by Anne Perry
Caroline recollected her manners and the purpose of their visit.
"We will not stay long," she said, "because this is not a time for social visits, but both Charlotte and I were concerned to know how you- were and if there was anything we could say or do to be of comfort to you."
For a moment Eloise seemed almost not to understand her; then comprehension flooded her face.
"That is very kind of you." She smiled at them both. "I cannot think that I feel it more deeply than we all do. Poor Mina. How very suddenly the whole world can alter! One minute everything is as usual, and the next enormous and dreadful changes have taken place and are as complete as if years had gone by."
"Some changes are just the results of appalling accidents." Charlotte dared not miss an opportunity to press for knowledge; it was too important. "But others must have been growing all the time. It is just that we did not recognize them for what they were."
Eloise's eyes widened, momentarily confused, seeking to un shy;derstand Charlotte's curious remark.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not quite sure," Charlotte hedged. She must avoid seeming to pry. "Only I suppose that if poor Mrs. Spencer-Brown took her own life, then it can only have been a tragedy that had been growing, unknown to us, for some time." She had intended to be far more subtle, but Eloise was so candid herself that Charlotte could not play word games with her as she might have with someone more devious.
Eloise looked down at the folds of her skirt arranged over her knees.
"You think Mina took her own life?" She pronounced the words one by one, very clearly, weighing them. "That seems rather a cowardly thing to do. I always thought of Mina as stronger than that."
Charlotte was surprised. She had expected more pity, and more understanding.
"We don't know what pain she was faced with," she said rather less gently. "At least I don't."
"No." Eloise did not look up, a flash of contrition in her face. "I suppose we seldom even guess at anyone else's pain-
rutland place
how big it is, how sharp, how often it cuts." She shook her head. "But I still think that taking one's life is a kind of surrender."
"Some people grow too tired to fight anymore, or the wound is greater than they can overcome," Charlotte persisted, wonder shy;ing at the back of her mind why she was defending Mina so hard. She had not especially liked her; indeed she had felt a greater warmth for Eloise.
"We do not know that poor Mina took her own life," Caro shy;line said, intervening at last. "It may have been some sort of horrible accident. I cannot help believing that if there had been something distressing her so dreadfully, we would have been aware of it.''
"I cannot agree with you, Mama," Charlotte replied. "Do you think that was what happened, Miss Lagarde? You knew her quite well, did you not?"
Eloise sat without answering for several seconds.
"I don't know. I used to think I knew all the obvious things, and heard most of the gossip one way or another, and imagined I could evaluate its worth. Now …" Her voice trailed away and she stood up, turning her back to them, and walked over to the garden window. "Now I realize that I knew almost nothing at all."
Charlotte was about to press her when the door opened and Tormod came in. His glance went immediately to Eloise at the window, then to Charlotte and Caroline. There was anxiety in his face, and his body was stiff.
"Good afternoon," he said politely. "How kind of you to call." His eyes went to Eloise again, dark and troubled. "I'm afraid Eloise has taken this appalling tragedy very hard. It has distressed her till she is quite unwell." There was a warning in his face to be careful, choose their words, or they might add to the burden.
Caroline murmured understandingly.
"It is a very dreadful affair," Charlotte said. "A person of sensibility would be bound to feel for everyone concerned. And I believe you were the last to see the poor woman alive."
Tormod gave her a glance of profound appreciation. "Of course. . and it cannot but distress poor Eloise to wonder if perhaps there might have been something we could have done. Naturally, her own servants actually-"
"Oh, servants," Charlotte said, waving them away with a little gesture of her fingers. "But that is not the same as friends, whom one might have confided in."
"Exactly!" Tormod said. "Unfortunately she did not. I really think it must have been some sort of accident, perhaps a wrong dosage of a medicine."
"Perhaps," Charlotte said doubtfully. "Of course I did not know her very well. Was she so absentminded?"
"No." Eloise turned from the window. "She always seemed to know precisely what she was doing. If she did something so fatally foolish, then she must have been very distracted in her mind, or she would have noticed immediately that she had poured from a wrong bottle, or a wrong box, and disposed of it instead of drinking it."
Tormod went to her and put his arm around her gently.
"You really must stop thinking about it, dear," he said. "There is nothing we can do for her now, and you are distress shy;ing yourself. You will make yourself ill, and that will help no one, and it will hurt me very much. Tomorrow we shall go into the country, back to Five Elms, and think of other things. The weather is improving all the time. The first daffodils will be out in the wood, and we shall take the carriage and go driving to see them-perhaps even with a picnic basket, if it is warm enough. Wouldn't you like that?"
She smiled at him, her face softening in gentle, melting pleasure, more as if she were comforting him than he supporting her.
"Yes, of course I should." She put her hand over his. "Thank you."
Tormod turned to Caroline. "It was most thoughtful of you to call, Mrs. Ellison, and you, Mrs. Pitt. We appreciate it. Such courtesies of friendship make these things easier to bear. And I am sure you must feel very shocked as well. After all, poor Mina was a friend of yours also."
"Indeed, I am completely at a loss," Caroline said a little ambiguously.
Charlotte was still pondering what she meant by that when the maid opened the door and announced Mrs. Denbigh. Amaryllis came in so close behind her there was no time to say whether the call was acceptable or not.
Eloise looked at her bleakly, almost through her. Tormod remained with his arm still around her and smiled politely.
Amaryllis' face stiffened and her round eyes were glittering sharp.
"Are you ill, Eloise?" she said with surprise, her voice ambivalent between sympathy and impatience. "If you are faint, let me help you upstairs to lie down. I have salts, if you wish?"
"No, thank you, I am not faint, but it is most civil of you to offer/'
"Are you sure?" Amaryllis' eyes swept her up and down with chilly condescension. "You do not look at all well, my dear. In fact, you are really very peaked, if you do not mind my saying so. I am the last person in the world to wish my visiting you to cause you to overstrain yourself.''
"I am not ill!" Eloise said a little more sharply.
Tormod's arm tightened around her almost as if he were bearing her weight, although to Charlotte she looked quite steady.
"Of course not, dear," he said. "But you have suffered a deep shock-"
"And you are not strong," Amaryllis added. "Perhaps if you send for a tisane? Shall I ring for your maid for you?"
"Thank you," Tormod accepted quickly. "That would be an excellent idea. I'm sure Mrs. Ellison and Mrs. Pitt would care for a cup of tisane as well. It is a most distressing time for all of us. You will take some refreshment, won't you?"
"Thank you," Charlotte said immediately. She was not sure what could be gained from remaining, but since she had learned nothing so far, she must at least try. "I hardly knew poor Mrs. Spencer-Brown, but I still feel most profoundly sad for her death."
"How tenderhearted of you," Amaryllis said skeptically.
Charlotte affected an air of innocence. "Do you not feel the same, Mrs. Denbigh? I am sure I can understand Miss Lagarde's emotions with the greatest of sympathy. To k
now you were the last person to see a friend and talk with them before such overwhelming despair of mind overtook them that they found life itself insupportable-I'm sure I also should be far from well."
Amaryllis' eyebrows rose. "Are you saying, Mrs. Pitt, that you are of the belief that Mrs. Spencer-Brown took her own life?"
"Oh dear!" Charlotte weighed all the consternation into her voice that she could contrive. "Surely you don't believe some shy;one else-oh dear-how very dreadful!"
For once, Amaryllis was too confused for words. It was obviously the last thing she had intended to imply.
"Well, no! I mean-" she stumbled and retreated into silence, her skin flushed and her eyes cold with awareness of having been outmaneuvered.
"I hardly think that is likely," Tormod said, coming to her‹ rescue-or was it Charlotte's? "Mina was not in the least the kind of woman to rouse such an enmity in anyone. In fact, I j cannot believe she would even know a person who would con shy;ceive of such an abominable thing." |
"Of course!" Amaryllis said gratefully. "I expressed myself less clearly than I should. Such a thing is unthinkable. If you had known better"-she looked meaningfully at Charlotte-"the sort of people who were her friends, then you would not have mistaken me so."
Charlotte forced a smile she did not feel. "I am sure I should not. But I am at a disadvantage, and you will have to forgive me. Did you mean that it was some kind of accident?"
Put baldly like that, the idea of having walked home and calmly taken a fatal dose of poison, by pure mischance, was so ridiculous that there was nothing Amaryllis could say. Her round eyes looked at Charlotte with cold dislike.
"I simply do not know what happened, Mrs. Pitt. And I really think we should refrain from discussing the subject in front of poor Eloise." She let the condescension drip from her voice. "You must have appreciated that she is most delicate and suffers from a nervous and sensitive disposition. We are causing her distress by pursuing this so tastelessly. Eloise, dear." She swiv-, eled around with a smile so glittering it sent shivers down Charlotte's spine and produced a feeling of revulsion so sharp it i almost burst over into words. "Eloise, are you sure you would not care to come upstairs and rest a little? You look quite extraordinarily pale."
"Thank you," Eloise said coolly. "I do not wish to retire. I would greatly prefer to remain down here. We must share this grief together and be what comfort we can to each other.''
But Tormod was not satisfied. "Here." He brushed Amaryllis aside, led Eloise to lie on the chaise longue, and lifted her feet for her. Charlotte caught a flicker of anger on Amaryllis' face so hot it would have scorched Eloise to the skin had she known of it. It gave Charlotte an acute satisfaction of which she was not proud, but she did nothing to try to rid herself of it; rather she relished it with peculiar warmth. She savored the turn of Tormod's shoulder and the soft movement of his hand as he smoothed Eloise's skirt while Amaryllis watched from behind.
The door opened and the maid came in with a tray, cups, and a hot tisane. Amaryllis set it on the table and poured some,for Eloise immediately, giving it to her and passing her a cushion so that she might rest more easily.
Charlotte made some harmless observation about a social event she had read of in the London Illustrated News. Tormod seized on it gratefully, and after they had all drunk a little of the tisane, Charlotte and Caroline took their leave, followed by Amaryllis.
"Poor Eloise," Amaryllis said as soon as they were in the street. "She does look most poorly. I had not expected her to take it quite so badly. I have no idea what can have caused such a tragedy, but since Eloise was the last person to see poor Mina before she died, I cannot but wonder if perhaps she knows something." Her eyes widened. "Oh! Told her in the greatest of confidence, of course! Which must place her in a most dreadful dilemma, poor creature! Knowing something vital, and not being able to tell it! I should not care to be in such a position."
Charlotte had begun to wonder the same thing, especially in view of Tormod's decision to take her away from Rutland Place into the country, where Pitt could not easily question her.
"Indeed," she said noncommittally. "Confidences are always a most difficult matter when there is strong reason to believe it might be morally right to divulge what you know. The burden is even heavier if the person who entrusted you is dead, and therefore cannot release you. One cannot envy anyone so placed. If that indeed is the case. We must not leap to conclusions and risk spreading gossip." She flashed Amaryllis a freezing smile. That would be quite irresponsible. It may simply be that Eloise is more compassionate than we are. I am very sorry, but I did not know Mrs. Spencer-Brown very well." She left the implication in the air.
Amaryllis did not miss it. "Quite. And some of us display our emotions while others prefer to keep a certain reserve-a dignity as befits the death of a friend. After all, one does not wish to become the center of attention. It is poor Mina who is dead, not one of us!"
Charlotte smiled more widely, feeling as if she were baring her teeth.
"How sensitive of you, Mrs. Denbigh. I am sure you will be a great comfort to everyone. I am charmed to have met you." They had come to Amaryllis' gateway.
"How kind," Amaryllis answered. "I'm sure I enjoyed it also." She turned and, lifting her skirts, climbed the steps.
"Charlotte!" Caroline said sharply under her breath. "Really! Sometimes I am quite embarrassed for you. I thought now that you were married you might have improved a little!"
"I have improved," Charlotte replied as she walked. "I lie much better. I used to fumble before, and now I can smile as well as anyone, and lie through my teeth. I can't bear that woman!"
"So I gathered!" Caroline said dryly.
"Neither can you."
"No, but I manage to keep it under considerably better control!"
Charlotte gave her a look that was unreadable, and stepped off the pavement to cross the road.
Then, suddenly, she noticed the lean, elegant figure of a man coming out of a gateway on the far side of the street. Even before he turned she knew him, knew the straight back, the grace of his head, the way his coat sat upon his shoulders. It was Paul Alaric, the Frenchman from Paragon Walk about whom every shy;one thought so much and actually knew so little.
He walked over to them easily, a half smile on his face, and raised his hat. His eyes met Charlotte's with a widening of surprise, and then a flash that might have been pleasure or amusement-or even only the courtesy of remembering a most agreeable acquaintance with whom one had shared profound emotions of danger and pity. But naturally he spoke to Caroline first, since she was the elder woman.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Ellison." His voice was exactly as Charlotte had remembered: soft, the pronunciation exquisitely correct, more beautiful than that of most men for whom English was their mother tongue.
Caroline stood in the middle of the road, her skirt still held in her hand. She swallowed before she spoke, and her voice was rather high.
"Good afternoon, Monsieur Alaric. A very pleasant day. I don't think you have met my daughter Mrs. Pitt."
For an instant he hesitated, his eyes meeting Charlotte's very directly while a host of memories flashed through her mind- memories of fear and conflicting passions. Then he bowed very slightly, the decision made.
"How do you do, Mrs. Pitt."
"I am quite well, thank you, Monsieur," she replied levelly. "Although I was distressed at the tragedy that has so recently happened."
"Mrs. Spencer-Brown." His face wiped clean of polite trivia and his voice dropped. "Yes. I'm afraid I can think of no answer which is not tragic. I have been struggling within myself to find any reason for such an ugly and useless thing to have happened, and I cannot."
Compulsion drove Charlotte to pursue it, even though good taste might have demanded that she say something sympathetic and change the subject.
"Then you do not think it could have been an accident?" she asked. Caroline was beside her now, and she was acutely con shy;scious of her, of th
e tight muscles of her body, of her eyes fixed on Alaric's face.
There was gentleness in him, and something like a light of bitter humor, as if for a second her candor had aroused some other emotion in him.
"No, Mrs. Pitt," he said. "I wish I could. But one does not take a dose of medicine that has not been prescribed for one, nor drink from an unlabeled bottle, unless one is very foolish, and Mrs. Spencer-Brown was not foolish in the least. She was an extremely practical woman. Do you not think so, Mrs. Ellison?" He turned toward Caroline and his face softened into a smile.
The color rose up Caroline's cheeks. "Yes, yes, indeed I do. In fact, I cannot recall ever knowing of Mina doing anything- ill-considered."
Charlotte was surprised; she had not received the impression that Mina was especially intelligent. Indeed, the conversation they had had, as she recalled it, had been mostly trivial, con shy;cerned with things of the utmost unimportance.
"Really?" she said with rather more skepticism than she had intended. She did not wish to be rude. "Perhaps I did not know her well enough. But I would have thought it quite possible her mind could have been occupied with some other concern, and she might have made an error."
"You are confusing intelligence with common sense, Charlotte," Caroline said spiritedly. "Mina was not fond of study, nor did she concern herself with some of the very odd affairs that you do." She was too discreet to name them, but a slight lowering of her eyelids and a sidelong glance made Charlotte decide that she was referring to her political convictions with regard to Reform Bills in Parliament, Poor Laws and the like. "But she was well aware of her own skills," Caroline continued, "and how best to use them. And she had far too much native wit to make mistakes-of any sort. Do you not think so, Monsieur Alaric?"
He glanced down the street over their shoulders into some distance they could not see before turning to face Charlotte.
"We are looking for a genteel way of saying that Mrs. Spencer-Brown had a very fine instinct for survival, Mrs. Pitt," he replied. "She knew the rules, she knew what could be said and what could not-what could be done. She was never careless, never moved by passion before sense. She did appear trivial on occasion, because that is the socially acceptable way. To talk intelligently of serious subjects is not considered attractive in a woman." He smiled fleetingly; Caroline could not know they had talked before. "At least not by most men. But underneath the prattle Mina was a skilled and prudent woman, who knew precisely what she wanted and what she could have."
