Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [95]
“Yes.” She lowered her voice and did not have to strain to include the emotion. “My elder sister was killed. She was attacked in the street.”
“Oh, how dreadful!” Fanny was shocked, her face full of sympathy. “That’s absolutely the most awful thing I’ve heard for ages. That’s worse than Arthur—because I didn’t even love Arthur.”
“Thank you.” Charlotte touched her gently on the arm. “But I don’t think you can say one person’s loss is greater than another’s—we really can’t tell. But yes, I did love her.”
“I’m so sorry,” Vanderley said quietly. “It must have been very distressing. Death is bad enough, without all the police investigation that follows. I’m afraid we’ve just suffered all that. But thank heaven it’s over now.”
Charlotte did not want to let the chance slip through her fingers. But how could she possibly pursue the less pleasant truths about Arthur in front of Fanny? And the whole subject was in appalling taste—she knew that before she even approached it.
“That must be a great relief to you all,” she said politely. It was a sliding away; she was beginning to talk inanities. Where were Emily and Aunt Vespasia? Why couldn’t they come to the rescue—either take Fanny away or else pursue the real nature of Arthur with Esmond Vanderley themselves? “Of course one never gets over the loss,” she added hastily.
“I suppose not,” Vanderley answered civilly. “I saw Arthur quite often. One does in a family, of course. But, as I said before, I was not especially fond of him.”
Suddenly, Charlotte had an idea. She turned to Fanny.
“Fanny, I’m terribly thirsty, but I don’t wish to be drawn into conversation with the lady by the table. Would you be so kind as to fetch me a glass of punch?”
“Of course,” Fanny said immediately. “Some of those people are awful, aren’t they? There’s one over there in the blue shiny gown who talks of nothing but her ailments, and it’s not as if they were even interesting, like rare diseases—just vapors, like anyone else.” And she left on her errand.
Charlotte faced Vanderley. Fanny would only be gone a few minutes, although with luck, since she was a child, she would be served last.
“How refreshingly honest you are,” Charlotte said, trying to be as charming as she could but feeling self-conscious and rather ridiculous. “So many people pretend to have loved the dead and seen only virtue in them whatever they actually felt when they were alive.”
He smiled with a slight twist. “Thank you. I admit it is a relief to confess that I saw in poor Arthur plenty that I did not care for.”
“At least they have caught the man who killed him,” she went on. “I suppose there is no question about it—he is definitely guilty? I mean the police are perfectly satisfied and that is an end to it? Now you will be left alone.”
“No question at all.” Then a thought seemed to flash into his mind. He hesitated, looked at her face, then took a deep breath. “At least I don’t imagine so. There was a peculiarly persistent policeman who made the inquiries, but I cannot see what else he could want to find now.”
Charlotte assumed a look of amazement. Heaven help her if he realized who she was.
“You mean he doesn’t believe he has the entire truth? How dreadful! How perfectly appalling for you! If it wasn’t the man they have, who can it have been?”
“God knows!” Vanderley looked pale. “Quite frankly, Arthur could be a beastly little animal! They say the tutor was his lover, you know. Sorry if I shock you.” It was an afterthought; he had suddenly remembered she was a woman who might possibly not even know of such things. “They say he seduced the boy into unnatural practices. Possibly, but I wouldn’t be totally surprised if Arthur was the one who did the seducing, and the poor than was drawn into it, flattered, and then ignored. Or maybe Arthur did that to someone else, and it was an old lover who killed him in a fit of jealousy. Now there’s a thought! He might even have been a thoroughgoing little whore! Sorry—I am shocking you, Mrs.—I was so taken with your gown the other evening, I cannot