Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [116]
She had dealt as well as possible with the issue of the photographs. She would send the address of the dealer to Bow Street for Pitt, then she would have to face Mrs. Ellison again. This could not go unresolved indefinitely.
But the damage was so deep, how did she reach it? It had years ago become part of the old lady’s character, the anger was consumed into her view of everything. She had hated herself and everyone else for so long she did not know how to stop. If the hatred was removed, would there be anything left?
It was a cool, clear autumn day, the streets full of hazy sunlight, traffic moving swiftly apart from the occasional crushes at corners, where everyone seemed to be a rule to themselves. At a glance she could see a score of people walking, as she was, simply for the pleasure of it. She was not yet ready to look for a cab. Perhaps that was as much because she dreaded returning home as anything to do with the weather.
The situation could not continue like this, day after day. Emily would be home in just over a week. It must be dealt with before then. Which raised another question she had been avoiding. What should she tell Emily, or Charlotte?
She smiled and nodded to two women passing her. She was sure she had met them somewhere but could not think where. They had the same polite, slightly confused looks on their faces. Presumably they were thinking exactly the same.
She could hardly tell Emily nothing. She had to offer some explanation for the change in the old lady. And whatever she told Emily she would have to tell Charlotte also.
She pictured Edmund Ellison as she remembered him. He was her father-in-law, a relation by marriage, but to her daughters he was Grandfather, a relation by blood, in a sense part of who they were. That made it different. They would find it far harder to bear.
And what thoughts would it awaken about Edward also? It had disturbed Caroline herself, made her view certain memories differently, and she had known him intimately. She had all the knowledge with which to dismiss all doubts, see them for the slander they were.
Honesty was not the only thing that mattered, surely?
She wished there was someone else she could speak to, someone whose advice she could ask, without laying upon that person a burden it was unfair to ask someone to carry. She certainly could not ask Joshua, especially not now, with a new play just beginning. Even at any time it would not be right. He had not been warned before. He had no experience of this kind of family problem in all its complicated ugliness and ever-widening circles of pain.
She could not even ask Charlotte, and certainly not Pitt. It was really not a problem she wished to discuss with a man at all, let alone one a generation younger than herself and with whom she had a continuing family relationship.
A hansom carriage and four swept by with a crest on the door, liveried coachman on the box and footman behind. It was a pleasure to watch them.
Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould—that was the answer. Of course she might not be in. She might consider this something of an impertinence, a familiarity not warranted by their very slight acquaintance. But on the other hand, she might help Caroline as she had helped Charlotte so many times.
She hailed the next hansom and gave the driver Vespasia’s address. It was quite an acceptable hour for afternoon calls.
Vespasia received Caroline with both interest and pleasure, and did not indulge the pretense that it was merely a usual courtesy call.
“I am sure you did not come to discuss society or the weather. You are plainly concerned about something,” she said when they were seated alone in the light, furnished sitting room looking into the garden. It was one of the most restful rooms Caroline had been in, the sense of space and air and the cool tones were calming, and she found herself sitting more comfortably in the