Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [132]
“Do you want the local police station, ma’am?” the voice asked calmly.
“Yes! Yes, please!”
“Hold the line, please.”
It seemed an age of clicking and buzzing, during which she was acutely aware of the dining room door behind her and every tiny creak of boards or whisper which could be a door opening wider or the softness of a shoe on carpet. At last she heard a man’s voice at the other end of the line.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, Inspector Pitt ain’t here. Can I give ’im a message when ’e comes in? Or can somebody else ’elp you?”
It had not occurred to her that he might not be there. She felt helpless, cut off.
“You there, miss?” The voice sounded anxious.
“Where is he?” She was beginning to panic. It was stupid, and yet she did not seem to be able to help herself.
“I can’t rightly tell you that, miss, but ’e left about ten minutes ago in a cab. Can I ’elp you?”
“No.” She had been so sure she could reach him, the thought of having to manage alone was worse now. “No, thank you.” And with stiff fingers, shivering, she replaced the instrument in its hook.
She had no proof anyhow, only the certainty within her own mind. But now that she knew, there would be ways. The police surgeon ... That was what Sybilla had gone to Clarabelle Mapes for: not to get rid of a baby, but to buy the one William could never give her, to silence the nagging, cruel tongues of the family, the condescension and the demand to satisfy the thoughtless, insatiable, dynastic vanity.
Charlotte was sick with grief for her, her aloneness, her need, the hopeless sense of rejection. No wonder she had had affairs, had turned to George. Was that what George had died for? Not because he had made love to her, or stolen her affections, but because in a moment’s foolishness, from a need to justify herself, she had betrayed to generous, indiscreet George the secret too agonizing to be spoken even in the mind—let alone aloud for others to know, to pity, to make obscene and humiliating jokes over. There would always be the nudges and the jeers, the brazen manhood exhibited with a snigger. To men like Eustace virility was more than a physical act—it was proof of his existence, of potency and value in all of life.
And William had loved Sybilla—that Charlotte knew from far more than the words in the letters from the vanity case—with a love worth infinitely more than Eustace’s narrow, physical mind could climb to. But in that one instance of weakness she had threatened his belief in himself, the respect every man must have to survive—not inwardly, where he had learned to bear it, but in Society, and, worst of all, among his family. Eustace was so close to the truth already, cruel and thrusting, intruding, like a rape of the spirit. What would he do if he knew? Forever pry at it till there was no dignity left, nothing unviolated by the constant remarks, the prurient, mocking eyes, the knowledge of superiority.
And so Sybilla had died, too, strangled by her own, beautiful hair before she could betray him again, perhaps to Jack.
The bought child William might have accepted, even understood, perhaps more easily than one conceived to another man. But he could never have accepted the shame.
Charlotte was still standing in the hallway wondering what to do. Both Eustace and William must have seen her; she had smashed the vase precisely so they should know she was there and stop that terrible hurting. Did they know how much she had overheard? Or were they so caught up in wounding each other that her momentary interruption was incidental, to be forgotten as soon as she left?
Without knowing what she intended other than perhaps to stop Eustace, she began back towards the dining room, past its gleaming, sunlit table, through the double doors to the withdrawing room, all smooth greenness and pale satins reflecting the light, and back to the entrance to the conservatory. There was silence now, and no sign of Eustace or William. The French doors were open wider, and the smell of damp earth came into the withdrawing room.
She stepped through