An Anne Perry Christmas_ Two Holiday Novels - Anne Perry [8]
“This is perfectly dreadful!” Lady Salchester burst out. “We really cannot sit here not knowing what has happened, and having no idea what to say to each other!”
“We know what has happened,” Blanche Twyford said angrily. “Mrs. Alvie spoke inexcusably last night, and poor Mrs. Kilmuir was so distraught that she took her own life. It's as plain as the nose on your face.”
Lady Salchester froze. “I beg your pardon?” she said, ice dripping from her voice.
“For heaven's sake!” Blanche flushed. “I did not mean it personally. It is an expression of—of clarity. We all know perfectly well what happened!”
“I don't.” Lord Salchester came surprisingly to his wife's aid. “To me it is as much of a muddle as the nose on your face!”
Vespasia wanted to laugh hysterically. She suppressed the desire with difficulty, holding her napkin to her lips and pretending to sneeze.
Blanche Twyford glared at Lord Salchester.
Salchester opened his blue eyes very wide. “Why on earth should a perfectly healthy young woman on the brink of matrimony throw herself into the lake? Merely because her rival insults her? I don't understand.” He looked baffled. He shook his head. “Women,” he said unhappily. “If she had been a chap, she'd simply have insulted her back, and they'd have gone to bed friends.”
“Oh, do be quiet, Ernest!” Lady Salchester snapped at him. “You are talking complete nonsense!”
“Am I?” he said mildly. “Wasn't she going to be married? That's what everyone said!”
Bertie stood up, white-faced, and left the room.
“Good God! He's not going to the lake, is he?” Salchester asked, his napkin sliding to the floor.
Isobel left the table, as well, only she went out the other door, toward the garden, even though it was raining and not much above freezing outside.
“Guilt!” Lady Warburton said viciously.
“I think that's a little harsh,” Sir John expostulated. “She was—”
“Both of them!” his wife cut across, effectively cutting off whatever he had been going to say. He lapsed into silence.
Omegus rose to his feet. “Lady Vespasia, I wonder if I might talk with you in the library?”
“Of course.” She was grateful for the chance to escape the ghastly meal table. She scraped her chair back before the footman could pull it out for her.
“You're not going to just leave it!” Lady Warburton accused him. “This cannot be run away from. I won't allow it!”
Omegus looked at her coldly. “I am going to think before I act, Lady Warburton. An error now, even if made with the purest of motives, could cause grief which could not later be undone. Excuse me.” And leaving her angry, and now confounded, he left the room with Vespasia at his heels.
In the silence of the book-lined library with its exquisite bronzes he closed the door and turned to face her. “Evelyn Warburton is right,” he said grimly. There was intense sadness in his eyes, and the lines around his mouth were drawn down.
“It was foolish,” she agreed. “And unkind. Both are faults, but not in any way crimes, or most of society would be in prison. It is dreadful that Gwendolen should have taken her life, but surely it is because she believed that Bertie would not marry her after all? It cannot be simply that Isobel behaved so badly.”
He regarded her with patience. “It is not necessarily what is but what is perceived that society will judge,” he answered. “Whether it is fair or not will enter into it very little. If we allow it to pass without addressing it, each time it is retold it will grow worse. What Isobel actually said will be lost in the exaggerations until no one remembers the truth. Tales alter every time they are retold, and, my dear, you must know that.” There was a faint reproof in his voice.
Of course she knew it, and felt