Demery would have left for London the next day, but his stable master discovered that his lead horse was starting to lame and insisted on stall-rest for at least a week. Cate was half-relieved and half-anxious to hear it. The relief was because it meant she would not be alone with Sarah, who was a stranger to her. The anxiety was because she thought that Demery must blame her for this too, as it was in travelling to see her that the horse had started to lame. Certainly, he was colder than normal towards her: none of Sarah's slyest machinations could bring him to the dinner table in the evening and if Cate happened to run into him during the day, she received no more than a scowl of acknowledgement.
After a while, even Sarah noticed.
"David has been gloomy lately, hasn't he?" she said at the dinner table one evening. "I mean, he always is rather gloomy, but he seems quite stormy lately. I pointed out that there is a robin nesting outside my window and he said that baby birds are a cawing nuisance."
"He is upset about his business," Cate said. "He lost an investor by coming here, and the longer he stays, the more time he loses to find another."
"Lord Varley." Sarah nodded over her steak and potatoes. "It was all but certain he would invest if David could just have stayed to meet him."
Cate picked at her food uneasily. She knew Lord Varley. He was very wealthy, youngish, handsome and rather pleasant. She had been slightly disappointed when he had married two years ago. Disappointed for nothing, since Lord Varley had barely noticed her existence, but it had been nice to daydream about what might happen if he ever did. It would have been useless anyway: her father hated Varley because once Lord Varley had made him the butt of a joke at a dinner party. It was a clever joke, if not entirely kind. Anyone else would have laughed it off. Not Sir William.
"But not to worry. When David goes back to London, he will find another investor soon enough. It is a very good proposition, I understand." Sarah was sanguine as she sliced her carrots. "At least, David tells me it is good, and I believe him."
He had not told Cate much at all. She suspected she would not understand if he did. Slate was a rock, she knew. It came from the ground. It had to be dug up. Then it could be sold to make roofs and roads.
"David wanted to ask my father to invest," Cate said. "I think my father would, if he knew there was money to be made." And if he thought he was cutting Lord Varley out. "It would have saved David time and his trip to London, but I... told him I... did not like the idea."
Sarah nibbled thoughtfully at a carrot. "I do not see why your father should be involved, if there is no loss of love there. When the London season takes off, David will return to have his pick of eager investors. Perhaps Lord Varley will be even more eager to invest then. After all, he left town to attend to his wife who was having a baby. So, perhaps David leaving town to attend to you will impress him more than if David had kept the interview."
"That's an optimistic perspective. I don't think David feels the same way. He seems to think that Varley will not consider the investment now."
"He always was a pessimist." Sarah shrugged. "Even if Varley falls through, there will be others. London is full of rich men."
That made Cate feel a little better. She had been feeling guilty about refusing to ask her father to speak with David. She was very much aware of how much she owed David, and this was the only thing he ever had asked of her. But it was quite impossible to give it to him. She could not bear the idea of seeing her father again.
"I might return to London with him," Sarah said, offhand. "Wales is beginning to bore me already. Oh, it's not your company, dear cousin. It is just..." She waved her hand in the air. "...Wales."
"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.
"Do you need some help?" she asked, wondering if she should call for the servants. "Did you get caught in the rain?"
"I wanted to be. Came for a walk. Thought I'd drop in and see Captain Demery."
"He's not here. He went to Bangor and won't be back until very late, he said."
The man scowled. "Tell him Baxter called, if you please."
"The steward." Cate realized at last who she was actually talking to, and now recognized his face from the back pews in church. "Why don't you come in and write him a note? I'll call for tea, or something stronger if you'd like, and you can dry off a little by the kitchen fire. I'd offer you the study, but it's freezing in there."
Baxter shook his head. "It's not worth writing a note about it. And if I come in, I'll drip all over your carpet."
"You must not mind that. It's only a little rain."
"It's really not worth writing a note." He turned away, then stopped. "Though... there is a matter I would like to speak to you about, Mrs Demery, if you would be so generous with your time."
"Me?" Cate stared at him. "Why— what is it?"
Baxter inched his way over the threshold and stood dripping in the corner behind the front door. "I understand you refused to write to your father on Demery's behalf."
The bluntness of his response surprised Cate. She stepped back. "What has that to do with you?"
"I was the one who suggested he ask your father to invest, as recompense for the investor your antics lost him."
The chill in Baxter's tone was apparent now. Cate looked warily at him. She had always been very sensitive to raised voices and harsh tones, but it was certainly not a steward's place to rebuke the lady of the manor and she resented that he had tried.
"Then you have interfered beyond your duties," she said, trying to sound firm. "You should not have spoken of my father."
"My duties are to your husband, his estate, and the people who depend on it. This place was a mess when he inherited. His uncle was too lazy to do anything but spend the money his forebears had earned. The previous steward was too drunk to care. Rents were unpaid. Cottages were falling apart. Farms were poorly managed. The surface quarry was running barren and the quarrymen were leaving. It's been two years since your husband inherited. The cottages have been repaired, the farms have been improved. But this is slate country and it's going to waste. The quarry is virtually abandoned. If we can tunnel under it, into the earth, we can dig a mine and reach bigger, richer slate deposits. The quarrymen will come back. Their families. Everyone who lives here will prosper. But that takes money your husband does not have."
"And it will happen. There will be other investors."
Baxter pressed his lips tight then shook his head. "Yes. There will be. We will find them. And you will profit from them."
"I don't care about the money."
"Only a rich woman would have the luxury of saying that. The poor have no choice but to care."
"You don't— I'm not—" Cate found she could not refute the accusation. "The village is not poor. It seems lively."
"It survives. When the mine is built, it will thrive. Unless it is not built. Unless enough investment is not raised. Unless your chicanery leads to delay and the investors we have found quit. Unless other investors decide they would rather take their money elsewhere because Demery's wife is..."
An adulteress. The word hung unsaid in the air. Cate's cheeks burned with guilt and anger. "You must think I am a terrible person."
Baxter was silent for a long time. "That is a strong word. I would not use that word. I do not."
"Then what words do you use, Mr Baxter?"
A flush suffused his cheeks, dull under the light of her flickering candle.
"What words, Mr Baxter?" A sadistic, proud streak drove Cate to continue: "I know they cannot be kind ones, but they cannot be crueller than what I call myself."
There was no way for him to reply without stepping far outside his place, and she knew it. All the same, she could read the words he would have said in the bitter tension of his mouth and eyes.
"I have said my piece," he said stiffly. "I apologize if it was spoken out of turn. I will take my leave."
He turned and limped back outside, down the front steps and into the rain. Cate shut and bolted the front door slowly behind him. It did not really matter what Baxter thought of her. He was only a steward. It did not matter if the village thought the same. Nor if all London condemned her still.
It did not matter. Not even if they were right.
She sat down upon the staircase with her dying candle. They were not right. They could not be right. She had always been kind, patient, gentle. She had prided herself on it. Unlike her cold father and her cruel mother, she was warm and kind, particularly to those beneath her. But she had not been kind to Baxter tonight. She had demanded he say what she very well knew he decently could not. Nor had she really been kind to the villagers. She might speak gently to them and give vails, but she had not done them the kindness of looking after their interests. Kindness! No, the duty she owed them, as Demery's wife. Even when that kindness demanded as little from her as writing a letter.
It was just a letter.
He probably wouldn't even write back.
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2023-03-26: Oh Cate. You won't do for David what you will for some NPC villager? Shame. Shame.