Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [2]
They were passed by a gentleman in military uniform, red coat, brilliant gold braid and buttons gleaming in the sun. He bowed to them and they smiled perfunctorily.
“Of course I have never been to the Furnivals’ house,” Edith went on. “I have no idea how high the balcony is above the hallway. I suppose it may be fifteen or twenty feet.”
“People do have most fearful accidents on stairs,” Hester agreed, hoping the remark was helpful and not sententious. “They can so easily be fatal. Were you very close?” She thought of her own brothers: James, the younger, the more spirited, killed in the Crimea; and Charles, now head of the family, serious, quiet and a trifle pompous.
“Not very,” Edith replied with a pucker between her brows. “He was fifteen years older than I, so he had left home, as a junior cadet in the army, before I was born. I was only eight when he married. Damaris knew him better.”
“Your elder sister?”
“Yes—she is only six years younger than he is.” She stopped. “Was,” she corrected.
Hester did a quick mental calculation. That would have made Thaddeus Carlyon forty-eight years old now, long before the beginning of old age, and yet still far in excess of the average span of life.
She held Edith’s arm a little closer. “It was good of you to come this afternoon. If you had sent a footman with a message I would have understood completely.”
“I would rather come myself,” Edith answered with a slight shrug. “There is very little I can do to help, and I admit I was glad of an excuse to be out of the house. Mama is naturally terribly distressed. She shows her feelings very little. You don’t know her, but I sometimes think she would have been a better soldier than either Papa or Thaddeus.” She smiled to show the remark was only half meant, and even then obliquely and as an illustration of something she did not know how else to express. “She is very strong. One can only guess what emotions there are behind her dignity and her command of herself.”
“And your father?” Hester asked. “Surely he will be a comfort to her.”
The sun was warm and bright, and hardly a breeze stirred the dazzling flower heads. A small dog scampered between them, yapping with excitement, and chased along the path, grabbing a gentleman’s cane in its teeth, much to his annoyance.
Edith drew breath to make the obvious answer to Hester’s remark, then changed her mind.
“Not a lot, I should think,” she said ruefully. “He is angry that the whole thing has such an element of the ridiculous. It is not exactly like falling in battle, is it?” Her mouth tightened in a sad little smile. “It lacks the heroic.”
Hester had not thought of it before. She had been too aware of the reality of death and loss, having experienced the sudden and tragic deaths of her younger brother and both her parents within a year of each other. Now she visualized General Carlyon’s accident and realized precisely what Edith meant. To fall over the banister at a dinner party and spear yourself on the halberd of an empty suit of armor was hardly a glorious military death. It might take a better man than his father, Colonel Carlyon, not to feel a certain resentment and sting to family pride. She said nothing of it, but she could not keep from her mind the thought that perhaps the general had been a great deal less than sober at the time.
“I imagine his wife is very shocked,” she said aloud. “Had they family?”
“Oh yes, two daughters and a son. Actually, both daughters are older and married, and the younger was present at the party, which makes it so much worse.” Edith sniffed sharply, and Hester could not tell if it was a sign of grief, anger, or merely the wind, which was decidedly cooler across the grass now they were out of the shelter of the trees.
“They had quarreled,” Edith went on. “According to Peverell, Damaris’s husband. In fact, he said it was a perfectly ghastly party. Everyone