“I shall be waiting for your word from London,” he said quietly. “I wish you Godspeed.”
“Are you quite sure it is acceptable for Vespasia to come with me? I have no intention of making this journey only to discover at the end that it doesn’t count.”
“It counts,” he assured her. “Do not underestimate the difficulties ahead, just because you are not alone. Vespasia may ease some of it for you, both by her presence and her wit and courage, but it is you who must face Mrs. Naylor. Should she do that for you, then indeed you will not have made your expiation. If you should lie, society may forgive you, unable to prove your deceit, but you will know, and that is what matters in the end.”
“I won’t lie!” Isobel said stiffly, anger tight in her voice.
“Of course you will not,” he agreed. “And Vespasia will be your witness, in case Mrs. Naylor is not inclined to be.”
Isobel bit her lip. “I admit, I had not thought of that. I suppose it would not be surprising. I … I wish I knew what that letter said!”
His face shadowed. “You cannot,” he said with a note of warning. “I am afraid that uncertainty is part of your journey. Now you must go, or you may miss the train. It is a long wait until the next one.” He turned to Vespasia. “Much will happen to you before I see you again, my dear. Please God, the harvest of it will be good. Godspeed.”
“Good-bye, Omegus,” she answered, accepting his hand to climb up into the trap and seat herself with the rug wrapped around her knees.
The groom urged the pony forward as Isobel clasped her hands in front of her, staring ahead into the wind, and Vespasia turned once to see Omegus still standing in the doorway, a slender figure, arms by his sides, but still watching them until they went around the corner of the driveway and the great elm tree trunks closed him from sight.
PART TWO
The train journey to London seemed tedious, but it was in fact very short, little more than two hours, compared with the forthcoming journey northward. In London they took separate hansoms to their individual houses in order to pack more suitable clothes for the next step. Evening gowns would not be needed, and there would be no ladies’ maids to care for them. Additional winter skirts and heavier jackets, boots, and capes were definite requisites.
Isobel and Vespasia agreed to meet at Euston Station preparatory to catch the northbound train at five o’clock that afternoon. Vespasia arrived first, and was angry with herself for being anxious in case Isobel at the last moment lost her nerve. She paced back and forth on the freezing platform. Odd how railway stations always seemed to funnel the wind until it increased its strength and its biting edge to twice whatever it was anywhere else! And of course, the air was full of steam, flying smuts of soot, and the noise—shouting, doors clanging to, and people coming and going.
Then fifteen minutes before the train was due to depart, she saw Isobel’s tall figure sweeping ahead of a porter with her baggage, her head jerking from right to left as she searched for Vespasia, obviously afflicted by the same fear of facing the journey, and its more dreadful arrival, alone.
“Thank heaven!” she said, her voice shaking with intense relief as she saw Vespasia. She waved her arm at the porter. “Thank you! This will be excellent. Please put them aboard for me.” And she opened her reticule to find an appropriate reward for him.
“Did you doubt me?” Vespasia asked her.
“Of course not!” Isobel said with feeling. “Did you doubt me?”
“Of course not!” Vespasia replied, smiling.
“Liar!” Isobel smiled back. “It’s going to be awful, isn’t it!” It was not a question.
“I should think so,” Vespasia agreed. “Do you wish to turn back?”
Isobel pulled a rueful face, and there was honesty and fear in her eyes. “I would love to, but it would be worse in the end. Besides, I told those wretched people that I would. I sealed my fate then. Nothing this could do to me would be worse than facing them if I fail!”
“Of course. That was the whole purpose of saying it at the breakfast table, surely?” Vespasia stopped the porter and added her financial appreciation as he loaded her luggage, as well, just one case, more and warmer clothes, in case they should be needed. If they were fortunate, the whole mission could be accomplished in two days, and they would be able to return. The long weekend at Applecross would be barely finished before they were in London again.
The train pulled out with whistles and clangs and much belching of steam. Slowly it picked up speed through the city, past serried rows of rooftops, then green spaces, factories, more houses, and eventually out into the open countryside, now patched with the dark turned earth of plowed fields and the scattered leafless copses of woodland. The rhythm of the wheels over the track would have been soothing, were they going anywhere else.
The winter afternoon faded quickly, and it was not more than an hour before they were rushing through the night, the steam past the window reduced to the red lines from lit sparks at speed, everything else a blur of darkness.
They stopped regularly, to set down passengers or to pick up more, and, of course, to allow people to stretch their legs, avail themselves of necessary facilities, and purchase refreshments of one sort or another.
Vespasia tried to sleep through as much of the night as she could. The movement of the train was pleasant and kept up a steady kind of music, but sitting more or less upright was far from comfortable. She was aware of Isobel watching the lights of stations and towns pass by with their steady progress northward, and knew she must dread their arrival. But they had exhausted discussion of the subject and Vespasia declined to be drawn into speculation any further.
Dawn came gray and windswept as they climbed beyond the Yorkshire moors to the bleaker and more barren heights of Durham, and then Northumberland, and at last on toward the border with Scotland. They purchased breakfast at one of the many stations and took it back to eat on the train as it pulled out again.
Vespasia determined not to return to the reason for their visit and talked instead of subjects that might ordinarily have aroused their interest—fashion, theater, gossip, political events. Neither of them cared just now, but Isobel joined in the fiction that everything was as usual.
As they crossed the Lowlands toward Edinburgh, the brooding and magnificent city that was Scotland’s capital and seat of power and learning, the skies cleared, and it was merely briskly cold. They alighted and, with the help of a porter, took their luggage to await the train for the last hundred and fifty miles to Inverness.
An hour and a half later they were aboard, stiff, cold, and extremely tired, but again moving northward. As they came into Stirlingshire there was snow on the hills, but the black crown of Stirling Castle stood out against a blue sky with wind-ragged clouds streaming across it like banners.
The country grew wilder. The slopes were black with faded heather and the peaks higher and brilliant white against the sky. On the lower slopes they saw herds of red deer, and once what looked like an eagle, a dark spot circling in the sky, but it could have been a buzzard. The early afternoon was fading when at last they pulled into Inverness and saw the sprawl of sunset fire across the south, its light reflected paler on the sea. The mound of the Black Isle lay to the north, and beyond that, snow-gleaming mountains of Ross-shire and Sutherland.
The wind on the platform was like a scythe, cutting through even the best woolen clothing, and there was the smell of snow in it, and vast, clean spaces. It was an unconscious decision to find lodgings for the night rather than make any attempt to find Mrs. Naylor’s house in the dark, in a town with which neither of them had the slightest familiarity. The station hotel seemed to offer excellent rooms, and had two available. The morning was soon enough to face the ultimate test.
Inquiry of the staff of the hotel elicited the information that the address on Gwendolen’s letter was not actually in Inverness itself but was a considerable estate on the outskirts of Muir-of-Ord, a town some distance away, for which it would be necessary to hire a trap, and it would take a good part of the morning to reach it.
Thus it was actually close to midday when they finally reached the Naylor house, set on several acres of
