Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [126]
She looked round the table at them from under her lashes, so no one would notice, while she pushed a lump of boiled chicken round her plate. Tassie was sober, but there was a glow of happiness inside her that no awareness of others’ distress could extinguish. Emily found most of her could honestly be pleased for her; only a tiny core, one she would willingly have quenched, was sharp with envy. Then she felt an unclouded sense of relief that there was no reason on earth to suspect Tassie of any kind of guilt, either in George’s death or Sybilla’s. Emily had never wanted to think there was; it was a necessity forced on her by Charlotte’s extraordinary account of the episode on the stairs. Now that was explained in a way better than she could have dreamed.
At the foot of the table, with its snowfield of a cloth and fine Georgian silver, but flowerless in spite of the blaze in the garden, the old woman sat, dour-faced, in black, her fish-blue eyes staring straight ahead of her. Presumably she had not been told either about Tassie’s intention of marrying the curate or of Eustace’s capitulation in allowing her, still less of his reason. And most assuredly she had not learned of Tassie’s midnight excursions. If she had, there would be far more in her present mood than a cold dislike and, perhaps, at the back of that chill expression and the petty angers, a suffocated fear. After all, it was someone in this house who had murdered twice. Even Lavinia March could not pretend to herself it was a foreign force invading her home; it was something within—a part of them.
But she seemed to remain alone in whatever mourning she suffered; it had not driven her to any softening of heart, any understanding of the fear in anyone else. Emily was aware somewhere in the back of her mind that that was perhaps the greatest tragedy of all, far beyond the need to receive pity—the inability to feel it. And yet she could not evoke in herself compassion for those who gave none themselves.
She would dearly have liked to believe the old woman responsible for murder, but she could think of no reason why she should be, nor any evidence whatsoever which suggested that she was. Mrs. March was the only one in the house whose guilt would cause Emily no unhappiness at all. She racked her brain to find anything to support it, and failed.
As if conscious of her thoughts, the old woman looked up from her plate and gazed at her icily. “I imagine after the funeral tomorrow you will be returning to your own house, Emily,” she said with lifted eyebrows. “Presumably the police will equally easily be able to find you there—although most else seems to be beyond them!”
“Yes, certainly I shall,” Emily answered tartly. “It is only for the convenience of the police that I have stayed here so long—and to show some family solidarity. There is no need for the rest of Society to know how little we find each other’s company agreeable, or seem able to offer each other any comfort.” She took a sip of her wine. “Although I don’t know why you think the police are unable to solve the murders.” She used the ugly word deliberately and was pleased to see the old woman wince with distaste. “They undoubtedly know a great deal that they have not chosen to tell you. They will hardly confide in us. After all, it is one of us whom they will arrest.”
“Really!” Eustace said angrily. “Remember yourself, Emily! That kind of remark is quite unnecessary.”
“Of course it is one of us, you fool!” the old woman snapped at him, her hand shaking so hard her wine slopped over the rim of her glass and ran down onto the cloth. “It is Emily herself, and if you do not know that you are the only one here who doesn’t!”
“You are talking nonsense, Grandmama.” William spoke for the first time since they had come into the dining room. In fact, as far as either Emily or Charlotte could recall, he had not spoken at breakfast either. He looked ghostlike, as if Sybilla’s death had taken all his own vitality as well. Charlotte had said