“If he asks her to marry him, you are going to do nothing,” Pitt replied with a hard edge to his voice that took her by total surprise, leaving her staring at him in amazement.
“Nothing!” she protested. “But Thomas—”
“Nothing,” he repeated. “Charlotte, I will tell her what we know of the case, in a few days, when I have weighed the evidence further. Then she will make her own decisions as to what to do.”
“But, Thomas—”
“No!” His hand was warm and hard over hers. “I know what you are going to say, but it would do no good. My dear, when did anyone in love listen to the good advice of their families? When you point out that he may be dangerous, guilty, unsuitable, unworthy, anything else you think of, the more she will be inclined to be loyal to him, even against her own better judgment.”
“You make her sound so foolish.” She pulled away, but he would not let her go.
“Not foolish, just in love.”
She glared at him, tears prickling in her eyes. “Then you have got to find out whether he killed Kingsley Blaine or not. And if it wasn’t he, then who was it?”
“I don’t know. I suppose Devlin O’Neil.”
She pushed her chair back, scraping the legs on the floor, and stood up. “Then I am going to find out more about them.” She drew in her breath quickly. “And don’t you dare tell me I mayn’t. I shall be very discreet. No one will have the slightest idea why I am interested, or that I have the least suspicion of anything even immoral, let alone criminal.” And before he could argue she swept out and raced up the stairs to start sorting through her gowns to see what she should wear to visit Caroline, Clio Farber, Kathleen O’Neil, or anyone else who might prove helpful in solving the Farriers’ Lane case.
Actually she did not succeed in arranging anything until the day after, and that was with great difficulty, and the assistance of Clio Farber. It was something of a contrivance. Clio invited Kathleen O’Neil to meet her at the British Museum, a place Adah Harrimore much enjoyed visiting. It gave her the opportunity to walk around slowly (her health was still excellent), to gossip and stare at other people, while at the same time feeling that she was improving her mind, without obligation to any hostess, or the need for invitation, or a return of hospitality. One could wear what one pleased, come at any hour, and leave when one had had sufficient. It was the perfect answer to all the intricate rules and restrictions of social hierarchy and etiquette.
Clio informed Charlotte of this arrangement, and accidentally Charlotte bumped into them at the Egyptian exhibit at exactly quarter to three, with a show of surprise and pleasure. She had considered asking Caroline to come, and then rejected it, because she was not sure enough of her own ability not to betray her knowledge that Aaron Godman was innocent, and her consequent fear that Joshua was guilty. Devlin O’Neil was another matter altogether. She liked Kathleen and would grieve if he proved to be guilty, but her art of concealment was perfectly able to match that eventuality.
“How charming to see you,” she said with just the right degree of surprise. “Good day, Mrs. Harrimore. I hope you are well?”
Adah Harrimore was dressed in dark brown with a sable trim and a hat which had been extremely elegant a couple of seasons ago and had since been altered to mask its year of vogue.
“I dislike the winter, but I am quite well, thank you,” she replied with an air of graciousness. “And you, Miss Pitt?”
“Very well, thank you. I do agree with you, the cold can be most disagreeable. But you know, I don’t think I should care for the heat such as they have in Egypt either.” She looked with intensity at the artifacts on display in the case in front of them: copper instruments, shards of pottery and beautiful turquoise and lapis beads. A small glass jar caught her attention in particular. “It makes one wonder about the lives of the people who fashioned and wore these, doesn’t it?” she went on enthusiastically. “Do you suppose they were so very different from us, or if actually their feelings were much the same?”
“Quite different,” Adah said decisively. “They were Egyptian—we are English.”
“That will affect our habits, and the clothes we wear, our houses, what we eat. But do you think it changes the way we feel, and what we value?” Charlotte asked as politely as she could. It was a quite genuine question, but the fierce and instant response from Adah had startled her, and she saw something in the old woman’s face which disturbed her. It was not merely an opinion which would not be moved, it was a flicker of fear, as though there were something dangerous in the alien quality of those people from another land, and so long dead.
Adah looked at the artifacts, and then at Charlotte.
“If you forgive my saying so, Miss Pitt, you are very young, and consequently naive. I daresay you have had little experience of peoples of other races. Even if they are born here in England, and grow up amongst us, they still have an element which is different. Blood will tell. You may teach a child as much as you wish; in the end his heritage will come through.”
They were passed by two ladies in the height of fashion who inclined their heads graciously and continued walking.
Adah smiled stiffly. “How can you expect those who are born elsewhere,” she continued to Charlotte, “and grow up among totally different beliefs, to have anything in common with us but the most superficial manners? No, my dear Miss Pitt, I do not think they feel as we do about anything at all—at least anything of sensitivity or moral value. Why should they?”
Charlotte opened her mouth to reply, then realized she had no answer which would not sound either trite or rude.
“They worshiped fearful gods, with heads like animals.” Adah warmed to her subject. “And they tried to preserve the corpses of their dead! For goodness sake! We may find them most interesting to learn of, edifying to know the past, I am sure, and uplifting to realize how superior is our own culture. But to imagine we have anything in common with them is sheer folly.”
Charlotte scrambled for some dim recollection out of her schoolbooks.
“Was there not a pharaoh who believed in one god?” she enquired.
Adah’s eyebrows rose. “I have no idea. But he was not our God—that is beyond question. Pharaoh tried to kill Moses, and all his people! That was unarguably wicked. No one who believed in the real God would do such a thing.”
“People sometimes do terrible things to their enemies, especially when they are afraid.”
A shadow passed over Adah’s face, something in her eyes that for a moment froze. Then with a supreme effort it was conquered, and vanished.
“That is perfectly true, of course. But it is in moments of panic that our deeper natures are exposed, and you will find that foreigners will behave differently from us, because at heart they are different. That is not to say that some of them do not create most beautiful things, and know much that we may benefit from seeing.”
A governess in plain brown stood at the next exhibit, her twelve-year-old charge giggling at a bust of a long-dead queen.
“I find that particularly true of the Greeks,” Adah continued, her voice raised. “Some of their architecture is quite marvelous. Of course they were a people of most exquisite self-discipline, and sense of proportion. My grandson-in-law, Mr. O’Neil, whom you met, has been to Athens. He said that the Parthenon is beyond description. He finds the Greeks most uplifting. He admires the work of Lord Byron, which I admit I find somewhat questionable. I greatly prefer our own Lord Tennyson. You know where you are with Lord Tennyson.”
Charlotte gave up without further struggle. To continue to argue would lose her far more than she could possibly gain. And the look in Adah’s eyes still haunted her mind.
“That must have been a wonderful experience,” she said dutifully. “Are there good Greek exhibits here?”
“Most certainly. Let us go and see some of the urns and vases. This way, I think!” And with a sweeping gesture Adah led the way out of the Egyptian hall and into the next chamber.
&
nbsp; Charlotte passed Clio and Kathleen on the steps. She smiled, then hurried after Adah, catching up with her just as they entered the room where the Greek artifacts were displayed.
“How very fortunate of Mr. O’Neil to have been able to go to Greece,” she said conversationally. “Was it recently?”
“About seven years ago,” Adah replied.
“Did Mrs. O’Neil go with him?” Charlotte kept her voice politely interested, although she knew Kathleen had been married to Kingsley Blaine then.
“No,” Adah said flatly. “That was before their marriage. But no doubt they will go again some time in the future. I take it you have not been to Greece, Miss Pitt?”
“No, I am afraid not. That is why it is so fortunate to be able to come to the museum and see such lovely things here. Have you been, Mrs. Harri more?”
“No. No, I never traveled. My husband did not care to.” A look of bleak unhappiness crossed her face, a tightness of the skin and of the muscles beneath as if a pain uglier than mere grief had been reopened.
“It does not suit everyone,” Charlotte said quietly, answering the words because the feeling was too private to acknowledge, and too subtle to understand. “Some people become quite ill, especially at sea.”
“So I believe,” Adah said through thin lips.
“And it can be very costly,” Charlotte went on, walking in step with her. “If the family is large. One does not always wish to leave younger children behind for long periods of time, and yet one also does not feel advised to take them where the climate may not be healthy, the food will certainly not be what they are accustomed to, and one has no idea what medical help may be available. There are many reasons for such a decision.”
Adah stared at a large marble figure of a woman clothed in fine drapes, her body solid, massive, and yet the very lines of the stone giving it all such a simple and fluid grace one felt a draft might move the suggested fabric. It was chipped, the face disfigured, and yet it still had a grave loveliness.
“We were not a large family.” Adah spoke to the statue, not to Charlotte. “There is only Prosper, no more.”
They stood close in front of the statue. Clio and Kathleen had followed them and were admiring some exhibit at the far end of the room, and out of earshot. Adah seemed to have forgotten them, and there was no one else except two elderly gentlemen, one apparently lecturing the other on the artistic merits of a vase. Her emotions consumed her, as if she had found a place of complete privacy where she could relax her inner vigilance for a few moments before taking up the burden again. She looked tired, and oddly naked.
Charlotte wished she could touch her, extend some comfort less crass than words, but it would have been intrusive and impertinent on so short an acquaintance—and considering their respective ages. And always at the edge of her mind was Aaron Godman. Funny how she had given him a face, although she had never met him, nor seen a likeness.
“What a shame. Mr. Harrimore is a man of such character …”
“You do not understand.” Adah stared at the stone figure ahead of her a moment longer, then moved on to a fine black and terra-cotta vase with figures around it in a scene of debauchery Charlotte was quite sure the older woman did not see, in spite of her fixed eyes. Her expression would never have retained that intense, painful immobility if she had. “You are very naive, Miss Pitt, and no doubt your remarks are well meant …”
Such damnation in the turn of a phrase. But Charlotte quashed her instinctive rebellion and continued.
“I—I don’t think I see—”
“Of course you don’t,” Adah agreed, “You have never had to, and with God’s grace you never will. He is flawed, Miss Pitt.”
Charlotte was confused. It was an extraordinary thing for a woman to say of her son, and yet, looking at Adah’s face, there was no doubt she meant it passionately. It was not a passing remark, but something which troubled her so much it remained in the forefront of her mind.
Charlotte fumbled for something to say in reply.
“Are we not all flawed in one way or another, Mrs. Harrimore?”
“Of course we are none of us perfect.” Adah moved on from the vase to a set of shards which composed pieces of dishes of an earlier period, again without seeing them as anything but a faint blur. “That is trite, and perfectly obvious. Prosper has a clubfoot. I cannot believe you failed to notice it.”
“Oh—yes, I see what you mean.”
“What did you imagine I meant? Never mind! Never mind. It is not serious, not a crippling thing, not fatal. But other children—once the well is poisoned …” Suddenly she recollected where they were and pulled her shoulders back sharply as if coming to attention. “I should not have spoken of myself. It is hardly the uplifting and educational experience you were seeking. Talk of my husband”—again the bitterness crossed her face—“is not edifying for you. Let us go and see some of the Chinese exhibits. A very clever people, not even European, let alone English, but I believe most civilized, after their own fashion, and a great many years ago. Heaven only knows what they are now, of course! We were at war with them over something or other when I was a girl. We won—naturally.”
“Would those have been the opium wars?” Charlotte struggled to recall her fairly recent history. “In the eighteen-fifties?”
“Quite possibly that was the name of them,” Adah conceded. “Certainly it was just after the war in the Crimea, and then the awful mutiny in India. We seemed to be always at war with someone in those days. Of course our dear Queen had only been on the throne for twenty years. Now it is quite different. Everyone knows who we are, and they have more sense than to start wars with us.”
Such monumental assurance was unanswerable, and Charlotte was happy enough to see Clio and Kathleen O’Neil in the distance, and attracted their attention with a smile.
Some thirty minutes later they left the exhibits and retired to take afternoon tea and converse about various subjects such as fashion, one’s health, the weather, the Princess of Wales, the books one had read, all harmless and quite suitable for such an occasion.
“How is your dear Mama?” Kathleen enquired courteously, looking at Charlotte over the cucumber sandwiches. “I do hope she will be able to join us, perhaps for an evening at the opera, or the theater?”
“I am sure she would love to,” Charlotte said with more honesty than they knew. “I shall tell her that you mentioned it. It is most kind of you to ask. She has taken something of an interest in the theater lately. My Papa died some few years ago, and since then she has not gone out to such places as much as she used. She is just beginning to enjoy it again.”
“Very natural,” Adah agreed, nodding her head. “One has to mourn for a certain period. It is expected. But after that, one must continue one’s life.”
“I know she has become fast friends with Joshua,” Clio said quickly, smiling. “Indeed, it is really quite romantic.”
“Romantic?” Adah said stiffly. Then she swiveled around to Charlotte, her eyebrows raised.
“Well …” Charlotte hesitated, then she took a decision she was afraid she might desperately regret. “Yes—yes, it is. I have—I am not quite sure how I feel. Perhaps the word is apprehensive.” Clio continued to eat and reached for a tiny cream cake.
Kathleen glanced at Adah, then at Charlotte, and changed the subject.
When they rose to leave, Adah grasped Charlotte by the arm and drew her aside, her face tense, her eyes full of pain.
“My dear Miss Pitt, I do not know how to put this to you without seeming intrusive in what is your most private affair, but I cannot stand by and say nothing. Your mother is in a most vulnerable situation, bereaved of her husband, alone in the world, and quite naturally wishing to move into society again. But really—an actor!”
Charlotte agreed with her intensely, and at the same time instinctively rushed to defend Caroline. “He is very agreeable,” she said with a gulp. “And a pillar of his profession.”
“That is
immaterial!” Adah’s voice was fierce, her grasp on Charlotte’s arm painful. “He is a Jew! You cannot possibly allow your mother to have—to have anything but—how can I say this with the remotest delicacy? For love of heaven, my dear, you cannot allow her to have relations with him!”
Charlotte felt herself blushing hotly. The idea was repellent to her, not because of anything to do with Joshua Fielding, but because she could not imagine her mother in such a situation. It was profoundly … distressing, offensive.
“I can see you had not thought of it,” Adah went on, misreading her reaction entirely, thinking only of the word Jew. “Of course not. You are innocent. But my dear, it is not impossible—and then your mother would be ruined! Of course it is not as if she were still of childbearing age, so it would not contaminate her, but all the same.”
“Contaminate?” Charlotte was confused.
“Naturally.” Adah’s face was twisted with pain, pity, memory of something too ugly for her to speak of. “Having”—she hesitated on the word—“union—with a Jew—will leave a person … different. It is not something one can explain to a maiden lady of any sensibility at all. But you must believe me!”
Charlotte was speechless.
Adah mistook her silence for doubt.
“It is perfectly true,” she said urgently. “I swear it. God forgive me, I should know!” Her voice was raw with shame and misery. “My husband, like many men, satisfied his appetites beyond the walls of his own home, only he did it with a Jewess. I was with child at the time. That is why poor Prosper is deformed.” She caught her breath on the word as though the act of forcing it through her lips was a further wound to her. “And why I never had another child.”
Suddenly Charlotte saw the barren years, the shame, the sense of betrayal, of being unclean, which had lasted even until now. She felt a pity so intense she longed to reach out and put some kind of balm on the wound. And yet she was also revolted. It was alien to all her beliefs to imagine that there was a kind of human being who was so different that union with them was unclean, not because of immorality or disease, but simply by the nature of their race.
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