A Christmas Journey (9 page)

“Actually I thought Kilmuir was a bit of a cad,” Isobel went on thoughtfully. “I'm not sure that he was any better than Bertie Rosythe, really. But it's natural to remember only what was good about someone after they are dead.”

Vespasia studied Isobel's face and saw doubt in it and something that looked like guilt as she stared across the bright water with its shifting patterns, and not once after that did she look back at Vespasia, nor raise the subject again.

They stayed the night ashore, and continued the next day, reaching Fort Augustus by evening. They parted from that boat and set out on the canal at sunrise in another. The biting cold, the sense of claustrophobia on the long, narrow boat, and the knowledge that they were moving ever farther from land familiar to them, even by repute, eased some of the tension between them.

But above all was the dread of meeting Mrs. Naylor and having to tell her the truth. They spoke, to break the silence of the vast land and the strangeness of the situation. They sat closer to each other to keep a little warmth, and they shared food when it was offered them, and laughed self-consciously at the inconvenience of the requirements of nature. They filled the long tedium of waiting for locks to fill or empty, stretching their legs by walking back and forth in the bitter wind, staring at the white-crowned hills.

Some time after dark on the fourth day from Inverness they arrived in Fort William, and again found lodgings. They were shivering with cold and exhaustion, and wretched beyond even thinking of how to move on from there to Ballachulish. They huddled by the fire, trying to get warm enough to think of sleep.

“Why, in the name of heaven, would Mrs. Naylor come here at all?” Isobel said wretchedly, rubbing her hands together and holding them out before the flames. “Let alone stay for a year and a half? No wonder Gwendolen never mentioned her. She was probably terrified in case anyone discovered she was insane!”

“Did she never mention her?” Vespasia asked, although Isobel's remark was sensible enough. She had wondered herself why Mrs. Naylor was not living in her very attractive house at Muir-of-Ord. If one wished seclusion, that was surely far enough from most society.

“Never,” Isobel said frankly. “Which you must admit is unusual.”

A new realization came to Vespasia. She had not appreciated before that Isobel had known Gwendolen so well that such an omission would be noticeable to her. In fact, there was rather a lot that Isobel had not said, but perhaps her own desire for Bertie Rosythe's affection was deeper than it had seemed at Applecross.

“Yes,” Vespasia said aloud. “Yes, it is.” Actually she wondered why Mrs. Naylor had not come to London with Gwendolen to chaperone her and give all the help she could in gaining a second husband as soon as it was decent to do so.

“Exactly.” Isobel tried to move her chair even closer to the fire, then realized that it would place her feet practically in the hearth, and her skirts where a spark might catch them, and changed her mind. “I'm dreading meeting this woman.” She looked up at Vespasia candidly. “Do you suppose she might actually be dangerous?”

Vespasia weighed in her mind the need to continue their journey to the end, wherever that might be, and her growing hunger to know the truth of Gwendolen's reason for taking her own life. She was becoming concerned that what they had seen at Applecross was only a small part of it. The more she considered it, the less did it seem a sufficient reason.

“I suppose it is possible,” she answered. “What did Gwendolen say about her family, if she did not speak of her mother at all?”

“Very little. It was all Kilmuir, and I suppose even that was only how much she missed him.” Isobel frowned. “Naturally, she did not speak of the event of his death, but one would not expect her to. It would have been in very poor taste, distressing for her and embarrassing for everyone else.” She shivered again and wrapped her cloak more tightly around her shoulders. “I have to confess, she behaved as I think I would have myself in that. I cannot fault her. It is simply odd that with a mother still living she never referred to her at all. However, if she's quite deranged, it would explain it completely.” She puckered her brow. “Do we really have to continue until we find her?”

“Do you wish to turn back?”

Isobel pulled a rueful little face. “I wished to turn back as soon as we left Applecross, but not nearly as much as I do now. But I suppose since we have come this far, I should hate to have it all be in vain.” She smiled and her eyes were bright for a second. “When it gets unbearably cold, miserable, and far from anything even remotely like home, I think of how furious Lady Warburton and Blanche Twyford will be if I complete this and they are obliged to forgive me, and it gives me courage to go on.”

Vespasia knew exactly what she meant. The thought of Lady Warburton being charming because she had no choice had warmed her frozen body and put new vigor in her step more than once.

She smiled. “What was he like, Kilmuir?”

Isobel turned away, a shadow falling between her and Vespasia again, as clearly as if it had been visible. “I don't know.”

“Yes, you do,” Vespasia insisted. “You knew Gwendolen far longer, and far better, than you have allowed me to suppose.”

Isobel stared at her, her dark eyes wide and challenging. “If I did, why is that your concern? I am going to do my penance. Is that not enough for you? You, of all people, can see what a bitter thing it is!” She took a sudden sharp breath. “Is that actually why you are here, to make sure I do it all? Is that why Omegus Jones sent you?”

Vespasia was taken aback. The accusation was so unjust it caught her completely by surprise. “I came because I thought the journey could be long and hard, possibly even dangerous, and the ending of it the most difficult of all, and that you might surely need a friend,” she answered. “Had I been making it, I should not have wished to do it alone. And Omegus did not send me.”

Shame filled Isobel's face. “I'm sorry,” she said huskily. “I have not ever been that sort of a friend to anyone. I find it hard to believe you could do it for me. Why should you? I … I don't think I would do it for you.” She looked away. “Not that you would ever need it, of course.”

Vespasia was tempted to answer her with truth, even to tell her some of the weight she carried within her, which was not only loneliness but, if she were honest, guilt as well, and fear. She had buried her memories of Rome, of passion, of the inner joy of not being alone in her dreams. Deliberately she had forced herself not to think of talking with someone who understood her words even before she said them, who filled one hunger even as he awoke others. She had refused to look at remembrance of the exhilaration of fighting with all her time and strength for a cause she believed in. She had returned to duty, to a round of social chitchat about a hundred things that did not matter and never had. She was now sitting with Isobel, whom she knew so little of, and who knew her even less. They were sharing the outward hardships of a journey, with an uncrossable gulf between them on the inner purpose of it. She had no crusade anymore. She had no battle to fight except against boredom, and there was no victory at the end of it, only another day to fill with pastimes that nourished nothing inside her.

“You have no idea whether I would or not,” she said quietly. “You know nothing about me, except what you see on the outside, and that is mostly whatever I wish you to see, as it is with all of us.”

Isobel looked startled. It had never occurred to her that Vespasia was anything more than the perfect beauty she seemed.

The fire was burning low. The wind battered the rain against the glass and whined in the eaves. Unless it eased, the boat journey down the loch to Ballachulish was going to be rough and unpleasant, but at this time of the year it would be days if not weeks before there was another fine, still day. Waiting for it was not a choice.

Isobel seemed lost in thought, overcome by new, previously unimagined ideas.

“Why did you say what you did to Gwendolen?” Vespasia asked. “You half implied that her choice somehow lay between servants and gentlemen, and she chose gentlemen for reasons of money and ambition.”

Isobel blushed. It was visible even in the dying firelight. It was several moments before she answered, and she did not look at Vespasia even then. “I know it was cruel,” she said softly. “I suppose that's why I'm really making this ridiculous journey. Otherwise, when we got to Inverness and found Mrs. Naylor wasn't home, I might have posted the letter and said I had done my best.” She gave a little shudder. “No—that's not true. I'm doing it because I know I won't survive in society if I don't, and I have nowhere else to go, nowhere else I know how to behave or what to do.”

“The reason?” Vespasia prompted.

Isobel lifted one shoulder in half a shrug. “Gossip. Stupid, I expect, but I heard it in more than one place.”

Vespasia waited. “That is only half an answer,” she said at last.

Isobel chewed her lip. “Everyone turns a blind eye if a man beds a handsome parlor maid or two, as long as he is reasonably discreet about it. A woman who was known to have slept with a footman would be ruined. She would be branded a whore. Her husband would disown her for it, and no one would blame him.”

Vespasia could hardly believe it. “Are you saying Gwendolen Kilmuir slept with a footman? She must be insane! Far madder than her mother!”

Isobel looked at her at last. “No, I'm not saying she did, simply that there were rumors. Actually I think Kilmuir started them.” She shut her eyes as if twisted by some deep, internal pain. “He was paying rather a lot of attention to Dolly Twyford, Fenton's youngest sister.”

“I thought she wasn't married!” Vespasia was incredulous. There was a convention in certain circles: Once one had borne the appropriate children to one's husband, a married woman might then indulge her tastes, and as long as she did not behave with such indiscretion that it could not be overlooked, no one would chastise her for it. However, for a man to have an affair with a single woman was quite another thing. That would ruin her reputation and make any acceptable marriage impossible for her.

“She wasn't,” Isobel agreed. “That was the whole point. The suggestion was that Gwendolen's conduct was so outrageous he would divorce her, and then after a suitable period, not very long, he would marry Dolly.”

“Were they in love?”

“With what?” Isobel raised her eyebrows. “Dolly wanted a position in society, and the title probably coming to Kilmuir, and he wanted children. He had been married to Gwendolen for six years, and there were none so far. He was growing impatient. At least, that was the gossip.” Her voice dropped. “And I knew it.”

Vespasia did not answer. To say that it did not matter would be a dishonesty that would serve no one. Some penance was due for such a cruelty, and they were both deeply aware of it. But more than that, her mind was racing over the new picture of Gwendolen as it emerged now. Had Bertie Rosythe heard the gossip, as well, and was that the truth of why he had not gone after her and reassured her of his love? Or worse than that, had he gone and, far from offering her any comfort, made it plain that he had no intentions toward her? Did she see herself as ruined, not only for him but for any marriage at all?

Or worse even than that, could such rumors be true? Which raised the bitterly ugly question of whether Kilmuir's death had been a highly fortunate accident for Gwendolen, releasing her from the possibility of a scandalous divorce, from which her reputation would never have recovered. Instead she had become a widow, with everyone's sympathy, and excellent prospects in time of marrying again. How fortunate for her that it had been Mrs. Naylor who had been with him in the carriage, and not Gwendolen herself.

They discussed it no more. The fire was fading, and sleep beckoned like comforting arms. They were both happy to go upstairs and sink into oblivion until the morning should require them to face the elements and attempt to reach Ballachulish.

It was a hard journey, even though not long as the crow or the gull were to fly. The sharp west wind obliged the little boat to tack back and forth down the coast through choppy seas, and both Isobel and Vespasia were relieved to put ashore at last in the tiny town of Ballachulish and feel the earth firm beneath their feet. They crossed the road from the harbor wall, heads down against the sleet, wind gusting, tearing skirts, and made their way to the inn. They asked the landlord about Mrs. Naylor, and his response brought them close to despair.

“Och, I'm that sorry to tell ye, but Mistress Naylor left Ballachulish nigh on a year ago!” he told them with chagrin.

“Left?” Isobel could scarcely believe it. “But she can't! Her household in Inverness told us she was here!”

“Aye, and so she was,” he agreed, nodding. “But she left a year ago this Christmas. Grand lady, she was. Never knew any lady of such spirit, for all that she was as English as you are.”