assure you, my feelings are of no importance. I shall remember Serafina as I knew her in the past, regardless of what happens now. I am well acquainted with the idea that as we grow older we change, and it is not always either easy or comfortable.”
“You have not changed,” Nerissa said with candor that bordered on resentment.
“Not yet.” Vespasia was now embarrassed herself, as if her health and good fortune were blessings she had not deserved. “But no one knows about the future. In another ten years I may be profoundly grateful if my friends still remember me at all, and call upon me even if I am tedious, and ramble a little, or lose myself in a time when I was more alive, more able, and still dreamed of great accomplishments.”
Nerissa did not reply but turned and led Vespasia up the wide stairway to the landing and across it to Serafina’s bedroom door. Before she entered, Vespasia heard the footman open the front door to another caller.
“Good morning, Mrs. Blantyre. How pleasant to see you. Please do come inside; the weather is most inclement.”
Nerissa half turned and Vespasia caught sight of the amazement in her face. There was also an expression there that might have been resolve, and then a flash of emotion quite unreadable.
“I think Aunt Serafina has another visitor,” she said quickly. “I must go down and welcome her.” She tapped sharply on the door in front of them. Then, without waiting for an answer, she pushed it open for Vespasia, and excused herself again to go downstairs.
“Of course,” Vespasia acknowledged her, and went into the room alone.
Tucker was standing near the door to the dressing room, a silver-backed hairbrush in her hand. The moment she saw Vespasia she smiled and her face filled with relief.
“Good morning, m’lady. How are you?”
“Good morning, Tucker,” Vespasia replied. “I am very well. I am glad to see you with Mrs. Montserrat. How are you?” It was a purely rhetorical question, a matter of good manners. She smiled at Tucker and nodded slightly, then turned toward the bed.
Serafina was sitting up, her hair dressed. She looked wide awake, and as soon as she met Vespasia’s eyes she smiled back. Only when Vespasia was closer did she see a vacancy in her look, an expectancy, as if she had very little idea who her visitor was.
Vespasia sat down in the chair beside the bed and for a moment felt exactly the embarrassment and distress she had told Nerissa were unimportant. Unexpectedly, they were overwhelming. She had no idea what to say to this person in front of her, helpless, a spirit trapped not only in an aging body but also in a mind that had betrayed her.
Serafina was waiting, staring at her hopefully.
“How are you?” Vespasia asked. She felt that it was completely inane, yet how else could she begin?
“My leg hurts,” Serafina replied with a rueful little shrug. “But if you break bones, you can expect that to happen. I’ve broken enough; I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Vespasia felt a twinge of alarm. Was it possible Serafina really did have a broken bone? Could she have tripped and fallen? Old bones break easily.
“I’m sorry,” she said with sincerity. “I hope the doctor has seen it? Has it been properly cared for?”
“Yes, of course it has,” Serafina answered her. “It was in a cast for weeks. What an incredible nuisance. I can’t ride a horse with a cast on, you know.”
Vespasia’s heart sank. “No, of course not,” she said, as if it had been a perfectly ordinary comment. “And it still aches?”
Serafina looked blank. “I beg your pardon?”
After glancing at Tucker, who shook her head almost imperceptibly, Vespasia looked back at Serafina and struggled for something to say. Surely Adriana Blantyre had called to see Serafina and was even now on her way up? Or was it possible she’d come to see Nerissa? They were not so very different in age-six or seven years, perhaps. But socially they were worlds apart: Adriana the wife of a man of privilege, wealth, and accomplishment, Nerissa a simple woman of no standing, and past the usual age of marriage. Vespasia found herself listening for another footfall on the landing beyond the door, expecting interruption at any moment. Knowing how vague and distracted Serafina was today, surely Nerissa would thank Adriana for calling, but advise her to come again another day?
She turned to Tucker. “I saw Mrs. Blantyre arriving. Perhaps you might suggest to Miss Freemarsh that she call at a more fortunate time?”
Tucker was about to reply when there was a knock on the door. A moment later Adriana Blantyre came in. Clearly Nerissa had warned her that Vespasia was already here.
“Good morning, Lady Vespasia,” she said with a smile of pleasure. Then she turned to Serafina. “How are you today? I brought you some lilies from the hothouse. I gave them to Nerissa to put in water.” She perched on the edge of the bed, far from where she would disturb Serafina’s feet.
“I’m well, thank you,” Serafina replied, blinking and looking puzzled. “In fact, I can’t think what I’m still doing in bed. What time is it? I should be up.” A look of alarm filled her face. “Why are you here in my bedroom?”
“You’ve been unwell,” Adriana said quickly. “You are recovering, but it’s too soon to be out yet. And the weather is very cold.”
“Is it?” Serafina turned to face the window. “Is it autumn? The tree is bare. Or winter?”
“Winter, but nearly spring,” Adriana told her. “Rather raw outside. The sort of wind that bites through your clothes.”
“Then it was nice of you to come,” Serafina remarked. “Do you know Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould?”
“Yes, we have met,” Adriana assured her.
“Vespasia and I are old friends,” Serafina said, nodding a little. “We fought together.”
Adriana looked confused.
“Oh!” Serafina gave a little laugh. “Side by side, not against each other, my dear, never against each other.” She shot a glance at Vespasia, a secret, amused communication.
Adriana looked at Vespasia for confirmation, or perhaps for help.
Vespasia tried to keep the surprise from her face.
There was no possible course but to agree. “Certainly,” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could. “Each in our own fashion.” She must steer the conversation away from further trouble. How much did Serafina remember? Was she now recalling actual past events, or was she about to start one of the rambling journeys of the imagination that Nerissa had referred to?
“It sounds exciting,” Adriana said with interest. “And dangerous.”
“Oh, yes.” Serafina leaned back a little against her pillows, her dark eyes gazing far away in the distance of recollection. “Very dangerous. There were deaths.”
“Deaths?” Adriana’s voice was a whisper, the color fading from her face.
Vespasia drew in her breath to interrupt. There had been, of course, but it was long ago, and there was no point in raking over tragedy now. But Serafina continued before she could break in.
“Brave people,” she said softly. “Passions were very high. Men and women sacrificed their lives for the cause of freedom.” She frowned and studied Adriana closely for several moments. “But you know that. You are Croatian. You know all these things.”
Adriana nodded. “I’ve heard the stories.” Her voice choked, and she coughed to clear her throat, and perhaps to give herself a moment to master her feelings. “I wasn’t there myself.”
Now Serafina seemed lost. “Weren’t you? Why not? Don’t you want freedom for your people? For your language, your music, your culture? Do you want to wear the Austrian yoke forever?”
“No,” Adriana whispered. “Of course I don’t.”
This time Vespasia did interrupt, politely but firmly. “That was all ages ago, my dear. Mrs. Blantyre was hardly even born then. Those are old griefs. Much has happened since that time. Italy is united and independent, at least most of it is.”
Serafina looked at her as if she had momentarily forgotten Vespasia’s presence. “Trieste?” she asked, hope flaring in her eyes.
Vespasia thought for an instant of lying, but it was such a condescension, such a denial of respect, that she could not do it.
“Not yet, but it will come,” she assured her.
“What are you doing about it?” Serafina asked. She was puzzled, as if raking her memory, but there was also challenge in her question.
“Do you not think it wiser to discuss other things just now?” Vespasia suggested. “Fashion, perhaps, or the latest art exhibition, or even politics here at home?”
“Prince Albert is German, you know,” Serafina said. “The Saxe-Coburgs are everywhere. Everybody who is anyone at all has at least one of them in the family.”
“Prince Albert is dead,” Vespasia assured her firmly.
“Is he? Oh, dear.” Serafina blinked. “Who killed him? And for heaven’s sake why? He was a good man. How terribly stupid. What is the world coming to?”
“Nobody killed him.” Vespasia glanced at Adriana and back again to Serafina. “He died of typhoid fever. It was many years ago now. And yes, you are quite right, he was a good man. Perhaps next time I come I shall bring you the latest edition of the London Illustrated News, and you can look at the current gossip, such as there is, and some of the fashions for spring.”
Serafina turned her hands outward in a gesture of resignation. “Perhaps. That would be kind of you.” She closed her eyes. Her face looked pale and strained, her brows a little wispy, her eye sockets hollow.
Vespasia rose to her feet, staring at Adriana. “I think perhaps we should leave Mrs. Montserrat to have a little rest. She seems tired.”
“Of course,” Adriana agreed reluctantly. She looked at Serafina. “I’ll come back and see you again soon.”
Serafina did not answer. It appeared that she had drifted off to sleep.
Adriana led the way out, followed by Tucker. Vespasia was at the door when she turned one more time to look at Serafina. The older woman was staring wide-eyed, suddenly very much awake, her expression one of terror. The next moment the look was gone, and her face was completely blank again.
Vespasia closed the door and, leaving Adriana outside on the landing with Tucker, she went back to Serafina. Gently putting her hand over the stiff, blue-veined ones on the coverlet, she asked, “What is it? What are you afraid of?”
The fear returned to Serafina’s eyes. “I know too much,” she whispered. “Terrible things, plans of murder, the dead piled up …”
“Plans about whom?” Vespasia asked, trying to keep the pain out of her voice. “My dear, most of them are gone already. These are old quarrels you are remembering. They don’t matter anymore. It’s 1896 now. There are new issues, and they don’t involve us as they used to.”
“I know it’s 1896,” Serafina said quickly. “But some secrets never grow old, Vespasia. Betrayal always matters. Brothers, fathers, and husbands sold to the executioner for the price of advancement. Blood money can never be repaid.”
Vespasia stared at her and saw the clear, sharp light of intelligence in her eyes. There was nothing blurred now, nothing uncertain. But she was afraid, and she could not hide it. Perhaps that was what shocked Vespasia the most. In all the times they had met-in London, Paris, and Vienna, in the ballrooms or at a secret rendezvous in some hunting lodge or backstreet room-she had never seen Serafina white with terror.
“Who are you afraid of?” she whispered.
Serafina’s eyes filled with tears, and one hand closed over Vespasia’s, her thin fingers desperate. “I don’t know. There were so many. I’m not even sure which ones matter anymore. And half the time I don’t know what I’m saying!” Tears filled her eyes. “I’m not sure who is allied with whom these days, and if I make a mistake, they’ll kill me. I know too much, Vespasia! I thought of writing it all down, and letting everyone know that I had, but what good would that do? Only the guilty would believe me. It’s all so …”
Vespasia held Serafina’s hand with both of hers. “Are you certain there are still secrets that matter, my dear? So much has changed. Franz Josef is a relatively benign old man now, broken by tragedy …”
“I know. And I know what that tragedy was, more than you do, Vespasia.”
“Mayerling?” Vespasia asked with surprise. “How could you know more about that than what was public information? They burned the place to the ground, and all the evidence with it.”
“Not all,” Serafina said softly. “I know people. I’ve only lost my wits in the last year.” She searched Vespasia’s eyes. “But there are other secrets, older ones. I know who shot Esterhazy, and why. I know who Stefan’s father really was, and how to prove it. I know who betrayed Lazar Dragovic.” The tears spilled down her tired cheeks. “I’m so afraid I’ll forget who I’m talking to, and say something to give it away.”
Vespasia realized that Serafina was frightened not only of letting the secrets slip, but also that whoever was involved would fear the revelations enough to kill her before that happened.
Today she knew what year it was, and she knew Vespasia. But when Adriana Blantyre had been there, Vespasia was uncertain whether Serafina had truly been aware and was only pretending to be confused, or whether she had actually believed it was a different time. Remembering the look in Serafina’s eyes, the blank helplessness, she feared it was the latter. Anyway, what purpose co
uld there be in trying to mislead Adriana?
“Perhaps it would be a good idea to see fewer people for a little while?” she suggested. “It might even be possible to make sure the ones you do see are those who would know little of such things anyway, so even if you mistook who they were, what you said would be incomprehensible to them. I know that could be terribly boring, but at least it would be safe.”
Serafina understood that and sadness filled her face. “Perhaps it would be smarter,” she agreed. “But will you come back again? I …” Embarrassment prevented her from finishing the request.
“Of course,” Vespasia assured her. “We could talk of whatever you wish. I would enjoy it myself. There are too few of us left.”
Serafina nodded with a smile, and sank back into the pillows, her eyes closed. “And Adriana,” she whispered. “Take care of her for me. But …” She gulped and her voice choked. “But perhaps I shouldn’t see her again … in case I say something …” She stopped, unable to finish her thought.
Vespasia remained a few minutes longer, but Serafina seemed to have drifted into a light sleep. Vespasia moved the sheets a little to cover her thin hands-the old get chilled very easily-then she walked softly from the room.
She went down the stairs and asked the maid in the hallway to send for Nerissa so she might express her good wishes and take her leave.
Nerissa appeared within moments, her face shadowed with anxiety.
“Thank you for coming, Lady Vespasia,” she said a little stiffly. “I’m sorry you had to see Aunt Serafina so … so unlike the person she used to be. It is distressing for all of us. You will know now that I was not being alarmist when I said she is sinking rapidly.”
“No, of course not,” Vespasia agreed. “I’m afraid she is considerably worse, even in the few days since I last saw her. I think it might be wise, in view of her … imagination, if you were to restrict her visitors rather more. I suggested to her that it might be a good idea to see only those who are young enough to know little or nothing of the affairs with which she used to be concerned. She was pleased with the suggestion. It will ease her fears. And of course, as you say, it would be very sad if people were to remember her as she is now, rather than as she used to be. I would much prefer not to have it so, were I in her position.”
