Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [133]
The camellia bush was covered with flawless blooms, perfect rosettes. She did not like them. The canna lilies were better; irregular, assymetrical. The condensation dripped heavily into the pool. Someone should have opened the windows, even though it was a dull day.
She came to the space cleared at the end, where William had his studio, and stopped abruptly. She wanted to weep, but she was too tired and too cold inside.
There were two easels set up. On one was the finished painting of the April garden full of subtle loveliness, dreams, and sudden cruelty. The other was a portrait of Sybilla, realistic, without flattery, and yet with such a tenderness it laid open a beauty in her few had perceived so clearly in life.
In front of them, crumpled rather awkwardly on the stone floor, William lay, the palette knife having slipped from his hand, the blade of it scarlet, only inches away from the wound in his throat. With an artist’s knowledge of anatomy he had sliced the vein in one clean movement. He had understood the smashed vase perfectly and saved her the last ghastly confrontation.
She stood staring at him. She wanted to bend and lay him straighter—as if it could make any difference now—but she knew that she must not touch anything. She remained there, silent, hearing the water trickling on the leaves and the sound of a flower head dropping, petals rotted.
At last she turned and walked slowly under the vines, back through the French windows, and saw Eustace coming in from the dining room. With a violence that startled her, the long path up to the tragedy stood out clearly in her mind; the years of demanding, expecting, the subtle cruelties. Her fury exploded.
“William is dead,” she said harshly. “I’m sorry. I really am sorry. I liked him—probably far more than you ever did.” She looked at his shocked face, the open mouth and pallid skin, without any gentleness. “He killed himself,” she went on. “There was nothing else left for him, except arrest and hanging.” She found her voice was choking as she said it. She let all her scalding emotions pour out at Eustace.
“I—I don’t know what you mean!” he said helplessly. “Dead? Why? What happened?” He moved towards her, floundering a little. “Don’t just stand there, do something! Help him! He can’t be dead!”
She blocked his way. “He is,” she repeated. “Don’t you understand yet, you stupid, blind man?” She could feel the thickness tightening her throat. She wanted him to know the maiming he had caused, absorb it into itself and become one with it.
He stared at her as if she had struck him. “Killed himself!” he repeated foolishly. “You are hysterical—he can’t have!”
“He has. Don’t you know why?” She was shivering.
“Me! How could I know?” His face was ashen, the first pain of belief beginning to show in his eyes.
“Because it was you who drove him to it.” She spoke more quietly now, as if he were an obstinate child. “Trying to make him into something he wasn’t—couldn’t be—and ignoring all that he was. You with your obsession with family, your pride, your vulgarity, your—” She stopped, not wanting to expose William to his contempt, even now.
He was bewildered. “I don’t understand... .”
She closed her eyes, feeling helpless.
“No. No, I suppose you don’t. But maybe you will one day.”
He sat down on the nearest chair, huddled as if his legs had failed him, still looking up at her.
“William?” he repeated very quietly. “William killed George? And Sybilla—he killed Sybilla?”
Now the tears burned in her eyes. She saw Vespasia in the dining room doorway, white as the wall behind her, and beyond, gentle and untidy, the figure of Pitt.
She made her decision. “He thought there was an affair,” she said slowly to everyone,