Paragon Walk (7 page)

“I doubt it,” Charlotte answered. “You were always able to think one thing and say another. I am a social catastrophe because I can’t.”

Emily giggled as memories came back to her, and for a few moments they talked together over disasters of the past that had made them blush at the time but were only bonds of laughter and shared affection now.

Charlotte had even forgotten her real reason for coming when sudden mention of Sarah, their older sister who had been a victim of the Cater Street hangman, made her remember murder, its close, suffocating terror, and the corroding acid of suspicion it brought in its wake. She had never been able to be subtle, least of all with Emily who knew her so well.

“What was Fanny Nash like?” She wanted a woman’s opinion. Thomas was clever, but so often men missed the real things in a woman, things that were perfectly obvious to another woman. The number of times she had seen men taken in by a pretty girl who chose to seem vulnerable, when Charlotte knew really she was as strong and as hard as a kitchen pot!

The laughter died out of Emily’s face.

“Are you going to play detective again?” she said warily.

Charlotte thought of Callander Square. Emily had wanted to detect then. She had even insisted on it, and there had been times when it was a kind of adventure—before the frightening, horrifying end.

“No!” she said immediately. Then, “Well, yes. I can’t help caring, can I? But I’m not going to go around asking questions, of course not! Don’t be foolish. I mean, that would be most unseemly. You should know I wouldn’t do that to you. I can be tactless, I admit, but I am not quite stupid!”

Emily relented, probably because she also was curious and the whole thing was not close enough to be ugly yet.

“Of course, I know that. I’m sorry. I am a little highly strung at the moment,” she colored very faintly at her reference to her condition; she had not yet become accustomed to it, and it was not a subject one discussed. “Fanny was rather ordinary, really. I suppose you do want the truth? She was the last person in the world I would have thought to provoke such a passion in anyone. I can only presume he was quite mad, poor creature. Oh.” She tightened her lip, caught in a social gaffe herself. She took pride that since her marriage she had made herself immune to such things. Charlotte’s influence must be contagious. “I suppose one shouldn’t sympathize with him,” she corrected. “That is quite wrong. Except that, if he is mad, of course, he cannot help it. Will Thomas catch him?”

Charlotte did not know how to reply. She could say simply that she did not know, but that was no answer at all. What Emily was really asking was: did Thomas have any knowledge; was it inside or outside the Walk; could they all dismiss it as a tragedy, but something beyond their own affairs, a brief intrusion, now entirely of the past, something that had happened in the Walk, but could as easily have occurred anywhere else in the mad creature’s path?

“It’s too early to say,” she temporized. “If he is quite mad, he could be anywhere by now, and since there was no reason for selecting Fanny, except that she was there, he will be very hard to recognize—even when we find him.”

Emily looked directly at her.

“Are you saying it is possible it was not someone mad?”

Charlotte avoided her eyes.

“Emily, how can I know? You say Fanny was very— ordinary, not in the least a flirt—”

“No, no one less so. She was not plain, exactly. But you know, Charlotte, the older I get, the more I believe beauty is not so much a matter of what your features or your coloring may be, but the way you behave and what you believe of yourself. Fanny behaved as though she were plain. Whereas Jessamyn, if you look at her dispassionately, is not really so very beautiful, and yet she behaves as if she were quite marvelous. Therefore everyone sees her so! She believes it—and so we do too.”

It was very perceptive of Emily to know that. Charlotte wished she could have known it herself when she was younger and cared desperately. She could recall with painful clarity how wretched she had felt at fifteen when Sarah and Emily seemed so pretty and she felt plain, all elbows and feet. She was already the tallest, and still growing. She might become perfectly gigantic, and no man would ever care for her. She would look over the tops of their heads! She thought young James Fortescue so attractive, but she knew she was at least two inches taller than he was and found herself unable to say anything at all in his presence. He had ended up by admiring Sarah instead.

“You are not listening!” Emily accused.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“That Thomas has been up and down the Walk asking questions of all the men. He even asked George where he was.”

“Of course,” Charlotte said reasonably. This was the part she had been fearing since the beginning. “He has to. After all, George may have seen something that appeared quite usual at the time, but now that we know what happened, he would recognize it as important.” She was pleased with the way she had phrased that. It was immediate and yet completely rational. It did not sound contrived to make Emily comfortable.

“I suppose so,” Emily conceded. “Actually George wasn’t even here that evening. He was in town at his club, so he couldn’t be any help.”

Charlotte was saved the necessity of answering by the arrival of the most magnificent old lady she had ever seen, with hair piled immaculately and back as straight as a ramrod. Her nose was a shade too long, and her eyes a little hooded, and yet the remnant of beauty was unmistakable, and her intimate knowledge of it and its power even more so.

Emily got to her feet with a trifle more haste than dignity. It was a long time since Charlotte had seen her the least out of composure, and it was telling. She hoped it was not anxiety that she would not know how to behave, and thus let her down.

“Aunt Vespasia,” Emily said quickly. “May I present my sister, Charlotte Pitt?” She looked at Charlotte penetratingly. “My great aunt-in-law, Lady Cumming-Gould.”

Charlotte had no need of warning.

“How do you do, ma’am,” she inclined her head very slightly, enough for courtesy and too little for obsequiousness.

Vespasia extended her hand, and her eyes regarded Charlotte frankly from toe to top, ending with a direct stare from her flittering old eyes.

“How do you do, Mrs. Pitt,” she answered levelly. “Emily has often spoken of you. I am pleased that you have been able to call.” She did not add “at last,” but it was in her voice.

Charlotte doubted that Emily had spoken of her at all, still less that it had been often. It would have been most injudicious—and Emily had never been injudicious in her life—but she could hardly argue. Neither could she think of a suitable answer. “Thank you” seemed so foolish.

“It is kind of you to make me welcome,” she heard herself saying.

“I hope you are staying to luncheon?” It was a question.

“Oh yes,” Emily rushed in quickly before Charlotte had time to flounder. “Of course, she will stay. And this afternoon we shall go calling.”

Charlotte drew breath to make some excuse. She could not possibly go around Paragon Walk with Emily, dressed in gray muslin. Momentarily she was angry with Emily for putting her in such a position. She turned to glare at her.

Aunt Vespasia cleared her throat sharply.

“And who, precisely, did you have it in mind to call upon?”

Emily looked at Charlotte, realized her mistake, and fished herself out of it with aplomb.

“I thought Selena Montague. She admires herself in plum pink, and Charlotte will look so much better in it I should enjoy putting her in my new silk, and obliging Selena to look at her. I do not care for Selena,” she added as an aside to Charlotte, quite unnecessarily. “And the dress will fit you excellently. The foolish dressmaker got her fingers muddled and made it much too long for me.”

Aunt Vespasia allowed her a small smile of admiration.

“I thought it was Jessamyn Nash you disliked,” she remarked casually.

“I like irritating Jessamyn,” Emily waved a hand. “That is not really the same thing. I have never thought whether I like her or not.”

“Whom do you like?” Charlotte inquired, wanting to know more about the Walk. Now that she was freed from the immediate problem of dress, her mind went back to Fanny Nash and the fear that the others seemed to have forgotten.

“Oh,” Emily considered for a moment. “I quite like Phoebe Nash, Jessamyn’s sister-in-law, if she would be a little more definite. And I like Albertine Dilbridge, although I have no patience with her mother. And I like Diggory Nash, but I do not know why. I can think of nothing in particular to say about him that is good.”

Luncheon was announced, and the three of them departed for the dining room. Charlotte had not seen a meal of such simple grace for a long time, perhaps not ever. It was all cold, and yet of such delicacy that it must have taken hours to prepare. In the still heat it was delicious just to contemplate the cold soups, fresh salmon with minute cold vegetables, ices, sherbets and fruit. She was halfway through eating it, elegantly, as if she ate such things every day, when she remembered Pitt would probably be chewing through heavy bread sandwiches with a little cold meat in them, if he was fortunate, if not, then cheese, dry and clogging in the mouth. She put her fork down, the peas rolling away. Neither Emily nor Vespasia noticed.

It took half an hour, much critical surveying by Emily, and a least a dozen pins, before Charlotte was satisfied that she looked acceptable in the plum silk and could go calling to the Walk. Actually she was rather more than satisfied. It was a very good quality silk indeed, and the color was remarkably flattering to her. The warmth of it against the honey of her skin and the richness of her hair was enough to carry her away in a flight of vanity. It was going to hurt to take it off and give it back to Emily at the end of the afternoon. The gray muslin had lost all its appeal. It no longer looked smart, merely drab and very much last year’s.

Aunt Vespasia complimented her with dry humor as she came down the stairs, but she met the old lady’s eyes without a flicker and hoped she had no idea how many pins there were in it, or how hard she had relaced her stays to get into Emily’s old waist.

She thanked Vespasia and walked with Emily out into the sunlight on the carriageway, head high and back very straight. Actually it was more than a little uncomfortable to hold herself in any other way, and she would have to sit with care.

It was only a hundred yards or so to Selena Montague’s house, and Emily said very little on the way. They knocked at the door and were let in immediately by a smart maid in black and lace, obviously poised to expect callers. Apparently Mrs. Montague was in the garden at the back, and they were invited to join her. The house was elegant and expensive, although Charlotte’s practiced eye could see tiny economies, a mend in the fringe of a lampshade, a cushion whose upholstery had obviously been turned, the new piece from the underside darker against the faded wings. She had done the same herself and knew the signs.

Selena was sitting in a wicker chaise lounge, her arms dangling over the sides, her face lifted upward, but protected from the harsh sun by a floppy, flower-decked hat. She had excellent features, although her nose was perhaps a trifle sharp. Her eyes were wide and brown, long lashed, and she opened them with intense interest when she saw Charlotte.

“My dear Selena,” Emily began in her best voice. “How charming you look, and so cool! May I present my sister, Charlotte Pitt, who has called upon me?”

Selena did not move, but surveyed Charlotte with barely disguised curiosity. Charlotte had an unpleasant feeling that nothing had been missed, from her rather worn best boots to every pin in her dress.

“How delightful,” Selena said at last. “So,” she glanced down at Charlotte’s boots again “—considerate—of you to have come. I am sure we shall all enjoy your company.”

Charlotte felt her temper rise instantly. Above all things she hated to be patronized.

“I hope I shall also enjoy yours,” she said with a cool smile.

The implication was not missed by Selena, and from the pressure of Emily’s fingers on her arm Charlotte knew that she too had taken the point.

“You must come and dine with us sometime,” Selena went on. “These summer evenings are so warm we frequently eat out here. The strawberries are quite delicious this year, don’t you think so?”

Strawberries were utterly beyond Charlotte’s budgeting.

“Very sweet,” she agreed. “Perhaps it is the sun.”

“No doubt,” Selena was not interested in where they came from. She looked up at Emily. “Please sit down. I’m sure you would like some refreshment, you must be dreadfully hot—” Charlotte saw Emily’s face tighten at the implication, and her cheeks did look flushed. “Perhaps a sherbet?” Selena smiled. “And you, Mrs. Pitt? Something cooling?”

“Whatever you care for yourself, Mrs. Montague,” Charlotte put in before Emily could speak. “I would not wish to put you to inconvenience.”

“I assure you it is no inconvenience!” Selena said with a touch of tartness. She reached out and rang a small bell on the table, and its sharp sound was answered by a maid in starched white. Selena gave elaborate orders. Then she turned to Emily again. “Have you seen poor Jessamyn?”

Emily sat in a white wrought-iron chair, and Charlotte perched on another beside her, carefully, so as not to burst a pin.

“No,” Emily replied. “I did leave my card, of course, and a small letter to express my condolences.”

Selena struggled to hide her disappointment and failed.

“Pour soul,” she murmured. “She must be feeling quite dreadful. One simply cannot imagine it! I hoped perhaps you had seen her and could tell me something.”

Emily knew immediately that Selena had not seen her either and was consumed with curiosity.

“One doesn’t even wish to try,” She shivered. “I’m sure she has the sympathy of absolutely everyone. I have no doubt each of us will call upon her in the next weeks, it would be inhuman not to. Even gentlemen will call, I’m sure. It would be the least they could do to comfort her.”