Death in the Devil's Acre - Anne Perry [58]
“I paint,” Charlotte replied immediately.
“How pleasant for you.” Christina’s opinion of painting was implicit in her tone. Single women who could think of nothing more exciting to do than sit about with brushes and bits of wet paper were too pathetic to waste emotion upon. She turned back to Emily. “I have quite decided that I shall ride in the Row every morning that the wish takes me and the weather is agreeable! I am sure that with a spirited animal one might have a great deal of pleasure.”
“With a spirited animal, my girl, one may very well land flat on one’s face in the mud!” Augusta snapped. “And I would have you remember it, and not behave as if taking a fall were a light thing!”
Christina’s face drained of all color. She stared straight ahead, looking neither at Augusta nor at Emily. If she had any rebuttal, it was stillborn inside her.
Charlotte tried desperately to think of something to say to cover the silence, but everything trivial and polite seemed grotesque after the sudden reality of emotion, even though she did not understand it or its cause. If Christina had injured herself, perhaps in some recklessness on horseback, it was a most indelicate subject to refer to. It did flicker wildly into her mind that perhaps that was the reason she appeared as yet to have no family. The uprush of pity was painful; she did not wish to feel anything for Christina but dislike.
“Emily plays the piano,” Charlotte said emptily, merely to change the subject and dismiss her thoughts.
“I beg your pardon?” Augusta swallowed. There were very fine lines on her throat that Charlotte had not noticed before.
“Emily plays the piano,” Charlotte repeated with increasing embarrassment. Now she felt ridiculous.
“Indeed? And you did not learn?”
‘No. I preferred to paint, and Papa did not insist.”
“How wise of him. It is a waste of time to force a child who has no talent.”
There was no civil answer to that. Charlotte suddenly ceased to feel guilty about the softness she had seen in the general’s face, or the quick honesty in his eyes when he had forgotten the niceties of the table and simply spoken to her as a friend with whom he might speak of things that mattered, things of the mind and the emotions.
Indeed, when the gentlemen rejoined them shortly afterward, she was perfectly happy to find herself almost immediately engaged in a long discussion with him about the retreat from Moscow. She did not need to make the least pretense to follow his every word and share his fascination with the wide sweep of history as the tide of Europe turned, or the wound of pity for the solitary deaths of men in the bitter snows of Russia.
When they rose to leave, it was the general’s face that was in her mind, not Christina’s. It was only afterward, when Emily spoke to her on the way home, that any sense of guilt returned.
“Really, Charlotte, I asked you to engage the general’s sympathy so that we might learn something of use to us—not enchant the man out of his wits!” she said acidly. “I really do think you might learn to control yourself. That apricot gown has gone to your head!”
Charlotte blushed in the darkness, but fortunately neither Emily nor George could see her. “Well, there was little point in my trying to pursue Christina’s more flighty acquaintances!” she said sharply. “You all had me marked as a poor little creature who sits at home painting when I am not going out doing good works among the unfortunates!”
“I quite understand your disliking Christina.” Emily changed tactics and assumed elaborate patience instead. “I do myself—and she was certainly very rude to you. But that is not the point! We were there to pursue the investigation, not to enjoy ourselves!”
Charlotte had no answer for that. She had learned nothing whatsoever, and, if she were even remotely honest, she had enjoyed herself indecently much. At least she had at times; there were moments that had been perfectly ghastly. She had forgotten how very crushing Society could be.
“Did you learn