Intolerable Civility

Chapter Seventeen: Dirty, Deceitful Deed

"You've not even been here a week," Cate said. "I thought you wanted to see old friends, visit old haunts."

She was disappointed, even if Sarah was not entirely charming company. It would not be easy to be here all alone.

"I have seen my old friends and visited my old haunts. And it was very pleasant, yes, but if I want to attend the theatre or go to a ball or even an art gallery with my old friends, well, there is none to be found."

"Their company is not amusement enough?" Cate wondered exactly who Sarah's old friends were. Sarah had made a few social calls, certainly, but most of her time had been spent in the house with Cate.

"Our conversation consists entirely of them asking me about the goings-on in London," Sarah said. "They simply don't have much to contribute, poor dears. If I don't go back to London soon, we'll have nothing left to talk about but the Sunday sermon and our aches and pains, and I don't have any aches and pains and, I confess, I am not very sympathetic to other people's."

"Laurie always comes up with something interesting to say."

"Yes, and it is always something I do not like." Sarah sighed. "I pity her, really. It must be quite hurtful, to be in possession of such a bitter heart. And once upon a time, she was a sweet girl, you know." Sarah corrected herself: "Not exactly saccharine, but innocent. I blame Mr Wynn."

"A broken heart can do that to a woman," Cate said.

"I wouldn't know." Sarah touched her chest lightly. "Mine has never broken. But then, I have never given it up to the care of unworthy men. I have never been in love, Catherine. And I don't know if I should pity myself or be proud."

Cate had never been in love either. Not really. A few one-sided infatuations and the bodily entanglement with Luke's father, but not love. All of her heart was reserved for Luke, but that was not the same.

"You should pity yourself," she said. "It is a lonely way to live."

The day after that was wet, grey and lonely. Sarah had persuaded David to take her to visit an old friend in Bangor, leaving Cate alone in the rambling old house, except, of course, for Luke. Dinner came and went without their return. Cate told herself she had nothing to worry about; Demery had suggested that the inclement weather and the length of their journey might have them returning after midnight. But, after putting Luke to bed, she drifted aimlessly around the dark halls of the house with a single candle lighting her way. She did not wish to read. She felt jittery and unsettled, unable to sit still and concentrate. Nor she could walk about the garden, for the rain was still steady, if no longer very heavy.

The conversation she had had with Sarah last night had been echoing in her thoughts all day. She did not pity Sarah at all, nor did she even pity herself really, but she realized that there was a passage of her life that she had thought would come to pass that now never would. Love was a lost cause within her marriage, and love outside it would be a dirty, deceitful deed, not worthy of the name. But perhaps she was incapable of feeling that deeply for anyone. Perhaps there was a piece of her heart that was just missing. Or surely, before now, she would have felt something for someone, and had that feeling returned.

She was broken. No wonder she had ruined everything.

She was drifting through the entrance hall on her way up the stairs to bed when someone knocked at the front door. Thinking it was Demery and Sarah, back at last, she unbolted and opened it, but the man who stood outside was a stranger to her. By the light of her candle, she could see that he was middle-aged and sun-worn. There was something familiar about his face, but she could not recall a name.