Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [115]
“No, there is more than that.” Charlotte looked up and met Vespasia’s eyes. In hard, angry words full of pain she told her about Doll.
Vespasia’s face was bleak. She was an old woman and she had seen much that was hideous, but even so, this twisted deep in her, in her memory of holding her own children, in the miracle and the fragility and the infinite value of life.
“Then he was a man with much evil in him,” she said when Charlotte had finished. “That will be very difficult indeed for his wife to learn to live with.”
“And his son,” Charlotte added.
“Very difficult indeed,” Vespasia agreed. “I feel more deeply for the son. Why is it Eudora who bothers you more?”
“She doesn’t.” Charlotte smiled at her own vulnerability. “But she does Thomas. She’s the perfect maiden in distress for him to rescue.”
The seconds ticked past on the clock on the mantel, its black filigree hands jerking forward with each one. The maid brought the tea and poured it, hot and fragrant, then withdrew and left them alone.
“I see,” Vespasia said at last. “And you want to be a maiden in distress too?”
Charlotte was prompted to laugh and cry at the same time. She was closer to tears than she had realized.
“No!” She shook her head. “I don’t need rescuing. And I’m no good at pretending.”
“Would you like to be?” Vespasia passed Charlotte her tea.
“No, of course I wouldn’t!” Charlotte took the cup. “No … I’m sorry. I mean … I mean, I don’t want games, pretending. If it isn’t real, it’s no good.”
Vespasia smiled. “Then what are you asking?”
There was no purpose in putting it off any longer, refusing to put words to her fear did not make it any less real.
“Perhaps Thomas needs me to be more like Eudora? Maybe he needs someone to rescue?” She searched Vespasia’s face for denial, hoping to find it.
“I think he does,” Vespasia said gently. “You ask a great deal of him in your marriage, Charlotte. You ask him to strive very high. If he is to be all that you need of him, if he is to live up to what you could have had in your own social class, then he cannot ever be less than the very best he is able. There can be no easy choices for him, no allowing himself to relax, or commit to second best. Perhaps sometimes you forget that.” Her hand tightened over Charlotte’s. “You may at times remember only the sacrifices you have made, the gown you don’t have, the servants, the parties you don’t attend, the savings and economies you have to make. But you don’t have an impossible yardstick to measure yourself against.”
“Neither does Thomas,” Charlotte said, aghast at the thought. “I don’t ever ask for—”
“Of course you don’t,” Vespasia agreed. “But you are at Ashworth Hall, your sister’s house … or to be more correct, one of her houses. I imagine poor Jack does not always find that comfortable either.”
The coals settled in the fire and burned up more brightly.
“But I can’t help it,” Charlotte protested. “We are there because Thomas was called to go, not for me. It is his position that took us there.”
“Not because Emily is your sister?”
“Well … yes, of course that made him the obvious person … but even so …”
“I know you did not choose it.” Vespasia smiled very slightly and shook her head. “All I am saying is that if Thomas finds it agreeable that Eudora Doyle—I mean, Greville—should lean upon him and find comfort in his strength, it is not surprising, or discreditable, in either of them. And if it hurts you, or you are troubled by it, then you have the choice of pretending to be in distress yourself and masking your strength in weakness so that he will turn his attention to you instead.” She lowered her voice a little. “Is that what you wish?”
Charlotte was appalled. “No, it would be despicable! I should hate myself. I should never be able to meet his eyes.”
“Then that is one question answered,” Vespasia agreed.
“But what if … what if that is what he … wants?” Charlotte said desperately. “What if I lose part of him because I