than even a week ago. She is failing very quickly.” She gave a brief, apologetic smile. “Her memory has become even more disjointed, and she has longer lapses into complete fantasy. She cannot now appreciate the difference between what she has read or been told and what has really happened in her own experience. You will have to be patient with her. I hope you understand?”
“Of course I do,” Vespasia assured her. “And even if I do not, it hardly matters. I have come to visit a friend, not to cross-examine a witness.”
“I did not mean to offend you,” Nerissa said, lowering her eyes. “I only wished to prepare you for the deterioration you will see in her, even in so short a time, in case it causes you distress. It really is rather serious. And I hardly know how to put this delicately, but …” She stopped, as if unable to find the right words.
“But what?” Now Vespasia was ashamed of herself for having been so cool. The younger woman was clearly concerned. Perhaps other visitors had been tactless, or had allowed their own embarrassment to show too plainly. “What is it that disturbs you, Miss Freemarsh?” she asked more gently. “Age and illness? Forgetting things is something that happens to most of us who are fortunate enough to have long lives. It can be frightening to realize that we may all be affected one day, but it is not something to be ashamed of. There is no need for you to apologize.”
Nerissa looked up and met her eyes. “It is more than forgetting, Lady Vespasia.” She lowered her voice to a mere murmur. “Aunt Serafina creates fantasies, imaginings as to what she did in the past, and it is embarrassing because her accounts are very colorful, and some of them involve real people and events.” She chewed her lower lip until it was pink. “I wish I could protect her from anyone seeing her like this, with no control over her mind, and most of the time very little discretion with her tongue.” She turned away and lowered her gaze until she was staring at the floor. “She has a great admiration for you, you know.”
Vespasia was startled. She and Serafina were not quite contemporaries, Serafina being a decade older, and they were completely unalike. Vespasia had used her wit, intelligence, and extraordinary beauty to learn information and persuade men of great power to act, as she believed, either wisely or generously. Serafina had been an adventurer in the most physical sense: brave, skilled, and with an iron nerve. She had ridden with the insurgents in Croatia, and manned the barricades, rifle in hand, in the streets of Vienna, before the ignominious collapse of the revolution and the emperor’s return to power in ’48.
Vespasia had done that only once, in Rome, far back in her youth. Their paths had crossed, perhaps half a dozen times since then. They had known of each other through allies in the common cause.
“Are you sure?” she asked quietly. “I think perhaps ‘respect’ would be more accurate, as I have for her. And of course we have a friendship now, in our later years, born possibly out of the understanding of what we fought for then, and the passion, and the losses of those days.”
“You are very modest,” Nerissa replied, a very faint edge of bitterness in her voice. “But admiration is what I meant.” She looked at Vespasia squarely, even defiantly. “She will try to impress you. I’m sorry. It is humiliating to see. It might be better if you simply left a card. I will tell her you called when she was asleep, and you did not wish to disturb her.”
“She will not believe you,” Vespasia replied. “She will know perfectly well that you are keeping people from visiting her because you are ashamed of her. I will not be party to that.”
The color swept up Nerissa’s pallid cheeks, and her eyes were hot with anger. But she was not yet mistress of the house, and she dared not retaliate.
“I was merely trying to save your feelings,” she said very quietly. “And to save Aunt Serafina from being remembered as she is now, rather than as the proud and discreet woman she used to be. I’m sorry if you do not see that.”
“I see it very well,” Vespasia told her, finding herself torn between pity and irritation. “And I assure you, my feelings are of no importance. I shall remember Serafina as I knew her in the past, regardless of what happens now. I am well acquainted with the idea that as we grow older we change, and it is not always either easy or comfortable.”
“You have not changed,” Nerissa said with candor that bordered on resentment.
“Not yet.” Vespasia was now embarrassed herself, as if her health and good fortune were blessings she had not deserved. “But no one knows about the future. In another ten years I may be profoundly grateful if my friends still remember me at all, and call upon me even if I am tedious, and ramble a little, or lose myself in a time when I was more alive, more able, and still dreamed of great accomplishments.”
Nerissa did not reply but turned and led Vespasia up the wide stairway to the landing and across it to Serafina’s bedroom door. Before she entered, Vespasia heard the footman open the front door to another caller.
“Good morning, Mrs. Blantyre. How pleasant to see you. Please do come inside; the weather is most inclement.”
Nerissa half turned and Vespasia caught sight of the amazement in her face. There was also an expression there that might have been resolve, and then a flash of emotion quite unreadable.
“I think Aunt Serafina has another visitor,” she said quickly. “I must go down and welcome her.” She tapped sharply on the door in front of them. Then, without waiting for an answer, she pushed it open for Vespasia, and excused herself again to go downstairs.
“Of course,” Vespasia acknowledged her, and went into the room alone.
Tucker was standing near the door to the dressing room, a silver-backed hairbrush in her hand. The moment she saw Vespasia she smiled and her face filled with relief.
“Good morning, m’lady. How are you?”
“Good morning, Tucker,” Vespasia replied. “I am very well. I am glad to see you with Mrs. Montserrat. How are you?” It was a purely rhetorical question, a matter of good manners. She smiled at Tucker and nodded slightly, then turned toward the bed.
Serafina was sitting up, her hair dressed. She looked wide awake, and as soon as she met Vespasia’s eyes she smiled back. Only when Vespasia was closer did she see a vacancy in her look, an expectancy, as if she had very little idea who her visitor was.
Vespasia sat down in the chair beside the bed and for a moment felt exactly the embarrassment and distress she had told Nerissa were unimportant. Unexpectedly, they were overwhelming. She had no idea what to say to this person in front of her, helpless, a spirit trapped not only in an aging body but also in a mind that had betrayed her.
Serafina was waiting, staring at her hopefully.
“How are you?” Vespasia asked. She felt that it was completely inane, yet how else could she begin?
“My leg hurts,” Serafina replied with a rueful little shrug. “But if you break bones, you can expect that to happen. I’ve broken enough; I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Vespasia felt a twinge of alarm. Was it possible Serafina really did have a broken bone? Could she have tripped and fallen? Old bones break easily.
“I’m sorry,” she said with sincerity. “I hope the doctor has seen it? Has it been properly cared for?”
“Yes, of course it has,” Serafina answered her. “It was in a cast for weeks. What an incredible nuisance. I can’t ride a horse with a cast on, you know.”
Vespasia’s heart sank. “No, of course not,” she said, as if it had been a perfectly ordinary comment. “And it still aches?”
Serafina looked blank. “I beg your pardon?”
After glancing at Tucker, who shook her head almost imperceptibly, Vespasia looked back at Serafina and struggled for something to say. Surely Adriana Blantyre had called to see Serafina and was even now on her way up? Or was it possible she’d come to see Nerissa? They were not so very different in age-six or seven years, perhaps. But socially they were worlds apart: Adriana the wife of a man of privilege, wealth, and accomplishment, Nerissa a simple woman of no standing, and past the usual age of marriage. Vespasia found herself listening for another footfall on the landing beyond the door, expecting interruption at any moment. Knowing how vague and distracted Serafina was today, surely Nerissa would thank Adriana for calling, but advise her to come again another day?
She turned to Tucker. “I saw Mrs. Blantyre arriving. Perhaps you might suggest to Miss Freemarsh that she call at a more fortunate time?”
Tucker was about to reply when there was a knock on the door. A moment later Adriana Blantyre came in.
