Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [112]
“That would be quite unnecessary,” Caroline answered her levelly. “You have complained about it often enough I could hardly imagine you were unaware—or had ever forgotten.”
“It’s not something one forgets,” Mrs. Ellison retorted. “One is never allowed to, in a dozen subtle ways. You will learn that one day for yourself, when you are old and alone and everyone else of your generation is dead.”
“Since I have married a man young enough to be my son, as you never tire of telling me, I shall be unlikely to outlive him at all, let alone by long,” Caroline pointed out.
The old lady stared at her, her eyes narrow, her mouth tight shut in a thin, miserable line. She had been bested at her own game, and it thoroughly disconcerted her. She was not sure how to retaliate.
Caroline sighed. “If you are still not well enough to get up, I shall send for the doctor. We can tell him whatever you please, but whether he believes you is another matter. It is not good for you to lie there. Your system will become sluggish.”
“I am perfectly able to get up! I don’t want to!” Mrs. Ellison glared at her, daring her to argue.
“What has wanting got to do with it?” Caroline asked. “The longer you delay it, the more difficult it will be. Do you wish to cause speculation?”
The old lady raised her eyebrows. “What is there to speculate about? Who cares what I do or do not do?”
Caroline did not speak. All sorts of thoughts crowded her mind, how close the old lady had come to destroying the happiness she held so precious. She still cringed inside at the memory of her own misery and the fear which had darkened everything inside her.
“Please go away. I am exhausted and I prefer to be alone.” Her face was set in a mask of loneliness and despair, shutting out Caroline and everyone else. “You don’t understand. You have not the faintest idea. The least you can afford me is the privacy of suffering without being stared at. I do not want you here. Have the decency to go.”
Caroline hesitated. She could feel the other woman’s pain as if it were a living thing in the room, but beyond her power to touch. She longed to reach out and give it some comfort, some beginning of healing, but she did not know how to. For the first time she realized how deep it was. The scars were woven through Mariah Ellison’s life, not only for the humiliation itself but for how she had dealt with it over the years. It was not just what Edmund had done to her but what she had done to herself. She had hated herself for so long she did not know how to stop.
“Get out of my room!” the old lady said between her teeth.
Caroline looked at her, lying hunched up in the bed, her gnarled hands gripping the covers, her face blind with misery, the tears running down her cheeks. Caroline was helpless to do anything about it, even to reach out to her, because the barrier between them had been built over the years, reinforced with a thousand daily cuts and abrasions until the scars were impenetrable.
She turned and went out, closing the door behind her, startled to find that the tears were thick in her throat also.
She went to call on the Marchands as early as it was decent to do so, perhaps even a little earlier. Mrs. Marchand was surprised to see her but appeared to be delighted. They sat in the heavy, comfortable withdrawing room for several minutes, making idle conversation, before Mrs. Marchand became aware that Caroline had some purpose in coming other than to find a pleasant way to fill an otherwise empty afternoon. She stopped in the middle of a sentence about some small event and what people had said about a particular soiree.
Caroline was aware that she had not been listening. Now that she was faced with putting into words what she feared, it was much harder than she had imagined. She looked at Mrs. Marchand’s wide blue eyes, her direct, almost challenging stare and her pretty features. She was so sure of her world, of its conventions