While Cassandra occupied herself with knitting a pair of Berlin wool slippers, Pandora reached into her valise and unearthed her journal, a weighty Coptic-bound volume with a leather cover. Its linen pages were stuffed with clippings, sketches, pressed flowers, tickets, postcards, and all manner of things that had caught her fancy. She had filled at least half of it with ideas and sketches for board games. A silver mechanical pencil dangled from an attached cord that wrapped around the book to keep it closed.
After unwinding the cord, Pandora opened the book to a blank page near the back. She twisted the lower half of the pencil barrel until a nozzle with the lead emerged, and began to write.
JOURNEY TO HERON’S POINT
OR
The Impending Matrimonial Doom of Lady Pandora Ravenel
Facts and Observations
#1 If people think you’re dishonored, it’s no different from actually having been dishonored, except you still don’t know anything.
#2 When you’ve been ruined, there are only two options: death or marriage.
#3 Since I am gravely healthy, the first option isn’t likely.
#4 On the other hand, ritual self-sacrifice in Iceland cannot be ruled out.
#5 Lady Berwick advises marriage and says Lord St. Vincent is “bred to the bill.” Since she once made the same remark about a stud horse she and Lord Berwick bought for their stable, I have to wonder if she’s looked in his mouth.
#6 Lord St. Vincent reportedly has a mistress.
#7 The word “mistress” sounds like a cross between mistake and mattress.
“We’ve crossed into Sussex,” Cassandra said. “It’s even lovelier than the guidebook led me to expect.” She had purchased The Popular Guide and Visitor’s Directory to Heron’s Point at a bookstall in the station, and had insisted on reading parts of it aloud during the first hour of their journey.
Known as the “land of health,” Sussex was the sunniest region in England with the purest water, drawn up from deep chalk wells. According to the guidebook, the county possessed fifty miles of coastal shore. Tourists flocked to the town of Heron’s Point for its mild, sweet air, and the healing properties of its seawater and hot spring baths.
The guidebook was dedicated to the Duke of Kingston, who had apparently built a seawall to protect erosion of the shore, as well as a hotel, a public esplanade, and a thousand-foot public pier to provide harborage for pleasure steamboats, fishing vessels, and his own private yacht.
#8 The local guidebook doesn’t include even one unfavorable detail about Heron’s Point. It must be the most perfect town in existence.
#9 Or the author was trying to toady up to the Challons, who own half of Sussex.
#10 Dear God, they’re going to be insufferable.
As Pandora looked through the train window, her attention was caught by a flock of starlings that flowed across the sky in synchronized movements, the mass dividing like a water droplet and rejoining before continuing on in a fluid, ribbon-like mass.
The train clicked and clacked its way through a panorama of charming villages, wool-towns with timber-framed houses, picturesque churches, rich green farmland, and smoothly contoured downs carpeted with purple-blooming heath. The sky was vivid and soft, with a few fluffy clouds that appeared to have been freshly laundered and hung up to dry.
#11 Sussex has many picturesque views.
#12 Looking at nature is boring.
As the train neared the station, they passed a waterworks, an alcove of shops, a post office, a row of tidy storage buildings, and a collecting depot where dairy products and market produce were kept chilled until they could be transported.
“There’s the Challon estate,” Cassandra murmured.
Following her gaze, Pandora saw a white mansion on a distant hill beyond the headland, overlooking the ocean. An imposing marble palace, inhabited by haughty aristocrats.
The train reached the station and came to a halt. The air, so hot that it smelled like ironing, was filled with clanging bells, the voices of signalmen and trackmen, doors opening, and porters wheeling their carts across the platform. As the family disembarked, they were met by a middle-aged man with a pleasant countenance and an efficient manner. After introducing himself as Mr. Cuthbert, the duke’s estate manager, he supervised porters and footmen to collect the Ravenels’ luggage, including William’s handsome wicker pram.
“Mr. Cuthbert,” Kathleen asked as the estate manager guided them beneath a vaulted canopy to the other side of the station building, “is it always so warm this time of year?”
Cuthbert blotted a gleam of perspiration from his forehead with a folded white handkerchief. “No, my lady, this is an unseasonably high temperature, even for Heron’s Point. A southerly has come in from the continent after a period of dry weather, and it is keeping the cooling sea breezes at bay. Moreover, the promontory”—he gestured to a high cliff that jutted out into the ocean—“helps to create the town’s unique climate.”
The Ravenels and their retinue of servants proceeded to the vehicle waiting area beside the station’s clock tower. The duke had sent a trio of glossy black carriages, their luxurious interiors upholstered in soft ivory Morocco leather and trimmed with rosewood. After climbing into the first carriage, Pandora investigated a fitted tray with a divided compartment, an umbrella that slid cleverly into a socket in the side of the door, and a rectangular leather case tucked beside a folding armrest. The case held a pair of binoculars—not the tiny ones a lady would use at the opera, but a powerful set of field glasses.
Pandora started guiltily as Mr. Cuthbert came to the open carriage door and saw her with the binoculars. “I’m sorry—” she began.