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By Root 2715 0

’s younger daughter and her husband,” she explained to Hester. “Almost immediately Sabella was rude to Thaddeus. We all pretended we hadn’t noticed, which is about all you can do when you are forced to witness a family quarrel. It was rather embarrassing, and Alex looked very …” she searched for the word she wanted. “… very brittle, as though her self-control might snap if she were pressed too hard.” Her face changed swiftly, and a shadow passed over it. “The last ones to arrive were Dr. Hargrave and his wife.” She altered her position slightly in the chair, with the result that she was no longer facing Hester. “It was all very polite, and trivial, and totally artificial.”

“You said it was ghastly.” Edith’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t mean you sat around through the entire evening being icily civil to each other. You told me Thaddeus and Sabella quarreled and Sabella behaved terribly, and Alex was white as a sheet, which Thaddeus either did not even notice—or else pretended not to. And that Maxim was hovering over Alex, and Louisa obviously resented it.”

Damaris frowned, her shoulders tightening. “I thought so. But of course it may simply have been that it was Maxim’s house and he felt responsible, so he was trying to be kind to Alex and make her feel better, and Louisa misunderstood.” She glanced at Hester. “She likes to be the center of attention and wouldn’t appreciate anyone being so absorbed in someone else. She was very scratchy with Alex all evening.”

“You all went in to dinner?” Hester prompted, still searching for the factual elements of the crime, if the police were correct and there had been one.

“What?” Damaris knitted her brows, staring at the window. “Oh—yes, all on each other’s arms as we had been directed, according to the best etiquette. Do you know, I can’t even remember what we ate.” She lifted her shoulders a little under the gorgeous blouse. “It could have been bread pudding for all I tasted. After the desserts we went to the withdrawing room and talked nonsense while the men passed the port, or whatever men do in the dining room when the women have gone. I’ve often wondered if they say anything at all worth listening to.” She looked up at Hester quickly. “Haven’t you?”

Hester smiled briefly. “Yes I have. But I think it may be one of those cases where the truth would be disappointing. The mystery is far better. Did the men rejoin you?”

Damaris grimaced in a strange half smile, rueful and ironic. “You mean was Thaddeus still alive then? Yes he was. Sabella went upstairs to be alone, or I think more accurately to sulk, but I can’t remember when. It was before the men came in, because I thought she was avoiding Thaddeus.”

“So you were all in the withdrawing room, apart from Sabella?”

“Yes. The conversation was very artificial. I mean more so than usual. It’s always pretty futile. Louisa was making vicious little asides about Alex, all with a smooth smile on her face, of course. Then Louisa rose and invited Thaddeus to go up and visit Valentine—” She gave a quick little gasp as if she had choked on something, and then changed it into a cough. “Alex was furious. I can picture the look on her face as if I had only just seen it.”

Hester knew Damaris was speaking of a subject about which she felt some deep emotion, but she had no idea why, or quite what emotion it was. But there was little point in pressing the matter at all if she stopped now.

“Who is Valentine?”

Damaris’s voice was husky as she answered. “He is the Furnivals’ son. He is thirteen—nearly fourteen.”

“And Thaddeus was fond of him?” Hester said quietly.

“Yes—yes he was.” Her tone had a kind of finality and her face a bleakness that stopped Hester from asking any more. She knew from Edith that Damaris had no children of her own, and she had enough sensitivity to imagine the feelings that might lie behind those words. She changed the subject and brought it back to the immediate.

“How long was he gone?”

Damaris smiled with a strange, wounded humor.

“Forever.”

“Oh.” Hester was more disconcerted than she was prepared for. She felt dismay,