Mrs. Emery had appeared.
“Oh, Mrs. Emery,” I said. “Mrs. Lansdon has fainted. I think she must have left a warm room and the cold was too much for her.” I was battling to find reasons. I did not like this talk of ghosts.
“Let’s get her in … quick,” said Mrs. Emery practically.
“We’ll take her to her room,” I said. “Then I think a little brandy …”
She was on her feet but shaky; she turned and looked over her shoulder at the seat under the tree.
“You’re shivering!” I said. “Come on. Let’s get in.”
We took her to her room.
“Get her to lie down,” said Mrs. Emery. “I’ll go and see about that brandy. I’ll send up one of the girls to see to the fire. It’s nearly out.”
Celeste lay on the bed. She took my hand and held it tightly. “Don’t go,” she said.
“Of course I won’t. I’ll stay here. Don’t talk now, Celeste. Wait till Mrs. Emery brings the brandy. You’ll feel so much better after that.”
She lay back; she was still shivering.
Mrs. Emery came in with Ann.
“Make up the fire, Ann,” she said. “Mrs. Lansdon is not feeling very well. And here’s the brandy, Miss Rebecca.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Emery.”
“Shall I pour out, Miss?”
“Yes, please.”
She did so and handed it to me. Celeste sat up and sipped it. The fire was now blazing brightly.
“I think Mrs. Lansdon would like to be quiet for a while,” I said.
Celeste looked appealingly at me and I knew she wanted me to stay. I nodded reassuringly and the door closed quietly on Mrs. Emery and Ann.
“Rebecca,” she said. “I saw her. She was there … looking for me. She was telling me that this is her place and there is no room for me here.”
“This … er … ghost spoke to you?”
“No, no … there were no words … but that was what it meant.”
“Celeste, there was no one there. You imagined it.”
“But I see clearly … she was there.”
“She?”
“She has come out of the locked room. She has come to where the ghosts are.”
“Celeste, this doesn’t make sense. You didn’t see anyone there. Lucie was near. She saw you fall. She did not say she saw anyone else.”
“She has come for me … I saw her clearly. Her head was turned away at first … but I knew who she was. She was in a pale blue coat with a cape edged with white fur … and a blue hat with white fur round it … a little old-fashioned in style.”
A blue coat with a fur-edged cape. I had seen my mother in such an outfit—and yes, there had been a hat to match. She had worn it in the house, I remembered. I could visualize her walking under the trees, laughing and talking about the brother or sister I was to have.
I gripped my hands together because they were shaking slightly.
“You imagined it, Celeste,” I said without conviction.
“I did not. I did not. I was not thinking of her. My thoughts were far away and then … I saw the movement under the trees … I saw the figure in the blue coat. She was sitting on the seat … and I know who it was … I have felt her in the house many times. There are those rooms in which she lived … that locked room … and now she has come to the garden to join the other ghosts.”
“This is all fancy, Celeste.”
“I do not think so.”
“It is all in your mind.”
She stared at me. “In my mind …” she stammered.
“Yes, you are thinking of her and you fancy you see her.”
“I saw her,” she said firmly.
“Celeste, it has to stop, you know. Perhaps you ought to leave here for a while.”
“I cannot go.”
“Why not? You could come to Cornwall with me. Come for Christmas. My grandparents would love it. We’ll take the children.”
“Benedict … he could not go.”
“Then we could go without Benedict.”
“I could not, Rebecca.”
“It might be good.”
“No. He needs me … here. I have to be at the dinner parties. It is the duty of the Member’s wife.”
“There is too much emphasis on duties and not enough on … on …” She waited and I added lamely: “On … er … home life. You should go away. Then perhaps he would miss you and realize how much you do for him.”
She was silent. Then suddenly she turned to me and I knew by the heaving of her shoulders that she was weeping.
“What am I to do?” she asked. “He does not love me.”
“He must do. He married you.”
“He married me because he wanted a wife. All Members of Parliament should have wives. If they want big office they need a wife … the right wife. But, alas, Rebecca, I am not the right one for him. Your mother was.”
“You must forget that. You are good. You are wonderful at parties. You always look so elegant. They all admire you.”
“And when he look at me … he think of another.”
I was silent.
“Was she very beautiful?” she asked.
“I don’t know. She was my mother. I never thought whether she was beautiful or not. To me she was perfect because she was my mother.”
“And to him … she was perfect and there could never be another to take her place. Do you believe that when people are so deeply needed they can be lured from the tomb and come back to those who cannot live without them?”
“No,” I said.
“Your mother … she must have been a wonderful person.”
“She was to me.”
“And to him.”
“Yes, to him. But they both married someone else in the first place.”
“I know he married the girl in Australia. She brought him the goldmine.”
“My mother married my father first. He was very handsome and charming … like Hercules or Apollo … only better because he was so good. He gave his life for his friend.”
“I know. I have heard.”
“And my mother loved him … dearly,” I said fiercely. “But it is all over, Celeste. That is in the past. It’s now that matters.”
“He doesn’t care for me, Rebecca.”
“He must. He married you.”
“Did he care for the first one, I wonder?”
“This is different.”
“How is it different?”
“I am sure of it.”
“I love him so much. When I first saw him I thought he was the most wonderful man I had ever seen. When he asked me to marry him I could not believe it. I think I am dreaming. But we marry … and now he does not want me. All he wants is her. He dream of her. I have heard him say her name in his sleep. He has drawn her back from the grave because he cannot live without her. She is here. She is in this house. And now she is tired of being in that locked room. She has come out to join those other ghosts in the garden.”
“Oh, Celeste. You must not think like that. He needs time … time to recover.”
“It is years since she died. It was when Belinda was born.”
“She would not wish you to suffer like this. She was the kindest person in the world. If she came back it would be to help you … not to harm you.”
I wished that I knew how to comfort her. I hated him then. He was responsible for her unhappiness. He was selfish and cruel. He had married her because he needed a wife to enhance his career, just as he had married Lizzie Morley because he needed her money for the same reason. My mother he had truly loved; there was no doubt of that, and God … or Fate … was repaying him. He had lost the one he loved and would not try to make a happy life for the woman he had taken up to serve his own ends.
He was a monster, I thought, and whipped up my hatred and contempt of him.
I said: “It will come all right one day, Celeste.”
She shook her head. “But I pray that he will turn to me,” she said. “I lie here sometimes waiting … waiting … You cannot understand, Rebecca.”