Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [48]
Her few dark clothes suitable for summer mourning had already been unpacked for her. She blushed as she remembered how worn they were, how plain the underwear, even mended in places, and her dresses adapted from last year to look a little less unfashionable. She had only two pair of boots, and neither of them was really new. At another time she would have been angry at the embarrassment of it, and stayed away rather than cause Emily to be ashamed for her. Now there was no time for such petty emotions. She must change from traveling clothes, wash her face and do her hair, and present herself for the evening meal, which was bound to be appallingly grim, perhaps even hostile. But someone in this house was guilty of murder.
On the way downstairs for dinner she had reached the lowest step, past the dark paneling and rows of muddy oil paintings of Marches of the past, when she came almost face to face with an elderly woman in fierce black, jet beads glinting in the gaslight on her neck and bosom. Her gray-white hair was screwed back in a fashion more than twenty years out of date. Her cold blue marble eyes fixed Charlotte with immovable distaste.
“I presume you are Emily’s sister?” She looked her up and down briefly. “Vespasia said she sent for you—although I do think she might have informed us first and invited an opinion before taking matters into her own hands! But perhaps it is just as well you are here. You may be of some use—I’m sure I don’t know what to do for Emily. We’ve never had anything like this in the family.” She regarded Charlotte’s gown and the toes of her boots, which showed beneath the hem. They were not of the quality she was accustomed to. Even the maids had one new pair every season, whether they needed them or not, for the sake of appearances. Charlotte’s had obviously seen several seasons already.
“What’s your name?” she demanded. “I daresay I’ve been told, but I forget.”
“Charlotte Pitt,” Charlotte answered her coldly, her eyebrows raised in question as to who the asker might be herself.
The old lady stared at her irritably. “I am Mrs. March. I presume you are”—she hesitated almost imperceptibly and glanced again at Charlotte’s boots—“coming in to dinner?”
Charlotte swallowed the retort that rose to her lips—this was not the time for self-indulgent rudeness—and forced herself to assume an expression far meeker than she felt. She accepted as though it had been an invitation. “Thank you.”
“Well, you are early!” the old lady snapped. “Don’t you have a timepiece?”
Charlotte felt her cheeks burn; she understood with a passion how so many girls marry anyone who will have them, simply to leave home and put away forever the specter of living out the rest of their lives at the beck and call of an overbearing mother. There must have been a million loveless marriages contracted for just such reasons. Please heaven they did not contract such a mother-in-law instead!
She swallowed hard. “I thought I might have the opportunity of meeting the family first,” she replied quietly. “They are all strangers to me.”
“Quite!” the old lady agreed meaningfully. “I am going to my boudoir. I daresay you will find someone in the withdrawing room.” And with that she walked off, leaving Charlotte to find her own way through the dining room, set for the meal but as yet unoccupied, and through the double doors into the cool, green withdrawing room beyond.
Already there, standing in the middle of the carpet, was a girl of about nineteen, very thin under her muslin dress, her vivid red hair piled untidily, her wide, delicate mouth grave. She smiled as soon as she saw Charlotte.
“You must be Emily’s sister,” she said immediately. “I’m so glad you