The Miss Benevents did not turn a hair. They nodded, and Miss Olivia said,
‘It will do very nicely. You will put it down to my account, madame.’
It was not until the last of the guests had arrived that Stephen and Candida met. The first item on the programme was about to begin. The Miss Benevents were already seated. Just behind them Louisa Arnold leaned forward and introduced ‘My cousin, Maud Silver.’ There was a moment when everyone’s attention was taken up, and in that moment Stephen slipped a hand inside Candida’s arm and drew her away. It really was very skilfully done. He had two chairs marked down, set back against one of the recessed windows and well away behind the Aunts and Cousin Louisa. They reached them just in time and with the sense of adventure achieved. And then a tall young cleric with a fine carrying voice was announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Hayward and Miss Storey would play Mr. Hayward’s own trio in A major. Everyone clapped politely. All those passionately addicted to chamber music settled down to enjoyment, while those who did not care for it resigned themselves to some twenty minutes of boredom.
Mr. Hayward’s trio was not unknown. A good deal to his own surprise, Stephen found it to his taste. There was vigour and melody, there was a triumphing note. It went well with his mood. The three executants played remarkably well. He had felt obliged to drop his hand from Candida’s arm, but their chairs were so close together that her shoulders touched his sleeve. It was tantalising, but they were together and she wasn’t angry any more. They sat in silence side by side and the music filled the room. There was an enthusiastic burst of clapping at the end.
Stephen said, ‘Candida,’ and she turned her head and looked at him. The people in front of them were standing up. There was, for the moment, a small private place where they were alone. He touched her hand and said,
‘You’ve finished being angry?’
‘Yes.’
His voice came low and abrupt.
‘You mustn’t do it again. It does things to me.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Damnable.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why.’
‘How can I – if you don’t tell me?’
‘I have told you. It does things. Candida, you know – don’t you – don’t you?’
She looked away. Her lips trembled into a smile.
‘You’ll have to say it, Stephen.’
The people in front of them were moving – their moment was almost gone. He said in an angry whisper,
‘I can’t – not here. Candida, you know I love you horribly!’
‘How can I know – when you don’t tell me?’
He could hardly catch the words. The hand he was touching shook.
‘Did you want me to tell you?’
‘Of course.’
Their privacy was gone. There would be a quarter of an hour’s interval. People were walking about, talking to their friends. He pulled her to her feet and held aside the curtain from the recess behind them.
‘Come and look at the Cathedral by moonlight. It ought to be worth seeing.’
And all in a moment they were there alone together, the curtain dropped and all the world shut out. Neither the moon nor the Cathedral received any attention. Both had been deemed worthy of a good deal of it in the past, but this was not their hour. The moon shone coldly down upon the stone, and the cold stone took the light in all the beauty that men’s hands had given it, but Stephen and Candida had no eyes for them.
Miss Louisa Arnold and Miss Silver had kept their seats, and so had the Miss Benevents. Louisa desired nothing better than an opportunity of conversing with her old friends. As soon as it was politely possible she stopped trying to applaud and leaned forward to touch Miss Cara’s arm.
‘My dear Cara! How long is it since I have seen you? Have you been ill?’
Cara Benevent turned round with a rather too hurried, ‘Oh, no, Louisa – I am very well.’
‘You don’t look it,’ said Miss Arnold without any tact.
She was, in fact, a good deal startled. No one would have taken Miss Cara for the younger sister now. She had always been small and slight, but she looked as if she had shrunk. The bones of the face showed through the sallow skin. And all that unrelieved black! Neither black velvet nor black lace had been considered mourning in the days when such observances were more strictly regulated, but the plain, solemn folds of the gown and all that heavy Spanish lace presented quite a funerary appearance.
She began to talk about Candida.
‘How pretty she is – really quite charming! And how nice for you and Olivia! Young people do make such a difference in the house, do they not?’
It was not possible for Miss Cara to lose colour. A tremor went over her. Louisa Arnold became aware that she had said the wrong thing. She had for the moment forgotten about Alan Thompson. She hurried on, her voice a little higher and more flute-like than usual.
‘It has been such a pleasure for me to have the opportunity of seeing something of my young cousin, Stephen Eversley. I believe you have met him.’
Miss Cara became noticeably embarrassed.
‘Oh, yes – yes – ’
‘His mother was the daughter of Papa’s first cousin, the Bishop of Branchester. Such an eloquent preacher, and an authority on the Early Fathers. I believe he was considered for the Archbishopric. Papa used often to talk about it. He married a daughter of Lord Danesborough, a very quiet, religious kind of person and extremely dowdy in her dress. But the daughter who was Stephen’s mother was by way of being a beauty. Of course the Bishop was a very good-looking man – really quite a commanding presence.’
Miss Silver pursued an equable conversation with Miss Olivia Benevent. She was aware that she was being condescended to as an unknown and probably distant relative of Louisa’s. She was, however, perfectly able to sustain her part in a tactful and dignified manner, choosing such subjects as the beauty of the Cathedral and the remarkable number of old and historic buildings in Retley and the neighbourhood.
‘Louisa tells me that you yourself own a very interesting old house.’
Miss Olivia did not disclaim the ownership.
‘It has been a long time in the family.’
‘That, of course, adds very much to the interest. There must be so many associations.’
Miss Olivia was not displeased at being offered an opportunity of talking about the Benevents. Miss Silver listened with the attention which family history does not always command.
‘Then it was your ancestor who actually built the house? Louisa tells me that it really does stand, as the name would suggest, under the hill. Was the site chosen, do you know, in order to provide shelter from a prevailing wind?’
Her interest was so unaffected that Miss Olivia found herself imparting the fact that the site had actually been determined by the presence of the small Tudor house in which Ugo di Benevento had resided prior to his marriage with the daughter of a neighbouring landowner.
‘She was a considerable heiress, and it was of course desirable that a more suitable residence should be provided. We have no means of knowing what decided them to build on to the existing house, but that is what they did. A good deal of it was not touched, and remains very much as it was in the sixteenth century.’
It was at this point that the name of Stephen Eversley reached her. It was pronounced by Louisa Arnold in a tone which Miss Olivia mentally stigmatised as shrill, and it was followed by what she considered to be an unwarrantable assumption.