Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [89]
Next she tried the dressing table and found all the things she would have expected: brushes and combs, silk scarves for polishing hair, pins, perfumes and cosmetics. She would like one day to learn how to use them as skillfully as Sybilla had. The thought of the murdered woman’s beauty was peculiarly painful, seeing these small artifices spread out so uselessly now. It was ridiculous to identify with her so much, and yet the knowledge did not dispel the feeling.
There was underwear, as she would have expected, infinitely prettier and newer than her own—probably much the same as Emily’s. But there was nothing about it in which she could see any deeper meaning, no paper or article hidden underneath. She tried the jewel case, and lingered in a moment’s envy for a rope of pearls and an emerald clasp. But again the bare objects told her nothing, gave her no clue as to whether they were more than the ornaments any wealthy and loved woman might have.
She stood in the center of the floor, staring round at the pictures, the curtains, the enormous four-poster. Surely there must be something.
Under the bed! She knelt down quickly and threw up the long counterpane to see. There was a trunk for clothes, and beside it, in the shadow, a small vanity case. Instantly she hauled it out, and still kneeling, tried the lid. It was locked.
“Damn!” she swore fiercely. “Damn, damn, damn!” She thought for a moment, peering at it. It was a very ordinary lock, small and light. There was a little tongue of metal holding the catch. If she could just move that! Where was the key? Sybilla must have had one ...
Where did she keep her own keys? In the jewel case, of course, in the space underneath the tray for earrings. That was where she kept her own suitcase keys, not that she traveled very often these days. She scrambled to her feet, tripping over her skirt, and landed half on top of the dressing-table stool. It was there, a little brass key about an inch long, in with the gold chains.
It opened the vanity case on the floor, and with fingers fumbling with excitement Charlotte pushed back the lid and saw the pile of letters and two little white kid-bound books. One had ADDRESSES written on the front. She looked at the letters first. They were love letters from William, and after the first one she checked only the names. They were passionate, tender, written with a delicacy of wording that brought back to her mind the painting on the easel in the conservatory, full of so much more than merely wind in spring trees. There was in it all the subtlety of the turning year, of blossom and ice, and the knowledge of change.
She hated herself for doing it. They were all from William; there was nothing else, nothing from George—but then George was not a man who wrote love letters, and any other man’s would surely be clumsy and inarticulate beside these.
She picked up the unmarked book. It was a diary begun some years ago in an ordinary notebook, no dates printed, no headings except those Sybilla had written herself.
Charlotte opened it at random and saw the notation, Christmas Eve, 1886. A few months ago. She read with horror.
William has been painting all day. I can see it is brilliant, but I wish he would not spend so much time on it, leaving me alone with the family. The old woman is still asking me when I propose to become a “real woman” and bear a family, an heir for the Marches. There are times when I hate her so much I would gladly kill her if I knew how. Perhaps I would regret it afterwards, but it could hardly be worse than the way I feel now. And Eustace sits there talking about what a waste William is—painting life instead of living it. And he looks at