Marking morning readings in the prayer book, and composing a prayer for the safety of Aldwinter and all who were in it, he too heard the clamour of children in the room across the passage. It was an unwelcome reminder that his time of peaceful solitude was coming to an end: the clock on the mantel struck six, and a bare two hours remained before the ringing of the doorbell would disturb his peace.
He was not an inhospitable man, though he’d never shared his wife’s longing to be always in the company of others. Charles and Katherine Ambrose he loved more dearly than his own brothers, and frequent untimely visits from anxious parishioners were always met with welcome. He loved also to see Stella admired, presiding over the table with her warmth and wit, her beautiful head turning this way and that as she overlooked the pleasure of her guests. But a London widow, and her crone of a companion, and her indulged son! He shook his head, and slammed his notebook shut: he’d do his duty, because he always did, but he would not indulge a wealthy woman’s dabbling in the natural sciences, probably to the detriment of her spiritual health. If she were to ask him to chaperone some harebrained attempt to uncover whatever it was she thought lay buried in the Essex clay or lived still out in the estuary, she would receive a polite and implacable refusal. It was all part of the Trouble, he thought, refusing as always to dignify the village’s anxious rumours with the name of beast or serpent; they were all to be tried like gold in the fire, and would emerge purified. ‘Praise God,’ he said, but a little sourly, and went in search of tea.
‘You are not at all what I expected!’
‘Nor I you – you’re so young to be a widow, and so beautiful!’
At ten past eight Stella Ransome and Cora Seaborne were seated side by side on the couch nearest the fire. Within moments each had taken such a liking to the other it was agreed it had been a great shame they’d not met during childhood. Martha, used to her friend’s sudden affection and its equally sudden removal, took very little notice, and watched Joanna shyly shuffle a pack of cards. The girl’s serious, clever face and thin plait pleased her, and drawing near her she indicated that they should play a game.
‘Oh, I’m not beautiful: not at all,’ said Cora, delighted by the kind lie. ‘My mother always said the most I could hope for was to be thought striking, which suits me fine. Though it’s true I’ve dressed more respectably than usual. I’m afraid you would never have let me over the doorstep if you’d seen me this afternoon.’ It was true: at Martha’s insistence she’d put on her good green dress, in the folds of which it was possible to imagine every kind of moss growing. She’d covered the scar on her collarbone with a pale scarf, and for once her shoes were intended for a woman. Her hair, given one hundred strokes of the brush by Martha, strained against its hairpins, several of which lay already on the carpet.
‘Will is so pleased you’ve come, and will be so sorry to be late: he was called just now to see one of the parishioners who lives at the end of the village, but he won’t be long.’
‘I am so looking forward to meeting him!’ This also was true: Cora decided that this delightful woman with her fairy’s face and white-blonde hair would not be so happy if she shared her life with an oaf of a parson with flat feet. She was more than prepared to like him enormously, and settled happily into the cushions with her glass of wine. ‘It was kind of you to invite my son, but he’s been unwell, and I didn’t want him to travel.’
‘Ah!’ The other woman’s eyes filled with tears, which made their blue remarkable; she swiftly wiped them away. ‘To lose a father is very cruel – I am so sorry for him, and of course I should have thought that he wouldn’t want to spend an evening with strangers.’
Cora, whose honest disposition could not bear to see tears shed for a grief she suspected had never been felt, said: ‘He is bearing it very well – he is … an unusual child, and I think doesn’t feel things as deeply as you might expect.’ Seeing her hostess was puzzled, she was glad to be spared further explanation by a bustle on the doorstep and the sound of boots on the scraper; a large and heavy bunch of keys was fitted to the lock, and Stella Ransome leaped to her feet. ‘William – was it Cracknell? Is he taken ill?’
Cora looked up, and saw in the doorway a man stooping to kiss the woman where her fair hair parted. Stella was so little that he seemed to loom above her, though he was not especially tall. He was dressed smartly in a black coat cut well across his shoulders, and showing a breadth and strength that made a curious contrast with the little white collar of his office. His hair was of the kind that is never tidy, unless clipped short to the scalp: it fell in pale brown curls and in the light from the lamps had a reddish look. Having embraced his wife – his hands resting lightly at her waist, the fingers broad and rather short – he turned back to the door and said, ‘No, love – Cracknell himself is not sick – and see who I found on the path?’ He stood aside, plucking the white collar from his throat and tossing it onto a table; then in came Charles Ambrose in a scarlet frock coat, and behind him Katherine, concealed by a bouquet of hot-house flowers. Their scent was indecent, thought Cora: it went to her stomach, and she could not think why, until she recalled that when last she’d seen lilies they’d been laid all around the trestle where her husband’s coffin had rested.
There was a flurry of greeting, in which Cora – glad for once to be forgotten – watched Martha and the girl absorbed in a game of patience. ‘The queen is in her counting-house,’ said Joanna, and dealt another card. Then the brief peace broke, and the little crowd came in; Charles and Katherine embraced Cora, patting her cheek and exclaiming at the beauty of her dress, and the absence of mud on her shoes. Was she well? Look at her hair, so clean and shining! And there was Martha, and what were her latest schemes, they wondered? And Frankie: did he take well to the country air? What of the sea-dragon – was Cora at last to see her name in the pages of The Times? And did they not love Stella already, and what did she make of the good Reverend Will?