Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [113]
“Yes ma’am. Will you be taking fish?”
“Yes, please, but only a very small portion.”
“Very good, ma’am.” He looked enquiringly at the old lady. “And for you, ma’am?”
“Of course. There is nothing wrong with me.”
“Yes ma’am.” And he withdrew.
“You should eat properly,” Grandmama said to Caroline before the door was closed. “There is no point thinking of your figure. Elderly women who get scrawny are most unattractive. Necks like turkeys. I’ve seen better things dead on Cook’s bench in the kitchen.”
“Much better,” Caroline snapped. “At least their mouths are shut!”
Grandmama was furious. That remark was totally uncalled for, and unforeseen.
“You never had what one would call delicate manners,” she said viciously. “But you are getting worse. I should be embarrassed to take you into company that mattered.”
Maddock came in and served the fish, then withdrew again.
“I cannot recall your taking me anywhere at all,” Caroline replied. “And you haven’t known anyone that mattered for years.”
“That is the lot of widows,” the old lady said with sudden triumph. “And if you had any dignity or common sense, or idea of your place, neither would you.” She attacked her fish with relish. “And you certainly would not be gallivanting around goodness only knows where, chasing after a man half your age, with an occupation not fit to mention. All decent people who aren’t laughing at your expense are busy feeling pity for you, and for me, because my daughter-in-law is making a complete spectacle of herself.” She sniffed loudly and speared her fish with a fork. “He’ll use you like a common bawd, you know. And then laugh about it to his disreputable friends. You’ll be the subject of saloon bar jibes—and …”
She got no further. Caroline rose from the table and glared at her.
“You are a miserable, selfish old woman with a venomous tongue and a thoroughly dirty mind. I have done nothing, and shall do nothing, to make me the talk of anyone at all, except those like you who have no lives of their own and nothing to talk about but other people’s. You may finish your dinner on your own. I do not wish to dine with you!” And she swept out of the door just as Maddock came in, leaving Grandmama openmouthed and for once taken completely by surprise.
However, when she reached her bedroom Caroline found her eyes pricking with tears and her throat aching so unbearably it was a relief to lock the door and curl up in a heap on the bed and let go of the sobs that were welling up inside her.
It was all true. She was behaving like a fool. She was in love as she had never been before, with a man fifteen years younger than herself, who was socially impossible. That he was impossible for her was so unimportant it did not matter a jot. What hurt like a physical wound was that she would be just as impossible for him.
It was three more days before Caroline screwed up her courage and called upon Charlotte so that they might between them endeavor to close the matter of Kingsley Blaine’s death. Whatever transpired between herself and Joshua Fielding, however hopeless and absurd it was, he was still in danger of being involved once more in suspicion, and all the misery and loss that that would bring.
“We could call on Kathleen O’Neil,” Charlotte suggested, looking at Caroline, her face full of concern.
“Excellent.” Caroline turned away, concealing her gaze in case Charlotte saw too clearly her vulnerability, and the fact that for all the sense of her reasoning, she could not keep either the emotion or the tiny pinpoint of hope away from herself. “We really do need to know a great deal more about Mr. Blaine if we are ever to learn who killed him. And why,” she went on resolutely, “Tamar Macaulay seems so certain it was not her brother. Joshua believes that too—and I do not think