Hope - Lesley Pearse [261]
‘Let me lay her out,’ said Nell, her voice as soft as a prayer. ‘I know how she liked her hair, how she’d like to be dressed. And I’d like to say my goodbyes that way.’
‘Of course, Nell.’ Rufus wiped his eyes on his sleeve. ‘Shall Hope and I go out while you do it?’
Nell nodded. ‘Yes, you go for a walk, I’d like to be alone with her.’
Rufus and Hope walked in silence into the woods. The trees were bare, and the recent heavy rain had swollen all the streams so they gushed over rocks, making a beautiful, peaceful sound.
‘All the times we came here as children, we never knew we were brother and sister,’ Rufus said sadly as he threw stones into a stream. ‘I was miserable because Mother and Father were always arguing; you had Albert to contend with. Now they are all gone, it’s just you and me, back here again. I’m a farmer, and you’re a mother yourself. And the troubles go on and on.’
‘Not for ever,’ Hope assured him. ‘Bennett will come home, I’m sure, and you can get married now. There’s nothing to stop you.’
‘Maybe in the spring,’ he said lethargically. ‘That is, providing Bennett is back, because I’d want you there at my wedding, happy again. Was it a mistake to let Nell lay Mother out? I’ll wager she’s crying over her!’
Hope nodded. ‘She’s as good at holding in her feelings as she is at keeping secrets. But now the secrets are out there’s no reason not to let the feelings out too.’
*
Nell was indeed crying. She had stripped off Lady Harvey’s night dress, washed her from head to foot, and put on her undergarments through a veil of tears.
It felt so strange to be back in the bedroom which had been a source of such unhappiness, but it was no longer a stark, sterile space, for Lady Harvey had filled it with frippery. She might have lost all her old belongings in the fire, and only worn mourning since then, but Nell had to assume her sisters had sent her some of their old things.
A pink velvet dressing-gown was tossed over a button-back chair by the window; there were pretty hat boxes piled up, and an array of perfumes, necklaces and combs for her hair on the dressing-table.
The bed itself was a beautiful carved mahogany one which matched the dressing-table, and the carpet on the floor was as fine as any Nell remembered in Briargate.
Dressing her mistress now she was dead was like dressing a life-size doll, and it grieved Nell to see how thin she’d become. Her breasts were little more than loose flesh, and her hip-bones jutted out through her petticoats. But Nell put two rolled-up stockings into the top of her camisole to give her more shape, then went to the wardrobe to look for a dress.
They were nearly all black, but right at the back she found a turquoise one. She guessed that Lady Harvey’s vanity had got the better of her sense of decorum at some time since her husband died, for it had always been her favourite colour.
An hour later Nell stood back to admire her work. The dress had long sleeves and a high neck, and she’d padded it a little on the hips to give it a good shape. Gauze pads inside her lady’s cheeks had filled them out perfectly, and with a little rouge she’d managed to bring youthful radiance back to the once beautiful face. Even her eyelashes had been given a smudging of ink to darken them. Nell thought the hair was her very best achievement, for she’d taken it up over hair pads so it looked fuller, and fastened it becomingly with two artificial rosebuds. With a few tendrils curled around her face to soften the gauntness, and gloves on her hands to hide the cruelty of age, she could pass for thirty again.
‘You look beautiful, my lady,’ Nell whispered. ‘Rest in peace. I’ll be watching over both your children.’
She tried to suppress her tears, for it seemed ridiculous that she should still care so much for this foolish, self-centred beauty. But such a large proportion of their two lives had been spent together, and everything Nell knew about society, fashions, love and marriage came from Lady Harvey. She’d been to grand shops in