by Anne Perry
“I know,” he said very quietly. He wanted to touch her. He wished to so intensely it was a physical effort not to, but he knew it would be wrong, clumsy, and somehow indelicate. “But I count your company a greater happiness than any social or professional position.”
She looked away quickly, for the first time her composure breaking. The tears filled her eyes. She stood up and walked over to the mantel shelf.
“You are very generous, and I admire you immensely for it. But it does not alter anything. I cannot let you do such a thing.” She turned around and forced herself to smile at him, the tears standing out in her eyes. “What kind of love would I have for you if I were to take my own well-being at such a price to you? It would be no happiness.”
He could think of no argument. What she said was perfectly true. Everything worldly he could offer her would be reduced by her very acceptance. And he would never have married her if by doing so he would have ruined her.
Very slowly he rose to his feet, a little stiffly, even though it had been only a short time.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice husky.
For a moment he thought of going to her and taking her in his arms. But it would be intrusive, unfair, and it would change nothing. He had no idea what to say. To take leave formally now, as if he had only called for tea, would be ridiculous. He met her gaze, and knew that his face betrayed all his emotions. For a moment he stood still, then he turned and went out, passing the ladies’ maid in the hallway. The tea tray was sitting on the table. She was a discreet woman, and had understood more than he gave her credit for. She opened the door for him, then hesitated a moment.
“I hope you will call again, sir.”
He looked at her and saw in her set, tense expression that the words were not idle, not simply a very customary way of bidding farewell.
“Oh yes,” he said very firmly. “I shall certainly call again.”
Pitt had also found little satisfaction in the day. He had spent some considerable time further pursuing the relationship of Juniper Stafford and Adolphus Pryce, learning what he could about how it had deepened from a social acquaintance brought about by Pryce’s professional contact with Judge Stafford. It had been extremely difficult to do without at any time suggesting to those who did not know that it was now an immoral liaison and could have led to murder. The people he spoke to were agog for gossip and innuendo. Had they not been, they would have been of little use in his quest for facts, but their very sensitivity meant he had to be the more careful. As a result the picture he had gained was unclear, full of shadows and implications of passion, but without substance.
He came home tired and dispirited, feeling that he was pursuing something whose reality he would never know beyond doubt, and certainly never prove.
Charlotte had an excellent dinner ready: rich mutton stewed with potatoes and sweet white turnip, and flavored with rosemary. He ate slowly and with more satisfaction than he had felt all day. He had finished and was sitting in the parlor by the fire with his feet on the fender, sinking slowly farther and farther down in his chair, before he realized that she was preoccupied and looked now and then a little worried.
“What is it?” he asked reluctantly, wishing it would be nothing, some domestic triviality he would not have to bother with.
She bit her lip and turned from the work box where she had been sorting threads.
“The relationship between Mama and Joshua Fielding.”
“Is she going to be very upset if he is implicated in the Farriers” Lane murder?” he asked. He liked his mother-in-law, although he was more than a little in awe of her, and he certainly would not wish her to be hurt. However, being disappointed now and then was part of caring, and the only way to avoid it was to care about no one, which was a kind of death. “I don’t see why he should be,” he went on. “Everything I have found out indicates it was Aaron Godman, just as the original trial decided.”
She pulled a face. “I almost wish he were involved.”
“You aren’t making sense.” He was confused.
Her face screwed up even farther, and she closed her eyes. “Thomas, I think she is really in love with him. I know that’s absurd—but—but I think it’s true.”
“It is absurd,” he said, eager to dismiss it. He slid lower in the chair till his ankles were on the fender and his feet so close to the fire the soles of his slippers were hot. “She is a very respectable society widow, Charlotte. He is an actor, a Jew, and twenty years younger than she. You are exaggerating out of all proportion. She is probably bored, as Emily is half the time, and looking for something to become involved in. This is more colorful, and more dramatic, than tea parties and fashion. She will forget it once she has seen him cleared.”
“Do you think so?” Charlotte looked hopeful, her eyes wide and very dark.
Her expression, far from cheering him, suddenly made him consider the matter properly. He recalled Caroline’s face as she had looked at Joshua Fielding, the heightened color, the altered tone in her voice, the frequency with which she mentioned his name. And Charlotte was much more sensitive to such delicate changes than he was. Women understood other women in a way a man never could.
“You don’t, do you?” Charlotte challenged, almost as if she read his thoughts.
He hesitated, on the edge of denying it, then the honesty between them won.
“I don’t know—perhaps not. It seems absurd, but then I suppose love very often is. I thought I was absurd falling in love with you.”
Suddenly her face was radiant, as if the sun had illuminated it.
“Oh, you were,” she said happily. “Quite ridiculous. So was I.”
And for a while Caroline was forgotten, and her pain or her foolishness put aside.
However, to Mrs. Ellison senior, it was the most urgent matter in the world, and excluded everything else: the weekly edition of the London Illustrated News, the latest escapades of the Prince of Wales and his various lady friends, the opinions of the Queen, such as were known or guessed, the sins of the government, the vagaries of the weather, the general inadequacies of the domestic servants, the decline of good manners and morals, even her own various illnesses and their symptoms. Nothing was as important, or as potentially disastrous, as Caroline’s infatuation with this wretched actor person. An actor. Of all the absurdities. How grossly unsuitable. In fact unsuitable was far too mild a word for it—it was unacceptable—that is what it was. And as for his age … He was twenty years her junior—or fifteen at least, in a good light. And that was more than bad taste: it was disgusting.
She must tell her so. It was her duty as her erstwhile mother-in-law.
“Thank heaven poor Edward is dead and in his grave,” she said purposefully, as soon as Caroline arrived at the dinner table. The dining room table once had Caroline, Edward, their three daughters and their son-in-law, Dominic Corde, around it, as well as Grandmama. It was now set merely for the two of them, and they were marooned at either end of it, staring down the long oaken expanse at one another. They each required a cruets set; it was too far to pass them.
“I beg your pardon?” Caroline forced her attention to this extraordinary remark.
“I said, thank heaven Edward is dead and in his grave,” the old lady repeated loudly. “Are you losing your hearing, Caroline? It can happen as one gets older, you know. I have noticed your sight is not as good as it used to be. You squint at things nowadays. It is unbecoming. It causes wrinkles where one does not wish them. Not, I suppose, that there is anywhere one does. But it cannot be helped at our age.”
“I am not your age,” Caroline said tartly. “I am nowhere near it.”
“Rudeness will not help,” Grandmama said with a sickly smile. The conversation was well in her command. “You are moving towards it. Nothing stays the hand of time, my dear. The young often imagine it will somehow be different for them, but it never is, believe me.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Caroline sa
id tersely, putting salt into her soup, and discovering it did not require it. “I am not young, nor am I your age. You are my mother-in-law, and Edward was several years older than I.”
“An excellent arrangement,” Grandmama said, nodding her head. “A man should be a little older than his wife. It makes for responsibility and domestic accord.”
“What absolute balderdash.” Caroline peppered the soup and found it did not need that either. “If a man is irresponsible, marrying a younger woman will do nothing to cure him. In fact more probably the opposite. If she has no sense either, then they will both be in debt.”
Grandmama disregarded that. “If a man is a little older than his wife,” she said, sipping her soup noisily, “then she will obey him the more easily, and there will be peace and happiness in the home. An older wife may be headstrong.” She sipped her soup again. “And on the other hand, she may be so foolish as to allow him to lead, when he has no maturity and no judgment—and certainly no authority. Altogether it will be a disaster, and end in ruin.”
“What complete tarradiddle.” Caroline pushed her soup away and rang the bell for the butler to remove it. “A woman with any sense at all will go entirely her own way, and allow her husband to think it is his. That way they will both be happy, and the best judgment will prevail.” The butler appeared. “Maddock, please serve the next course. I have changed my mind about the soup. Tell Cook it was excellent, if you have to tell her anything at all.”
“Yes ma’am. Will you be taking fish?”
“Yes, please, but only a very small portion.”
“Very good, ma’am.” He looked enquiringly at the old lady. “And for you, ma’am?”
“Of course. There is nothing wrong with me.”
“Yes ma’am.” And he withdrew.
“You should eat properly,” Grandmama said to Caroline before the door was closed. “There is no point thinking of your figure. Elderly women who get scrawny are most unattractive. Necks like turkeys. I’ve seen better things dead on Cook’s bench in the kitchen.”
“Much better,” Caroline snapped. “At least their mouths are shut!”
Grandmama was furious. That remark was totally uncalled for, and unforeseen.
“You never had what one would call delicate manners,” she said viciously. “But you are getting worse. I should be embarrassed to take you into company that mattered.”
Maddock came in and served the fish, then withdrew again.
“I cannot recall your taking me anywhere at all,” Caroline replied. “And you haven’t known anyone that mattered for years.”
“That is the lot of widows,” the old lady said with sudden triumph. “And if you had any dignity or common sense, or idea of your place, neither would you.” She attacked her fish with relish. “And you certainly would not be gallivanting around goodness only knows where, chasing after a man half your age, with an occupation not fit to mention. All decent people who aren’t laughing at your expense are busy feeling pity for you, and for me, because my daughter-in-law is making a complete spectacle of herself.” She sniffed loudly and speared her fish with a fork. “He’ll use you like a common bawd, you know. And then laugh about it to his disreputable friends. You’ll be the subject of saloon bar jibes—and …”
She got no further. Caroline rose from the table and glared at her.
“You are a miserable, selfish old woman with a venomous tongue and a thoroughly dirty mind. I have done nothing, and shall do nothing, to make me the talk of anyone at all, except those like you who have no lives of their own and nothing to talk about but other people’s. You may finish your dinner on your own. I do not wish to dine with you!” And she swept out of the door just as Maddock came in, leaving Grandmama openmouthed and for once taken completely by surprise.
However, when she reached her bedroom Caroline found her eyes pricking with tears and her throat aching so unbearably it was a relief to lock the door and curl up in a heap on the bed and let go of the sobs that were welling up inside her.
It was all true. She was behaving like a fool. She was in love as she had never been before, with a man fifteen years younger than herself, who was socially impossible. That he was impossible for her was so unimportant it did not matter a jot. What hurt like a physical wound was that she would be just as impossible for him.
It was three more days before Caroline screwed up her courage and called upon Charlotte so that they might between them endeavor to close the matter of Kingsley Blaine’s death. Whatever transpired between herself and Joshua Fielding, however hopeless and absurd it was, he was still in danger of being involved once more in suspicion, and all the misery and loss that that would bring.
“We could call on Kathleen O’Neil,” Charlotte suggested, looking at Caroline, her face full of concern.
“Excellent.” Caroline turned away, concealing her gaze in case Charlotte saw too clearly her vulnerability, and the fact that for all the sense of her reasoning, she could not keep either the emotion or the tiny pinpoint of hope away from herself. “We really do need to know a great deal more about Mr. Blaine if we are ever to learn who killed him. And why,” she went on resolutely, “Tamar Macaulay seems so certain it was not her brother. Joshua believes that too—and I do not think it is simply affection which makes him feel so.”
“Good,” Charlotte said with a gentleness not usual in her, in such a pedestrian matter as an afternoon call. “We’ll go today. I must change, of course, and we’ll take luncheon here, if you like.”
“Yes—yes,” Caroline agreed. “And we will think what we shall say.”
“If you like, although I always find plans are of little use, because the other people never say what you intended.”
Mid-afternoon found Charlotte and Caroline alighting from Caroline’s carriage at Prosper Harrimore’s house in Markham Square. They presented Caroline’s card at the door so that Mrs. O’Neil might be informed that they had called upon her, if she would receive them. Then they held a sudden and extremely hasty debate as to how they should account for Caroline’s name being Ellison, while Charlotte’s was Pitt. They concluded the only safe answer would be a widowhood and a second marriage, if they were forced to say anything at all.
A very few moments later the maid returned to say that indeed Mrs. O’Neil would be delighted to receive them, and was in the withdrawing room, where if they would care to, they might join her.
Kathleen O’Neil was not alone, but she welcomed them courteously, and with obvious pleasure, introducing them to the two Misses Fothergill who were also calling. Conversation recommenced and was so trivial that neither Charlotte nor Caroline paid it more than the bare minimum of attention necessary not to make a crass remark. Charlotte noticed that even Kathleen was growing a little glassy eyed.
They were rescued by the arrival of Adah Harrimore, dressed in deep plum-colored wool and looking very dignified. Her rather dour presence seemed to awe the Misses Fothergill, and after a short interval they took their leave. Then Adah herself received a visit from an elderly clergyman, whom she preferred to entertain in private, so she excused herself and repaired to the morning room with him.
“Oh, thank heavens,” Kathleen said with heartfelt relief. “They are very well meaning, but they are so terribly boring!”
“I am afraid some of the kindest people can be very hard work to entertain,” Caroline said with wide eyes. “After my husband died there were so many people, not unlike the Misses Fothergill, who called on me, intending to take me out of my grief—and I suppose in a fashion they did—at least for as long as they were there.” She smiled at Kathleen, and felt a terrible guilt at her duplicity.
“I’m so sorry,” Kathleen said quickly. “Was your loss recent?”
“Oh no. It is several years now, and it was not especially sudden.” Caroline made a mental apology to Edward, but felt less guilt towards him than to Kathleen. In later years they had been reasonably comfortable, but much of the trust had gone. There had been tolerance, an
d some gradual understanding, but not the closeness she dreamed of. She could not even remember knowing the laughter and the tenderness she knew Charlotte and Pitt shared.
“But I am sure you must have felt it deeply, all the same.” Kathleen was looking at her with sympathy in her eyes. “I lost my first husband in the worst possible circumstances, and I always felt that people like the Misses Fothergill still have it in their minds when they call here. I think that is why they are so stilted. They cannot yet think quite what to say to me. I suppose one can hardly blame them.”
Caroline wanted to pursue the subject, but it was too blatant, and she found herself stuck for words. Apparently Charlotte felt no such qualms.
“Since you are so obviously happy with Mr. O’Neil, I am surprised they still think of your first husband.” She lifted her voice at the end to make it half a question.
Kathleen looked down.
“If you knew the circumstances you might understand,” she said very quietly, almost under her breath. “You see, Kingsley was murdered. There was a great scandal at the time, and a big court case when they caught the man who killed him. And then even though he was convicted, he appealed.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “Of course they denied it, and he was hanged soon afterwards. There was a great deal of feeling; people seemed to care so very much.” A faint surprise crossed her face, as though even with hindsight she still found it incomprehensible. “People who knew nothing about us wrote letters to the Times. Members of Parliament spoke about it in the House of Commons, demanding that the conviction stand, and such barbarity be punished to the utmost, for all our sakes. It was terribly distressing. There seemed never a second we could escape from it.”
“It must have been dreadful,” Charlotte agreed. “I can barely imagine such a thing.” She glanced at Caroline briefly, hoping she understood the apology she intended for what she was about to say. “Although my own eldest sister was murdered, several years ago now, so I do have the deepest sympathy with you.”