Grandmama was carried along in a hurricane of thought.
“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Dowson apologized again. “Walter always said my mind was totally undisciplined. I told him that was not so at all, simply that it moved in a different pattern from his. Bedelia Barrington could twist him around her little finger! And half the men in the county, too. Poor Zachary never got over it, which is such a shame. Agnes was the better girl, if only she could have believed that herself!”
Grandmama did not interrupt her. The tea arrived. Mrs. Dowson poured, and passed the mince pie and jam tarts.
“Bedelia thought she was glamorous, Agnes was dull, and Maude was plain and eccentric. Because of her confidence, far too many people believed that she must be right.”
“But she was not…”
“Certainly she was,” Mrs. Dowson contradicted her. “But only because we allowed her to be. Except Maude. She knew Bedelia’s beauty was of no real value. No warmth in it, do you see?”
“But she fell in love with Arthur? So much so that she could not bear it when he came to his senses and married Bedelia after all?” Grandmama deliberately chose her words provocatively.
“I used to think he lost his senses again,” Mrs. Dowson argued. “I was furious with Maude for not fighting for the man she loved. Fancy simply giving up and running away like that! Off to North Africa, and then Egypt and Persia. Riding horses in the desert, and camels too, for all I can say. Lived in tents and gave what was left of her heart to the Persians.”
“She wrote to you!” Grandmama was astonished, and delighted. Maude had had a friend here who had cared for her over the years and kept her in touch with home.
“Of course,” Mrs. Dowson said indignantly. “She never told me why she left, but I came to realize it was a matter of honor, and must not ever be discussed. She did what she believed to be the right thing. But I don’t think that she ever stopped loving Arthur.”
New ideas began to form in Grandmama’s mind. “Mrs. Dowson, do you know why Maude chose to come home now, after so long?” she asked. “Did she have any…any anxieties about her health?”
“Not that she confided in me.” Mrs. Dowson frowned. “She was certainly afraid, a little oppressed by the thought of returning after so long. But the gentleman she had cared for in Persia, and who had loved her, had died. She told me that. It grieved her very much, and it also meant that she had no reason for remaining there anymore. In fact she implied that without his protection it would be unwise for her to do so. I do not know their relationship. I never asked and she never told me, but it was not regular, as you and I would use the term.”
“I see. Was Bedelia aware of this?” Was that the scandal she was afraid might come to Lord Woollard’s ears-even perhaps quite frankly told by Maude, in order to shock? After Bedelia’s coolness over the years, and the fact that it was she Arthur had married, whatever his reason, it would not be unnatural now if Maude had been unable to resist at least preventing her sister from becoming Lady Harcourt. She asked Mrs. Dowson as much.
“She may have been tempted,” Mrs. Dowson replied. “But she would not have done it. Maude never bore a grudge. That was Bedelia.”
“Was Bedelia not very much in love with Arthur, even before Maude returned from caring for her aunt?” Grandmama asked.
“Maude did tell you a great deal, didn’t she?” Mrs. Dowson observed.
Grandmama merely smiled.
“However much Maude had despised Bedelia, she would never have hurt Arthur,” Mrs. Dowson continued. “As I said, she never stopped loving him. And I refer to that emotion that seeks the best for the other, the honor and happiness and inward spiritual journey; not the hunger to possess at all costs, the joy for oneself in their company and the feeling that they are happy only when they are with you. That is Bedelia, all about winning. And poor Agnes was concerned she was always going to be no more than second-best.”
“Then why was Arthur so foolish?” Grandmama marveled. “Was he really blinded by mere physical…oh.” A far simpler and more understandable answer came to her mind. She saw that Mrs. Dowson was watching her intently. She felt the heat in her cheeks as if Mrs. Dowson could read her thoughts.
“I do not know,” Mrs. Dowson said quietly. “But I believe Maude did, and that is why Bedelia was very happy that she should remain in Persia for the rest of her life.”
The idea became firmer in Grandmama’s mind. It made sense of what was otherwise outside the character and nature of the people she had observed. Looking at Mrs. Dowson, she was certain she had guessed the same answer. She smiled across at her. “How very sad,” she said gently, aware of what an absurd understatement that was. “Poor Arthur.” She hesitated. “And poor Zachary.”
“And Agnes,” Mrs. Dowson added. “But above all, I wish that Maude had not…not suffered so.”
“But she made the best of it,” Grandmama said with an intensity of feeling, an absolute conviction that welled up inside her, driving away all doubt.
Mrs. Dowson nodded. “Maude always knew how to live. She knew the worst was there and she accepted the pain as part of the truth of things, but she chose to see the best also, and to find the joy in variety. She did not close herself off from the richness of experience. I think that was her gift. I shall miss her terribly.”
“Even though I knew her only briefly, I shall miss her also,” Grandmama confessed. “But I am profoundly grateful that I did know her. And…and gratitude is something I have not felt lately. Simply to have that back is a…” She did not know how to finish. She sniffed, pulled her emotions together with an effort, then rose to her feet. “But I have something to do. I must return to Snave and attend to it. Thank you very much for your hospitality, Mrs. Dowson, and even more for the understanding you have given me. May I wish you the joy of the season, and remembrance of all that is good in the past, together with hope for the future.”
Mrs. Dowson rose also. “Why, how graciously put, Mrs. Ellison. I shall endeavor to remember that. May I wish you joy also, and safety in your journey, both in the body and in the spirit? Happy Christmas.”
Outside it was beginning to snow, white flurries on the wind. So far it was only dusting the ground, but the heavy pall of cloud to the north made it apparent that there was a great deal more to come. Whether she wanted to or not, Grandmama would be unlikely to be able to return to St. Mary in the Marsh today. That was a good thing. What she had to do would be best done in the evening, when they were all together after dinner. It would be uncomfortable, extremely so. She felt a sinking in her stomach as she sat in the pony trap, wrapped against the snow. The biting wind was behind her and the roar of the sea breaking on the shore growing fainter as they moved inland between the wide, flat fields, beginning to whiten.
She was afraid. She admitted it to herself. She was afraid of unpleasantness, even physical attack, although she expected any attack to be secret, disguised as the one on Maude had been. Even more than that, and it surprised her, she was afraid of not doing it well.
But then, like Agnes, she had regarded herself as a failure most of her life. She had lived a lie, always pretending to be a highly respectable woman, even aggressively so, married to a man who had died relatively young and left her grieving since her late forties, unable to recover from the loss.
In truth, she had married wretchedly, and his death had released her, at least on the outside. She had never allowed herself to be released in her own mind, and worse still, in her heart. She had kept up the lie, to save her pride.
Of course no one ever needed to know the details, but she could have been honest with herself, and it would slowly have spread through her manner, her beliefs, and in the end the way she had seen and been seen by others.