Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [127]
The old woman swung round on him, opening her mouth, but then she registered the expression on his face and closed it again.
“I, for one, don’t know that it was Emily,” he went on. “The motive of jealousy you credit to her might equally well do for me, although in fact it doesn’t. The affair was trivial at best, and over with anyway, which both Emily and I knew. You may not have, but then it was none of your business.” He stopped and took a sip from his glass of water; his voice was rough, as though his throat ached. “And the other motive you imagine for her, that of an infatuation with Jack; while quite believable—she would certainly not be his first conquest—”
“William!” Eustace shouted, banging his hand flat on the table to make as much noise as possible and sending the silver and crockery jumping. “This conversation is in the worst possible taste. We are all prepared to allow your grief some latitude, but this is beyond bearing!”
William stared back at him with burning contempt, his eyes brilliant, his mouth pinched with violent emotion long held in and hidden.
“Taste is a personal thing, Father. I find many of your conversations as ‘distasteful’ as anything I have ever said in my life. I frequently find your hypocrisy quite as obscene as all the vulgar picture postcards of naked women. They, at least, are honest.”
Eustace gasped, but was not quick enough to stem the tide of anger. He was aware of Charlotte next to him, because she had pushed out her foot under the table to kick him fairly sharply on the ankle. The ridiculous scene under Sybilla’s bed was not allowed to fade for a moment from his memory. He clenched his teeth and remained silent.
“But as a motive it is hardly worth murder,” William went on. “She could perfectly well have had Jack as well, if she had wanted him—and there is no evidence that she did. Whereas, on the contrary, if he had wanted her—or to be more accurate, George’s money, which she inherits—then he had an excellent reason for murdering George.”
Emily sat rigid, acutely aware of Jack Radley beside her, conscious that he had stiffened in his seat. But was it guilt, or embarrassment, or simply fear? Innocent people were hanged sometimes. Emily herself was afraid; why should not he be?
But William was not finished. “Personally,” he went on, “I favor Father. He had excellent reasons, which just in case he is innocent, I shall not discuss.”
There was total silence round the table, Vespasia set down her knife and fork, touching her napkin delicately to her mouth once and lying it aside. She looked at William and then down at the tablecloth, but she said nothing.
Eustace was pale and Charlotte could see his fists were clenched in his lap. The veins stood out on his neck till she feared his collar would strangle him, but he also did not speak.
Tassie hid her face. Mrs. March was scarlet, but for some reason afraid to break the silence. Perhaps nothing she dared say was adequate to her outrage.
Jack Radley looked wretched and acutely embarrassed, the only time Charlotte had seen his composure completely shattered. Although she was perfectly aware how likely it was that he was guilty—not only of double murder but of the most callous abuse of a woman’s emotions, and that he had fully intended to abuse them further—still she liked him better for seeing him at a loss. It gave him a reality beneath the charming smile and the marvelous eyes.
Emily stared straight ahead of her.
In the end it was the footman with the next course who broke the silence, and the meal proceeded with a saddle of mutton no one tasted and a trivial conversation no one could have recalled a moment after it was spoken.
After the dessert Emily excused herself and retired to the rustic seat in the garden, not because it was a pleasant day—indeed it was overcast and seemed very likely to rain—but because she felt it her best chance of being alone, and there was no one whose company she desired.
Tomorrow was Sybilla’s funeral; she stayed