Brunswick Gardens (27 page)

“Go on, my dear …”

There was no escaping Vespasia’s gaze, nor the feeling of heat creeping up her own cheeks.

“I used to think myself in love with him before I met Thomas,” she began. “No, that is not quite true … I was in
love, obsessively. I got over it, of course. I realized how … how shallow and fragile Dominic was, how easily he gave in to his appetites.” She was talking too quickly, but she did not seem to be able to help it. “He was very handsome indeed. He is even more so now. Something of the smoothness of youth is gone, a callowness. His face is … refined … by experience.”

She met Vespasia’s clear, silver-gray eyes. She made herself smile back. “I feel no more than friendship for him now— indeed, I have for a long time. But I am afraid for him. You see, Unity was with child, and I know Dominic’s frailty. He wants passionately to succeed in his vocation, I believe that, I can see it and hear it in him. But one cannot cast off the temptations and needs of the body merely at will.”

“I see.” Vespasia was very grave. “And what of the other two men, Mallory and the man of whom you spoke first? Could they not also be tempted?”

“Mallory … I suppose so.” Charlotte gave a dismissive little shrug. “But not the Reverend. He’s at least sixty!”

Vespasia laughed. It was not an elegant little murmur but a rich gurgle of hilarity.

Charlotte found herself blushing. “I mean … I didn’t mean …” she stammered.

Vespasia leaned forward and put her hand on Charlotte’s. “I know precisely what you mean, my dear. And I daresay from thirty-three, sixty seems like dotage, but when you get there it will look quite different. So will seventy—and even eighty, if you are fortunate.”

Charlotte’s cheeks were still hot. “I don’t think the Reverend Parmenter is fortunate. He is as dry as dead wood. He is all arguments in the mind.”

“Then if something awakens his passions at last, it will be all the more dangerous,” Vespasia answered, sitting back again. “Because he is unused to them and will have little experience in controlling them. That is when it is most likely to end in a disaster such as this.”

“I suppose it is …” Charlotte said slowly, with a mixture of pain and relief. The realization of such an answer exonerated everyone else, but it left one person with the extra burden to bear. Yet still, for all the rationality of it, she found herself unable to believe it. “I could sense no passion in him,” she repeated. “Except the doubt. Although I realize that most of what I know of that comes from Dominic, still I think that is Reverend Parmenter’s overriding emotion. He and Unity used to quarrel terribly. They had a fearful row just minutes before she fell. It was overheard by several people. You see, she challenged his belief in everything to which he had given his life. That is an awful thing to do to anybody. It is saying, in effect, that they are worth nothing, that all their ideas are silly and wrong. If you believed that, you could hate them very much.”

“If she really was the one to shake his faith, then yes, indeed, he could,” Vespasia agreed. “There is nothing quite so frightening as an idea or a freedom which negates your own sacrifice and obedience when it is too late for you to avail yourself of it. But from what you say, your Reverend was not in this position. Surely it is the initiators of the idea he should hate, not the followers?” She sighed. “Although you are quite right, of course. It was the unfortunate young woman who was standing at the top of the stairs, not Mr. Darwin, who was safely out of reach. I am very sorry. It sounds like a sad affair.”

She rose to her feet with a little stiffness, and Charlotte stood instantly also, offering her arm to assist, and together they went into the breakfast room. It was filled with sunlight, and the perfume of narcissi blooming in a green glazed pot. Smoked salmon was already served with wafer-thin slices of brown bread, and the butler was waiting to pull out Vespasia’s chair for her.

    Charlotte felt compelled to go again to Brunswick Gardens. Her brain told her there was little she could accomplish, but she could not simply wait to see what happened. If she went she
might learn something more, and knowledge would enable her to act.

She was received somewhat coolly by Vita Parmenter.

“How kind of you to call again, Mrs. Pitt,” she said. “It is generous of you to give up so much of your time.” “And take up so much of ours” was implied.

“Family loyalties are very important in times of trouble,” Charlotte answered, and hated hearing herself mouthing such platitudes.

“I am sure you are a very loyal wife,” Vita said with a smile. “But we cannot tell you anything that we did not already tell your husband.”

This was dreadful. Charlotte felt herself blushing hot. Vita was a far sharper adversary than she had supposed, and as determined to protect her husband as Charlotte was to protect Dominic. Charlotte ought to have admired her for it, and reluctantly part of her did, in spite of her own discomfort. The two of them stood facing each other in the gracious, very modern withdrawing room, Vita small and elegant in soft patterned blue edged with black, Charlotte at least three inches taller in last year’s muted plum, which flattered her warm skin and mahogany-brown hair.

“I did not come to enquire into the details of your tragedy, Mrs. Parmenter,” she said very politely. “I came to ask after your well-being and to see if there was anything I could do to be helpful.”

“I cannot imagine any help you might give.” Vita kept the air of courtesy, but it was very thin. “What had you in mind?”

There was obviously nothing anyone could do, and they both knew it.

Charlotte looked straight back at her and smiled. “I have known Dominic for many years, and we have experienced tragedies and difficulties together in the past. I thought he might find comfort in speaking freely, as one can to friends of long standing, and to people who are not immediately involved and
therefore will not be hurt in the same way.” She was pleased with that. It sounded very reasonable, and it was almost true.

“I see,” Vita said slowly, her face a little harder, a little colder. “Then no doubt we should call him and see if his duties will allow him the time.” She reached for the bell rope and pulled it sharply. She did not speak again until the maid appeared, then she simply asked her to inform Mr. Corde that his sister-in-law had called and wished to offer him her companionship, if it was convenient for him.

They discussed the weather until the door opened and Dominic came in. He looked pleased to see Charlotte, his face lighting immediately, but she noticed the shadows around his eyes and the strain in the fine lines beside his mouth.

“How kind of you to come,” he said sincerely.

“I was concerned for you,” she replied. “You could hardly help being distressed.”

“We all are.” Vita looked from Charlotte to Dominic. Her expression had altered since he came into the room. There was a softness to it now, a respect bordering on admiration in her eyes. “It has been quite the worst time in any of our lives.” She turned to Charlotte as if her previous coldness had not existed. Her face was so innocent Charlotte wondered if her own guilt had manufactured the rebuff.

“But we have also discovered strengths in one another we had not known,” Vita went on. “You said, Mrs. Pitt, that you had endured great difficulties yourself some time ago. I daresay you had the same experience? One finds that those one had thought to be friends, and people of unquestioned strength, are not of the … the quality one had hoped. And then that others have compassion, courage, and”—her eyes were soft and bright—“a sheer goodness that surpasses all one had imagined.” She did not speak any names, but her momentary glance at Dominic made him blush with pleasure.

Charlotte saw it. It was delicate, a flattering directed most precisely where he was vulnerable. He yearned not to be desired,
found amusing or romantic or clever, but to be found good. It might be that Vita was simply fortunate in touching on the one hole in his armor, but Charlotte was perfectly sure it owed nothing whatever to chance. And yet even if she had wanted to warn Dominic of it, she could not. It would be both cruel and pointless. It would hurt him and turn him against Charlotte, for the pain. Catching Vita’s eye for a moment, she was perfectly certain that Vita knew that also.

“Yes, I did,” Charlotte agreed with a forced smile. “It is the one thing that lasts even after all the other mystery is solved, the new knowledge one has gained of people we thought we knew. It can never be exactly the same again.”

“I am sure it will not be,” Vita agreed. “There are new debts … and new loyalties. It is a turning point in all our lives, I think. That is what makes it so frightening …” She let the words hang in the air. “One tries hard to hope, and that also hurts, because it matters so very much.” She smiled and glanced at Dominic, then away again. Her voice dropped. “Thank heaven one does not have to do it all alone.”

“Of course not,” Dominic said firmly. “That is about the only good thing we can cling to, and that I promise.”

Something in Vita relaxed. She turned to Charlotte and smiled, as if she had made a profound decision.

“Perhaps you would care to stay to tea, Mrs. Pitt. You would be most welcome. Please do.”

Charlotte was surprised. It was a sudden change, and although she had every intention of accepting, it also filled her with an awareness of unease.

“Thank you,” she said quickly. “That is most generous of you, especially in the circumstances.”

Vita smiled, and the expression lit her face with conviction and warmth. It was easy to see that in other circumstances she would be a woman of extraordinary charm, having both intelligence and vitality, and almost certainly a ready wit.

“Now please, you must spend a little time with Dominic,
which is what you came for, and I am sure he would appreciate it. Tea will be at four o’clock.”

“Thank you,” Dominic said earnestly, and there was a light and a gentleness in his face, then he turned to Charlotte. “Shall we walk in the garden?”

She followed him, taking his arm, very conscious of Vita watching them leave. Vita had changed her attitude completely. She was a different woman when Dominic was present. Was that trust, the knowledge that Charlotte was the wife of the policeman investigating Unity’s death and therefore inevitably linked with blaming Ramsay with murder? Vita could hardly help being suspicious of Charlotte, even disliking her regardless of every natural personal impulse. Charlotte would have hated anyone who posed a threat to Pitt. Knowing it was unjust would make no difference. It would touch her mind but not her instinct.

And Vita must know Dominic’s loyalty to Ramsay, his immense sense of gratitude and debt. She could count on him to do all that was humanly possible to help.

They went out through the side door into the garden, still leafless and dappled with light through the branches. The snowdrops were over and the narcissus spears were high and already bending their heads, ready to open. If Charlotte had had this land she would have planted primroses, celandine and a drift of wood anemones under those trees. The gardeners here had been a trifle unimaginative with periwinkle and ferns, their heads barely through the ground.

Dominic was talking about something and she was not listening. Her mind was filled with memory of the emotion in Vita’s face as she had looked at him. There was such admiration in it. Did she cling to him because Ramsay was weaker, a flawed vessel, and she knew it? Charlotte remembered how he had sat at the table and allowed Tryphena to make offensive remarks without defending himself or his beliefs. It was as if he had in some way already surrendered.

Vita did not seem like a woman who gave up. She might be beaten by circumstance, but she would not simply cease to try. It was not surprising she was drawn to Dominic, admiring his spiritual energy and conviction. It matched her own strength of will. Charlotte had seen her flatter those aspects of his nature, and how precious it had been to him. Surely Vita knew that, too?

She made an appropriate reply to Dominic, her mind less than half upon what he was saying. It was of the past, memories shared. It did not need her attention. They were under the trees, looking towards the azaleas. They would not bloom for another two months. They looked miserable, almost dead against the naked earth, but in late spring they would blaze with color, orange, gold and apricot flowers on bare branches. It took an effort of imagination to see it now. But then that was what gardening was about.

They walked together in companionable silence, the occasional remark made not for meaning but simply to establish some sense of being together. All the things that mattered must remain unsaid. They were only too aware of the suspicions and the overshadowing fear, the knowledge that something ugly and irreversible was waiting in the future to be discovered, and coming closer with every hour.

They were still talking when Tryphena came across the grass with a message that Dominic was needed, and he excused himself, leaving the two women together. It was an opportunity for Charlotte to learn a little more of Tryphena, a chance which might not occur again, and too good for her not to seize it.

“I am very sorry for your bereavement, Mrs. Whickham,” Charlotte said quietly. “The more I hear from my husband of Miss Bellwood’s achievements, the more I realize it may be a loss to women in general.”

Tryphena looked at her skeptically. She saw a woman in her early thirties who had adopted the most usual, most comfortable, and by far the easiest role for women. Her contempt for this was clear in her eyes.

“Are you interested in scholarship?” she asked only barely politely.

“Not particularly,” Charlotte answered with equal candor and with just as forthright a gaze. “But I am interested in justice. My brother-in-law is a member of Parliament, and I have hopes of influencing his views, but,”—she took a plunge—“I should prefer to have the power to do it more directly, and without being dependent upon a relationship, which is quite chancy and arbitrary.”

Now she had Tryphena’s interest. “You mean the vote?”

“Why not? Don’t you believe women have the intelligence and the judgment of human character to exercise it with at least as much wisdom as men?”