Chapter 30

While the journey to Gretna Green, with its many delays, had taken longer in terms of actual time, Belle found the trip to Swallowfield close to agonising. It was like the day before a celebration, if the celebration in question only came around once every fifteen years or so. As a married woman, however, she felt it behoved her to act with maturity and restraint, which meant she only expressed her impatience every three to four hours, rather than every one to two. Rufus, with no such qualms, remained a terrible traveller, restless and easily bored—although, with her judgement compromised by fondness, Belle found it rather charming. They were not, after all, bored of each other, Rufus even remarking that every couple probably ought to spend a few weeks in a box together, since if neither of them ended up murdering their spouse, that was a good test of compatibility.

Eventually, though, after six or seven million years, they had made it to Warwickshire, deciding to continue on to Swallowfield rather than spend another night at yet another inn. Belle had progressed from agonised anticipation to a kind of bewildered disbelief—she was going home, she was really going home—and she pressed her face to the carriage window, searching for anything she remembered. Did the landscape, with its twisting paths and crowding woods, seem more familiar to her than other landscapes they had passed through? Or did it just look like England? She thought she liked it more, perhaps. There were few things as magical as a forest at twilight, suspended between sunset and moonrise, mist and shadow, not quite gold and not quite silver, not quite dark and not quite light. But was this how her parents had died? A too-tight turn upon a too-rough road, on some rainy night, grown dark quicker than anyone expected?

Then Rufus, roused from whatever stupor the dragging hours had cast him into, leant across the carriage to touch her knee. “‘Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’”

As You Like It had never been one of Belle and Bonny’s more pored-over plays, for it contained neither twins nor murder. “Pardon.”

He flashed a smile at her. “I think this is the Forest of Arden, my Rosalind.”

“If I am to be Rosalind, you would prefer me a Ganymede.”

“I prefer you as nothing but who you are. Are you nervous?”

“No,” she snapped. Then, “Maybe?”

“All will be well.”

“That’s a different play.”

“It still has a happy ending.”

They continued on in silence, down roads that seemed to narrow as the dark pulled tight around them. Belle’s hopes jangled uncomfortably with a stirring sense of unease that she told herself was nothing more than natural anxiety over a long-delayed homecoming.

“I think,” she said doubtfully, “this is our carriageway?”

Rufus, either oblivious to the brambles and weeds obscuring the way or deliberately ignoring them for her sake, gave a heartfelt groan. “Thank God. I am going to have the longest bath in the history of mankind, even ousting Valentine.”

“I ...” She paused, the thought catching up to her only as she spoke. “I don’t know what I’ll do?”

“Just so long as it isn’t trying to sneak into a mediaeval sewer.”

She snapped her fingers, striving for levity. “Dammit. That was exactly what I was planning.”

“How about,” suggested Rufus, “I have my interminable bath, you ask for supper to be brought upstairs, then we acquire some clean nightclothes from somewhere—”

“Oh, we would be living the dream.”

“Wouldn’t we? And then we read some more Fanny Hill until we run out of candle or fall asleep? We rise at whatever time we please and spend the whole of tomorrow in the daylight reintroducing you to your home.”

Belle’s heart smooshed with gratitude and a touch of guilt because she could not imagine anything more perfect. And Rufus could probably imagine many, many things. “I would love that.”

“Same. Experiencing that book with you has been one of the highlights of this journey, dear heart.”

Gil had left it amongst their things, and they had taken to reading a few chapters a night, with the rule being that the second person had to take over narrating the moment the first one laughed. “It was not having a trifle thrown at you?” asked Belle innocently.

“No.”

“Or nearly being put in a pie?”

“These rural tourist attractions never live up to their reputation.”

Belle laughed. “You know, I’m sure Gil didn’t just happen to forget such a valuable text by accident.”

“Clearly it was his contribution to our mental integrity over the course of the journey.”

“ Clearly it was his way of ensuring a visit from you.”

To her delight, Rufus blushed. “That too.”

Suddenly Belle caught a glimpse of a shape upon the horizon. With trembling fingers, she yanked down the carriage window and stuck her head out. “Is that it? Is that our house?”

“Probably, but”—Rufus yanked her back in—“but for the love of God, be careful. That tree nearly decapitated you.”

Settling back into her place, Belle twitched and wriggled, trying to look ahead without further endangerment of life and limb. “It does seem a little more, well, fairy tale? Than I remembered.”

“It might need cutting back a bit,” Rufus agreed. “But it probably looks worse in the dark.”

“Worse?”

“More overgrown.”

“It does seem as though we ought to be able to see the house by now.”

“It’s always the same with these country manors. The approach lasts forever.”

Belle narrowed her eyes. “You’re lying to me.”

“I’m reassuring you.”

“By lying.”

“I don’t know enough about the area or your home to lie, Belle. I have some mild concerns. But that does not mean there is anything to be concerned about.”

“I feel a little strange too,” Belle admitted, glad to have been able to say it aloud. “I didn’t think it would be like this. But then I also don’t know what I was expecting. Or what it should be like.”

She knew Rufus well enough by now to recognise his various selves—the playful friend, the protective companion, the audacious hedonist, the callous sophisticate, and the tender, shattered man beneath them—and she also knew he saw them as fractures through the truth of him. Instead of simply what they were, which was the truth itself. Right now, she was getting Practical Rufus, the one who had been honoured by Wellington and sewn up her arm before she died of blood loss. The one who dumped volatile young men into water troughs. “Given there was no opportunity to send news of our coming,” he said, “it may simply be that the staff are unprepared. We may find the house partially closed up. You should be prepared for that.”

“Yes, of course.” She did her best to seem comforted. “You’re right.”

Twenty minutes later, they had disembarked the carriage, leaving it in the care of the coachman, and were standing at the far end of the bridge, looking up at a still and silent house.

“Partially closed up?” asked Belle.

Rufus, too, seemed at a loss. “Forgive me for what is probably a very silly question, but is this the correct place?”

“There’s the moat.” Belle pointed to the sluggish waters that flowed beneath and around them.

“Mmm,” said Rufus.

She turned slowly upon the weed-choked gravel, familiarity and strangeness passing her back and forth between them like dogs wrestling over scraps. The stable block, which stood—much as she remembered—to the left, at least seemed relatively well kept. But the farm beyond it had fallen utterly into disrepair and stood as dark as the main house. Not sure what else to do, Belle stepped onto the bridge and walked briskly to the gatehouse, Rufus keeping easy pace with her. The Elizabethan oak door that admitted visitors to the gateway was not locked, but that had always been the case, for it had stood open all day and only ever been closed at night. What was wrong, so very wrong, was the quiet.

“Where is everyone?” Belle’s voice was swallowed up by the surrounding stone.

This time, Rufus didn’t even try to reassure her. “I don’t know.”

“What’s happened to the courtyard?” It had run wild with neglect, what had once been a neat lawn now a field of waist-high grass, the surrounding paving pushed out of joint by dandelions and dock leaves. “There used to be flower beds here. Rufus, I—”

“Shh.” He caught her in his arms before panic could take hold completely. “Perhaps maintaining the house was not a priority to the estate. There may well be an explanation for all this.”

Old fears and old furies were rising up inside her. That crushing sense of powerlessness that came from the world changing without you and in terrible ways. From having no choice but to put your trust in people who didn’t care for the same things you did. And for being utterly betrayed, even though you should have expected it. “He was supposed to take care of it. He promised. Valentine promised .”

“He would not break his word.”

“Everyone says that, but he does. He has broken his word to me.”

“If you mean your engagement, I think you were equally responsible for that.”

“Before. He promised me his friendship, and then he forgot all about us. But still”—she gave a bitter laugh—“I am only a woman, and so he remains an honourable man.”

“Belle—”

She pulled out of Rufus’s embrace, not quite able to bear it. “Please don’t defend him. Not right now.”

For a moment, she couldn’t tell if he was going to try and argue with her, but then he just nodded. “Let’s try to find someone we can talk to. There’s a light in one of the rooms.”

He was right, though that single distant glow, like a lost star, only made the house look more forlorn. Like some poor creature, half-blind, and run to ground. “The kitchen maybe?” she suggested.

She picked her way through the mess of the courtyard and pushed open the side door that led to the south-east range, which housed the servants’ hall, as well as the kitchen, pantry, and scullery. There was, indeed, a candle burning in the kitchen, but Belle got no further than the threshold. Rufus shoved her behind him so hard and fast that she banged her elbow upon the doorframe, her view of the room entirely obscured by his body for several seconds. From the way his shoulders moved, he seemed to be grappling with something. And then came the resounding clang of an iron skillet landing heavily upon the floor.

“What,” demanded Rufus, at his most imposing, “is the meaning of this?”