Charlotte was not nearly so gentle with Caroline as Pitt had been, largely because she was afraid, and the feeling was so raw and urgent inside her it overruled the caution with which her mind would otherwise have softened her words. Old memories came flooding back as if the shock and the disillusion had come yesterday. The need to protect was stronger now, though, be shy;cause she could see everything so much more sharply, and this time she was on the outside, not numbed by her own emotions as she had been then.
"Mama, I think we cannot reasonably place any hope in the idea that Mina took poison by accident," she said frankly as she sat in Caroline's withdrawing room the following day. She had called as soon as she could after hearing the news from Pitt. Gossip would fly very quickly; mistakes might be made at a single encounter.
"It would be very tragic to think the poor woman was wretched enough to take her own life," she went on, "and even worse to believe someone else hated her enough to commit murder, but closing our eyes to it will not remove the truth."
"I have already told Thomas the very little I know," Caroline said unhappily. "I even made some rather wild guesses that I wish now I had not. I have probably been extremely unjust."
"And rather less than honest," Charlotte added harshly. "You told him nothing about Monsieur Alaric's picture being in your stolen locket."
Caroline froze, her fingers locked as if she had a sudden spasm; only her eyes were hot, scalding Charlotte with contempt.
"And did you?" Caroline said slowly.
Charlotte saw the anger in her, but she was too concerned with the danger to spare time for hurt.
"Of course not!" She dismissed the question without bother shy;ing to defend herself. "But that does not alter the fact that if you lost such a thing, maybe someone else did too!"
"And if they did, what has that to do with Mina's death?" Caroline was still stiff with chill.
"Oh, don't be so silly!" Charlotte exploded with exasperation. Why was Caroline being so obtuse? "If Mina were the thief, then she might have been murdered to recover the stolen article, whatever it is! And if she were the victim, maybe it was some shy;thing that mattered to her so much, was so dangerous for her, that she would rather die than face having it known!"
There was silence. A pan was dropped in the scullery, and the dim echo of it penetrated the room. Very slowly the hard anger died out of Caroline's face as she understood. Charlotte watched her without speaking.
"What could there be that was worse than death?" Caroline said at last.
"That is what we need to find out." Charlotte finally relaxed her body enough to sit properly in her chair and lean against the back. "Thomas can find facts, but it may take you or me to understand them. After all, you cannot expect the police to know the feelings of someone like Mina. Something that would seem trivial to them might have been overwhelming to her."
It was not necessary to explain all the differences of class, sex, and the whole framework of customs and values that lay between Pitt and Mina. Both Charlotte and Caroline understood that all the sensitivity or imagination he was capable of would not guide him to see with Mina's eyes or recognize what it was that had accomplished her death.
"I wish I didn't have to know," Caroline said wearily, look shy;ing away from Charlotte. "I would so much rather bury her in peace. I have no curiosity. I can abide a mystery perfectly well. I have learned that one is not very often happier for having found all the answers."
Charlotte knew that at least half her mother's feeling sprang from a desire for privacy herself, the need to keep her own secrets. So much of the pleasure of a flirtation was that other people should see your conquest, and this realization added to her fear. Caroline must be very enchanted with Paul Alaric if she was content for the relationship to be unobserved. That meant it was far more than a game; there was something in it that Caroline wanted very much, something more than admiration alone.
"You cannot afford not to know!" Charlotte said sharply, wanting to shock her mother into fear acute enough to bring her to some sense. "If Mina were the thief, then she may still have your locket! When her possessions are sorted out, Alstoq will find it-or Thomas will!"
This had all the jarring effect she intended. Caroline's face tightened into a mask. She swallowed with difficulty.
"If, Thomas finds it-" she began; and then the enormity of it hit her. "Oh, dear heaven! He might think I killed Mina! Charlotte-he couldn't think that-could he?"
The danger was too real for soft words and lies.
"I don't suppose Thomas himself would think so," she an shy;swered quietly. "But other police might. There must have been some reason why Mina died, so we had better find it first, before the locket turns up and anyone else has the chance to think anything at all."
"But what?" Caroline shut her eyes in desperation, searching blindly for some explanation in the darkness of her mind. "We don't even know if it was suicide or murder! I did tell Thomas about Tormod Lagarde."
"What about him?" Thomas had not mentioned Tormod or any possible connection.
"That Mina might have been in love with him," Caroline replied. "She definitely had an admiration for him. It could have been more than we thought. And she did go to the Lagardes' house just before she died. Perhaps she had some kind of interview with him and he rejected her in a way that she could not bear?"
The idea of a married woman finding the end of such a relationship cause for suicide disturbed Charlotte. It was frighten shy;ing and pathetic in a way that repelled her, especially since she could not put Caroline and Paul Alaric from her mind. But then she did not know how disagreeable or empty the Spencer-Browns' marriage might have been. She had no right to judge. So many marriages were "appropriate"-and even those born of love could sour. She reproved herself for making too hasty a judgment, an act she despised in others.
"I suppose Eloise Lagarde might know," Charlotte said thoughtfully. "We shall have to be very tactful in inquiring. No one would wish to believe they might have been the cause, however unintentionally, of someone else's taking her own life. And Eloise is bound to protect her brother.''
The hope faded from Caroline's face. "Yes. They are very close. I suppose it comes from having only each other when their parents died so young."
"There are several other possibilities," Charlotte continued. "Someone has been stealing. Perhaps they took from Mina some lover's keepsake from Tormod, and the fear that it might become public was unbearable to her. Perhaps they even went to her and threatened to give it to Alston if she did not give them money-or whatever else they wished." Her imagination went on to thoughts that might drive a person into thinking of death. "Perhaps it was another man who desired her. And that was the price of his silence."
"Charlotte!" Caroline sat bolt upright. "What a truly appall shy;ing mind you have, girl! You would never have been capable of such thoughts when you lived in my house!"
Charlotte had on her tongue a few pointed words about Caroline, Paul Alaric, and the question of morality, but she refrained from speaking them.
"Some truly appalling things happen, Mama," she said instead. "And I am a few years older than I was then."
"And you also appear to have forgotten a great deal about the sort of people we are. No man in Rutland Place would stoop to such a thing!"
"Not so openly, perhaps," Charlotte said quietly. She had her own ideas about what was done but would be called by a pleasanter name. "But he doesn't have to be one of you. Why not a footman-or even a bootboy? Can you answer for them so surely?"
"Oh, dear God! You can't be serious!"
"Why not? Might not that have been enough to make Mina, or any other woman, think of suicide? Might you not?"
"I-" Caroline stared at her. She let out her breath very slowly, as if she had given up some fight. "I don't know. I should think it is one of those things that would be so dreadful you could not know how you would feel unless it happened to you." She moved her eyes to look down at the floor. "Poor Mina. She so hated anything in the least unseemly. Something like that would have-shriveled her to the heart!"
"We don't know that that was what happened, Mama."'Char shy;lotte leaned forward and touched her. "There are other things it could have been. Perhaps Mina was the thief, and she could not face the shame of being discovered."
"Mina? Oh, surely-" Caroline began, then stopped, suspi shy;cion fighting incredulity in her face.
"Someone is," Charlotte pointed out soberly. "And consider shy;ing where the articles were stolen from, it doesn't appear that any one servant could have taken them. But someone like Mina could!"
"But she lost something herself," Caroline argued. "A snuffbox."
"You mean she said she did," Charlotte corrected. "And it was her husband's, not hers. Surely the most intelligent way to direct suspicion from oneself would be to take something of your own as well? It does not take a great deal of brains to work that out."
"I suppose not. And you think this person who is watching knew about it?"
"It is a possibility."
Caroline shook her head. "I find it terribly hard to believe."
"Do you find any of it easy? Yesterday Mina was alive."
"I know! It's all so ugly and useless and stupid. Sometimes it seems impossible to believe how so much can change irrevo shy;cably in a few hours."
Charlotte tried another line of thought. "Do you still have the sensation of being watched?"
Caroline looked startled. "I've no idea! I haven't even consid shy;ered it. What does a Peeping Tom matter now, compared with Mina's death?"
"It might have something to do with it. I'm just trying to think of everything I can."
"Well, none of it seems worth anyone dying over." Caroline stood up. "I think it is time we took luncheon. I asked for it to be ready at quarter to one, and it is past that now."
Charlotte followed her obediently and they repaired to the breakfast room where the small table was set and the parlormaid ready to serve.
After the maid had gone, Charlotte began her soup, at the same time trying to recall some of the conversation that had taken place when she had met Mina a week ago. Mina had made a number of remarks about Ottilie Charrington and her death, possibly even implying that there was something mysterious about it. It was an ugly idea, but once it was in Charlotte's mind it had to be explored.
"Mama, Mina had lived here for some time, had she not?"
"Yes, several years." Caroline was surprised. "Why?"
"Then she probably knew everyone fairly well. Quite well enough that if she were the thief, and took something important, she might well understand its meaning, don't you think?"
"Such as what?"
"I don't know. Ottilie Charrington's death? She said a lot about it when she was here-almost as if she suspected there could be a secret, something the family would rather were not known."
Caroline put her soup spoon back in the bowl. "You mean that it was not natural?"
Charlotte frowned uncertainly. "Not anything quite so awful as that. But perhaps she was not as respectable as Mr. Charrington, at least, would have liked. Mina said she was very high-spirited, and definitely implied she was also indiscreet. Maybe there would have been some sort of scandal if she had not died when she did?"
Caroline started to eat again, breaking a piece of bread.
"What an unpleasant thought, but I suppose you are right," she said. "Mina did drop several hints that there was a lot more to know about Ottilie than most people realized. I never asked her, because I am so fond of Ambrosine I did not wish to encourage talk. But Mina did make me a little curious about Theodora as well, now that I come to remember."
Charlotte was puzzled. "Who is Theodora?"
"Theodora von Schenck, Amaryllis Denbigh's sister. She's a widow with two children. I don't know her very well, but I confess to liking her considerably."
Charlotte found it hard to imagine liking anyone related to Amaryllis. "Indeed," she said, unaware how skeptical she sounded. '
Caroline smiled dryly. "They are not at all alike. For a start, Theodora does not appear to have any desire to marry again, even though she has very little means, as far as anyone knows. And, of course, people do know! In fact, when she came here a few years ago, she had nothing but the house, which she inher shy;ited from her parents. Now she has a new coat with a collar and trim right down to the ground I would swear is sable! I remem shy;ber when she got it that Mina remarked about it. I am ashamed of myself, but I cannot help wondering how she came by it!"
"A lover?" Charlotte suggested the obvious.
"Then she is incredibly discreet!"
"It doesn't seem very discreet to wear a sable collar out of the blue, with no explanation!" Charlotte protested. "She can hardly be naive enough to imagine it would pass unnoticed! I would wager every woman in Rutland Place could price the garments of every other woman to within a guinea! And probably name the dressmaker who made them and the month in which they were cut!"
"Oh, Charlotte! That's unfair! We are not so-so ill-disposed or so trivial-minded as you seem to think!"
"Not ill-disposed, Mama, but practical, and with an excellent eye to value."
"I suppose so." Caroline finished the last of her soup, and the maid reappeared to serve the next dish. The two women began to eat slowly. It was a delicate fish, and extremely well cooked; at any other occasion Charlotte would have enjoyed it.
"Theodora obviously has more money now than she used to," Caroline went on reluctantly. "Mina once suggested that she did something quite appalling to earn it, but I was sure at the time that she was only being facetious. She had rather poor taste sometimes." She looked up. "Charlotte, do you think perhaps it could have been true and Mina knew something about it?"
"Perhaps." Charlotte weighed the idea. "Or perhaps on the other hand Mina was-merely being spiteful-or saying something for the sake of making an effect. The stupidest stories get started that way sometimes."
"But Mina wasn't like that," Caroline argued. "She very seldom talked about other people, except as everybody does. She was much more inclined to listen."
"Then it begins to look as if it was something to do with Tormod," Charlotte reasoned. "Or some other man we don't know of yet. Or perhaps something to do with Alston that we do not know. Or else simply that she was the thief."
"Suicide?" Caroline pushed her plate away. "What a dread shy;ful thing it is that another human being, another woman you thought of as much like yourself, only a few houses away, could be so wretched as to take her own life rather than live another day-and you know nothing about it at all. You go about your own trivial little affairs, thinking of menus and seeing that the linen is repaired, and whom to call upon, exactly as if there were nothing else to do."
Charlotte put her hand across the table to touch Caroline.
"I don't suppose you could have done anything even if you had known," she said quietly. "She gave no clue at all that she was so desperately unhappy-and one cannot intrude into everyone's business to inquire. Grief is sometimes more easily borne for being private, and a humiliation is the last thing one wishes to share. The kindest thing one can do is to affect not to have noticed."
"I suppose you're right. But I still feel guilty. There must have been something I could have done."
"Well, there isn't anything now, except speak well of her."
Caroline sighed. "I sent a letter to Alston, of course, but I feel it is too early to call upon him yet. He is bound to be very shocked. But poor Eloise is unwell also. I thought we might call there this afternoon and express our sympathy. She has taken the whole thing very badly. I think perhaps she is even more delicate than I had realized."
It was not a prospect Charlotte looked forward to, but she could see it was quite plainly a duty. And if the Lagardes had been the last people, apart from Mina's own servants, to see her alive, then perhaps something could be learned.
Charlotte was stunned when she walked behind Caroline into the Lagarde withdrawing room. Eloise looked so different from the woman she had seen the week before that for a moment she almost expected a new introduction. Eloise's face was almost colorless, and she moved so slowly she might have been fum shy;bling in her sleep. She forced herself to smile, but it was a small gesture. Death was in the Place, and the formality of the usual pretended delight was not expected now.
"How kind of you to call," she said quietly, first to Caroline, then to Charlotte. "Please do sit, and make yourselves comfortable. It still seems to be quite cold." She had on a heavy shawl over her dress and kept it closed around her.
Charlotte sat down in a chair across the room, as far as she could get with courtesy from the fire that roared up the chimney as if it had been midwinter. It was a pleasant spring day outside, bright though not yet warm.
Caroline appeared to be at a loss for words. Perhaps her own anxieties were too pressing for her to organize her thoughts into polite remarks. Charlotte rushed in with speech before Eloise should become aware of it.
"I'm afraid summer is always longer in coming than one hopes," she said meaninglessly. "One fancies because the day shy;light hours are longer that the sun will be warmer, and it so seldom is."
"Yes," Eloise said, looking at the square of blue through the window. "Yes, it is easy to be deceived. It looks so bright, but one doesn't know till one is in it quite how cold it is."
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 know 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 the 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."
Charlotte stared at him, trying to control her thoughts.
"You make that sound a little sinister," she said slowly. "Calculating?"
Caroline took her arm. "Nonsense. One has to use some sense in order to survive! Monsieur Alaric means only that she was not flighty, the sort of silly creature who does not take any care what she is doing. Is that not so?" She looked at him, her face glowing in the cool air, her eyes bright. Charlotte was surprised- and jarringly afraid-to see how lovely she still was. The color, the brilliance, the blood under the skin had nothing to do with the March wind; it was the presence of this man, with his dark head and strong, straight back, standing in the road talking gently about death, and his pity for the tragedy around it.
"Then I fear it may have been suicide!" Charlotte said sud shy;denly and rather loudly. "Perhaps the poor woman got herself into an affaire of the heart, became involved with someone other than her husband, and the situation was unbearable to her. I can see very easily how that could happen." She did not have the boldness to look at either of them, and there was absolute silence in the street, not even the sound of a bird or of distant hooves.
"Such adventures very often end in disaster," she continued after a harsh breath. "Of one sort or another. Maybe she pre shy;ferred death to the scandal that might have accompanied such a thing becoming public!"
Caroline stood frozen.
"Do you think either she, or any man, would allow such a matter to become public?" Alaric asked with an expression Charlotte could not fathom.
"I have no idea," she said with defiance she instantly regretted, but she plunged on. He had always had the ability to make her speak incautiously. "Perhaps an indiscreet letter, or a love token? People who are infatuated are often very foolish, even normally sensible people!"
Caroline was so rigid Charlotte could feel her behind her shoulder like a column of ice.
"You are right," Caroline said in a low voice. "But death seems a terrible price to pay for such a folly."
"It is!" For the first time Charlotte looked fully at her; then she turned to Alaric and found his eyes dark and bright, and unreadable, but understanding her as clearly as if they could see inside her head.
"But then when we embark on such affaires," Charlotte continued with a tightening of her throat, "we seldom see the price at the end until it is time to pay." She swallowed and suddenly tried to sound light, as if it were all just speculation, and nothing to do with anything real. "At least so I have observed." Surely he must also be remembering Paragon Walk and their first meeting? Did he still live there now?
His face relaxed fractionally and his lips moved in the smallest smile. "Let us hope we are wrong and there is some less desperate explanation. I would not care to think of anyone suffering so."
She recalled herself. All that was long past. "Nor I. And I am sure you would not either, Mama." She closed her hand over Caroline's. "We had better be returning home, now that we have paid our duty calls. Papa will be expecting us for tea."
Caroline opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again; but even so Charlotte had to pull her.
"Good day, Monsieur Alaric," Charlotte said briskly. "I am delighted to have made your acquaintance."
He bowed and raised his hat.
"And I yours, Mrs. Pitt. Good afternoon, Mrs. Ellison."
"Good afternoon, Monsieur Alaric."
They walked a few paces, Charlotte still pulling Caroline uncomfortably by the arm.
"Charlotte, I despair of you sometimes!" Caroline shut her eyes to block out the scene.
"Do you!" Charlotte said tartly without relaxing her pace. "Mama, there is no need for a great deal of words between us that will only hurt. We understand each other. And you do not need to tell me that Papa is not at home either. I know that."
Caroline did not reply. The wind was sharper and she tucked her head down into her collar.
Charlotte knew she had been abrupt, even cruel, but she was very badly frightened. Paul Alaric was not some light affaire, a man full of pretty phrases and little gestures to please, a taste of romance to brighten the monotony of a thirty-year marriage. He was hard and real; there was power in him and emotion, a suggestion of things beyond reach, exciting and perhaps infi shy;nitely beautiful. Charlotte herself was still tingling from the meeting.