Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [38]
“Kezia …” Fergal interrupted.
She ignored him, fixing Justine with blazing eyes, high spots of color in her cheeks. Her hands, holding her knife and fork, were shaking.
“We are not like that at all. We don’t tell anyone our sins, except God … as if He didn’t already know! As if He didn’t know every dirty little secret of our dirty little hearts! As if He couldn’t smell the stink of a hypocrite a thousand miles away!”
There was a hot silence around the table. Padraig cleared his throat, but at the last moment could think of nothing to say.
Eudora gave a little moan.
“Really …” Ainsley began.
Justine smiled, looking straight back at Kezia. “It seems to me that the only thing that matters is whether you are sorry or not. Whom you tell is beside the point.” Her voice was very soft. “If you see that what you have done is ugly, and you no longer wish to do anything like it, then you have to change, and surely that is what matters?”
Kezia stared at her.
It was Fergal who spoiled it. There was a flush of embarrassment on his fair cheeks, but also of self-defense.
“The idea that you are accountable to someone other than God, that any human being is in a position to judge you, to forgive or condemn—”
Kezia swung around in her seat. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She laughed harshly, her voice rising out of control. “Nobody is fit to judge you. For God’s sake, who do you think you are? We judge you! I judge you, and I find you guilty, you hypocrite!”
“Kezia, go to your room until you have calmed down,” he said between his teeth. “You are hysterical. It is …”
His words were lost as she flung back her chair, picked up her half-empty glass and threw the dregs in his face. Then she rose to her feet and ran from the room, almost bumping into a maid, coming in with fresh gravy, who moved out of the way only just in time.
The silence burned with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” Fergal said unhappily. “She is … very … nervously disposed at the moment. I’m sure she will be profoundly sorry tomorrow. I apologize for her, Mrs. Radley … ladies ….”
Charlotte glanced at Emily, then stood up. “I think I should go and see if she is all right. She seemed in a state of some distress.”
“Yes, yes, that is a good idea,” Emily agreed, and Charlotte caught in her eye a glimpse of envy for her escape.
Charlotte left the dining room and, after a glance at the empty hallway, started up the stairs. The only place Kezia could be sure of privacy would be her bedroom. It was where Charlotte herself would have gone had she just made such a scene. She certainly would not want to risk anyone coming after her in some other public place such as the conservatory or the withdrawing room.
On the landing she saw one of the young tweenies, about the age Gracie had been when she had first come to them.
“Did Miss Moynihan come past here?” she asked the girl.
The girl nodded, eyes wide, hair poking out in wisps from under her lace cap.
“Thank you.” Charlotte already knew which was Kezia’s room, and as before, she went to it and opened the door without waiting for admittance.
Kezia was lying on the bed, curled over, her shoulders hunched, her skirts billowing around her.
Charlotte closed the door and went over and sat on the end of the bed.
Kezia did not move.
There was nothing Charlotte could say which would alter what Kezia had seen and the only possible meaning anyone could attach to it. All that could be changed was how Kezia would feel about it.
“You are very unhappy indeed, aren’t you …?” she began quietly, in a calm, unemotional voice.
For several minutes Kezia