Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [108]
“Why do they do it?” Tellman demanded suddenly, striding out to keep up with Pitt, who, in his own anger, had unconsciously been going faster and faster. “I mean, why does a woman like Miss Antrim let anyone take pictures like that? She doesn’t need the money. She isn’t starving, desperate, can’t pay the rent. She must make hundreds as it is. Why?” He waved his arms in a wild gesture of incomprehension. “She’s quality! She knows better than that!”
Pitt heard the confusion in him, and more than that, the disappointment. He understood it sharply. He felt it also. What perversity led a beautiful and brilliant woman to such degradation?
“Was she blackmailed into it, do you supposed?” Tellman asked, swerving to avoid banging into a lamppost.
“Maybe.” He would have to ask. He half hoped that was the answer. The weight of disillusion inside him was heavier than he would have imagined. A dream had been broken, a brightness was gone.
“Must be,” Tellman said, trying to convince himself. “Only answer.”
For Caroline it was not quite the end of the matter with Samuel Ellison. She had liked him very much, not for his resemblance to Edward, or because he liked her or found her attractive, but for his enthusiasm and for the gentleness and the complexity with which he saw his own country. She did not wish to part from him with anger remembered.
She looked across the breakfast table. She and Joshua were alone. The old lady had remained in her room.
“May I write to Samuel and tell him that we have solved the mystery of the letters, and we apologize for the mischief caused? I cannot quite see how to do it without telling him the reasons, and I would prefer not to do that.”
“No,” he said clearly, but his eyes were soft, and he was smiling. “He still behaved a trifle improperly. He admires you, which shows excellent taste, but he was too forward about it. . . .”
“Oh . . .”
“I shall write to him,” he continued. “I shall tell him what happened, as much as I know. I cannot tell him the old lady’s reason because I don’t know it. And I shall apologize for her appalling behavior, and invite him out to dinner . . .”
She smiled, delight flooding through her.
“. . . at my club,” he finished, looking amused and a trifle smug. “Then I shall take him to the theatre, if he accepts, and introduce him to Oscar Wilde. I know him passably well, and he is a very agreeable fellow. I am not having him here. Mrs. Ellison may be a mischief-making woman, but Samuel is still too fond of my wife for my peace of mind.”
Caroline felt the color burn up her cheeks, but this time it was pleasure, sharp and delicious. “What an excellent idea,” she said, looking down at the toast on her plate. “I am sure he will enjoy that enormously. Please give him my best wishes.”
“Certainly,” he replied, reaching for the teapot. “I shall be happy to.”
After Joshua left, Caroline went upstairs and asked if Mrs. Ellison was well. She was told by Mabel that so far she had not arisen, and it seemed she had no desire to get up today. Mabel was concerned that perhaps the doctor should be called.
“Not yet,” Caroline replied firmly. “I daresay it is no more than a headache and will pass without treatment—except what you can give, of course.”
“Are you sure, ma’am?” Mabel asked anxiously.
“I think so. I shall go and see her.”
“She didn’t want to be disturbed, ma’am!”
“I shall tell her you said so,” Caroline assured her. “Please don’t worry.” And without arguing the point any further, she went along the landing to the old lady’s room and knocked briskly on the door.
There was no answer.
She knocked again, then opened it and went in.
Mrs. Ellison was sitting propped up against the pillows, her gray-white hair spread around her, her face pale, with dark shadows under her eyes, making the sockets look enormous.
“I did not give you permission to come in,” she said tartly. “Please have the decency to leave.