Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [131]
“That’s entirely different. They are not part of us.”
“For God’s sake, what has that got to do with it?” William demanded furiously.
“It has everything to do with it!” Eustace was growing angrier, and there was an ugly note in his voice, as if the dark and unrefined mass of inner thoughts were too close to the frail surface of manners that overlaid them. “You betrayed the family in front of strangers! You suggested there was something secret and shameful which you knew and others didn’t. Have you no conception what a meddling and inquisitive busybody that Pitt woman is? The dirty-minded little chit will never rest until she either uncovers or invents something to fit your wild ramblings. God knows what scandal she’ll start!”
William moved back a step; his face was twisted with pain and contempt. “She’ll have to be very dirty-minded indeed to get to the depths of your soul, if that is not too grand a word for it. Perhaps belly would be more apposite?”
“There’s nothing wrong with a man having stomach,” Eustace said with answering scorn. “I sometimes think if you had more stomach and fewer airy-fairy ideas you’d be more of a man! You mince around dabbling in paints and dreaming of sunsets like a lovesick girl. Where’s your courage? Where’s your heart, your manliness?”
William did not answer. Beyond Eustace, standing with his back to her, Charlotte could see the white, almost deathlike look on William’s face, and she could feel pain in the air like the hot settling of condensation on the lily leaves and the vines.
“Great God!” Eustace shouted with unutterable disgust. “No wonder Sybilla took to flirting with George Ashworth! At least he had something in his trousers besides his legs!”
William winced with revulsion so acute Charlotte thought for a moment he had actually been struck. She was so offended for him herself that she felt sick; her hands were clammy and hurt with the strength of her clenched fists. Yet she still stood transfixed, listening, with a terrible foresight.
William’s answer when it came was quiet, heavy with irony.
“And you expect me to be discreet for you in front of Mrs. Pitt? Father, you have no sense of the ridiculous—indeed the grotesque.”
“Is it grotesque to expect a little responsibility from you?” Eustace shouted. “Family loyalty? You owe us that, William.”
“I owe you nothing but my existence!” William said gratingly between his teeth. “And that was only because you wanted a son for your own vanity’s sake, it was nothing to do with me. You want to continue your name. A perpetuation of little Eustace Marches all down through eternity, that’s your idea of being immortal. With you it would be the flesh! Not an idea, not a creation, but an endless reproduction of bodies!”
“Ha!” Eustace said explosively, with overpowering derision. “Well, I missed my chance with you, didn’t I? In twelve years of marriage you couldn’t beget a child till now. And it’s too late! If you’d played about less with paints and more in the bedroom, perhaps you’d have been more of a man, and none of this damn tragedy would have happened. George and Sybilla would be alive, and we wouldn’t have the police in the house.”
The conservatory was motionless; it seemed even the water did not drip.
Charlotte realized the tragic truth. The explanation was clear, like the hard, white daylight of early morning, showing every weakness, every flaw and pain. Without taking time to think or weigh any consequence she seized a china vase off the nearest small table and smashed it on the parquet floor, sending the pieces shivering noisily across the wide surface. Then she turned and ran back across the withdrawing room, through the dining room, and out into the hallway to where the telephone instrument was installed.
She picked it up and clicked the lever urgently. She was not used to it and was unsure exactly how it worked. Her ears were straining to catch the sound of Eustace coming after her.
There was a woman’s voice coming through the speaker at her ear.
“Yes!” she said quickly. “I want the police station—I want to